I'm so taking a page from the Baccano! Anime. So expect that these chapters probably won't be in order so much….

Thank you all who have read this fic ^^ And sorry I'm so slow ^^; But Here's an update XDDD No Shizuo yet though, sorry to say :(

Yes, apparently it is not only me who is slow but this fic in general TT~TT *ehem* But I still hope you like it XDD

At middle school, I decided it didn't matter anymore if I ever met 'him' again.

At Middle School, I decided that safety scissors wasn't my thing.

And that's why my and Shinra's first 'encounter' happened to be at knife point, where the doctor-in-training was forced to make an oath to keep this secret to the grave.

It wasn't as though I associate myself too closely with my lovely humans, preferring to observe from the side-lines; I make it a habit to cover my tracks, and my actions are ambiguous at most so I had little to worry about in terms of being found-out.

Still, I couldn't avoid a few slip-ups.

He was smiling the entire time though, the creep. Then again I should call myself lucky that the person who discovered my identity was the least bit interested by it. "Everyone has their own preference you know? And I don't really care because Celty is the only one for me! But I would be reeealy grateful if you join my Biology Club!"

Tch. I could just sense the threat of blackmail somewhere in that chipper voice of his.

Shinra… a very curious person he is. He saw through my personality at first glance, my disguise second, and he had been pestering me for days about that club of his.

Well… there are benefits, I suppose. I can have a physician (in-training) who doesn't ask questions whenever I pop in complaining about period cramps and mood swings, and the clubroom Shinra managed to acquire provided me with the perfect viewpoint for human observation.

Even Kishitani Shinra himself, although annoying at times, is also very interesting. Our interests are completely separate –me with my humans and he with the supernatural- but he is one of the few that can think in the same wavelength as me.

And he doesn't care whether I'm a man or a woman. He doesn't care much about anythingapart from the one he calls 'Celty'. And around him I can act as girly or manly or downright crazy and he'd just wave it off as nothing.

This got on my nerves, but it also gave me a sense of freedom.

Conversations with him never seem to get boring. (Irritating, yes, but never boring), and before I knew it, he already became a 'constant' in my life. To the point where I've unconsciously labelled him as a 'friend' despite my philosophy to stay detached.

Like this, my middle-school life went on smoothly for the most part. And my lovely humans made sure there was never a boring day…

For the most part of course.

Big Mistake.

*_~*.*~_*

The phone rang shrill in the dead of the night and the man jolted awake, heart accelerating as he recognized the dreadful ring tone. He groaned, half a mind wondering if he could just pretend to not have heard it. It was 2:30 am after all; surely it wouldn't be too strange…

[Beep]

[Hello hello? Nakura-kun?]

[Thank you very much for picking up!]

The tone was light and playful; it only managed to send bad shivers up his spine. He crouched back under the covers, letting the answering machine to its job, shutting his eyes and trying his best to drown out the phone.

[Oh no no no, I know you're awake]

He gulped, tears prickling the corners of his eyes. Why can't that person just leave him alone?

[Well it's alright, it's half past two in the morning after all, I'll let you try and sleep]

[Beep Beep]

Normally he would've breathed a sigh, but he knew this man all too much –as much as he regretted that fact.

It isn't unusual that Orihara Izaya would call him in the middle of the night 'just because he felt like it'.

But the thing is, this is Orihara Izaya. And Orihara Izaya always has something up his sleeve. And usually it involved torment.

Ring! Ring!

[Beep]

[OH! That's right, I almost forgot!]

[You've been working so hard in that little Casino of yours that you must be a little tired of your life right now aren't you Nakura-kun?]

Nakura's breath hitched and he sat up, staring at his phone in absolute horror.

The night was cold and still outside his window, but a really ominous feeling was creeping up his spine.

In a normal situation with a normal person, that statement would be considered casual.

But this was not a normal situation, and the one on the other end of that line is not a normal person. Something was coming, and his life was in danger. This is a calm-before-the-storm situation.

He knew he's acting paranoid, but he couldn't help really, one can't be too paranoid when they're acquainted with Orihara Izaya.

