Mikado just wanted to savor the taste of the big city and breathe in its air so that it infused with his lungs.
As though he were a part of the city itself.
He spun around to take in more of the scenery and that city air.
Raira Academy uniforms filled 60-Kai Street, and the town itself seemed to be dyed with the color of the outfit.
“They’re almost their own color gang,” he muttered, then noticed a familiar face. “Sonohara!”
He was about to walk over to her when he noticed that she was surrounded by other girls in the same uniform, and there was a prickly tension in the air. They were close to the entrance of a side alley where it met the street, and the three girls had Anri pinned against the wall.
Curious, Mikado carefully approached the alley. None of the four girls noticed him, but he was close enough to make out every word of the conversation. In fact, it was less of a conversation than a one-sided interrogation.
“I hear you think you’re some kinda big shot even without that Mika Harima around.”
“…”
“And now you’re the class rep? What are you, some kinda goody-goody?”
“Why don’t you say something? You were like a barnacle stuck on Mika’s side in middle school.”
The three girls were taking turns verbally abusing Anri, but she showed no sign of reacting to any of it.
Are they seriously bullying her? Do people in Japan still do that?! And those insults are so…clichéd! It’s like they walked out of an old manga!
Mikado found it hard to be intimidated by such stereotypical insults. As a fellow class rep, he knew he ought to step in—but his brain was hung up on the idea of what he should actually do. It wouldn’t really work to pretend he didn’t see anything now, but he also didn’t like the idea of getting on the girls’ shit list.
I know! I’ll walk up with a smile and say, “Why, fancy meeting you here, Sonohara,” as if I don’t realize she’s being picked on! Yes, that’s the plan! And if those girls say anything, I’ll think on my feet.
His idea seemed trapped somewhere between optimism and pessimism, but Mikado was already walking forward…when a hand caught his shoulder from behind.
“?!”
He held his breath and turned around to see a familiar face.
“Stepping in to stop the bullying? Very brave,” said Izaya Orihara, looking interested. He kept his grip but started pushing Mikado forward instead of pulling.
“Uh, what?!” Mikado shrieked, finally drawing the attention of the four girls.
“H-h-hi, Sonohara, wh-wh-what a c-c-c-coincidennnn— Aaaa— Hang on!”
Izaya pushed him right into the midst of the girls.
“Wh-what’s the big deal?” asked one of the bullies, somewhat intimidated. It was meant not for Mikado, but the man behind him, of course.
“You really shouldn’t be extorting people out in broad daylight like this. God might let you get away with it, but the police won’t,” Izaya joked. He continued to approach the girls. “Bullying really is the lamest thing you can do.”
“Like it’s any of your beeswax, old man!” the girls screeched, either because they had finally shown their true colors or as a bluff to hide their fear.
“You’re right, it’s not,” he said, grinning. He delivered the three girls a warning. “It’s none of my business. If you’re beat up and left here to die, that’s none of my business. If I decided to assault you, if I decided to stab you, if you decided to call me, a twenty-three-year-old man, “old,” it would not change the fact that your affairs and mine are eternally unrelated. Every human being has a connection to every other, and yet we are all unrelated.”
“Huh?”
“Human beings are so vapid,” Izaya said enigmatically and took another step toward them. “Look, I’m not really into the idea of hitting girls.”
In the next moment, a small bag appeared in Izaya’s right hand.
“Huh? What?” one of the girls piped up, recognizing the expensive-looking bag. Somehow it had made its way from its customary spot on her shoulder into the man’s hands. The strap, still hanging over her shoulder, was cut clean at the waist.
While the girls were thrown into confusion, Mikado was downright terrified.
In Izaya’s left hand, held behind his back, was a very sharp knife. The scariest part was that Mikado had been watching the man’s movements the entire time, but he never noticed where the knife came from or when he’d slashed the bag free of the strap.
Izaya smartly folded up the knife and slipped it into the sleeve of his suit jacket, all one-handed behind his back. Mikado felt like he was watching a magician at work.
Still grinning, the older man pulled a cell phone out of the little bag.
“So I think I’ll start a new hobby—stomping on girls’ cell phones.”
He tossed her phone into the air. It clacked and clattered on the ground, the case plastered in little stickers.
“Hey, what’s the big—?”
She quickly reached out to pick up the phone…
And Izaya stepped hard on it, just barely missing her outstretched fingers.
With the sound of crunching snacks, broken shards of split plastic appeared under the sole of his shoe. The girl shrieked in horror, but Izaya stomped again and again. The movement was mechanical and precise, hitting the exact same spot over and over. The robotic repetition even extended to his laugh.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”
“Oh my God, I think he’s on something!”
“What a creep! Let’s get outta here!”
The other two dragged off the victim of the phone stomping, who looked on in mute shock. They exited the alley onto the main street and disappeared.
Once he was certain they were gone, Izaya’s laughing and stomping stopped instantly. He turned to Mikado as if nothing had just happened. Anri did not run, but stayed where she was, watching Izaya and Mikado with fright in her eyes.
“I’m bored. I think I’m over the phone-stomping fad,” Izaya said and gave Mikado a gentle smile. “It’s pretty brave of you to help someone being bullied. Most kids these days wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh…?”
