Title: The Ringleader

Synopsis: With one look Izaya knows who a person is with startling detail. Namie thinks he's a creep but even she is entranced with the charismatic sociopath Izaya Orihara.

Rating: T for language and some subject matter.

A/N: This is either really in character or really out-of-character. At this point I sort of can't tell. ^^; Anyways, I hope that you enjoy and drop me a review; I like to know what people think.

Disclaimer: I don't own Durarara! Because if I did Shizuo would have been more prominent in the last few episodes. .

…

There is a mother pushing her child in a carriage across the street. The kid is obviously too old for such babying, but it rides along with a smug look on its fat little face as its mother labors to push it around, breaking a sweat in her own overweight body. It looks as if unhappiness never crosses her mind… well, at least on the subject of her spoiled little child. No, instead it seems that she is happy to be wanted, happy to be needed by her spawn even if it will just lead him to a life of dependency and sexism.

Both she and Izaya knew that her husband was having an affair with a cash register girl from the bookstore down the street. He even used the apartment when she wasn't home, their naked bodies combining with one another on the blankets that her mother had gotten them for their fifth wedding anniversary, six years ago.

After that anniversary party her husband went to the apartment of a girl working at a maid café to pay for college and fucked her senselessly while his wife sat at home reading a novel.

An elderly couple walks by, the wife shaking her head at a group of kids with dyed hair and piercings. The man says nothing because underneath his clothing lies a tattoo of a dragon that he got on a business trip to America after the war. They never had sex with the lights on after that and he always made sure to change in a different room; the serpent on his chest would have not pleased his wife or his in-laws. He loved her so much but knew she could never understand; it was the one secret he kept from her.

They continue walking down the street.

"What are you doing?" Namie asks Izaya whilst twirling her straw around the orange colored drink that she had ordered. "You seem entertained."

It was true; he was. That smile could not leave his face. Namie thought that look could kill puppies with just one glance. "I guess that I am."

"I don't see anything entertaining here minus the prices on this menu."

"Don't complain; this is my treat." She sighed; she was sure that there was some ulterior motive. "You need to get out of the apartment every once-in-awhile. Show off your womanly assets to the world."

She rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her drink through the straw. "I feel more and more like your pet." She says with the straw still in her mouth, glaring at Izaya.

"That's because you are," She nearly chokes on her drink. "Your like my little puppy!" He lowers his voice to a whisper. "Will you bark for me?"

Her eyes narrow and she opens her mouth to rant about the oppression of women by men and how sexist feelings like that were the downfalls of humanity. It wasn't what Izaya meant; what he meant was that if he decided to throw her out she would be arrested and thrown in jail for a good, long time. Kidnapping a girl and changing her face tended to be looked down upon by normal society, if her tendencies of incest weren't enough reason for her to be hated already. Still, he knew that she would not understand what he meant. He betted that he could get her to bark like a dog if he tried hard enough, but that wouldn't be quite as entertaining as watching the scenes around him unfold in their own natural sort of way.

There's a couple sitting at the table next to them, obviously on their first date. The boy is desperately talking about the movie that they had just seen, saying something about how he enjoyed the scene with the ostriches. She is having none of it; the date had not gone well and her eyes were glued to her cell phone, wishing that her ex-boyfriend would send her a text message and set her free from this other admirer who had waited years for her to say yes to him. There's despair and anguish in his eyes; he doesn't want to believe that she is already a lost cause after so little time.

"Are you listening to me?" Namie asks from across the table.

He laughs. "Not a word."

"Figures." She begins to sulk, sitting back in her chair. "Why would you go out, anyway? Don't you have the destruction of the earth to worry about?"

He shrugs. "Even the Buddha spent some time enjoying himself." She grimaces. "Besides, it is a glorious day, and what better way to spend the day than with a beautiful woman and good food?"

