The two worked together as debt collectors for a telekura—a phone-based dating service. As their job was to collect money from folks who tried to run out on their debts, it involved danger in a variety of ways.
“Money, huh? Hey, wasn’t there an armed robbery around here just a little while ago? I bet it was just a model gun made to look real. Then again, if you tinker with them enough, even a model gun can be deadly.”
“Scary stuff.”
“Says you,” snorted Tom, but his laugh was not directed at Shizuo. He didn’t want the trouble of pissing the other fellow off over something as harmless as this.
They had finished their daytime collecting, and next they would be after those customers who only showed up at night. There was plenty of time until then, so they decided to look for a place to eat, when…
“Hello, Shizoo-oh. Tom. Nice to see yoo.”
Two black hands grabbed their shoulders, accompanied by cartoonishly accented Japanese.
The men spun around and saw an enormous black man standing nearly seven feet tall.
There were a surprising number of black street solicitors in Ikebukuro, most of them working for thrift shops and clubs. But what set this man apart was the outfit—a blue-and-white apron with RUSSIA SUSHI stitched on the breast.
“Your tummy growl, just now. Yes? I hear it. Good ears, me. You eat. Eat sushi. Even Satan in hell like sushi.”
“…”
Tom smiled uncomfortably at the man’s Japanese, which was broken in a variety of ways. He looked over at Shizuo.
Shizuo was staring impassively back at the black man. His state of mind was unreadable.
But it was clear that at the very least, he was not in a good mood.
“Sorry, Simon. I’m not flush with cash today…”
“Oh. I make cheap. No worry, half-price sale.”
“What…really?”
For a second, the two men were seriously tempted. That was a deal too good to pass up.
“Other half goes on tab. You pay other half with interest next time.”
Something in Shizuo’s neck made a sharp crackling noise. “Listen, Simon… You have any idea what the hell you’re saying to me?”
Tom noted the pulsing in Shizuo’s temples and took a position a good six feet away. Despite the obvious warning signs, the man named Simon continued with an innocent smile.
“Rip-off is wisdom of Japan. Grandma’s best advice, yes? Izaya tell me long time ago.”
“—!”
The word Izaya was the switch. Shizuo unleashed a devastating attack from point-blank range.
The fist seemed to slice directly through the air itself, only to be enveloped in Simon’s massive palm like it was made of paper. Though this might have given the impression that the blow was light and harmless, Simon’s body slid backward about three feet the instant it stopped the punch.
A savvy viewer might believe that Simon slid backward himself to soften the impact, but no, it was at least 270 pounds of pressure from the fist alone that pushed him.
Shizuo took a step forward to close the gap and unleashed more punches. Simon rotated his hands back and forth to absorb the blows, a troubled smile on his face as he tried to calm the younger man.
“Shizoo-oh angry. Make stomach emptily empty. Not enough calcium. Oh, Shizuo. Hands are sushi chef’s life. Punching not good.”
“Only because! You’re using them! To stop my blows!”
The words only served to make Shizuo angrier, the force and speed of his punches rising.
“Oh, scary, scary.”
At the limit of what his hands could absorb, Simon sidestepped to evade the body blow this time. In the space behind him was a red postal box sticking out of the concrete.
The hard metal object wavered in a way it was not meant to move, with the pop of a balloon exploding.
The onlookers around them assumed that it was the sound of Shizuo’s fist cracking to pieces. Some of them shrieked and turned away.
But Shizuo only moved on to his next attack, unaffected. He thrust a leaping knee in Simon’s direction.
“Who said you could dodge? You have any idea how much a postal box costs? Huh?!”
Tom watched Shizuo run off after Simon, then cast a glance at the side of the box. The red metal was cracked around a dent about four inches deep, like a cannonball had struck the box directly.
The passersby noticed the dent as well and glanced back and forth between Shizuo and the postal box in disbelief.
Tom scanned the crowd quickly to ensure there were no cops present. He mumbled, “Uh-oh. What if they come after us and demand repair costs? How much does a postal box cost anyway? And how can Simon take punches like this one and laugh them off…?”
He continued to examine the surrounding crowd—then realized that he wasn’t seeing any of the people with the yellow scraps today.
“Hmm…? What’s this? You’d think the kids in the yellow scarves would be all over this.”
If they weren’t around at this time of day, there had to be a gathering somewhere. Tom looked up at the darkening sky and noticed the black, heavy clouds massing overhead. The sunset light against their underbellies shone down on Ikebukuro, eerily red.
He gazed at the sky for several moments until he realized that Shizuo and Simon were steadily proceeding farther into an alley. He started walking in their direction, sighing.
Thinking of their night shift collecting debts, he mumbled dejectedly.
“Crap… Does this mean rain?”
Several hours later, abandoned factory, Tokyo
In a location slightly removed from Ikebukuro, there was a whole row of factories, one of which looked especially run-down and desolate.
It was likely used to produce some kind of steel at one point, but aside from a few clearly useless artifacts remaining behind, all of the operating equipment had been taken out, leaving it barren.
