Durarara!! - Volume 3 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Broken Windows Theory

Shinjuku

The luxury apartment building sat on the corner of a crowded street.

The throngs that stuffed the nighttime street each had their own pace and their own destination, but almost none of them actually stopped still in the street.

Looking up provided a glimpse of the Tokyo government office and other high-rise buildings, but this particular street was full of a different atmosphere from the business sector and the shopping districts outside of the train station.

A young man sighed as he looked down gloomily at the city below.

“It’s so boring. It truly is tremendously boring not having anything to do. I thought I might do some people watching out the window, but I don’t see anyone I find interesting.”

The young man, Izaya Orihara, surveyed the view outside the window as though watching a scene in a movie. He sighed again.

“Have you considered doing your job?” offered a clinical voice from behind the mournful young man. Standing in stark contrast to Izaya, who was idly gazing out the window, the young lady briskly and efficiently moved around the information agent’s office performing assistant duties—Namie Yagiri.

She appeared to be his age or perhaps slightly older. He held out his arms theatrically and proclaimed, “But you’re doing all of the tasks that I would otherwise be doing. It’s so boring.”

“…Can I hit you?”

“You may not. And why do you care? You’re getting paid for this. Not a smart move to attack your employer.”

“Fine, I’ll punch you after I get paid,” she muttered too coldly for it to be taken as a joke. Izaya shrugged and returned to the window.

Namie proceeded with her duties silently, picking up the document that had just been shunted out of the printer on his desk and examining it as she filed away the other papers in her hand.

“What’s this odd piece of paper for?”

“Send that document to the Awakusu-kai office, like usual. Oh, and…get the blue envelope at the top of the rightmost bookcase and send it to a Yamada in Hagane city by certified mail. Take the sheet fourth from the top on the shelf two below that and put it in the yellow envelope on the middle shelf of the left bookcase. There’s also a verification receipt in the green envelope right above that. Send both of those to the Sakurashin trading partner in my computer’s address log. Once that’s done, copy the debtor registry on my desk and include that in an envelope to President Sagawara of Fandorfeldsand Riverside Finance. After that, send a message to Mr. Shiki from the Awakusu-kai saying, ‘The location of the chocolate is still unknown.’ Once you’ve erased that message from the program history, open the crossword magazine next to the computer to page eighty-four, and fill the empty spaces with ‘broken windows theory,’ ‘shark,’ ‘Transylvania,’ and ‘natto maki.’ Any spaces that are still blank, fill in the answer on your own, because I couldn’t figure them out.”

They were like test instructions meant to measure the subject’s mental age. Izaya delivered them all without pulling his eyes from the window. When he finished, he turned around and saw Namie carrying out the orders without any doubts or questions whatsoever. She silently reordered his tasks into a more efficient order and performed each and every one of them without a mistake.

“…The last remaining word in this puzzle is ‘tocopherol calcium succinate.’ What kind of horrible person designs a crossword of commonsense answers with this technical term thrown into the mix?”

“Brilliant,” Izaya beamed, clapping his hands in admiration once she had finished all of her tasks.

“It’s also brilliant that you can point out such accurate locations of things without even looking.”

“Only because you’ve organized them all so neatly.”

“By the way…what’s the ‘chocolate’ in this message I sent to Shiki from the Awakusu-kai?”

“Hmm? A gun. Why?” he asked nonchalantly. Namie froze for an instant. “Listen, about a year ago, right after you came to work for me, someone stole some guns from the Awakusu-kai, remember?”

“The one that horrible dullahan was chasing, right? I remember the sight of the monster swinging its scythe on the TV.”

“Right. Celty managed to recover most of the guns before the police could, so nothing came of it. But the problem is, one of them’s still missing. Well, some kid found that last gun and apparently tried to use it in a recent armed robbery. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“…I just pray that no one has this room bugged.”

Namie spontaneously searched for her next task to fulfill, thinking to herself that Izaya’s cheerful but opaque smile was terribly creepy. Suddenly, the intercom buzzed.

