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Shizuo liked music. This fact in and of itself was not wholly unsurprising. Almost everyone liked music. Music was the language off the world- a universal feature of human existence.
Perhaps the more surprising fact was the kind of music that he liked. Shizuo Heiwajima liked 1960s American pop music. Despite the fact that Shizuo could barely string together a sentence in English outside of the song lyrics he had memorized, he had somehow still managed to develop the music taste of a 65-year-old, retired business man.
Izaya could only begin to guess as to where Shizuo had acquired this peculiar taste in music. He had once asked the blond why he had such a fascination with “geezer music,” mostly hoping to get a rise out of the other man. Shizuo didn’t seem to take the question as an insult, however, and answered far more earnestly than Izaya had been prepared for. “It makes me feel normal,” was all the blond had said. “It makes me feel human,” he doesn’t say. Izaya tucks this information a lot closer to his heart than he would ever admit.
Shizuo could not sing. This was another fact that, again, was not really all that surprising. His voice, Izaya could admit, sounded wonderful when they were fucking, but it was too deep and rough to really carry any sort of tune.
Izaya had discovered this fact sometime between when their brief romps in back alleyways had turned into overnight visits to each other’s apartments and sometime after their kisses no longer involved blood and the sharp bite of teeth tearing into flesh.
They had rented a room at a seedy love hotel that evening after one of their regular fights had turned particularly handsy. Izaya’s body had ached just on the right side of pleasant as he stretched his arms sideways, dangerously close to Shizuo’s side of the bed. Shizuo glared and Izaya had smirked before flipping back onto his side, presenting his back to the other man.
Normally Izaya would leave right after they had finished fucking, the stench of sex in the air making him feel strangely out of sorts and slightly nervous. That day though, Izaya didn’t feel the need to bolt as soon as Shizuo had pulled out and collapsed heavily onto the other side of the bed. He had felt strangely relaxed that day, perhaps partly because he had been brought to completion three separate times in the past hour, but that was neither here nor their.
Flexing his toes beneath the sheets, Izaya figured that he had time to take a nap before the had to leave the room. Curling himself around one of the room’s many body pillows, Izaya had already begun to drift off to sleep when he was startled by the sound of Shizuo’s voice.
Shizuo didn’t usually talk much after they had entered the post-coital stage. He usually had plenty to say when they were having sex, his remarks usually ranging from scathing insults to embarrassingly affectionate murmurs of his name, but neither man usually said a word once the act had actually been completed. That’s why when Shizuo had started humming, it had taken all of Izaya’s willpower not to completely jump out of his skin.
Izaya had listened to Shizuo hum for a bit, attempting to place the tune that he hummed around his cigarette, before he got bored and opted to resettle himself into the sheets of the hotel bed. Thinking that Shizuo’s humming would keep him awake, Izaya was later surprised to find himself being shaken awake by a grumbling Shizuo, muttering something about not wanting to have to pay the overnight rate, despite the fact that Izaya was the one who had always paid for their hotel room anyway.
It had become routine after that. Shizuo would smoke and hum and Izaya would listen until he eventually fell asleep. Izaya would sometimes pretend like he was annoyed and start whining before Shizuo had even thought about humming. At first, his complaining was successful in getting a rise out of the other man and Shizuo would chase him around the room and sometimes throw lamps at his head, but Shizuo had soon learned to ignore him. Izaya still sometimes complained about Shizuo’s singing, but he mostly did it for appearances sake, lest it be found out that he actually kind of liked falling asleep to sound and presence of another person.
Izaya could hear him now, his voice carrying faintly through the walls of their shared bedroom. Izaya was almost always the first one to wake up, as his insomnia was often insistent that he only needed three hours of sleep at night to be a functional human being, but that had changed since Shizuo had permanently moved himself into Izaya’s apartment last fall.
“You’re too skinny! Your stupid elbows always give me bruises!” he had claimed, standing in the doorway to Izaya’s apartment one night at three in the morning like an absolute crazy person. Izaya didn’t bother to point out that Shizuo wouldn’t get bruises if he wasn’t such a violently aggressive cuddler. Despite trying to convince himself to be more annoyed by Shizuo’s sudden house call, Izaya couldn't find the energy to do much more than give a half hearted sigh. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately and was just too tired to pick a fight. Based on the dark bags under Shizuo’s eyes, Izaya could guess that he hadn’t been sleeping well either.