Despite its reasonably close proximity to the downtown parts of the city, the surroundings were truly desolate. Hardly anyone could be seen walking the streets around the factory.
It had clearly been several years since the building had been abandoned, its gray walls rusting out in spots. The land wasn’t even valuable enough to have the deed recycled for another purpose—but that did not mean it was not being used.
To make up for the emptiness outside, the interior of the factory was packed with people.
It was not a large variety—most within the building were of a young age. In fact, the sea of faces could be described as “boys,” with some as young as middle school or even elementary age.
But that did not mean the factory was buzzing with youthful energy. The boys were even quieter and better behaved than how they must have acted while in class at school.
Every single one of the boys had some kind of yellow cloth displayed on his body, whether bandanna, scarf, or boxer’s bandages wrapped around the hands. When combined with the overwhelming number present, it produced a sea of yellow.
“So…who got hit?” asked a boy leaning against a drum can in the midst of the group of dozens.
A boy near him mumbled in a sluggish voice devoid of emotion. “It was Mr. Horada.”
“Don’t recognize that name. Who’s Horada? I would remember an odd name like that…and what do you mean, ‘Mister’?”
“Uh…just that he was an alum of Higa and his friends’ high school…,” the boy mumbled again, growing quieter as the sentence went on.
The boy in the middle asked, “Higa… Oh, one of the people who joined while I was away from the group? But when you say ‘alum,’ does that mean he’s over twenty now?”
“Yeah…I think he’s right about there.”
“Hmm.”
The boy went silent for a while. Eventually he craned his head, cracking his neck, and hopped down off the drum canister.
“Well, it’s fine. Whatever happened in the organization while I was gone was your decision, and I’m not gonna fuss over it.”<
br />
“…’Kay.”
“I just want you to be careful. If the older folks bring in even older people, and it eventually reached the point that so-and-so from the so-and-so syndicate comes knocking on the door…that’s when this whole thing is finished.”
The boy’s smile was more wry and self-mocking than one who was simply lecturing his fellows would wear. The gathering of youths were all the type to despise that sort of patronization, but they heard him out without a single complaint.
“We’re kids. No matter how many of us there are, we can’t overcome real adults. We’re not smart enough about the world. They’ll use us to their ends, and then it’s over.”
He paused for a breath and glanced sideways balefully, murmuring, “The same way that Izaya Orihara used me.”
“That wasn’t your fault, Shogun…”
“C’mon, how many times do I have to tell you?” he said exasperatedly, correcting their theatrical title for him. “I’m not your shogun, I’m Masaomi Kida.”
And the boy thought about his past.
The inescapable past that had created the Masaomi Kida of today.
The Yellow Scarves.
When did the color gang based around a Romance of the Three Kingdoms motif get started? Even Masaomi couldn’t remember.
There was no real necessity behind the creation of the gang.
Even the choice of yellow for the gang’s color was based on nothing more than a TV show that was popular at the time. That’s all that Masaomi recalled of the decision, and even after this much time, he had almost no sentiment or attachment to the color at all.
Because the manga Masaomi was into at the time was based in the Three Kingdoms setting and they knew the color would be yellow, it was inevitable that the name of the gang ended up being Yellow Scarves.
That was the extent of the rationale behind the name and color.
The only important question was why they got together.
But even that genesis was nothing more than a fragment of memory from Masaomi’s distant past.
Masaomi was still in elementary school when he left his hometown and came to Ikebukuro.
It was a massive culture shock to move to such a wildly different place from the familiar countryside he knew.
He had to tell someone about this—so he chose to boast about the big city to his old friend, Mikado Ryuugamine.
It wasn’t because he was particularly close with Mikado, but just because he was the only one who had Internet access at his house. Back in the early days of the Internet, chat partners were a valuable commodity. Masaomi regaled him with tales of the things that happened in Ikebukuro.
His friend showed no lack of curiosity over the adventurous stories of Tokyo. Mikado was the perfect audience for Masaomi.
When Masaomi reached middle school and his innate feistiness grew more pronounced, he would brag to Mikado about the fights he’d seen and participated in during his urban stay.
“Just don’t overdo it,” Mikado would warn, but his eyes sparkled in fascination at Masaomi’s exploits, and he still demanded to hear all about them.
Eventually, Masaomi found his way deeper and deeper.
Deeper into the heart of Ikebukuro.
Even deeper.
When he first started talking about his fights, there was no feeling of guilt. He believed that they were all fights someone else picked with him, and he hadn’t hurt his opponents too much.
But it all started going south when he saw a classmate being harassed in town and took on the fight for him.
Soon people began to gather around him. His classmates’ friends called more friends into the circle, causing it to grow.
At times, some people offered to handle the fights for him, and Masaomi’s group began to make a name for itself within their public middle school. Of course, it was a school without many true delinquents, and they weren’t in a position to make trouble with any nearby schools.
But that only meant there were no brakes to stop them.
Slowly, so slowly, the group grew in size.
In his youth, Masaomi did not understand what this meant yet. There was merely a vague sense of anxiety in the back of his mind.
