One had a ring with a yellow tiger’s eye decoration.
One had a yellow wristband.
One had sunglasses with yellow lenses.
One had a yellow leather belt.
And despite the summer heat outside, there was a yellow scarf wrapped around the neck of the boy in the very back of the room—Masaomi Kida.
“So who’s still missing? Just Yatabe?” he asked, seated in a chair. His tone of voice was light and informal, but everyone else there understood this was just a facade.
These were the members of the Yellow Scarves, and they were not there to sing. Each person or group to come through the door delivered a fresh report on what was happening in the city to Masaomi.
They had a deal with the employees at the karaoke establishment, so their use of this place as their meeting area was a secret from the outside world. The members here now were the original Yellow Scarves’ core, the ones Masaomi had known since he’d transferred to Tokyo for school.
During the war with the Dollars half a year ago, Horada’s former Blue Squares faction had managed to eliminate the original squad of Yellow Scarves from the gang, and several of them had suffered physical injuries in the process.
But when Masaomi Kida put out the call to the original crew, every last one of them showed up. Some of them hadn’t even been involved in that confrontation; they were simply schoolmates of Masaomi’s at Raira Academy. They knew about Masaomi’s new life with Mikado Ryuugamine and Anri Sonohara, and they knew about his relationship with Saki Mikajima, so they played it cool and acted like strangers at school. He didn’t want to drag them back to the gang, and they didn’t want to get involved in his new life.
This time it was different, however. Masaomi Kida had given them a direct invitation to the resurgence of the Yellow Scarves. They’d always trusted his judgment, so now they rushed eagerly to his side. While the gang was a fraction of the size it had been half a year ago, they were back to being the original Yellow Scarves of two years past.
It was an unexpected outcome for Masaomi.
He had abandoned the Yellow Scarves once, and when he’d returned in order to catch the street slasher who’d attacked Anri, he had failed to notice what was happening to the group with Horada’s Blue Squares and as a result had put his friends in danger.
He didn’t presume that asking for forgiveness would work. He put in the call expecting them to beat him up until they were satisfied or to just not show up at all.
Instead, they celebrated his true return. They didn’t want his apologies. The guilt in him was so strong that it drove his determination even harder—so he delivered a message on the first day they all met up.
“The reason I came back to this city, repping the Yellow Scarves, was my own selfishness. A friend of mine, a friend I care about as much as you guys, is going the wrong way in life. I’m gonna beat the crap outta him to stop him, if I have to…but I might not be able to pull this off by myself. So please…if you don’t mind, lend me your help. Let me use you all…for my own selfish reasons.”
And the original Yellow Scarves crew accepted his selfish reasons as their own.
“C’mon, Shogun, you know you’ve always been that way.”
“Yeah, and you’ve always indulged our selfishness in return.”
“Besides, it’s just plain fun doin’ stuff with you, man.”
“It’s creepy when you apologize to us, Shogun.”
“You guys really wanna keep calling me that?”
While their personal relationships were varied—some had always looked up to him, and others were old Raira Academy schoolmates who were always on equal footing with him—they were all consistent in calling him Shogun. Masaomi found that both pleasing and a bit excessive, and he smiled just the way he used to back in the day.
“Now that I think about it, getting called Shogun is just plain embarrassing.”
“You just started thinking that now?!”
“There’s no way it’s a bad thing!”
“Not at all.”
“You’re gonna be Shogun for life!”
Seeing their faces light up brought Masaomi the absolute determination he’d been hoping for. From this moment on, he would be Mikado Ryuugamine’s enemy.
If his friend was so tangled up in the complex strings of the Dollars that he couldn’t get back, Masaomi was going to cut them for him. He had to be his enemy in order to save him.
Before that oath to himself could soften, Masaomi faced the group.
“There’s something I want you all to know. I want this to be an absolute secret between all of us. This doesn’t leave the room. The guy I’m willing to beat up to stop is named Mikado Ryuugamine. Some of you might know him.
“He’s the founder of the Dollars.”
That was over a week ago. Now that he’d revealed Mikado’s secret, there was no turning back.
But Masaomi felt no regret. If there was anything he regretted, it was that when the leader of Toramaru told Mikado, “You’re not cut out to be a leader,” he had left without consoling or reassuring his friend in any way.
If he’d just said something, even knowing it would hurt the both of them, Mikado might not have broken down at that moment. In fact, Masaomi’s trip out of the city was probably part of the reason as well. He had wondered if it was the right choice, but given his mental state at the time, he didn’t think there was another option.
That just made it all the more important that he didn’t hold back now. No running away. He had to pull Mikado out of that swamp, even if it meant being the villain. Before Anri worried any more than she needed to.
First was getting an accurate picture of the state of the city and rustling up as many of the old members as possible. Masaomi and the rest of the OG crew had started meeting every day at this karaoke spot to trade information and discuss plans.
The only one left to arrive today would be Yatabe, after which they’d issue their reports and discuss future preparations.
“I woulda figured Yatabe would be here by now,” Masaomi muttered. The rest of them looked at one another.
“I hope something didn’t happen to him.”
