Jokes, Whims, & Coincidences

By: Aviantei

Chapter Thirteen, Gathering in the Streets

Tekichu Sosa: Witness to Evil


I couldn't tell what was more interesting: the trio of Raira students clustered around the edge of the alley or the spectacle going on inside it. I recognized Masaomi's dye job and voice to notice him in the first, but bullying could go in interesting ways if the perpetrators were the tiniest bit creative. Considering the three girls had surrounded their singular target, plus had an older yet stupid-looking guy with them the result could be anyone's guess.

While Aiako-chan fidgeted beside me, glancing to the trio of students and twitching to cross the street, I tried to catch any words I could from inside the alley. Something mundane about clinging to some other girl beforehand and getting out of her position. Jealous trifles, then. I almost tugged Aiako away, but I caught Izaya's smirk first.

Flicking his eyes forward in a gesture to follow along, Izaya strolled across the street, inserting himself into the trio's conversation like he'd been waiting for the precise moment to do so.

"Bullies, huh?" he said, and caught the attention of Masaomi's small crew. The blond traced his eyes across Izaya, myself, and Aiako—all times with recognition, but the conflict that came from not knowing which of a maelstrom of emotions to express. The dark haired boy with him stared at Aiako, while the unidentified girl in the party locked her eyes on me—a startling red. "You wanna save the day, don't ya?"

And then Izaya grinned the widest I had ever seen him, with just enough politeness to be creepy.

The dark-haired boy stammered, which got more and more unintelligible as Izaya led him into the alley, right towards the bullying event that had continued while we piddled around. "S-Senpai," Aiako muttered without much force, then looked between me and Masaomi with all the pathetic muster of a sopping wet kitten.

"Sosa-san?" Masaomi asked, a warble to his voice. I smiled and put a finger to my lips to hush him up. Izaya's show was starting, and I didn't want to miss this one, either. The red-eyed girl propped a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow, but I saved trying to figure out where I had seen her face in my memory for later.

Izaya got into range, and pushed the stammering kid right towards the bullies. He controlled his progress with a few hops. As he tried to find any words to explain what was going on, I hooked my hand into Aiako's and pulled her into the alley behind them, close enough to hear, but not enough to get in anyone's way.

This time, no matter what happens, I'm gonna stay out of it.

The ganguro trio didn't look impressed, their redheaded backup looked more like he was hurling up his guts at a frat party, and the victim of the bullying went wide eyed through her glasses as her unlikely savior froze up at the lead ganguro's demands. I would've liked to figure out just how everyone knew each other, but that would've taken more than a few seconds to unravel.

"Bullying people is lame," Izaya declared, drawing everyone's attention.

"You're kind of a bully yourself," I called from my vantage point next to the vending machines. Aiako's hand trembled in mine. I fished in my pocket for my wallet and dug out a few spare coins, picking out her and myself drinks. I made sure to keep at least one eye on the situation at all times.

Izaya unraveled a few trails of insults, not that the ganguro gang seemed to process any. I had to push the soda into Aiako-chan's hands to get her to take it, and even then she just stared on with worry. Considering she'd been bullied before, it couldn't be a happy scene to watch. But she'd have to get used to conflict if she was going to stick around. From the way her eyes stayed locked on the boy Izaya had kidnapped, I guessed her worry was more for him than anything else.

Is he the Senpai with the weird dragon name? Or is that the other girl? Ah, no wonder Aiako-chan walks home by herself; the people who reached out to her were high schoolers. But when—

The train of thought became much less important as a knife whistled through the air. I had just caught Izaya's hand moving, not the moment of the throw itself. No blood was spilled, so he hadn't been aiming for damage.

Just for the ganguro lead's bag.

Her purse strap split, upending makeup containers on the ground. But Izaya didn't focus on those. Running his mouth without any sign of stopping, he retrieved the girl's cellphone, stepped back a few steps, then sent the thing clattering right back to the pavement. And that was before he stomped on it.

Repeatedly, to be clear.

