Durarara!!, Vol. 4 (novel) (9 page)

As they droned on and on, their companion finally broke his silence.

“Please, you two, just stop talking about your moe stuff out in public like this,” Kadota pleaded, sighing and pressing his forehead with his fingers.

Whether in the warmth of April or the chill of winter, the topic of conversation for those two never changed. If anything did change, it was merely the title of whatever anime or manga they were discussing.

“Can’t you just get off the topic of 2-D stuff already?”

“Sure thing.”

“Tsk.”

Surprised that they actually obliged him, Kadota was delighted to have some silence. It lasted only a second.

“By the way, the figures that the sculptor Zetsumu Youen makes have been getting sexier around the waistline lately, don’t you think?”

“No, it’s the barely raised stomach lines that show off the ribs of his slender characters that are the true moe his style inspires!”

It was the exact same stuff as before. Kadota bellowed, “I
just
told you to stop talking about that!”

Yumasaki and Karisawa were taken aback by his anger.

“What do you mean?! Figures are 3-D!”

“Not quite, Karisawa! Figures are actually 2.5-D!”

“…When I’m with you, sometimes I wonder if this is actually Japan at all,” Kadota grumbled, half-resigned. He resumed walking toward his destination: the Tokyu Hands department store.

When they rounded a corner and the pedestrian traffic wasn’t so thick, he turned back and asked, “It’s tonight, right? You’re gonna take Mikado and whoever around those stores and stuff?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Wanna come?”

“Nah, I’d only scare them away.”

“You think so, Dotachin? If you took your cap off and laid your bangs flat, you’d make a pretty convincing honor student!” Karisawa teased. Kadota ignored her and kept walking—until he saw something unfamiliar.

“See, we’re just askin’ questions, yeah? Askin’ if you know anything about the Black Rider, yeah?”

“You girls want money, right? Well, so do we. So don’t hog all of it, yeah?”

“Why don’t you invest some allowance in us? If we score the ten million yen, we’ll pay you back physically. With interest.”

“Yeah, and we’re almost the same age as you, so it won’t count as prostitution. Seriously. I’ll even do it for free.”

A group of men chanting extremely stereotypical taunts had surrounded two teenage girls. Each of the men wore imposing, tough-looking clothes, and one of them was in a full motorcycle-gang uniform with stripes.

“Awright, I get it. You girls are the Black Rider.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“That’d be hilarious.”

“So why don’t you have ten-million-yen worth of fun with us?”

The content of their taunts and challenges were like a slice from another period in time. It made them seem quite out of place in the big city.

Kadota watched the men for a bit, then muttered, “I never expected to see such stereotypical street thugs in this day and age.” The trio strode forward, shaking their heads.

Meanwhile, the men hadn’t noticed their observers. They continued to harass the girls.

“Actually, if you two hang out in this neighborhood, you must be pretty loaded, huh?”

“Filthy. Filthy!”

“C’mon, don’t just clam up. Say something, huh?”

“Hang on, you guys. Don’t you see they’re scared? Sorry about that. As an apology, why don’t we take you somewhere you want to go? Huh?”

When one of the thugs started to initiate a weak attempt at a good-cop-bad-cop routine, Kadota decided it was time to open his mouth.

Several hours later, in front of Tokyu Hands

The few days surrounding Raira Academy’s extended break were half days that ended at noon. It was meant to smooth out the transition
between vacation and study, but the students just thought,
I get to hang out all afternoon, yay
, which was, in a way, the point.

When the day’s curriculum ended, the town overflowed with Raira uniforms. The school allowed for personal clothes to be worn, so once out in the town, those students melted into the crowd, while the uniform wearers stood out as a distinct group. Almost like a color gang.

Mikado slowly strode through the neighborhood, wearing that very uniform. When he reached his destination, Anri and his junior at school were already there.

“Oh? You made it before me? Sorry, were you waiting long?”

