Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) (16 page)

“I even placed a mosaic to blur out his license plate number and everything,” Yumasaki noted with absolute bafflement. Kadota’s resulting sigh was getting to be a bit much.

“You should have placed another mosaic on him driving the thing.”

Kadota asked himself for the umpteenth time why he was hanging out with these people. He cast his gaze forward to Sixtieth Floor Street.

There were young folks with bits of yellow on here and there, but Kadota did not feel any menace from them. He knew they were on the verge of beefing with the Dollars, but very few of them would recognize him, he decided.

Kadota and the two with him were members of the Dollars. The Dollars repped no color. The group was open to any and all, so while Kadota certainly fit the bill of a street gangster, Yumasaki and Karisawa completely destroyed that image.

Unlike the Yellow Scarves, they had no distinguishing features that identified their allegiance, so they had no fear of being attacked. Thus, they felt free to stroll openly through the town. However—

“Kadota,” someone called out to the group. “It’s been a while.”

“Huh? Oh…Kida,” Kadota said, recognizing the familiar face.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Kida.”

“Why aren’t you with the usual four-eyed girl and baby-faced kid today?”

Yumasaki and Karisawa’s tone was friendly, but Kadota gave the boy a stern glance, sensing something slightly more dangerous in Masaomi’s smile.

Then, noticing the yellow cloth wrapped around the boy’s knuckles, Kadota picked up on the situation. It was the darkest he felt all day, but this time he did not sigh.

“…Are you
back
?” he asked, his face hard.

Masaomi nodded after a brief pause. “Yes.”

“…I see,” Kadota noted simply.

Masaomi quietly got to the point. “No use standing out in the rain… Want to go somewhere, if you’ve got time to kill?”

Yumasaki and Karisawa shared a look, recognizing that this was not his usual flippant chattiness. Kadota glanced at the loitering boys with their yellow scraps. They hadn’t noticed Masaomi’s presence, but if they kept standing around here that would eventually change.

On the other hand, if they just walked into any old store…they might find themselves surrounded by yellow in a heartbeat, depending on what Masaomi wanted to talk about.

“Sure, if we go to Simon’s place,” Kadota said, jutting his chin toward the corner of a road that led off of Sixtieth Floor Street. It was a cramped alley full of bars and restaurants.

Masaomi looked a bit unhappy at hearing the foreign name—but he summoned up his resolve and took the lead in marching toward the alley.

Russia Sushi

“Hey, Kida, Kadota. Well-cahm.”

A warm voice with a thick accent greeted them as they pushed through the colorful hanging curtain at the door. The interior of the business was an incongruous combination of Russian imperial palace and Japanese sushi counter.

While the counter was the same as any other sushi restaurant, the tatami mats of the floor were matched with marble walls in a truly clashing way. That, combined with the hanging sign promising
HASSLE-FREE PRICING! ALL ITEMS MARKET VALUE!
put any visitor into a skeptical state of mind.

That was the first impression every visitor to Russia Sushi received upon walking inside. The skepticism was only increased by the sight of the massive employee who stood nearly seven feet tall. He was Simon, a black Russian who spoke oddly accented Japanese.

The concept of a black Russian was unfamiliar to most Japanese, which got him plenty of funny looks, but everyone was convinced once they heard him chatting in fluent Russian with the white chef behind the counter.

His presence was the reason Kadota chose this place to talk.

Simon was the only person who could stop Shizuo Heiwajima, widely regarded as the most dangerous man in Ikebukuro—and a frequent visitor to Russia Sushi himself. Starting a fight here meant causing trouble with two of the most violent men in town. By passing through the doorway of this restaurant, Kadota figured no Yellow Scarves would want to get involved.

For his part, Masaomi was on good terms with the group, so they didn’t distrust him too much—but there was no guarantee that the other Yellow Scarves didn’t have their own ideas.

Kadota felt that it was worth having a good talk with Masaomi, so he chose the safest location he could think of nearby.

