Author's Note: You guys have probably noticed it's been a while since the last update, but now I'm alive and more inspired than ever to write for the Durarara fandom on a constant basis. Season two being split into three, gorgeous cour's, is an honest dream come true for me. I've been waiting for years for the Light Novel's to be animated in their entirety to the very end, and low and behold, now they are. Anyways, given the weird and surprisingly positive reactions this idea of an AU got me from all you readers, I'm going to continue it and finish it. I hope that you like what I come up with, though given the different circumstances the characters might behave a tad differently. Thanks for sticking with me.

I went back and edited the previous chapters so they'd flow better as well, seeing as my writing style changed just a bit since when I first posted this. I hope it's for the better and not the worst.

Warnings: Some disturbing content, and tons of Kida's self-loathing.

【As soon as their is life, there is danger】

Masaomi tripped long ago, and he's been in a perennial state of falling ever since.

As he held a semi-automatic pistol in his trembling right hand, pointed at a guy no older then he was, he had presumed his downward plunge (more like an awful, painful push, face first into his personal hell) had started with his youthful folly. His need for little things with no one to outright reject him, gaining speed with his lack of luster responses, finally caused him to crash when he didn't have the skills to avoid the unavoidable.

In a small house, in a small town, his childhood wasn't necessarily filled with a direct yes or no, but with an echo that seemed to go anywhere but its intended direction. Masaomi was sure he wasn't bothered by it, but in some ways maybe he was. Childish whims, left unfulfilled by wordless head turns and blank stares, weren't responsible for his position but would eventually play a role in waltzing him towards it.

When he was less informed, less smudged, shining positively in the glow of total ignorance he'd wonder to himself if the outcome could have been different. If he'd been raised in an average, mediocre home, or looked after by kind, doting parents who only wanted what was best for him... would he still be here?

Stupidity is what brought him to Ikebukuro and stupidity was inherently his. So yes, he would still be in this melodramatic, laughable, television scenario even under those rose-colored circumstances. He'd been serious about moving to Ikebukuro. Devastatingly curious. A bright eyed, young and hopeful thing who blindly trusted the unknown was full of pious intentions, completely unaware that beneath every coat of gold lay a thick layer of grime.

Although it was mostly his fault, his upbringing did play a minor role in his motivation and insisting otherwise would be an ingenuous amount of slander. After all, when he left his parents at that untimely, ripe age of thirteen—on the cusp of awareness, but not quite—it was partly due to having no one to tell him otherwise. But who really knew if getting told off like any other teenage boy would have had its merits?

Sure it might have at least planted the seed of doubt that could have saved him from his current lease on life, but he honestly doubted it would have worked out that way. Though it would have certainly boosted his morale if his parents acknowledged the sound of their only son walking straight past their door.

Masaomi remembered that waving his hands around, gesticulating wildly at them didn't do much in the long run but make him look spastic. Which at times he could be. He was born transparent and he knew that any normal person wouldn't develop the necessary ESP to see him.

The shock came fast and hard when he stepped foot in Ikebukuro, and saw how easily that transparency was rotted off and shed like a separate skin. It left him tangible, struggling blindly in his now palpable existence, and Masaomi hadn't known what to do or who to reach out to until an outstretched hand emerged from the confusion...-

"I'm Izaya Orihara..."

【-...and showed him just how alive he could truly be.】

"Open it!" Masaomi found himself barking intensely, and Mikado flinched at the tone, gazing forlornly at the vault. Then he turned his blue eyes to him and Masaomi saw something he couldn't make out in Mikado's face. He no longer looked small or disoriented, but like he'd uncovered something deep inside of his mangled soul and was resolved to confront and dissect it.

