Thank you to WarriorMan199456 and Awesomer than you for reviewing again, you guys are fantastic. Also, thank you Nadeshiko291210 for following the story. On a semi-related note, thank you... somebody for adding this to the Strangers in Ikebukuro community, however that works. I was surprised to see that and flattered, even if I don't really understand how the communities work, it was very nice though. Anyways, I enjoyed this chapter, it was fun and we finally get some of Yrsa's mindset and Izaya may or may not be starting to get those terrible feels all the kids are talking about these days. Hope you all enjoy, please review if you do. Ciao!
-Chapter 7-
Time passed so slowly that night that it seemed not to move at all, the droning tick of the clock daring her to turn and check the pair of hands that seemed cemented over the two and the twelve. Yrsa finally gave in to temptation and glanced back, unable to ignore the tap of the second hand; a full minutes had passed since she lasted check the time. A groan escaped her and she wished desperately for an end to this monotony, or at least a distraction from the fluorescent lights and dull hum of the refrigerators as she stood guard of the cashier's counter.
Not even ten minutes later– and she knew because she continued to compulsively check the clock –her phone went off, the sweetest sound she could think of to occupy her dissatisfied mind. But then she had to wonder who would be calling her at two in the morning. Her answer was a panicking Mashi on the other end of a payphone because she couldn't own a cell phone.
"Yrsa, something bad happened," Mashi said, he voice shaking like a leaf, "we have to move."
Shit. They'd only been there for three months, how had Mashi been found already? They'd been playing it safe, trying to at least. They'd smuggled Mashi into the country to avoid papers and hadn't used her real name when anyone had asked, the apartment and the loan to pay if off had both been taken out in Yrsa's name, and everything they had bought had been paid for in cash. Maybe Mashi was just overreacting, it wasn't completely unheard of given her severe and rightly earned paranoia.
"Calm down, Mashi," Yrsa gently soothed in her native tongue, just in case. "Tell me what happened."
"Don't treat me like a child!" Mashi snarled so harshly that the line crackled, her Russian slur coming out in her fear. "Someone knows is what happened. I was hanging out with Shizuo when he got this text; it was the wanted poster that she put out when we were in high school."
Yrsa almost dropped the phone. Okay, this was bad. She swallowed the growing knot in her throat managing to wedge it instead in her chest.
"And what happened next?" Yrsa tried, pleased at least that her friend was following the same precaution of a foreign tongue.
"He showed me his phone and asked me what that was and why someone put a price on my head." There was a long pause between them. Even over the phone, Yrsa could sense the shame on her friend, not from her ability but from knowing her as a sister.
"And?" Yrsa pressed.
"I jumped out of his window," she said flatly.
The sharp slap of a hand landed on Yrsa's mouth to contain a giggle. This was serious, she shouldn't be laughing when her friend was in danger. But out a window? Seriously?
"Damn it, don't laugh," Mashi growled, her perception of her friend just as innately sharp.
"So you jumped out a window?" Yrsa asked, stiffening as a group of adults came into sight. She relaxed once they'd passed the wall of glass that separated her from the night. "What then?"
"He jumped after me and chased me until it got dark enough for me to disappear." She sounded impressed by the man's dedication. "I'm hiding out on the west side of town right now since he could find out apartment, I'm sure Tom's got records of that."
"Probably. Wait, have you just been wandering around town since it got dark?"
"Yeah. I had trouble finding a payphone and enough change to make a call." That was just code for pickpocketing and Yrsa knew it, not that she didn't approve during these types of situations. "Can I come to the store and wait until your shift is over?" Mashi's voice was so uncharacteristically small and scared that it made her heart clench.
"Sure, no problem. Just stick to the shadows and stay safe alright? I'll see you in a little while."
Mashi hang up without a goodbye, an irritating quirk that Yrsa wasn't about to complain about given the danger that Mashi was in. Those few seconds wasted on parting words could cost Mashi her life if the situation was as dire as Mashi believed.
A plastic smile graced Yrsa's lips as the bell on the front door chimed and a young man with a gray and purple beanie sauntered into the store like he owned it. She greeted him with composed glee. He ignored her and wandered over to aisle of snacks that faced the liquor case. With the customer out of sight, she was able to focus on the problem at hand.
Mashi was in danger now. Not from Shizuo of course, he was too loyal and love-struck to threaten the fragile stability of their lives. But he wasn't the only person who knew. There was the person that had sent the text to Shizuo, whoever that was. It could be anyone, someone with ties to the Cherenchikov Family, a bounty hunter that had managed to track them across Europe and Asia, or someone that was just very well-connected. But why send the poster to Shizuo? What would that accomplish? No bounty hunter or member of the mafia would give out that juicy piece of information and risk losing the substantial reward attached. That meant this was personal on some level. Was it a warning to him about the girl he was seeing? A cruel prank?