“Okay, Shizu-chan” was all Izaya had said.
Seeming to hear the resignation in his tone, the blond loudly pushed his way into the apartment, throwing his hastily packed suitcases on the floor of the kitchen before taking the well-worn path to the bedroom before Izaya could even think about changing his mind. Our bedroom, Izaya’s brain had replied unhelpfully.
Izaya lays in bed for another moment and recounts the annoyingly pleasant memories as he listens to the various noises coming from the kitchen. He is unable to make out the lyrics to the song Shizuo is singing over the sounds of breakfast being made, but he thinks that it’s a song that he’s heard before. He sits up slowly, reaching for glasses that he doesn’t really need unless if he’s reading, but he wears them anyway because Shizuo had once admitted that they looked nice on him. More specifically he had said, “they make you look like less of an asshole,” but Izaya knew when to take a compliment.
He blinks hard after he sits up, attempting to dislodge the sleep from his eyes and reaches for the pills on the nightstand that Shizuo doesn’t ask about, but makes sure that he takes. He swallows them dry, despite the fact that there’s a glass of water sitting half full on the nightstand, mostly because Shizuo isn’t there to tell him not to. He then grabs some boxers off the floor and one of Shizuo’s shirts from the end of the bed and puts them on slowly, his lower back still aching slightly from last night.
When Izaya opens the door to the bedroom, he is assaulted by bright light coming in from the living room window. He groans but resists the urge to crawl back into bed, making his way towards the smell of sizzling bacon instead.
He can hear the song Shizuo is singing now, his English heavily accented in a way that most native speakers would find oddly endearing. It’s a Beatles song, but Izaya can’t quite remember the name of it.
Shizuo’s back is to him and Izaya smirks when notices that the blond is entirely naked save for a pair of boxers and an apron. The domesticity of it is all is too much and Izaya quickly decides that he has to do something to ruin it.
Shizuo doesn’t seem to notice him enter the kitchen, the sound of his footsteps masked by the radio and Shizuo’s own singing. Izaya’s smirk grows ever wider and he can swear he can feel his eyes dilate as he slinks right up behind Shizuo and slaps his ass as hard as he can.
Shizuo yelps, seeming more startled by the sound than by the action itself, and then breaks into a loud exclamation of “Shit! Fuck you Izaya!” when he nearly drops the frying pan full of bacon on his foot.
Izaya dances around the edge of the kitchen island, just out of Shizuo’s reach should he try to retaliate.
Shizuo glares hard over his shoulder, but goes back to his cooking, albeit significantly more aggressively than before. “Jesus. Can’t you just say good morning like a normal person?” he snaps.
Izaya laughs wickedly, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet behind the kitchen island. He continues to laugh until Shizuo throws a ladle at him from across the kitchen. He dodges it easily and the ladle lands somewhere in the living room. This makes him laugh even harder for a moment, but he gets over quickly so that Shizuo won’t start throwing some of their more expensive kitchenware. “Good morning Shizu-chan,” Izaya finally chirps, much more awake than he was just a few moments ago.
Shizuo just sighs and gives the bacon one last stir with a spatula before taking it off the burner and dumping it onto a plate.
Taking this action as an invitation, Izaya rounds back around the island and moves purposefully towards the plate of bacon. He pinches a piece between his thumb and pointer finger, waving it through the air in an attempt to cool it off, before dropping the piece unceremoniously into his mouth. The piece is hot and it nearly burns the roof of his mouth, but it’s delicious. He almost moans as the crispy edges seem to dissolve on his tongue, but doesn’t because he knows that the noise would give Shizuo way too much self-satisfaction
“Wait for that to cool off before you eat it,” Shizuo scolds, as he moves to grab another piece. The blond smacks his hand away, making Izaya hiss in pain through his teeth.
“Shizu-chan is such killjoy,” Izaya whines, shaking his stinging hand out by his side.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Shizuo barks as he opens the fridge. His eyebrows scrunch together as he peruses the inside of the fridge. obviously looking for something. “Hey, where are the eggs?”
“I think they’re behind the strawberries,” Izaya answers, stuffing another piece of bacon in his mouth while Shizuo is still distracted with his exploration of the fridge.
