Hello all. I doubt anybody is going to read this, but some devoted reviewers have motivated me to continue this fanfiction. I have been struggling with mental illness and with my personal life. God I read my old chapters and cringed a bit at the writing. I still suck, but not at that extent.

CHAPTER 4

SHINRA

It has taken five hours to calm his loved one down. Celty was seething quietly on the semi-soaked couch with Heiwajima at her side.

Albeit the many terrible escapades Izaya had committed, he was still his childhood friend. He was still the friend he remembered in middle school, depressed and empty after many nights of constant verbal abuse. He would let out a sigh, crack a sinister grin, and pretend that he could shake it off. There were many days he slept over at Shinra's, complaining about his sadistic and alienlike twin sisters, and their lack of respect in him as he was older. He barely ate much at all around himself while he'd stonily curse his adoptive parents.

Izaya was the person who drifted away in highschool after his newfound friendship in Shizuo. He had hoped that their first meeting all together would be stellar, but it ended up as a total failure on their parts. Shizuo would physically attack Izaya, spurred by the sharp provocations spilling out of his mouth.

Shaking his head, Shinra made quick work of stitching up his unconscious patient's wounds. The damage was extensive. A pale, almost skeletal torso was soaked in scarlet, breathing heavily amd hitching at every touch made on his body.

Orihara Izaya is and was a ghoul. So what? He doesn't discriminate.

CELTY

Celty was furious at her partner. No, correction, furious at everyone and everything. Her enemy was lying in the other room aside from the well-furnished living area, being treated by the one she trusted the most in what many hundreds of years she had existed. That thing, mangled and bloodied had fainted before her, staining the new carpets installed a week ago. Shinra had tripped and spilled a flask of stomach bile onto the hardwood floors, and had promptly damaged the quality she maintained within the apartment.

That thing had caused her more than enough grief in her long life, stealing and hiding her treasured head; the whole shenanigans was more than a wild-goose chase.

And now she sat, fidgiting with and clenching her phone with a cloud of black churning and orbiting from her neck. Her helmet was removed and forgotten in the mess she walked into. She watched with extreme displeasure as Shizuo undressed his bartender tops and wrung them out onto the ruined carpet.

None of this was right. What was she to do at this point?

A small cough broke her brooding silence.

"Ahem."

Shinra straightened up, readjusting his rectangular specs with one hand and combing his unruly locks with the other.

He took a deep breath:

"I will assure you that Izaya will not stay in our home any more than the next fourty-eight hours. I cannot send him off or transport him after less than that duration unless risking the reopening of the stitches. I've mended the damage for now, but I cannot be certain he will be in top shape within a month."

He anxiously pushes up his glasses again.

"After this fourty-eight hours, Izaya can be housed at Shizuo's place for the time being."

Shizuo barked out in annoyance.

"That's complete bull-"

Shinra cut him off.

"Would you like him to be at the CCG then? They don't really have an ethics committee the last time I checked, and I know for a fact you don't condone torture."

Shizuo struggled for words, still standing with his mouth opening and closing, shirtless and damp with sweat or rainwater. Celty couldn't tell anymore. His hand wrinkled his bartender dress shirt, gripping with a nervous fervor.

"Alright."

Shinra let out a relieved sigh, cooling down the stiff and uncomfortable atmosphere around them. Shizuo's brows furrowed in anxiety, hidden behind his fogging blue sunglasses.

Underneath the harsh lighting, all Celty could think about was the outcome of this whole mess. What is to be done with Orihara Izaya? He is an informant, Shinra's prior companion, thief, criminal, despicable, ambivalent...and a ghoul.

NAMIE

As much as she despised the one she worked with (or for, as Izaya corrected), she couldn't ignore the churning sensation in her chest as she looked at the screen of her phone. She could care less about the affairs of the disgusting informant, yet this pull to seek out any answer was imminent.

The phone illuminated her face, creating a white silhouette or negative, easily recognizable in the dark. Brushing a lock of brown hair behind an ear, a sigh escapes from her lips as she suddenly reclines on the black armchair.

Only before the screen timeout did the text on her phone read:

14 calls to Orihara Izaya. No missed messages.

The darkness of Izaya's condominium accentuated the expansive window overlooking the city. Namie would not look at the window, nor appreciate her current position.

She sat in silence, letting her anxiety permeate temporarily. It would only be a fluke. Nothing to worry about.

Namie pursed her lips.

The only audible sound was her own breathing.