It stunted him. So much so that Masaomi found he couldn't do a thing but give Mikado a rough shove, just so he wouldn't have to look at him anymore. He gestured with the gun towards the safe, which was beyond the teller's counter, and he could feel every nerve in his body tingle and every bead of perspiration bubble against his skin. Mikado just swallowed then nodded, moving completely towards it. Masaomi stared blankly as the other dropped to his knees in front of the number pad and began to slowly decipher what was in front of him. Masaomi just clenched his jaw.

He deserved this.

Masaomi was positive nothing could save him from the variation of faults that made him who he was today and lead him here. He was a punk. "Damaged..." Masaomi could hear the words whispered in his ear now, and he wanted to cave into himself at the memory. Of pale fingers wrapping around the smooth curve of his neck and pressing ever slightly. "Damaged and gift-wrapped extraordinarily... " And he learned to live with that handicap. It made him who he was.

If he was suddenly and miraculously repaired, Masaomi would undoubtedly destroy himself. He was sure of it. Since Masaomi Kida was smudged, flawed from the moment he broke out into the world and robbed it of a single breath, now that's all he was good for. Taking things that weren't his.

"Step back," He warned when Mikado's fingers stopped moving, and the door to the vault began to open slowly.

Masaomi drew in a shaky breath.

If only he could rob the world of himself.

Two years ago

"Kida, what the hell's a matter with you? We've got a party of eight coming in right now. Get a move on!"

Masaomi was surprised when he miraculously maneuvered around the busy floor with a few menus, a pitcher of water, and that same blindingly cheesy smile that threatened to crack apart his face. He was at his third job, a dingy restaurant around Sunshine City, and it was packed. Ever since a Taiwanese place nearly got busted a day ago for smuggling narcotics in their Pad Thai, business has boomed. But it wasn't the food or anything that brought people in. Week old sushi tasted better than the pasta at Quentantino's. but the the hype of eating next to the site of an undercover drug syndicate gave it flavor.

"Why hello, how are you this evening?" Masaomi said cheerfully to the couple who just sat down, to which he was promptly ignored. Whatever. That's okay. His smile remained plastered on his exhausted face (all thanks to months of practiced ass-kissing) and he stood there calmly as the man glared, muttered something under his breath, then gestured for water.

Ten minutes left till his shift ends. Ten minutes, and he could leave this place, travel back to his craptastic apartment in downtown 'Bukuro, and hopefully get a few hours of sleep before his next job at the Sushi place. Masaomi was making it on his own. Barely. But the fact still remained that he was getting by. Although he thought it would be difficult to get someone to hire him because of his age, he'd learned that to get a gig in this city didn't take much convincing. Child labor laws aside, people didn't look twice if they needed the extra help. A few forged documents, a nice tidy head of hair, and he'd had no trouble getting work.

Masaomi set the pitcher on the table and skillfully poured the beverage into two half-cleaned glasses, all while trying to avoid rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Man, now that he glanced, he'd seen a lot of ugly guys come in an out of this place since he started, but this one took the cake. The person in front of him was a rough looking dude with criss-crossed eyes, a beard like barb wires, and a belly that could rival the size of the Tokyo Imperial Palace. Which made the fact that his date was insanely attractive even more surprising, because she was a ten. The women he was with had large blue eyes, golden hair, and—at a risk of sounding lamely poetic—lips as pink as rose petals.

"My name is Kida," Masaomi said slowly, finding that addressing the gorgeous foreigner was way easier on the eyes. The beginnings of puberty probably caused his gaze to drift to her rack a bit longer than socially acceptable, but no one noticed and he sure didn't mind. "I'll be your waiter for today, okay? What can I get you both?" He smiled wide. "We have a special on the front page of your menu's that I think will blow your mind! If you'll just take a look, I can show-"

"Save us the sale's pitch and get me the shrimp linguine," The man in the booth grumbled, narrowing his eyes. He sure was radiating his own fragrance of dick, but he'd seen that attitude before.

"Ah. Wonderful choice, sir!" Masaomi slapped his hands together, falsely appreciative. His eyes gently met the women's once more. "And what will you be having, miss?"

