Jokes, Whims, & Coincidences

Chapter Ten, Informing

Orihara Izaya: Observatory Inquiry


"I know a bunch of things you don't know~!"

That was how I was greeted when Sosa called my cell phone, her voice singing through the device. It was night, but not yet seven, so it wasn't like I could get irritated at her for calling late or anything. And she most certainly wasn't interrupting my sleep pattern, either. I spent far too much of my time at night playing around on chatrooms or the Dollars, or collecting information (sometimes, the two were the same thing, really). But in all honesty, it wouldn't have bothered me if she did happen to call me if I was sleeping, as long as it was worth it.

I would have criticized her unnecessary performance if it weren't for the fact that I was prone to doing the same thing, albeit with different methods. So I leaned back in my chair and let her have her moment. "Oh, yea?" I lightly remarked, wondering if she was excited about the supposed new information or merely the potential chance of getting one up on me.

"Oh my god, Izaya-kun, this is so awesome!" Sosa exclaimed, voice over-bubbling with pure joy. "Okay, so here goes! Susanuma Aiako-chan, i.e. Tanuki Usagi-chan, i.e. one the newest members of the Dollars, i.e. my new protégé, and i.e., most importantly, the girl who ran away from you screaming for apparently no reason about a week ago! What cha think?!" I processed the information, pulling up a new web browser on my computer. Before my spare hand could reach the keyboard, though, Sosa kept going. "Oh, and I could save you a web hunt by just telling you everything, you know?"

I pushed away from my computer, though my home page held its place on the screen. "Ooh, you're all excited to share with the rest of the class, I see," I playfully commented. The sound that came from the other end of the line made me suspect that Sosa had stuck out her tongue. "Alright, I'll bite. Go ahead. Impress me."

"Eh, right here and now?" Sosa whined. "Over the phone? Really? Come on, Izaya-kun, why don't you hang out with me in Ikebukuro for a while? Shizu-chan's probably still out working, but who cares as long as he doesn't see you? Eh, you'll never go for a lame offer like that. Oh, I know, I'll give you prizes, too! I'll take you out for sushi and I'll let you in my apartment without calling the cops. How's that for a deal? Do it, pretty please? Oh, and I suspect you already know my address, so don't play innocent on that one."

I considered the offer, not seeing any harm in it. I was beyond used to the trip to Ikebukuro by now, plus Sosa was practically holding the information hostage from me. Not that it would have been hard to find things out now that I had a name to go off of, but why waste the effort when someone already knew? It also saved me the trouble of having to think of a way into Sosa's apartment later. That and free sushi was always a bonus. I smirked even though my conversation partner couldn't see, but chuckled so she got the general idea.

"Well now, Sosa-chan, you'll find out if I know your address soon enough."


Because I was naturally curious due to the nature of my work (the words Sosa would debate about using there being "creeper" and "nibshit"), I had already scoped out the building Sosa lived in beforehand. Sure, I hadn't gone in, despite knowing her room number from my previous information search, having not been in the mood to break into the place even when I could guarantee she wasn't around. But overall, it was a great place to live, though nowhere as upscale as my penthouse. The way her parents apparently continued to throw money into her back account, even when she had a job like the one I was giving her, meant she probably could have afforded one if she wanted, but that seemed so against her style, so I didn't question it.

She lived on the fourth floor. I knew which room was hers without even having to remind myself of the number; there was a small sticky note beneath the number plaque labeling the door with the very Sosa-like message of "If you know who you're supposed to be, don't bother knocking" in slightly blocky handwriting. I considered taking the small bit of paper in with me, but figured it would confuse at least a few passerby. I left the memo where it was, opening the door without a second thought.

Since I hadn't been planning on making this excursion until a much later point in time, I had yet to put some serious thought into exactly what Sosa's living space would look like, so I had nothing to anticipate as I entered. The door opened straight up into the living room, which was to be expected. On the right was a desk with three different laptops, sitting in perfect alignment. Now that was something I had seen coming; there would be certain little things that would be perfect, product of an incomplete case of OCD. The chair sitting at the desk was nowhere as cheap as the one I made her use at the office, and I assumed she was only badgering me about it for a freebee. Which wasn't going to happen, for the record.

