Author's Note: I'm not actually sure if Tom and Kadota/Saburo know each other.. but considering that Tom and Shizuo went to school together (apparently) and Kadota and Shizuo went to school together, I would guess that it's likely they might. Not that it's a really big part of the chapter/story in general, but.

It's hard to accept, but you can't change the past, or so Shizuo's grandmother had once told him, years and years ago. He'd only been little when she had died, but he remembered her, briefly, he remembered her telling him this, as if she had always known that he would be destined for great things, for something special, as if she had known these words would come back throughout his life to help him. You can't go back and manipulate things to the way you wanted them to happen, she had also said, because then life would be meaningless, life would be boring and you just can't do that. You have to learn to live with your mistakes. Yes, you will make mistakes. And yes, you will have bad days, but you can't get hung on the little things, can't get caught up with all the meaningless words: could have, would have, should have.

Shizuo should have crushed the flea's neck when he had closed his fingers around it. He should.

He could still feel the cool skin under the length of his fingers, he could still feel the quiet thrumming of the louse's pulse in his neck, he could still feel his fingers, curled around it, warm against cold. He should have done it, should have carried on pressing, carried on and followed through with what he always had wanted to do. Izaya dead would be a wonderful thing for Ikebukuro and a whole number of people, yeah, yeah, it would; but he had still be unable to do it. He hadn't been able to follow through and kill, kill, kill that fucking louse even when he'd put up no fight, even when he'd told Shizuo to do it. Was that it? Was that why? Because Izaya hadn't fought like normal? Shizuo didn't like violence, didn't attack anyone who didn't provoke him or damn well deserved it, but the flea had always been an exception to that rule. He had. Why should it make a difference that he hadn't done anything, why should it make a difference that he had not raised his blade in Shizuo's path with a sick smirk and a laugh that lingered in the air? No. No. It shouldn't.

He should have killed him. He should have. But he didn't, he'd just walked away. Shizuo didn't like what that implied, didn't like that-

Tom hadn't said anything when he had returned to the other man's side. He had still been stood just up the street, his hands tucked in his pockets, looking away at something else as if he hadn't even been watching the events unfold. The other people who had been lingering in the area quickly disappeared on seeing Shizuo move, his shoulder slouched and hands tucked into his pockets too, a look of some undirected rage twisting his face. Tom had greeted him, as if he had just arrived for work or something of the like and Izaya had never been there, as if Shizuo had never let the flea disappear into the streets unharmed. Shizuo was grateful for that. He wasn't sure that he could deal with Tom asking and probing about things like that when he himself wasn't even sure what it meant.

He should have killed him, crushed him, removed him from his life once and for all. Hadn't that been what he had wanted all these years?

Tom began to walk away then, just as if nothing happened, just as if the world wasn't crumbling down, as if nothing had changed. Shizuo sighed, low, dark. He could hear his grandmother's words in the back of his mind in a quiet voice, as liquid as a whisper. Things had changed, everything had changed. He should have killed the feel, he should have left the flyer for that damn dating site in the bin where it belonged, he should have stopped himself falling in love with Nakura, with-

Shizuo didn't understand what it meant, he didn't understand what any of it meant, these feelings, his actions, the fact that he had just let Izaya Orihara scuttle off to live another day. Nakura was Izaya, had that been why Shizuo was unable to kill him? Somewhere inside the bastard lay the man that he had fallen for, had developed feelings for, and Shizuo still cared for him, for Nakura, even knowing who he really was. He knew that, and yet he still couldn't seem to see Nakura and Izaya as one and the same. Izaya was bastard, he was heartless, he was, he played with Shizuo just for the fun of it, and Nakura was- Nakura.

It was all so damn confusing. He didn't understand.

Izaya had done nothing to stop him either, he had just stood, egging him on. Why, why, why? Had that been some game too, some way to see if he cared, if Shinozuka was still in there somewhere? It sounded like something he would do. Trick him, extort him. And yet- and yet there had been no proof that Shizuo wouldn't have killed him, there had been no proof that letting Shizuo do that wouldn't have ended up in his death. Izaya wasn't the type of person to throw himself into death's jaws. He just wasn't. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What did that even mean? There had been some look in that flea's eyes, some look on his face, conviction that Shizuo had never seen before.