In fact, one can expect the worse and it can't even be considered 'paranoid'.

[I sent my trusty courier your way with a one way ticket to Okinawa]

[You deserve a Vacation]

[But I think you should pack up soon, the flight leaves in two hours you see!]

[Oh! And say hi to your boy-toy for me won't you?]

[Beep Beep]

Silence.

He waited with bated breath for a couple of minutes to see if there would be a follow up. Anything else. An explanation, a clue, what he should do there, anything!

But there was none.

What did come is a flurry of noise just down the road; dogs barking and glass breaking, shattering the silence of the night. And he immediately set to work on grabbing anything he had and stuffing it into the suitcase under his bed, heart rate pounding a mile a minute, not even caring that he looked like an utter lunatic when he climbed out of the third story apartment through the glass window.

When he got down he was immediately met with a being that can only be referred to as a 'Shadow'.

He regretted the day he ever met Orihara Izaya.

But… well, most do.

*_~*.*~_*

Middle School.

Time of change, raging hormones and identity crises.

The worst days of my life.

The time I dug my own grave and barely crawled back out with my pride; the price of which is a lifelong debt I have to pay and pay and pay… I grinned.

It was the time I first fell in love.

Hahahahahahahahaha!

No, not 'Love'.

My 'Love' exists for all human kind; not any one person, never any one person. (Except perhaps that one boy. Perhaps.)

Not 'Love', but Attraction. Of the physical kind. And it sickens me right to the bone.

And yet I was young. Impressionable. Unstable. (I know what you're thinking. …Eeh? No, I'm not denying anything!)

He was nice to look at. Very nice to look at. And he knew it all too well.

Attraction is alright. It's normal. It's pointless. It's nothing.

He was predictable in every sense of the word; as cliché as the books, as stereotypical of a blockheaded jock, as easy to read as a billboard. And he was nice to look at.

He approached me three weeks after Shinra's Biology club was established seeking out membership; Shinra couldn't care less and I was all too amused. He was our first applicant. I knew he only joined the club because of requirements –and really, it's not like our club did anything important (unless you call watering plants every other day and lounging around important).

"Not that it's any of my business Izaya, but be careful" Shinra had said that same day, regarding that boy with an unreadable gaze. I merely laugh at him with a raised brow; asking Me to be careful? Of what? Why? I do not need to be careful. I'm superior to my lovely humans; I am above them. I can read their movements (although not quite so exact in my still young mind, I have to admit) and he is the most readable, the most predictable of all!

And I hadn't planned to be too involved with him. Like I said before, I prefer to merely observe from the side-lines; probably put up little traps here and there to make things interesting.

But it's not as though I mind. In fact, I was having fun.

Every morning I would go about setting a plan of his actions for the day, from if he would try to sleep during first period to where he would stop by on the way home (which is usually one gambling ring or another). I would set up little events here and there, I would try flirting, lingering, teasing, just to see if he what reaction he'd make.

Normally I would watch from the side-lines, often with a pair of binoculars and a pack of Sushi-take-out; but for him, sometimes in front of his face with a devious smile and glinting eyes.

Of course I do the exact same thing for my other humans as well, but he became the foreground in my mind when he's active.

He was nice to look at. And nice to touch.

He was spoiled, arrogant, simple, and so very very easy to manipulate.

Shinra told me to be careful.

I scoffed and laughed and teased his words.

And without even knowing it, I found that I let my guard too low.

He was so easy I could wrap him around my fingers without even trying that I stopped thinking that he could be a possible threat to me, that I could know what he was thinking by just looking…

I forgot that I have a grave weakness. That despite all my knowledge of my lovely humans, of traits, characteristics, habits and actions, of secrecy and ulterior motives, I failed to realize that there can come a point where I am personally involved.

To put it simply, I failed to realize that I can't discern these signals when they involved me. Especially when they are directed at me.

Apparently, the bastard had come to terms with his being gay. It would've been funny... actually, it is funny, but I was too scandalized to laugh at the time. I've suspected he was gay from the start, and I knew he was taking great pains to hide it due to his pedigree. It was the perfect blackmail that I've never really found a use for as of then.

