Jokes, Whims, & Coincidences

By: Aviantei

Chapter Seventeen, Curiosity Reigning

Tekichu Sosa: Tactical Investigation


Kanra: So, I banned that troll that was bothering us~
Kakkoii_chan: But you're still here, Kanra!
Kanra: Very funny
Setton: So things should go back to normal.
Tanaka Taro: Let's hope so…
Kanra: Have you heard the latest about the Yellow Scarves? They got hit by the Slasher yesterday.
Tanaka Taro: What are the Yellow Scarves?
Kakkoii_chan: Oh yeah, you moved here not too long ago, right Taro-chan?
Kakkoii_chan: The Yellow Scarves are a color gang that fell apart last year

Sitting on the morning train to Shinjuku with my fingers still poised over my phone's keyboard, I considered my next words. Since Tanaka Taro-chan was Ryuugamine Mikado—Aiako-chan's precious senpai and Masaomi-chan's friend—I wondered if it would be mean to mention his close friend had once been the Yellow Scarves leader. Before I could even start typing, Izaya had swiftly switched the topic.

Kanra: I wonder if the Slasher's part of the Dollars?
Tanaka Taro: They can't be!
Tanuki Usagi: I don't think the Dollars would be a part of something like that
Kanra: There might be a war brewing~
Setton: I agree with Usagi—I don't see the Dollars doing something like that
Kanra: You guys are no fun!
Tanuki Usagi: Oh, crap, is it that time already?! I gotta get going
Tanaka Taro: I should actually be going, too
Tanaka Taro: Busy day ahead!

Tanuki Usagi has left the room
Tanaka Taro has left the room

I chuckled a bit. It was far too easy to imagine both Aiako and Mikado getting so caught up in chatting that they almost forgot to leave for school on time. Not wanting Izaya to think I wasn't being punctual, I excused myself from the chat as well. Sure, it was a nice distraction from the clusterfuck of a train around me, but I needed to get my brain in the zone. Based on Izaya's hyper mood in the chat, I had a busy day ahead of me, too.

No sooner than I was about to tuck my phone back into my pocket, the screen lit up in a call. I answered it before my ringtone could even kick in. "'Morning, Linda-chan," I said, switching into English for a moment. We'd quickly traded numbers after meeting at Russia Sushi the other day. "If you're skipping out on school, I'm gonna have to tell your brother—you know that, right?"

"I'm on my way to school right now, thank you very much!" I could just picture the indignant pout on her face. Still, having Linda's response in English implied that she wasn't calling me for a way to pass the time on her commute. Taking advantage of the space I'd been able to secure, I leaned back into the seat cushion. "But, look, I wanted to ask you something, Sosa. Do you know anything about someone named Harima Mika?"

Harima Mika? I repeated the name in my head, but nothing came to mind. "It's not familiar. Why? Did something happen?"

"Ah, yeah, she's a friend of a friend who apparently went missing recently. I talked with Masaomi, and he said you know that Orihara Izaya guy—the info broker? I just wasn't sure if you heard anything from him or not."

From the sounds of it, Masaomi hadn't quite told Linda the whole story, but that wasn't any of my business. "Gotcha," I said, taking a moment to think it over once more. I handled so many nonsense papers that I'd lost track of the names on them all, but I didn't think I'd read something like that. "I mean, we've messed with some missing kids cases before—" the incident with dear old Magenta-chan in particular "—but this Mika-chan wasn't one of them."

"Damn." Between Linda's grumbles, there was a sound like clicking fingers on the other end of the line. "Well, there goes that option. Thanks for putting up with me, Sosa."

"Not a problem. You at least gave me something interesting to think about, so it's not like you wasted my time or anything." He'd probably scold me for talking that way around his sister, but Linda herself didn't seem to mind. "Hey, how about this? If I hear anything, I'll let you know. Feel free to mail me some info and I'll look into it."

"You mean it?" Even though we weren't talking face to face, I still nodded. Linda seemed to get the message. "You're the bomb, Sosa! Thanks a bunch!"

