Durarara!!, Vol. 4 (novel)

by Ryohgo Narita

  “So you’re aware that you’re a freak.”

  He ignored Namie’s barb and folded his hands, entwining his fingers. “I turned out weird, despite my normal upbringing. But them, on the other hand—I feel like they turned out weird because of my influence. I won’t deny that I feel a bit of responsibility for that.”

  “What do you mean by weird?”

  What are those girls like, if this freak thinks they’re weird? Namie wondered, stopping her work for a minute to pour some tea from the teapot in the kitchen. She stood there, ready to hear more, which prompted a tired look from Izaya.

  “What they’re trying to be is…human.”

  “…Huh?”

  “They want to represent the human being in a microcosm. The Japanese human being, specifically.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” she said cautiously. Izaya’s grimace was barely visible.

  “It’s a very difficult task they’ve set. Basically, they think that as twins, they make up one person.”

  “…I see. It often feels like twins add up to a single life-form when taken together, from our perspective. But…I suppose other twins would find that idea quite offensive.”

  “Normally, perhaps. But as I said, my sisters are not normal.”

  Izaya closed the laptop and steadily got to his feet. He flicked the window blinds open and narrowed his eyes at the light that filtered through.

  “You know how video games have character parameters? Stats, and so on. They say that you’re good at magic but terrible at fighting or a good brawler but a total nimrod. When you make up a party in an RPG, you have to balance that party out, so that each person makes up for the others’ shortcomings.”

  “That’s not so different from reality. The very first step to rational optimization is ensuring each person has the right role.”

  “If only it were an issue of rationality.” Izaya leaned over and put his hands on the table, envisioning his sisters. “Anyway, they’re trying to create this RPG party themselves. As if one were the fighter and the other were the magician.”

  “…I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “It’s simple. They decided to intentionally fashion different personalities for themselves. They actively turned themselves into identical twins with totally different personas! And they assume that by acting together, this makes them better… They’re under the illusion that they can do anything that way.”

  He grinned as though seeing something funny, but there was no humor in his eyes. “When they were in elementary school, they chose their looks and personality at random. With no regard to logicality! That’s why Kururi, the elder of the two, plays the silent, gloomy type, despite her gym clothes outfit. And Mairu the younger is a bright and talkative character, yet she looks like a bookworm.”

  “But…that makes no sense. Why would you separate your looks and personalities?” Namie wondered, stunned.

  Izaya nodded. “Exactly. It makes no sense. But to them, having your appearance and personality match doesn’t make sense to begin with. In the end, they’re still combining themselves into one person. They think that as long as all the parts are present, there’s no problem. They’re just special enough that they can pull it off. I mean, talk about a bad case of eighth-grader syndrome.”

  “What’s eighth-grader syndrome?”

  “Just do a search on it. I mean, they could have it worse—they could claim that they can use psychic powers or they were warriors of light in a past life—but at any rate, they find a way to stand out, no matter the group.”

  “I see. And given your desire to be the hidden puppet master, you’d prefer to be far away from them,” Namie calmly surmised.

  He looked away, surprised at being pinned so accurately. “Anyway, it makes you embarrassed just to listen to them talk. I’m sure you’ll understand if you ever meet them… It’s really painful. And that’s coming from me, so you know it’s true.”

  “If you already understand that you belong within the realm of painfully embarrassing people, I’d hope you would act on that information.”

  “I’d prefer not to get that lecture from a woman who did plastic surgery on an unwilling girl for the sake of her own brother,” Izaya shot back.

  Her lips bared in a tiny smile. “I have absolutely no intention of coming clean to Seiji.”

  “…”

  “Didn’t you know that love doesn’t need an accelerator or a brake? Just caring about the other person puts you right at their side,” she answered—though it wasn’t an answer at all—her cheeks glowing a rosy red. Namie looked like the very picture of a slightly older maiden in love.

  If only it wasn’t with her own little brother, Izaya thought, leaning back into his chair.

  Namie turned to him, her expression proper again, and asked, “Will they be all right? Kids who stick out like these guys are likely to be bullied, don’t you think? And the bullies these days are quite nasty.”

  The words themselves were full of sympathy and care for Izaya’s relatives, but her voice was completely devoid of emotion. She clearly did not actually care.

  Izaya, meanwhile, only seemed half-interested for his part. He conjectured, “I suppose. I hope there’s no bullying…but I very much doubt that.”

  The information broker sighed…then grinned.

  “The poor things.”

  Three days later, noon, Raira Academy

  Why does bullying happen?

  Aoba Kuronuma pondered the issue from his seat in the back of the classroom. It was said that the reason bullying happened lay as much in the bullied as the bully, but in reality, that didn’t really matter, did it?

  The pressures of society, the influence of video games, too much manga, bad parents, bad schools, bad Internet.

  None of this mattered, thought Aoba.

  There were probably an infinite number of reasons, and removing every last one of them still wouldn’t stop a bully from doing what he did. It all happened because they were making themselves feel better.