“No, I just got here.”

“Me, too.”

Anri and Aoba both seemed a bit reserved, and they didn’t appear to have been talking before he arrived. It was probably true that they had just gotten there before him. Once the greetings were out of the way, Aoba bowed to the both of them.

“I’m sorry about this. I’m just using up your valuable free time with my own selfish request…”

“That’s not true. We didn’t have anything to do, either,” Mikado said. Anri nodded.

The younger boy looked thankful at their thoughtfulness, then piped up curiously, “Mr. Ryuugamine and Ms. Sonohara, are you a couple?”

Time stopped between the two.

To someone who was just meeting them, this seemed like a perfectly normal assumption. Aoba had specifically asked Mikado for a tour of Ikebukuro, and yet here was Anri as well. It was only natural to assume that there was a romantic bond there or at least something more than just classmates.

Mikado was clearly stunned by the question, while Anri looked down, her cheeks pink. It was hard to tell if they were confirming or denying that accusation, so Aoba watched them curiously and asked, “Am I wrong?”

“N-no-no-no, it’s not like that… We’re still just, um, friends. Friends!”

“Ohh. Does that mean you’re available now, Ms. Sonohara? Shall I nominate myself for the position?”

“Wha—!”

Mikado found himself actually feeling admiration for the boy’s straight-faced lack of caution.

How can he just…
say
that? And he comes off even smoother than Masaomi!

Mikado’s lips trembled, ready to say something…but no words emerged. He was racked with both frustration that a younger schoolmate beat him to the punch and respect for the boy’s game in putting himself out there to the opposite sex.

The younger boy turned to his immobile senior and hesitantly clarified, “Um, Mr. Ryuugamine, you know that was a joke, right?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you don’t have to look like the world is crumbling around your ears…”

“…Did…did I look like that?” Mikado asked, going red with embarrassment. He glanced sidelong at Anri. In her usual way, she was looking awkwardly at the ground, listening to the conversation.

The pair looked like bashful little kids. Meanwhile, the one who looked closest to an actual kid laughed and whispered to Mikado, “I’m glad. I thought since you were with the Dollars, you would have a scary side…but I’m happy to know that someone like you is in the group.”

“I dunno. I mean, I appreciate that, but…”

Huh? That
was
a compliment, right?
Mikado wondered, unsure if it was meant to be sarcastic. He smiled politely.

Emboldened by the effect of his last question, Aoba decided to push further. “So…are the people we’re going to meet today also Dollars?”

“Well, yes…but don’t worry, they’re not scary, either.”

Not scary in the way you’re thinking, at least,
Mikado thought, imagining the machine-gun chatter that was Yumasaki and Karisawa’s specialty. He looked around, checking to see if they were approaching.

But their next visitors were not the nerdy duo.

“Do you have a moment?”

“We’d like to pray for your happiness.”

On either side of Mikado was a tall man approaching six feet.

“—?! H-h-how can I help you?”

“Just let me see your face.”

The tall men grabbed him without permission, their manner suddenly cruel.

“This the guy?”

“Yep, that’s him! Bingo. Got confirmation.”

The men looked at each other happily, whatever their “bingo” was. Based on the lip piercings and crooked teeth black from nicotine, they did not appear to be pacifists. Mikado was a believer in not judging a book by its cover, but in this one situation, he felt confident that these books were exactly what their covers suggested.

As Aoba and Anri watched in stunned confusion, the men leered gleefully and leaned in toward Mikado, their faces reeking of cigarette smoke.

“Hey. You were there, right? You were there recently?”

“Th-there…? Where?”

“You were there, ya know? You were at that junked factory with the Black Rider that one time that Kadota’s group kicked the shit outta us. Yeah?”

“Did you get a little sloppy today, just ’cuz we weren’t wearin’ yellow?”

“…!”

The mention of the word
yellow
plunged Mikado’s mind into chaos.

