Durarara!! - Volume 7 - Chapter 1

Extraordinary α Hospitalization Polka

May 5, Tohoku region, hospital

“It’s time for your inspection, Mr. Orihara!” said the young nurse.

The pale hospital room smelled of a mix of chemicals and just a bit of something sweet—either flowers or fruit.

Given that this was a private room, the smell had to be from a gift to whatever patient was next door.

It was with that suspicion in mind that Izaya Orihara’s mind rose into wakefulness.

Oh, right. I’m in a hospital, he realized, looking at the unfamiliar woman in the room with him.

“What time is it, ma’am?”

“Let’s see—it’s nearly nine o’clock at night. Hang on, I’ll switch your drip feed.”

She promptly rolled back the blanket and the sleeve of his gown, checked the status of the needle in his arm, and then switched out the bag of liquid.

Suddenly, Izaya was aware of a strong pain in his stomach. He squinted, holding his breath against the sensation.

Finally, his wits were sharp again.

He recalled exactly what had happened to put him in this situation.

It had happened twenty-four hours earlier. Someone had stabbed him, and he’d collapsed on the street in a city in northern Japan. And now here he was, waking up in a hospital bed.

It was his third inspection. Or possibly the fourth.

The police had come before dawn, he recalled. Izaya remembered talking to the detectives, as he watched the nurse go about her business.

The detectives had asked him all sorts of questions, but he firmly maintained that something had bumped into him, hard, and then his stomach was bleeding. They asked him for more personal details, but the first greeting they’d given him was “Mr. Orihara,” so he knew they were probably at least aware of his address already, among other things.

What started as a solitary journey for enjoyment had ended with a stabbing at the hands of some lunatic, he told the detectives.

“Please, officers, find whoever did this. If not for my sake, then for the peace of mind of the local residents,” he pleaded with a smile, though even he had to admit that the act was a bit much.

Izaya Orihara knew that his attacker was not just “some guy,” but a man named Jinnai Yodogiri. The man had told him as much on the phone, right before the attack.

But Izaya didn’t tell the detectives that.

He wanted to avoid revealing their connection and making things any bigger than they already were. Plus, he knew the police were unlikely to actually catch the man.

He could have made up some kind of description to tell the police, but Izaya didn’t know if the shopping area had security cameras and where they might have been or if there were witnesses to the attack—any of which could expose holes in his story.

Any careless lie at this point could come back to bite him, if it were proven false.

Could be too late for that. Izaya smirked to himself, recalling the way the officers had looked at him. Those weren’t gazes of sympathy for an attack victim. They were the searching gazes of hunters. I should assume that they already spotted the knife I keep in the hidden pocket of my coat.

The police didn’t mention it at all, but if they wanted to, they could haul him in for possession of a weapon. He was the victim in this case, but to the local police, he was also a suspicious outsider who might be up to no good.

I should get out of here overnight.

On the very first inspection, he heard about the condition of his wounds. Miraculously, there was hardly any damage to his interior organs. He had no way of knowing whether that had been Yodogiri’s intention or not.

Great, guess I’ll have to owe Shinra a favor again, he thought, snorting as he envisioned the face of his friend, a black market doctor. And you can never be certain what he’ll do, either…

Just then, the nurse finished up her task. “You’re all done. And looking pretty healthy, if you ask me, so it might not be too long before you’re discharged,” she said with a grin.

He returned it out of habit. “That’s too bad. I was just thinking that this hospital is so comfortable, I wouldn’t mind staying longer.”

“Are you imagining that flattery will get you something? Listen, you’re a young man, but even still, this is quite a healthy recovery. You’re practically ready to walk out the day after you got stabbed.”

“All thanks to the doctors and nurses here,” Izaya said. He wore a smile, but underneath it, darkness lurked.

Yes, the pain was a part of that, but more pressing was the image of a certain man’s face, which the nurse’s words had put into his head.

The thing is, I know a monster who can take a direct stab from a knife and only suffer a fraction of an inch cut, he thought, envisioning a man in a bartender’s outfit.

Izaya turned to the nurse and asked, “Do you suppose the newspapers and TV stations are talking about me getting attacked?”

“Hmm… Now that you mention it, I think TV King ran a segment on you in their Scooped! Morning Star program. They even mentioned your name. Why do you ask?”