I noted the absence of a TV, even though there was plenty of room for it. Instead there were various art pieces, hanging from walls and on stands alike. I hadn't really seen Sosa as the artsy type, in either terms of appreciation or practice, and figured those could stand to be asked about later. After all, they were certainly unique, things I hadn't seen on any local market. I would have looked at them longer if I hadn't been distracted by the kotatsu still sitting in the middle of the floor, despite the fact that it was spring. There were also the cords she commonly wore, including arm ornamentations, rolled up in coils on the couch.

To the left was the kitchen, which appeared to run along the entire left edge of the apartment, carpet turning into tiles. There was clearly more space around the back wall of the living room, where I presumed her bedroom to lie. Figuring that was forbidden territory, at least for now, I instead chose to busy myself with the bookshelf that sat on a chunk of wall not taken up by kitchen next to a small dining room table.

It was filled with a ranging selection of things in print. Her manga collection was no more than ten series, the good ones I had actually bothered with reading, although a few mainstream titles I hadn't taken to for their predictability were also present. Mixed in with these were a few light novel series, matching up with their respective tankobon. After that was an independent novel section, hosting a rather impressive complete works of Nisioisin. There were a few more prominent works after that, some of the volumes in English, most notably works by Oscar Wilde. The entire next section was English, too, and they were textbooks, apparently ranging across the subjects. Each respective section was kept in alphabetical order by their Romanized titles in the English alphabet, saving the textbooks, which seemed off since I really couldn't find a pattern to it.

"Well, I guess you're gonna have your fair share of questions already, so let's get those out of the way first," Sosa remarked without greeting. I turned around to see my technical hostess displaying both a tea pot in one hand and two stacked tea cups in the other, barely catching a glimpse of the rest of the kitchen behind her. "I really wish it would wait, but there's no real harm in getting it over with, so whatever."

She made her way into the living room, placing the tea set on the kotatsu, which only made sense since she didn't appear to have anything else to serve as a coffee table. She sat down with her back facing the door, giving me the option to be seated on the couch if I wished. I decided to humor her by joining her under the kotatsu.

Sosa kept up with the good hostess behavior, pouring tea without missing a beat. "So, I think I'll just go through my guesses first, then you can pick things up from there, okay?" I nodded at the proposal, accepting the tea cup from her in the process. "Right, so which side of the room to start with? Eh, it's usually the right from the entrance so I'll go from there."

Sosa took a sip of her own tea before pointing over to the computer desk. "The big one is Atemiya-kun," she stated, and I blinked at the fact that she had given names to her pieces of technology, and presumably genders to boot. "I generally use him for video and such; you know, the things that need a nice, big, HD screen. He's kind of why I didn't bother with a TV, since pretty much anything that goes on TV ends up on the web, sometimes at the same time. Not that the billing difference really matters, but hey.

"The red one is Rochelle-chan." Sosa continued without pausing for consideration. I decided to rest my eyes on the netbook sitting in the middle of the triad of computers. "She's an American model, so she runs an English OS. I got her while I was in the States, just to make things easier when my roommate needed access to my files. And the little one is Piku-chan." The micro laptop's dark blue lid sat there, hardly even visible. It was easily dwarfed in comparison to the industrial gray "Atemiya-kun."

"I keep him around mostly for portability reasons. I prefer running my own systems whenever possible, and both Atemiya-kun and Rochelle-chan really don't do it for me when I'm out and about. Plus I've been running both your little chatroom and the Dollars off him lately, since you don't need anything over the top for that. Lessee…"

This time Sosa actually did pause, refilling her own cup and offering the same to me. I politely refused, content with letting Sosa go about her explanations. After muttering a few things under her breath, she nodded before starting back up again.

"None of the art's mine. I, apparently, lack anything necessary in the mind for art of that nature. It's all stuff my roommate back in college made and let me have. This tea set's actually one of those, for the record." I looked down at my cup, actually paying attention to the design for once. The paint style did resemble that of some of the works I had been looking at earlier. "Handmade all the way. Oh, and the reason we're sitting at my kotatsu is because I got rather attached to it this winter while playing around with you and others, and as such never motivated my lazy ass to put it away properly."

She downed her teacup without grace, only refilling it to swirl the contents around as she went in for another round. "So that really just leaves the bookshelf. Since it was probably bugging you, the textbooks are all my college ones and arranged in the order I took the classes in. As for why I read a few mainstream manga titles when they're practically all doomed to be the same story at the core, I do it to play around inside the heads of the antagonists since they're generally much more interesting.

