A/N: Chapter three! I have an updating schedule now, and I'll tell you that in a moment. I just want to write my little blurb first. First of all, I would like to thank you guys for your wonderful feedback so far, as that means a lot to me. I'm perfectly nervous posting this story, and I'm terrified that I'll destroy characters along the way. However, you've all assured me I'm doing well and that means a lot to me. Now, my 'beta' of sorts, the person who tells me that the chapter is good for public consumption, tells me that this chapter is 'different' from the rest, and I think I know why. Mikado is starting to grow up a little more. He's a young boy, but nearing the age of nine/ten, little boys start growing up, and so, the writing needs to grow up as well. Mikado cannot be adorable for the rest of his story, as he won't be a child forever. On that same note, he will always have a sense of naïvety about him, and that's important to remember. Even as he grows up around the people he will, even as he changes due to his surroundings and his 'family' and the friends he makes, Mikado will always retain a sort of innocence, even if at one point it is kind of 'warped' in a way. I find this important to note, as a lot of young adults and teenagers these days lose their sense of innocence really fast, and I don't want Mikado to lose his. It's integral to his character.

Anyhow, my update schedule will be Wednesdays and Saturdays. I chose these days because they work best for me. I will not, however, be updating Saturday, December 25th, or Saturday, January 1st, for obvious reasons (these being Christmas and New Years). I will update the Sundays then.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Durarara! belongs to its respective copyright owners.

He had thrown the desk because he was annoyed at some of his classmates.

At least, that was what Shinra said. Mikado wasn't sure if that was the real reason, or if that was what was rumoured to be the reason. After all, rumours in classrooms spread like wildfire; Mikado would not be surprised if Shinra had heard some people talking about Heiwajima Shizuo and his desk-throwing capabilities, and had latched on to the first explanation he heard. Shinra was like that sometimes. Like this one time Shinra had heard from some teenagers near the video game store that people who played a certain game had their minds sucked into the consoles. This had been shortly after Shingen had bought the apartment a new game console. Shinra did not go near it for a week.

Shinra would not stop talking about Heiwajima Shizuo after that initial day he rushed into the apartment exclaiming that the boy had thrown a desk. Celty did not seem to mind, probably used to his personality after 10 years of living with him and his father, but Mikado was starting to get tired of him talking over and over about the classmate. So, to silence him, he asked if he could meet Heiwajima Shizuo, to 'meet this person Shinra-san was so keen on'.

He was not sure what he was expecting when he went that weekend with Shinra to go see his classmate. He had imagined some large, bleached-blonde haired psycho with tattoos and an evil eye. So when he was led into a room and faced with a completely normal, if disgruntled looking boy near Shinra's age and probably a little taller than him, Mikado was both relieved and disappointed.

"Shizuo-kun! This is my little brother Mikado-kun, the one I've talked about! Well, he's not really my little brother but it's just easier to introduce him like that so people don't ask questions." Shinra turned to Mikado then, smiling brightly. "Mikado-kun, this is Heiwajima Shizuo-kun!"

Mikado nodded politely, watching as Heiwajima Shizuo looked him over once before grunting and looking away. There was a bottle of milk on his bedside table, stupidly placed on the side with his broken arm. Mikado watched as he struggled to sit up and get it, wondering if he had broken his arm from throwing the desk or from exerting his body past its physical capabilities. After watching the boy grumble darkly under his breath, his neck turning red and a vein popping out from his temple, Mikado walked over to his bedside, grabbed the milk and opened it, handing it over to Shinra's friend and classmate.

A silence fell over them for a moment, Heiwajima Shizuo looking at him with suspicious and surprised eyes, Mikado looking back with simple, polite curiousity. After a tense pause, Heiwajima Shizuo took the milk with a muttered 'thanks' and gulped down half of it in one go.

Mikado decided that, though a bit strange, Heiwajima Shizuo seemed like a very nice, shy person. And that he would like to get to know him very much.

A new student was introduced into one of the other classes two weeks after Mikado met Heiwajima Shizuo. He was said to come from the same place that Mikado used to live, and he already seemed to be very popular amongst his classmates. Though everyone had lunch at the same time, Mikado never did see the new student, and so he did not bother to try and find him. He would meet him when he would meet him, and he wouldn't go to the effort of trying to find him just for him to be annoying or something.

