“…That’s enough, Sister.”
“S…”
The moment she heard the voice, Namie felt that her heart might stop as well.
Her shock might have been from haste, joy, or twisted love—or perhaps all three.
“Seiji!”
“Seiji?!”
Both women were stunned.
“Why…?”
Why is he here? Mika wondered—but Namie had no doubts whatsoever. She cast the bottle aside, stood up, and clenched Seiji’s body tight.
“Seiji…oh, Seiji! I’m so glad…I’m so glad you’ll still call me ‘Sister’!”
“Ow, ow— Sis, you’re hurting me,” he said, prying his way loose of the affection. “Are you all right, Mika?”
“Y-yes…”
“I see. That’s good,” he said simply, then turned to Namie. “Sis…”
“S-Seiji…?”
Gone was the demonic possession from just moments ago. Now Namie gave him a look like a puppy caught in the rain.
He sighed and muttered, “I don’t know what happened here…but I think you understand you crossed a line.”
“Um…”
“If you had damaged Mika’s face just now…I would have hated you for it.”
“…!”
Namie knew that. She was prepared to undertake her plan and suffer that consequence. But as soon as she heard it from his own mouth, she realized how brittle her determination had been. Terror ran through her.
“H-how long have you been watching…?”
“…Since about the moment you kissed Mika.”
“…!”
If anything, it was Mika who looked shocked at this. The fact that she had known all the secrets of Mikado and the others had itself been a secret—from Seiji. And now he had heard all about it. He knew that she had bugged not just him, but all his friends.
“Ah…aaaah…”
“I saw you two kissing, and I had no idea what was going on, so I kept watching…and then it seemed like things were getting dangerous, so I stepped in to put a stop to it,” he said. His expression was dark, just like the warehouse itself, so he could have been exasperated, or he could have been mad.
Both Mika and Namie looked away uncomfortably. Eventually, Namie broke the silence to ask, “H-how did you know where we…?”
“I left the sushi place and went home…and I met Sonohara out in front of that old curio shop that went out of business.”
“Huh…?”
“I asked her, and she said she hadn’t called you. So then I called you and got your voice mail, and I started getting worried. I called everyone we knew, and that got me nowhere…so eventually I got desperate and tried the people we met at that hot-pot party…”
Seiji paused, scratched his cheek, then continued, “Dr. Kishitani said you’d probably be here…”
Namie suddenly pictured the face of the man she’d talked to no more than an hour ago.
That…that four-eyed freak! I swear…I’ll get rid of him one day—along with that Black Rider!
She began to plot how she would get back at the black market doctor, magma bubbling in her heart—when something covered her raging, quivering lips.
—?!
Her sight went black. It felt like something was touching her cheeks and nose as well. She heard Mika gasp much louder than before.
…?
Suddenly, light came back—and she saw Seiji’s face, pulling away from hers.
“See? It’s really unpleasant to have something like this happen from a person who isn’t your lover, right? So you ought to apologize to Mikabesidessince way backthat’s—to female friends of mineand you’re always”
Less than half the words that Seiji was saying were reaching Namie’s brain.
…?!
Because she suddenly realized that the sensation she’d felt was a kiss from Seiji.
…!—?!—?—!—!—?!
The next thing she knew, Namie Yagiri was running from the spot.
“Huh?! Sister, wait! Where’s the head—?!” Seiji called out after her, but she was already out of hearing range.
Impulses exploded within her, fiercely pumping from her heart and through all the muscles of her body.
Like a living engine, Namie Yagiri could not help but sprint at full speed for the next five minutes, before the muscles collapsed with fatigue at last.
Five minutes later, Ikebukuro
“Why are you so angry?”
“I’m not angry.”
“You are angry.”
Seiji and Mika were arguing as they walked away from the Yagiri Pharmaceuticals warehouse. Technically, he was the one walking, carrying her on his back and hoping to hail a taxi while she recovered from the effects of the drug. But something was wrong with her attitude.
“Fine, fine, you aren’t angry. At least tell me what I did.”
“…You have no idea how a woman feels, Seiji,” she said, turning her head so that her cheek rested against his shoulder. “I know that you really love my face, not me…that you love the real head…but that just makes it even more important if you’re in love not to kiss your own sister…”
Mika never cared how much Seiji spoke to other women, but for some reason, her way of thinking was different at this moment. Was it because this was Namie Yagiri, the woman who declared herself an official rival for his love?
…I’m the worst. He learned my secrets; he should be far more angry with me than the other way around…
She felt disgusted at the way she was taking it all out on him. She buried her face into the middle of his back, ready to let the tears flow—
“I didn’t.”
“…?”
He openly admitted, “When I grabbed her face and pulled it closer, I put my fingers in between our mouths, just like this.”
