Here and now the river flows

Endlessly, forever rushing towards an unknown sea

You and I, we are caught in the tide

As we go unceasingly towards that distant shore

Shall we swim together or prey on each other?

Chapter 15: The World Begins to Move

Shizuo doesn't know the first thing about information gathering.

The movies made it look so easy. Go to someone, ask around, and if no one talks, then shake them up a bit. The detectives he liked to watch made the process seemed so clear-cut. Years of experience and support from the cops gave them the advantage of knowledge and resources which he lacked. As it was, Shizuo didn't know where to even begin.

Who should he ask? Where should he go to? What questions must be answered?

The texter had tried to be a little bit helpful by suggesting, to his surprise, Isana Chieko. Shizuo was sceptical though, not because he didn't believe the mild lady was a reliable information source (Izaya used her, after all), but because it was the texter who recommended her. He knew Isana Chieko seemed to be a kind lady, but he couldn't help the niggling doubt gnawing his mind, a whispering thought of: What if Isana-san is working with this texter?

What if she tells Izaya about my involvement?

The thought left a sour taste in the back of his mouth. He wasn't used to second-guessing things, and certainly didn't like to doubt the people he cared and respected, but it felt prudent to do so in this case. With his friend caught in some unknowable danger and with the unanswered questions still surrounding his texter, Shizuo couldn't even begin to puzzle out how many plots were entangled in this intricate web. Izaya was obviously one of the players, and the texter seemed to be making moves behind the shadows, but the Blue Squares, too, were a faction he needed to contend with, and between those three was Shizuo, who only wanted his friend to be safe but had no idea how to do so.

And then there was the Jyan Jyaka Jyan.

[What do you know about the Jyan Jyaka Jyan?]

Not enough, apparently.

Shizuo knew of them in passing. A few of them sometimes dumbly challenged him, but they were rare, as it seemed that the Jyan Jyaka Jyan was mostly comprised of adults. From the occasional stories his mother told him though—as jokes during dinner or a way to pass the time doing whilst doing chores—said gang was filled with hotheaded members and a large territory. The only reason few of them bothered Shizuo at all was because most of them had better things to do than messing around with a high school kid.

(His reputation preceded him, too. Very few gang leaders—old or new—wanted to provoke the Monster of Ikebukuro's wrath.)

[The Blue Squares recently provoked the Jyan Jyaka Jyan] the texter had explained. [There's mounting tension between those two, and Izaya-san seeks to prod the flames into an inferno.]

That sounded like Izaya, alright. No wonder the Blue Squares were targeting him.

[I'll just beat them up if they do anything.] He had replied.

[But will you be there to save him all the time?] the other had questioned. [Could you be his bodyguard 24/7? No. That is impossible for anyone. The only thing you can do is minimise the possibility, and to do so you need to manipulate the flow of information. Stay several steps ahead of the other players. Your brute strength is meaningless in this situation.]

And that knowledge hurts, in a way. To have someone else point out the uselessness of his unwanted power, to have them dismiss it so casually as if Shizuo hasn't struggled with it all his life. It hurts a bit, to know that the one thing he's good for was useless in this situation.

And so it all came down to this, leaving him with no choice but to face his mother and ask her the steps he needed to enter the world she did not want him to join.

[If you want to help Izaya-san, don't be a bodyguard.] the words echoed in his mind hours after he read them in the dim backlit glow of his phone's screen, as Shizuo opened his mouth and began to form the words to ask, [You need to be an—]

"Mom," he asked, "how do I become an informant?"

It wasn't a question she would have expected from her son.

Then again, Namiko mused, watching her son fidgeting by the doorway to the kitchen, Shizu-chan is always surprising me.

Whether it was her unplanned pregnancy, the unexpected joy his equally unexpected birth gave her, or the sudden appearance of his super strength, Heiwajima Shizuo—her beloved son—was always unpredictable to her.

Not that Namiko minded though.

(Just as she never minded his bouts of rage and the ensuing destruction. Just as she never minded Kasuka's stoicness bordering on extreme apathy.)

