Durarara!!, Vol. 1 (novel) (11 page)

“Huh? Really?” Mikado asked, momentarily swayed by the flood of
Masaomi’s logical barrage. Seiji was unaffected in the slightest, however. He simply shook his head quietly.

“No way. Even thinking about another girl is an act of betrayal.”

“Well, aren’t you a bastion of integrity? So you can’t possibly betray your girlfriend?”

“It’s not my girlfriend I’d be betraying.”

“Huh? Then who?” Masaomi asked.

Seiji looked into open air, his eyes full of light and purpose. “Love.”

“Pardon?”

“I would be betraying the love I send to my girlfriend. I could betray her, but I can’t betray my love.”

Silence.

“Uh…okay, dude.”

An uncomfortable pause enveloped all three, but Seiji’s expression didn’t change in the least. The glory of belief and certainty shone in his eyes.

“Well, um…good luck with that!”

Masaomi offered him a hesitant fist, and Seiji bumped it back with a brilliant smile.

“Yeah, thanks!”

He headed off to the classroom without another word. Masaomi watched him confidently stride away and muttered, “Looks like you’ve got a real hothead in your class, too.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“This is pathetic.”

They were at the famous Ikebukuro West Gate Park—as seen on TV!—but for the middle of a weekday, it was virtually barren. Mikado had absolutely zero intention of playing along with Masaomi’s flirtation mission, but he was interested in taking a closer look at the place he’d seen on television so many times.

It was indeed the locale he recognized, but Mikado soon realized that seeing it in person was a completely different experience. The
location was the backdrop for news broadcasts, TV dramas, and variety shows, but each program gave it a different feeling.

Impressed with how editing and presentation could create such different impressions of the same place, Mikado watched Masaomi do his thing. It was exasperating.

Masaomi couldn’t find any high school girls his age, so he had to resort to hitting on the office ladies who walked through the park on their lunch breaks. Of course, no working adult (on their break) was going to sit around and entertain the advances of a teenage boy. The sight of his desperate, futile attempts was kind of touching in a way.

When Mikado relayed this to Masaomi after he took a short break, his friend grinned and replied, “What do you mean? The goal is just to talk to women, and I’m succeeding with flying colors! Besides, calling things desperate or futile is the
last
thing you should do when talking to women! When you’re around a beautiful woman, the only thing that ensures your actions are desperate or futile is thinking that they are. You get me?”

“I don’t get you at all,” Mikado muttered and stretched lazily. There was no point to just sitting around here all day, so he decided to head somewhere he wanted to go. “I’m going over to 60-Kai Street on my own.”

“What? You think you can pick up chicks without a wingman? When did you turn into such a lady-killer?”

“I’m not going to pick up chicks.”

But Masaomi wasn’t listening. He jabbed a finger at Mikado’s face and leered, “You’re going to be reduced to tears over the loss of my skills soon enough! You’re gonna wind up getting played by one of those
ganguro
girls who don’t realize that the overtanned look was out of style years ago!”

“What does any of that have to do with your skill?!”

“Shut it, shut it, let your mouth be a door and
shut it
! Let’s have a competition! We’ll see who can pick up more girls, me or you!”

“Seriously? You’re gonna hit on girls while trailing an entourage of girls you hit on?”

Masaomi ignored him and started sprinting toward the station. Within moments, he was calling out to a housewife with her child and shopping bags.

Mikado let out his deepest sigh of the day and headed to the east exit of the station on his own.

It wasn’t a perfectly straight line, but he did manage to reach 60-Kai Street with relative ease. This point actually wasn’t that far from his apartment. Mikado planned to wander around checking out stores until nightfall, then head straight home. If Masaomi was still the same person Mikado remembered from elementary school, he’d forget about the silly competition and go home soon.

When they were seven, Masaomi was “it” in a game of hide-and-seek, and he left to go home in the middle of the game. When Mikado finally returned home that night in tears, Masaomi was there in the house. With his cheeks full of Mikado’s dinner, he said, “Found ya.”

Now that I think about it, we had our share of adventures back in that town. I wonder when those stopped happening.

There was nothing particularly interesting to relate from middle school. It was just a very long succession of safe, boring days.

Mikado dreamed of the outside world but had no reason to leave his hometown. He’d been stuck in an unchanging situation—until the day his family got an Internet connection, and his world changed forever.

Now there were endless worlds at his fingertips. He had access to information he would never learn from his ordinary life. It was as though, just on the other side of the world he lived in, a much, much larger world had appeared. And in the new world, there was no such thing as distance.

As he delved further and further into the world of the Net and found himself on the verge of living a shut-in existence, Mikado one day came to an epiphany. He was free to passively receive anything and everything from the Internet—but when it came time to add his own information to that world, there was almost nothing he had to say or share.

When he realized this, Mikado became even more fascinated with the world outside of his town. The picture of Tokyo that Masaomi painted for him shone brighter than ever before.

And now he was within that light. Masaomi claimed that the
countryside was where it was brightest now, but Mikado didn’t get that feeling yet. He knew what his friend meant, and he didn’t intend to leave and never look back. But he knew that when nostalgia did register, it would be further on in the future, not now.

Mikado just wanted to savor the taste of the big city and breathe in its air so that it infused with his lungs.

As though he were a part of the city itself.

He spun around to take in more of the scenery and that city air.

Raira Academy uniforms filled 60-Kai Street, and the town itself seemed to be dyed with the color of the outfit.

“They’re almost their own color gang,” he muttered, then noticed a familiar face. “Sonohara!”

