He had blond hair and wore sunglasses to go with a bartender’s uniform.
“Well, when both you and Kasuka get so famous, you can’t prevent guys like that from coming around. I think you ought to get used to this.”
“…Okay.”
“I know it wasn’t your idea to be famous. But I think if you keep that fact in mind, it’ll actually make a big difference in your life.”
“I guess so…”
Tom and Shizuo had picked up their conversation from earlier as they waited for their sashimi tray.
“By the way, did you thank that doctor from yesterday?” Tom asked.
“…Oh, actually, not yet.”
“Well, that won’t do. He helped you out in a pinch—I don’t care if you guys go way back, he deserves a proper thanks.”
“Yeah, you’re right. It slipped my mind with all the other stuff going on,” Shizuo explained. He took out his phone and called up the black market doctor. “Hey…Shinra? Sorry about yesterday. I wanted to thank you for your help… What? Oh…yeah. I’ll call you later, then.”
He was going to walk outside to continue the call but never got further than a hovering position above the chair.
“What’s up?” Tom asked.
“I guess he’s busy. He said to call back tomorrow. In fact…it sounded like he was gonna cry.”
“Oh yeah? Well, no rush, I guess. You can do it any…oh?” Tom paused when he saw a woman appear from the kitchen. “Who’s the babe? She’s staring holes in us.”
“…You’re right,” Shizuo added. “In fact, I don’t think she’s ever done a shift here before.”
Tom glanced at the woman staring at them while her mouth worked silently, then leaned over the counter to ask the chef, “Hey, boss, when’d you pick up that fetching lady? Is she Russian, too?”
“Correct. She’s in training—doesn’t even know how to carry out a fresh towel. Think of her as a Russian decoration for now,” he answered brusquely.
Tom grinned and asked, “How do you say ‘You’re adorable’ in Russian?”
“Вы очаровательны.”
“Vee, ocheravatenen,” Tom mimicked. Then he turned to the woman. “Hey, vee ocheravatenen.”
The white woman looked back at Tom with suspicion and then turned to the chef behind the counter. “What is he saying? It is unclear. Suspicion that words are not Japanese.”
The chef smirked and shook his head. “Вы очаровательны.”
“…Provide a clear reason that you would engage in such social pleasantries.”
“That’s just what that fella there said to you.”
“In the language of what country?”
Confused and surprised, Tom leaned over to Shizuo and whispered, “Was my pronunciation that bad?”
“I wouldn’t know the difference, but I guess a native speaker would.”
“Wow, I guess I embarrassed myself,” Tom said, trying to hide the redness behind his cup of tea. Just then, the platter of sashimi came across the counter to them.
Tom reached out with his chopsticks, glanced at the woman again, and wondered, “Is she glaring at us or something?”
He almost stopped himself from bringing it up, but he knew that Shizuo wasn’t stupid enough to accost a woman for staring at him and so it was safe to proceed.
“Really? Whoa, that’s harsh,” Shizuo said, his eyes tearing up. He had just eaten a bracing sushi roll stuffed with wasabi. His vision was so blurry that he didn’t even bother to look in her direction. “Probably because you did such a bad job hitting on her.”
“You think so? Well, yeah…I guess you’re right.” Tom sighed, grabbing a slice of yellowtail.
The chef leaned forward and said, “By the way…you two said you were short on help recently, didn’t cha?”
“Huh? Oh yeah. There’s been an uptick in folks trying to welch on their fees, so it’s getting hard for me and Shizuo to cover everything on our own.” Tom grimaced.
The chef nodded—then glanced over at the woman.
“Feel like taking that decoration off my hands?”
Ikebukuro, in front of a dojo
In a mixed zoning area near Zoshigaya Cemetery bustling with apartments, small homes, and industrial factories, two oddly clashing people spoke in front of a particular building.
“And don’t worry—you’re just stopping by to introduce yourself today. If you decide you don’t like it, you can tell me.”
“O-okay.”
The tall man was Akabayashi, and the nervous-looking girl standing next to him was Akane Awakusu.
Akane wanted to be stronger.
For the last few days, she’d been through experiences that few grade-schoolers—few adults, in fact—had ever faced. And in this case, she was not the helpless victim, but the agent causing the chaos.
Right after her return a few days ago, she received a tearful embrace from her mother and then got a lecture. But even in the middle of the scolding, she heard the phrase so glad you’re all right many times, so Akane felt less like she was in trouble and more that she was guilty of inflicting pain.
Yet there was a conflicted feeling inside of her still: Shizuo Heiwajima.
She was attempting to kill a grown man, and yet he had also saved her life. Even she was having difficulty deciphering exactly how she felt about him. While he may have saved her, Akane didn’t yet have an answer as to whether she should kill him or not.
It seemed that even this most obvious of questions was beyond her ability to answer.
The world she had known had turned out to be a facade, constructed by fear of the name Awakusu. This was all unbeknownst to her, and when she learned the truth, that facade had crumbled into dust.
The wedge placed there was preventing her from re-creating her world, leaving it—and her—broken. And like a bad drama, that was when she had gotten kidnapped.