It was all so damn confusing. He didn't understand. No. No. Fuck. What? No.

So Shizuo did what he always did in situations like that. He tried to forget, tried to push it out of his mind, tried to stop getting so damn worked up over it, because that just lead to bursts of anger, rages. He didn't like when that happened, and he wasn't going to let Izaya unwind him that way, wasn't going to let the strings unravel because of that raven and his elusive smile. The blonde sighed again, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, and catching up to Tom, who by now had powered ahead a few paces. He tried to forget he did, but can you leave something as big as that behind, even only for the time being? He didn't know, didn't-

He tried to forget, but when he could still feel cool skin and a panicked, fluttering heartbeat lingering on the tips of his fingers, how the fuck was he meant to forget?

"Well, at least we got the money first," Tom laughed, turning to regard the man next to him with a small, friendly grin. Shizuo was frowning, his face carved into a deep scowl that crinkled at his forehead.

The two of them had just left the apartment of the client they had been heading to see, their last one of the day. The man in question had given up the money he owed, just like Tom had said he would, but then been stupid enough to babble on about this and that until something he said annoyed Shizuo enough to send the man flying out of the window into the little balcony of the apartment below. He was still burning through the irritation that had been pulled and prodded by that little scum bag client they had just been to see. He waved a hand idly, half as a response to Tom's words and half as a polite wave goodbye, continuing to walk though the other man had stopped. If they were done with clients for the day, then he didn't need to stay any more, did he?

He hadn't gotten more than a dozen paces or so when Tom called after him again, in that low and warm tone that the other man always had. He was always calm, always in some kind of good mood, always pleased to see Shizuo, or so the man assumed. He was one of the only people like that. "Shizuo, wait a second!"

The blonde stopped, turning to look over his shoulder with a little 'hn' in reply and a raised eyebrow; enough expression in his mind to question Tom on what he wanted. The man had said that he was done for the day, that the man who was now grumbling several floors up with a bruised behind was their last client, so what could he want? Tom offered him another smile and one of his hands had raised to scratch at his cheek absent-mindedly.

"Kadota, Saburo and I are going out for drinks later," the suited man called over to Shizuo, who merely blinked at first, wondering where he was going with this trail of words. "You should come too, get out of your apartment for once. Maybe you'll even remember how to smile and have a good time while you're there!"

Shizuo paused for a moment, allowing the corners of his lips to tweak up in a little smirk, a half-smile accompanied by a low chuckle. He looked up to meet Tom's gaze, who was still regarding him with a grin too, with a look that told him that he noticed that something was off with Shizuo and that he had no choice about the offer for tonight.

"You're an ass," Shizuo responded eventually, turning away again with another wave, still smirking somewhat, still laughing. Tom always had a way of making that irritation go away, always had a way of calming him down. He trusted Tom, he saw him as a friend, a good one.

"See you later then," the man called again, "I'll call by and get you later,"

"Yeah, yeah," Shizuo muttered.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe he would go. Maybe he'd do just like Nakura always told him and take a chance, do things that scared him. Tom's laughter filled the air, reached Shizuo even as he continued to walk away. Liquid, gold.

It seemed to Shizuo that Celty always knew where to find him when he needed a talk or whenever he was angry, raging, bitter. He had wondered on many occasions if the woman had slipped some kind of tracking device onto him when they'd first met - a rather in depth search of one of his uniforms when he got home one evening quickly removed that idea from his head - though he wasn't going to complain about it. Like Tom, there was something about Celty that he found calming. She had this aura around her that seemed to ooze kindness, perhaps that was it, perhaps it was the fact she had seen Shizuo at his worse and still continued to be friends with him, perhaps it was because she understood herself just as little as he understood himself. He guessed she had things a little worse, but it was nice to have some kind of shadow in common.