Anri looked at Mikado, surprised. Given his extremely weak and passive attempt to help, and the confusion wrought by Izaya’s grand entrance, Mikado seemed to be trying to forget he’d done anything.
Unperturbed by any of this, Izaya addressed the boy slowly and deliberately.
“Mikado Ryuugamine, our meeting was no coincidence. I was searching for you.”
“Huh?”
Mikado was about to ask what he meant by that when a trash can from a convenience store hit Izaya square on the side.
The trash can fell in place, crashing to the ground with a tremendous clattering.
“Guh!” Izaya grunted, losing his balance and falling to his knees. The metal can hit him straight on, but the impact was from the flat side rather than an edge, so the damage wasn’t as bad as it sounded.
Izaya lurched to his feet and glared in the direction the trash can had come from.
“Sh-Shizu.”
“Iiizaaayaaa,” came a lazy voice. Mikado and Anri slowly turned toward it.
It was a young man with sunglasses. He was wearing a classic bartender’s outfit with a snappy bow tie, like an old-fashioned solicitor for a cabaret club or a hostess bar. The man was quite tall, though not as tall as Simon. But his frame was lithe and compact, not the body of a man you’d expect to throw a trash can that far.
“Didn’t I tell you never to show your face in Ikebukuro again, Iiizaaayaaa?”
Izaya very clearly recognized the man, and for the first time in Mikado’s presence, the smile vanished from his face.
“I thought you were working over toward the West Gate, Shizu.”
“I got fired ages ago. Plus, I told you not to call me that, Iiizaaayaaa. How many times have I told you that my name is Shizuo Heiwajima?�
�� the man growled, veins pulsing on his face. His features were ordinary enough that he looked like a typical bartender by default, but the invisible aura of domination he emitted tipped Mikado’s scales from intimidation straight into terror.
I’ve never actually seen someone with bulging veins in real life before, Mikado initially thought, but in moments his body was completely controlled by primal, instinctual fear.
Shizuo Heiwajima—one of the people Masaomi said never to mess with. He had qualified that with “outside of yakuza,” so at the very least, this man was an ordinary civilian. But Mikado felt with all of his being that if there was a person who lived through violence alone, this was him.
It all made sense. Virtually any person living in Japan, upon seeing this man, would know they didn’t want the first thing to do with him. It would be easier to avoid him with a face that screamed danger from a distance, but it was his very ordinary looks that made him so dangerous.
“Come on, Shizu. Are you still mad about me framing you for my crime?”
“I’m not mad at all. I just want to beat your brains in.”
“Oh, c’mon. Just let me go.”
Izaya pulled the knife out of his sleeve. “I don’t like your violence, Shizu, because it doesn’t respond to reason, words, or logic.”
“Aaah!” Anri shrieked at the sight of the silvery blade, finally snapped out of her daze. Mikado held his breath and tried to motion to her to run away. She nodded, her back pressed to the wall, then clutched her bag to her chest and raced away. Mikado followed right behind her, turning back just once to glance down the alley.
Shizuo’s bellow of rage echoed off the walls, and people on the sidewalk stopped and looked down the side alley. Then, parting the crowd, the enormous shape of Simon, well over six feet tall—and Mikado couldn’t watch anymore.
Absolute terror swirled within him. His new city was a maelstrom of the ordinary and extraordinary, but he didn’t know which of the two this was. The only thing he knew was that he must never get involved with whatever that was.
He finally understood what Masaomi meant by the people to never make enemies with.
And those are regular civilians. How terrifying must the yakuza and Chinese mafia be?
The tales of violence he read about on the Net seemed like they had to partially be just that: tales. Now that he’d come into direct contact with it himself, Mikado was overwhelmed by the fear that actual violence inspired.
Finally, he gauged that it was safe, and he called out to Anri.
“H-hey, w…wait…hurts to…breathe…”
Sadly, even though he was running with all of his strength, he never once broke ahead of Anri.
That was the cruel shackle of reality as Mikado Ryuugamine knew it.
“Are you all right?”
Mikado took Anri to a nearby café, hoping to calm her down. He ordered them two cream sodas, then later realized it seemed like a childish choice.
“Um… Thank you for your help.”
“Uh, n-no, not at all! If anything, it was that Izaya guy who saved you!”
“But…”
Damn, what should I say? This just had to happen when Masaomi isn’t here to help me out.
Mikado wasn’t sure what to do, but he knew that not saying anything at all wasn’t an option, so he tried to find a topic.
“So…were those girls from your middle school?”
Anri nodded.
“That explains it. So when you were in middle school, this Mika girl was there to stick up for you when they bugged you, but now that she’s gone, those bullies from the past seized their chance to get back at you?”
Anri trembled at Mikado’s conjecture. “H-how did you know that?!”
“Um, j-just a guess based on the conversation… Anyway, is this Mika the Mika Harima from our class?”
She seemed to be calmer now and started to explain. “The thing is…Mika’s been marked absent at school, but in fact, she hasn’t been home at all since the day before the entrance ceremony.”