  The people who couldn’t help themselves from feeling better were the ones who went on to engage in bullying. It was a bit of a forced conclusion, but despite knowing how simplified it was, Aoba decided to follow that line of thinking.

  I don’t try to hide it. It feels good to bully those weaker than me. The only question is whether I can resist that pleasure or not.

  It was like fighting a country with nothing but foot soldiers and bombarding them with missiles from a safe distance. All the idealistic speeches in the world couldn’t change the fact that it felt good to be safe and know that you were superior to the other person.

  And those who watch without stopping it are feeling both the fear of retribution and the relief that they weren’t the ones singled out.

  That’s right. Just being in a place of safety is a kind of pleasure. Sure, there are probably total saints out there who don’t feel any pleasure from that and just want to help others. Given how many people are on the planet, it would be weird if there weren’t.

  But…I don’t think there are any in this class.

  And so, just before the last homeroom session of the day started at the very end of school, Aoba glanced over at Kururi Orihara’s desk, which sat adjacent to his.

  A number of pieces of graffiti had been left on it in permanent marker.

  Wow, only three days into the school year?

  However, the content of the messages was not quite like the normal methods of bullying.

  “Sister of the slut”

  “Take responsibility!”

  “Abandonment of guardian duty!”

  “Prostitute sisters”

  “Leave the ranks of the living!”

  The messages were surprisingly verbose, with some choice vocabulary words. For her part, Kururi just stared down at the desk. The crime had happened during the twenty minutes that she was away at the library.

  Kururi might stick out like a sore thumb with her gym clothes and
gloomy personality—but almost none of the insults directly referenced her.

  Why would so many of the messages be directed not at her, but her sister, Mairu Orihara?

  The reason why happened earlier that morning.

  “Good morning!”

  On the third day of school, Mairu Orihara walked into class to find that her desk was covered in graffiti saying things like “slut” and “one thousand yen for a ride” and “will put out for cash.”

  She paused, grunted, and looked around the classroom with a smile frozen on her face.

  Every single person in the classroom had his or her back to her, pretending not to be aware of the state of her desk. They were acting as if they didn’t see her at all.

  It was a classic bullying tactic.

  But she just continued to calmly watch the rest of the class…until she settled on one member of the girls’ group near the window at the front of the class. One of the girls had glanced at her sidelong and then snorted and whispered something to the others.

  Instantly, Mairu’s mouth bent into a grin. But not the smile of gentle pleasure—it was the sharp and nasty leer of a con man with a fresh sucker in his sights on the otherwise attractive girl’s face.

  She leaped.

  It all lasted only a second.

  Something on the floor exploded. But that was only in the minds of the students; there was no explosion, only the sound of Mairu slamming her foot against the floor as she leaped.

  In the minds of those bullying—or avoiding becoming involved in it by ignoring the whole affair—Mairu Orihara was supposed to be invisible and utterly absent from the room. It took all of 0.05 seconds for that illusion to be shattered.

  By the time everyone swung around to see the source of the sound, Mairu was off the floor and in the air at the back of the room. She landed on a desk behind her with one foot, using it as a launching pad to propel herself on top of the locker against the back wall. She grabbed a case lying on top of the locker as she twisted her body into a rotation.

  Without stopping at any point, she flowed, leaping off the top of the locker, over the heads of her shocked classmates, onto a desktop, and then a few more as she crossed the room without touching the ground.

  She had shot with all the force of a cannon.

  And now she leaped especially far off the last desk—into the group of girls sitting at the front of the class.

  Three days earlier, noon, apartment building, Shinjuku

  “I suppose. I hope there’s no bullying…but I very much doubt that,” the information agent sighed…then grinned. “The poor things.”

  “That’s not something to laugh about. They’re your family, aren’t they?” Namie said, her eyebrows tense with disgust, but Izaya only shook his head.

  “Ohh no, no, no. Not that,” he chuckled, then corrected, “The ones I feel sorry for aren’t Kururi and Mairu…it’s the kids trying to bully them.”

  “Huh?”

  “What did I tell you? My sisters are weird because of my influence.”

  “For example…do you think the people who tried to bully me got away scot-free?”

  Back to the morning of the third day of school.

  The classroom was frozen.

  Every person present stood in place, eyes trembling, unable to process what they’d just seen.

  “Ha-ha-ha! Gotcha!”

  Mairu’s innocent cry echoed off the walls, the voice of a child playing tag.

  But her actions were actually the polar opposite of innocent.

  The case she’d grabbed off the top of the locker was stuffed to the lid with pushpins.

  Mairu cleverly popped it open one-handed, swinging it high overhead.

  Everything she’d done to that point was quite simple.

  She leaped into the midst of the girls who laughed at her, tackled the nearest one with a lariat, and plunged the flat of her hand into the girl’s mouth when she started to scream in shock.

  That was all.

  Each and every one of those actions was as crisp as a series of slow-motion photographs to her classmates.

