Twisting

Masaomi walked languidly down the fairly crowded street. The weather was nice today, so it seemed no one wanted to be cooped up inside, including the gorgeous girls currently sashaying down the sidewalks. However, the blonde didn't have time for them right now; no matter how pretty they were, he was distracted. He hadn't seen nor heard from his best friend in a few days, and it was beginning to worry him. What was up with Mikado? The shy boy hardly ever missed school, and he had never just fallen off the grid like this; Masaomi had just gone to the other boy's apartment and received no answer.

Something had been off about his friend the last few times Masaomi had seen him, anyhow; Mikado had been tired, worried, jumpy, and distracted, all of these signs raised red flags to the blonde. Was Mikado busy with some Dollars issue? He had thought that, for the most part, the city's gang issues had calmed down after the last fight…

Suddenly, the worried teen stopped walking as he spotted what he considered his own personal warning sign; a little ways down the block he could see that ostentatious fur-trimmed coat—and much to Masaomi's disdain, its owner, Orihara Izaya. He hated that man to his very core; Izaya was nothing but a sadist who toyed with people and all but destroyed them once he was bored.

What disturbed him more than seeing the object of his odium was the fact that the monster had Mikado with him. There was his missing companion walking side by side, talking, laughing with the knife-wielding psychopath; what was Mikado doing?

The blonde couldn't help himself; he kept watching them, and how could he not when everything about this seemed so suspicious? He was careful to stay fairly far from the pair, making sure there were several random people separating them; finally, Izaya and Mikado detached from the crowd and wandered to an empty sitting area away from the main street.

What the Hell were they doing? Was Mikado really using Izaya's services as an informant for the Dollars? Masaomi became even more afraid at the thought; he had used Izaya for the Yellow Scarves and the informant had essentially traumatized him. This was bad…His attention returned to the two other men; Masaomi was too far away to hear them, but they were talking about something. The teen noticed Izaya smirk and then...the entire exchange turned strange.

The two were standing far too close to be considered professional; in fact, now that Masaomi was noticing it, the closeness seemed almost intimate. The blonde boy watched, unknowingly holding his breath, as Mikado leaned upwards and connected his lips with the informant's still smirking ones.

They were together.

Masaomi felt slightly numb at the realization, though the numbness quickly gave way to a sting of betrayal, not just for himself, but for Anri as well. Nothing about this seemed right.

A few seconds later, he watched them start to walk away once more, and the blonde teen could only stand still, shell-shocked. Before the couple were too far, though, Masaomi felt cold fear wash over him as those malicious auburn eyes connected with his and Izaya smiled even wider.

Standing there for a few more moments, Masaomi tried to sort his own thoughts and feelings so he could decide what to do about the new situation. He wasn't angry with Mikado, he was angry with Izaya for trapping his friend in such a tasteless fashion, that much he knew for sure. Though, he still knew he'd probably handle it badly with Mikado, regardless—he was notoriously bad at dealing with and directing his emotions.

As he was standing there pondering it, he felt someone grab his upper arm, not roughly or threateningly, but the grip was firm. Masaomi turned to face the person; it was a tall, thin man clad in a long black coat, black hat, and black gloves. Immediately, the teen was set on edge.

"He's using your friend," the man said in a deep voice which held such a harsh quality it surprised the teen.

Masaomi opened his mouth to retort, but couldn't formulate a reply; how could this stranger know that?

"He's taking your friend away from you. He's going to turn Mikado against you."

"No, Mikado isn't that malleable. He may go along with Izaya for a while, but he's smart. Mikado won't fall for that," Masaomi responded angrily, yanking his arm out of the stranger's grip.

"Well, Izaya was able to make Saki fall in love with you, and he was also able to take her away from you. She says she loves you, but if he handed her another order, what do you think she would do?"

His eyes widened at the words; who was this man? He knew far too much about Masaomi's private life, especially that last part. The blonde was always scared Saki would indeed abandon him in favor of the informant.

"It's fair to say he pretty much has Saki in his back pocket, and the only reason she is still with you is because Izaya doesn't need her right now. If he takes Mikado away, too, then what are you left with?"

Nothing.

Izaya & Mikado

"No way! In an awful way, that's actually really exciting," Erika exclaimed after she finished reading the Dullahan's message. Not that she and the van crew were strangers to the extraordinary happenings which occurred in Ikebukuro, but the fact that some otherworldly villain was pursuing them was enticingly far-fetched.

"Yeah! It's like we are the underestimated protagonists of the storyline," Walker commented, his mind already wandering across the expanse of possible plot ideas and outcomes. No doubt, a doujinshi of theirs about this situation would soon be being drawn.

