Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) (6 page)

Raira Academy, near the front gate

Raira Academy was a private high school located fairly close to Ikebukuro Station.

Though it was a private school, its scholastic rank and tuition were only average, which, combined with its proximity to downtown, made it quite a popular school to attend. Parents typically expressed resistance, but for students coming from distant regions, it held a distinct, powerful allure.

And like any other school, it served as a meeting place for students of all different types, facilitating the creation of groups of like-minded teens, and occasionally very
unlikely
combinations as well.

After the closing bell dismissed the student populace, these little groups of varied friends gathered and dispersed to their own destinations.

“So I was wondering,” the boy said, straight-faced, in the sunset light that flooded the campus, “what makes you so cute and sexy, Anri?”

The boy and girl listening to him instantly gave their typical reactions.

The bespectacled girl blushed in consternation and mumbled, “Uh…what?”

While the reserved-looking boy shook his head in disappointment. “Not sexy… You shouldn’t say that, Masaomi.”

Masaomi, who was recognizable by his brown hair and earrings, grinned impishly. “Ahh, I see… So Mikado admits that she’s cute, even if he doesn’t think she’s sexy!”

“Wha…? Uh, no. I mean…”

“No? So you’re saying she’s not cute to begin with?”

“No, that’s not what I—! Y-yes, she’s cute!”

The girl’s face got redder and redder.

“Okay, so you will admit she’s cute… But what I’m saying is, she’s not just cute, but really sexy, and that’s what makes her a total babe. So by viewing her as a sex symbol where you don’t, I understand her more…which means I love her more! And therefore, I win!”

“Hey, who made you judge of that?!” protested his childhood friend, Mikado Ryuugamine. Masaomi side-eyed him and turned to the girl, Anri Sonohara, who was looking flustered between the two boys.

“Well, anyhoo, I’m glad that Anri’s fully recovered from her injuries.”

“Yes, that’s a very good thing!”

“Uh, um…thank you, both of you…”

Prompted by the boys’ smiles, Anri clumsily put on the best grin she could manage.

Mikado Ryuugamine.

Masaomi Kida.

Anri Sonohara.

It was the trio that perhaps most powerfully exuded an aura of “closeness” to other students at Raira Academy. In terms of romantic couples, Seiji Yagiri and Mika Harima in Class A were most famous, but the peaceful romantic triangle between these three was so well-known that some even took bets on which of the two boys Anri would end up with.

Mikado Ryuugamine was a reserved, proper boy. His hair was as black as it was when he was born, he didn’t have any piercings or accessories, and he dutifully wore his school uniform on a campus where that was not required.

In stark contrast, Masaomi Kida’s hair was dyed an eye-catching brown color, his ears had multiple piercings, and at the end of the sleeve of his own personal jacket glinted a silver bracelet and a ring.

Between the two boys, the girl seemed closer to Mikado in personality. She was like an even more boring version of him. The glasses gave her the image of a meek librarian or an honor student.

It didn’t seem like the three shared anything in common, but the smiles on their faces told any observer that they were close friends, and indeed, this was the case.

“All right! Let’s all go pick up some chicks, so we can compare Anri’s cute sexiness to theirs and prove her superiority!”

“What kind of nonsense is that?!”

“Uh…p-pick them up…?”

“Don’t worry, Anri. Your presence will lure them in: ‘Oh, there’s a girl with them, so this has to be safe!’ You won’t need to do a thing.”

The trio created a warm friendliness that shielded them from the chilly breeze. The other groups of students milling around were invested in similar conversations, which gave the school a different atmosphere from the rest of the city surrounding it.

Just as they were about to pass through the school gate, Masaomi came to a sudden stop and turned back wistfully to the building.

“So, just one week left on the path of our first year of school. It all happened so fast.”

“Yeah, it sure did.”

“It was very brief.”

Mikado and Anri found it surprising that Masaomi would act so sentimental. They joined him in looking back at the school, reflecting in their own way—except that Mikado quickly looked sideways at Anri’s meaningful expression, blushing slightly.

She looked back toward him suddenly. He hastily snapped his eyes to the school building, but it felt like their gazes had met for an instant. He didn’t feel like making an excuse like, “I was looking at
you
”—that was more up Masaomi’s alley—so he tried to hide the awkwardness by changing the subject instead.

“S-speaking of which…Mr. Nasujima sure quit school all of a sudden, didn’t he?”

“…”

Anri’s face looked pensive for a moment. But Mikado didn’t notice; he continued to chatter on about the relatively unfamiliar teacher. “I wonder why? It’s such a random time to leave. He could have just waited another week and made it a clean break at the end of the year.”

It was not Anri, but Masaomi, who responded, “Who knows? Maybe he got busted for leaking the finals questions to me. But if so, wouldn’t I have gotten called in and punished, too?”

“Did I just hear you let slip what I think you did?”

“It wasn’t a slip at all. I summoned considerable courage in coming clean and admitting my crimes to you. Praise me! The same way you’d praise the honesty of the biographer who admitted the story about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree was a total fabrication!”

“I don’t give a crap about the honesty of someone who has to twist logic in knots to make his point.”

As they bickered like usual, Anri’s conflicted expression gradually softened. Mikado noticed her slight grin and shyly switched to a new topic.

“Speaking of people who vanished…the same goes for the slasher.”

Anri’s smile vanished as well. Mikado suddenly realized his mistake and hastily bowed his head.

“S-sorry, Sonohara. I didn’t mean to make you remember…”

“Huh? No! I’m fine. I’m sorry. It’s nothing, really,” she apologized back for no real reason, startled by his sudden concession.

