But as usual, rather than anything else, Izaya found this idea quite fascinating. He said nothing, waiting for Shinra to continue.
For his part, the other boy didn’t act like he’d just confessed some deep secret. Quite matter-of-factly, he said, “What if there was an incredibly beautiful dead woman, like the only thing that was different was that her heart wasn’t beating?”
Okay, so this is a necrophilia thing. Izaya always felt that Shinra was bizarre; now he was excited to hear whatever sexual fetish lurked under this eccentric’s exterior.
Then the conversation took an odder turn.
“The body never decays. It’s just a body that looks beautiful. But you can’t truly experience love with a body. You can love it, but it can’t return that love, can it? It’s just a dead body.”
“Of course it can’t. The best you could do is a ventriloquist act, if you had an overactive imagination.”
“But what if the body could move around?”
“…You mean…it’s a zombie?” Izaya replied, but Shinra was quite serious.
“No, I don’t think that’s the right term. It’s not all gross and decaying like that. So let’s say you’ve got a dead body moving around that doesn’t decompose. In other words, if it went from a dead body that ought to decompose to a perfectly preserved zombie…could you reach a mutual understanding? Could you fall in love with it?”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“What if the zombie was nice? One that didn’t eat brains or bodies? What if it could understand us, like at the level of a dog? What if that zombie could give you the gentlest smile you’d ever seen? What if that zombie could talk to you like a normal person and tell silly jokes, and the only difference was that its heart wasn’t beating?”
The president of the biology club tapped on a container holding one of their carnivorous plants as he spoke. He was too straightforward about this to be joking, yet the subject matter was so nonsensical that it was impossible to take seriously.
“If it didn’t decompose, still looked pristine, and could tell jokes…then I guess that would be more like a special kind of human being that could move around without a working heart…right?”
“And what if that zombie didn’t have an upper half? Say, she could writhe her gorgeous hips and use her shapely feet to write on paper in order to communicate?”
“That seems…much less human.”
Izaya was having a very hard time figuring out where Shinra was taking this. It was very rare that Izaya felt confusion on account of someone else, but for whatever reason, this boy’s statements had an oddly bewildering effect on him.
The extent of Izaya’s conclusion about the last few months was that something made Shinra Kishitani different from anyone else he’d seen before.
“Would it be weird to fall in love with a zombie that’s only a lower half?”
“I guess it would be more like a foot fetish that’s so extreme it becomes weird?”
“Ah, I see. I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Shinra remarked, impressed. Izaya had no idea what was so profound about his sarcasm.
“If loving a human is normal,” Shinra continued, “and anything else is abnormal, where does the boundary lie? Assuming that the kind of familial love you feel for pets is something else entirely.”
“…?”
“If being alive or dead is one such boundary, then what about someone who’s not alive, not dead, not human, but incredibly close to it? If you fell in love with such a person, would that be normal…or weird? What determines abnormality, and what makes something proper? I’m sure the location of that boundary changes for each person, of course.”
Just then, a fly in the room approached the planter and landed on a Venus flytrap, causing its jaws to snap shut and trap the insect in a cage of green.
Shinra looked off into the distance and commented, “If that plant could somehow communicate with us through telepathy, do you think we could reach an understanding? Do you think it would be abnormal to feel love or friendship with it?”
…No, really, what the hell is he talking about? Izaya wondered, his mind racing behind his placid exterior. He reached one possible answer.
Not alive but not dead… So, like a manga character?
Is that what this is about? He’s looking for advice about being in love with some anime girl? Seems weird to compare her to a zombie without an upper half or whatever.
“Look, I don’t think it’s a huge deal. Some folks like to give their plants names and treat them like people. I don’t know if any of them get so attached that it’s the same level of attraction they feel toward the opposite sex, though. And as long as they’re not hurting anyone, who cares who they love?”
In truth, Izaya enjoyed observing people in the act of harming others for the sake of love, but he chose to hide his true nature and play the role of common sense here. But once again, Shinra went in an unexpected direction.
“Actually, I want to love, even if it does mean hurting someone.”
“Whoa, what?” Izaya snorted.
This Shinra Kishitani guy… He’s just weird.
He doesn’t watch people. He’s not like me. Not like the others.
Shinra has no interest in people. But…that’s not the entire explanation, either.
He doesn’t hate people, or look down on those around him, or even feel disgust at the world. That’s not the reason for his lack of interest.
He just doesn’t see them. It’s like he’s so obsessed with something, people are just part of the background.
…This guy… What in the world is he seeing? I can’t tell what the object of his obsession is.
I would understand if it was some character in a manga or a movie. Some people are just like that…but I feel like Shinra is different.
Shinra noticed that Izaya was lost in thought. He waved his hand in denial and said, “You don’t have to think that hard about it. That was just an example, the thing about hurting people. Anyway, can I ask you to watch the plants for real? I’ll come and do my part, like once or twice a week.”
The sudden shift in topic was jarring; Izaya still wanted to follow up with the other thing. But due to his policy of staying at a comfortable distance, he didn’t speak his mind directly.
I’ve got time. I can figure out what his deal is at my own pace.