Mikado was not what one would call 'popular' in school. He focused on his studies, handed his homework in on time, did the necessary gym work and had contemplated joining a club before deciding that he did not want to, as it would take away from his studying. For an eight-year-old, he was very keen on keeping on top of his studies. Celty found this slightly worrying, as she had always thought children were meant to be playful and curious about everything. Shinra thought it was fine if Mikado kept to himself, as each child was different. So while children in his class ran around outside and played games of tag, hide-and-seek and grounders, Mikado stayed in the shade of the trees usually and read a book.

He did have a few friends in school, of course. There was a boy his age that was very intense in everything he did named Yagiri Seiji who had an older sister around Shinra's age. Though the two called themselves 'friends' at school, they mostly just sat together at lunch, walked a bit home together and usually ended up sharing class-cleaning duties. Outside of that, they rarely saw one another, and so Mikado was more a loner than anything. Not that he minded this too much; he had Shinra and Celty, who he cared for very much, and that's all that really mattered to him.

However, the new boy in the school interested him, even though he had never seen him. He was from the same country town that he was, and he was his age. It made him wonder, was it someone he knew before he had run away? Was it someone he had been friends with, someone he cared for a great deal in the sixth grade? Thoughts like these brought Kida Masaomi to mind, and he wondered how his old best friend was doing. He still considered Kida-kun to be his best friend, even if they had not spoken in a couple of years and they hadn't stayed in touch in any way. He regretted losing Kida-kun as a friend, as he was someone he had looked up to very much when he was six.

His thoughts stayed cluttered that day, both with thoughts of the new student and of Kida-kun, so that when he left the school after last class, he was very surprised to see Shinra standing there with a grin.

"Hello, Shinra-san," Mikado greeted, looking at him curiously. "Why are you here?"

"Shizuo-kun asked if I'd get you today," he said with a smile. "He has a little brother that's a couple years younger than him, and he's agreed to let you meet him."

"Why?"

"Well, Celty…and I, I guess, are worried about you. You're really smart Mikado-kun, but you don't really have any friends. Yagiri-kun doesn't count." Shinra looked at him with the fond look Mikado often saw him using when it came to him. He knew that Shinra always explained that calling him his 'little brother' was just easier than trying to explain their living situation, but in reality Shinra did see him as a little brother. He did not mind that he was seen as such; Shinra was like an older brother to him. Strange, a little scatterbrained, but at the same time a good older brother if he had ever seen one.

"All right, then," Mikado agreed with a nod, shifting his book bag on his shoulder, heavy with that day's homework. "Shall we go?"

"Yep!" Shinra placed a hand on his shoulder and steered him in the right direction to the hospital, walking down the sidewalk and talking a mile a minute about Heiwajima Shizuo's little brother. Mikado half listened, wanting to meet the boy before he placed an image on him.

They arrived at the hospital shortly after and were escorted into Shinra's friend's room just in time to see Heiwajima Shizuo throwing an IV rack at the wall opposite of his bed. Mikado froze in his step, eyes widening and mouth dropping open in surprise. He looked over at the boy then to see him panting angrily, eyes narrowed and teeth clenched in a grimace while a calm looking boy with a flat expression and black hair sat beside him, quietly drinking a bottle of milk.

"Ah, Shizuo-kun! Be careful with your arm! Why did you throw the IV rack today?"

Today?

"'Cause the damn dripping was getting on my nerves!" The angry teen shouted, eyes sliding over to Mikado to see him staring at him with surprise in his eyes. Surprise, but not fear. That seemed to calm him down, for whatever reason, and he sagged back against his pillows, sighing tiredly. "Whatever, they'll just replace it like always."

"It's still not a good idea to waste hospital equipment like that, Shizuo-kun! It's very expensive!" Shinra sighed as his friend simply shrugged, before he turned to Mikado and smiled. "Ah, right, I brought Mikado-kun with me! Is this your little brother..?"

"Kasuka," Shizuo said softly, looking over at his brother as he turned to look at his guests, lifting a hand in greeting. "These two are….eh…"

"Haha, Shizuo-kun forgot my name again. I'm Kishitani Shinra, and this is my little brother, Ryuugamine Mikado."

"Ryuugamine?"

Kasuka's voice was soft, void of most emotions, and quiet. Mikado got the feeling that out of the two brothers, Kasuka got all of the tranquility and Shizuo got all of the temperament. He found that to be interesting, as he had only seen polar opposites like that in anime and manga. He hadn't known that people like that actually existed.

