Blue Diamond
Summary: Daichi was an orphaned teen who has come to Tokyo to find his disinherited uncle. Yuriy was a rising Russian model who had a single day's shoot in Tokyo. This is a story of how their paths came to cross and interweave.
Prologue
Whenever someone from his village had returned from their trip to Tokyo, they always said that it was the biggest place they had ever seen in their life. They also said it was the most vivid and fastest, but they would first emphasize the sheer size of the city.

Daichi hadn't really paid any attention to their accounts. Why would he want to go to Tokyo? He was happy living with his father in their village. He loved the trees, the river and the birds, and did not wish to go anywhere where he would miss all these. One of the passions of his life was Beyblading. He felt powerful when he was surrounded by nature. It felt as if he drew his strength from it. He had so honed his Beyblading skills that he was quite convinced that he was the best Beyblader in this world.

However, as he stood on the side of a road, surrounded by Tokyo life, he felt that he ought to have listened to what Iogi had been babbling about all the fortnight last month when he had returned from Tokyo. Because, thought Daichi, I am loster (1) than lost here.

The first thing that had struck him about the city was its noise. At home, everyone said that he was the noisiest person around. But right now, all Daichi felt was that everyone should have been grateful for his noise – at least they weren't totally deafened by it.

The second thing was the amount of people – he didn't know that it was possible for so many people to live together in one place. Some, he suspected, as he frowned after a blonde foreigner who had pushed against him in passing and hadn't had the decency to apologize, some – no, many people seemed as if they didn't belong here.

The only thing he had liked about the city till now was the myriads of buildings. If only he hadn't lost his bag in the train, he would have already entered that ice-cream shop and would have been digging into the hugest sundae they had. His mood became cloudier as he realized, yet again, that he could not.

What was worse (yes, there were some things worse than being unable to eat), he had not only kept all his money in that small bag which held his few belongings, but also his uncle's address. He hadn't been too bothered when he had discovered his loss. But that was before he realized that for a penniless teen who had never been here before, the city was of mythical proportions. There was no way he was going to find his uncle here.

"I'll probably die of hunger before anything else," he said to himself as he tore his eyes away from a McDonald's joint.

As useless as the sun on a winter's day…

Yuriy Ivanov stared at the dim glow of the late afternoon sun.

It doesn't even hurt my eyes. How very useless…

He leaned back in the cushioned chair and looked at the park opposite the restaurant. There were a moderate number of people there; everyone was busy with their own lives in their own world. The expression in the model's eyes was merely disinterest at first, but the more his thoughts plagued him, the more jealous he grew. He didn't long to be one of them, though. No, he abhorred anything that would degrade him to the level of 'commoners'. But he would have given a lot for their careless freedom… a lot…

"Yuriy-san? Aren't you listening to me?"

He cringed slightly at the whiny tone of his companion's voice. He had more than half a mind to tell her that, no, he wasn't listening to her. He won't listen to her even if his life depended on it. He'd prefer to be hanged for choking the living daylights out of her than listen to her.

"Gomen nasai, Hina-chan, I am a bit tired. It was an intense day. Kazushi-san began the photo-shoot at four in the morning. I hardly got any sleep last night. I must look terrible."

He hated how at times like this, his mouth could easily form its own words. It had become an unconscious habit with him. He could play the part of a silver-tongued host without trying. No doubt it was 'profitable'. All the same, he couldn't help but wish that things were… different. If asked to define 'different', he won't be able to say anything at all. He'd only repeat that he wanted things to be 'different'. It would have been funny how the only things that were hardest to achieve were those one wanted most – it would have been funny, if it wasn't so damned annoying.

"Oh, no, Yuriy-san! You can never look terrible," cooed his companion.

Oh, yes, I look terrible. Maybe not as terrible as you – but terrible, very terrible. I am feeling terrible. There is no bloody reason why I shouldn't look it.

"Now you are really flattering me," he smiled charmingly at her.

"STUPID PHONE! STUPID WRONG NUMBER! STUPID EVERYTHING!"

Yuriy turned to find a boy banging down the receiver of a pay-phone – and yelling at it. Seemingly oblivious of the attention he was attracting, he continued his tirade.

"What an animal!" exclaimed the lady opposite him, drawing his attention back to her.

Yuriy murmured his agreement and glanced at his watch. Half past thirty. Fifteen more minutes of this torture. I hope someone kills her after that.

Daichi had reached the end of his patience. Not that he had much patience to begin with. However, he had tried his level best to exert as much patience as he could, extracting it from hidden recesses of his heart and mind, but to no avail.

He had lost all his money and belongings. In an unexpected stroke of luck, he had chanced upon a coin on the pavement. However, it was only a false consolation, and proved to be no luck at all, because he had ended up dialling a wrong number. He had been so sure of the phone number! He was totally confident that he hadn't confused any digits. Even then, he had wasted the precious coin on a bloody wrong number. Why didn't fate understand that he was not a patient guy?

