Durarara!!, Vol. 4 (novel)

by Ryohgo Narita

  The students who had silently watched the defacement happen certainly weren’t going to stick their necks into even bigger trouble. That was the only reason they needed.

  Time passed, and then it was homeroom before the end of school.

  As a result of Mairu Orihara’s rampage in Class 1-B, the twisted network of female gossip set its sights instead on Kururi Orihara, her sister.

  Aoba considered the desk graffiti in silence.

  She had done nothing. Kururi became the target of harassment for no other reason than being Mairu’s sister. They didn’t hate Kururi, they just wanted revenge against Mairu.

  Actually, I don’t really care, he thought, looking out of the window in boredom as time ticked down to the start of homeroom.

  The teacher showed up and began to run through the standard procedures before the end of school. As Mr. Marumura looked dutifully over the entire class, he noticed the miserable state of Kururi’s desk and asked, “Orihara, what happened to your desk?”

  “…”

  “Just to be sure…you didn’t write this yourself, did you?”

  He looked down and saw the content of the messages and grimaced as he waited for her answer.

  “…No,” the girl in the gym clothes claimed in a quiet voice.

  Marumura surveyed the classroom and asked, “Does anyone know who wrote this?”

  I don’t care, Aoba thought, as he watched Kururi stare downward at the desk. He had nothing to do with this bullying. It represented neither benefit nor harm to him.

  I really don’t care.

  And because he truly didn’t care…

  “Tsukiyama and a girl from another class did it,” Aoba said, simply answering the teacher’s question with the truth. Because he didn’t care. He had no opinion either way on the bullying. He just answered the question.

  Meanwhile, the girl named Tsukiyama whom he accused looked shocked. No one had stopped her when they were doing the deed. So it never occurred to her that she might be betrayed in this way.

  Of course, in reality, there was no cooperation in the deed from the start, so there was nothing to betray, but from her perspective, she had been stabbed in the back.

  “Come to the faculty room after this, Tsukiyama. And bring your friend from the other class. Got that?” the teacher ordered sternly.

  Tsukiyama ground her teeth and shot Aoba a look that said, You didn’t do anything earlier. You just watched! But as he didn’t care, this meant nothing to him.

  The one thing that he did care about was that Kururi herself looked at him with some amount of surprise. He couldn’t deny his interest in that.

  After school, school entrance

  Several hours after that incident…

  “After school tomorrow…I can’t wait.”

  Once Aoba had finished observing the various school clubs, he got a message from Mikado agreeing to show him around Ikebukuro the following afternoon.

  He was heading for the school entrance to leave for the day when a fierce voice called out, “Hey, you.”

  Aoba turned back to see a group of girls. They were from his class, and standing at the center was Tsukiyama, the girl he’d sent to the faculty room earlier.

  “What?” he asked.

  Tsukiyama scowled. “You know what. What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Are you going to ask me out? Is that what this is? Well, sorry. I don’t think I’m up to the task of going out with all of you at once,” he commented lightly, but the girls did not find that amusing.

  “Huh? Are you an idiot or something? Try to take a damn hint. Who snitches to the teacher in that situation? You think you’re some kind of hotshot, playing the hero like that?”

  “Actually, if I thought I was doing the right thing, I would have stopped you when you were doing it, right? Why would you ask me this?”

  “Then why did you snitch on me?!”

  “Well, you didn’t tell me not to. To be honest, if I had to judge you and Orihara on a scale—based only on your looks and actions, since that’s all I have to work with—I’d say it’s pretty much a law of nature that a girl who draws nasty messages on someone’s desk is less desirable than a mysterious, well-behaved girl with a big rack in tight gym clothes…”

  “Fuck you, you little—”

  Just as the girls began to close in on Aoba, Tsukiyama noticed something wrong.

  Her body was sending abrupt danger signals, centering around her nostrils.

  Something smelled charred.

  “Huh…?”

  A fire?

  The girl looked around in a panic, searching for the source of the burning smell. It was Aoba who pinpointed the location of the smell first.

  “Hey, is that…?”

  “Huh? Aaagh!!”

  Tsukiyama looked down to see that smoke was issuing from the bag slung over her shoulder. She screamed and threw it aside. Instantly, flames erupted from it, the smoke pouring from the burned hole in the fabric.

  The smoke alarm set into the ceiling of the school’s front entrance went off, ringing all throughout the school.

  After that, every student present, including Aoba, was summoned to the disciplinary room for individual questioning.

  Aoba answered truthfully about everything he’d seen. Oddly enough, they asked to see the contents of his bag. Surprised that they would demand this, he asked what the cause of the fire was. The teacher wouldn’t tell him at first, then admitted the answer as long as he didn’t tell anyone else.

  They didn’t know what caused the fire in Tsukiyama’s bag to start, but the investigation turned up several energy drink bottles that were actually full of paint thinner. And not only that, but the bags of the other girls present led to more bottles of thinner. They denied any knowledge of this, but they’d also just been disciplined for bullying.

  “Huffing paint right on the first week of school… Then again, these are bullies we’re talking about. They were bothering you about what happened at homeroom, weren’t they?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well, they could be looking at a suspension…but there’s no telling how they might try to get back at you. If things are seeming dicey, come and tell me at once.”

  After that, Aoba was unceremoniously released, and he headed for the school exit again—but there were two girls waiting at the front entrance this time, which still contained a bit of ash from the burned bag.

  One was Kururi, carrying her bag and still in gym clothes, and the other was dressed almost the exact opposite—yet aside from the glasses, they had the exact same facial features.

  “Heya. Hi! Or should it be ‘good evening’? And between you and me, I guess it’s ‘nice to meet you’! I’m Mairu Orihara! Kuru’s twin sister! It’s a pleasure!”

  The other girl was as bright and chatty as her sister was silent and somber.

  “Um, n-nice to meet you.”

  They sure are odd twins, Aoba thought. Kururi, who was standing in Mairu’s shadow, mumbled toward the ground, “…Thank you”

  “Huh? …Oh, for the thing at homeroom? You’re mistaken. I didn’t do it to earn your thanks, and I didn’t stop them from writing on your desk in the first place.”

  “…I know.”

  “Hweh?” he mumbled.

  Mairu cackled and added, “You know that Kuru was secretly watching them do that from the hallway, right? And you know that the both of us were secretly watching the whole scene that happened here earlier?”

  “What?!” Aoba stammered, shocked at this revelation. “But…wouldn’t that give you even less of a reason to thank me?”

  “Kuru’s happy that you said you thought she was cuter than that Tsukiyama girl! You know how she’s more of the silent, thoughtful type, yet she wears those gym clothes all the time? Kinda weird, right? So she’s just happy that a boy actually said that about her!”

  “…Be quiet,” Kururi commanded her little sister. She took a step closer to Aoba, still facing downward. She an
d the boy were about the same height.

  She said, “…Your reward.”

  And she looked up at last, leaned forward, and covered Aoba’s lips with her own.

  ?!

  Not realizing at first what had just happened, Aoba’s mind was a total blank. He only watched as Kururi shuffled away, her face red.

  But that wasn’t the end of his confusion. Mairu stepped forward to take the place of the retreating Kururi, and unlike her sister, she forcefully grabbed his body and yanked him toward her for a powerful kiss.

  ?!?!?!?!

  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 he
aded 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.