He held out two fingers and laid them sideways over his lips, then craned his neck and wondered, “For some reason, she assumed it was a real kiss… Based on the way she raced out of there, it must have really creeped her out. Funny, given how much she used to hug me…”
Mika’s mouth was hanging open in shock. Eventually, she closed it and scolded, “Even still…that’s terrible.”
“Really? It is?”
“Yes. This sort of thing doesn’t work on logic,” she said, practically sulking.
“Ha-ha!” He couldn’t help it.
“…What’s so funny?”
“You finally did it.”
“…Did what?” she asked, looking up.
He glanced over his shoulder at her and happily explained, “Normally, you just go ‘Yeah, yeah!’ and play along with whatever I say. So this is…kinda fresh.”
“Seiji…”
“Plus, there have been lots of surprises today.”
“…!”
Mika tensed. She’d been placing “spies,” so to speak, on all the people Seiji knew as a tool to keep him out of danger. It was an action she didn’t want him to know about, a side of her that even she knew was abnormal.
Mika Harima did not think that sneaking into the home of her beloved and placing bugs there was abnormal. It most certainly was, but not by her standards. However, she did understand that spying in this manner on people she did not love was abnormal by most people’s standards.
Only she knew where her arbitrary, vague boundary between what was normal and abnormal lay—but what mattered now was that Seiji had learned about the thing she herself recognized as abnormal.
“Umm…”
She knew she had to say something, but no words came. Normally, she could talk about her love for him without ever running out of words, but now she found herself at a loss.
Thankfully, he spoke before she needed to.
“Sorry.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t try to pretend I’m a saint or anything. I’m just nosy. If I find out someone I know is in trouble, I suppose I might be inclined to stick my nose into it, too.”
“Seiji…�
��
Why…? Why is Seiji the one apologizing?
She tried to say something, but once again, Seiji filled the gap.
“But…I’m not going to deny what you did for me, Mika.”
“…”
“I’m starting to lose my grip on what exactly love is. All I know is that I love the head. I can’t explain it. There’s no logic to it. That’s all I can say. I don’t love you, and I only care about my sister as my sister—whatever she happens to feel.”
“Yeah…I know.”
She’d heard that speech many times before. His words were unbearably direct, but there was no lie in them.
After a while, he continued, “But the one thing I won’t do is deny you. I might try to stop you, but I won’t deny your thoughts. I respect your love. I just might not accept it.”
“…!”
“If you caused trouble for someone else out of your love for me…I don’t have the right to stop you from doing it. I heard you mentioning Ryuugamine’s name and some weird words like Kanra and Saika or whatever—but I’m not going to worry about it.”
He doesn’t love me.
“You can tell me the details of that stuff later. Then we can discuss what we should do. After all, maybe something in all that trouble you don’t want me to get involved in has a connection to the real head.”
“…Right.”
But he’ll allow me to love him.
She nodded with a smile, and he sighed. “And despite all this selfish stuff I just said, somehow you still love me. What is it about me, anyway?”
The same question as always. But today, Mika had a different answer than usual.
“I’ll tell you if you decide to love Mika Harima!”
“…Can I love you as a friend?”
“No, only as a lover.”
“Then I guess I’ll never know the answer.”
Mika could pour all her love into him. That was enough for her.
What she truly cared about wasn’t Seiji’s heart. It was her own love for him.
It was an abnormal girl’s eccentric love.
On the other hand, Seiji’s lack of love for her and his acceptance of that abnormality also made him a resident of the abnormal side.
For now, Mika felt that her love was blessed and celebrated.
For now.
Seiji shuffled through the town with Mika on his back, the sun making its slow descent toward the horizon. They continued their nonsensical discussion while ignoring the curious gazes of onlookers, existing only in their own little bubble.
“Still can’t move your limbs?”
“Nope.”
“Liar.”
“Yep.”
“Whatever. Guess I missed the chance to ask her…where the head is.”
“I don’t think she even knows anymore.”
“…Maybe. Maybe that Izaya Orihara you mentioned has it. I’ve heard that name in rumors before—maybe I’ve actually met him somewhere. I could try finding out where he lives and sneaking inside.”
“There’s no need to do that.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve found three different apartments Izaya Orihara has and snuck inside them multiple times…but I never saw any heads.”
“…Oh. Well, there goes that option.”
“Yep.”
“Also, I don’t think sneaking into people’s homes is a good idea.”
“Yep.”
“…What would you have done if you found the head before me?”
“Eaten it.”
“What?”
“If I become one with the head, then you’ll love me, won’t you?”
“Probably not. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible in the first place.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’d stop you.”
“By killing me?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew it.”
“…Do you hate me now?”
“Huh? Why would I?”
