This chapter flip flops between Shizuo's and Izaya's point of view, since there is so much going on in this chapter!
Shizuo
"—izu-chan...Shizu-chan."
There was a distant voice I was sure was just in the back of my mind. I remember only speaking to it what felt like moments ago.
"Wake up."
It echoed, as my thoughts became less hazy. There was a different emphasis on said voice than before. This time, it wasn't coated with a playful lilt I had grown familiar to. Instead, there was a hint of confusion.
"Wake up…Shizu-chan..."
The sound became clearer to my ears with each call.
"Shizu-chan." It finally stated, firmly this time. I felt a light tapping on the side of my cheek. My eyes slowly opened to find the flea hovering beside me, wide, red eyes not glowing, thankfully.
I sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "'The hell, flea, why'd you wake me up?" I was too tired to force the irritation I wanted to assert, but my voice came out a slow rasp from just waking up anyway. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table, the bright green lights of the numbers '3:48' blinding me.
The concerned look left his face within an instant, and his eyes narrowed. "Actually, your moaning woke me up."
"M-My what?!" Suddenly, I was feeling all too awake, but wasn't sure if I had heard him correctly.
"You were moaning," he taunted, and I could see the curve of his lips, even in the darkness. "Quite loudly actually. I was worried you'd start touching yourself in your sleep." I could hear the patronizing, disappointed smile in his voice.
"Shut up, flea," I growled looking away, feeling my face getting hot. "And I wasn't moaning."
"Oh but you were~," he said in a corrective tone. "Was Shizu-chan perhaps, thinking about me in his sleep?" he cooed darkly. "I'm flattered."
"I-I was not!" I affirmed, but I could feel myself breaking into an anxious cold sweat.
I couldn't have possibly said his name in my sleep...right?
"I'm just kidding, Shizu-chan, you're disgusting and definitely not that creative." The annoyance was back, lacing his voice as he stood up and went back to his own bed. When I was sure he was out of earshot, I let out a small sigh of relief. "Besides," he continued, and I immediately felt all my muscles tense in preparation for what he was about to say next. "A protozoan mind like yours couldn't possibly comprehend something as complex as myself, let alone in your subconscious," he snorted arrogantly. "Just try to dissipate your wet dreams to lesser volume, ne?"
After that, there was a stone silence. I only hoped that that indicated that he could not hear the way my heart thrummed against my ribcage. It wasn't until I could hear his faint, relaxed breathing, when I gained enough confidence to roll over. I laid there awake for a while trying not to recall my dream, but it didn't help that I could still taste the dryness of my mouth. I could still feel those cold hands all over me. The thought poisoned my mind making me shudder. How could I have possibly let myself get to that point, even if I was asleep the whole time. It disgusted me, letting the flea...I couldn't bare to think of it again. I was too tired to think of it again.
Pulling the sheets over my head, I let myself lay in complete darkness, no longer able to hear the flea's steady breathing. I let sleep wash over me one more time, sending me back into the same demented dreamworld.
Two days had passed. I was tired. I barely slept, and when I did, my nightmares continued to reoccur, making me toss and turn whenever I drifted off. Almost every night I was woken up by the louse telling me to be quiet. Finally, day three, he gave up and just dealt with my sleep talking and other vocalizations. I didn't think his name had slipped yet, thankfully. If he found out I was dreaming about him he'd never let me live it down...
One tired morning though, Kadota, Shinra, the flea, and I were all sitting at our usual place by the window in the dining area for breakfast. Kadota and Shinra were still getting their food when the flea hopped over a seat to sit in front of me.
"So...as your friend and roommate, I can't help but wonder what it is that goes on in that simplistic mind of yours at night...Do you always make sexual noises when you sleep or is it just because I'm there?" he said, grinning devilishly while resting his chin on a propped up hand.
I started the countdown in my head, too exhausted to let exert any energy to a battle I knew I couldn't win in this condition. "Since when were we friends?" I responded flatly.
"Oh, come now, Shizu-chan, don't be that way." He smiled, but I could tell his intentions were of a different nature. "You're changing the subject. What is it you dream about?"
I didn't want to look at him, and I definitely didn't want to give him an answer. "Nothing."
