CallowCadet: I suppose I shall return and make a proper entrance when more people are here!
CallowCadet: Thank you for being the first to welcome me here, Saika!
Saika: thank you
Saika: see you later
CallowCadet: And you! So long…
CallowCadet has left the chat.
Saika: see you later
Saika: i will log out for now too
Saika: thank you
Saika: i hope to speak with everyone present too
Saika: i’ll do my best
Saika: good-bye
Saika has left the chat.
The chat room is currently empty.
The chat room is currently empty.
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In a Dark Place 4
“And now, I’ll be making a proper introduction of Izaya Orihara for you all. Clap, clap, clap!” she said. The others around her dutifully performed the actual clapping.
The darkened room was now soft and gloomy, lit by the wan light of candles. There was a little Mont Blanc dessert on the table, uncharacteristically stuffed with over twenty small candles. It was essentially like one giant candle in all, sending waves of flickering light around the room.
“Izaya Orihara’s birthday is May fourth! That’s so neat! That means he’s assigned to one of the front seat numbers in the class! He’s so grown up! Wow!”
“…”
“Did you know that Izaya Orihara is twenty-five years old? But he tells people he’s only twenty-one. Why is that? Is it really so scary that you’ll be turning thirty in just a few years?” she mocked, but the man under the burlap sack just shook his head, not taking the bait.
“This is incredible. Silence for two hours now. The truth is, I’d be happy to punch you, and kick you, and stab you, and gouge you, and yank things out of you to make you scream, but that’s really no fun, is it? We’ve got to save all that for when your precious little sisters arrive! Am I right?” Earthworm seemed satisfied with herself.
She lifted the plate with the cake on it and brought it up toward the sack. “Even through the burlap, you can see the light of the candles, right?”
“…”
His breathing got louder, and he arched his back, trying to keep his distance. The bundles of candles moved even closer, sticking out of their cake pedestal.
“Look, I’m sorry about getting the fabric all wet earlier, okay? That was mean of me. So I want to dry it off for you.”
Even through the dampness, he would likely feel heat. But the man’s reaction left no clues as to his emotional state. What was under the bag—fear, despair, or boundless rage? The anticipation and endless possibilities percolated under Earthworm’s own placid exterior.
She could remove the sack at any moment. But now was not the time.
To her, suppressing her raging desire to find out was its own form of bliss.
Earthworm’s hobby was imagining the debasement of others.
The moment of wondering what expression her desperate prey was wearing—and her hunger to see it—was the only moment that she ever felt truly alive.
I kind of want to burn his hand a little bit.
No. Shouldn’t do that. Gotta wait for his sisters first…
She had to suppress that deep-down desire for torture and cover it up with her easy smile. That was the only way to maintain composure.
She wanted to push the flame even closer and see it burn the fabric.
She wanted those perfect features from the photograph to burn and twist in anguish.
And once he was so tormented that he could no longer move, she wanted to lick the wounds.
Earthworm imagined the taste of his blood on her tongue and the sound of Izaya Orihara’s screams.
Imagining these sensations allowed her to feel happy to be alive. She’d done this over and over—to the enemies of Amphisbaena, to the enemies of her and the owner. Over and over, all kinds of people, all the time.
As soon as they lost consciousness, or screamed and rolled around, and she took the sack off to see, the woman would lose interest. Based on the photos, Izaya Orihara’s physical appearance was right up Earthworm’s alley. So she was determined to be very, very careful in choosing her moment with him.
She would indulge in waves of pleasure when the moment arrived, and she saw the perfect expression of despair on his face, and then she would lose all interest in imagining Izaya Orihara.
Meanwhile, she returned the cake to the table.
“As a matter of fact, this cake isn’t for you. It’s my birthday this month. Sorry, you can’t have any.”
She looked down at her phone and read off more of Izaya Orihara’s personal information. “Five foot nine, one hundred twenty-eight pounds. Pretty good physique, man. I might’ve preferred you a bit taller, though.”
“…”
The man under the burlap sack inclined his head weakly, eliciting a chuckle from his captor.
“You’re wondering how I knew your weight? Well, I do. Remember when I said my info source was good?”
“…”
She imagined the expression he must have been wearing and explained, “But these numbers are from over half a year ago, so they might be different now. You took out life insurance yesterday, didn’t you, Izaya Orihara? And you had to enter your height and weight, didn’t you? The info agent I deal with can even access that level of data. Isn’t that amazing?”
“………”
He inhaled briefly, as though ready to speak, but ultimately did not. Instead, his shoulders rose and fell. Earthworm felt an itch deep in her stomach and returned to the phone.
“You’ve got seven family members listed, including yourself. Your paternal grandfather’s name is Torakichi, while his wife’s name is Natsu. Your maternal grandparents are both gone. Have you been performing your memorials for them? All your prayers?”
“…”
The slightest of movements from the sack could have been either a nod or a shake of the head. He probably wasn’t thinking about it at all. But based on his reactions, it was clear that he could hear her voice.