And then, around the time their group took on the name of Yellow Scarves…
…Masaomi stopped telling Mikado about it.
Instead, he told his old friend about things in town like usual. He just didn’t include any details about his odd companions.
During the days, he would hang out with his Yellow Scarves as always. It wasn’t awkward for him. In fact, he enjoyed the feeling of lording it over his little group.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that it only served to further distance the old memories of his countryside home.
He cared about his friends in his new environment. But he felt that there was a fundamental distinction between them.
If he bragged about his gang leadership to Mikado, that would somehow end his connection to home for good, he felt.
Should he stay true to his old self? Or embrace his new role as leader of the Yellow Scarves?
It was a silly and unnecessary choice, but it tormented him all the same.
His friends here were only connected to him as long as he was fighting. He was worried that they might leave him as soon as he slipped up and made a mistake.
He wanted someone.
Someone to affirm his actions and support him.
Someone who, like Mikado from his hometown, set him at ease and grounded him so that he could be at home in Ikebukuro.
It was during this period of growing unease that she showed up out of the blue.
“That’s a cool yellow scarf. It looks nice on you.”
She was referring to the trademark of the Yellow Scarves tied around his arm.
The girls showed little fear or concern about Masaomi. It was what one might call a “reverse pickup,” where a group of young women around their age reached out to contact Masaomi’s little group hanging out at the train station.
Masaomi was fully comfortable with his life in the big city right around the time that the Yellow Scarves numbered about thirty in total. As their numbers grew, Masaomi got tired of the fighting, and the Yellow Scarves as a whole turned easygoing and relaxed. There were very few squabbles with other gangs at that point.
He tried picking up girls when he was on his own, but he rarely succeeded, and even when he did, the relationship was lazy and brief. That’s how he had always related to women, even before coming to Ikebukuro.
Mikado always marveled at these exploits, claiming that he was “still just in middle school!” But Masaomi had been going out with girls since his elementary years, so he usually turned the tables and teased Mikado for being too shy instead.
So when this moment came, Masaomi didn’t give it any more thought than Hey, I got hit on by some girls, and they’re pretty hot, too. Lucky me, I’m not doing anything right now.
“You’re called the Yellow Scarves. Isn’t that right?” one of the girls asked boldly. Masaomi felt his excitement cool off.
Oh. She’s not interested in me personally, just the group. Then again, we must be getting famous if even normal girls like her are aware of us.
He was ready to put on a different face, to express more acutely his individual nature as Masaomi Kida, but one of the girls preempted him with a gentle smile.
“You’re way cooler in person than the rumors suggest, Masaomi Kida.”
“Huh?” he gaped stupidly.
How did she know his name? It was the girl in the center of the opposing group. She had a bright smile and lightly dyed a lock of her boyish short hair, a look that made her rather visually similar to him. He blinked in surprise.
“What? How do you know my name? Are you psychic? Like Psychic Itou? If you keep reading people’s minds, I’m gonna have to stuff you into a bag and take you home with me!” he teased, referencing a popular TV comedian to hide his consternation about being recognized.
>
Masaomi’s fellow Yellow Scarves looked among themselves, unsure of how they should react, while the girls giggled at Masaomi’s joke. The one in the center gleefully responded, “Oh my God, you’re being so weird! You’re so funny, Kida!”
After a bout of laughter, she gently shook her head. “But I’m not a psychic. The real psychic is someone else.”
“Oh? Who’s that? Does one of these girls around here speak to ghosts?” Masaomi asked, looking at the others with a gentle smile of his own. Some of the girls were already speaking to other members of the Yellow Scarves, and only the three clustered around the short-haired girl were facing him directly.
“Let me guess, she asked the ghosts of my ancestors just what a cool guy I am, right? Or is it one of the sort that hangs out behind my back? Or a paralysis ghost, or a floating ghost, or what have you. Whatever kind of ghost it is, I’m sure it’ll be reborn under the most awesome conditions in the future. Maybe as the child of you and me?” he joked bawdily, testing her reaction. Though her hair was dyed, she and the other girls seemed fairly straightforward, not trashy. He was testing their reactions to see if they would get along with his style.
“Now you’re just being silly. Let me guess, do you already have a name picked out?”
“Well, we’d need to take a look at the characters in the parents’ names, right? So what’s your name?”
The girl played along well, not missing a beat.
“Saki Mikajima. Mikajima is spelled with three, a small ke, and island. And Saki is a shortened form of the Stewartia tree.”
“Stewartia? So in flower language, your name means like, ‘Seize your chance before it wilts away’?”
“Oh, wow! You know what it is? I figured you would ask, ‘What’s that?’” she said, surprised.
Masaomi grinned, feeling his engine kicking in. “Sure, I know everything. I just ask the ghost hanging out over my back.” He wasn’t sure if that one was a little too corny.
Saki said, “Exactly.”
“Huh?”
“The person standing behind you is kind of psychic, in a way. He’s very special. He knows everything.”
Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) Page 5