Anri had been admitted to the hospital after she was attacked by the slasher on that infamous night a few weeks back. Mikado and Masaomi were more concerned for her sake than anyone. Then again, she didn’t really have any other friends, and without a family, the only other people than these two who visited her in the hospital were her teacher Kitagoma and her old friend Mika.

The speed of her recovery surprised everyone, and after a few days and tests—with only Mikado and Masaomi visiting her on each of those days—she was cleared to leave. Once out, they treated her like nothing had ever happened.

Then again, Masaomi’s visits had been very brief, and he usually had some parting comment like, “RN? Caretaker? No, there’s no better term for an angel in white than
nurse
.”

In personality, Mikado and Masaomi were just as different as their appearances suggested. Masaomi publicly professed his attraction to Anri but said the same thing about other girls equally. Meanwhile, Mikado had never officially announced his fondness for her. He was shy enough that he seemed to be satisfied just hanging out as a threesome at Masaomi’s insistence.

Meanwhile, Anri did not wish to destroy that relationship, and she had no score to settle with the boys on that matter. The other girls at the school understood her personality and therefore didn’t spread false rumors about how she was playing the both of them.

Even the group of bullies who usually harassed her had been strangely well behaved since their leader found herself one of the slasher’s victims. Mikado heard a number of such rumors regarding their little trio.

Now that he no longer felt uncomfortable with his standing, he was ready to head out into the city with Masaomi on his frivolous plan, grumbling all the while.

The sudden vibration of a phone put an end to that brief moment of peace.

Masaomi pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and answered it at once. “Hello? It’s me…” His face hardened for an instant. He murmured a few words back, then stashed the phone away and turned to them, bowing with a hand held vertically in front of his face.

“Sorry. An old friend wants to meet up all of a sudden.”

“Oh, really?”

“If you want to blame anyone, blame my friend all you want. Blaming is free, and it’s no skin off my back: two birds with one stone!”

Mikado shrugged off this sudden change of plans like it was just business as usual. “If it means we don’t have to pick up girls, I’m more inclined to thank your friend instead.”

“Nah, save the thanks for me.”

“You’re such a tyrant.”

“Tyrants make their way into the history books a lot easier than a nice old king. See ya tomorrow!” Masaomi called out, a poor excuse for an excuse, and trotted out of the gate.

Mikado watched his friend grow smaller and smaller in the distance. He turned to Anri with a wry, exasperated grin.

“We could have at least gone with him partway. What’s the rush about?”

“Dunno…”

“What about you, Sonohara? Are you going home now?”

“I suppose… I’ve got something to take care of, too,” Anri said, grinning. She headed for the gate to prod Mikado onward.

“I see… Yeah, okay. It’s funny… The sunset was so pretty today, but there are scary-looking clouds overhead. There could be some showers soon. Stay dry, okay?”

“Ah, okay… Thank you for your concern.”

That doesn’t just mean she wants to stay away from me, does it?

“They say the day after a pretty sunset is always clear, but I don’t know about the night in between.”

“Good point…”

Anri’s typical reaction stung Mikado a bit. He was concerned at the fact that as soon as Masaomi left, she found she had “something to take care of.”

If possible, he hoped to visit a café with her—but it was difficult to bring himself to ask that now, certainly not after she claimed she had business of her own.

Mikado was curious about the nature of her errand, but he never managed to ask. They talked about their usual harmless topics on the way back home.

He never once stopped to think about the nature of Masaomi’s errand, however.

One hour later, Sunshine, Sixtieth Floor Street, Ikebukuro

“Hey, Shizuo.”

“What is it, Tom?”

Two men carefully wound through the crowd that was largely made up of Raira students. The one with glasses and dreads spoke to the other man.

“I’m gettin’ hungry. Time to grab a bite.”

“Good idea. I’m not feeling picky,” the young man in the bartender outfit replied quietly.

“Hey, Shizuo…why the bartender getup?”

“I had a part-time job bartending once, and my little brother wanted to make sure I didn’t get fired this time, so he ordered me twenty of the same outfit. These clothes are all over my house.”

“…Your brother’s pretty damn generous.”

“If there’s one thing he’s got a lot of, it’s money.”

The man envisioned the face of his brother and sighed. This was Shizuo Heiwajima, widely seen as the most dangerous man in the streets of Ikebukuro. At his side was his work superior, Tom Tanaka.

The two worked together as debt collectors for a
telekura
—a phone-based dating service. As their job was to collect money from folks who tried to run out on their debts, it involved danger in a variety of ways.

“Money, huh? Hey, wasn’t there an armed robbery around here just a little while ago? I bet it was just a model gun made to look real. Then again, if you tinker with them enough, even a model gun can be deadly.”

“Scary stuff.”

“Says you,” snorted Tom, but his laugh was not directed at Shizuo. He didn’t want the trouble of pissing the other fellow off over something as harmless as this.

They had finished their daytime collecting, and next they would be after those customers who only showed up at night. There was plenty of time until then, so they decided to look for a place to eat, when…

“Hello, Shizoo-oh. Tom. Nice to see yoo.”

Two black hands grabbed their shoulders, accompanied by cartoonishly accented Japanese.

The men spun around and saw an enormous black man standing nearly seven feet tall.

There were a surprising number of black street solicitors in Ikebukuro, most of them working for thrift shops and clubs. But what set this man apart was the outfit—a blue-and-white apron with
RUSSIA SUSHI
stitched on the breast.

“Your tummy growl, just now. Yes? I hear it. Good ears, me. You eat. Eat sushi. Even Satan in hell like sushi.”

“…”

Tom smiled uncomfortably at the man’s Japanese, which was broken in a variety of ways. He looked over at Shizuo.

Shizuo was staring impassively back at the black man. His state of mind was unreadable.