@carcharous
In all his time away from Ikebukuro, he had thought about the people back home. In his prior office chair of his apartment in Hive City, he had considered and wondered where Mikado might be and what he was doing. While out on the city’s streets eyeing a group of young boys shoving each other, he questioned where Masaomi went, if he had forgiven him yet. Sitting on a bench in a park in the early evening observing children brandish sticks as fake swords, he had the thought of Anri, what she might be doing at the moment. His sisters too, he thought of them often. But one person who he rarely found himself pondering about was Kuronuma Aoba. The strategic shark in a once pool of dolphins. The one who had become a leech to Mikado’s side and who had guided his hand in several different directions. The little brat who had ruled over the Blue Squares. The boy who was standing off in present day not too far from him now.
It was odd, so to say, to see him there, as small as he was in both height and presence. He was no longer surrounded by a large city that he tried so desperately to bend to his will. No longer encased by pawns or friends, whatever he had deemed them to be. No longer safe from being exposed, nor no longer comforted by the Dollars leader’s side. If Izaya was any less of a person, he might laugh at him and point, gather everyone else in the distant area to strike him down even more. Humiliate him. Tease and taunt the fact that he had nobody. That everyone Aoba knew and found some form of trust in, no matter how small, was gone.
He was terrible person, but he wouldn’t stoop that low.
Instead, he makes his way towards him, silent footing finding its path to his back, where he keeps a safe few feet away. There was no need to get right up against him and give him a terrible scare. “Enjoying the view?” Is used as a starter sentence, voice curious and yet also somewhat subtly playful, mocking. “Or are you thinking of a way to leap in the ocean and find a gang in the deep blue?”
