Author's Note: Sorry for no update yesterday! For some reason the site wouldn't let me sign in to my account to upload this. I was going to post this chapter and what would have been today's chapter, but I have two exams tomorrow and so I really don't have time to write another chapter today. I need to get back to the books and cram revise for tomorrow.

Tomorrow's chapter will be well worth it, provided these exams don't kill me of course...

Ikebukuro was quiet, and had been for a few days now.

Shizuo couldn't have found the louse even if he had tried. He guessed that bugs really did have the best hiding places in the world. He'd not seen the raven once since their meeting the other night at the little bar. Celty had told him that Izaya had simply not been in Ikebukuro since, and she'd not questioned why he had asked her if something had happened to him, but way her hands rested on her hips and her helmet cocked to the side, it was obvious she realised that something was different, that something was off. He hadn't told her anything, especially not what had happened the other night or that encounter the other morning, no, no, and yet he knew that she could tell that something was going on. Shizuo wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. No, no, no. He'd not told Tom about running into the louse at the bar either, he'd just told the other man that he was going home, that he didn't feel well and wanted to go and sleep.

Shizuo had tried to block that out, that night, that bar, that— for the sake of keeping his sanity, but when he could still feel those cool fingers skimming over his stomach, when he could see hear that little chuckle and the slight pinch of the blade at his leg, it had been hard to just forget. Izaya was hard to just forget. He always had been, even when Shizuo had simply hated him, the informant was one of those people who were always lingering, always present even if they weren't actually there. That didn't change simply because their relationship, Shizuo himself, had somehow shifted dramatically. Not everything changed, and Izaya was one of them. Like some kind of ideal, some kind of child that will only change as much as they must, but remain themselves until the very end. Heh, yeah, bugs were stubborn weren't they?

These few days that had passed had been calm, really, they had. It was nice to be able to keep his temper in check somewhat. It was nice to not have blades slashing past his face and a dirty chuckle in his ear. It was nice to just go to work and listen to Tom chatter on about clients or the new restaurant just down the street. It was easier to suppress the irritation and the rage when it came to clients once he had heard that Izaya seemed to be avoiding Ikebukuro for whatever reason or another, Shizuo tried not to pay it much thought. Yeah, yeah, these days were nice, they were cool and calm and yet—

They didn't feel right.

He didn't like the calm. It was nice, it was, but it felt fake and forced, as thick as fog, smoke, whatever. There was something missing, something that made it seem like whenever he got home the day wasn't finished yet, because something still hadn't happened. It took a while for him to figure out just what it was that was different, what it was that had changed, and it took even longer for him to stop trying to force the idea out of his mind. Izaya had been interfering in his life for as long as Shizuo could remember, years now, since school, yeah, and so to have the louse finally listen, finally stay out of Ikebukuro like Shizuo had been telling him to all this time; it should have had Shizuo celebrating, it should have had him basking in the victory. And yet— it always seems to be that whenever you finally get something you've always wanted, that it doesn't hold nearly the same value as it did before.

Ikebukuro was quiet, and it was calm and he had refrained from pulling up any benches or trees or any damn object in a fit of rage in these past few days. So why was he still finding himself expecting the flea to come skipping around the corner, box of sushi in hand, to taunt him into a merry little chase? Why was he finding his days empty, lacking, because he didn't have that anymore? It was mad, mad, mad. He wanted this. Izaya was doing as he wanted. That should be it, the end.

By the time the fourth day had ended, Shizuo found himself questioning every little thing. He questioned what had prompted the raven to finally listen, to final stick to Shinjuku and stay out of Shizuo's home. He questioned what had happened at the bar, why his fingers had shaken, why he hadn't just tossed Izaya through the wall right there and then, why he had felt that tingle of relief to hear a familiar voice, his voice. Things had been changing before, falling apart underneath him, and yet now, with the sudden disappearance of Izaya, that process only seemed to have spiralled further and further out of control. He doubted it all, was now second-guessing everything he had thought he had known.

He didn't even know himself anymore, he didn't understand what it was he was feeling or meant to feel. Things were changing, they were. It was stupid, it was, but maybe, maybe, maybe Shizuo was being to wonder if this was all just another one of Izaya's games. He knew the flea somewhat, he knew how short his attention span was, he knew that when the louse normally tried to pull something over on him that it was never this long, this drawn out, this—

When he had been younger, he had always grown up thinking that love would be easy. That when he was all grown up someone would just walk into his life and declare that they loved him. That was what happened in the movies after all, so why not in real life too? The blonde had been sadly wrong on that fact, but he'd always clung to the ideal of true love, of someone walking into his life and having such an effect on it and on him that he never forgot them. Shizuo scoffed, was he expected to believe that person was Izaya? The man he had decided to hate on sight, all those years ago.

