It was the one who had introduced himself as Shinra Kishitani during class. Izaya recalled that he’d described himself in a surprisingly dark way: “Mom got sick of Dad and divorced him, so now it’s just the three of us, including Dad.”
If there are three after his mom left, that must mean he has a sibling, Izaya realized and tried to return to his observation.
“It’s okay if you’re not interested. Let’s just make a biology club.”
“…”
Izaya instantly disliked this boy, who refused to take no for an answer. Then when he realized how rare it was for him to feel that way about another person, Izaya suddenly found his interest in this Shinra Kishitani.
“Kishitani, right?”
“Call me Shinra. Umm…what was your name again?”
“…It’s Izaya Orihara.”
“Oh, right, right! Orihara! I’m going to call you Orihara, but you can call me Shinra,” he declared, an oddly selfish kind of demand.
“And why did you want to create a biology club with someone whose name you didn’t even know?” Izaya asked, annoyed.
“Because of what the teacher just said. As long as you have at least two students, you can make your own club here.”
“My point was, why me?”
It was probably just because Shinra had seen him sitting alone in class, but he wouldn’t be able to admit it, Izaya assumed. Hence the question with the answer he already knew—now Izaya could enjoy finding out what response the other boy would give him.
It easily surpassed his expectations.
“You like observing living things, don’t you? You’re cut out for biology.”
“Huh?”
He hadn’t said anything to that effect during his introduction to the class. For a moment, Izaya wondered if Shinra was thinking of someone else, but no other student in the class said anything along the lines of “I like animals,” either.
For some reason, Izaya’s bewilderment bred more confusion in Shinra.
“Huh? But you said it during your introduction.”
“Said what?”
“You said, ‘I like watching people in various occupations.’”
“…”
He liked watching people.
But Izaya understood that if he described his hobby as “human observation” in an introduction in front of the class, he would only stand out in a bad way. So he phrased it in a way that sounded closer to a proper hobby to escape attention. He just didn’t expect that anyone would take his answer and invite him to join the biology club because of it.
“What does that have to do with biology?”
“People are biological.”
“…”
That simple, obvious answer made Izaya even more intrigued. “Humans are just another species among millions on the planet Earth” was a statement you heard often in these eco-conscious times. No doubt other classmates would appreciate it, too.
But anyone who would bring out that line to describe potential observation targets for a biology club was more than a little off. Izaya hesitated a bit, then shook his head. “Sorry, I’m just not interested.”
“Okay. I guess that’s that, then,” Shinra said, taking Izaya by surprise. “I’ll just try again tomorrow. There’s no time limit to applying for a club.”
“Hang on. Don’t you think my answer is going to be the exact same thing a day from now?” Izaya asked.
He prolonged the conversation not to bust Shinra’s chops but because he was curious and felt that something was off, and he wanted to know what that was. But at this point in time, Izaya wasn’t able to decipher the cause of that feeling.
“How about the day after that?”
“Same thing.”
“Please. You can be the club president.”
“Why would you offer me the position that has the most hassle?” Izaya snapped.
It certainly wasn’t the kind of back-and-forth you heard between total strangers, and in fact, it was quite rare for Izaya to engage in banter like this at all.
“Why don’t you just invite someone else who isn’t me? One of your friends from elementary school.”
“Do I look like I have friends?” Shinra replied simply.
“…Sorry. You’re right; you don’t.”
“Too bad! I have one, in fact!”
“Hmm. Can I punch you?” Izaya asked, eyes narrowed.
Shinra ignored him and said, “Unfortunately, that friend is at a different school. So I really don’t have any here.”
“And I doubt you’ll make any, either. Rest in peace. Or should that be ‘you get what you deserve’?”
Izaya was a bit surprised that the responses were coming from him so freely. His stance on maintaining a neutral distance from others could be broken very easily, as it turned out.
The thought that all kids from other elementary schools might be this way was a very depressing one, but Izaya convinced himself this was a property unique to the Kishitani boy.
“But still, there’s got to be at least one other person who likes biology, right?”
“I don’t know. But there’s another reason I asked you specifically. I don’t actually want someone who’s super into biology and is going to take it all seriously. I really want just the minimum of activity. Like, someone who would raise sea monkeys at the most.”
“What…? So you don’t actually like animals?”
Club activity wasn’t mandatory at this school. If he wasn’t interested, he could just be one of the kids who went home right after class. Why was he so fixated on this club?
But before Izaya could ask the question aloud, Shinra explained, “To be honest, I don’t actually want to run a club… But someone I like said, ‘Ever since elementary school, you haven’t had enough friends, Shinra. Why don’t you try being in a club?’ And since it’s more like a one-sided crush at the moment, I don’t want her to decide she doesn’t like me, so…”
“…I didn’t think there was any human being who cared about you enough to worry like that, to say nothing of having a crush.”
“You really don’t hold your opinions back for someone I just met today. Also, I’d like to offer a correction to your statement about a human being who cares enough to worry, but… Oh, never mind. My point is, you look like you’d join the biology club and not bother to care much. C’mon, let’s start a club and look for chupacabras or whatever.”