He was about to walk over to her when he noticed that she was surrounded by other girls in the same uniform, and there was a prickly tension in the air. They were close to the entrance of a side alley where it met the street, and the three girls had Anri pinned against the wall.

Curious, Mikado carefully approached the alley. None of the four girls noticed him, but he was close enough to make out every word of the conversation. In fact, it was less of a conversation than a one-sided interrogation.

“I hear you think you’re some kinda big shot even without that Mika Harima around.”

“…”

“And now you’re the class rep? What are you, some kinda goody-goody?”

“Why don’t you say something? You were like a barnacle stuck on Mika’s side in middle school.”

The three girls were taking turns verbally abusing Anri, but she showed no sign of reacting to any of it.

Are they seriously bullying her? Do people in Japan still do that?! And those insults are so…clichéd! It’s like they walked out of an old manga!

Mikado found it hard to be intimidated by such stereotypical insults. As a fellow class rep, he knew he ought to step in—but his brain was hung up on the idea of what he should actually
do
. It wouldn’t really work to pretend he didn’t see anything now, but he also didn’t like the idea of getting on the girls’ shit list.

I know! I’ll walk up with a smile and say, “Why, fancy meeting you here, Sonohara,” as if I don’t realize she’s being picked on! Yes, that’s the plan! And if those girls say anything, I’ll think on my feet.

His idea seemed trapped somewhere between optimism and pessimism, but Mikado was already walking forward…when a hand caught his shoulder from behind.

“?!”

He held his breath and turned around to see a familiar face.

“Stepping in to stop the bullying? Very brave,” said Izaya Orihara, looking interested. He kept his grip but started pushing Mikado forward instead of pulling.

“Uh, what?!” Mikado shrieked, finally drawing the attention of the four girls.

“H-h-hi, Sonohara, wh-wh-what a c-c-c-coincidennnn— Aaaa— Hang on!”

Izaya pushed him right into the midst of the girls.

“Wh-what’s the big deal?” asked one of the bullies, somewhat intimidated. It was meant not for Mikado, but the man behind him, of course.

“You really shouldn’t be extorting people out in broad daylight like this. God might let you get away with it, but the police won’t,” Izaya joked. He continued to approach the girls. “Bullying really is the lamest thing you can do.”

“Like it’s any of your beeswax, old man!” the girls screeched, either because they had finally shown their true colors or as a bluff to hide their fear.

“You’re right, it’s not,” he said, grinning. He delivered the three girls a warning. “It’s none of my business. If you’re beat up and left here to die, that’s none of my business. If I decided to assault you, if I decided to stab you, if you decided to call me, a twenty-three-year-old man, “old,” it would not change the fact that your affairs and mine are eternally unrelated. Every human being has a connection to every other, and yet we are all unrelated.”

“Huh?”

“Human beings are so vapid,” Izaya said enigmatically and took another step toward them. “Look, I’m not really into the idea of hitting girls.”

In the next moment, a small bag appeared in Izaya’s right hand.

“Huh? What?” one of the girls piped up, recognizing the expensive-looking bag. Somehow it had made its way from its customary spot on her shoulder into the man’s hands. The strap, still hanging over her shoulder, was cut clean at the waist.

While the girls were thrown into confusion, Mikado was downright terrified.

In Izaya’s left hand, held behind his back, was a very sharp knife. The scariest part was that Mikado had been watching the man’s movements the entire time, but he never noticed where the knife came from or when he’d slashed the bag free of the strap.

Izaya smartly folded up the knife and slipped it into the sleeve of his suit jacket, all one-handed behind his back. Mikado felt like he was watching a magician at work.

Still grinning, the older man pulled a cell phone out of the little bag.

“So I think I’ll start a new hobby—stomping on girls’ cell phones.”

He tossed her phone into the air. It clacked and clattered on the ground, the case plastered in little stickers.

“Hey, what’s the big—?”

She quickly reached out to pick up the phone…

And Izaya stepped hard on it, just barely missing her outstretched fingers.

With the sound of crunching snacks, broken shards of split plastic appeared under the sole of his shoe. The girl shrieked in horror, but Izaya stomped again and again. The movement was mechanical and precise, hitting the exact same spot over and over. The robotic repetition even extended to his laugh.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”

“Oh my God, I think he’s
on
something!”

“What a creep! Let’s get outta here!”

The other two dragged off the victim of the phone stomping, who looked on in mute shock. They exited the alley onto the main street and disappeared.

Once he was certain they were gone, Izaya’s laughing and stomping stopped instantly. He turned to Mikado as if nothing had just happened. Anri did not run, but stayed where she was, watching Izaya and Mikado with fright in her eyes.

“I’m bored. I think I’m over the phone-stomping fad,” Izaya said and gave Mikado a gentle smile. “It’s pretty brave of you to help someone being bullied. Most kids these days wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh…?”

Anri looked at Mikado, surprised. Given his extremely weak and passive attempt to help, and the confusion wrought by Izaya’s grand entrance, Mikado seemed to be trying to forget he’d done anything.

Unperturbed by any of this, Izaya addressed the boy slowly and deliberately.

“Mikado Ryuugamine, our meeting was no coincidence. I was searching for you.”

“Huh?”

Mikado was about to ask what he meant by that when a trash can from a convenience store hit Izaya square on the side.

The trash can fell in place, crashing to the ground with a tremendous clattering.

“
Guh!
” Izaya grunted, losing his balance and falling to his knees. The metal can hit him straight on, but the impact was from the flat side rather than an edge, so the damage wasn’t as bad as it sounded.

Izaya lurched to his feet and glared in the direction the trash can had come from.

“Sh-Shizu.”