Kadota stared at the Dullahan's PDA screen stoically before looking up at the Black Rider, "So, there's some soul stealing monster after us because we played some stupid game we found on the Internet?" The former gang member was absolutely incredulous at this notion.

[I think Shinra will be able to explain more of it to you, but everything that happened last night was caused by the 'Midnight Man' you summoned in your 'game'.] Celty typed quickly, then asked the van crew to go ahead and meet her back at the apartment.

Mikado & Izaya

Mikado and Izaya remained with the underground doctor, making small talk as they waited for Celty to return.

The boy stared thoughtfully at his reflection in the cup of tea Shinra had given him; how on Earth were they going to stop the Midnight Man if it was so powerful it could trick a person's mind? He quickly jolted himself from his thoughts; if it had happened to the van crew, did that mean something happened to Masaomi as well? Pulling out his phone and ignoring the intrigued stare from Izaya, Mikado dialled his best friend's number—it was so familiar to him now. The teen tapped his fingers anxiously as it rang.

Izaya glanced over at the blue eyed boy with an amused smile on his face as he watched Mikado practically twisting with the stress of a simple phone call. The younger male was calling his little blonde friend, no doubt. Hm, this was the first time the informant thought about what might have befallen Masaomi, seeing as how Kadota and company were attacked pretty severely; it was only expected something had happened to the little Yellow Scarf as well.

Izaya & Mikado

Masaomi looked down at his phone and merely watched it for a minute as it kept ringing, Mikado's name flashing on the ID screen. What was he supposed to do, just answer and act like everything was normal? Pretend he hadn't seen Mikado with that repulsive jerk? Even if it had been awhile since he'd seen the two together and talked with that strange man in black, he wasn't entirely sure he could deal with his friend.

With a sigh, the blonde boy answered his phone, "Hel—"

Before he could even finish his half-hearted greeting, Mikado cut him off with something really, really strange, "Masaomi! Are you alright?"

This confused the teen. "Yeah, I'm fine. Mikado, are you okay?" His shy friend sounded panicked and flustered—even more so than he normally was. It was perplexing, as he had seen Mikado not even an hour earlier, so what could have the timid boy so upset?

There was an even longer pause on the other teen's end of the line, and Masaomi could hear the confusion in Mikado's tone as he asked tentatively, "You…You're fine? Nothing weird has happened?"

The Yellow Scarves' leader pursed his lips, now very unsettled with the way this conversation was turning out; what could Mikado be talking about? The other teen hadn't seen Masaomi watching him earlier…but Izaya had. Masaomi took a deep breath; now he was being paranoid. When he thought about it, he didn't even know what he had really been watching earlier—all he had were the conclusions he jumped to. It was possible there was some agreement for payment—okay, that thought was even scarier by what kind of 'payment' the kiss would imply. Now he was successfully scaring himself even more.

"Masaomi?"

The blonde sighed, knowing he had taken too long thinking. "Umm, what do you mean by 'weird'?"

"W-Well, you haven't had...how can I explain...? Has anything...um...like someone knowing things they shouldn't, or anything bad happened to you? Or, have you noticed anything off since…we played that Midnight Game?"

He almost wanted to laugh. "This is about that game?"

"Masaomi, look, we really need to talk, there's a lot about you don't know. C-can we meet somewhere?"

Even against his better judgement, Masaomi couldn't agree more; they definitely needed to talk, even if it was about two different things. He really couldn't get past the sting of betrayal he had felt earlier, and even it was eclipsed by the fact that Mikado was once again keeping secrets. Masaomi had kind of expected Mikado to learn his lesson after the gang war that had broken out—which could have been avoided if he and Mikado had known the positions the other held from the beginning. Though, he had to admit the 'keeping secrets' part was also his fault, so he had to force it to stop. Now.

These emotions were what spurred the blonde to reply, "I figured you'd still be busy." However, as soon as the words escaped his lips in that cold tone, Masaomi regretted it.

"...Busy?" Was it just him, or did Mikado sound entirely perplexed?

"Yeah. With Izaya." Again, his tone was quipped, but he just couldn't help himself.

On Mikado's end, the boy's mouth fell open and he felt his face instantly heat up; what was Masaomi talking about? Did the blonde mean he knew about the relationship, or whatever it was considered, that Mikado had gotten into with the informant? Or was the blonde referencing the fact that Mikado was using Izaya as an informant to help with the web of problems which had been spun by the Midnight Man? Either way, how would Masaomi know about it?

The black haired teen tried desperately to keep his voice steady as he asked, "W-Wwhat do you mean?" And knew instantly he'd failed, causing Izaya to raise a brow at him in a rather questioning way, then lean closer to the phone to hear the reply.