"You're a terrible liar, Shizu-chan. If you're going to lie at least make it somewhat believable."
"I don't wanna talk about it," I said between gritted teeth.
"Look at you, you're exhausted," he pointed at all of me. "Don't you want to get a good night's rest? No wonder you aren't sleeping well; you keep your feelings and emotions all bottled up inside you," he made gestures with his hands as he spoke. "I'm sure if you talked about it — it being whatever is clearly bothering you, it might just go away, ne? That's why I'm reaching out to you. As a friend."
"And give me one good reason why I'd want to talk to you about my problems?"
"I just want to offer my assistance, is all," he said in a lower, more serious tone. "I'm here for you when you're ready to talk." He said it formally enough, that at any moment I thought he would slide me a business card, if he had one. Who knew, he probably did, somewhere.
I was a bit taken back, but tried not to let my discomposure show.
"You're still not gonna get me to talk about it..." I muttered and turned my head to look out the window instead. I'd rather look anywhere than in those mischievous, ruby orbs that haunted me in my sleep.
By that time, Shinra and Kadota, and three of their other friends had come back to the table. No one bothered to ask, if they had even noticed, about the private conversation that was just held.
"So what about that manga shop in town, Dotachin?" I heard the female voice at the far end of the table ask the man sitting next to me.
"I told you, I'm not interested. You guys go on without me," he slouched back in his chair waving the possibility away. "And stop calling me that."
"Aww come on, pleeease," she begged, clasping her hands together, the small twinkle of hope in her eyes was beginning to dull.
"You should still check out the town, though," the sandy-blonde haired boy spoke, crossing his arms.
"I don't know if today's the best day to leave the resort grounds anyway," I said looking out the window into the unusually grey sky. "Looks like there's a storm heading this way."
"Thank you, Shizuo, for pointing that out." He turned back to face girl. "The weather says it's not meant to be," Kadota stated, then sipped his orange juice.
When breakfast was over we decided to return to our rooms to change for the day. Hopefully I'd have enough energy, I thought to myself, covering a yawn that escaped. Each day was getting harder to pull through. Especially with the flea hanging around all the time.
Izaya
"Shizu-chan, hurryup!You've been in there for like forty-five minutes!" I whined, pounding on the door to the bathroom. "No matter how much you scrub, you can never wash away that foul expression you seem to like sporting." I tapped my foot as my patience was beginning to wear transiently thin.
Seriously, how long could it possibly take for a monster to shower? It's not like he can really ever get clean.
As I was about to agitatedly rap on the door again, it opened before me. I was oh-so-not-surprised to see Shizuo standing in the door frame wearing his signature grimace.
"Ne," I chuckled in the most belittling of ways, "you know, if you keep making that face, you'll have wrinkles by the time you're 20~," I chided, poking at the space between his knit brows.
He was always in such a mood...
Slowly, he raised his hand to push the one I was prodding at him with away. Even more slowly, he brushed past me, knocking me to the side. I huffed as I was being so rudely disregarded, without receiving any kind of reaction at all.
As he walked by, the scent of his shampoo uninvitedly filled my lungs. I crinkled my nose in disgust. Not because he smelled like an irish spring, no, but because the thought of him trying to blend in with people, with humans, was simply nauseating. I took another quick sniff before the scent vanished as he did around the corner. I raised an eyebrow to question why he was acting even more unpleasant than usual, but dismissed the thought.
Little did I expect, as I walked into the humid room, to be blown away, full-force by whatever evergreen-scented science experiment was just conducted in that shower. The aroma was so pungent, it weighed down even more in the already condensing, wet air. I thought I was going to suffocate before I was even able to turn around and kill the very man who had unknowingly just set me up for my demise; death via shitty shower gel.
"Shizu-chan what the-"
I turned right back around the corner to file my grievance, but stopped short upon the sight before me. Shizuo was standing about ten feet away, pulling a knit, long sleeve, white shirt over his head.