“Yo, odd combination of faces,” said the white man behind the
counter, who was cutting up the pieces of fish for delivery orders with an assortment of knives. Unlike Simon, he was fluent in Japanese, but after his greeting he resumed his work in silence.

“Cheap sushi, very good. I give you good deal, Boss Kadota.”

“Boss of who? Four of your cheapest nigiri combinations. We’ll sit in the back.”

“Right away,” signaled the white chef, and Simon beamed as he guided the four to the back compartment.

“So what do you want with us? Bein’ the head of the Yellow Scarves…whether former or not, I don’t know or care,” Kadota started up immediately, as soon as Simon had dropped the napkins and left to get their tea. “It’s about the Dollars, I assume. I know what’s going on with both sides at this point in time, and me and Yumasaki’s names are listed on the Dollars’ website.”

“I appreciate you getting right to the point. Then, I suppose you know what I want to ask.”

“Let me be clear: We dunno all the details about the whole organization. Some of our people got done by the slasher, too. I dunno how much power you have now, Kida, but it’d be real helpful if you could clear that up on your side.”

“Well…”

Before Masaomi could continue, Simon came by with four teacups. They were relatively large cups, but they looked small when carried by the enormous man. He picked up the steaming hot cups with his entire palm and rhythmically presented them to the group.

“You drink tea, get your catechins,” Simon said with a thumbs-up.

Kadota smirked and reached for a cup. “Yeow!” he shrieked, dropping the cup back on the table.

Simon quickly offered him a napkin and apologized. “Oh, I sorry. Don’t worry, Boss Kadota. You meditate and clear mind, fire become cold. No get angry, you get hot.”

“I think you actually know a lot more Japanese than you let on… I’m amazed you can hold these cups without getting burned.”

“?”

Simon responded to Kadota’s admiration with a confused, uncomprehending smile. Masaomi looked at his thick, scarred palms and swallowed hard.

“Enjoy, ya?” Simon said, still smiling as he left.

Masaomi finally continued what he had been about to say. “…Well…it might only be your personal group that thinks there’s no connection to the slasher.”

“Huh?”

“The Dollars are a team of equals without any hierarchy, right? So it’s quite possible that there’s a faction that was responsible for the slashings outside of your knowledge. Plus, if they made sure to include a few Dollars in the attacks, that would move suspicion away from the Dollars.”

“…”

Kadota mulled over Masaomi’s words in his head and eventually took a brief sip of hot tea. “I see. Well, you’ve got a point there.”

Next to Masaomi was Yumasaki and facing him next to Kadota was Karisawa, but the two were uncharacteristically quiet.

A brief silence passed, then Kadota took another sip and murmured, “So what’s the motive?”

“…”

“Why would a group with no reason to make a name for itself and no monetary dealings decide to attack people indiscriminately and get rid of the Yellow Scarves?”

“If I knew that, things would be a lot easier. It could be a personal grudge of some kind,” Masaomi muttered hesitantly, but that only brought Kadota after him harder.

“Personal? I’ve never heard of any beef between the Yellow Scarves and Dollars.”

“Not the Dollars.”

“…”

Kadota realized what Masaomi was insinuating. His face went hard and he clammed up.

Masaomi spat the name out, clearly not wanting to even touch the subject. “The Blue Squares.”

A furrow appeared between Kadota’s brows the instant he heard the title. “Kida…”

“I haven’t forgotten what that team did to us. That drove me away from the gang, and things settled down eventually…but the hatred never left. That’s my suspicion.”

“And so you’ve come to me.”

Kadota held his silence for a while as he thought, but Masaomi didn’t wait for an answer. “You understand, don’t you, Kadota? Tell me who the Dollars’ boss is. And if possible…tell me which of your
old friends
from the Blue Squares are in the Dolla—”

Crakk.

A dry sound cut Masaomi off.

He looked over to see Yumasaki, wearing his usual expression, pulling apart a pair of wooden chopsticks.

“Come on, Kida,” he said, handling the sharp wooden implement. “You shouldn’t mix fantasy and reality.”