"I'm adopted," Mikado said softly before Shinra could go into his long and complicated explanation to their different last names. "Shinra-san's guardian took me in two years ago, and Shinra-san just calls me his little brother for simplicity's sake."

Kasuka stared at him for a moment, his dark eyes seemingly looking straight through him into his very core before he slowly nodded and finished his milk. He stood up then and walked over to Mikado, looking down at him from the slight height advantage he had over the younger boy. Mikado stared back at him to see what he would do when he suddenly flinched due to the fact that Kasuka was now rubbing his hair like an adult would pat a child's head after an accomplishment. He wasn't sure how he felt about this treatment.

"What's in your bag?" Kasuka asked then, dropping his hand and looking at the book bag with an expression that had a vague sense of interest to it. Mikado shrugged his bag off, opening it and showing his homework. "Do you need help?"

He was about to say 'no' when he looked up and saw Heiwajima Shizuo and Shinra looking at them with different expressions; Heiwajima Shizuo was interested, with a bit of confusion, while Shinra was looking expectant and excited. Inwardly sighing, he turned back to Kasuka and nodded once.

"Sure."

Mikado had started to spend more time with Kasuka after the first time. The older boy had realized that Mikado was capable of doing his homework by himself, but he enjoyed helping Mikado, so the younger allowed him to. They did not talk much and when they did it was usually about school, or a manga that Mikado had seen in the book store, or about Heiwajima-san's condition. A week after Kasuka and Mikado had first met, Kasuka's older brother was allowed out of the hospital and back to school, where Shinra made it his mission to spend as much time as possible with the other boy.

Mikado thought it was interesting, Shinra's friendship with Heiwajima-san. They did not match up very well, and Mikado was sure Shinra annoyed the other boy more than he should. Shinra would always talk about how amazing Heiwajima-san was, with his ability to toss objects bigger and heavier than him with apparent ease. He theorized that Heiwajima-san was able to sort of 'turn off' the connection between his body and his brain when it came to using his physical strength, as the brain only allowed the human body to handle what it could and not more.

Mikado was never sure why Shinra felt the need to explain this to him, as he was not particularly interested in how Heiwajima-san's body and brain worked. But oh well.

In comparison, Mikado's friendship with Kasuka was a good match. They were both quiet, both generally liked the same things, and they both had a soothing effect on Heiwajima-san and Shinra. When Shinra started to get overly excited, Mikado would usually tell him to calm down as he was hyperventilating, and that was all that needed to be done. Similarly, whenever Heiwajima-san was about to throw a trash bin or a nearby vending machine, Kasuka would appear with a bottle of milk and some flat words, deflating his anger.

Of course, Mikado did not spend the majority of his time with Shinra, Heiwajima-san or Kasuka. He spent a bit of his time after school with the three older boys and then, once he was done his homework or he felt he had spent enough time with them, he would head home and spend some time with the woman who adopted him, Celty.

Celty was still a mystery to Mikado, even though he had known her for two, going on three years of his life. She had taken him in with no other reason than she was able; she had given him a home and a family, even if it was warped. She had helped him when he had grieved for his parents, allowed him to forget them in his grief and anger, and yet she was still as confusing as she had been that first night, looking down at him with her dark, opaque visor and typing out words instead of talking like everyone else.

At first Mikado had thought Celty was mute, but then he had met a mute girl in school. He had watched her talk to her mother using hand symbols that she had obviously learned a long time ago, as she used them as fluently as people used words. He had asked Celty about it later, and she had told him she wasn't mute, exactly; she could not speak due to special circumstances, as she had initially told him. However, just like before, she did not explain the special circumstances and Mikado, sensing an uncomfortable topic, left it alone.

It was not that he minded that he did not know much about his adoptive mother, as he saw her. Celty was naturally a very private person, he could tell that immediately. She did not allow anyone near her room unless she led them in there first. No one was allowed near her motorcycle unless she gave express permission. No one was allowed to log onto her computer unless she gave the okay. This did not make her some sort of unfair, freakishly protective person, though. Celty was an adult woman, and she had very few possessions. The ones she did have, she kept close to her, and she did not want anything to happen to them, so she took good care of them. Mikado had ridden on her motorcycle countless times, watched her search the web and even got her to help him type out a paper he had to hand into his class the next day.