But never have I even thought to suspect myself as a target of his sexuality. It skipped my mind that I am outwardly male and is therefore within his sight; that I had been suggestive in some of my endeavours.

I didn't think I would get involved. I forgot that I can get involved. And I have yet to learn that the filthy, pitiful, ugly image in my mirror is not what others see; is far from what others see.

I forgot that despite my grandiosity, I am still physically a human. Young and small and helpless yet. (And a girl at that).

He never found out. I would have slit his throat to ensure that. Even with both my hands pinned above my head and my mind being unable to distinguish between a semi-pleasant reality and repulsively clear memories of such sickening violations done to me by my own sperm donor.

And due to my naivety, Shinra had been the one to suffer the consequences.

Glass shattered, the bespectacled boy's head having been shoved into the mirrored wall of the boy's bathroom due to a flurry of rage and panic. I whipped out my knife too late.

My hand trembled around the hilt of the blade, itching to be fed the blood of my offender, and I could hardly breathe at the sight of the one person I could honestly call my friend a bloody heap on the floor. Nakura, for that was his name— Was, in that now I have it completely at my disposal— was obviously in shock, shaking and gasping.

Back in my rational mind, I calmed down enough to plan a course of action. A chuckle escaped my throat, and before long I was laughing. I know Nakura thought me strange, I wouldn't deny that I looked –and felt— like a nut-job, but it was all too amusing.

The look in his eyes! So frightened, so desperate… I knew now that I could make him do absolutely anything after this. He would never live it down. I would never let him live it down. It would haunt his conscience for the rest of his life!

…as it will mine.

Footsteps rang outside the door and Nakura looked ready to make a break for it. He wasn't able to as the door opened, and by pure coincidence was it a Teacher.

The teacher took one look at us; Nakura with blood on his fists from fragments of glass, me with my switchblade and slasher-grin (as others would call it), and Shinra crumpled and bleeding on the floor.

Oh yes, Nakura did piss his pants that time.

My knife was clean, but I personally took the blame for everything, leering at the other beside me as I told the Teacher a mouthful of lies.

A bad day, over annoyance, inability to control aggressive tendencies, an accident yet not. A lapse in sanity.

Nakura kept quiet and stared at me in horror. He should've been thankful, but I suppose he understood that I had my motives.

The teachers all know me, Mr. Top Student bordering on Teacher's Pet. She lets me off with a three week suspension. Nakura did my every bidding with little complaint. And I had him surrender his name to me.

Shinra's injury was no more than flesh-wounds and a slight concussion, only a little scar that could be completely hidden behind his hair. He was out of the hospital before the week was out.

And he didn't really care.

He felt nothing. Not at the injury, not at my involvement, nor at the guy who gave him the injury. He was his usual creepily chipper self the moment he woke up after the morbid incident despite how deeply I regretted my idiocy. How great a burden fell on my shoulders.

I won't deny that I was a little jealous; jealous of his ability to completely separate himself from the world despite having been heavily involved in it.

I didn't understand his tenacity, not even when I met the reason for his immunity: the existence known as 'Celty'.

So here we can see that I deviated from the actual Story line.
I wanted to write the Gambling party back at middle school here, but I don't know how. I don't read the novel so I don't know how it actually goes. (most of the plot of this story was from me Brainstroming while reading Izaya's profile at Wikia over and over again so...) I also know next to nothing about Nakura, so let's just pretend he's some arrogant Gangster-Jock-Lady-Killer-though-gay-guy-whatever type *shrugs* Poor dude.

And yeah, this is an Alternate Universe fic anyway so I can be forgiven? (*/*)

'Nyways, Izaya here should be self-explanatory right? And if there are any questions, you can attribute that to Izaya's brilliance + Adolescence! (But if that doesn't explain it then you can just ask me in a review?)

Anyways, thanks for reading! Please tell me how you liked it and if you have any comments, suggestions, etc. ne~ XDD