In a way, it was almost the very last thing one would expect the half-Japanese otaku to say. Over time, the smile faded from his face.

“
The Blue Squares never existed.
Isn’t that good enough?”

Just as the sentence ended, Masaomi smacked his palm on the table. The cups of tea shifted, the liquid within them swaying.

“But Saki—! You’re going to tell me that Saki was sent to the hospital by some people who don’t even exi—”

Wham.

Again, a sound cut Masaomi off.

Between the gaps of his fingers, pressed against the table, the cleanly pointed ends of the chopsticks were bent.

For an instant, Masaomi didn’t understand what had happened—until he realized that Yumasaki had slammed the points of the chopsticks in his hands into the table right between his fingers. He held his breath.

For having just thrashed the tiny pieces of wood to pulp, Yumasaki’s expression, while not smiling, did not seem very angry, either.

He was expressionless.

The force was enough that if they’d landed on the back of his hand, they might have punctured all the way through his palm. Something cold ran down Masaomi’s back, but he did not pull his hand away.

Karisawa spoke in Yumasaki’s place, her cheek resting on her hand
in a pose of bored exasperation. “That’s right. Your ex got beat up by people who don’t exist. That’s good enough.”

“You don’t wanna make me angry, Karisawa.”

“You already are. Plus, Yumacchi got angry before you did. So that makes us even. You might be angry about what happened to your girlfriend, but others are going to be angry if you accuse Dotachin—in fact, the Dollars as a whole—of being the slasher. If you can’t accept us as being even in that regard, then you never should have brought it up in the first place.”

She paused for a moment to sip her tea, fixing the younger boy with a sharp look.

“While we didn’t carry out any of that, it’s true that we owe you a moral debt. But if you’re going to dredge up the past with Saki, when it was Dotachin who saved her while you
ran away
,” she said, staring at Masaomi with half-lidded eyes, “then maybe we need to force you to view that part of your past as a figment of your imagination.”

The response to her statement came not from Masaomi but Yumasaki, still clutching the broken chopsticks in the same position. “You’re wrong, Karisawa.”

“Huh? I am?”

“Even if the Blue Squares
did
exist, when
that part
happened, it was the Blue Squares who got attacked first. And yet he’s claiming we were the bad guys the entire time. I gotta dispute that point!”

“Oh, right. Man, I’m so embarrassed. I’m like in the super spiral of shame!”

As they carried on in their normal manner, Masaomi realized that he had lost the outlet for his anger—and lost his cool as well.

“…I’m sorry…about this,” he said, hesitantly hanging his head.

Yumasaki switched to his familiar smile, grinning away. “No, no, it’s my fault. I mean…I feel really bad about what happened with Saki.”

“No… I should be thanking you, not accusing you,” Masaomi said, his usually cool demeanor entirely gone.

Kadota, who had been silent all this time, had an unusually gentle expression on his face. “Even if you do hate me, I’m not gonna quibble… We did more than enough to a mere middle school kid to deserve that kind of hate.”

“But, Kadota, you didn’t—” Yumasaki started to protest, but Kadota cut him off with a glance.

Their leader spoke quietly and simply, but with a strength behind his words. “No matter how hard you try to deny it, you can’t escape what you were involved with.”

Masaomi’s face began to waver. Something Izaya Orihara had said to him once came back to his mind.

“And with that in mind, let me say something… I don’t know nothing about the boss, nor do I plan to go looking. And I will repeat: The slasher and the Dollars are unrelated. We have no reason to bicker with the Yellow Scarves,” Kadota said, getting it all off his chest. Suddenly, he seemed to remember something. “Oh…actually, there is one person who knows the boss of the Dollars.”

“Wh-who is that?!” Masaomi asked, leaning forward despite his best efforts to stay calm.

“Hang on… My point is, why would you even ask that? Let’s say you get the boss’s name out of that person. What will you do? Invite him out for tea and have a nice little chitchat? Or use your Yellow Scarves and stage an abduction?”