"Also, the bathroom is in the first door down the small hallway around the corner, and no, you are not allowed to see my room," Sosa seemed to finalize, smiling as she did so. "So feel free to ask about anything I missed, and welcome to my home, Izaya-kun. I hope you enjoy your stay. That being said, I'm not inviting you to stay the night. No thank you, I'd probably let a stranger sleep in my house before you. Yup, yup, much safer." She completed this rationalization with a few nods. I decided to ignore the insults in favor of taking up her offer of questions.

"I only have one question, Sosa-chan, then we can move onto the real thing you want to discuss," I said, noting her face as it flickered into disappointment. I guessed she was looking for a debate on what she clearly didn't trust about me from the previous statements' contents. "This is really a senseless inquiry, but I might as well get it out of the way since I'm sure it'll sneak its way into conversation later. So, is blue actually a favorite color or did the apartment come like this?"

Sosa stopped her transition back into a carefree expression as it went its own way to show her confusion. It wasn't like a question like this was unwarranted—no, the walls, carpet, furniture pieces when logical, and even the kitchen tile were variations of blue, and anything that wasn't went along with the color well—but it served to reason she hadn't expected that to be what I wanted to ask. Generally I wouldn't ask something of that nature, seeing as it didn't really matter, but the sheer abundance of the color in an apartment setting seemed unnatural.

"Wow, Izaya-kun, way to throw me for a loop." Sosa laughed lightly as she spoke the words. "I mean, yea, it's a legitimate concern, but still." She absentmindedly ran her finger along the rim of her empty tea cup, a smile back in place, although not necessarily a jubilant one. "I've never really gotten into the concept of 'favorite this/least favorite that,' to be honest. For me it's really a concept of 'like/dislike,' tho it's pretty much the same thing. So I guess you could say, yea, it's my favorite color. Though I prefer to look at it in terms of 'it's ascetically appealing to me,' which is why I did spend a decent chunk of money on both people to do the work to refurbish the place and bribes to the landlord to actually let me get away with it."

Then the usual peppiness was back, though I wasn't exactly sure what the differentiating factor was between the two states. "But, man, Izaya-kun, you're probably the only person that's gotten me like that. I wasn't even vaguely expecting that one. Then again, you're way different than anyone else I've ever been around, so it's to be expected, you know? Of course, that's kinda why I wasn't expecting it in the first place… So is that really all? Can I start talking about Aiako-chan, now? Huh, huh, pretty please?!" Sosa had pulled herself into a state similar to that of an overactive puppy, and it was far too easy to imagine her diving across the kotatsu for approval (she was already leaning half way over it, not even taking care for her specially designed tea set), so I took the safest route.

"Have at it, Sosa-chan," I permitted with a small gesture of my hand.

Sosa grinned and I was assaulted by another torrent of words.


To save you Sosa's rambling version, I'll summarize what I learned in a much more structured format than how it was presented to me.

Susanuma Aiako could very easily be seen as your typical girl in her last year of middle school, being at age fourteen, birthday being in July. She was currently living by herself in a small apartment in Ikebukuro as she went to school at Raira, a very common situation considering she had been raised out of the city. She had an older brother, who wasn't on the best of terms with her, and the same seemed to hold true for her mother. Her father had passed away a few years back, but unusual family structure wasn't anything to work yourself up over nowadays.

I was frankly surprised Sosa had gotten this much basic information out of the girl considering just how much more interesting her past was in comparison.

It had started out as your basic bullying. After all, Sosa had described Aiako to me as being highly quiet and soft-spoken most of the time, which had apparently led to the starts of being antisocial in her childhood. Not to say she didn't have friends, but it was still enough to start out the typical cases of bullying that were so common. That had been almost from the beginning of elementary school.

One of two things happen to cases of bullying in middle school: either it gets better or it gets worse. And Sosa would only have interest if the latter was the case, so that can tell you were this story was going. The bullying intensified to including almost her entire class, even those that hadn't met her before (peer pressure continues to be a powerful motivator), and it was more than pranks and the like. She was subjected to abuse, physical and sexual alike, and was even sexually harassed by one of her teachers, leading to the coup de grace of this little tale.

She had been raped.

Her father had still been alive at this point, and while she never told anyone the details, he still knew something was wrong. Thus, he set it up so that Aiako would transfer schools, in a different environment where bullying was almost unthought-of. And since she was a smart girl, Susanuma Aiako entered into a school generally reserved for the children of rich families due to impressive scores on the scholarship exam. And there she had her happy rebuilding of herself and ultimately made the decision to come to Ikebukuro on her own due to her intentions of attending Raira Academy in the future.

