Touch and Go

The Tenth Visit

Unable to pinpoint the exact moment he knew the rest of his life will be spent with Izaya, instead Shizuo counts the days they've spent together. Ten. Ten days to determine the fate of his lifetime. Though it seems to haver been decided the moment they met. "You ready yet?" he hangs nonchalantly by the doorway to Izaya's room in the dingy care home. The smell of cleaning products scratching his nostrils for the final time.

How does he reconcile his own morality with the devious Izaya? The liar, the cheat, the thief? He doesn't. Izaya is amoral, outside the realms of that binary spectrum of good and evil. His lies contradict Shizuo's fundamental philosophy of people. Disallowing others the freedom to deliberate based on the truth. A deception that strips the people he fools of their ability to make informed decisions. But still, it's impossible to hate him.

And the one person he doesn't hate even a little bit, all that's left is to love him.

Izaya surveys the room, stroking the cold sheet blankets, thin with holes his fingers poke through. He'll never miss this room except the nostalgia it brings. Nostalgia of the moment he met Shizuo, and for the first time in a long time, felt confused by the behaviour of a human. Unpredictability never before realised. That's what presented the potential of hate, yet just makes Shizuo his favourite human.

"Give me a moment, I want to check I have everything,"

"You have everything, I watched you pack,"

"I'm lying to make you leave me alone for five minutes," Izaya rolls his eyes. "Get with it, Shizu~Chan,"

"Mmf," His eyes narrow in irritation, more from being excluded from Izaya's personal contemplation. Shizuo deserves to be included in Izaya's alone time. He walks off, Izaya hears his feet shuffle on the carpet. The heels he wears specifically to click on hardwood floors feckless in this realm of overly fluffy carpets and rugs.

Izaya reaches down, pulling away the false bottom from his dresser drawer. Out falls an album coated in dust, he strains to picks it up, stretching his fingers to grab the tiniest corner. Resting it in his lap, he opens it to reveal Shizuo's picture. An older one from their school days shared together.

A time when Izaya terrorised the world around him with a vengeance scorned by the way others treated not him, but one another. Human empathy lacking in so many people that the necessary is regarded as a reverence - a phenomena that sickens him. That the required becomes the virtuous.

Shizuo held an insane level of this empathy, delving into obsession over self-loathing when he couldn't please everyone in every situation. Making him even angrier, even more likely to take his shit out on other people, and judge them too harshly for their actions, the same way he judges himself.

Another reason he loves Shizuo above all other humans. Shizuo demands the most of himself to be a moral person. In middle school, studying moral philosophy on his own in the corner, unaware anyone was watching. Unaware his worst enemy was so impressed by him, inspired by the unfiltered devotion to humanity.

When Izaya recognised him the day he arrived here - even with the fake blonde hair - he knew he'd resurrected his love for the best human to ever exist.

Izaya stuffs the notebook under his butt. A smirk plastered over the warm smile his face keeps naturally slipping into. He wheels out the room and towards Shizuo, who's typing away furiously on his phone. The blonde grabs the handles of the wheelchair and leans down. "Where are we going now? Home?"

"Home to drops these off," Izaya supposes, gesturing to his luggage. "But we do have a dinner at Celty's to make up for,"

"Good idea, I'll call 'em," Shizuo agrees, nuzzling into Izaya's hair a little just on instinct. Spiky yet soft and buoyant. A fluffy puffball he wants to pet and ruffle and twirl between his fingers. Reluctantly he lets go of it and begins the trudge to the metro station, an underground tunnel system concealed under the noses of the Yellow Scarves.