“Who could that be? No appointments, and I doubt the police would ring the doorbell for a raid.”

“It’s not people from Yagiri Pharmaceuticals, is it…?”

Namie was originally a high-ranking member of Yagiri Pharmaceuticals, but circumstances had forced her to go on the run from the company. She examined the monitor on the intercom, squinting.

The screen showed the entrance of the building, rather than the door of the apartment. The system was designed so that no visitors could get inside without a resident’s permission, which kept most unwanted characters out.

“Oh…it’s just a kid. A teenager maybe?” Namie wondered, looking at the boy in the monitor curiously.

The apartment received young visitors fairly often, but they were usually the girls who formed Izaya’s retinue. They ranged from Gothic Lolitas to dolled-up ditzes, but they all seemed to think he was nothing more than a fancy fortune-teller.

But it was rare to see a man. Perhaps he was the brother of one of those worshipper girls who had flown here in a rage. But Izaya patted his fist into his palm happily.

“Oh! He’s already here! He just called ten minutes ago, but I assumed he’d be coming tomorrow. Thing is…it’s almost too soon.”

He was peering at the screen over Namie’s shoulder. As soon as he recognized the boy in the monitor, he pressed the button to unlock the building door for him.

“Who is it?” she asked suspiciously.

“A friend of mine. Or perhaps like a close little brother. To sum it up in one term,” he said frankly, “a king…that I can sacrifice.”

“Why, Masaomi… I figured you’d be coming.”

A few minutes later, Izaya was welcoming Masaomi inside. The boy’s eyes danced in empty space, full of a whirl of emotions.

“When was the last time? When we ran into each other on the street last spring?”

“That’s right… It’s been a while.”

“That expression looks familiar. It’s the old you. You were only in middle school at the time, but you wore the face of an adult. So I will greet you in the best way for acknowledging times gone by,” Izaya said, chuckling at the grave-faced Masaomi.

“Welcome back.”

That was it.

It was the greatest of sarcasm and insults—and also the greatest of welcomes from Izaya.

Masaomi knew Izaya too well to say anything in response. The man was a monster who devoured others with words. Say the wrong thing, and he would entangle that statement with one of his own, raking them over the coals, tearing them apart, swallowing them whole.

Masaomi knew this because he had been swallowed before.

When he had to race out to save Saki, why did he have no option but to rely on this man?

Since then, he had done everything in his power to avoid Izaya and had actively warned his friends against associating with him.

But now he needed Izaya’s help again—even if it meant he would be used.

In all honesty, ever since Kadota had introduced Izaya as “the man who’d met the boss of the Dollars,” a certain doubt had been planted in Masaomi’s mind: the nasty suspicion that Izaya Orihara himself might be the boss of the Dollars.

Surely a man of his caliber could easily conceive of the Dollars and make them a reality. But that also meant that he could have used the slasher and built an army to attack the Yellow Scarves.

He could not be underestimated in either ability or lack of ethical behavior.

“Don’t glare at me like that,” Izaya said to Masaomi, who was staring holes in the older man. “Are you suspecting me of being the head of the Dollars or something?”

The information dealer had successfully drawn first blood.

“…No, I’m not…,” Masaomi responded weakly, looking away. Izaya smiled gently and guided the boy to his guest room.

It was dark. The “guest” room was only so in name—it was stuffed with cabinets and documents. The space was surrounded by shelves and paper. The sunlight through the windows did not penetrate the room; the only source of light was a weak lamp. The overall effect was one of extreme pressure on anyone trapped inside with Izaya.

“I think I know what you’re here to ask about. Of course, I could have told you over the phone, but I’m guessing you wanted a more serious conversation than that.”

“…”

“I heard your friend got attacked? Her name is, uh…Anri Sonohara, I believe? Sounds like a couple of the Yellow Scarves were hit as well, but the girl seems to be more important to you.”

Masaomi was not rattled by the mention of Anri’s name. Normally, he never talked about Anri to anyone other than Mikado or his classmates, but it was not a surprise that the information dealer would know these details.