“Oh yeah, thanks,” Shizuo says as he pulls the eggs out of the fridge, frowning when he sees Izaya hovering over the plate of bacon. “I told you not to eat any more of that!”
Izaya attempts to smirk, but he ends up looking more like a mischievous chipmunk. He lets himself be shoved aside when Shizuo returns to stove. As he begins to crack eggs into a frying pan, a new song comes on over the radio.
Izaya doesn’t recognize it, but Shizuo’s eyes light up as soon as the first chords on the piano come through the speaker. It’s an incredibly upbeat song and it seems to be rather suited to Shizuo’s tastes. The song is only a couple of seconds in when the lyrics begin and Shizuo starts to hum.
Why do you build me up buttercup, baby
Just to let me down and mess me around?
And then worse of all you never call, baby
When you say you will but I love you still
The song continues and Shizuo continues to hum along with it. His hips begin to sway back and forth and the apron he's wearing swishes ridiculously just above his knees.
Izaya watches from a few feet away, attempting to keep his smirk from collapsing into a smile. “You can sing if you want Shizu-chan,” Izaya accidentally says aloud, almost smacking himself as soon as the words spill unwittingly out of his mouth.
Shizuo startles, nearly flicking the scrambled eggs he’s working on out of the pan with his spatula. He looks back at Izaya over his shoulder as though he had forgotten that he was there. “I thought you hated my singing,” he says suspiciously, hunching his shoulders defensively over his frying pan.
“I didn’t say I hated it, I just said you were bad at it,” Izaya says plainly, hoping that the smirk he’s wearing is convincing enough to hide his smile.
Shizou doesn’t seem to notice and rolls his eyes as he turns back towards the stove. Izaya is shocked when Shizuo actually starts singing, seeming to take Izaya’s permission to heart.
"I'll be over at ten," you told me time and again
But you're late, I wait around and then
Shizuo takes a breath, seeming to get a little more into the song, before continuing.
I went to the door, I can't take any more
It's not you, you let me down again
Izaya’s skin flushes hot and is mortified when Shizuo turns around to direct the last line at him. The rhythm of Shizuo’s hips begin to pick up again as he continues staring at Izaya over his shoulder.
Baby, baby, try to find
A little time and I'll make you mine
I'll be home
I'll be beside the phone waiting for you
The smirk he had been wearing had quickly slid off of Izaya’s face and he presses his back uncomfortably into the island counter in an attempt to escape from Shizuo’s half-lidded gaze. “Shizu-chan’s really getting into this,” Izaya says, attempting to hide the tremor in his voice. He’d heard Shizuo sing plenty of times, but this was the first time Shizuo had directly sung to him and it was making his chest constrict in ways that he wasn’t at all ready to deal with.
As Shizuo launches into the chorus, Izaya looks for a potential escape route. He could probably make it into the bathroom, will the heat off his face, and be back before Shizuo was done making breakfast. Having decided on a course of action, Izaya attempts to shuffle towards the bathroom. He barely makes it a couple of inches before Shizuo abandons the stove and moves across the kitchen in the span of a second to cage Izaya between his arms.
Caught between the counter and Shizuo’s arms, Izaya begrudgingly accepts that he won’t be able to escape Shizuo’s serenading. He quietly prays to any listening deity that the song will be over soon. “When did Shizu-chan get so suave,” Izaya thinks helplessly to himself as Shizuo transitions from the chorus to the next lines of the song.
To you I’m a toy but I could be the boy you adore
If you'd just let me know
Shizuo seems genuinely frustrated as he sings the next lines, his hands moving to grip tightly at Izaya’s waist. Izaya’s eyes lock with Shizuo’s, having nowhere else to look as the other man leans closer and all but purrs the next lines into the shell of Izaya’s ear.
Although you're untrue, I'm attracted to you all the more
Why do I need you so?
Izaya, absolutely mortified at this point, doesn’t even fight as Shizuo pulls him off the counter. Shizuo’s arms wrap around the small of his back, pulling their thighs and hips flush against each other. The song loops back around to the chorus again and Shizuo looks serenely down at Izaya. He’s not singing anymore, but Izaya still can’t quite figure out how to regulate his breathing. Groaning, Izaya presses his face into Shizuo’s chest, hoping that the other man will be merciful and let him hide there for the rest of the song.