Before I could even give a response, Linda had already hung up the phone in her excitement. Hopefully she would remember to switch back over to Japanese by the time she got to school. Well, even if she didn't, she'd be able to roll with it. Just like her brother, she had some pretty thick skin.

As the train pulled into the station, I pulled myself to my feet and went to work.


When it came down to my usual work routine, it tended to be a mix of picking things up from the city, comparing data sheets, and going out on visits—with or without Izaya in tow. Some days were full to the brim with tasks, while others were more relaxed, allowing for plenty of indulgence in personal projects. I'd been hoping for the latter so that I could look into Linda's Harima Mika case, but that didn't seem to be in the cards. Izaya had easily stocked me up on miscellaneous tasks for the morning, so I didn't even get a free moment until lunch.

"You're pretty popular with the ladies, aren't you, Izaya-kun?" I asked as I opened up my can of coffee. Izaya stopped mid-slurp of his udon (I know, it's shocking to think he could eat something besides otoroo) to raise an eyebrow at me. On the kitchen table beside me, I flipped through the stack of papers he'd given me related to his meetings from yesterday. "I'm just saying, you did nothing but hang out with girls yesterday."

Izaya made a flawless transition between slurping up his noodles into a smirk. "Don't go getting jealous, Sosa-chan."

I rolled my eyes as I popped a bite of karage into my mouth. "If anyone's going to be jealous, it's Shiki-no-danna. Taking on extra work for the Fujimoto-kai like that." Not that Izaya had let me handle that one. I got stuck with Maki-chan's intel gathering, which wasn't awful—just significantly less fun. "But, hey, I'm just the hired help. Don't mind me."

"It'd be much easier if I didn't have to mind you," Izaya said, though his voice didn't have any malice. He picked up another bite of udon with his chopsticks, letting the noodles cool off for a few moments. "But if you bring up topics like that out of nowhere, I don't know what else you expect me to assume other than you're jealous."

"Can't someone make small talk?" I asked, even though we both knew well enough that the only point of such conversations was to try and get some useful information. "I was just thinking that if you knew your way around the ladies then you might happen to know about someone named Harima Mika-chan."

It wasn't a subtle grab at information in the slightest, but there wasn't much of a point in trying to talk circles around Izaya, either. No matter how well Izaya controlled his expression, I still caught the flash of recognition in his eyes. "Now, now, Sosa-chan, where'd you happen to hear that name?"

"I told you that I'm capable of digging into things on my own, Izaya-kun." I hummed a bit, taking my time in slurping up my own udon. Familiar with the conversational control tactic, Izaya just watched. "I heard an interesting rumor is all, so I figured that I'd see if you knew anything about it." I grinned as I held up a finger. "And it looks like I was right. Pin-pon, it's a point for Sosa!"

"Yes, yes, congratulations, Sosa-chan. Not bad." Setting aside his chopsticks for a moment, Izaya leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "Let me guess. You happened to hear that Mika-chan's been missing for a bit, hm?"

Considering that Izaya's whole job consisted of knowing things, it wasn't too surprising that he knew that. Linda-chan had mentioned that she went missing 'recently,' but that could mean anything in Linda time. "I take it this is old news to you then, Izaya-kun."

"Something like that." Just like my earlier tactic, he wasn't being subtle about keeping things from me at all. "Before I go too far, I guess I should be asking what you plan to do with this information. Are you planning on adding Mika-chan to your little haphazard collection of toys?"

"That depends on if she's worth it." Unlike Izaya, I had no intentions of stopping eating just to have a conversation. Izaya glanced back to me, looking amused even as I chewed through my latest bite of karage. "All in all, I'm just curious. Missing kids aren't that uncommon in the city from what I take it, but it can be interesting to see what happened. Besides, if she's on your radar, there needs to be at least something amusing involved, am I right?"

"You're not wrong." Izaya sat up again, shrugging as he went. "Personally, I've been hoping that things work out well, so we might have something fun on our hands." I leaned forward, almost dunking my hair in my udon broth. "Knowing you, you won't be satisfied at all unless I tell you the whole story. Go ahead and eat up. We'll take a little field trip together."