"Y-Yes... I will... have... " He watched her respond in broken Japanese, but she didn't get a chance to finish. The man, who Masaomi assumed was her husband, rose quickly from the table.

"Damnit. Did I say you could answer, huh?!" The man screamed. "She's getting the same thing I'm getting!"

Masaomi's bogus smile was wiped clean.

"I-I..." The women's mouth flew closed as a resounding crack filled the air, and Masaomi's mouth formed a tight line as he watched her fall back against her seat. She hiccuped, holding her cheek, and then she was slapped again. Harder this time.

Masaomi's fingers twitched to help.

Instead, he settled on lamely looking around, somewhat anxious for his manager to come over and say something. Except no one would. That's just how it is. After ten months of living here, Masaomi came to quickly realize that the city he'd read about on the net wasn't as three dimensional as it seemed. There was as much indifference to the unnatural as their was to the broken water fountain in west gate park, and bordering extreme in some area's to melancholic in others, Ikebukuro was unpredictable yet predictable. It thrived on chaos.

The people here who teetered towards unfiltered corruption like this guy in front of him, or earnest innocence like this hot chick, they never worked out. Because to survive in this jungle Masaomi learned you had to be a little bit of both, which is why he couldn't be the good Samaritan who foolishly butts in on this lovers quarrel, or he'd get eaten alive. He wasn't sure who he was yet in this city, but the tile of hero didn't suit him.

At least that's what he told himself.

But Masaomi Kida knew he was a man of vast contradictions.

Which is why thirty minutes later, he'd find himself walking out of a convenience store, pathetically unemployed, bruised, and harboring a good yen's worth of stolen food products in his hood and jeans. Masaomi couldn't help but shake his head, wondering just why he'd been compelled to get involved in something that had nothing to do with him.

"I'm so beat..." He muttered to himself. Literally and figuratively. He'd been pretty roughed up from trying to help the women when her husband went in for another blow, and no sooner then he lifted a finger to help her he'd been fired on the spot.

Masaomi dug a hand into the pocket of his jeans and sighed, while the other gently kneaded the skin of his bruised jaw. After leaving the restaurant he'd gotten hungry and suddenly craved some melon bread, so here he was. The sun was beginning to set somewhere beyond the tall office building in front of him, and he knew that he'd better get home before the street lights came on, or else he'd get caught in some shady business. His place was just ten minutes away on the bus, but he found he wasn't a public-transportation-kind of guy.

As much as hated to admit it, he got some satisfaction out of the whole scene. He did manage to get a few of his own hits in on the guy, and while he blamed it all on being a sucker for cute girls, Masaomi knew that it had been his own moral high ground he'd been trying to vainly discard that got in the way. Though apparently that code of ethics didn't apply to stealing. He'd been robbing this Family mart of merch for months now and he didn't feel the least bit bad over it.

Masaomi skipped across the street, pulling a bar of chocolate out of his pocket before tearing it open with his teeth. He could barely afford the apartment and electricity, so it was a just cause. Besides with all these minimum wage jobs, food wasn't really expendable, and he never got caught. It wasn't a big deal.

"Come back here you little thief!"

Until now.

Masaomi's body tensed, breaking into a cold sweat. There was no way someone had seen him. He'd been so careful? The teen readied himself to dart into a sprint. If he cut across the alley and jumped over the fence between that comic store and sake bar he would probably be in the clear. And if that didn't work, his boss at Russia Sushi would probably cover for him. Simon was a cool dude as long as you didn't bring any big trouble to the store. He once saw the guy chuck a member of the Yakuza across the street and that was with one hand.

With a game plan in mind, Masaomi prepared to run. But instead of being chewed out, arrested, and probably tackled to the ground, he stopped when he realized that the store owner wasn't chasing after him. But someone else.