  Mairu’s pretty face went red, and she cackled excitedly as she rode the bucking girl like a horse. It might have been an erotic pose if not for the hand in the girl’s mouth and the case of pushpins held in the other hand.

  Mairu put on the exact same smile she wore during her introduction on the first day of school, her eyes glittering behind her glasses.

  “I’ll give you three seconds! Who did it? Point them out,” she said, bringing the case of pushpins closer to her victim’s open mouth.

  “Nnnng! Nnah! Mmaaaeegh!”

  The girl struggled mightily, realizing what would happen to her, but Mairu pinned her down with a knee on either shoulder, preventing her from moving on her own.

  The girls in the group around them were blank with uncomprehending disbelief. They writhed uncomfortably, but otherwise did nothing.

  “Three…”

  The stunning precision of the assault completely robbed the wits and agency of the girl who had been the perpetrator of the bullying and was now the victim of this violence.

  “Two…”

  She didn’t have the time to think about what would happen to her if she sold out the one who came up with the idea. Then again, if she had the time to calmly weigh the two choices of punishment later or the present threat of pushpins poured down her throat, she might have chosen the same thing anyway.

  “One…”

  The case of pins tilted slightly, causing them to slide and shuffle just a bit.

  That sound was what did it.

  The girl pointed out the tallest of her companions, who had just been gleefully discussing the result of their desk defacement moments ago.

  “Zer… Ooh, close one! Thanks.”

  Mairu pulled her other hand out of the girl’s mouth and deftly snatched the few pins that fell out before they landed. She stood up with a brilliant smile, then turned to the classmate that the nearly unconscious and terrified girl had pointed out.

  The ringleader was already attempting to flee the scene when Mairu saw her.

  “Oh no, you don’t! You’re not getting away!”

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Mairu was hurling the few pushpins that had fallen into her hand with a motion like a pitching machine at a batting cage.

  Tak-tak echoed a rhythmic sound throughout the room.

  Several pins were stuck into the door that the tall girl was reaching for in her escape attempt. This in itself wasn’t that abnormal; a pin could stick into the wall like a dart if it was thrown right.

  But the act of hurling pushpins itself was abnormal, especially at a person. But Mairu Orihara broke that taboo without a second thought, tossing them right at the hand of the ringleader bully.

  When she realized this, the girl stopped still for a moment out of sheer terror. She was on her heels. Every action was merely a reaction.

  The ringleader had leaped into action first but was now thrust into reaction. She didn’t have time to think about her next move or even act on instinct. The very target of her bullying grabbed her shoulder from behind.

  “Let’s go have a chat in the bathroom! Guess what! Listen! Guess what! You know what? I don’t even know your name, but now I want to be really, really good friends with you! Ha-ha-ha!”

  And with a playful smile on her attractive features, Mairu Orihara dragged the unidentified girl down the hallway by her chin.

  She stopped for just an instant to tell the boy who sat next to her, “Sorry about this! I’ll treat you to lunch later if you clean off my desk!”

  The boy flinched in surprise, but not having any better idea of what to do, he went ahead and started to erase the permanent ink with his eraser.

  None of the other students moved. The only sound in the class was the scraping of the eraser against the surface of the desk.

  A boy who attended the same middle school as the Orihara twins arrived at school
immediately afterward, and seeing the state of Mairu’s desk and the terrified students, he put the pieces together. He sighed and muttered, “Oh boy, you went and did it, didn’t you?”

  The boy walked into the midst of the petrified students and explained, “She goes to some kind of weird martial arts gym, so I wouldn’t mess with her. The few guys who tried to gang up on her a while back got beaten half to death by the other gym people.”

  Does this fighting style use pushpins as a weapon? everyone wanted to ask but decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

  Fifteen minutes later, as homeroom was just about to start, Mairu returned to the class as though nothing had happened, straightening her clothes out. When she saw the poor male student who was still rubbing away at her desk, she bowed apologetically.

  “Oh, sorry, sorry! It’s oil based, so it won’t come out easily, I bet. I’ll help!”

  She pulled a piece of cloth out of the chest pocket of her black uniform and began to wipe with the boy.

  “It won’t come out. And I suppose water won’t work on permanent ink… Would it be faster to shave it off with a plane?” she laughed.

  If you only looked at her face, she was a pretty, tidy, nerdy-looking girl. But when the boy realized he was staring at her, he quickly looked down and subsequently noticed something odd.

  The cloth she was using to wipe the desk was trailing what looked like a string. It seemed strange to him, but he went back to focusing on his own work rather than get distracted.

  Which meant that he failed to realize that it was the bra of the female student who’d just been dragged to the bathroom.

  In the end, the girl who was primarily responsible for scribbling on Mairu’s desk did not return to the classroom. She left school early without even retrieving her bag.

  There was no way for anyone else to know what kind of “discussion” the two had in the bathroom—and no one was inclined to find out, either.