“That’s…not a biology club.”
Thus, Izaya promptly turned him down on the first day of school—but the unique weirdness of Shinra Kishitani stuck with him, and the very next day, he began a period of focused observation on his classmate. He also took pains to nonchalantly make contact with other students who went to Shinra’s elementary school, in an attempt to build a more accurate profile of him.
“Oh, so that’s the same school that, uh…Kishitani went to, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Hey, Orihara, are you in Kishitani’s class?”
“Yup.”
“He’s weird, right? You can’t tell what the hell he’s thinking.”
This was almost exactly the answer Izaya was anticipating, but he wasn’t disappointed by it. “I don’t wanna say too much, because I don’t like bad-mouthing people, but…it doesn’t seem like he has many friends.”
“Actually, he doesn’t have any… Oh, except for Shizu.”
“Shizu?”
It sounded like a girl’s name. Maybe this was Shinra’s crush, the person who was worried about his social life, Izaya guessed. It took all the next sentence from the other boy’s mouth to prove him wrong.
“It’s this freaky guy named Shizuo… He’s super-tough in a fight and gets mad in a snap, and everyone keeps their distance from him. Kishitani would just walk up to him like it was nothing and ask, ‘Can I dissect you?’ The guy made no sense.”
“Ah, I see your point.”
“But the weird thing is, Shizuo would talk to Shinra like normal…and trust me, he was a f
reak! He threw the teacher’s desk!”
Threw it? That’s probably just a theatrical way of saying he tipped the desk over.
“Okay, thanks for your help. Let’s hope that guy gets arrested before he hurts anyone,” Izaya commented and left the hall.
He couldn’t have dreamed that he and that “freaky guy” would end up attempting to kill each other on countless occasions.
After that, Izaya continued his secondary education where he left off, paying special attention to the human named Shinra Kishitani—until one day, he came to a realization.
It didn’t arrive during some event or moment of clarity. It just popped into his head out of nowhere, like the instant you realize you forgot something.
Shinra Kishitani represented his exact opposite in life.
He had hardly spent any time watching others. In fact, to be blunt about it, Shinra Kishitani seemed to have no interest in humanity at all.
In the way that Izaya loved watching all different kinds of people, Shinra simply didn’t have a care about them in the first place.
What’s his deal, then? What does he watch that gives him life?
Izaya had spent his life watching others, and this was a remarkable feature that he’d never seen in a person before. That realization brought a fresh question to his mind. Over a month into the school year, he finally went to Shinra.
“I’m fine with being in your biology club if I’m only the vice president.”
He wanted to know why Shinra Kishitani had no interest in people.
So for the purpose of exploring this warped fascination, Izaya decided to play along with Shinra’s idea.
It was the birth of the first-ever Raijin Middle School Biology Club.
Twelve years later, Ikebukuro, Raira Academy pool
“So in other words, Iza…you got into some kind of trouble again.”
“…Exasperation…” [I just can’t believe it.]
It was summer vacation, and Raira Academy’s pool was open to its students.
Seated at the poolside, kicking their feet slowly through the glittering water, two girls were busy explaining something to a boy leaning against the fence behind them. He glanced back and forth between their backs and…other features and sighed. “So why are you bothering to tell me this?”
Aoba Kuronuma spoke to them in a much blunter manner than he did with Mikado. “Why did you even bring me here to the pool anyway?” he complained.
Despite his swimsuit, he didn’t seem ready to swim. He wore an open black shirt and stood conspicuously far away from the water.
Mairu Orihara scooped up a handful of pool water and splashed it at his feet. Her relatively athletic body was wrapped in a competition swimsuit, while Kururi wore a bikini with a spiderweb pattern. Neither outfit was according to the school rules, but those didn’t apply outside of school hours.
The Raira Academy school building was eight stories tall, as big as some colleges, and the pool was located on the sixth floor, strangely enough. It was an indoor pool with a glass ceiling so that it could be used on rainy days, and the windows offered a nice view of Ikebukuro.
Aside from the swim team’s activity hours, the pool was open to students during vacation, so anyone could use it provided they brought their school ID. There was no practice today, so the pool was split between racing lanes and a free-swim space.
Kururi and Mairu were kicking their legs into the free area, and the boys nearby were alternately giving them wolf whistles or staring and then hastily turning their gazes away. Aoba was in the latter category, if any, except that he had the advantage over the other boys in that he was there on their invitation.
But he didn’t know why yet, so he stood back, playing it cool, as he secretly let his heart throb at the sight of their figures in swimsuits.
Mairu splashed more water at him with glee. “Well, you’re curious, aren’t you? You want to know more about our weird brother.”
“…”
He returned her question with a brief smile.
“I suppose I’ll just say that I don’t know what you mean.”
Their brother, Izaya Orihara, was a spiteful enemy of Aoba’s. He and Izaya had sparred remotely through a number of events in the past, and a particular circumstance at the present held them in strict hostility toward each other.