On top of that, she had met the impossible Headless Rider on her headless horse, things that shouldn’t and couldn’t exist in the real world. All these details were enough to melt the pieces of her broken worldview into a sludge.
Things had settled down now, but Akane was still in pieces.
That morning, when Akabayashi visited at her request, the first thing she had said was “How can I get good at killing people?”
The man, an employee of her father’s, looked startled at first and then hid his surprise behind a tight smile. “What’s this all about? You got it in for somebody?”
“No. It’s not that…but I have to kill him.”
“…Sounds scary. Who are you talking about?”
“I can’t tell you,” Akane said, shaking her head.
Akabayashi didn’t get angry, nor did he get upset; he just smiled. “Why not?”
“If I say, you guys will go after him, won’t you?”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked matter-of-factly.
Akane nodded. “He’s a good person. But I have to kill him.”
It wasn’t an answer that made a lot of sense, so Akabayashi kept trying to get to the bottom of her reasoning. “Do you want him to die?”
“No. I don’t want to kill him.”
“…Then why?”
“If I don’t kill him, he might kill people I care about…”
“Who told you that?”
“…I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes sorrowful. Akabayashi recognized that she wasn’t going to be able to tell him the answer, so he approached from a different direction.
“But what if that person is lying to you?”
“…I can’t tell.”
“But just a moment ago, you said this person you have to kill is good… Are you sure of that?”
“…I can’t tell,” she repeated. She shook her head, but it wasn’t a means of shying away from the question. “I can’t tell right now. Everyone, even my friends…my friend’s mother…the teacher…Father…everyone was lying to me. I don’t even know if I can trust you or not…”
“So I believe that he’s good, but now I can’t believe myself…so…umm…”
It was clear that the girl did not have it all straight in her heart. She looked down at the ground, as if ready to burst into tears, but the only things that emerged next were words. “But I can’t. I have to be stronger.”
“Why is that?”
“If it turns out he’s bad…and I’m weak, then that’s the end of me. I can’t just worry about what I should do if he’s bad… But I can’t talk to Father, either. Because they’re all yakuza, right? So he might die before I can even figure out if he’s good or bad…”
“This is quite a surprise. Does everyone your age nowadays think about grown-up concepts like this?” Akabayashi asked, impressed. He pondered for a bit, then grinned and said, “Well, I get your point. If you find out he’s a bad guy, and you’re going to stop him or protect yourself, you’ve gotta be stronger than him. And at your age… Well, I’d like to believe that us grown-ups aren’t impatient enough to kill a guy before figuring out if he deserves it or not…”
He shrugged and suggested, “Here’s an idea: Just because you might be up against a killer doesn’t mean you have to be stronger than them at killing.”
“Huh?”
“There’s a thing called self-defense. Rather than killing bad guys, it helps you get stronger so that you can protect yourself and the people you care about.”
Several hours later, Akane was here in front of this building, with Akabayashi as her escort.
The building had a sign on the front that read TRAUGOTT GEISSENDORFER’S RAKUEI GYM, and there was a poster of a tough-looking foreign man hung next to the entrance.
“It makes it sound like he owns or is affiliated with this place, but that Traugott guy actually dabbles in a lot of different fighting styles. What they teach here just so happens to be one of them, so they use that connection as a marketing gimmick. I guess he doesn’t mind them using the name, either.”
“Ohhh?” Akane replied. She didn’t seem to be entirely present. It was less that she failed to understand Akabayashi’s explanation and more that she was preoccupied with a great feeling of uneasiness.
An unfamiliar place full of unfamiliar people—these are certainly things that elicit anxiety. But to Akane in particular, there was a fear that even in this new place, she would encounter the same false smiles and words she’d been around all her life. Would they, too, be afraid of the shadow cast by the Awakusu-kai? Would they secretly hate her because of it?
Akane’s childhood mind grappled with this very adult apprehension. Her body trembled, and she was about to consider giving up and backing out when she heard an excited girl’s voice nearby.
“Ahhh! That Awakusu-kai mobster is abducting a little girl!”
“?!”
The mention of the name Awakusu caused Akane to start. But at the same time, she noticed something odd: The girl’s tone of voice was far too cheery for someone bringing up the feared Awakusu name.
She timidly turned around right as Akabayashi said, “Oh really, Mairu? Do I look like that bad of a guy?”
“How can you blame me for thinking that, Mr. Akabayashi? You couldn’t look any fishier if you tried!”
“Well, damn.” He smirked. The girl cackled.
She had to be about five or six years older than Akane, with braided hair and glasses. While those things might normally suggest a gloomy, withdrawn personality, this girl was lively and bracing. There was a bundle, probably a martial arts outfit, slung over her back, as if she were coming back from a workout.
“As a matter of fact, this girl’s name is Akane. She’s our chairman’s granddaughter.”
“Oh! Does that mean she’s gonna grow up to be the yakuza lady bossing the guys around?!”
“…! …!”
Akane was stunned. She assumed she would have to hide her background at the gym, but Akabayashi told the truth to the very first person there. Her mouth trembled in shock, and without a better idea of what to do, she began bopping Akabayashi on the back.