He flashed Shinra his usual breezy smile and shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I feel better at least coming to school periodically, rather than just being on vacation the entire time.”
“Okay, cool. I mean, I’d prefer to be at home as much as possible. I just don’t want my family to think I’m not taking my club activity seriously or whatever.”
“Good point. And there’s a bit too much here to actually take it home to care for it,” Izaya said, noting the numerous planters arranged on the sills of the biology class windows.
Shinra was quickly putting his things away, perhaps sensing he had talked too much about something, whatever it was. “Well, I’m going to leave. I’ll come to water them on Friday. Just call me if anything happens before that point.”
“Sure. Until then, I’ll enjoy being the king of the biology class.”
“Just watch out for revolutions. You’re the kind of guy who gets sloppy and winds up guillotined by the common folk.”
“That’s…quite an appraisal.”
For not having any interest, he sure is sharp. And in this case, I have to agree with him, Izaya noted critically.
Shinra scampered out of the room. He was smiling like a little kid who was looking forward to his school field trip. There must’ve been something great waiting for him at home.
What a weird guy. I’ll have to keep observing him. But it’s dangerous to get too close. Gotta be cautious, Izaya thought, more sure than ever about Shinra Kishitani’s abnormality. He looked up at the ceiling and smirked.
“King of the biology class, huh?” he repeated, pleased with himself. “This is looking v
ery convenient for my purposes.”
One month after that, the king of the biology class’s reign came to an end in a most unpredictable way.
He would be ushered into police custody for the crime of stabbing the club president, Shinra Kishitani—an outcome that even Izaya could not have imagined at this point in time.
Twelve years later, Rakuei Gym
“Your brother?” Akane Awakusu asked.
Dressed in her black karate gi, Mairu kicked at a sandbag. “That’s…right! When you…left! Yesterday, the…guy! Who got out of your…car! Was my broth…er! Izaya Oriha…ra!”
She punctuated every few syllables with a different kind of kick, her feet thudding against the heavy bag.
“Izaya?” Akane repeated, looking befuddled.
“Why, do you recognize the name? Were those scary Awakusu-kai guys talking about him?”
“No. It’s the same name as someone I know,” the little girl said.
Mairu stopped kicking and reached out to steady the bag before turning her head to ask, “Oh yeah? I thought Izaya was a pretty rare name… Maybe it is Iza, just in disguise.”
“It’s not. He was much skinnier than your brother, Mairu… And he said Izaya wasn’t his first name; it was his last name.”
“Oh, I see. Well, anyone’s better than my brother. Stay away from him for your own good, okay?” Mairu warned. She didn’t ask Akane anything else about the story, because she wasn’t really interested to begin with.
She went back to training against the sandbag.
For her part, Akane recalled the man she knew named Izaya.
There was Nakura, the woman she’d met online. Nakura then put her in touch with another man she knew, the one who’d given her advice on how to survive as a runaway.
He taught her about Shizuo Heiwajima and gave her a stun gun. Thinking back on it now, with a clearer mind, he’d been very fishy in a way.
But she hadn’t told anyone in the Awakusu-kai, including her father, about Izaya or Nakura. If they found out about the involvement those two had in her runaway spree, who knew what her father might do to them in secret. She couldn’t bear the thought.
So Akane had been quite steadfast in protecting the names Nakura and Izaya under duress—even though she was at least knowledgeable enough now to recognize that something had been off about them.
And after that point, I stopped getting messages from Nakura…
Even still, Akane prayed that the people she’d encountered hadn’t met an untimely fate at the hands of the Awakusu-kai.
I wonder what they’re doing now.
Tokyo, in a vehicle
“So, you suspect that Orihara asshole, Mr. Shiki?” asked the young driver.
From the backseat, Shiki muttered, “Just a hunch, that’s all. Got nothing behind it yet.”
“But he seemed totally cool when he and Miss Akane met face-to-face yesterday…and she was acting like she’d never met him before.”
“Maybe so. But even if he was involved in her running away from home, I doubt he’s stupid enough to have put himself out there directly. I really was just dropping him off along the way to picking her up yesterday, honest.”
His voice was tense and thick, the emotion physically suppressed beneath it. Shiki had no intention of speaking his truthful mind after that.
The driver sensed the land mine waiting there and cleverly altered the subject.
“You think that Orihara guy’s gonna find something on Amphisbaena?”
“I’m not holding out hope. But I’m not counting him out, either. He’s clearly got a different set of information sources than ours.”
“And we can’t just…take his over or something?” the driver asked, unable to leave the fascinating topic of Izaya alone.
Shiki just shook his head.
“If the way his system worked was that straightforward, we’d have done it already. And for one thing, he’s impervious to threats, and his network vanishes if we kill him. The best answer is just to use him properly. Well…second-best, maybe,” he said, correcting himself.
He glared at the man in the driver’s seat and warned, “It might be best for the Awakusu-kai if we simply get rid of him altogether, rather than make use of him. But we just don’t know that yet. He’s that tricky of a man to deal with, got it?”
“You could get rid of him easy if you wanted to, Mr. Shiki.”
