They all live in a boarding house okay? Don't get confused later on, you can't blame me if you don't read this note!

"You. Don't move."

Okay, fine. He didn't exactly ask. Izaya never asked for anything. Either he told you what he wanted and you complied, or he made you feel like you were worth about as much as a piece of broken china first and then you complied.

Or…he could always kill you before you had the chance to comply.

Not that he'd kill Shizuo or anything. Sure, they argued and they got on each other's nerves and Izaya sometimes ran his mouth a little too much and Shizuo sometimes snapped a little too loud, but they were partners, after all. Shizuo liked to think his grudging respect for Izaya was reciprocated; otherwise…he'd have died a while ago, probably.

And Izaya was very good at making him feel like one of those pieces of broken china. So he must not want Shizuo to die yet, if only to keep making him feel that way.

"What?"

Shizuo had been sitting at the dinner table, about to stuff a piece of calamari in his mouth, when Izaya wandered into the dining room and ordered him to freeze, those eerie, hooded eyes of his staring intently.

"I'll be right back," Izaya said, sounding distant and preoccupied. "Don't move, or I'll be vexed."

Shizuo shifted his gaze to watch Izaya's retreating back, his chopsticks still in the same position they'd been in when his partner disrupted his dinner. He could hear arguing from downstairs and the chatter of the TV from the living room. If he listened carefully, he could hear Izaya puttering around in his room too. Damn this boarding house for being so loud.

His stomach gave a loud rumble.

"Could've picked a better time to exhibit your weirdness, flea." he growled, now examining the calamari longingly. "Don't move…what the hell are you up to?"

His stomach rumbled again.

"Bastard…"

Calamari never looked so good. Shizuo's mouth practically watered.

Technically, there wasn't anything stopping him from taking a bite. He didn't have to listen to Izaya. Guy had no authority over him. Shizuo was his own authority, and he was starving. He hadn't eaten since early that morning, because he spent the entire day working and forgot to have lunch, telling himself he'd make it to dinnertime.

He might've whiled away the evening there too, a devoted servant to the throes of creation, but his body reminded him he didn't have the luxury of skimping on meals when he was out there running around every day. Perfectly plausible reason to ignore Izaya and eat. If he waited any longer, he'd pass out. And that calamari looked really good.

"Are you such a protozoan that you can't understand a simple request, Shizu-chan?"

The calamari was almost in his mouth. Almost. He could just taste it, or the promise of it. He wanted to scream in frustration. Or bite down and chew obnoxiously, to spite Izaya. But being called a protozoan rankled him, so he didn't do either.

Instead, he glared at Izaya and threw the chopsticks on his plate. The uneaten calamari went flying and skittered across the floor.

"How mature of you," Izaya said blandly, settling himself on the same side of the table as Shizuo, with a few chairs between them. He had with him a plain, medium-sized sketchbook and a charcoal pencil. "Remember to pick that up before you leave. I'm sure you'd have fun explaining a sudden infestation of bugs to the land-lady."

Shizuo's eyebrow twitched. So maybe throwing the chopsticks wasn't his brightest idea ever. But Izaya didn't have to be so condescending, not when he provoked Shizuo into doing it.

"Ha ha." Shizuo crossed his arms, scowling. "Excuse me for inconveniencing you, Izaya-kun," he said sarcastically. "I know wanting to eat my dinner in peace is very selfish of me."

Rather than gratifying that with a response, Izaya flipped the sketchbook open to a clean page and fixed his eyes on Shizuo, studying the shape of his face and his thick, unruly blonde hair, and the way his bartender outfit hugged his torso, how his long sleeves rolled up to the elbow revealed muscular arms.

"I hate it when you do that," Shizuo muttered. It took all of his willpower not to squirm. Izaya's eyes were unsettling enough when they weren't scrutinizing your every flaw. "And where'd the sketchbook come from?"

Izaya's lips turned up in a ghost of a smile.

"I enjoy drawing, when I have the time. It's relaxing." He began to sweep the pencil over the paper using broad, controlled strokes. "Go on and eat, then."