A girl stumbled across the street in a pair of worn out sneakers, faded jeans, and a brown jacket. Then as abruptly as she burst into the clearing, she came to a stop in front of him and clutched the hem of his hoodie like a lifeline. Masaomi held his hands up in an unsure motion of what to do, noticing she was probably his age. She had short, honey brown hair, her bangs swept and settled into the middle of her face, and her hands were placed on her shaking knees as she panted heavily. She was trying to say something but he couldn't make it out with how hard she was breathing.

"P-Please..." She whispered shakily.

When she looked up to meet his eyes, her chestnut hues burned into his and Masaomi felt something weird and pleasantly new surface from deep inside. Whether it was a genuine connection or the violent onslaught of puberty, he just couldn't tell. Things had happened far too suddenly. All he knew was that light flutters, like butterfly kisses were tickling from the inside of his stomach, and they'd flew up his throat and squeezed until he couldn't think.

"Kid! Catch her!" The store owner screamed, and Masaomi bit his lip and grabbed her by the hand, which was very soft.

Then they ran.

Masaomi didn't stop running until they were blocks away, out of sight, and sheltered in the comforting glow of a 24-hour arcade. When he finally knew they were safe he crumbled to his knees and laughed. He didn't even know why he was laughing. What just happened was so ridiculous and totally too romantic that he couldn't help but curl against the alley wall of the gaming complex with his arms around his stomach.

"That was crazy!" Masaomi shouted, more to himself, and he wiped away a stray tear as he grinned up at the sky. "I thought we were both doomed for sure. Did you see how long he ran after us? Pfft- at one point he trapeze'd over the cars."

"You're really my hero," Came the light reply, and Masaomi tilted his head up in response to see that the girl he saved was no longer shaken, but watching him calmly with a gentle smile. "You were really brave just now. Thank you for saving me."

"Ah... It was nothing," Masaomi said a little bashfully, scratching his cheek. He felt a little too flushed for some reason. "You really should be careful next time, though. I wouldn't hit that place again, at least not for a while. They'll be looking for you... uh...?"

"Saki. And don't worry, I won't," Saki replied with a giggle, lacing her fingers playfully behind her back. "Besides, now that I finally have what I want, I don't need to go back."

"Yeah?" Masaomi stood up, dusting the dirt off his pants. He faced her fully with a look of inquiry and noticed she was looking back at him with a mysterious gleam. It sort of excited him. "And what was that?"

"You." She said, as though the answer were simple, and Masaomi raised an eyebrow, not exactly sure he was understanding.

"Haha, me?"

"Uh-huh. I've been watching you go in and out of that store for a few months now," Saki twirled a finger through one strand of hair, "I thought you were really cute, so I tried to get your attention."

"By almost getting arrested?" Masaomi shook his head and laughed, "Maybe I should be more weirded out that you were watching me for that long. What, are you my first stalker?" He snickered, raising his fingers and wiggling them suggestively. "If your plan didn't work out, would you have kidnapped me in my sleep?~"

"Mm... maybe I would have, Masaomi," She said almost slyly, and she sauntered up to him more closely. He felt his heart skip. "Would that be okay? If I did kidnap you and kept you all to myself?"

"Only if you take real good care of me." Masaomi said as flirtatiously as he could.

The realization didn't hit him, even as Masaomi was trailblazing up the stairs of his apartment later that day, that something about her was off. She was his type, and totally into him for reasons unknown. He didn't question it. After offering to walk her home, but being flat out rejected, Saki promised to meet up with him later in the week. And when he fell onto his bed and practiced Saki's name on his lips like it was the catchy chorus of a hit single, he didn't once think that she'd had an ulterior motive.

Because obviously, the city was granting him a gift.

Maybe the title of hero did suit him, he couldn't help but foolishly think.

As he let that thought ferment in his brain...

...it never sunk in that he hadn't even told her his name.

xXx
Just a taste of how it all started for him.
I know this is short, but I wanted to get something out!
Thanks for reading!