Her thoughts halted, remembering a conversation she'd had not too long ago. There was an information broker, one that had sought her out more than once, and had a penchant for mischief of all sorts. There was mischief and then there was plain maliciousness, and this seemed to be the latter of the two. He had told her that he was an information broker, but did Izaya have that sort of pull?
The bell chimed again. Speak of the devil, the very man she'd been thinking of. Yrsa's mind raced, trying to decide how to handle the situation as Izaya stepped over the threshold. She didn't want to confront him if she was wrong, especially when there was a customer loitering in the back of the store to overhear it all; a needling sensation in her gut told her she wasn't wrong.
She decided to feign ignorance, plastering a painfully fake smile across her face. "Izaya-chan, it's good to see you. What brings you here this time of night?"
"I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd come visit you at work." He was lying, she felt it easily, staining his spirit like murky ink. One of the perks of being a judge of the dead, she thought sardonically. "Your boss must be furious with you to have called you in on your day off. And to think, you're scheduled to work tomorrow afternoon too."
His intimate knowledge of her schedule was more disturbing than it was shocking, Yrsa reminding herself of his occupation. Still, she let her mouth fall open in a practiced gape.
"How did you know where I work?" She questioned. He didn't answer so she let the silence drag on, trying to look thoughtful when she knew the answer. "Oh yeah, info broker you said?"
Displeasure at the speed of her deduction flickered across his eyes for but a moment, the mirth returning to them within seconds. Good, he needed to think she was an idiot if her bluff was to work.
"It's very nice for you to visit, but I'm afraid I'm not in much of a mood to chat," she told him.
Izaya tilted his head to the side like a curious child, one that was obnoxiously cute, but she couldn't let his good looks distract her tonight, fun as it would have been to start spinning filthy fantasies with him there.
"What's wrong?" He was genuinely curious. Strange, she hadn't thought there was anything genuine about the perpetually grinning man.
Yrsa's eyes dropped to the floor, half hooded to make her sorrow look all the more real. "I'm going to have to move soon," she explained quietly, as if speaking about it aloud would make the act come sooner.
She sensed… a confused sort of anxiety in him, like he didn't know what to do with the emotion. She had to bite her tongue to fight the grin trying to have its way with her mouth.
"And why are you going to move, Yrsa-chan?" He prodded.
She allowed the silence to hang between them again, careful to shift slightly on her feet and glance at everything but him. Her bright blue eyes eventually landed on him but she continued to fidget, touching her face and tugging on her hair and shirt to add to the façade of anxiety.
Izaya grinned at her and she knew he was truly amused. She got a sinking feeling that he wasn't falling for the act and was instead entertained by it. If he couldn't be tricked as easily as the men she'd dealt with in the past, things could get very interesting, maybe even bloody. She opened her mouth to finally respond but he beat her to the punch.
"I'm impressed," he admitted truthfully. "That drama club in high school must have really paid off, or you're just a natural at deception." He gestured at her generous curves. "Or maybe it's just your other assets."
A smirk curved her lips, both impressed and a little bitter that he'd called her out. She leaned forward on the counter and dropped the act, pushing her face closer to his. If she kissed him what would he do? Maybe another time, she decided, returning to the problem at hand.
"Sounds like I have a little fan," she replied haughtily, flattered by his interest rather than perturbed by it. "Just what else do you know about me?"
He listed of details of her life like she were a rare and fascinating creature and he a biologist. How droll of him, to consider her nothing more than a subject to study, though it raised a question of why he would be so invested in her to begin with.
"So what you're telling me," she huffed with a roll of her eyes, "is that you don't know a damn thing about me personally, just the places I've been and schools I've attended. That's so boring. Come on, didn't you find anything good? A list of lovers or favorite positions?"
To her grave disappointment, he didn't flinch or even blush under her suggestions; a shame, he was probably cute when he blushed. Instead he grinned and sunnily declared, "There was one little secret I came across."
She leaned in eagerly, more to watch the customer stuffing a package of melon bread into his coat than to seduce her conquest. "Ooh, was it something elicit?"
He leaned forward now, nearly brushing her nose with his. "Not quite. I learned that you're a very special creature: a Valkyrie."
Yrsa erupted into laughter, having to pull back so she didn't cackle straight in his face. The accusation was ridiculous and troubling because it was true. How he had managed to divine that, well, she had some idea, she had given him enough hints earlier that day. Too many, she realized now. She had underestimated his intelligence, or at least his knowledge of Icelandic folklore. She may have been unable to trick him before, but now it was imperative.
"That is the funniest thing I've ever heard," she said through her fit. "What, did I match a picture on the internet? I've got news for you, a lot of women could. Or was it because I'm Icelandic?"
Izaya hummed, a smug smile gracing his features. "True, a lot of the pictures are of tall, blonde woman, but I doubt so many matching that description would have been able to identify that light in the sky."