“I’ll try to call.”
It was hard not to be worried after what happened six months ago. One of the group pulled out his phone to make contact—but Masaomi’s buzzed first.
“…It’s Yatabe,” he said, once he read the screen. The rest of the group looked relieved. “Hey, what’s up? You’re late!”
They could hear Yatabe’s voice through the phone, which put them even further at ease—until Masaomi’s expression hardened, and tension crackled through the room again.
“…Yeah, okay… No, it’s all right. Bring him with you,” he said cryptically, then hung up. “Yatabe’s outside the building.”
Without changing his expression, he shrugged and continued, “But he’s got a guest with him.”
“Hey, hiya, hiya, how many days has it been, Kida?”
A few minutes later, Yatabe showed up in the room with Yumasaki, who had his backpack over his shoulder, acting like it was any other day. There was definitely one very odd aspect to this, however: the fact that he was alone.
Normally, he was with the rest of Kadota’s little clique or with Karisawa on one of their trips around the usual bookstores and anime shops.
Masaomi knew that Kadota wasn’t in any state to be out and about, though. “I really didn’t expect to see you here.”
Obviously, Masaomi had been around him many times, but the rest of the group looked highly uneasy. While he was just one guy, the ones who had been Yellow Scarves for years knew Yumasaki as a former member of the Blue Squares. Since Yumasaki had also saved Masaomi’s girlfriend Saki, it was a delicate and uneasy mix of emotions they felt, with no clear choice of how to react.
Instead, Masaomi carried the conversation with their visitor. “I’m surprised you knew where to find us,” he noted.
Yumasaki didn’t bother to play coy.
“Actually, I feel bad admitting this, but…Yatabe? Basically, I followed Yatabe here. They say he’s like your right-hand man, so I figured if the Yellow Scarves were getting back on the scene, he’d have to be involved.”
“…How did you figure out where to find Yatabe?”
“I bought the details from Izaya.”
“…That piece of shit,” Masaomi muttered, his cheek twitching. Guess we’d better use a different meeting spot next time.
It was absolutely imperative that they avoid Izaya having tabs on what they were up to. Mikado was working with Aoba Kuronuma, the former Blue Square, and there was no way Izaya wouldn’t mess with them. In that sense, Masaomi was very aware of what kind of person Izaya Orihara was. Of course, he’d learned that lesson from personal experience, so obviously he would be wary.
The brief flash of past memories irritated him, but he shoved that aside and asked Yumasaki, “So what is it that brings you here?”
“Oh, come on, Kida. You know why,” said Yumasaki, his eyes narrowing even further. He leaned against the door, grinning.
Masaomi wasn’t sure how to respond, so the other boy spoke first.
“Are you the ones…who ran over Kadota?”
Tokyo
A building located outside of the urban center lay dormant, the renovation process paused for some reason. There were scorch marks here and there on the concrete walls and floors, and parts of the wooden floor had holes, possibly caused by bullets.
Up to the second floor, it looked like a typical, functioning building, but everything above that was in the process of construction when it was stopped. The exposed beams cast an eerie silhouette against the night.
A number of youths were hanging out on the second floor. Most of them had the proper delinquent appearance to suit this barren place, but the two at the center of the group didn’t seem like they belonged here at all.
The two baby-faced boys were Mikado Ryuugamine and Aoba Kuronuma. As Aoba examined the area, Mikado said, “This place looks all messed up. What is it?”
“A company was paying for renovation when business was good, and then their funding went sideways, and so it’s been abandoned ever since. And there was some yakuza squabble or something recently, which only pushed people further away—except for the ones who like killing time with tests of bravery,” Aoba answered with a chuckle.
Mikado patted the concrete wall. “It does seem like a good place to use as a meeting spot. I’m just not a fan of how far from Ikebukuro it is.”
“Farther is better. If we’re constantly meeting up in the middle of ’Bukuro, people are going to realize where we are right away.”
“I see. That’s a good point,” Mikado admitted. He sat down on a mound of construction materials left in the corner of the room, opened a laptop, and booted it out of sleep mode.
After about fifteen seconds of tinkering, he nodded in satisfaction. “Good, looks like we get a signal here. Now we can tell what’s going on with the Dollars.”
Even more important to Mikado than the commute was whether they could get online. That was a big factor in Aoba recommending this location as their base of operations.
Mikado was soon connected and collecting information. Rather than using the laptop’s trackpad, he deftly tapped the tab key and a number of shortcuts to control the browser, literally surfing the web with his fingertips.
Yoshikiri, Gin, Neko, and the other Blue Squares watched in amazement as he typed as swiftly as a sewing machine threading stitches, but Aoba was paying more attention to the speed at which the screen and Mikado’s eyes shifted.
Is he actually reading all that?
Fast fingers or not, he’d have to stop to actually read and process what he was seeing on the screen. But Mikado never stayed on a single tab more than a few seconds at most while he was reading. The only exceptions were when he was actually entering information for himself.
The comparison of the rapidly shifting screen info and the look of hasty, furious concentration on Mikado’s face thoroughly impressed Aoba, although there was a good amount of exasperation in there, too.