“…You must be…”

The remnants of the Yellow Scarves?!

But these were not the proper Yellow Scarves that Masaomi had gathered to his side. They were the leftovers of a gang called the Blue Squares who had infiltrated the Yellow Scarves in a takeover attempt. They were ultimately crushed by a different infiltration team led by Kadota.

“Well, whatever. We don’t care why you were there when it happened.”

“It’s just, we want the ten million yen, ya know?”

Ten million yen.

That was the last piece of the puzzle to click into place. They weren’t coming after Mikado to enact revenge against a member of the Dollars…

“You know where that Black Rider is, don’cha? Huh?!”

“Let’s go. You can donate your cell to our cause, huh? Got the phone number right in there, I bet.”

They crudely grabbed at his bag, yanking it open to pore over the contents.

“Wait…stop that!”

“Shuddup!”

Mikado tried to resist, but he was hopelessly outsized and didn’t
have the combat training to make up for it. Just when he was afraid that the six-foot-tall giants would steal his cell phone—

“Hiii, Mikah-do.”

A shadow loomed behind the men, a head taller than even they were.

“?!”

“Wh-what the…fu…uh…?”

It was an enormous black man in a white T-shirt. For an instant, Mikado wasn’t sure who it was, either, but he recognized the man within moments. The lack of the sushi-chef outfit was what threw him off, but in fact, the man was quite a recognizable figure in the area.

“Simon!”

“What wrong? Fight is no good. You get hungrily-hungrily. Our sushi shop closed today. So you fight, you starve.”

“H-hey! Leggo…”

“C-can’t move…”

He was only holding the shoulders of the two men, but they struggled as if they were trapped at the bottom of the ocean. They couldn’t even budge their own fingers.

Despite the incredible pressure he was exerting on them, Simon’s expression was as cool as a cucumber. “You pick up bag. Leave these ruffians to me and run to safe-tee,” he said in the style of some kind of samurai movie, his pronunciation as awkward and endearing as ever.

It was the kind of line that usually signaled an imminent death, but in this case, that fate was more likely for his hapless victims.

“B-but Simon…”

“You no fight when girl around. Run to
Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji
, go, go, go.”

“Th-thank you! We’ll all come have sushi soon!”

“Ohh, very good. In thanks, I charge you only ten percent interest on market price.”

It probably came out more intimidating than what Simon meant to say. Meanwhile, Mikado picked up his bag, grabbed Aoba and Anri, and raced off.

As they ran through the streets of Ikebukuro, Mikado bowed to Anri and his schoolmate.

“S-sorry! I didn’t mean for you to get dragged into that nonsense!”

“Um, dragged into? You were the only one who suffered any consequences,” Aoba noted. Mikado found that he was right, but he couldn’t help but feel ashamed and embarrassed that they’d been put through that frightening experience anyway.

It was his first underclassman since coming to high school. Did he just get carried away because of all the reverential gazes Aoba was giving him? Did he get cocky and think he was cooler than he really was?

There was plenty of time to regret, but no time to reflect.

From out of the alleys came a group of men who must have been alerted by the previous punks via cell phone.

“Hey, what about the other guys?!”

“Forget ’em! We couldn’t beat Simon with our entire group, and starting a brawl there will only draw Shizuo’s attention!” the men yelled as they chased after the trio.

The distance was short enough that they could catch up in twenty seconds if they sprinted. But unluckily for them and luckily for Mikado, this was the area where the students were supposed to be meeting their friends.

“Eep!” Mikado shrieked when the van suddenly stopped in front of them, thinking that it was a fresh round of pursuers. But then he recognized the man in the passenger seat, and his face lit up.

“K-Kadota!”

The next moment, Karisawa poked her head out of the door and yelled, “Why are you being chased?! Anyway, get in, get in!”

Just in the nick of time, Mikado, Anri, and Aoba piled into the van and shut the door before the thugs could reach them.