It was still only the late afternoon, still plenty light out and warm still, so this little outing that he had agreed to go on later wouldn't be until the evening, when the sun had set; he didn't really feel like going straight home when it was still so early out. What would he do? Go home and wallow in an empty apartment, drink his milk straight from the bottom and sit and sit and sit and lose himself in his thoughts, in his feelings, in trying to figure out what was happening, where his life was crashing towards. He didn't want that. He would avoid that until he came home later, after that evening out with Tom and the others. Yeah, yeah, that could wait. Dark thoughts should only be allowed to grow in dark places where the sun didn't reach.

He'd ended up in the park, like he always seemed to, seated on one of the benches, his shoulders slouched and a cigarette lit and tucked between his lips. He'd heard the sound of her bike a while before she had arrived, in through one of the park gates to join him on the bench. Her presence was comforting, like it always was, and the tap, tap, tap of her fingers on the keyboard of her PDA was reassuring, some reminder that he wasn't alone and that there were people out there to talk to. He always talked to Celty, more so to her than he did to anyone. Maybe it was because she didn't have a voice of her own that she knew how to listen to well. Shizuo didn't know, he didn't care, just so long as they continued to be friends. He enjoyed her company, he did, really. Shinra was a lucky guy. Crazy and mad, but lucky.

'It looks like something is bothering you.' read the little message on the screen that appeared in front of his face. He smirked at that, letting out a little scoff and a puff of smoke from his latest drag of his cigarette. He felt like they'd been here before.

"That damn flea," he replied, shaking his head a little. Celty lowered her handheld to clear the message, fingers quickly tapping out another one for him to read. He continued to smoke as she did so, awaiting her reply and taking in the calming scent of smoke lingering around him in the still afternoon air.

'I heard about this afternoon. What's going on?' her new message read. Shizuo frowned at that, letting the cigarette fall from his fingers to crush under his shoe. That had gotten through the streets already? What, what? Shizuo Heiwajima and Izaya Orihara's latest fight in which the monster leaves him in once piece? Great, just great, that was all he needed, for all of Ikebukuro to know that something in their relationship had changed. He guessed he wasn't surprised, guessed it was probably Izaya who had set that little information free in the first place.

"I don't know," Shizuo answered, gruffly, but honestly. He was still scowling, and all of those thoughts and feelings and ideas that he had tried to surpress until later had come crashing back now. He didn't understand, he didn't like it, didn't- "He said that- fuck, it's ridiculous. We- we've changed,"

She lowered the PDA, but didn't move to type anything else, clearly waiting for him to continue. He didn't. She stood, tapping her foot, and when the blonde still didn't reply, made to move away, no doubt back towards the gate where her bike was waiting.

"I don't-" Shizuo blurted out when she had stepped a few paces away. He wasn't going to admit to what he might feel, what Izaya might feel, what they had done the other day. No. No. Never. But he couldn't just go on like this, couldn't, wouldn't, didn't want to. "I don't know what to do,"

Celty paused. The sun was shining down, on her, on him, on the park in which they sat, reflecting off of his glasses and her helmet. There was a moment of quiet between them before she raised the PDA again, stepping towards him and tap, tap, tapping out another message before she left. Shizuo read it quickly when it was raised in front of his face, it didn't take long, barely a few seconds. No. No. Not long at all, and yet it stayed with him in the long minutes that followed after Celty left again, long after he heard the sound of her bike fade into the distance, long after the light had started to dim a little.

'Life is all about risks and it requires you to jump.
Don't be a person who has to look back and wonder what they could have had.
No one waits forever.'

Shizuo sighed, long after Celty had gone, long, long, long after, and pushed himself up to his feet. The afternoon was getting on, it wouldn't be long before he'd have to sort out some clothes to wear later, shower and eat. It wouldn't be long before Tom would be knocking on his door to take him out with the others. Maybe Celty was right, maybe, maybe, maybe. He didn't know. He didn't want to think about it right now. So he did what he did best, he tried to forget, tried to push it out of his mind and just made his way through the streets, all the way back home again.

A brand new potted plant sat in the corner to greet him when he arrived.