“…Ah. I see. No, I just didn’t want my friends to worry.”

TV King, huh? That’s a local affiliate of the Daioh TV network.

And the show she mentioned was a news program that Daioh TV ran nationally. Assuming that word of the attack had reached Tokyo by now, one concern occurred to Izaya:

If the incident was aired as part of this morning’s news…

That’s about enough time for the quick-acting types to start reaching this hospital here.

May 6, 2:00 AM

The hospital was surprisingly quiet after dark.

Izaya silently waited in his bed.

Here we go. Will someone show up? Or will my guess be wrong?

He recalled all the bad karma he’d left behind up until the moment he was stabbed.

He’d fed the pair of Russians info and attempted to use them to eliminate two monsters who represented obstacles to him. He’d set up that animal in the bartender’s suit to run up against the Awakusu-kai and forced the girl who had fused with the cursed blade to exit the stage.

While these spontaneous plots moved along, he flapped his wings like a bat, hovering between yakuza groups like the Awakusu-kai and the Asuki-gumi. It was possible that his manipulation of the Awakusu head’s granddaughter had been exposed, too.

In addition to these things, an info broker tended to earn malice through his job. He had dirt on so many people that he couldn’t begin to guess their number.

In essence, Izaya created nothing.

The information agents that made their business by dealing with the police or criminal groups were typically barkers for cabaret clubs or bar bouncers. The line of work was a suitable side gig for those who had an ear close to stories on the street—managers who swept up runaway girls, hostesses at nightclubs, and so on.

But Izaya was different. He made connections with those “part-time brokers” and occasionally made use of their services so that he possessed an information network that spread throughout the city like a spiderweb.

When useful information washed into his web, he found a way to profit from it. He could manipulate the mood of the city itself.

He didn’t create anything.

He just found a way to make money.

Izaya understood what he was doing was deplorable, that he traded in rumors and stories and begged for cash in response.

But more importantly, he knew that even more deplorable types—who would happily fork over the money for that information for a chance to screw others over—were as numerous in society as grains of sand on a beach.

It was his personal business, but it was not the point of his life.

The point of Izaya Orihara’s life was to love humanity—in a way that only he could manage or understand.

So, who’s going to show up?

He couldn’t help but grin, sitting in absolute silence, the hospital room lit only by the faint glow of the dimmed hallway lights and the stars through the window.

If it’s him, he might have seen me on the news and run here on his own two feet, Izaya thought, his smile curling into a snarl at the thought of the bartender-vested monster. Maybe this time he’ll finally get the long prison sentence he deserves for rioting in a hospital… As long as I survive the incident, that is.

If not him, maybe Anri Sonohara. At this point, she might actually be able to carve me up into pieces.

What if it’s someone less expected, like Masaomi Kida or Namie Yagiri? Or perhaps those Russians.

And I can’t count out the possibility of an Awakusu hitman…

Maybe no one shows up at all. I wouldn’t mind. I could celebrate my own good fortune.

Sitting in his hospital bed, Izaya was full to the brim with excited expectation, like a child thinking about tomorrow’s school field trip.

The wound on his midriff throbbed with each anticipatory pulse, but by this point, even the pain was just a bit of spice to heighten the sensations of the moment.

An hour later, when the first inklings of sleep finally began to creep into Izaya’s brain, a fresh sound vibrated his eardrums.

Here we go.

This was not the pacing of the nurse on the night shift, but the careful, quiet steps of someone trying to hide their presence.

Not quiet enough, though. The sound echoed with a rhythm that Izaya’s ears found pleasing.

I wonder who it is. I doubt it’s him—he wouldn’t bother trying to sneak. And the Russians wouldn’t be sloppy enough to make any sound at all.

It was probably either an Awakusu-kai member or Masaomi, Izaya thought, right as the door to his room opened.

A shadow slid into the room.

“…?”

A young woman, her expression dark and foreboding.

But in contrast to her gloomy features, she glared at Izaya’s starlit face with searing intent.

“I finally…found you…”

The note in her voice was complex: possibly hatred, possibly fierce joy at finding a fated rival.

“Uhhhh,” Izaya replied, totally baffled.

“…Who are you?”