He was determined to stay calm and speak as little as possible, but Izaya found just the right words to break that resistance. It was like he was playing a game.

“Does she remind you of Saki a little too much?”

“Don’t do that.” Masaomi looked away.

Izaya leaned slightly, trying to stay in his line of sight. He stared right into the boy’s face, the corners of his mouth twisting with delight. “If a girl you liked got hurt because of the war between the Dollars and the Yellow Scarves… Yes, yes, I see. It really is just like what happened to Saki.”

“…”

Izaya was not put off in the least by Masaomi’s silence. “So what is this? Are you thinking that if you stand up this time instead of running, you can make up for the mistake of your past?”

“That’s not what I’m thinking.”

“You’re just trying to convince yourself that’s not what you’re thinking, aren’t you?” Izaya said, refusing to accept Masaomi’s answer.

He propounded a theory in a clear voice that resounded off the walls, like a veteran actor practicing a speech. Clearly, so clearly. But it was not a theory as much as a figment of imagination, a thinly veiled desire.

“Let me guess your thought process: ‘I really did love Saki, but I was too afraid to save her. Maybe deep down, I just didn’t love her as much as I thought I did. What if my love was an illusion? What if it was only lust? What if I was only after her body?’ And the more you thought it over, the more you wished it was the case. Because that means you would only risk your life to fight for someone you truly loved. And now this Anri Sonohara is a test case to see if your theory is correct, isn’t she?”

His speech was so firm, so unrelenting that Masaomi didn’t even have time to murmur acknowledgment at any point, much less interject to argue.

Namie listened to the whole speech as she carried out her duties, shaking her head in exasperation.

I’m surprised he can spout that garbage so naturally.

It probably wasn’t that Kida boy’s original train of thought, but after Izaya’s cunning arguments, he might certainly be wondering to himself if that was the case after all.

Namie focused on the conversation happening on the other side of the shelves, curious about the boy’s response. But the words she eventually heard after a heavy silence were far calmer than she expected.

“…If that’s how you choose to see it, Izaya, then sure, let’s say that. But I still want to go through with this.”

“Through with what? Vengeance against the slasher? The destruction of the Dollars?”

“Depending on your answer, it could be both.”

“That’s the spirit,” Izaya said, satisfied with his answer. He clapped his hands and stood, then spun halfway around theatrically and loudly proclaimed, “All right! It’s for the sake of your forward progress. I’ll tell you the facts, the truth, and the unavoidable reality, just for you. These three are usually distinct things, but at times they’re all the same, and this is a good example of that!”

“…?”

Masaomi was silent for a completely different reason this time: He had no idea what Izaya was talking about.

“By the way, how is Mikado doing?” Izaya asked, bringing up the name of the boy’s childhood friend just to put a nail in his confusion.

Abruptly, so abruptly.

“Huh…?”

“You know, the friend you introduced to me last spring, Mikado Ryuugamine.”

“Why would you bring his name up now?”

“Well, I just figured he would be really worried about you, given the way you’re acting,” Izaya noted, as though it were nothing more than social chitchat. But Masaomi was growing more and more irritated—just what the other man wanted.

He broke his silence.

“He has nothing to do with this. I’ve never told him about the Yellow Scarves, and he’s as fine and happy as ever for a guy as shy as he is. Unlike me, he actually enjoys his life.”

“Oh, is that so? And you don’t find yourself jealous of someone leading such a peaceful, carefree life?”

“I told you, this has nothing to do with…”

He was only able to start the sentence. Suddenly, Masaomi’s apprehension was palpable.

Izaya didn’t miss it. He sank his fangs in deep.

“What if it does?”

“Huh?”

“So Mikado’s doing well, then! While his friend agonizes, the very source of that pain is living his life to the fullest.”

“Wait a second… What are you talking about, Izaya?”

Masaomi was asking for confirmation, but his intuition was already building an answer from inside his mind. He asked Izaya the question anyway. He was hoping that his answer would be wrong. But on the inside, he was screaming.

