Durarara!!, Vol. 4 (novel) (14 page)

With Aoba’s childish looks, it could have easily been a role reversal of man and woman. His mind went from recovering its wits to losing them again. He stared at her in blank shock. Mairu pulled back and, without missing a beat, declared, “Yippee! I shared an indirect kiss with Kuru! Hee-hee-hee!”

She hopped away from Aoba and continued in the same tone of voice, “Sorry about that. It’s probably a big shock to receive that from a girl who isn’t your girlfriend. Then again, Kuru looks like the reserved type, but she’s actually a lot more assertive than I am!”

“…Not true.”

The younger of the twins ignored the elder and approached Aoba, giggling as she leaned in for a very long whisper.

“Oh, but even if you fall in love with Kuru, you can’t monopolize her! She belongs to me, too, you know! Also, I’ve decided that the only man for me is Yuuhei Hanejima! In fact, Kuru’s a big Yuuhei Hanejima
fan, too, so you might not get anything more than that kiss from her! Ha-ha-ha!”

“But Yuuhei Hanejima is…a huge star.”

“Yeah, I know. Why do you mention it?”

“Never mind…um…huh? What am I supposed to do about this?”

Aoba was much too confused by the series of events for this to work as the dating sim development it could have been. Once he collected his breath and thoughts, he asked a question that had nothing to do with their kisses.

“Umm…oh, right. Did you put something in those girls’ bags? Tsukiyama and them, I mean. Like…stuff.”

It was a very direct and pointed question—which the girl who had kissed him on the third day they met, without any romantic connection, answered in a tiny voice.

“…That’s a secret.”

With a shy little smile at the end.

After the twins left, Aoba stayed there for a while, leaning against the shoe locker at the front entrance. Eventually, he remembered something and brought up a friend’s number on his phone.

“Yeah, hello? It’s me…”

“I feel like I just turned into the protagonist of a really bad porno.”

“Would you believe me if I said that I just got kissed out of the blue by a pair of twins?”

“Huh? Yeah, they’re cute. Kinda weird, but in terms of their facial features, they’re pretty cute.”

“Kill me? Why? No, I just figured that I would ask whether I should be happy or freaked out, from the perspective of a loser like you… Okay, sorry, that one’s my fault. Don’t scrape the phone speaker against the glass—aaaaagh! Stop it!”

That night, Ikebukuro

“I don’t see it, Kuru. I’m pretty sure that glider was going in this direction, though. Aww, geez. I just wanna see it, I wanna see it, I wanna!”

Mairu was shouting and carrying on, her kiss with an unfamiliar boy earlier in the afternoon completely forgotten. They were both in their own clothes now, but their fashion sense was odd nonetheless. Their affect was different from during the daytime.

“…”

Kururi, meanwhile, scanned the area in silence.

After going home from school, they leaped all over the live footage of the Black Rider and rushed out into the city to catch sight of it.

There was still heavy foot traffic in the shopping district, but as it was a normal weekday, once you got off the beaten path, it quickly turned quiet.

As they headed down one such lonely street, Mairu asked her older sister, “By the way, why are we coming this way? Shouldn’t we look on one of the bigger streets?”

Kururi ignored her and continued to look around, eventually settling on a car parked on the street. She began walking straight toward it.

“…This way.”

No sooner had she said it than Kururi crouched down and reached under the car.

“Whoa, what are you doing, Kuru? Did you find a ten-yen coin? Yippee! You can buy me one of those cheapo puffed corn snacks! I’ll take the
mentaiko
flavor, please!” Mairu teased, cackling. But her sister got back to her feet, holding what she’d found under the car.

“What’s that?” Mairu asked. Her sister didn’t ignore her this time.

“…I saw…the Black Rider…drop it…on TV.”

“Huh? No way, it dropped something? I didn’t notice!” Mairu exclaimed in surprise. She examined the object her sister found with great interest.

Then she said…

“What’s up with this
envelope
?”

It was a brown manila envelope with “Payment—Celty Sturluson” written on it in Japanese.

The envelope was surprisingly heavy and felt as though it contained a stack of paper. Kururi was already anticipating the answer before she opened it up.

As soon as she saw what was inside, her eyes went wide, and she glanced around.

“What’s up, Kuru?”

At the very instant that the younger sister got her own peek into the envelope, something writhed in the corners of their vision. They both spun around to see.

Ikebukuro at night. In the middle of an empty street.

A monster stood there, ready to silence the girls in the lonely midst of the city.

It was tall, with exceedingly pale skin. And it appeared to be wandering about aimlessly.

But its face was hideously twisted from the nose outward, with bright-red blood spilling from eyes, ears, nose, and mouth as it shuffled forward with zombielike steps.

“…What’s that?”

“Stay back, Kuru.”

Mairu determined that this represented a threat, and she stood in front of her sister, right in the path of the obviously dangerous figure.

And just when he was mere inches away from entering Mairu’s roundhouse kick range, the bloodied man fell over, muttering something.

“…? What’s up with him? Should we call an ambulance?” the girl wondered. Right then, the man’s head rose, and he spoke in halting, trembling Japanese.

“Hospital…not so…good… Miss…is there…
gahfk!
”

“…Yo-u okay?”