(She was their mother, and they were her children, and Namiko was always adept at reading people.)

"Informant, hmm?" She lightly hummed, carefully flipping the eggs for dinner. Her gaze was directed at the pan due to the necessity of cooking, but she paid close attention to his reply. "Why do you want to be one, Shizu-chan?"

There was a stretch of silence broken only by the low sizzling of the pan before—perhaps relieved that she hadn't dismissed the idea immediately—Shizuo stepped closer. From the corner of her eyes, she saw him worrying the hem of his shirt, an endearing little nervous trait he had inherited from his father.

(He wasn't his father, exactly. At least, not biologically, but Kichirou had always treated him as if he was one of his own, and it had always made Namiko fell a little more in love with him each time she saw them interact.)

(On all accounts that mattered, Heiwajima Shizuo was as much as Kichirou's son as he was hers.)

"My friend's in trouble," he finally said, in the length of time it took for her eggs to finish frying. She turned off the stove to face him as he continued. "He's being targeted by a gang, but even if I tell him that he won't back off. I don't want him to get hurt though, and I can't always be with him every day. And even if I beat up the gang, it won't really stop them. They'll just think up of ways to avoid me. So I need to be something that can prevent my friend from getting hurt in the first place."

"And so you wish to become an informant." It wasn't a question, but it wasn't a judgement either. Namiko made sure to keep her voice neutral and reasonable, like she read in all those parenting books and websites back when she was still an undergraduate student struggling with an underground job, unplanned pregnancy, and unsupportive parents.

(She swore on the day her son was born that she won't be like them, like her parents who abandoned her when they heard that she was pregnant.)

(And she hadn't, and that more than anything—more than her days as a gang leader or an assassin—made Namiko proud.)

"Information is power." Her son said, lifting his head to look at her. For a moment, under the artificial light of the kitchen, his amber eyes glinted and Namiko was suddenly reminded of him. "Isn't that what you said, Mom?"

(His biological father—the man who seemed more like an ethereal supernatural creature in her memories than human. Theirs was an affair that went fast and hot and bright like a firework, ending with a one-night stand and his complete disappearance from her life. That was until a couple of months passed and she realised that he had left a parting gift inside her.)

"Ah," she smiled, "I did say something like that."

There was bright hope behind her son's amber eyes (like hers, like his), the corners of his mouth lifting up into an uncertain smile. "So…?"

Namiko wanted to say 'No'. Wanted to say, 'It's not safe. That's not the life I wanted for you,' and 'I don't want you to get hurt, even if it's for a friend. You're more important than some boy'. She wanted to say, 'Your father and I stepped out of that world so that you and your brother may live a peaceful life without worrying about gangs and yakuza and assassins'.

But—

Heiwajima Namiko was a mother, and she knew her sons better than anyone.

Even if she denied him, spurred him away from the idea, Shizuo would still find some way to do it. Once he set his mind onto something there was no deterring him, and sometimes, she despaired over his open heart—so easily hurt, so easily read. If she denied him, her son would find other ways to be an informant, and what would happen then if he made a mistake and got himself hurt? As strong as Shizuo was there were many ways to break a person, and Namiko knew a lot of them from first-hand experience.

There was really nothing else she could say except:

"Of course I'll help you." Namiko smiled, reaching out to ruffle his blond hair. God, he was already taller than her. Her son was growing up so fast. "We'll have your first lesson tonight, after dinner."

This Orihara Izaya better be worth it.

Shizuo beamed, her son's smile so bright, she likened it to the sun. He ducked his head in faint embarrassment of her ruffling, but she could tell he was pleased. The tension he carried across his shoulders since he entered the kitchen melted away in the warmth of the moment.

"Go get your brother." She told him, giving him a smile as she moved to plate the eggs. "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes."

Her son nodded, still smiling as he went out of the kitchen.

Alone, Namiko's smile dimmed, but lingered still on the corners of her lips.

That stubbornness, that determination—

Those were traits he had definitely inherited from her.

Izaya was suspicious.