Don’t say it.

Please, don’t say a thing.

Izaya already saw every little subtle emotion in Masaomi’s face. And in full faithfulness to everything that made him Izaya Orihara, he stomped all over Masaomi’s wish.

“You know what I mean.”

Cruelly enough, Izaya wore the very same smile he had on back when he was spilling all of the Blue Squares’ secrets.

“The boss of the Dollars is your very, very best friend…Mikado Ryuugamine.”

“But maybe…you’re the only one who actually thinks you’re best friends.”

For an instant, Masaomi was completely silent.

Behind the shelf of files, Namie found herself at a standstill, too, neglecting her work.

Mikado…Ryuugamine…

Her shoulders had twitched when she heard the name spill out of Izaya’s mouth.

There were three people that she loathed with all her being.

One was Celty Sturluson, the Headless Rider.

One was Mika Harima, the parasite that plagued her brother.

And the last was the founder of the Dollars, the man who had taken everything from her: Mikado Ryuugamine.

She knew everything about the connection between the Yellow Scarves and Dollars, but not that their founders were close acquaintances.

Namie shut her eyes for several long seconds—then got back to work.

She performed her duties briskly and efficiently.

All in complete silence—as she struggled to suppress the emotions raging within her.

Several hours later, Ikebukuro

Ikebukuro was a place where just moving a block over to a different street could completely change the vibe of the town. The act of stepping down an unfamiliar alley from an otherwise familiar street was more akin to riding the train and getting off in an adjacent city. Just a short distance away from the shopping district could be a long stretch of apartments and homes, a compressed assortment of wildly varied spaces that made it a good representation of Tokyo as a whole.

“Goddammit. This rain never quits.”

In a back alleyway that was on the particularly desolate and eerie side out of that incredible variety, Tom grumbled up at the sky, his trademark dreads and glasses making him recognizable from a distance.

“Well, next one’s the last for the day. Let’s collect and get this over with.”

Standing next to Tom was Shizuo in his bartender outfit. He was calm and cool, completely unlike how he’d been when he fought with Simon the day before.

“Yeah, let’s wrap this up,” Tom replied with the minimum of effort, understanding what could go wrong if he tried to play up his seniority too much.

They walked through the dim alleyway without umbrellas. The worst part about this particular collection location was that it was too cramped to get a car in there, so they had to walk.

“He should be living in this apartment building up ahead. Age twenty, already sank two hundred thousand yen into the call girl club. And he’s only been signed up for a week! How much time does that guy spend on the phone?” Tom grumbled as he trudged onward.

He stopped suddenly, noticing something wrong in the area.

There was a silhouette ahead in the narrow alley.

Several, in fact.

They appeared to be much younger boys, but they all wore yellow in one way or another. It was obvious that they were Yellow Scarves, but that gang wasn’t the type to hang out in a lonely back alley.

Sensing something was off, Shizuo and Tom turned around—and sure enough, there were another dozen youths closing in on them from the other end of the alley.

“Huh? Are we in trouble?” Tom mumbled, but there wasn’t a hint of concern on his face.

They stood in the center of the alley and watched as the youths gradually approached—at which point they realized that some within the group didn’t really fit the label of “youth” anymore.

Most notable of all of them was a large man with bandages on his head. He must have suffered quite an injury, because there were rusty red bloodstains on part of the bandage.

“Who the hell are you?” Shizuo growled in irritation when the group was about fifteen feet away. The bandaged man grinned, a snarl over gritted teeth. He hurled a mocking retort at Shizuo.

“You’re Shizuo, huh? I hear you really did my bro wrong, yeah? Mr. Big-Shot Shizuo Heiwajima!” It was a barely coherent, thinly veiled excuse to pick a fight.

“Oh yeah…?” A blood vessel pulsed on Shizuo’s temple.

“I don’t care if they call you the ‘fighting puppet’ or whatever… The Yellow Scarves have decided you need to be eliminated for good. If you don’t wanna die, start beggin’ on your hands and knees and hand over all the cash in that bag.”