The one thing he did wish to know, though, was why Celty insisted on wearing her motorcycle helmet whenever he was in the room. It was the only thing about his adoptive mother that he did not like or understand in the slightest, and it made him feel as though she did not trust him.

He did not like the thought of Celty not trusting him.

It was his ninth birthday when he finally learned why Celty hid underneath her helmet all of the time.

The day had started out normally enough. His birthday had, luckily, hit upon a weekend that year and so he did not have to go to classes and could spend the day as he pleased. So he started it by sleeping in, for once. Mikado was not one for sleeping in; he rose when the sun did, and went to bed when the sun did. Shinra often called him weird, being a kid who did not want to stay up at all hours of the night; Celty seemed to appreciate it, though.

He had been woken up around eleven by Shinra and Kasuka, who had been invited over for his birthday party (that he was apparently having). When he was dragged out of bed, bathed and dressed, he folded up his futon and put it where it was supposed to go, walking to the kitchen to have some cereal and watch Shinra and Kasuka play a video game on their console. Celty had taken the day off of work, and so was sitting next to him, laughing in her silent way as Shinra was defeated brutally by the ever-stoic Kasuka.

As the day had progressed, the four of them thought up different activities to do and games to play, such as Twister, Truth or Dare, Lies, and Have I Ever. They watched a movie about aliens that seemed to scare Celty, and then Shinra left them to make dinner.

Dinner was a loud affair, for once. Heiwajima-san had been invited over, and so Shinra and he were making a ruckus while Celty, Mikado and Kasuka all watched with interested expressions (or auras, when it came to Celty). The cake was brought out, cut and eaten, the presents were given, and then after about an hour or so of just sitting around and talking Kasuka and Heiwajima-san went home, leaving Shinra, Celty and Mikado to clean up.

Mikado would have cleaned up, at least, if he had been allowed to. However, he was banished from the kitchen on account of him 'being the birthday boy', and so he had grabbed his presents (a CD player and a CD he had been interested in from Kasuka and Heiwajima-san, a calendar from Celty to keep his life organized and a computer set up from Shinra, who promised to set it up for him on a later date) and disappeared to his room. At some point, listening to his CD and laying on his unfolded futon, Mikado had fallen asleep.

He had woken up a few hours later, the sun long gone and the moon high up in the sky. Getting up, he walked out of his room towards the living room, where he saw Shinra sprawled out on the couch, snoring with his mouth open and his stomach showing. He grinned at the sight, shaking his head at the older boy and finding a blanket nearby, draping it over him carefully. He then went to explore where Celty was, to find her in her room with the door slightly opened.

He walked up to the door, raising his hand to knock when he looked inside and saw, for the first time, Celty without her helmet.

Her neck was long and swanlike, quite beautiful really, and that was about it. Where her head should have been was instead a seemingly vast pit of darkness and shadow, smoke and another kind of substance floating around her. His eyes widened at the sight, his mouth dropping open slightly in surprise and wonder. It was almost like watching Heiwajima-san throw a trash bin at some random stranger on the road, but fifty times better. Heiwajima-san always managed to injure himself or at least destroy the surrounding area. Celty, however, was beautiful. He wasn't attracted to her in any way, of course not; Celty was his adoptive mother. Yet she was still beautiful.

She melded with the shadows, so much like a fairytale that he was unsure that she was real for a moment.

Suddenly, the door opened and he looked up to see her seemingly staring down at him, her shoulders tense, her knuckles white. He blinked up at her, cocking his head to the side, before he reached a hand up in curiousity. He could tell she was unsure, yet she still bowed down so that his fingers could touch the end of her neck, the cool smoke running through his fingers and over his skin like iced silk.

"…Are you a fairy?" he asked softly, looking at where he supposed her eyes would be. She shrugged, not having her PDA, and he made a mental note to look up what she was later, or at least ask her. "…Were you afraid to show me?"

She moved her neck in a nod and he frowned, tugging on her collar. She knelt down in front of him so that they were 'eye' level, and he looked straight into the smoky shadows that surrounded her. "I would never be afraid of you. You're my momma."

Time seemed to freeze in that moment, Celty in her nightgown kneeling before Mikado, Mikado touching the side of her neck with a look of pure honesty. He was suddenly enfolded into the woman's arms, brought close for a hug, and he wrapped his arms around her happily, squeezing her.

He took the hug to mean 'thank you', even if in reality it meant something much, much more.