"That's what normal people would think." Skepticism is in her voice again and he knows that she doesn't believe him. And with good cause; one should never believe him. After all that time together she had at least learned something about him.

"And I'm not normal?" He asks, taking her bait, already knowing what her answer would be.

She leans forward. "Not a bit. In fact, you're the craziest of all the loonies in this town…" She smiles and for a moment, Izaya is a little worried. "And that includes Heiwajima Shizuo."

That part was cruel and unnecessary, he thought, but it was nice to know that she had been paying more attention than he had previously thought. She had learned just how to push his buttons. "That brat may not be crazier than me, but he sure hides it a lot less well than I do."

"So you admit that you're both crazier than him, and you're a liar? That really puts the icing on the cake, you know."

Their waitress comes, and Izaya knows her entire life story.

She wanted to be an actress, and had even gotten a small part in a musical in downtown Tokyo a year and a half ago. She had left home, against her parents' will and they promised that they would give her no financial support unless she went to college first. She didn't and they kept their promise. The show had closed and she had been without a job, an apartment she could afford or an agent. She jumped from friend-to-friend's houses, imposing on them, borrowing money, annoying them to no end until finally she was left on her own again, abandoned by everyone she loved. She finally got a job at this place by screwing the old manager. Every day when she showered she thought of his fat, gray stomach hair rubbing up against her body and washed herself twice as hard, telling herself that it was worth it and that someday she would be a star.

"What can I get you folks?" She asks and Izaya notices her hastily put on eyeliner that was too old and looked cracked and disgusting. A late night booty call had turned into an early morning escape and she was forced to rush to work putting on whatever she could find in the bottom of her purse, hoping that it would be enough to hide the redness in her eyes and the purple bags underneath them.

"I'll have…" Namie orders a tremendous amount of food and the waitress looks envious; she couldn't afford to eat here once a month while ordering light. Namie ordered as if she had all the money in the world. The waitress thought it wasn't fair; if she had a rich boyfriend like that guy then she'd eat all she wanted. At least, that's what Izaya knew she was thinking.

Izaya orders lighter, tickled pink by Namie's choices in food. The waitress leaves and he begins to attack. "If you eat that much then you'll begin to get fat. Before you know it you'll be a whale!"

"If all I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life is sitting in your apartment, cooking your food and watching you try to destroy the world then I might as well get fat. I'm no better than a housewife right now., you know" She goes back to playing with the straw. "Besides, I feel no need to impress you at all; in fact, I want you to be miserable."

"You know if I throw you out then you'll just get arrested, right? Do you really want to make me angry?"

She shrugs. "I've been thinking lately that it may be a better option. I hire a few good lawyers and spend a few years in the slammer and I'd be out again. I'd be fine in there; I'm strong. And the sentence wouldn't be long, especially if that girl testifies. She was completely willing to have the surgery." Her eyes fade out for a minute, focused on nothing in particular. "In fact, it was her who snuck into my brother's apartment in the first place…"

"Izaya-san?" He looks up and sees a terrified face.

He smiles wide and waves, moving each finger separately like an excited schoolgirl. "Ah! Chiyo-chan, how nice it is to see you. How have you been? Still wanting to jump off of a-?" Before his sentence was even over she was out the door of the restaurant.

The hostess gives Izaya a dirty look and he shrugs. He didn't need to explain his hobbies to a woman who went home to read books and snuggle her three cats every night. She wasn't worth his time. Besides, she just thought that he was that girl's abusive ex-boyfriend whom she still loved and was crushed at seeing with another woman. The hostess had a lot of experience with heartbreak and felt for 'Chiyo-chan'. Stupid woman.

Still, it was always a treat to see the little girls who wanted to off themselves with him in public. The look of terror on their faces when they saw that he was still alive and well were priceless. Most of those girls probably wished that he'd rot in hell already. And if there was a hell, he was sure to earn himself a permanent spot there with his own personal brigade of angel torturers. Well, if Islam had it right, of course. Maybe if it were Judaism he just wouldn't be resurrected. Christianity? Well, by default he would have earned himself eternal damnation, but he was sure that his actions weren't getting him brownie points with the big man anyway. So no matter what he did now, he was still screwed. He might as well enjoy himself now and reap what he sowed when that time came.

