[Izaya's POV]

The informant sat at his desk straighter than before, hands working over his keyboard swiftly instead of dragging over all of the keys as he worked now and his eyes scanned the various documents and pictures in front of him attentively as he got closer to his goal of being done with this assignment by 1 in the morning. He was already on the fast track for it, now having a few pictures of reference for the area one of the missing accomplices was in and currently working on how to narrow it down to a single area. There's no document about him or his alias checking into a hotel and these are in a generally residential area, so he must have found someone to hide with. I'll have to go back to his connections then..

Izaya, for once, didn't let out a sigh as he backtracked through the various things he could find out about the people who had tried to run off. On the contrary, he hadn't been in a bad mood almost all day, the only time he'd really frowned being when Kasuka had left to keep his half of the promise, letting Izaya work to his heart's content until he was done with what he needed to do. I probably wouldn't have been able to get this far this quickly in the first place without him forcing me outside, too. I'll have to thank him somehow. he thought to himself as he kept tapping away on his desk, reading over old emails that the man had probably forgotten about now, trying to pinpoint a good friend or acquaintance that was still alive to help them.

After another hour of silent progress, the only sound interrupting him being his assistant who came back from her own lunch a little late, there was a knock on his door. Namie stood to get it but Izaya beat her to it, walking to the door on his own whim now that he saw what the benefits of getting off his ass once in a while did. He looked through the peep-hole first before raising a brow. Wow, he almost never visits.

Izaya opened the door to reveal his old friend, Shinnosu. "Hey, Shin. It's been a while." he greeted, not knowing what could cause a visit like this. Nothing really good happened in their line of business for him to come say something, if someone needed to be said he could email it to him anyways, and anything bad that happened was usually also warned about by email or gave to him subconsciously by there being men to trail him everywhere. Either way, he was glad to see the blond again.

Said blond threw him a small smile and greeted him back. "Can I come in?" the specialized grunt asked, getting the door open wider as a response.

"Of course. Was there a reason for this visit or are you looking for someone to crash for the night?" the informant teased his new guest, knowing that it wasn't uncommon for the blond to simply not want anything to do with his work dorm for a while and come find someone who lived outside to bug. He remembered that when he was just out of having to live in his office that Shinnosu would come pick him to bug very often, his excuse, or maybe real reason, for always picking him being that he had to make sure Izaya was adjusting well to the outside world again. Which was usually followed by the ravenett rolling his eyes and saying he had been out of his office a lot within that time and knew perfectly well how to handle himself, but never followed by the ravenett throwing him out for the night either.

The blond glanced at Namie and gave her a small wave, being more of a polite person than a people person, and turned back to him. "Uhm.. Kinda both?" Shinnosu replied awkwardly, reaching for his pocket casually as Izaya gave him a questioning glance. The informant flicked his friend's hand before it could reach the pack of cigarettes there and the blond sighed, going back to explaining his presence. "I came over here because Shiki was sayin' some things. I mean, they weren't too bad he was just gripin' because you were taking a while on your assignment I guess, but he looked pretty ticked about it.. I'd rather be safe than sorry when it comes to working with that guy, so I thought I could come see what I could do to help you finish up."

Izaya let out a hum as he thought that over, frowning at the prospect of Shiki planning something against him already. He's right. Getting some help now even though I probably won't be late is a lot better than stepping on my boss' toes. He looked back up at his companion and nodded with a small grin. "Thanks for the help then, Shin. I have a couple assignments I need to do that aren't even started on yet so you can take your pick of which one seems the most your style." the informant invited, taking him over to his computer and pulling up the file that had what he was supposed to do within.. A little more than a week and a half.

Shinnosu scanned over them with interest, Izaya casually continuing on with what he'd been doing before until he glanced over at him again and saw the most confused expression he'd ever seen on his friends face. "Is there a problem?"

"Why does he give you the most cryptic assignments in the fuckin' world!? I don't even know what the first one is asking you to do!" the blond announced, looking at him expectantly for an explanation of what was in front of him. Izaya almost wanted to laugh at how confused he was about a simple breakdown of the sentence but kept it to himself, knowing he himself was just more used to it than the other. Shinnosu would just get direct orders face to face with someone a lot more commonly than having a whole mainframe that could be tracking what he said on his tail, making them speak in code, so he gave him a break for now.

"The first one is asking me to help track down a few members of a gang located between Nishitokyo and Asaka that's been using a weird drug to catch people and get ransoms. With how much practice they've been getting with it in the last couple months they're moving onto more well-known targets and causing a problem. The next one is asking me to find out where the least police-protected area is that they could use for some project they won't tell me about, along with specifically identifying which of the police that are in the area is the one that keeps trying to contact us and supposedly help. We have no idea if we can trust this guy, so I'm to investigate him first." Izaya listed off casually, glancing at his companion as he spoke from time to time to see if he was still with him. So far he seemed to be keeping track just fine but after just the second on the list, he stopped him, one hand holding his head like it hurt.

"Alright, I get the idea. Damn, you have a lot of important shit to do..." Shinnosu announced quietly, carding his fingers through his hair as he glanced at the list itself again. "I'll see what I can do for you with the first assignment. It seems more up my alley.. You still have my phone number, right? I think it would be a lot faster to text you stuff than email while I'm all the way out there." the grunt asked.

"Yeah, of course. Again, thanks for this Shin, it'll go a lot faster with you here. Namie's help but she can't do anything besides paperwork." Izaya announced, 'fist-bumping' with Shinnosu when prompted after getting a ticked off look from his assistant.

"I could too help you, you just never ask! Besides, it's not in my job description to bother with drugs and things like that." the ravenette huffed in her seat, glancing away from them at the end which just got confused looks cast at her. They ignored her quickly and went back to talking.

"Anyways, you said it was both earlier right? You can stay here for a night before doing anything; my fridge is open though there isn't a lot of Kobe in there at the moment."

"Aww, but you always bought the best stuff! Man.. I'll just get a ramen cup then, thanks man."

"No problems."

Chapter 73!

Behold the return of Shinnosu!

And yeah, we're getting back into the plot a bit here though it probably doesn't seem like it. You'll understand what I mean later.

Anyways, hope you guys like me bringing this certain friendship back because I love it - I can't stop imagining it being Shizuo and Namie being in the background with a face like 'the world is ending.. holy shit.. this is not natural... stop smiling at each other!'

PS. I'm not actually sure if I made it clear yet, I'll have to go back and reread some stuff to double check, but Shinnosu isn't gay or bisexual so there will not be anything of them together or them being like Izaya and Dong-Yul from before, they're just best buddies. Wanted to make that clear for everyone so no one thought I was making another love triangle x3

I hope you all liked this chapter! Favorite, follow and review to see more!