The girl named Mairu took a step closer and helpfully suggested, “Ha-ha! Best plan here would be a sudden attack to the privates!” She unleashed a quick, sharp kick at Akabayashi’s groin.
“Yikes!” he mocked, dodging at the last possible moment with a smile. “Man, I’ve never had two girls try to kick me in the balls in the same day before.”
“What? Twice? That must mean you made another girl cry this morning. You are a bad guy!” Mairu teased with a huge grin. She turned back to Akane and said, “Well, whatever. So you’re going to be my junior here! If you pay attention and obey my orders, I’ll make you my special henchman and even teach you my signature secret attack, the Thumbtack Special!”
“Cheap barrier of entry for a cheap attack.”
“Shut up, Mr. Akabayashi!” she shot back. Mairu was doing all the talking, and Akane hadn’t said a word yet. The existence of a person who knew her as the “granddaughter of the Awakusu-kai chairman” and still acted this way was extremely new and surprising to her.
“Well, in any case, you’ll be my little-sister fellow pupil, so if there’s any problem at all, you come and tell Sis! Here, come with me and I’ll introduce you to Master!”
“Great. I’ve already spoken with the manager, so you can take her through the rest of it. Personally, my recommendation is pole fighting, but I think the fundamentals should come first. Give Akane’s dad a call when you’re done, and he should send a car to come get her.”
“Um, wait, what?”
Akane was unable to wrap her head around how fast things were moving. Akabayashi waved and left, and Akane just watched him go as Mairu dragged her inside the building.
On the inside, a little flame kindled at the excitement of things taking an unexpected course.
Ikebukuro, apartment building
“…Can’t imagine what the boss is thinking, agreeing to this,” Tom grumbled as he climbed the rickety, old apartment stairs.
As usual, the person they were about to meet on the fourth floor of this particular building had abandoned his tab, and they were heading to collect from him—but unlike normal, there was another assistant in addition to Shizuo.
“I submit a doubt. I have not heard the contents of the job our group is performing,” said the white woman named Vorona, in her usual strange Japanese.
The chef at Russia Sushi had said she was too unfriendly to work in the service industry and asked them to take her for their job, as long as he called their boss. So here she was.
I figured he meant that she would go and do office work for him… Instead, she’s collecting with us?!
The only way Tom could imagine a woman collecting debt was if she was a landlord or the manager of a bar—the thought of traveling around with a woman as a coworker was one he had never entertained.
Vorona had changed from her uniform into plainclothes, and he had to admit that her figure had been accentuated by the change in a most bewitching way.
Damn… Yeah, it sounds nice working with a hot chick, until you actually have to do it…
In this case, the woman was supremely standoffish and seemed acutely disinterested in men. Tom answered her question by saying, “We’re collecting money from bad people who owe it and aren’t paying up. Got that?”
He tried to make it as simple as possible, since her Japanese was questionable at best. Vorona nodded to indicate understanding and said, “Collection of protection money. Roger.”
“No, no, it’s not protection money… You know what, never mind.”
Seriously, I’m not sure about this.
Would they fail to be taken seriously if there was a woman with them? Tom wondered. It wasn’t his intention to belittle women, but there was no guarantee that the targets they were going to collect from would feel the same way.
Actually, they could belittle all they wanted, but if that disrespect extended to Shizuo, and he got carried away and ki
lled someone—well, that was the worst possible outcome.
Also, I feel like this babe keeps staring him down. Is that just my imagination?
As for Shizuo, he’d been traveling along in silence with his arms folded, apparently deep in thought. Perhaps he himself was trying to figure out what he might have done to deserve all the staring.
Just then, Tom reached the target’s apartment. He tried ringing the bell for starters and immediately heard the lock opening from within.
When the door opened, it revealed a man with an old-fashioned “punch perm” of the kind tough guys wore in the ’80s.
“…Who the hell are you?”
“I’m guessing you’ll understand if we say we’re here on behalf of the dating site Arachne?” Tom said by way of introduction. The permed man’s face froze for a moment.
“…! No idea what you mean.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure. But your phone number has already used one hundred seventy thousand yen worth of services. It’s all in the contract, so the normal legal channel would involve having the lawyer collect, but neither of us wants to get the court involved, do we?”
“Shuddup! Quit talkin’ yer mumbo jumbo, or I’ll kill you!”
“If you found that explanation to be ‘mumbo jumbo,’ then we might need to bring in an interpreter,” Tom suggested, annoyed. The permed man found this amusing; he wore a crude smile.
“Sure thing…I got an interpreter.”
“What?”
“C’mon, boys!” the man shouted toward the interior of the apartment.
A number of men marched up to the doorway. They all had the appearance of tried-and-true low-class thugs, and they filed out to face Tom’s group in the hallway of the building. Years of experience and intuition told Tom that they were just ruffians, not professional criminals.
Triumphantly, the man with the perm returned to Tom and gloated, “What did you want interpreted? Were you gonna hand over that chick to us, maybe?”
Good grief, Tom thought. Normally, Shizuo would just snap and be done with it, but since we have Vorona with us today, I guess we should back down.
Durarara!!, Vol. 7 Page 14