"I saw you together." Mikado heard his friend sigh before continuing, "Look, I'm not mad at you for that, but really, you couldn't even tell me you're with him?"

Izaya watched as Mikado's blue eyes went wide, though at that point, the older male couldn't really blame him; sitting so close in such a silent room made it easy to hear both sides of the phone conversation. Something was puzzling though—how could Masaomi have found out about it? Their 'relationship' had only been going on for a few days, and the only thing anyone possibly could have seen to construe the relationship as anything other than professional was the first kiss outside of Russian Sushi. Masaomi hadn't been around for that, Izaya was almost certain. Interesting.

"M-Masaomi, look it's complicated and you don't understa—" Mikado began shakily, his mind racing to try and think of something to resolve this brewing conflict.

"Whatever, Mikado."

And then nothing could be heard but the dial tone.

The teen looked down worriedly at his cell phone; Masaomi was mad at him and his friend was still in danger from the Takers. It was understandable his friend would be angry about it, though; not only had the blue eyed teen hidden something so important from him, but anything to do with Izaya was a touchy subject to Masaomi...which was understandable considering the history between them.

Mikado felt slightly sick at the thought and realization; he hadn't even considered divulging his romance with the older male to the blonde. He should have known it would illicit a bad reaction, especially when taking into account the strange dynamic he had heard about between the information broker and Masaomi's girlfriend, Saki. Even though Izaya hadn't shown any interest in her for over a year, if Masaomi himself was to be believed, there was a chance he'd make contact with her again.

He glanced over at Izaya and sighed, "Masaomi is mad. I-I don't know how he…" The teen trailed off when he remembered Shinra was still in the room.

"I heard, but at least he wasn't 'attacked' like Kadota's group," Izaya mused, observing Mikado's dejected expression.

Suddenly, the teen sat up straight and blinked at Izaya, asking, "You mean...he was attacked?"

"You noticed it too—how did he know? When did he see such a thing?" the older man asked in a rather dry tone—and Mikado's eyes went wide again.

"In other words, he doesn't even know something strange happened...but why would the Midnight Man do something like that?" Mikado mused slowly.

"What's Masaomi's weakness?" Izaya asked in reply. "Since I'm guessing the mental attack is meant to be by using one's greatest weakness or fear against a person, what would your blonde friend's be?"

After a long silence, the teen replied, "Being alone." Then, both understood.

Mikado & Izaya

Masaomi put his phone in his pocket and continued walking down the still-crowded streets. He quickly became aware of the figure which had sidled up to his right; matching his steps was the dark-clad figure from earlier.

"You know, I could get rid of the informant...though, I would require slight assistance. You wouldn't have to worry about what happens to Mikado or Saki with Izaya away from them," the man spoke in his commanding manner.

The blonde glanced over to the odd man, only to find he was no longer walking next to him. Masaomi wasn't stupid; he knew something was definitely up with this guy. No one should have so much insight into his personal life, much less a complete stranger.

Part of him was quite captivated by the offer and suggestion made against the informant, though the rational part of his mind recognized the familiarity of the situation at hand. A stranger offered him help in ridding Masaomi of a problem, in this case the Izaya, only to destroy him later; a few years ago, Masaomi was offered help to dispose of a problem, then, the Blue Squares…The person who offered that assistance turned into a new problem.

With a snort at the sheer coincidence of things, the boy kept wandering with no destination in mind, noticing the clouds hanging ominously above and promising a downpour soon. He sighed suddenly. Why did things always have to be so complicated when it came to his relationships with those close to him? It was beginning to seem as though he was unable to catch a break, whether with his girlfriend or even just with his best friend.

Back when he had first moved to Ikebukuro, Masaomi felt so isolated it strained the timid friendships he had managed to establish…The Yellow Scarves changed that, if only temporarily, and he'd felt like people had his back. However, all those ties he made were unravelled and proven to be weak when his gang so easily replaced him with Horada during the hostilities with the Dollars. A part of him knew he was deliberately twisting facts, but that part of him went entirely ignored in favour of worsening his depression. 'Misery likes company,' the wryly amused thought popped into his head.

He didn't even want to think of all the dysfunction he had gone through with Saki; the blonde loved her, but he knew her strange worship or infatuation or whatever she considered it to be with Izaya was still present to some degree, no matter how many times the girl denied it.

His relationship with Mikado had finally balanced itself back out to how it should be after all the gory issues of the Dollars and Yellow Scarves had come to the surface, and now Izaya was poisoning that connection as well. Masaomi didn't think it was fair; couldn't he just have this one thing going smoothly in his life? One person to be a genuine friend to him and not have to worry about ulterior motives? Apparently not, judging from the lip-lock he'd witnessed earlier, and which Mikado had made no real effort to deny.