For a moment, Izaya thinks he is safe from the other man’s singing and almost let’s out a sigh of relief when one of Shizuo’s arms loosens its hold around his waist. Izaya relaxes for just a second and it is in this moment that Shizuo spins Izaya away from the counter with the hand that still wrapped around his hip.
He’s suddenly pushed back with Shizuo’s free hand and he can’t help the yelp that is startled out of his throat. He’s falling for a moment until Shizuo brings the hand that was around his waist up and around to support his back. His hands scrabble for purchase against Shizuo’s chest, just so he can have something to hold onto. Izaya’s not sure if he’s angry, upset, or slightly aroused as he tries to will his heartbeat too slow down. He attempts to speak, but only confused sputtering escapes past his lips.
“He fucking dipped me!” Izaya can hear himself yell distantly inside his own head, before Shizuo leans in to sing the rest of song, mere inches away from his lips.
I need you more than anyone, darlin'
You know that I have from the start
So build me up buttercup, don't break my heart
The song finally, finally ends, but this doesn’t bring as much relief as Izaya thought it would. Izaya feels like he’s going to combust. His entire body is on fire and adrenaline with no where to go thrums persistently through his veins.
“You’re terrible Shizu-chan,” Izaya eventually manages to get out, wondering if his heartbeat would ever return to normal.
Shizuo shoots him a smirk that would have made his knees weak if Shizuo hadn’t already had already been supporting the majority of his weight. “I have to have the upper hand against you sometimes, don’t I? I wouldn’t want you to get bored,” Shizuo smiles, eyelids dipping over dangerously dilated eyes.
Izaya attempts to find an answer to Shizuo's obvious quip somewhere in the back of his useless brain, which was busy short circuiting, when he is blessedly interrupted by a sharp piercing wail coming from inside the apartment. Izaya startles and he isn’t sure what’s happening for a moment until he is suddenly dropped the rest of the way to the floor and Shizuo let’s out a desperate shout of “My eggs!”
While Shizuo tends to his ruined breakfast, Izaya decides to handle the situation by breaking into a fit of giggles.
By the time Shizuo had removed the burnt eggs from the stove and opened a window to clear the kitchen of any lingering smoke, Izaya had mostly recovered from his earlier embarrassment and his second laughing fit of the morning.
When he sits up, he notices Shizuo staring dejectedly into the burnt pan of eggs.
“Don’t worry about it Shizu-chan, it’s not that big of a deal,” he says with less sarcasm than he intends.
“I know, but now we don’t have anything to eat," Shizuo pouts.
“Mmm. I dunno Shizu-chan maybe we could find something to eat in the bedroom,” Izaya smiles, standing up from his position on the floor to drape himself over Shizuo’s back.
“In the bedroom? What the hell am I going to find to eat in there?” Shizuo asks, turning around in Izaya’s loose hold.
Izaya continues to stare at the other man pointedly until he can almost see the light bulb go off inside the blond’s head a moment later.
“Oh,” Shizuo says quietly before sighing, “That was bad flea, even for you.”
“I know, but I gotta keep you on your toes,” Izaya says, leaning in dangerously close to the shell of the other man’s ear. “I wouldn’t want you to get bored.”
Shizuo growls lowly, setting Izaya’s nerves on fire, and he isn’t even remotely surprised when Shizuo picks him up by his thighs and carries him towards the bedroom, burnt eggs and cold bacon forgotten for now.
Izaya knows a lot about Shizuo, but he would be the first to admit that he doesn’t know everything about him. Nearly every day, he finds out something new about Shizuo, each new fact helping to fill in the unreasonably perplexing puzzle that makes up Shizuo Heiwajima. Izaya doesn't have all the pieces to Shizuo's puzzle yet and he's not sure that he will ever really have them all, but thankfully he has plenty of time to try and gather all the pieces. For once in his life, Izaya is okay with not knowing. Izaya is happy with not knowing.
There is one thing, however, that Izaya is certain of in the moment that Shizuo lays him down on the bed, far more gently than he ever will grow used to. There is one thing that he understands as Shizuo’s thumb brushes across his check and gazes at him with unrestrained sincerity behind his eyes, making Izaya's breath catch at the back of his throat. One thing that he knows for sure when Shizuo kisses him in a way that makes his head spin and unrestrained emotion explode inside his chest.
He knows that there is more than one way to make Shizuo Heiwajima sing.