So they were back at that again. She could work with that. "Me and anyone else that knows that old tales. My mother is a professor of folklore for God's sake, you really think I would see a big pillar of light and think it was aliens instead?"
He was prepared for her excuses, her attention switching between him and the shoplifter making another round through the store.
"A fair point," he admitted. "So how did you know what kind of person it was that died that night?"
That was a little trickier to explain. She gestured around the store. "I work in a convenience store. I get to hear all sorts of gossip as a result. For example, did you know that the Sons of Kai are going to attack a warehouse in Razor territory tomorrow night while the Razors are out on what they call 'panty patrol'? Or that the Crimson Heads are all related? Or that a bunch of them came in crying, mostly literally, about how their brother or cousin or nephew was killed? Apparently this kid was a real stand up gangster, protective of his family, willing to sacrifice himself and go down swinging. If that isn't enough to go to Valhalla than I don't know what is."
For a brief moment he was surprised though he didn't show it. "You do hear a lot. Maybe I should hire you out of this place."
She chuckled and shook her head. "Sorry but no. I have to move remember?"
"So you said. Why exactly do you have to move?"
"You know an awful lot about me, what about my sister?" She plowed ahead, not giving him time to answer. "Well, I'm sure you know we aren't actually related, but that isn't the point here. You see, someone did something that threatened my sister, and I would do anything to protect her, like move all over the world so certain violent, awful people can't find her."
"Why not leave her to her own devices?" His question was calm, but his spirit was pleading somehow, desperately hopeful like the dying man trying to bargain for his life.
"She's my dear sweet sister, and I could never abandon her. I will protect her at all costs even if I have to kill for her, and I absolutely abhor murderers. I really wish we could stay though, I was so enjoying this town." Her eyes bore into his. "But it seems someone wants us leaving. I'm sure you don't know anything about that. Right, Izaya-chan?"
He looked pensive, the gears turning in that slippery mind of his. "If I were to guess, I would say whoever threatened her did so as a prank, not at her, but at the monster she's dating."
"Why, that would be a terrible thing to do. I would hope they amend their mistake so she and I can stay in this town," Yrsa replied coolly, holding her hard gaze to his.
"I guess they'll have to. It'd be such a shame if they managed to scare off a Valkyrie."
Yrsa sighed in exasperation. "I told you, I'm not a Valkyrie."
"Oh I think you are. And you aren't allowed to leave until I get you to admit it." There was a strange, possessive quality to his words, more like that of a child hording his toys than a grown man speaking about a woman.
"And why do you care so much about Valkyries?" She asked.
"Because they can give me exactly what I want."
"Sweetheart, I could give you all sorts of things you don't even know you want yet," she flirted audaciously.
Damn it! She would make him blush! But that would have to come later because now she had a shoplifter trying to escape. She excused herself from the conversation and hopped over the counter, hurried over to the man and stopped him with a strong hand on his shoulder.
"I'll ask you to please return the items in your pockets and stuffed down your pants, sir," Yrsa said sweetly at first.
When he denied the accusation, she was forced to rip a can of Pocari from his coat pocket. And when he swung at her to avoid his misdeeds, he found his face smashed into the cold linoleum floor with both arms twisted around his back, Izaya laughing hysterically from beside the counter, utter surprise lighting up his soul.
"Izaya-chan," Yrsa cooed in a singsong voice, "would you be a sweetie pie and call the cops? Normally I'd let idiots like him go with a warning, but since I have a witness…well, that just wouldn't do would it?"
The broker controlled his laughter, if only just, and shook his head at the pair on the floor. "I'm afraid I have a much more pressing engagement. You want that misunderstanding cleared up after all, don't you?" He headed for the door, stepping over them when he easily could have gone around.
"I do but– you aren't just going to leave are you? At least call the cops first!" She shouted while the man under her complained and struggled; she smashed his face against the grout hard enough for a thin red puddle to ooze across the white flooring.
"I think you've got everything under control, Yrsa-chan," Izaya laughed, twirling around to face her and playfully poking her nose. "To think, such a pretty thing like you could take a Purple Stripe down."
Funny, he wasn't lying when his first compliment to her appearance had been just that. Maybe she was growing on him, or maybe he had a thing for angels. Weirdo.
Izaya strolled out into the early morning air, leaving Yrsa to hold the struggling thief down. She had to admit, the man had fight in him, but not the good kind. She could sense petty hatred and cruelty, the type of coward to kick people when they were down; he was a bully if she had to guess, and this probably wasn't the first store that he'd hit up. It would definitely be his last if Yrsa had anything to say about it.
Mashi arrive not long after Izaya had left, the thief sporting a broken hand from his struggle in addition to his smashed nose, and finally, finally Yrsa was able to summon the police and mop up the red stain across her otherwise pristine floor.