#24 – True Friends Stab You In The Front

Title - 'I Didn't Mean It' Doesn't Cut It.

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It had started with the Harada, and it had, more or less, ended with the Harada.

But it had begun with a few choice words from Niwa.

"Ne, Hiwatari-kun?" the boy had said at lunch that day. "Was it me, or did. . . she did! Risa-san looked over this way! Did you see?"

The last heist had only been two days ago, and Satoshi was not in the mood for anything more than a perfunctory amount of politeness.

"No."

Even then, he barely missed sounding rude.

"She did, though – she did it again, see?" No, I do not want to see. "I wonder what they're talking about over there?" I don't want to know, so why won't you shut up? Niwa carried on, blithely oblivious. "I think they're laughing about something..."

"Niwa."

What, is the idiot still hung up over her, even though he's already a pair with the girl's older sister?

For some reason, this train of thought did not make things any easier. In fact, it did much to make things worse.

"She's looking over here again," Niwa was saying. "And I know she's looking at us, because- "

"Niwa, stop it!"

Satoshi found that he had stood up from where they'd been sitting with their backs against the brick school wall. His fists were clenching and unclenching in anger, panic and fear. Niwa's eyes widened.

"Hi-Hiwatari-kun? What is it? What's the matter? Are you all right?"

"Niwa, just – just leave me alone."

Satoshi made an effort to get away, just by one step and then by another. He could hear footsteps behind him, though, and he stopped short.

"Niwa, I..."

"I just want to help. Hiwatari-kun, if there's anything I can do-!"

"Don't. I think you've done enough damage for today, Niwa."

". . . W-what? I –I don't understand!"

"That's your problem right there, Niwa. You don't understand what it's like to be me. You're used to your happy, easy life. . . and when times are hard, you know that everything's going to be all right in the end!" He turned back to let Niwa see his anger. "I don't have those reassurances."

He turned back as quickly as he was able, running towards the school gates, a secluded place, anywhere other than where Niwa and the others – Harada, don't let her see, she'd recognise both of you – as quickly as his body, fever-sharp stabs of pain lancing through it, would allow.

He could already feel the unwanted caress of the fallen angel's mind against his, whispering inside his very being.

"You know, I could almost bring myself to thank the Niwa tamer, this time. Do you think he knows he helped me out?"

The double meaning was not lost on him, but only served to make him try to run faster.

"Hi... Hiwatari-kun-!"

His breath caught in his throat, Niwa's complete and utter concern reaching him from across the short distance. The part-time kaitou was a fast runner.

Harada-imouto's laughter and the sound of that concern called out for him and him alone found themselves overlapping in his mind. They were the things that drove him to his knees, hands falling numbly to the ground as his hair grew long enough to obscure his vision and now-unnecessary glasses fell with a clatter to the concrete of Azumano middle school's playground.

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The following events went down in the history of the town – a small number of students had seen Hiwatari Satoshi transform into a handsome yet homicidal blond with wings, and Niwa Daisuke had followed not long after, into the more well-known, infamous Phantom Thief Dark Mousy.

The following fight had brought the school building to disrepair – leading to classes being held in temporary put-ups until the refurbishments had been completed – and not a few students had been hurt. Some had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some had simply tried to get too close to the competitors.

Upon hearing of what was going on, the rest of the Niwa clan had all hurried over to the school, only to find a great many emergency service vehicles and no sign of either Dark or Krad.

Daisuke had later been found holed up in a safe place in the wreckage, unconscious but with the evidence of tears streaming down his face. When he had woken up a day and a half later, he hadn't been able to stop worrying. Hiwatari had looked hurt when they had last seen each other, but he also knew that the blue-haired boy would not want to see him very soon at all. The look in his eyes as they parted told him that his friend blamed him for what had happened.

Daisuke knew that, if nothing else, he blamed himself. It was obvious that a simple 'I didn't mean to' would never cut it.

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AN: Don't worry. I'm not ending it here. I've got a couple other of these prompts that'd tie in with this one. I could have done the fight scene, but that would've been Dark and Krad, not Satoshi and Daisuke. Would you believe that the prompt that inspired this little mini-arc was #16, Party?