He’d never spoken about this to the twins, but they seemed to know something about it already. He was neither alarmed nor frightened by this circumstance, however. He’d been talking to the two for about four months, and he felt he had a good grasp on what they were like.
Compared with an ordinary family, they hardly had any contact at all with their brother. Instead, they had their own network of information and were surprisingly in the know of the various shadowy goings-on of the city that Aoba had a hand in.
“Look, you don’t have to hide it. It’s fine; we’ll keep it a secret from him.”
“You can tell him if you want. He already knows all about me.” He looked around, making sure the twins were the only ones within earshot. “If you had a normal family and he knew what I was like, I assume he’d give you a proper warning to ‘stay away from that Aoba Kuronuma boy.’”
“Wow, are you self-obsessed or what?”
“You… Fun…” [You’re really funny, Aoba.]
Aoba grimaced. He should’ve expected these reactions from them. “Fine, fine. You got me—I was drunk on myself.”
“But don’t worry; we have a pretty good idea of what you are, but that doesn’t mean we’re disgusted by it. And you’ve helped us out with a bunch of stuff.”
“You think too highly of me,” he said.
“There was that secret Raira Academy website where somebody was trying to set us up for something awful, and then it just vanished from the Internet all of a sudden,” Mairu said. The girls looked up at Aoba, who studiously avoided their gazes.
“Look, let’s not talk about that. So…what’s your sicko of a brother involved in now?”
“Well, according to this guy named Tom…there’s some group, either a gang or a biker group or whatever, and he messed with the girlfriend of their leader. See, our brother used to have a whole bunch of girls following him around. Like a playboy, I think they call it?”
“Passion…” [He’s such a philanderer.]
Aoba pored over this fresh round of information.
Woman troubles, huh? But would Izaya Orihara do something that would earn him such a straightforward grudge? It’s too simple.
But…on the other hand, I guess I don’t really know what people would do when women are involved. I do know he’s not the kind of guy who would get so infatuated with a woman that he’d forget his due diligence.
All the while, the twin girls were splashing and frolicking seductively in the water.
“Kuru, did your boobs get even bigger? Pretty soon you’ll look like Miss Sonohara, or President Kine from the art club, or Miss Yumikawa, the student body vice chair.”
“Negative.” [Stop that.]
“Yet despite your protests, you chose to wear a bikini. That just goes to show how secretly slutty you are! I love it!”
“…Public.” [People are watching.]
Aoba watched the two girls tickle each other in the water, the only betrayal of his cool exterior being the spots of red on his cheeks.
“…Hard to know where to rest your eyes,” he mumbled to himself.
All in all, Aoba was acting thoroughly in line with the innocence of his youth, and he needed something to drive away the impure thoughts that were plaguing his mind. He found that unraveling the mysteries of Izaya Orihara was a good replacement.
So…I know he came back to Ikebukuro. If I feed his location to Shizuo Heiwajima, that might be a good way to vex him…but he’ll just find a new place after he gets away, and that’ll be that. It’s better that we know where he is than to have him in hiding. And I’m sure he knows I know his address.
Aoba understood that trusting in his opp
onent’s ability was the best possible way to give him the maximum caution.
Maybe I’ll sit back and test his boundaries for now. I don’t want Mikado getting dragged into anything at this point…
His thoughts were abruptly dashed by the feeling of cold water hitting his body.
“Wh-wh-whaat?!”
His shirt was drenched. No sooner had the chilly water landed on him than it began to warm to a tepid temperature. Down in the pool, Mairu had impishly sliced her arm along the surface, which produced the sheet of water that drenched Aoba.
“Don’t act like a little kid!”
She’d snuck it past the gaze of the school monitor. There were no admonishing whistles.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! Sorry about that! It’s what you get for looking so serious at the pool!”
“That’s not an apology. Now my clothes are all gross. What am I supposed to do now?” Aoba grumbled, wondering if he’d really been making a face. He took a step closer to Mairu to give her a piece of his mind about his wet clothes—when something soft pressed itself against his back.
“Play…” [Hiya.]
“Huh?”
It was a girl’s voice, quiet and seductive, right at his ear.
Only when he recognized that it was Kururi did he understand that she was hugging him from behind.
Huh? What?! Kururi? When did she—?!
Is that soft sensation what I think it is?! Is this some kinda porn game?
Is she…pushing me? Wait, I’m falling…
Aoba turned mid-plunge, a mixture of excitement and surprise on his features, and saw Kururi standing there, a partially deflated beach ball held in her hands.
Oh.
A beach ball?!
So I guess that wasn’t her chest.
That’s a shame—I mean, good— I mean, I’m fallub-blub-glub
He toppled into the water next to Mairu before he could finish the thought.
When he emerged upright, the other girl in the swimming goggles was cackling. Above him, he heard Kururi say, “Health…?” [Are you all right?]
Durarara!!, Vol. 9 Page 9