Orihara Izaya smashed a high school girl's cellphone, laughing the entire time. The trio of girls gaped. Maybe-Dragon Boy might have wanted to run away if he wasn't too busy trying to process what was happening. Aiako-chan trembled beside me, and I found that I was shaking, too.

Just not like her.

Not from fear.

Excitement.

I knew a lot about Izaya. Not everything, no. Not even close to that. He was such an enigma that getting an accurate read on him was difficult, and that he could control a lot of his output aided that edge of mystery. But the things I knew were the things we shared. Finding someone that could embody those traits had been a miracle in itself. But finding someone who didn't just embody those traits, but also lived that reckless, whimsical lifestyle that disregarded others at every turn—that right there was something beyond a miracle.

I didn't care what parts of the Universe had aligned to bring us together. I was just glad I got to watch.

And with the same reckless abandon that he had started with, Izaya stopped, his foot hovering above the tattered pink cell phone. "And now I'm bored," he declared. "I guess that's enough cell phone smashing for one day." As if he did that every day.

Now, now, that would ruin the charm, Izaya-kun.

The punk guy—Hiroshi, it seemed—was called into the scene. In a torrent of slang that would've made even my college friends embarrassed, Hiroshi declared his intent to fight. Dragon Boy had put out an arm in an attempt to keep Megane-chan safe, and I put myself between the thug and Aiako. The chances of the guy getting through Izaya were slim—this guy had avoided having a sandwich board hurled at him and outran the Strongest Man in Ikebukuro without much problem—but I was a firm believer in preventable problems.

Sure enough, within five seconds, Izaya had dodged Hiroshi's first punch, knife whistling without me catching sight of it, and the punk was on the ground.

With a large portion of his hair gone, I might add.

He screamed, the ganguro gang screamed, and they all ran for the hills, half-baked threats filling their wake. Aiako slumped to the ground, still gripping to her unopened soda bottle. I patted her head and took a long swig from mine, grinning around the drink. Izaya laughed, sounding as pleased as could be.

I rattled my wallet and found that I still had a fair amount of coins left. "Hey, you kids want something?" I called, knocking my elbow into the vending machine. "That was kinda rough, so this one's on me, alright?"


No one gave me their opinions in sodas, so I just punched buttons at random. No one seemed rude enough to turn down a free drink, so they accepted the offer. We all ducked out of the alleyway, and Izaya wasted no time in claiming a stranger's bike as a seat while the Raira kids gathered around. I tried to push him out of the way for Aiako, but she shook her head, insisting on standing by Maybe-Dragon Boy's side. Megane-chan was too busy staring into space to notice me, but Red-Eyes-chan snuck glances at me more often than not. Having more time to look at her, she seemed familiar, but I was pretty damn sure I'd remember someone with an unusual eye color like that.

It was also hard to focus with Masaomi glaring at me.

I had thought he would try to contain it a bit around his friends, but suspicion filled every corner of his face. He'd been more than happy to hit on me before, and we'd even traded off a few messages since our last encounter. So it wasn't something I'd done.

Sheer association with Izaya then.

I didn't blame him. Izaya's little list of names of interesting people in Ikebukuro had included quite the cast of characters—down to the ex-leader of the busted up color gang known as the Yellow Scarves. With that sort of information in my pocket, it was impossible to look at him as just a flirty high schooler any more, just as it would be impossible for him to look at me like a random quirky woman.

I smiled back at Masaomi until Izaya called him by name and dragged him into the conversation. It was a set up to pull Maybe-Dragon Boy into the conversation and pull out his name. As guessed, he was Aiako's Ryuugamine Mikado-senpai.

Mikado-chan it is. Wonder why Aiako's so hooked to his hip. Young love? Mundane, but adorable.

"So then, what brings you out this way?" Masaomi was much less subtle about his grabs for information, but I could guess concern for his friend dulled his usual wit.