"… yeah, the redhead."

Daichi had always known that there were never many redheads around and whenever he had heard the term, his ears perked up – people must be talking about him. In his village, he had usually been right – there was only Tamiya, who had recently painted his hair red. But people didn't call him redhead. 'Redhead' had always been Daichi's trademark.

Hence, even as he sat fuming over his bad luck, his subconscious had picked up on the word. Was someone talking about him?

He looked around to see two men standing near a car just on the other side of the park fence.

"That's the one. Now don't hit the girl."

Daichi's eyes widened as he saw the speaker pull out a revolver and hand it to his companion. It didn't take him long to spot the object of their conversation. A man with red hair, like his own although shinier, sat outside the restaurant, lunching with a woman. As far as he could see, there were no other redheads around – other than him, of course.

"Well, it's almost about time. I'll be ready at the wheel – don't linger. Yeah, he's getting up…"

Oh my God! They are going to kill him!

There was no time to think. Even if he had thought (which was really not the sort of thing he did, anyway), later on, whenever Daichi would recall this incident, he knew that he won't have regretted his actions although they proved pretty fruitless.

"Look out! Duck! Hide!"

It was the same voice which had been yelling at the telephone. Yuriy couldn't say why, but he knew that it was directed at him. That worried him. Why would that boy be addressing him now, of all times? If there was a mistake, someone could get… hurt.

He turned away from Hina's constant chatter to look directly across the road. He could see the confusion in the man's eyes. He wasn't supposed to be looking at him. What was going on?

In the blink of an eye, the man was down on the road – the boy had jumped on him from behind and pushed him down. He was now looking at him.

"Get away! He's gonna kill ya!!"

Yuriy wondered if there was some change in the plan. No, they would surely notify him about it, won't they? His cell-phone was on. They could have contacted him any time.

The man was yelling at the boy. The latter had caught hold of his hand and was struggling to take away his revolver. It wasn't long before a shot fired into the air.

In a way, Yuriy was rather glad of the ensuing confusion. Hina screamed in a rather un-lady-like manner, clinging to his arm. Exasperated, he shrugged her off and made his way to the other side of the road. The other man had gotten out of the car and pulled the boy away. However, two more shots had been fired, only resulting in greater panic among people and more chaos.

"What's going on?" asked the man who had been in the car.

"Get lost! What're you waiting for? Police?" hissed Yuriy.

The two thugs moved quickly, the car speeding away as the sound of police vehicles came nearer.

Yuriy turned to get to his own car. However, a thought struck him and he looked down. The boy had hit his head against the edge of the pavement and sported a bleeding wound on his left temple. However, he was conscious enough and staring confusedly at him.

Yuriy bent down and caught his arm. "Come on!"

When the boy didn't move, he made a noise of frustration and dragged the boy to his feet. "Come on, boy!" he repeated, pulling the teen after him as he rushed to his car.

Yuriy brought the car to a stop and turned to look at the boy. He had a weary, beaten look and if Yuriy hadn't been so frustrated by the fact that he had messed up the whole plan, he would have pitied him.

"So, what do you want now? My autograph?"

The boy frowned. "Why would I want that?"

Yuriy stared at the kid, startled. He had questioned him with sarcasm. He hadn't really been expecting an answer – at least not the one he received.

Suddenly, he grinned.

"Yeah, I wonder why. You'll probably want a lift then?"

Daichi's face fell and he shook his head. Releasing the seat-belt, he prepared to get out. "I'd ask for it if I knew where I was going – because my legs are aching like hell." He glanced at his feet. "I think I must have walked a million miles already."

"Sure." Yuriy, who had been searching for something in his pockets, leaned over to open the glove compartment. He pulled out a cigarette from the silver case and put it on the dashboard in front of Daichi. "Smoke?"

The boy scrunched up his nose as Yuriy blew out a grey wreath of smoke. "How awful!"

The model looked at him with a sardonic smile on his face. "You're a blunt guy, aren't you? You must be getting into a lot of trouble." Before Daichi could reply, he continued, "Look, I would thank you for your warning if I had needed it – which I didn't. If there's nothing you want, I will get going." A strong 'tack' indicated that Yuriy had opened the lock – he was welcome to get out.

"Okay."

As the windshield drew up, Yuriy glanced at the boy. At that time, he didn't think that he would ever see him again – very, very soon.

Author's Notes:

(1) Yeah, I know 'loster' isn't a word… but it just struck me as something Daichi would say – can't tell why.

Edit: February 7, 2007, I'm back… for good! So I will be working extra hard and hopefully, I will continue to provide my readers with a good read! I've fixed a couple of mistakes in this chapter and it is much better than before.