Shizuo frowned. "You're gonna sit there and draw me while I'm eating?"

"Yes."

"Why?" The thought made Shizuo's appetite diminish significantly.

Izaya waved him off.

"Eat. You're distracting me."

Shizuo bristled, though he refrained from any hastiness, in light of the calamari on the floor. His stomach rumbled yet again. Apparently, he hadn't given his appetite nearly as much credit as it deserved.

He picked up his chopsticks.

"Whatever."

The sooner he ate, the sooner he could leave, away from Izaya's prying eyes.

Naturally, things didn't pan out the way Shizuo hoped. Though he cleaned his plate in less than five minutes, Izaya made him stay where he was so he could finish the drawing.

And to add insult to injury, he wouldn't let Shizuo see it once it was complete.

"I'm not obligated to show you."

"Bullshit, you're not! I was the model!"

Izaya merely shrugged as he walked away, the sketchbook tucked under his arm.

After that, Shizuo couldn't concentrate. He puttered around in his room for a half-hour and gave up on whatever he was doing out of boredom. From there, he went to the living room to watch television, but Celty had it switched on to some alien abduction channel. When Shizuo made a grab for the remote, she snatched it away and chucked a pillow at him.

Next, Shizuo tried the leisure room downstairs. Kadota and Shinra were engaged in a heated game of chess (with money on the line, of course) at the card table. Shizuo had never been fond of chess. It moved excessively slow for his taste.

Though he wasn't about to ask either Kadota or Shinra to abandon the game and entertain him. Shizuo wasn't stupid. He knew things would become unpleasant soon as they would argue, so he made himself scarce.

Nothing else for it. He'd have to sneak into the room he shared with Izaya and try to find that damned sketchbook.

Taking the stairs as quietly as he could, he padded down to the end of the hall, where his bedroom was located, and noticed the door was slightly ajar. He pressed his eye to the crack and peered inside, finding the room empty.

Then he heard a splash coming from the bathroom across the way, and grinned. Izaya was washing his hair. Shizuo could be in and out before his partner even left the tub.

Excellent.

Probing the door the rest of the way open, Shizuo stepped in and turned the light on.

"Oh, for…"

The sketchbook lay on the middle of Izaya's neatly made bed, as if waiting for someone—Shizuo—to come along and look at it.

"You're such a jerk."

But the temptation to peek was overwhelming, and Shizuo momentarily set aside his indignation to have a seat on the edge of the bed and snatch the book up before it disappeared in a poof of air or faded away like an illusion.

It was wonderfully solid in his hands.

Glancing swiftly over his shoulder to make sure Izaya hadn't snuck up on him, Shizuo lifted the cover of the sketchbook. And saw himself. He nearly dropped the book.

It was a picture of him sleeping, every detail exquisitely rendered, from the individual strands of hair clinging to Shizuo's open mouth, to the creases and wrinkles of his pajama top.

Fingers trembling slightly, he turned the page. Shizuo reading. Eyes narrowed in concentration.

Next page. Shizuo smirking. Lips curled up slightly to reveal a blood-thirsty grin

Next. Shizuo picking bits of food out of the mouth in his index finger. Shizuo rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm. And on, and on, and on, until he reached the most recent drawing, of him at the dinner table, eating his calamari.

"Holy shit."

He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to think. He wished he hadn't touched the book at all.

"Do you like them?"

Shizuo started, his heart racing, slamming painfully against his ribs. Izaya obviously wasn't taking a bath anymore, because he was kneeling behind Shizuo, his hair still damp from the water. He smelled like musk and sandalwood.

"You're crazy, flea." Shizuo whispered through a dry throat.

Izaya's mouth was close to his ear; Shizuo felt him smile.

"I had everything but hungry, and now I have that, too."

Izaya ran his fingers through Shizuo's hair, once, then slid off the bed and returned to the bathroom to do whatever he needed to do. Motionless, Shizuo let the book fall.

He didn't bother to pick it up.