It was in that moment that I realized, all this time, I had never given much thought as to what Shizuo's clothes had hidden beneath them. From what Shinra had told me, Shizuo was always breaking bones, ever since primary school, when he first met the blonde. He had always told me that his bone recovery was almost inhumanly fast, and I could vouch witness to that upon our high school days together, however a lot less frequent. There was only mention of how the brute was tearing his muscles down every time he used his monstrous strength. I had always just assumed that when the blonde wore a sling or brace, it was to align whatever fractured or broken bone lay within the splint. I had never really thought about how he was constantly building muscle, since he had always been so thin and lanky when we met. That is half of what made the moron so laughable.
He was still skinny, but you could see the subtle definition of muscles in his abdominals. They weren't quite a six pack — you had to have more meat on your bones before you could achieve that kind of excess bulk. And despite Shizuo eating as much junk food and sugar as he did, his fast metabolism and genetics were on his side. Nonetheless, the lean ab muscles and deep "V" along his stomach was...quite the sight. Not that I would admit it. His upper chest wasn't completely sculpted either, but he had visible pectoral muscles. The other muscles and ligaments along his sides shifted along the bones of his ribs as he crawled into his shirt.
He was absolutely beautiful. I could feel my face begin to warm against my will as I watched him. In my brief state of awe, I remembered that the other night, I had been so caught up in our game of cat and mouse, I hadn't quite had the chance to appreciate how smooth and sunkissed his skin was. He practically glowed, like some Grecian god, from the rays of light penetrating through the glass window, as opposed to the dim-lit atmosphere that hid these features days before.
I was still catching my breath when he spoke to me.
"Flea," he said in a husky voice with a hint of confusion. It was enough to send an involuntary shiver down my spine, as I immediately snapped my attention from his abdomen to meet his eyes. "If you keep standin' there with your mouth open, a real flea might hop in it."
I felt the betrayal of more blood rushing to my cheeks. Despite it, I composed myself to muster a sarcastic response.
"And here I didn't think you cared," I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, putting a majority of my weight on one hip. "I figured if I stood with my mouth open long enough, the oxygen fairy would come along and relieve my lungs from the suffocating strain from whatever product you used that seems to have tainted all the clean air in here," I scoffed.
"The hell are you talking about?" he said, cringing in response.
I sighed dramatically, pinching the bridge of my nose. "You smell like the kinds of potpourri boutiques the elderly keep in their homes to mask the stench of their slowly decaying bodies."
"What the actual fuck is wrong with you?" His facial expression didn't know whether to look more offended or appalled by my accusation. "Do you even think before you say shit like that so casually?"
"That's rich, coming from you," I sneered. "Do you even bother sampling the odors of what shampoo you use? No wonder you have so few brain cells, you're hot boxing yourself every time you take a shower."
"Actually, my shampoo smells like coconut," he stated firmly, defending himself, as if that wasn't the most flamboyant thing I had ever heard leave the blonde's mouth. He must have realized it too, by the way he averted his eyes and clenched his jaw. I felt myself being relieved of some of the humiliation.
"Oh really?" I drew out the syllable. I tried keeping a straight face, but my shoulders shook as I held back my laughter. "I couldn't tell."
He grumbled a curse and began to walk over to me. I was certain he was going to punch me, in fact I braced for it. Instead, he pushed past me as he unhooked his jacket from a hanger in the closet, not bothering to put it on before he grabbed his cigs off the table and was out the door with a slam.
I lost it as soon as he was out of the room, feeling the dampness in my eyes as I walked over to the window to open it. I waited ten minutes just to watch brute walk out of the building to sit himself down on a bench, slouching as he pulled a cigarette to his lips to light it. A smile appeared on my lips as I watched him smash the butt into the ashtray and pull out a second. I closed the window, now having enough fresh air circulating in the room to finish getting ready.
By the time Shizuo got back, I was already buttoned up in my winter jacket wearing a beanie, and texting Shinra to meet us in the lobby. When we made it outside, it was more cloudy than usual, making it seem like it was actually later in the afternoon rather than morning. We began walking to the ski shop like we did at the beginning of every day. When we arrived, the man working inside was organizing some shelves. He turned around to greet us when the chime of the door rang.
"You kids goin' out again today?" the old man smiled, looking at us from behind the counter.
"Yeah. It's awfully dark outside though," Shinra said gesturing to the window.
"Well, you probably won't be out there for too long, there's a cold front moving in tonight," he said, and we all looked past the mountains where the clouds were noticeably darker. "The forecast for this evenin' says there's going to be quite the thunder hailstorm."