"Friend of yours?" Namie asks with a tinge of-oh! how interesting- jealousy creeping into her voice. Not that she had feelings for him, no, but rather she didn't want anyone else to have him either. It was the sort of situation that teenage boys ended up in with their friends who were girls. As soon as they had boyfriends they wanted them, they needed them, but when the girls were single again it was right back into the heap. Hoarders, all of them, even Namie. Especially Namie; she shouldn't be overly protective of a man who she said she hated. Humans were just avaricious fools.

He leans back in his chair. The couple on their date were gone now and three boys sat down at the vacant table. "You could say that, I guess." They were childhood friends, going back to when their mothers all got pregnant at the same time and took pregnancy yoga together. Lately, however, the three of them had grown apart. The tallest one was gay and didn't want the other two to know. The shortest one was part of the Dollars and didn't want the other two to know. The one in the middle was… completely normal… and he didn't want the other two to know.

"She looks too…" One of the boys makes a joke that makes the other two laugh more loudly than appropriate in a nice restaurant and Namie shoots them a look. They immediately quiet down. And Namie thought that Izaya's looks could kill kittens. "Normal to know you."

"I know lots of normal people; they just don't all know me well."

"She seemed to know you pretty well. She ran off pretty quickly. That's a good reaction for someone to have when you're in the same room." She pokes her chopsticks, not feeling especially patient at the moment. "I should have done that a long time ago…"

"Why don't you then?" He asks, still all smiles. "No one is here to stop you. You said so yourself that a little jail time would be better than spending any more time with me." He points over to where the elderly couple had been walking a few minutes before. "Out there is a bright world, Namie. Just go out there and I'm sure that none of the Dollars who know your identity will call the police and get you in the slammer."

"Shove off." She says, gripping a chopstick in her hand and looking like she was dangerously close to breaking it, despite the fact that it was a reusable one, not wooden.

"Oooh~ scary~." The plastic chopstick is bending in her hands. If they were in a shojou manga tentacles of doom would have probably been emitting from her body and wrapping him in their darkness. "You asked for it." Izaya says with a perfectly horrible look that screamed 'I told you so'. She could kill him; if she weren't in public and weren't already wanted by the law she would have. "You reap what you sow."

"Sorry for the wait!" The waitress says cheerily though her cheeks are red from crying and there are little wet streaks down them from where she had hastily wiped them away when she realized that their food was up and she had to get it to the table without looking like a complete mess. She carries with her a large tray of food, mostly Namie's. Izaya guesses that most of it is cold from the time it spent under the badly over used heat lamp when their waitress was sobbing over the message that she had gotten on her cell phone, which she wasn't even supposed to use on the job, telling her that she had only three more days to pay for this month's rent or else she was getting kicked out of the apartment for good. Now she was cursing herself because she had lost the tip on this table whose expensive lunch was supposed to get her a little extra cash from being late with their food. With a shaking hand she sets the food down at the table and when she is done, bows a little. "I hope you enjoy!"

When the waitress is out of earshot Namie begins to complain. "Really, that took way too long," With an aggression that her meal did not warrant she stabbed her chopsticks into a dish and stuck the food in her mouth. "It's not warm anymore." She said, her mouth full of a brown, gloppy mess.

"Charming," Izaya says grabbing his own chopsticks. "It's nice to see that you are willing to share your meal with me, however."

She swallows and smiles as if victorious. "You're the one who's paying for it; I might as well let you see what you're buying." He laughs; it's funny, and it shuts her up. She didn't think that he would find that humorous. In fact, she thought that it would disgust him into silence and she would add one victory to her long list of defeats against Izaya.