He had been so since the attack of those so-called 'Blue Squares' members. He had never given his real name to Izumii, only an alias—Psyche—and so the Blue Squares shouldn't have known his true identity. A quick text to Izumii, asking in a roundabout manner if he had given any orders to attack Izaya, validated his suspicions. Izumii hadn't ordered any attacks recently, and Izaya would've known if he lied, and so that meant one thing: the 'Blue Squares' who attacked him were fakes.

On one hand, that was good. It meant that Izumii hadn't found out his true identity and their partnership could proceed as planned. On the other hand, it also meant that someone knew of his plans and deliberately taunted him by sending him false Blue Squares members.

And then there was the matter of Shizuo.

How had he known of the attack?

(There was something burning in him when he saw his…friend…leapt down to his defence. A rush of emotion so sudden and hard like a riptide that left Izaya breathless, speechless once again as he beheld a monster's strength. Only this time that monstrous power was turned to protect him, and Izaya couldn't name the depth of emotion that overcame him if he even dared to face it.)

It was all too convenient, too coincidental to be anything but planned. Shizuo may be unpredictable, but there was a certain kind of routine even he adhered to. Those men who attacked him wouldn't have threatened him and dragged him into that alley if they saw the Monster of Ikebukuro at his side, after all. No, there was someone else pulling the strings, and for once it wasn't Izaya.

"How interesting!" Izaya laughed out loud, leaning back against his chair, feet propped up on his desk in the sanctity of his bedroom. He grinned up at the cold moon outside his window. "How fun!"

A game wouldn't be a game without players, after all.

His gaze slid down from the moon above to the report laying innocently next to his feet. The report compiled by Isana Chieko.

There was no proof that she was involved, save for the fact that she knew he was planning something with the Blue Squares and Jyan Jyaka Jyan, but still…on the off chance that she was…

The brunet smirked. "So you're playing now? I suppose it's about time you made your move."

His gaze then moved to the phone at the edge of his desk. Grinning, he reached up and took it, flipping it open and typing a text to a certain eccentric schoolmate he had been keeping his eye on.

I have pawns of my own too, Isana-san.

[Hirabayashi Tomone,] Izaya typed, [what do you say about some fun?]

Admittedly, Tomone was suspicious of the text, but that suspicion was not followed by its natural wariness. Instead, the supernatural-lover felt only curiosity, and a slowly stirring sense of excitement.

Having taken a shower before she saw the screen of her phone lighting up, the brunette sat on her bed in her blue pajamas, a white towel slung over her shoulder. She glanced at the unknown number, and the equally ambiguous text, and smiled.

It was a smile so fearless that it was both frightening and worrying.

[Who's this?] She texted back. [And what kind of fun do you have in mind?]

The reply she received was slightly clearer, but no less mysterious. To anyone else, it would have been frustrating, worthy of blocking the texter. Tomone, however, only smiled wider.

[I go by Psyche] the other replied. 'Go by', she noted, and not 'I am'. Lying was always easier when one wasn't really lying. Her interest increased. [I know that you crave adventure. You'll do anything to escape the mundane, boring everyday life. I can give you what you want.]

Interesting!

Absentmindedly, she dried her hair before tossing the towel onto a nearby chair. Plopping down on her bed, she lifted her phone over her face and stared at the screen. Her fingers were trembling, but it was with the beginnings of the drug called 'thrill' that she was addicted to.

To know this information, he or she must have known me somehow.

A puzzle, Tomone thought. A simple little exciting conundrum as an appetizer before the main dish. Oh, how fun!

(She was always good at solving puzzles.)

I have a reputation as a weird and eccentric girl, but only at school. Outside of it, nobody really knows me. And who would recruit a high school girl for something potentially dangerous? No sane adult, that's certain.

The pieces aligned, forming a picture of a certain strange teen she had been keeping her eye on.

[Are you a Raijin student like me, by any chance?]

The other's reply was a few seconds too long. Tomone grinned.