Without slowing the pace of his keyboard commands, Mikado murmured, “Seems like things have gotten really bad over the course of today.”
“For the Dollars?”
“Yeah. It’s probably because of what happened to Kadota.”
It was true that the Dollars were acting strangely around the city. No matter how much he denied it, it was public knowledge that Kadota was a figurehead for the group. Therefore, he had always been a hammer hanging over the heads of those who wanted to use the Dollars’ name for their own personal gain. In fact, Kadota’s presence alone had been keeping in check the same people whom Mikado was now using the violence of Aoba’s Blue Squares to suppress.
If only we had another…five or so people like Kadota, this might not have happened to the Dollars, Mikado thought as he typed. Some people on the Dollars message board were openly cheering Kadota’s injury. One post said, “Tonight’s dinner tasted great, knowing that Kadota nearly died!”
Mikado used his admin privileges to ban those users from the board. In the past, he might’ve left it alone, but now he was using his authority without hesitation. It was one very clear change within his personality, but he had no recognition of it.
He continued the process of gathering and sorting information, annoyed at the very undesirable state of his Dollars now, when he came across one particular post and stopped typing.
“…?”
Aoba noticed the odd change in his friend’s demeanor and leaned in to stare at the screen for himself. The information he found there was very interesting to him, indeed.
Karaoke place, Tokyo
“…It wasn’t us. Do we look rich enough to have a car?” Masaomi shrugged in answer to Yumasaki’s question about Yellow Scarves involvement in the hit-and-run. “But I understand why you’d suspect us. It’s only been a few days since I went to talk to Kadota. Honestly, if I were in your position, I’d probably suspect me, too…”
“What? No, I’m not suspecting you, Kida.”
“Huh?”
“I’d like to think I know you decently well. You might not be a saint, but I know you’re not a piece of shit. You don’t seem like the kind of character who would do the same thing Izumii did to Saki,” Yumasaki explained. The use of the word character seemed fitting for him. “But while I know you, I don’t know all about the current Yellow Scarves. Can you state the group’s innocence for a fact? Elements of unrest within a group and characters who go on joyrides when the boss isn’t looking are a fact of life, and not just in books. It’s a borderless zone between reality and fiction.”
“Well…”
“You can’t deny that. That’s what it was like half a year ago, right?”
“…”
Masaomi had no answer.
“Plus, there are already rumors online about you guys getting back together.”
“…”
“Someone was raising hell about you guys planning an ambush, drawing the first blood.”
“…I see,” Masaomi muttered, his expression hard.
Yumasaki continued, “In fact, since no culprit was ever caught in the slasher case, people online are acting like the war between the Dollars and Yellow Scarves never officially ended.”
It was like he was giving them a synopsis of a show, describing events to them that they had experienced for themselves just half a year ago.
“If this war was like a comic book or a novel, the reader would think that if the Yellow Scarves were back in action, the slasher and the Dollars were working together, and that as the victim, the Yellow Scarves would be looking for revenge. So what’s the easiest way to get back? Drive your car over one of the most famous and powerful Dollars…”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that starting up the Yellow Scarves again means facing those suspicions…get it? So let me ask you one more time. Can you sw
ear that none of you had anything to do with running over Kadota?”
One of the Yellow Scarves got annoyed with the questioning and interjected, “Hey, man, give it a rest—”
“Stop,” said Masaomi, cutting him off. He carefully steadied his breathing, surveyed the entire group in the room, then told Yumasaki, “I believe everyone here, and I can swear to you I didn’t do it. If it turns out one of our guys ran over Kadota…”
“Then?”
“…then I want you to do whatever will make this right for you.”
“…”
Yumasaki said nothing. Eventually, the edges of his mouth curled up, and he put his hand on the doorknob. “All right. I’ll take your word and search for the true culprit. Sorry for doubting you guys like that.”
“Please…I understand. If we learn anything, we’ll let you know at once.”
“That’d be great. Honestly, I’m glad to hear you’re not responsible for this one.”
On his way out, he glanced at a pile of songbooks on a table in the corner of the room and exclaimed with delight. “The cover of this album list is of Haruka Nogizaka.”
“Huh? Uh…okay,” Masaomi mumbled, assuming he was talking about some anime or another.
Yumasaki waved at him, and before he left the karaoke room, he added, “I’m really glad that the portrait of Nuit Étoile didn’t get burned.”
He left them on that incomprehensible note. Silence filled the room for several moments. Eventually, one of Masaomi’s friends turned to him and said, “Before rumors start up that we did Kadota, maybe we should go chase that guy down and kick his— Agh!”
Masaomi smacked his friend on the skull and gave him a furious expression. “If you do that, it only makes us look more suspicious to everyone else, idiot!”
“Oh, y-you’re right. Sorry.”
“Also, you’re acting like kicking Yumasaki’s ass is just a given.”
“Huh? But…he seemed so wimpy,” his companion said, completely confused.
Masaomi glared at him and sniffed loudly and conspicuously. “Are y’all stuffed up or something?”
Durarara!!, Vol. 10 Page 8