Except she would never beat him; no one ever would. Izaya would always be one step ahead, knowing every move that you've ever made and every move you will make before it even happens. One look at your face and he knows your life story. It was a blessing and a curse, a talent and a bore. There was not a person who could surprise Izaya.

Like the aspiring writer in the corner who's book was just taken by a publisher and will be promptly rejected, but because of his hope he decided to get himself a nice dinner because he is sure that this is his big break.

Or the teenage girl in the corner whose mother is sitting in the bathtub at home with her wrists slit, blood pouring from her wounds, waiting for her daughter to get home to find her dead carcass and think on all of the terrible things that she had said and done to her and hoping that her careless child will regret her actions until the end of her days.

Or the two fifty year-old woman sitting at one table, best friends since college, one of whom was in love with and was, in fact, having an affair with the other's husband. Today, at that meal, was the time when she had planned to tell her friend, but yet again she was too afraid and instead ordered miso soup and swam in her misery and guilt, too afraid to tell her friend but too in love to break it off with her husband.

Izaya knew all of these people without knowing their names. Their faces said everything. How tedious, how drab this world was. No excitement, no surprises. That was why he needed to mix things up; change things. If he had to be the ringleader to make things less monotonous then so be it. It wasn't like humans were being entertaining on their own anymore. Petty lives and stupid stories bored Izaya, he needed more. Intrigue, suspense and a climax unlike any other were all that he asked for, and yet he wasn't receiving them. Someone once said that if a person needed to get something done then they had to do it themselves; Izaya wanted many things done so he took it upon his own shoulders to make the world bend to his liking.

"You're a freak." Namie says for about the eighth time that day, and perhaps it was true. Still, there was something to be said for that. He wasn't content to sit and be told what to do and when to do it. 'Freak' was a title he wore with honor, for he would not just fall into the traps of the rest of society; he'd rise above it, become more, become, in essence, a god. "Eat quick so we can get out of here."

He obliged; there was much to be done, anyway.

In their apartment, that husband and his cash register girl fucked like rabbits while his wife bought her fat son a new video game. The old man took of his shirt in the darkness of the bathroom while his wife changed in their room as they had done for the past thirty-five years. The girl gets walked home by her date, who hopes for a kiss, but receives nothing but being ignored in favor of a phone call from her ex. The waitress calls up a friend for the sixth time asking her for money, only to be hung up on again with no hopes. Chiyo-chan and her new boyfriend go to a different restaurant and enjoy a nice meal together and she almost feels grateful to Izaya for convincing her not to jump. The hostess remains at her station thinking about the sale that the store had on cat food this week and how she needed to stock up. The group of boys laugh together, slightly softer, and all internally despair about how they would never be able to do this again, even though they knew that if they were to share their secrets with their friends they'd understand completely. The writer picks up his phone to find that he needs to begin on a new manuscript; he orders a large beer and drowns his sorrows within it. The girl pays her check and walks home, not knowing that when she would get there should would vomit and sob, and almost unable to call an ambulance with the amount of grief and remorse she felt.

"You bitch!"

"Please, Sakura-chan, sit down, you're making a spectacle-"

"You lying, cheating whore! How dare you say Subaru would do such a thing!" She lowers her voice and sticks her head down next to her oldest friend. "I hate you; I never want to see you again!"

Unwilling to believe that her husband would cheat on her and that her friend would have done this to her, Sakura leaves the restaurant to go confront her husband. Her friend sits at the table, embarrassed, sad and defeated. She would love Subaru-san until the day she died, but now it seemed like she had done the wrong thing. She had not realized that she would be lonelier without the love of her friend than she would be without the love of her life. She, like the author, forgoes lunch and orders a beer instead.

"Interesting folks, all of them." Namie says as she finishes up her last dish of food.

"Not really." Izaya replies, taking a sip of water. "Not at all."

…

Fin