Only two things ruined the happy fairytale ending that seemed to be just on the horizon: the death of her father and the night terrors.

The extreme case of nightmares plagued the girl's brain from sometime during the course of the bullying and every day since. Though the contents varied, they were all filled with reenactments of her previous torture or new events that could only occur in dreams. But no matter the torture, the constant was the voices, a horrible mixture of both those who had bullied her and those who hadn't, and even voices of those she had never met but only accidentally overheard and captured in her subconscious, with the occasional original that seemed to have never heard otherwise in her life.

To be more specific, there was only one voice like that, and apparently it sounded like me, which explained the reaction to run away in terror.

Sosa had told me all of this with that same happy expression on her face as always, as if it wasn't a slightly common, yet tragic tale that would have had the majority of the human race expressing some form of sympathy, if not in tears. But I wasn't hanging around with this woman for her human sensibilities, so it didn't really matter.

Sosa reached for the tea pot again after she concluded her explanation, only to find it empty from the constant refills she had provided herself (it seemed she would drink something as long as it was there, which probably provided an interesting scene when going out to drink, if she did the sort of thing). She instead stood up, stretching in the process, and regarded the tea pot for a moment. After a brief moment of consideration, two words escaped her mouth.

"Fuck it," Sosa declared, the very definition of inelegant. I took this as a good time to get us out of the house and stood up after her. While it had been an interesting and enlightening experience, we had most certainly spent far too much time under a kotatsu. I made a mental note that if Sosa ever wanted to tell me anything again and there was no choice but to use her house, I would personally force her to put away the damn kotatsu, or at the very least be intelligent enough to sit on the couch.

"I'll take that as 'okay, Izaya-kun, we're going out to buy you that sushi I promised,'" I said in a pretty decent imitation of her voice, starting to smirk in the process. "Because, trust me, Sosa-chan, that's exactly what it sounded like." Sosa stared at me for a slight moment before breaking out into her own smile.

"Fine, fine, but since I'm using my paycheck, it's kind of like you're buying your own sushi, you know?" she remarked, walking over to grab the neatly coiled sets of cords off the couch behind me. "Hey, don't give me that look, Izaya-kun, I'm just kidding, sheesh. Hey, maybe the voice thing didn't have anything to do with Aiako-chan running away from you; your face is kinda scary when it looks like this."

I considered retaliating physically, but didn't have the motivation. Instead I watched Sosa twirl the cords around her body as simply as getting dressed, hooking the ends underneath that the boundaries of fabric. The small metallic clicks that were made indicated that they stayed in place due to magnets. "Keep talking like that and I might just fire you. Come on, would you?"

Sosa quickly pulled on the arm bands as I started to walk towards the doorway. "Aw, come on, you know you keep me around for my witty sarcasm and asshole style comments. You like having someone that's just as bad as you around to make you feel better. I know that's part of the reason why I stick around, except neither of us really has that second chunk of feeling. If we felt bad about what we were, we're the type of people that would actually do something about it. Thus you just like me 'cause I'm like you. Your argument is now invalid."

Despite the light glare I tossed over my shoulder, Sosa still followed me, the cheery expression never leaving her face.


Sorry that this is a day late. I might just have to change when my update days are, since Wednesdays have gotten kind of busy lately...

Thanks to alwaystru, animexxfreakxx, Moony the Mature One, gOthiCkUrOcHo69, Nosuri, Gogeta327, Miyoko-tan, Alexandria Volturi, and ChaoticDiamond for your respective favorites, follows, and reviews! If you guys ever find enough words to describe how much I appreciate you all, please let me know so I can share because you're all amazing!

To be honest I almost forgot how much Sosa babbles when she gets excited. Will there ever be a chapter where these idiots aren't running their mouths...? (the answer: probably absolutely not).

Alright, I gotta be honest with you guys: the next chapter does not have a set update yet. It is written, just needs editing, plus there are all these other stories I'm trying to get through...But I will update this (and possibly post an alternate Sosa scenario), so do not fret! I love Sosa too much to not carry her story through to the (very far in the distance) end.

Gah, I need to catch up with the anime again (for shame, for shame). Plus the first novel finally released in English. Ah, so much to do, so much to see...

Next time, the future of Ikebukuro is vaguely considered, Celty is encountered in passing, and Sosa makes plans for the upcoming day. Please look forward to it!

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