I pumped my fist, setting to work on devouring the rest of my lunch in record time.


From the outside, Yagiri Pharmaceuticals looked like any other boring business operation. The grounds had several different buildings, all painted pure white, with afternoon sunlight reflecting off their windows. I did my best to hop up high enough to see past the concrete fence surrounding the premises, but all I got was a blur of green from the trees planted around the area.

"Hey, hey, Izaya-kun. Why do I feel like I've heard the name Yagiri Pharma somewhere before?" I asked, still bouncing, even though it wasn't getting my any results.

Izaya sighed. "Honestly, does everything you work on go in one ear and out the other?" I pouted a bit, turning to Izaya as he stepped up to my side. With the clean street and white concrete wall, his all black attire stuck out like a sore thumb. "Yagiri Pharmaceuticals routinely comes to us looking for recommendations of people to pick up. Then again, they do it through others, but still. Remember the guys I had kidnap Mazenda-san?"

I tapped my fist against the palm of my hand in recognition. "Ah, yeah, I got it!" I'd kind of forgotten about them because they'd been so insignificant, but once Izaya said it, I could at least remember that they existed, though not necessarily what they looked like. "So those losers are running around doing work for Yagiri Pharma? What the hell do they need kidnapped people for?"

"Human experimentation." Well, that was just delightful. As far as I was concerned, though, they could cut up as many humans as they liked. Even with his whole "I love humans" thing, Izaya didn't look too concerned by the concept, either. "They have a bunch of different projects that are pushing the bounds of rationality a bit, so they need some extra bodies—usually unwilling ones."

I crossed my arms and looked back to the buildings. "So you're telling me that Mika-chan was one of those experiments?" Thinking back, the bunch of fucks who had handled kidnapping Magenta-chan seemed to think she fit nicely into their targets. I didn't know what Yagiri Pharma was doing, but Harima Mika couldn't have been too far off from what they were looking for—and I wasn't looking forward to telling Linda if that was the case.

I mean, if I have to give her news like that, then—

"You're getting ahead of the story, Sosa-chan," Izaya said, pulling me from my thoughts. He wandered back towards one of the nearby trees, leaning against its trunk. "Harima Mika-chan wasn't meant to be an experiment. She was just the product of unfortunate circumstances—or, I guess, with her point of view, she probably thinks she's rather fortunate."

I frowned, feeling even my forehead scrunch up in the process. Izaya was enjoying talking in circles a little too much. "If you start saying things like that, Izaya-kun, it's going to sound an awful lot like you know Mika-chan."

"And another point for Sosa-chan." Izaya gave me a short burst of golf claps, and I dipped forward in a bow with one arm crossed over my chest. By the time I straightened myself up, Izaya was gazing over my head, looking back at the pharmaceutical buildings behind us. "Would you like the full story or the abridged version?"

"I mean I get paid, so go for the long version!"

Izaya shrugged as I skipped over to his tree perch and leaned against its side. A passing breeze stirred the tree leaves above us on the otherwise quiet street. I watched the branches rattle against each other for a few minutes, then closed my eyes as I listened to Izaya tell me the story of Harima Mika.

About the stalking.

About the way she'd been attacked for seeing something she shouldn't have.

About the surgery to look like someone different, so that she could be with the one she loved.

And about how Izaya was keeping tabs on her, giving little pokes and prods whenever he thought it would make things more interesting. And while that whole story was well and good, I found myself more interested in another detail that Izaya had mentioned in the process.

"So these guys are the ones who have Celty's head, huh?" All of a sudden, the dull-looking office building seemed a lot more interesting. If I actually had the capacity to break into the place undetected, it would be a no-brainer what my next day off would look like. Sadly, though, since I lacked those skills, even I had to scrap that plan. "Sheesh, what are they even trying to do with something like that? You don't think you can convert a Dullahan into medicine or anything do you?"