[I'm offering a chance for you to be part of a gang war] the texter replied, and in his (and Tomone was sure it was a him) avoidance, he failed to offer a rejection. Whether that was an accident or an intentional move of a chessmaster with his pawn was unclear. [Are you interested?]

There were plenty of rumours in Raijin, and many of them were about the gangs ruling the city. Many boys had been implicated in the rumours—a few of them even openly showing their allegiances—but there was one boy that stood above the rest. Tomone would have dismissed him—she wasn't interested in humans, after all—except she wasn't sure if he even was human.

(Red eyes and sharp, sharp smirk.)

But just as she wasn't sure if he was human, she was equally unsure if he was a monster. Unlike Shizuo and the Black Biker, there was nothing overtly different about him. He was smart, yes, but Tomone was smart too, and she could easily list off several other smart classmates. He didn't show any incredible strength or supernatural abilities, but there was something undeniably off about him. Perhaps it was those unnatural red eyes, or the way he acted as if he stood above humanity, or maybe even the seemingly permanent smiles pasted on his face that never touched his eyes. It was hard to tell, and until she could, Tomone was hesitant to place him in the same category as monsters or humans.

This could be her chance to finally find out.

[Alright, I'll be your pawn.]

The benefit of being a pawn was that she could act first, and be on the front lines (front row seats to the drama. How exciting!). And if played well, the pawn could even become a queen.

[Very well then.] was the texter's simple answer.

Tomone grinned, thrill and excitement fizzing warmly in her veins. She rolled to her side, created a new contact for this number, and typed a text:

[Orihara-kun, are you human or are you a monster?]

There. Her first move as a pawn.

As expected, Izaya did not reply. Was he surprised that she found out so quickly, or had he suspect it when she asked about Raijin? No matter. She smiled again before sending a single text and switching off her phone for the night, setting it on her bedside table.

[I can't wait to find out. Let's have fun until then, ne?]

Tonight, Tomone dreamt of fireworks.

(Bright and ephemeral and explosive.)

(Perhaps this would finally give her a reason to live.)

FUN FACTS

- Heiwajima Kichirou – The canonical name of Shizuo's father

- '…when she was still an undergraduate student struggling with an underground job, unplanned pregnancy, and unsupportive parents.' –Ouch, poor Namiko…as implied in Another Side, Another Story 2, she doesn't get along well with her parents, which was why she struggled by herself during pregnancy.

- 'His biological father—the man who seemed more like an ethereal supernatural creature in her memories than human...' –Oooh, O.O Now what's this supposed to mean? Hehehe, well, I already dropped some pretty clear hints, so you guys try to guess ;)

- 'Only this time that monstrous power was turned to protect him, and Izaya couldn't name the depth of emotion that overcame him if he even dared to face it.' – Izaya, please, you're in so, so deep.

- 'Her fingers were trembling, but it was with the beginnings of the drug called 'thrill' that she was addicted to.' – An adrenaline junkie like Izaya, but on a whole other scale -_-"

- 'Whether that was an accident or an intentional move of a chessmaster with his pawn was unclear.' – It's not mentioned here, but Izaya was pretty surprised that she caught on so quickly. Then he became interested, and intentionally did not deny it to see what she would do.

- '…Tomone was hesitant to place him in the same category as monsters or humans.' – LOL. Do you guys remember that scene where Izaya and Celty followed Mikado home and he asked "What are you guys?". To Celty, the Black Rider, the question makes sense as she's an urban legend. But to ask Izaya that? Lol, even Mikado wasn't sure he was human at first.

- 'Orihara-kun, are you human or are you a monster?' – LOL. He already got Shizuo asking him that and now Tomone as well. And of course, you readers too ; ) . As for whether he's actually human or not, you'll see in later chapters.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

So…*shyly waves* I'm back. Ah…I'm truly sorry it took so long for me to update this. There's lots of things I have to do, reports to write, ppt to make, etc, etc. T^T Aaaaah, I want a breaaaaak…..

Anyway, I already written most of the next chapter, so it should be up soon enough. Thanks for reading this and I hope you have a good day! ^_^