She continued, “Your father is Shirou, and your mother is Kyouko… And then there are your two sisters, who are en route as we speak.”
“…”
“Raijin Elementary School, Raijin Middle School, Raijin High School, then Raira College. That’s an elevator school—very nice. Then again, Raira’s not so special, is it? Rai-Rai-Rai-Rai. Everything Rai. Catcher in the Rai,” she gibed, a little private joke, then got to her feet.
She moved her chair next to her human pet and sat down directly to his right. She then placed her index finger on his right thigh and traced a little circle there. The man’s breathing went ragged as he resisted the tickling sensation.
“So…I hear that you were quite the honor student at Raijin Elementary.”
“…”
“When you were in high school, you were fighting with this Heiwajima person all the time, as I understand. But the worst was in middle school, wasn’t it?”
“…”
This time the sack was completely still and silent.
“What’s wrong? Not feeling lively anymore?”
She reached over to the table for the cake again and attempted to place the plate on top of the burlap sack on his head. It took several seconds due to the rough texture of the sack, but ultimately, she succeeded in getting the dish to balance.
“…”
“Don’t let it fall, okay? Hold in those sneezes! If it falls down, it’ll burn your clothes. Oh, but don’t worry, we’ve got plenty more water to dump on you if that happens.”
The man’s head went absolutely still, which allowed Earthworm time to delve into her imagination. The sweet scent of the cake, the pristine features of the face beneath the sack, the likely humiliation—perh
aps terror—splayed across them.
The shiver of anticipation and delight and the sight of the flickering candle flame put her into a brief state of self-hypnosis. Shortly thereafter, she said, “Ready for me to continue?”
“…”
“I hear you were the vice chairman of the children’s council at elementary school? You were quite the little hero during the school athletic day and a frequent recipient of awards for studying, poetry, and slogans. It also mentions some stuff about essay contests. I sure would like to read some of your childhood essays. Can you imagine that? Me reciting them aloud here.”
She cackled, then added, “But this is the strange part. How does such a model student end up as a total problem child by high school…or should I say, a model student to outward appearances, who was involved in so much foul play behind the scenes? I hear there was quite a lot of very nasty trouble that befell Raijin High for the three exact years that Izaya Orihara was there.”
“…”
“But hardly anyone actually suspected you of anything. There might have been teachers who sensed the truth, but you never got suspended or expelled for anything.”
She bobbed her head, impressed, then got up again and walked around her victim. In a wheedling voice, she asked, “So why did Izaya Orihara turn out to be such a bad boy?”
“…”
“Even our partner, Info Dealer B, hasn’t figured that one out. Which makes sense—if you knew that, you wouldn’t be an info dealer; you’d be a psychic. I was wondering why our owner became evil enough to create Amphisbaena, so I asked him…and he didn’t know, either.”
She nodded, spread her hands, and looked up at the ceiling. It was a flickering sea of red, reflecting the light of the candles.
“But I do happen to know the period that you turned bad, in fact.”
She slowed down, swimming in the soft light, and said, “Shinra Kishitani.”
It seemed as though the flickering of the candlelight wobbled briefly. Earthworm continued staring at the ceiling rather than at the man next to her.
“I believe he was a classmate of yours in middle school, yes?”
“…”
“I still don’t know why it happened that way…
“…but it turns out you stabbed that Shinra Kishitani boy with a knife and got taken to the police as a young teen?”
Time rewound again.
Chapter 4: Vice President
Night, Kawagoe Highway, Shinra’s apartment
“By the way…I noticed this wound hasn’t disappeared yet.”
Celty had changed Shinra’s bandages and was wiping him down with a wet towel. She looked over his torso, which lay uncovered.
She hadn’t noticed yesterday, due to the distraction of his fresh wounds, but upon closer examination, she spotted the mark from a stab wound of some kind in Shinra’s side.
“Oh! It’s kind of embarrassing to have you staring at an old wound of mine, but at the same time, it’s rather thrilling! Oh my, what should I do?! Tell me, Celty—what should I do?!”
“Sit still,” her PDA said, and she continued the task of changing his bandages and wiping off his sweat.
She had ended up accepting Izaya’s job and was now back home on standby until she got the call from him. When Shinra heard the facts, he’d said, “He’s got to be plotting something,” and then added a whole series of statements along the lines of “Just be careful, okay?”
Of course, Celty knew it was an obviously suspicious offer, too, but she couldn’t decline. So here she was, trying to focus on caring for Shinra, while something unsettling nagged at the back of her mind…
And then she spotted Shinra’s old scar.
Once she had changed his bandages and put freshly laundered pajamas on him, Celty brought it up again.
“Gosh, it’s been forever. Ten years, is it?”
“Yeah, that long. And yet it feels like it was just yesterday. At this rate, I could blow past the median life expectancy and die of old age just around the corner.”