There was blood in the man’s cough. He slowly rolled to face upward again and just barely managed to mumble, “I’m sorry… It might not be possible…but before I die…I need to do one…thing…”

“What, what? This is really interesting. Can you tell me?”

“Are you aware…of any sushi shops…run by Russians…around here…?”

Ten minutes later, Sunshine, Sixtieth Floor Street, Ikebukuro

With a new briefcase purchased at the discount shop, Shizuo boldly strode through the night.

“What do you suppose that thief was all about, Tom?”

“Don’t ask me, man,” Shizuo’s boss answered lazily. He thought about the event earlier in the evening. “I guess we could check back there later. Don’t want to get in trouble if it turns out that white guy died.”

“You realize he was trying to starve us by stealing our stuff, right? He must have known there was the possibility of being killed.”

“Y’know, sometimes you can say the most aggressive things…,” Tom muttered, feeling a cold sweat run down his back. He determined that further comments might result in his own bodily harm, so he set about checking their next collection point with a sigh.

When he wasn’t pissed, Shizuo was a fairly quiet man. Right now he was somewhere in between. He probably wasn’t fully over the bizarre and uncalled-for attempted robbery (?) from before.

They decided they ought to grab a bite to eat before they headed to their next job and were looking for a suitable destination when they heard a pleased shout.

“Shii-zuu-oo!”

A girl leaped onto Shizuo’s back.

“…”

He reacted with something resembling a wry smile. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

Shizuo reached around his back and picked up the girl by the collar like a kitten.

“Oh no, no, no, it’ll stretch! You’re stretching my clothes, Shizuo!”

“Mairu…what the hell are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

He dangled her out in front of him, confirming that it was indeed the little sister of the man he hated more than anyone else in the world.

“To see you, of course!”

“I know you’re only after Kasuka…”

“Yeah! But I love you, too, Shizuo. You’re so strong!”

“…Whatever. Even I don’t have access to Kasuka’s schedule anymore. He’s a big star now, I hear.” Shizuo grunted exasperatedly, lowering Mairu to the ground. He looked over and saw Kururi watching from a distance. The girl bowed shyly.

“…For a second, I was worried you were gonna snap there, man.” Tom grinned nervously, his face twitching slightly.

Shizuo scratched his head and said, “Well…I don’t usually snap on people who are at least honest and straightforward about it.”

What Shizuo Heiwajima hated was people who used logic to twist others around and stir up their emotions. First and foremost of this type was Izaya Orihara, and while his sisters were also insane, they were more honestly so, and therefore he didn’t get as angry with them.

Naturally, he didn’t put up with everything they did—but given their obvious admiration for him, Shizuo did not display any open antagonism toward them.

He did, however, show some irritation at the inevitable thought of their brother. “Listen, if your brother dies laughing as he gets shoved into a dump truck, I might just introduce you to my brother. In fact, I’m kinda frustrated today, so maybe I’ll blow off steam by beating Izaya to death.”

“If Iza will do the trick, then go right ahead!” Mairu suggested, selling her brother into certain death. Shizuo sighed again.

Nearby, Tom thought that it was quite rare for Shizuo to sigh like a normal person, but he chose to keep that observation to himself.

“Oh, right! I want to talk more with you, but there’s a specific reason I came over, Shizuo!”

“What?”

“Listen, listen. Iza took us to this sushi place run by Russians around here. Do you know where it is? We got lost looking for it…”

“Oh, Simon’s place? And don’t call him Iza. Call him Fleabrains from now on.”

It struck Shizuo as an odd request, but he gave them thorough directions to their destination (which was actually just a single corner away).

Meanwhile, Tom noticed the other, much shyer girl and thought,
Shizuo and a withdrawn teenage girl… Can’t tell if they’re totally unsuited for each other or just the opposite.
But when he saw the envelope in her hands, his eyes went wide.

Inside the opened envelope was a stack of Yukichi Fukuzawas—about a hundred of them. He looked around carefully, approached the girl, and whispered, “Hey, you shouldn’t be carrying those around in the envelope.”

“…!”

As she hastily closed the envelope, he handed her the paper bag that had contained the clock he just bought at the discount shop. “It’s better than nothing. And make sure you don’t drop it.”

“…Thank you”

“It’s fine. I was just looking for a place to throw the bag away.”

Finished with the directions, Mairu came back to grab Kururi’s hand and drag her away.

“Thank you, Shizuo!”

“…See you. Say hi…to Kasuka.”

Tom watched the two girls race off and sighed.

Still just in their first or second year at Raira…and they’ve made a huge stack of cash like that… How long did it take them to earn that, and what did they have to give up?

After a while, he turned to Shizuo and mumbled, “I know they say that kids these days are liberal when it comes to sex…but money can be a scary thing.”

“?”

“Then again…we collect debts for a hookup service, so I guess we’re not in any position to lecture…”

Tom nodded to himself, pitying the plight of the young women without realizing that he was completely wrong about it. Shizuo watched his boss, and after the meeting with Mairu, he thought about his younger brother.

Oh yeah. He said he was on location in Ikebukuro today.

We live in the same neighborhood. You’d think he could drop me a line once in a while.