"I came to see somebody," Izaya answered. That was news to me. He stared at Mikado long enough to further unnerve the poor kid. Izaya had been willing to come out to Ikebukuro to get a look at this kid? He hadn't been in the list of interesting people, so what was so special about him? He looked plain, but judging by appearances was a fool's move. "And now I have."

Any further conversation was interrupted as Izaya took a convenience store trash can to the head. The kids flinched, and I snatched Aiako over to my side, even though I had a pretty good idea of who the sudden attacker was. Heiwajima Shizuo hadn't seemed like the type to attack little girls for no reason, but having Izaya around didn't make him a rational thinker, though.

"Hooooly shiiiit," Masaomi said, sounding way more amused than scared.

Izaya got up like he got hit by full trash cans every day and did what he did best: run his mouth. The conversation lasted longer than the one I'd see on our defunct Russia Sushi trip, but it was still filled with the expected insults. Izaya did pull out his knife, though, and Aiako trembled in my arms.

When Hiroshi showed back up with friends, she ripped herself out of my grip. "Senpai!" She ran across the street back to Mikado (through the middle of the brewing conflict; what was with that girl?) and clung to his arm. As high as a priority keeping my protégé safe was, Shizuo wouldn't be bothered going through me to get to Izaya.

"Still, calling themselves the Dollars," I muttered, surveying the ramshackle men around us. They looked like they had the collective intelligence of an elementary schooler, and that was pushing it. "As if."

My theory was proven when one of them swung his plank of wood at Shizuo's head. The blond doubled over, blood pouring down his face, and set about beating the shit out of the pseudo-Dollars in a display that would have looked unbelievable even in a shonen fighting manga.

"Sosa-chan, we're going," Izaya called. I pulled my eyes away from the free show as he tossed a wave in Shizu-chan's direction. "Well, have fun!"

It was a good thing I didn't move to follow him because Shizuo had torn a vending machine up from the ground and had hurled it down the street after Izaya within seconds. Or maybe it would've been okay, as Semyon dived down from the heavens, landed on his feet, caught the mechanical missile, and still had enough breath to start preaching pacifism. Either way, I was glad I had stuck around to witness the show. In the direction Izaya had gone, I saw his black form dart down an alleyway. Shizuo went to take Semyon on, and Mikado got enough wits about him to grab Aiako (easy since she was still clinging to his arm) and Megane-chan's wrists and haul them to safety.

"What the? Mikado!"

Red Eyes-chan snagged Masaomi's wrist before he could complain any further and hauled his ass down the street after the trio. "Come on!"

Good, all the kids had bolted for it. They had just enough interesting components to them that it would have been a shame to see them get hurt. The downed gang of Hiroshi didn't even begin to count in comparison. And Shizu-chan and Semyon both had proven they could take more than heavy damage as they grappled with each other in the middle of the street, so there wasn't any need to worry about them.

It was my turn to bounce, then.

Hopping over the line of bushes lining our little hub on the sidewalk, I melded into the awestruck crowd and headed in the direction that Izaya had gone. Once I was sure I was out of Shizuo's immediate hearing range, I let my laugh out into the sky.

"What an awesome city!"


The safest place for Izaya to run off to would be anywhere outside of the immediate range of Ikebukuro. That was where Shizuo's "territory" so to speak ended, after all. That also meant it would be the most obvious direction, and when the hell did Izaya ever go in the most obvious direction?

I wouldn't have, that was for sure.

So it wasn't very hard to find him checking into some internet café a few blocks down. He smirked when he saw me, flashed some plastic, and rented a room big enough for two. While the machine inside paled in comparison to the custom model Izaya had in his office, it was pretty decent for what it could do. Not that you needed a complicated OS to run the Dollars site or anything.

I plopped down into one of the provided chairs, bouncing on the cushion. Giddiness had taken over all the blood in my veins. Humans were disgusting; I wouldn't change my mind on that. But Izaya sure new how to find the good ones, plus he wasn't half bad himself.

I spun in a circle before kicking my chair across the room, zooming towards the compartment wall behind me. "You know, this chair is even better than the one you let me have," I said.