“Oh yeah?!” His eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses, a deep furrow running between his eyebrows. Tom noticed Shizuo’s manner and automatically took a step to the side.

Despite Shizuo’s obvious irritation, one particularly foolhardy boy strode up and brandished a police baton, threatening, “We know you’re goin’ around collectin’ cash for the call girl line. So what’s it gonna be? Just so you know, you knocked out my tooth a while back. So maybe you should start by beggin’ for—”

For an instant, the boy saw a small pink blob approaching him from the lower right. Somehow, the man in the bartender outfit was right in front of him.

Huh?

The shock lasted a moment.

The pain must have come after that, but the boy only felt it after he woke up.

His mind sank like a stone as he was knocked out by a blow like an upward hammer, but contrary to the downing of his wits, his unconscious body flew upward. The breath whistled out of his lips, a number of small white shards among the expelled air.

The other boys saw their companion, baton still clenched in his hand, fly in an arc through the air.

One second later, the boy with the flattened face landed right next to the bandaged man with a sound like a bag of garbage hitting the ground.

“How about I break the rest of ’em, so the hole doesn’t stick out anymore?” Shizuo grunted through clenched teeth, rolling his head back and forth to crack his neck.

Just one hit.

But the exact hit that was the most simple and most effective at changing the atmosphere of the scene entirely.

Every last one of the gang of youths, nearly twenty in all, held his breath.

One of their companions had just been knocked out, but not a single one of them moved. At first, because they didn’t understand what had happened. After understanding, because they were too afraid.

“So? What’s it gonna be?” Shizuo asked without a single drop of sweat or extra breath.

The question was an honest one, not a challenge, but none of the boys were able to answer it. Shizuo strode toward the bandaged man, apparently angered that no one was responding.

The bandaged man immediately twitched into motion, calling out a loud order to his friends to hide his trembling.

“Don’t pussy out on this guy! We don’t gotta fight him one-on-one; jump him all at once!”

The other boys immediately jumped into action…but Shizuo was already on the move.

He trotted over to the nearest youths before he could be surrounded on all sides and gave them each a fist in turn.

“Gakh!” “Yeeb!” “Wait…I— Humf!”

With a series of rhythmic thuds—whump, whump, whump—the boys slammed against the walls of the narrow alleyway. Those who raised their arms to block got the painfully unpleasant sensation of their limbs being twisted out of place; those who landed a punch first felt the bones in their hands scream; and those who fled felt him grab the back of their collars and toss them up into the air, only to fall to the ground with a tremendous crash.

They might as well have been fighting a bulldozer.

The young man with the bandages on his head and the younger boys, who had been confident with the superiority of numbers, were now in a state of panic.

Shizuo Heiwajima was the very personification of terror. In the face of his monstrous, otherworldly strength, the bandaged man rocketed from a state of cockiness to the pits of fear.

And that shift caused him to undo a switch.

The young man grabbed something without thinking, a tool he had only planned to flash momentarily for extracting money easier, never to use in earnest.

Instead…

“That’s bad news. Real bad,” Tom grumbled to himself as he watched Shizuo rage, distractedly kicking an approaching boy in the groin. “I wonder if the cops will accept this as self-defense? Bad news if someone dies, right?”

Better get going before we get into real trouble, he thought, turning back in the direction of the main street.

pop pop pop

The sounds were oddly dry, given all of the rain.

“Huh?”

They were unfamiliar sounds to his ear—but that was how he could instantly identify them.

This seems bad.

A different kind of “bad” sensation from before ran up Tom’s back, and he spun around in a hurry.

“Shizuo…?”

When he turned, he saw the illogical presence of smoke in the rain, shrouding a black object in the bandaged man’s hands.

And collapsed in a massive puddle, the prone figure of Shizuo.

The red liquid seeping from Shizuo’s body spread into the puddle with an eerie marbling effect.

The rain continued its merciless fall—cruelly emphasizing the desperation of the scene.