“Never mind.”
“What about me? Not my face, but Mika Harima? You hate me now?”
“Not really…”
“Then…you love me?!”
“Not really…”
“Aww…”
“Don’t ‘aww’ me.”
“Okay, I was kidding. That was a fake ‘aww.’”
“Wow, you gave up fast.”
“…”
“…”
They vanished into the bustle of the city, continuing their endless conversation.
Her love was abnormal.
His sister’s love was abnormal.
But in a way, the boy who bore their love and shrugged it off without batting an eye might have been the most abnormal of all.
The city of Ikebukuro accepted even this abnormal love triangle, playing the same tune it always did.
Swallowing them into its grand flow.
In ways slow, gentle, and majestic.
Night, Shinjuku, apartment
In the usual apartment, its owner still absent, Namie took a shower.
“Seiji…”
How many times had she murmured that name today? It had been at least a hundred times during this shower alone. She pressed her lips and then clutched her body.
I suppose that counts as the first time I’ve ever kissed a man…
The qualifier kissed a man either meant she was disregarding her prior kiss with Mika or that she had experienced it with other women in the past—but in any case, there was nothing in her mind but the image of her beloved brother now.
She let the cold water wash over her, trying to chill the burning fervor of her flesh. If she didn’t, her very sense of reason might crumble into ruin.
Seiji…
“Ha-ha.”
Seiji!
“Ha—ha-ha, ah-ha… Ah-ha-ha-ha… Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…”
Maniacal laughter spilled out of her mouth as his name repeated and echoed in her mind.
There was a saying that love lasts three years while marriage gets stale in three days—but Namie’s love for her brother would never get old.
There was a reason for that, of course; loving her brother was as natural as breathing for her. No human being grows “tired” of breathing.
And just like breathing, Namie could not survive without loving him.
She would continue living, subsisting on her love for her brother.
She would do so tomorrow and the day after that…until the day Seiji no longer existed. Perhaps even beyond that day…
“Seiji…”
She exhaled that breath of desire, the heat of it dissipating into the Ikebukuro night.
Ordinary B: Outcast Concerto
Six years ago, Ikebukuro
What is this?
What am I looking at?
He was a tremendous fighter.
Even among the mobsters that the government euphemistically termed “violence groups,” he wielded a violence that was second to none.
The rest of society knew him as a strongman, and he believed in that strength.
He had thrived in the shadows of modern society on his might alone; he had made a living just by being good at fighting. He could be proud of that life.
New-school “intellectual” yakuza, the Anti-Organized Crime Law… These changes were the wind; they meant nothing to him.
It was important to adapt with the times, but the law of the street still reigned supreme: If you didn’t command respect and fear, you were done.
All he could do was handle things the way he knew best.
A few years ago, some men who worked for a fellow in his line of work—a rival of his, some said—were beaten up by a kid in a bakery. He felt pity, mirth, and anger all at once. It had to be a joke. He didn’t believe the story.
Later, that very kid would don a bartender’s uniform and become a kind of urban legend—but the man couldn’t have known this at the time.
So he decided to keep fighting, to s
how his companions how a real man fought.
Fight, fight, fight.
He sought to gain everything he could see through sheer violence alone.
He knew it was impossible. But he didn’t stop.
He couldn’t stop.
No stopping the endless impulse from within.
The intoxication of violence.
There was no way not to test the technique honed by true experience, the muscle built and forged.
No way not to display it.
Even if nothing but ruin lay ahead, he was determined to use his strength exactly as he desired.
Then, one day…
He met a monster.
What the hell is this?
It was not the oft-rumored Headless Rider on a silent motorcycle—but the more recent phenomenon of a slasher with a katana.
What am I looking at?
No one knew about it at the time.
They couldn’t have known.
Even now, only a scant few aside from him actually knew the truth.
Is this…real life?
This slasher was a shape-shifting monster in the truest sense of the word.
A red-eyed monster sprouting katana blades from all over its body, leaping and darting like no human being could.
He didn’t know the monster’s name.
“Damn you…”
He didn’t know the name of Saika, the cursed blade that loved humanity.
“What the hell are you, dammit?!”
He received no answer.
The tip of the monster held in that red-eyed human’s hands cut through a part of his body.
And then time passed…
May 4, late night, Tokyo, club
A club pulsing with lascivious sound and light.
It was classified as a “café” for the purposes of the Adult Entertainment Business Act, but in reality, it was closer to a nightclub or a disco of the previous era. The proprietors rented out the space every night to a different production company, hosting events of all kinds.
Tonight, young men and women danced and writhed on the dark floor, indulging in a variety of pleasures, their bodies and minds stimulated by the insistent pounding of the bass subwoofer.
Durarara!!, Vol. 7 Page 6