Yeah, yeah, it was mad. It was. And yet— even now, Shizuo wasn't sure quite why he had chosen to act that way. There had just been something about Izaya that made him feel— and he had chosen to accept that feeling as hate. But what if that had been the wrong call and he should have waited, should have looked deeper? Because they could get on, and Izaya had bought that damn pot plant and— heh, and what? Was he expected to think that this was enough to make up for years of abuse, years of fucking— but there was that tiny voice in his head that wanted to laugh at it, wanted to find it hopelessly— heh. He was doing it again, thinking too much. So yeah, yeah, maybe that plant or paying some bills couldn't make up for everything the louse had done to him. And yet there was something in the little acts that was just— Izaya had done what? Proved that he could change, that he could learn to not hate Shizuo? He wanted to laugh at that, that he was expected to follow the flea's example, and yet—

There was something inside him that seemed to cry out for that. To agree with it, to let go, to give up, admit defeat and at least try not to kill the raven headed man every time he saw him. The two sides of him seemed to be fighting with each other. It was confusing. It was. Shinozuka and Shizuo, the man who had fallen in love and the proud monster, both wanting the same thing and yet disagreeing on how to get them.

That didn't help him. It didn't. Shizuo was struggling, really, really he was. He was fighting himself, one side of him reminding him that Nakura was still Izaya, that no amount of fucking potted plants or money paid on his behalf would change that. That side was the one who still didn't want to let go, to accept this might not be a game, because that idea was much scarier than if Izaya was just continuing to play. And yet there was that other side too, the one who had fallen for Nakura, the one who was insisting that Shizuo couldn't go back, so he might as well go forward, that every passing moment was a chance to turn things around. That side wanted to smile at the plant, wanted to laugh until his sides hurt that the louse was capable of something like that.

He was struggling, still struggling, kicking back against a current that was fast becoming too strong for him, fast pulling him under. It was only a matter of time before he snapped, because something gave, and Shizuo was beginning increasingly to think that something would be him. Izaya was stubborn, and so was Shizuo; and yet—

Shizuo was tired of all this fighting, all this conflict and bullshit in himself. He was struggling. Everything was crumbling down around him, and yet—

Shizuo was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments of this and that and glue them together again, he was never one to tell himself that it was as good as new then, especially when he broke things so often, so violently. What is broken is broken - and he'd always thought that he'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as lies. Maybe, or maybe he had just been so bad at fixing things that he had learnt to deal with the consequences, learnt to put up with whatever, let the chips fall wherever they may. Whatever he and Izaya had been before, that hate or animosity or whatever, yeah, yeah, that had broken, it had, smashed to pieces under both of them, scattering in such distance that there was no hope of gathering all the pieces again. There was no way that either of them could go back, of that Shizuo was sure. Even if he tried to put it back together, tried to go back to hating the flea, he couldn't. He couldn't just hate him anymore, hate him with no complications. Shizuo hated that more than he hated the flea. The irony amused him. He had noticed the changes in the louse, and he had noticed that he was changing too.

There was no way to mend those shattered pieces, but maybe, maybe, maybe there was a chance to make something new; something wonderful and the likes of which he had never seen before. Maybe, maybe, maybe there was a chance, if he just took a breath and jumped. And then—

Heh, fuck, what was he thinking? No. No. No. It was mad. He was mad. He was still in turmoil, still struggling to look past the surface, still struggling to look past Izaya in order to find Nakura lurking underneath. Was that what Izaya was trying to prove with all of this, by asking Shizuo to find him? The ball was in his court and Nakura, that man who Shizuo had come to love; well he was out there, still, waiting for Shizuo. All the blonde had to do was go to him, find him, accept the whole of him, twisted mind and all. And then— and then—

Then what? He could have that love, that feeling that he had wanted, had a taste of, briefly. It was madness. He didn't know what he was feeling. To love Izaya, to not love him, that really was the question. He shouldn't. He wouldn't. He probably couldn't. He was struggling and fighting for air and kicking and screaming and being towed away, down, down, down. And yet—

It was madness to go to Shinjuku, he was mad to arrive outside of Izaya's loft in the middle of the afternoon, with the sun giving way to delicate twilight, slinking down behind the buildings once again. Everything was mad, mad, mad, but one really does do crazy things when they're in—

Shizuo laughed, and knocked on the door.