Psyche counted out his money and pouted when he discovered that he didn't have enough. "Ne~ Deli-chan, spot me ten cents?" he asked his classmate who was just in front of him.
Delic turned to give him a hard look. "Don't call me that, Orihara."
"Meanie!" Psyche whined. "Can't you just ignore that and lend me the money?"
"Go ask your brother," the blonde said with an eye roll.
"He has club today! He'd be furious if I interrupted him!"
"So Orihara-senpai has some sense," Delic laughed. "No, Orihara. You already owe me a fortune from the other times I've lent you money."
Psyche saw that he was a lost cause and so zoomed in front of him to find his cousin. He'd no doubt be on his way already, planning to 'accidentally' bump into Delic and so walk most of the way home with him. Sure enough, Psyche saw a flash of gold as he rounded a corner and ran straight into his kyohei cousin Hibiya.
"Watch we're you're going cretin!" the prince-wanna-be yelled.
"Sorry, Hibi-chan," Psyche said as he helped the shorter boy up.
"Psyche!" Hibiya growled. "You're always too impatient! Where were you going anyway?"
"To find you, oh generous Hibiya-sama," the pink-eyed Orihara said with a big sweeping bow.
Hibiya was taken aback. He always insisted on being called sama but people rarely did. Psyche least of all, preferring to shorten his name and call him chan. "Why?"
"Care to lend me ten cents?" Psyche asked with a huge grin.
Delic had walked up behind him and shoved his head down harder. "As if Hibiya-kun would have the generosity to lend you money," he said.
"Hey!" both Psyche and Hibiya yelled. They shared a look and then Hibiya scowled.
"I am too generous!" Hibiya spat.
Psyche saw his chance and instantly began to pout. "You're right, Deli-chan. Hibi-chan always bullies the other students into giving him money. He'd never give money away, even if it was only ten cents."
"I am too generous!" Hibiya shouted. "I'll prove it! Here, Psyche, ten cents!" He threw the dime at his cousin and stomped away.
"Wow," Delic laughed as he followed the younger Orihara, "that sure was out-of-character for you!"
"Shut up!" Hibiya growled loudly.
"Want to continue that streak and give me a kiss?" the blonde asked with a laugh.
Psyche glared after them as he picked up the dime. Delic was always so aloof and cold whenever he was with Psyche but not with Hibiya, and not even in class or with other friends. Delic seemed to have different personalities whenever he was with different people and that made him popular. Hibiya, in comparison, was always cruel and condescending and therefore very unpopular. The two fit together perfectly.
Psyche stalked off to the vending machine he wanted the money for and stared at the money in his hand. He always tried so hard for people to like him, but they so rarely did. They thought he was annoying, hyper and weird. His older brother Sakuraya was so different that no one wanted to bother with the less cool afterthought they saw Psyche to be.
Psyche bought the soda he wanted and began his long walk home. He was living on his own and had to do a lot of chores since it was the weekend. Their family believed in kicking kids out of the house as soon as they graduated middle school, and let them sink or swim by themselves. Even though both Sakuraya and Hibiya lived nearby, the three of them never paid attention to each other unless it was in school. Psyche hated to admit it, but he was lonely.
Instead of heading home Psyche decided to pay a visit to Russia Sushi and grab some food for later. He put on a big smile and skipped down the street to force himself to appear as happy as he wanted to be.
It was a little game he played on other people. Most people saw him and thought how cute he was or that he was too old to be so carefree. No one ever saw past the façade and called him on how fake it looked. If anyone ever did he wouldn't know what to do, but waited for that day to come impatiently.
"Ah, Psyche-kun," Simon called out as soon as he saw the very obvious pink skipping figure. "You hungry? Sushi good today!"
"Yay!" Psyche cheered. "I'm here to pick some up for later, though."
Simon nodded. "If not hungry now, it best to have food for later!"
"Exactly!" Psyche laughed.
He left after talking some more and getting his sushi. How optimistic Simon was. He saw through most of Izaya's plans, but couldn't see the lurking madness behind the informants' relatives. Izaya was another of Hibiya's cousins, but was much older and so hated being around his younger relatives.
Psyche grew impatient and so stopped at a park to eat the delicious-smelling sushi. He moaned loudly as the flavors hit his tongue. He cheered and cried out at the delicious-ness and wondered aloud at how the restaurant managed to pack so much flavor into the tiny bites.
He disposed of the food and wondered if he should go home yet. It was getting dark, but he still didn't want to doom himself to that loneliness. Instead, he walked around town trying to see if anyone was up to anything interesting.
They weren't. No one, not even Shizuo when they saw each other for a brief second, was doing anything remotely noteworthy. Seeing Shizuo had made Psyche's heart start racing in fear, after all he had been mistaken for Izaya by the monster before but couldn't match Shizuo's speed and therefore would lose easily. But Shizuo just raised an eyebrow before moving on with his boss.
Psyche sighed as he turned back to the direction of his apartment. It was after dark and he had some fish to feed. He probably had homework too, but that would probably go undone in favor of surfing the internet on the computer Kanra had given him for a present one Christmas.
"Where do you think you're going?" a man asked as he stepped in Psyche's way. He was carrying a bat and soon had two more men standing slightly behind him as back-up. A quick glance behind him told Psyche that two more men had closed in behind him, effectively trapping him.
"I'm on my way home," Psyche said in his most innocent voice.
"Not anymore," the leader smirked, "now you're coming with us."
"But why?" Psyche whimpered. He took a step back and felt one of them men behind him grab onto his shoulders.
"None of your business!" the leader laughed. "Get him, boys!"
