Durarara!! - Volume 9 - Chapter Pr1

PROLOGUE: Schoolmate

I’m sorry for taking up your time, Mr. Nakura.

“Erm, Kujiragi, was it? What does an insurance broker want with me?”

I’ll just be direct. Are you familiar with someone named Izaya Orihara?

“Izaya Orihara? Sure. He went to the same school as me, and I wouldn’t forget a name that odd. Why, did he finally get himself into major trouble? Insurance fraud, maybe? He didn’t use my name again, did he? Let me just say that whatever it is, I’m not involved. Haven’t seen him in ages, either.”

What do you mean, “finally”?

“Oh, you haven’t met him in person? You would understand what I mean if you had. It’s clear from a glance that he’s abnormal. Then again…maybe he would act like a regular guy around a woman like you. He always did have a fair number of female followers who seemed to worship him.”

You mentioned that he might have used your name “again.”

“Yeah…see, I sold him my name.”

Sold him your…name?

“So, I was talking with him in person, and he said there was stuff he wanted to buy without his family finding out, so he wanted to use my name on the online shopping form. I declined at first, of course, but then he offered me a pretty hefty amount of money. I figured it couldn’t do any harm; it’s not like I was giving him my credit card or bank account numbers.”

What did he actually do with it?

“A couple of things got delivered to me. Orihara would give me advance warning they were coming, and I lived alone, so there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings. But I was curious about the contents. There was one time I opened a box and told him it was by mistake.”

What was inside?

“Just normal books. Maybe a bit erotic, but in, like, an ethnic studies kind of way. And he wasn’t that angry about my excuse that it was a mistake.”

Was he just an ordinary student at school?

“Ordinary? Well, I hardly ever saw him attend any classes at Raira College. Not that he was unique in that regard, as plenty of people skipped class all the time. Every now and then, I did see him on campus talking to some weird guy wearing a lab coat. I thought it was a medical student at first, but apparently, he was from outside the school… Actually, scratch that. He’s the guy Orihara was joking about, saying that he was a black market doctor so if I ever got shot, I could see him without having to get the cops involved.”

…

“Oops, sorry, you were asking about Orihara. But like I said, he wasn’t your typical dude, and I kept my distance from him. As I mentioned, aside from the groupies, the only normal friend he had might’ve been that one guy in the lab coat. In fact, he must’ve been a friend, if he was bringing the guy onto campus.”

Do you suppose he was isolated?

“I heard stories about how in high school he fought all the time with some super-crazy badass guy named Heiwajima. He’s not actually that bad when you get to know him, though. But I’ll repeat, he was not normal.”

And you decided to give this person you weren’t even close to the use of your name and address?

“Yeah, it sounds bad when you put it that way…but it wasn’t just me.”

Not just you?

“He was actually borrowing the names of a number of different people during college. Most of them were women but a few guys, too. And I was kind of hard up for cash, so…”

Is there anything else you know about him? His background, for example.

“Look, I told you, I’m not the guy to ask about that sort of stuff! Seriously, if my work finds out that I lent out my name for these weird shenanigans, I’m going to get so much side-eye, you have no idea!”

Pardon me for asking. I merely heard a rumor that you were close in college.

“And who told you that, huh? Man, what a pain in my ass. I don’t even know…”

Is something the matter?

“Actually, now that I think about it…I don’t know a single thing about Orihara.”

Is there someone else who might know more about him?

“Well, now that I think about it, I wonder if anyone at that college actually knew about his past or his background. I doubt the groupies were anything more than shallow infatuations… If anyone actually knows personal details about him, it’d have to be the guy in the coat I mentioned.”

And what is his name?

“I dunno. I’m kinda getting shivers over here, realizing that I might’ve made a terrible mistake back then. Ooh! I just felt it for sure. Shiver down my back. Maybe lending him my name was actually a really stupid thing to do…”

It’s all right. No one used your name to do anything. As far I know, at least.

“Well, that’s good… But are you really trying to look into his background? Does that mean he actually did do something—?”

I’m afraid I can’t discuss internal matters with you, other than to say that his name popped up as the recipient of one of our insurance claims.

“…Ah, I see. So you suspect some insurance fraud going on… Well, that does sound like something Orihara might do. He’s very good at taking advantage of people… Oh, right, that reminds me. I remember him saying that his hobby was human observation at some point.”

Human observation?

“Pretentious, right? Who says, ‘My hobby is human observation,’ as a college student? That guy does. But it’s not necessarily a condescending thing. It’s like…you know how when cat people see cats and just find them irresistibly cute? Whether the cat is angry, or sulking, or just sleeping, or whatever.”

But wouldn’t you call that sort of cat-watching behavior condescending in the first place?

“Not like that, really… Let me take the human-cat comparison a bit further…”

…?

“I bet that if he saw a cat get run over by a car, or the instant it died of illness, or if a cat tore out another cat’s throat, he’d still have the same reaction to it.

“…Like, ‘Aww, that’s so cute.’”