"It's also built for people to spend as much time in these places as possible. You're the more active type," Izaya said, typing away to add a few messages to the Dollars site. He even logged in and out a few times. My phone buzzed in my pocket at the appropriate times, but I let it go. I could see what was happening in front of me well enough. "You didn't bring Aiako-chan with you? I wasn't expecting that."

I shrugged, placing my empty soda bottle on the table. Too bad I had drunk it all before running around. A drink would have been nice, even if it would've just been fizzy from the running. "She left with Mikado-chan. You heard her—kid's her Senpai."

"Yes, yes."

Izaya didn't even look to see the glare I was shooting him. Distracted, much? No, he knew that already. He knew and he hadn't told me. What a stingy bastard. "So if you wanted to meet him so bad, why didn't you just ask Aiako-chan to introduce you?" No way was I gonna let him know I still hadn't figured out why the kid was so important.

"Now, now, Sosa-chan, do try to show more ingenuity than that," he scolded. I rolled myself towards him, but Izaya just pushed my chair back across the room. It was too cramped in there to have much with it. I needed to get on obtaining one for the office. Izaya's penthouse had plenty of space. "Aiako-chan can hardly form a comprehensive sentence around me. As if she'd let me get anywhere close to her precious senpai." He hummed a bit and struck a few more strokes on the keyboard. "Not that she's gonna have much choice in the matter."

"A new piece, then?" Izaya grinned, tapping out emails on his phone. I'd have to pay attention to how his Chessboard on Crack changed when we got back to the office. "You still haven't told me what sort of game you've got planned here."

Izaya shut down the internet browser and shoved his phone into his pocket. "All in due time." I was getting sick of his teasing. "This should be enough time to throw Shizu-chan off. Things got cut off a bit earlier than I'd hoped, but you can have the rest of the day off, Sosa-chan. I'll be sure to process your overtime accordingly."

He hopped to his feet and headed to the door. I did the same, keeping on his tail. He was gonna go digging for information without me. Like I'd let that opportunity pass me up. "So then if I'm off, who I hang around with is my business, right?"

"Suit yourself. You're not gonna get paid if you don't work, though."

"Don't be silly. I'm gonna work hard, so get ready to give me a bonus when I show it off, okay?"

After all, it's not like I had to rely on Izaya for information. That was just the easy way.


Kakkoii_chan [Private Mode]: So, whatcha think about today, Aiako-chan?
Kakkoii_chan [Private Mode]: Ready to be a protégé yet?
Kakkoii_chan [Private Mode]: I've got your first assignment for you~
Kakkoii_chan [Private Mode]: Why don't you tell me about those friends of yours?


[Author's Notes]

Now that I've finished up my par of finishing three fanfics this year, I can get back to miscellaneous updates! We're going to have a few weeks of various chapters until [SOSS] starts and my fanfic anniversary celebration rolls around. I hope the chapter was enjoyable after such a long break!

This paragraph is normally where I express my thanks to everyone that has followed, favorited, and reviewed since the last chapter. While I'm still going to do that, document decided to glitch out on me, meaning that I lost the list of everyone's names. Though I won't be thanking you all directly, please know that I massively appreciate you all and I'm humbled by the support this story gets. Seriously, thank you all so much.

This chapter was episode three! Unlike the episode two timeline, I decided to change my approach and not adapt everything word for word from the anime. Instead, we get a more condensed version with some focus on Sosa and co., as well as yet another OC floating around in the mix. Hopefully this was much more enjoyable to read than an episode transcript with some extra flair.

Next chapter will release in December, as part of my ten-year fanfic anniversary special! Until then, I also released a JW&C AU one shot over the summer titled "We Still Had the Radio." It jumps way ahead in canon and introduces an OC that won't have anything to do in the JW&C universe for ages to come, but it is more Sosa. Check it out if you're interested.

Now, I have some books to open, dinner to eat, and NaNoWriMo to catch up on. Please look forward to the next chapter!

-Avi

[11.19.2018]