"I didn't even think you got weather like that around here," Shinra said thoughtfully, engaging in the conversation.
The man chuckled and shrugged. "It's not often, but when it does happen, it gets pretty scary. I just hope the backup generator is workin'. We've had power outages here before."
On that uneasy note, we left the ski shop even more paranoid about the weather than before. The sky looked ominous and the wind had started to pick up. Gazing up at the sky of smokey grey, I thought about what the man had said, not realizing I had fallen behind until Kadota called back to me. I ran up to meet them still admiring the monstrous storm that was quickly approaching.
I followed in the same step as Shinra, looking around at the significantly smaller amount of people than the previous days. He was talking to himself, I assumed, since I wasn't responding, while in front of us, Shizuo and Dotachin were exchanging their own quiet conversation. I studied the back of Shizuo's head as he walked. How much of an idiot he was for not wearing a hat or earmuffs. I could see when he would turn to look at Kadota, that his nose and cheeks were slightly pink from the frigid air. The cold must not have an affect on him though, if he's made it this far without getting sick yet.
As we continued to walk, a light bulb went off in my head. I came to a halt while they remained walking, not at all noticing me as I bent down slowly, picking up a handful of snow and packing it gently in my gloved hands. I wound my arm back before thrusting it forward with as much force as my coat would let me.
Of course, I hit my target right on the back of his head.
He stopped in his tracks, gloved fists clenched, and he began to tremble. I could have sworn the snowball evaporated completely against his hot head.
"Here we go again..." Shinra sighed pushing up his glasses, tiredly. Kadota pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.
The blonde turned around slowly, and I braced myself to let the chase begin.
Shizuo
"IZAAAAAYAAAAA-KUUUUN!" The growl came from my belly and rose to the back of my throat and out my mouth in a horrific boom.
As soon as I faced him, he hightailed it back giggling, yes giggling, like a madman. That was the only signal I needed to start racing behind him with the cold air stinging my face. It was much harder chasing him in the snow. My feet kept sinking into the ground and the cold made my joints delay. He was still surprisingly quick on his feet...probably because he was a lot lighter than me.
"I'll kill him! I'll kill him!" was the only thing running through my mind.
"I SWEAR I'M REALLY GONNA KILL YA THIS TIME, FLEA!" I barked ahead, still figuring out the quickest way I could get through all this damn snow.
He simply laughed louder. "Oh, Shizu-chan, what kind of relationship do we have if it's just based on empty promises~?" he called back almost skipping through the snow.
We'll see who's laughing when I punch that annoying grin off your face. I forced myself to tread harder. I chased him around the whole mountain side, dodging trees, skiers, tubers, and everyone else enjoying the outdoors. People were watching, of course. They always did during the our pursue.
I was running out of breath, and he was still pretty far ahead. I shook my head, not allowing myself to think of giving it up. But I was tired of running in circles and tired of his damn game...So I did what any other man would do.
I skidded to a halt next to a group of kids making a snowman who had stopped to watch me hunting down the flea. "Sorry about this," I mumbled as I grabbed it by its sides and didn't hesitate to fling it at my target as hard as I could when his back was turned.
It felt more satisfying than I had expected to watch the cluster-fuck of snow fly through the air and totally wipe him out. I felt a prideful grin make its way to my lips. Not as graceful as you thought, huh, flea?
I ran ahead to meet the man laying face down in the snow, forgetting to acknowledge the kids I had just mortified. I picked him up by his hood like a wet rat and made him face me, hitting my forehead hard against his. I was panting heavily, and with each breath, the hot air steamed out of my nose and mouth as I spoke. "Gotcha you stupid bastard!" my voice grated roughly against my ragged breathing.
I looked into his half-lidded,crimson eyes, barely phased at all. It actually pissed me off even more that he looked completely bored, right as I was about to suckerpunch him.
I wound my fist back, flexing my knuckles, more ready for this moment than any I had ever been all my life. It was his sudden smile that made me falter, before he leaned forward, bringing his lips to my nose.
My mind went fuzzy, and I felt the support in my legs leave my body. Losing my balance, I fell to the cold, wet ground, the snow softening my landing.