“You think so? I’ve heard he does business with the Medei-gumi directly. So as their subordinates, if we want to kill him, we’d better have a damn good reason. We’d have to tell them he’s playing with fire and that it’s going to be the death of you.”
It was probably Shiki’s idea of a joke, but the driver felt terror in his spine as though needles of ice were being inserted there. He was done asking about Izaya at last.
For his part, Shiki held his silence and considered what had happened over the Golden Week holiday.
The biggest question is Shizuo Heiwajima. Why did he come to the place where our guys got whacked?
Over Golden Week, the gang’s leader-in-waiting, Mikiya Awakusu, secretly paid Vorona and Slon, a pair of guns for hire, to eliminate some moles in their midst—but for whatever reason, Shizuo Heiwajima appeared on the scene, which forced the Awakusu-kai to mark him as a wanted man.
It’s certainly possible that Izaya Orihara would’ve known about Slon’s job, because even if Slon himself didn’t give away the game, Orihara would be able to follow or tap him and put the picture together for himself. Then, right at the moment that he’d have finished his hit job against the Awakusu-kai moles, he lured Shizuo Heiwajima to the spot of the hit…
You really couldn’t pull that off unless you knew about the nature of the job beforehand. I suppose I should assume there was some other connection there, aside from Slon and his contract.
But if one thing’s for sure, it’s that you can’t trust Izaya Orihara.
Eventually, the driver gave in to the pressure of Shiki’s silence. Glancing through the rearview mirror, he asked, “How’s the other thing going? Those students who are messing with Mr. Akabayashi.”
“Ah…them. We’ve got a handle on one kid who’s high on their totem pole. The problem is, his dad and gramps are big civic figures. If we piss them off, we’ll have more problems on our hands than just inside the Medei-gumi.”
“What’s the plan, then?”
“Honestly, the ideal scenario would be if the people distributing Heaven’s Slave ended up in a death struggle with Amphisbaena, but…”
Shiki chose not to say the second half of that sentence aloud. He merely thought it.
…But writing that scenario requires the Amphisbaena info we hired Izaya Orihara to get…and I don’t like that, not one bit.
Tokyo, rooftop
“Hi there, courier. Were you enjoying your time with Shinra last night?” Izaya asked, his typical smirk greeting Celty, despite the fact that she found it very unpleasant.
With obvious disgust, she typed, “Don’t you dare try to imagine what our home life is like. What kind of enjoyment are you imagining?”
“Well, that’s rather hostile. I would have figured that you’d take my statement as positive acknowledgment that you and Shinra have a very cozy relationship.”
“Anyway, I heard about a little something.”
“Heard about what?” Izaya replied without a hint of curiosity.
She shoved her PDA into his face. “About the scar on Shinra’s torso.”
“…”
“He fessed up and told me the entire story.”
“For whatever reason, he really will tell you anything. Even in high school, I don’t think he told a single soul about that,” Izaya grumbled, shaking his head. The grin he wore suggested that he expected this might happen, however. That was enough to convince Celty.
“You can’t be trusted.”
“What next, then? Will you quit the job?”
“No, that’s a different story. Whatever happened
in the past, you’re still one of Shinra’s few friends. Technically speaking.”
“Friend…? Do you really suppose Shinra thinks of me and Shizu as friends?” He chuckled.
“What do you mean?” she shot back.
“He has no interest in people. Out of everything in this wide, wide world, the only thing he’s truly paying attention to is you. Shizu and I might think of Shinra as a friend, but he barely notices us. In the end, he’ll always prioritize you. I bet the only reason he puts up with the two of us is because you told him something about treasuring his friends years back, didn’t you?”
Celty’s fingers paused. It was true that she’d been saying something like that to Shinra for ages.
Shinra had once helped out at Yagiri Pharmaceuticals in order to fulfill his own desired love, she recalled. He would even lie to me if it would allow him to be with me.
But ultimately, he captured her heart for good on the very night this lie was exposed.
She envisioned Shinra as she knew him, based around her connection to him—and slumped her shoulders.
“…I suppose I can’t dismiss that out of hand. He’s not the type of person to distinguish between good and evil, and it’s questionable if what he feels toward you and Shizuo is what normal people would call ‘friendship.’”
“Right?”
“But what is ‘normal friendship’ anyway? Can you really define something that nebulous?”
She understood the special nature that defined her and Shinra—but she couldn’t deny that hearing Izaya insult her man made her angry.
“Besides, you’re pretty abnormal, too, if you think the only thing that defines a friend is whether they prioritize you or not.”
“You’re mistaken. I think of everyone in the world, including Shinra—well, not Shizu, obviously—as being my friends, and my lovers, and my family.”
“So you’ve got an interest in every human being alive, and Shinra has none. I still think Shinra’s the more normal of the two of you,” Celty argued, unable to help herself. Really, she just wanted to get to the topic of the job.
Izaya spread his hands in a gesture of wounded pride. “Shinra’s more normal than me? Listen, I’m not trying to insult him, but if you really heard the entire story of his scar, then you must understand, right? Shinra’s never been normal.”
Durarara!!, Vol. 9 Page 11