In the distance, the clouds signalled the teen's earlier weather prediction to be correct as thunder rolled. Masaomi sighed again—he had been so wrapped up in his thoughts he hadn't even realized he'd strayed too far from his apartment to possibly make it back before the rain started. What else was going to go wrong?

The boy jolted as his cell phone sounded off again. The caller ID screen displayed Mikado's name, which immediately made the blonde wary.

"Hello?" Masaomi greeted the other teen warily. He was regretting answering the call at all. Now he felt extremely awkward after the confrontational conversation earlier.

"Masaomi, I-I…I'm really sorry I didn't tell you what was going on. I know I should have, but I know how weird it would have made things, and after everything that happened with the gangs and Saika and everything, I just couldn't! I don't want you to be mad at me, because you're my best friend, and I'm not even completely sure what I'm doing, and-and I'm just…sorry."

The Scarves' leader grinned at the words, mostly because of the hilarity of the ending; pretty much everything Mikado had said after his name was mushed together and hardly coherent; Mikado tended to ramble when frustrated. Basically, whatever was going on between Izaya and Mikado wasn't something the older man had complete control over, which was a relief to the blonde, but also...Mikado had called him back just to try to explain and to apologize for not telling him.

"It's okay, Mikado, honestly. It's just…I don't want things spiralling out of control like they did last time we kept secrets."

There was a pause before the other teen answered, "I know, I don't either…but Masaomi, we need to talk—about the game."

The blonde boy sighed for probably the hundredth time in the past few hours. While he felt relief at the first part, he was exasperated by his friend's insistence on going back to the issue of the game. "Mikado, we've been over this. It was just a stupid game from the Net. Nothing to wor—"

Mikado interrupted him surprisingly harshly, "No! Masaomi, listen to me—it's NOT 'just a game'! The Midnight Man is real and it's after us…!"

Mikado enunciated each syllable of the last sentence, trying to get the point through to his sceptic friend. Much to his disdain, he heard a snort of laughter from Masaomi's end of the phone.

"Mikado, c'mon! You really believe in that thing?"

"Yes," the blue eyed teen practically hissed into the phone, frustrated. "It's been in my apartment and gone after Izaya, Kadota, and everyone! It attacked them, Masaomi! This is serious."

Well, the words definitely caught Masaomi's attention. "You're serious?" Though he knew Mikado wouldn't be so adamant about this otherwise, the teen felt a sick pang of intrigue at the fact that Izaya had been attacked…The stranger who had been plaguing him this afternoon…

Izaya & Mikado

Mikado rolled onto his left side with a huff of frustration as he attempted to get some sleep. Izaya seemed to think it would be safe enough to sleep, at least for a little while; the Midnight Man was most likely recovering from its encounter with Celty.

The teen thought back to the 'meeting', for lack of a more appropriate term, earlier at the Dullahan's apartment. The gathering could hardly be construed as constructive once the van crew and Masaomi showed up (the blonde took quite a bit of coaxing), as everything turned into unconstructive chaos. The black haired teen had hoped that, with more perspectives on the situation, they could all devise something to help them out of their current plight.

Erika and Walker didn't seem perturbed after the Taker's mental torture. The pair held happy expressions, though their smiles seemed increasingly maniacal as they murmured to one another about various methods to exact vengeance; dissection, removing the skin, using a red-hot poker on its multitudes of eyes…The boy shook his head a bit as he remembered their discussion of a very idiosyncratic use of a can opener, trying not to rehash what he was able to overhear of their conversation. Mikado shuddered. Needless to say, the two had contributed little to finding a solution.

Kadota and Saburou had spent the majority of the time trying to keep the two otakus on point—and failing miserably.

Izaya seemed to revel in the discord, merely watching the entire bunch with amused eyes.

And as much as he hated to admit it, Mikado still didn't know Masaomi's take on things; the blonde had been so equivocal earlier. His friend hadn't said much, though he asked a few questions about the attacks on Kadota and company and what the Midnight Man looked like, which the blue-eyed teen found oddly specific. Of course, the answer came out to it looking like anything which could look black. Mikado couldn't figure out why that detail bothered him, but frankly, the though had been swimming about his mind for hours, periodically returning to the forefront of his concentration. The only conclusion he could come to was that, as Izaya suspected, Masaomi had been attacked, but his fear wasn't as physically tangible as the others', so he was trying to figure out if he had indeed encountered him.

Mikado was willing to attribute the last bit of musing about Masaomi to his lack of sleep at this point, though this reasoning did nothing to subdue the worry creeping into his thoughts.