Psyche covered his head with his arms as the men behind him grabbed at his arms to restrain him. He whined and cried out convincingly as he seemingly fought back, shaking off their grips and running out into the street, his only apparent way out.
Then he turned suddenly and glared at them men who turned to chase him. Psyche brought up the gun he always had on him and fired at the men who were too stupid to register the gun. Three went down in as many bullets and the other two slowed and held their hands up in surrender.
"Wait!" one of the remaining henchmen cried. The leader was lying dead on the ground, Psyche's shot having gone right between his eyes. The henchman glanced at him now and then back at Psyche begging, "Please don't shoot! We'll leave you alone now!"
"Why'd you attack me?" Psyche asked with no emotion.
"We wanted to get Izaya to lay off us!" then other henchman cried, tears streaming down his face in terror. "He'd been giving a lot of our information to the cops and a lot of our boys have been getting busted!"
"We wanted to get to him through you!" the first henchman agreed. "Please! We know now how dumb that was!"
"It really was," Psyche mumbled. He pulled the trigger and a loud bang filled the silence.
Both henchmen had closed their eyes and winced at the sound, expecting a bullet to tear through them and leave them bleeding out on the street to die slowly and painfully. Instead they glanced at each other and then back at the brunette figure in front of them.
"WHAT THE HELL!" Psyche screamed at the man who had pulled his gun up at the last second, sending the bullet off into the sky. "ASSHOLE!"
Psyche aimed the weapon at the newcomer but stopped as he felt a blade against his throat. He couldn't see the man, the newcomer being behind him and pointedly staying that way, but knew that this man wasn't one to mess with.
"You two get out of here," a sharp, angry voice shouted near Psyche's ear.
"Thank you!" one of the men gasped as the two of them took off with their tails between their legs.
Once they were gone Psyche glanced sideways, not moving his head, at the hand that was barely in his field of vision. He had seen the man's arm before when his gun had been yanked away, but hadn't registered anything about it other than the bright blue baggy sleeves.
"Are you with them?" Psyche growled.
"As if," the man scoffed. "Do you promise not to shoot me if I pull my dagger away?"
Psyche grunted his agreement and the weapon was pulled away. Psyche moved forward a foot and whirled around to see who dared to raise a hand against him. His eyes narrowed as he both recognize and did not recognize the man at the same time.
This man was even flashier than Psyche with a big blue and white kimono. He slid his tonto dagger back in its sheath which then disappeared under his clothes. The wind whipped his blonde hair around wildly and his blue eyes flashed with defiance as he kept his guard up.
"Who are you?" Psyche growled.
"I should be asking that," the stranger replied.
"You first."
"Well, since you're the one with your gun pointed at me, I guess I'll have to concede," he said with a hint of a smirk. "Tsugaru Heiwajima, first year at a university near here."
Psyche's guard didn't lower. He had already guessed that this man was related to Shizuo and Delic, but the question was why he was here now."
"Now it's your turn," he replied icily.
"Psyche Orihara," Psyche replied. "What are you doing here?"
"Preventing you from committing mass murder," he answered unhelpfully.
"You know what I meant!" the high-school student spat.
"But that's the best answer," the blonde replied apathetically. "More generally I'm in Ikebukuro because I was born and raised here. Why I'm in Japan is likewise due to my birth and upbringing. On planet Earth… well then we're getting into a bigger debate of if there are other planets."
"Asshole…" Psyche growled to himself.
"So why are you here killing these men?"
"Because they tried to kidnap me."
"No lies, please. I was respectful enough not to, and so expect the same courtesy."
"It's not a lie."
"You may not have noticed, but I was following you for a bit. Those men were being very obvious in their stalking and even an idiot would have noticed he was being followed. So tell me, why?"
Psyche narrowed his eyes. Then he decided to try something else. He couldn't play at innocent anymore, but maybe a scarred and desperate boy would play to this man's sympathies. "This isn't the first time!" he yelled. "They're always after me because of my stupid cousin! You have to understand! You're related to Shizuo Heiwajima, after all!"
Tsugaru ground his teeth together. "If you won't answer me honestly than there's no reason for me to remain here any longer." He turned to leave.
Something in Psyche snapped. He brought the gun up and pulled the trigger for the fifth and last time and waited for the blonde to drop to the ground dead. But that never happened.
Tsugaru easily dodged the bullet's path and darted back to the shocked brunette. He grabbed him and forced the boy to the ground, pinning him down. "No more games," he growled.
"Fucking asshole!" Psyche spat.
"Little boys shouldn't behave this way," Tsugaru replied.
"Leave me alone!" Psyche shouted.
"That's what I'm trying to do," Tsugaru muttered. "Why do you not want to go home so badly?"
Psyche's eyes widened in shock. He struggled and eventually the blonde let him back on his feet. "Shut up! You don't know anything!"
"I know that you let those men follow you so that you wouldn't have to go home," Tsugaru replied easily. "I also know that when I tried to leave, you effectively stopped me from doing so. What is so horrible that you'd kill people or attack them just so you're not alone for two more seconds?"
Psyche scowled at him and then turned and ran. Had his mask slipped? No, he was sure of it! He had looked exactly as he wanted to the entire time! So how did this man see past his guard? And what made him look in the first place?
Psyche slammed the door behind him and left the lights off as he felt his way through the apartment. He blindly found the fishbowl and added a small amount of fish-feed to the bowl, knowing the right about by muscle memory. He went to his bedroom and fell down onto his bed without changing or turning on his computer.
He hated feeling so exposed. He thought he wanted the day to come where someone could see his real thoughts behind his words, or the tears hiding behind his smile. Unfortunately, that was what was so horrible now. And it was exactly as he predicted, he didn't know how to deal with it.