"If that were the case, it would be a complete waste, don't you think?" Izaya asked. Even I had to agree. Sure, I wasn't even remotely sure what you could do with a part of a Dullahan (other than make Celty panic), but there had to be a much better use than that. Izaya's gaze followed mine, and we both stared down the peaceful buildings. "No, as far as I can tell, the head's there simply because of fascination—or because they're trying to keep it safe from someone who's too fascinated with it." Izaya snickered. "Well, that about sums up what's going on with Harima Mika-chan. Does that satisfy you?"

I nodded, hopping away from the tree so that Izaya and I were facing each other again. "Yuppers! You've proven once again to be a great source of entertainment, Izaya-kun!" It probably wasn't the kind of story that Linda wanted to hear, but I thought it was great. Sure, the actions of those involved were foolish when you looked at it from a critical lens, but even I could see that there was a chance for something interesting to come from it all. "Now, lemme guess, we have some business to take care of? Or you need me to go bother Maki-chan again? I can do that."

Izaya pulled out his phone to confirm the time, and I let him take care of all the organizational stuff. Sure, I was good at it, but things were a lot more fun just going along for the ride.

"Oh, Orihara-kun, what are you doing out here?"

I didn't recognize the voice, but Izaya (big surprise) did. Heading out of the Yagiri Pharmaceuticals compound was a man with glasses and dark brown hair cut just above his shoulders. He was wearing a lab coat over a button up and a tie, and the bag at his side suggested he was a doctor, though I didn't see any ID card that identified him as one of Yagiri's. In one of the strangest reactions yet, the man actually smiled as he approached Izaya, one hand raised in a friendly wave.

"Shinra," Izaya said, and I automatically attached the face to the name. "I'm simply conducting some business out here. I'm guessing that the same holds true for you?"

Shinra nodded, gesturing to his bag. "When duty calls, you know… Oh, but I don't think I've met you before."

He was looking right at me, so there wasn't any doubt as to who he was talking about. "Tekichu Sosa."

"Kishitani Shinra," he said, even though I didn't have much use for his family name. "It's nice to meet you. I'm an old friend of Orihara-kun's and an underground doctor."

Someone was actually willing to call Izaya a friend? He didn't even look like an underground doctor. I glanced Izaya, eyebrows raised. Izaya whacked my arm. "Since this one doesn't have any real manners, I guess I'll have to say it," he said, gesturing to me. "Sosa-chan here is my new assistant at work. We were just having an instructional lesson."

Shinra nodded, not even bothering to question the statement. "Well, maybe you should be careful. I hear that Shizuo-kun's been in a bad mood lately."

"When isn't Shizu-chan in a bad mood?" Though he kept his voice calm, I still caught the slightest twitch of Izaya's expression.

"Well, that's fair," Shinra said a with a laugh. He checked his watch, then his face lit up in excitement. "Oh, I know! We haven't gotten to catch up in a while, Orihara-kun. Why don't you two come over to my place for a bit?"

"We're in!" I said before Izaya could even start to think the offer over. I had to know about this person who was willing to put up with Izaya like that. Izaya grimaced as my raised hand almost whacked him in the face, but he didn't protest. "We're in your care, Shinra-chan! Oh, oh, would it be alright if I invited a friend along?"

"Sure! The more the merrier!"


[Author's Notes]

Hey there, folks! Hope you're doing well. We're in the phase of canon where Sosa can learn important things with intermingling chatrooms from canon. Plus I finally get to introduce Shinra! I heckin' love Shinra!

Thanks shizuchan510, CoffeeCrazyChipmunk, and Okamishiru for the faves and follows! I appreciate your support, and it makes my day whenever I see an alert pop up!

At some point, Sosa had to figure out about the Harima Mika nonsense. The real question is whether she's gonna spill the beans or not.

As an aside, I'm currently in the process of crossposting my fics to AO3 - including this one! Feel free to read on whatever platform you prefer, and I'd appreciate the support there as well.

Next time, Sosa and Shinra in the same room; Izaya is not pleased. Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[08.19.2019]