“…Huh?”
That seemed like a matter for the police. The concern must have shown in Mikado’s eyes, because Anri quietly shook her head.
“Technically, she’s not missing—she’s been sending e-mails to both my cell phone and her family. Messages like, ‘I’m going on a journey of spiritual healing.’ Or a report of whatever train station she’s currently at.”
“Spiritual healing? What happened?”
“Well, uh…”
For the first time, Anri was unable to answer. She cast her eyes down, clearly not wanting to talk about it.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. The guy who would talk is too busy having an affair with a housewife right now,” Mikado blabbered while insisting on his ability to keep secrets. Anri failed to notice the contradiction. She thought for several moments.
“Will you promise not to be shocked?”
“Oh, nothing could shock me after the scene we just witnessed,” Mikado said, putting on his most reassuring smile. The time he spent with Masaomi in elementary school had taught him the proper way to soften a situation for the other person.
That boyish smile apparently did the trick, because Anri put it as bluntly as possible.
“Mika Harima…is a stalker.”
Plurfp!
Half-melted ice cream spurted out of Mikado’s smiling mouth.
Once her story was done, Mikado tried to piece it together.
“I see… So Yagiri the Health Committee rep was being bothered…er, romantically approached by Mika, and when he turned her down, she went on a journey of healing to fix her broken heart?”
According to Anri, Mika Harima had a habit of doing this, going back to middle school—picking the locks of the homes of boys she fell in love with at first sight or researching their vacation destinations and meeting them there, only to thank them for inviting her. In short, she changed the truth to whatever suited her.
On top of that personality, she had excellent grades and a rich family. She got her own apartment to live in while at high school, one with a monthly rent of more than 100,000 yen. Raira Academy had its own dorm, but it was located so far away from the school campus that most students chose to commute from home or got their own apartments to learn independent living at a young age. Mikado was one of the latter, as was Anri, who had a cheap place a little farther away.
This Harima girl’s got quite a life.
Then she met Seiji Yagiri and decided that he was The One. She started visiting his home, then failed to show up for the first day of school. According to Seiji, he gave her a very convincing no on the day before the entrance ceremony, warned her that he’d call the police—and hadn’t seen her since.
Mikado felt a cold sweat forming as he heard more and more of Anri’s story. Apparently she’d been sitting between him and Seiji during the school’s entrance exams. It could very easily have been Mikado whom Mika had decided to follow. He was secretly relieved that he hadn’t saved any girls in town so far—not that he would’ve been able to if he wanted.
He didn’t let any of these thoughts cross his face, though. Mikado was all business as he listened to Anri’s story.
“So what happens when you call her?”
“She won’t pick up… It seems like she keeps her phone off except to send messages… When I brought that up in an e-mail, she said she didn’t want to hear my voice because it would make her homesick…”
“I see… Hmmm. I wonder if it’s best to just hang back for now… Or maybe, just in case, you could put a little pressure on her in a message by saying you might have to call the police if you don’t hear her voice?”
Mikado tried a number of commonsense suggestions, but none were solid opinions of his. Time dragged on without an apparent solution.
“By the way, would you say you’re her best friend?”
“…I can’t say for certain, but we were together all the time. I’m a bit awkward and don’t know how t
o get along with people, and she was the one who took me by the hand and pulled me along. After that, we were always together…”
Mikado suddenly realized that the two girls were not just simple friends. One heard stories about this on the Internet, where the beating heart of such friendships was always spelled out in the most gruesome, harsh terms.
“Plus, with her grades, she could have gone to a much better school than this. Instead, she chose to go to mine. I felt really bad about that…”
That’s probably because she thought you were a useful tool and foil for her and didn’t want to lose you…
Mikado just barely kept that sentiment from reaching his lips. He was very glad that Masaomi wasn’t present. If this conversation was happening in a chat room, he’d have blurted that out without a second thought.
But maybe making that clear would ultimately be the best for her, Mikado thought, his eyes wandering as his mind grappled with indecision.
Anri noticed this and giggled. “It’s okay, I know the truth.”
Shocked that he was so easy to read, Mikado stammered a hasty “Wh-what?”
“I know that I was nothing more than a foil for her. And to be frank, I was using her as well. I don’t think I could survive without doing that. The reason I volunteered for the class rep job was because I knew she’d want to do it. So I figured if she wasn’t able, at least it should be me.”
Now everything made sense to Mikado. When Anri looked his way during homeroom, it wasn’t him she was looking at—it was Mika’s empty seat. Only it wasn’t empty because Masaomi was occupying it.
Meanwhile, Anri revealed some information he hadn’t asked her for.
“But, in fact, it’s just for my own self-satisfaction. I felt like, if I can be the class rep, I might even be able to surpass her… I think it’s very unfair of me.”
Before she could finish her thought, Mikado cut in, his voice cold and clinical. “Actually, the worst part of it is that you’re telling someone else.”
“…”
“It’s like you’re hoping that someone unrelated to the situation will forgive you for your actions. At least trying to be better than her in some fashion is the right choice. So you should hold your head high and do it fair and square.”
Durarara!!, Vol. 1 (novel) Page 10