“That’s nonsense. You’re not even at half the life expectancy value yet. So…I guess those scars really do last…”
As an inhuman being—a dullahan—Celty was humanlike but held several differences. She was very tough to kill by nature, and any knife or scalpel cuts would heal in fairly short order with no sign that there had ever been a wound.
So the sight of this ancient gash on Shinra’s side felt like a reminder of the distance between them. It stuck with her and made her feel oddly unsettled.
“I suppose I’ll have this for the rest of my life,” he said, sensing that Celty was bothered, and slapped at his side in a show that scars weren’t a big deal.
“Oofh,” he grunted, immediately doubling up in pain at the impact.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just having you at my side feels like it’s helping heal me.”
“I just wish it would heal that old scar, too,” she typed, intending to downplay his consideration with a little joke. But then a thought occurred to her, and she asked, “But what did you do to leave such a permanent mark? You said you got dragged into a fight in class or something.”
“Yes, I got carved up a bit with a knife.”
“A knife?!” she wrote back, stunned at his nonchalance. “Getting stabbed by a knife is no laughing matter! You said it was a fight, so I was imagining that you got pushed and fell down some stairs or something!”
“Well, that was when there was still a wall between us.”
It was actually just a year and several months ago that Celty and Shinra began a mutually loving relationship. But in the sense of them living together, they’d been acquainted for over twenty years.
At the time, the only thing this meant to Celty was that the alien “human” man she lived with had a son who’d gotten hurt. She registered this fact and felt sorry for the juvenile but thought there was no need to dig any deeper than that. In fact, she sensed that she shouldn’t.
“But I loved you, wall and all!”
“Listen, that’s very sweet of you to say, but that’s not my point. Since when do middle schoolers have fights involving knives?!”
“Oh…right. Yeah, when I got this injury, we still hadn’t really talked yet.”
“Actually…I guess you’re right.”
It really is odd, when you think about it. From a young age, Shinra always sought me out and told me all kinds of things. That didn’t change when he got hurt, but for whatever reason, he never told me about why he got hurt.
She felt like she was about to see a new side of Shinra and wasn’t entirely sure if she really wanted to ask or not.
“But you see, I have my own conflicting thoughts about this scar… I’m sorry, Celty,” he said, averting his eyes in embarrassment.
She looked at him, lying faceup on the bed, and decided not to ask.
Yeah. I’m curious, but not enough that I want to place more burden on him. Everyone has a thing or two they don’t want to reveal to anyone…
And then, contrary to what she’d just at last decided, Shinra began to speak.
“It all began right around the time I began middle school, I think…”
“Wait, so you’re going to tell me after all?!”
Twelve years ago, Raijin Middle School, Class 1-3
“Hey, you wanna join the biology club? I mean, you wanna create it with me?” asked a boy with glasses.
“Sorry, not interested,” replied a different boy.
These were the first words exchanged by Shinra Kishitani and Izaya Orihara.
The school’s entrance ceremony was over, and they were sitting in their homeroom after the whole class ran through their personal introductions. The children re-formed in little groups of friends from elementary school, hopes and worries about the new stage of school mingling in the air. Only Shinra and Izaya seemed out of place from the rest.
There were several former Raijin Elementary students in the c
lass, but none of them approached Izaya Orihara to talk. He wasn’t upset by this; if anything, it seemed natural.
Izaya was an honor student, but only in the sense of his grades—he was not a model student in the least. He was genteel on the surface and popular with the girls, but he interacted with school in a way that was passive and removed.
One of his elementary school classmates would later say of him, “He was kind of like an alien. But he was a good guy.” Many others held similar opinions, and perhaps the most “honor student” aspect of him was the way that everyone would always caution, “He was a good guy, but…”
So he wasn’t hated by others, but neither was he particularly liked.
During lunch break, when the other students would sit in the classroom chatting or play kickball out on the field, Izaya would always be in the school library. It was almost as though he was intentionally isolating himself.
When the students would split up into teams for the yearly field trip, Izaya was always the last one out. When the others realized this, there would be a competition to recruit him. (“What, you’re not in a group?! Come with us!” “No way, we’ve got room!”) That was Izaya Orihara’s odd existence in elementary school.
Izaya himself preferred to be one step away from the crowd. He understood that he was considered an honor student. But he never mocked the people around him or looked down on them.
Really, he enjoyed the gathering place that was school.
The other students in his vicinity chatted happily, fought one another, conferred in secret about whom to bully, cried when they were the targets of that harassment—all of which was enjoyable for him to watch.
And the more he got involved, the less he was able to see.
If you considered two groups of people, one of which liked sitting in the back row of a movie theater to take in the entire crowd along with the film and the other preferring to be in the very front row for the maximum possible size of image regardless of quality, elementary school Izaya was undoubtedly among the former.
So his isolated status was, if anything, preferable to him. He’d been observing the students in the new class coalescing into various social groups with pleasure—when an innocent young boy with glasses interrupted this activity.
Durarara!!, Vol. 9 Page 8
