Durarara!!, Vol. 3 (Novel) (31 page)

Hospital room, Raira General Hospital

Masaomi stared up at the ceiling from his hospital bed.

Though he’d taken the painkillers, a dull throbbing still raced through his body. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was worse than the kind of pain one could ignore to get some sleep.

Visiting hours were over, and his injuries weren’t life threatening, so Anri and Mikado were sent home already. They shoved Masaomi into an empty room, and he lay there, bored, examining the patterns on the ceiling and thinking about his past experiences in this hospital.

Two years ago.

When he walked into Saki’s room to suggest that they break up, she smiled at him.

“Thanks… You came for me.”

Her smile was the exact same as it had been before the hospital, the expression of someone truly delighted to see him. And it was that very smile that cut deeper into his heart than any knife.

I can’t. I can’t bear it.

I have to tell her.

Say it. Just say it, Masaomi.

“I know.”

“…Huh?”

Saki was offering him a way out as he stood there, sweating nervously.

“I know, Masaomi… You didn’t really come, did you?”

“…!”

“Yeah… I heard from Izaya… You were calling him, weren’t you? Over and over and over… He showed me the call history and laughed about it.”

That…sick bastard!

He felt a surge of anger at Izaya, but it was immediately suppressed into a different emotion. No matter who he aimed his anger at, it always ended up turned on himself. The undeniable fact that he had run away was heavier and more real than any emotion, and it had an ironclad grip on his heart.

“But don’t let it bother you. It wouldn’t have changed much for me if you’d come after that or you hadn’t.”

“…Stop it.”

“I mean, as long as you didn’t get hurt…that was the most important part…”

It was at that very moment that the words finally spilled out of Masaomi’s mouth.

“Let’s break up.”

To cut her off.

Her consolation was nothing but pain to him.

And at the time, he chose to escape that pain by suggesting that they break up.

“Thinking on it with a calm head…I really was a totally disgusting creep…”

Masaomi spoke out loud to the ceiling, reflecting on the events of two years earlier.

“I wonder what Saki could possibly have seen in me that she thought was cool.”

Maybe it was all on Izaya’s orders in the end. At this point, he would never know.

Or so he thought.

“Maybe it’s that weird way you can be honest with yourself.”

“Bwah?!”

He was not expecting a response from the other side of the room.

Masaomi’s eyes snapped in that direction and saw that Saki was
leaning up against the wall. He hadn’t realized that he was in the same building, on the same floor, as Saki’s hospital room. Perhaps it was a considerate move from the staff who recognized him on the way in.

“Wh-what the hell, Saki? When did you get here?”

“A while ago. I didn’t want to wake you up, so…”

She was staring at him intently without her usual smile. “I heard the whole story from Kadota.”

“Oh, great… So do you hate me, then? I ran away from trouble back when you needed me, and yet today, I charged into the midst of the enemy all alone. It’s a miracle I only got it this bad,” he noted wryly, looking away. Her expression only got cloudier.

“You idiot. You really are an idiot, Masaomi…”

“You knew that ages ago.” He clammed up after that.

A long silence reigned over the room. It was Saki who broke first. But it was less that she broke than that she made up her mind.

“Well, um…there’s one thing that I need to apologize to you for, Masaomi,” she said, walking over to the side of his bed. She was using her own two feet, not the crutches propped against the wall or the wheelchair she always sat in.

“That night…the truth is…I let them capture me on Izaya’s orders. I knew. I knew what they would do to me. But Izaya said…that would be the end of everything. So I went! I went by their hangout that night…right near…by…and…then…Izaya…told them…where…I was…”

Saki’s face was pale and terrified as she talked. Her voice was trembling too much to continue, and silence returned to fill the room.

She’d been certain that she would never walk again. Masaomi kept a straight face as he listened and sat up. Pain shot through his body as he did, but he made sure not to show it. He summoned a confident grin.

“What, is that all?”

“…Huh?”

“I knew that,” he lied. “C’mon, don’t you know I’m psychic?”

He’d had no idea. But now he did.

So Masaomi pretended that he had known this all along, making sure not to show that he’d ever been plagued by the idea that she might never walk again.

“And what did he tell you next? Pretend not to be able to walk, so I
won’t be able to leave you behind, right? So he wanted to turn me into a pawn. Probably thought it was all some grand experiment… Sheesh. You shouldn’t be using a hospital as a hotel. I think the only reason this place let you stick around is because they have so many empty rooms,” Masaomi grumbled to hide his falsehood.

Saki put on a teary smile for him. “For the first time…I went against what Izaya told me to do,” she said. Did she believe what Masaomi told her? He couldn’t tell.

But under the room lights, her smile and her tears were precious to him.

“You know…I think I can say it now.”

“Say what?”

“I should have gone, but when I needed to save you, I didn’t… I’m sorry.”

They were the words he never said two years ago.

The words he avoided speaking because he was afraid of admitting them.

He finished with another thing he’d been too afraid to say.

“But…I still love you, Saki.”

“…”

“Please don’t leave me.”

It was strange how easily they came out. Silence filled the room again.

After what felt like minutes, when Masaomi wondered if he ought to repeat himself, she pressed herself onto him.

“Gwuh!”
Masaomi yelped as the shock sent a wave of pain through him. “What the hell—” he started to complain, until he saw the deadly serious look on her face and stopped.

“You…you really are an idiot, Masaomi… The biggest idiot ever…”

As the tears pooled in her eyes, Masaomi recalled something she’d said to him once and decided to throw it back to her.

“I can’t help it, can I? You can at least overlook one little flaw.”

And sure enough, she recognized those words and repeated back what he had told her in return: “If you know it’s a flaw, then fix it.”

They faced each other, reliving and reaffirming their past.

“Together…we can start over fresh.”

Outside, the rain was falling again, coating the room in the cold sound of its pattering.

But no one inside found it to be depressing.

No one’s spirit was broken, nothing changed.

The rain just fell, like regular old rain.

Fshh, fshh, fshh, fshh…

Ultimately, the rain did not stop.

Mikado Ryuugamine assumed that everything was finished.

Spring vacation would start the next day. He’d work a part-time job and go pay visits to Masaomi when he had the chance. With Anri, of course.

And once school started again, the usual days would return.

Everything had been cleared up with Masaomi. And he was smiling at the end.

Just like always. Smiling at him and Anri.

So once Masaomi had recovered, things would be just the way they always were.

That’s what Mikado believed. His innocence was unfitting for his age.

It wasn’t until a few days later that he realized it was just a fantasy.

He got a call from Mr. Satou, Masaomi’s homeroom teacher in Class 1-B.

“Masaomi told me he’s dropping out of school. Do you know what that’s about?” he asked. Masaomi’s teacher said some comments about how worried he was, but Mikado didn’t hear any of it.

The next thing he knew, he was calling Masaomi’s cell phone. But the number had already been deactivated. All he heard was the synthetic prerecorded message from the phone company.

Why? Why so sudden?

When he checked with the hospital, they said he had left the money for his stay thus far and disappeared, despite the fact that he needed much more time to recover.

He even visited Masaomi’s apartment. The lease hadn’t been broken at least, but when he convinced the landlord to let him go inside, many of his toiletries and necessities were gone.

Anri was just as shocked as he was.

She put up a placid front, but Mikado had finally reached the stage where he could sense that she, too, was feeling quite down on the inside.

But there was one thing Mikado didn’t know.

A piece of information the hospital did not tell him.

That bit of knowledge reached Kadota’s group afterward: that Saki Mikajima left the hospital the same day that Masaomi did.

Kadota’s team and the hospital staff that was aware of their relationship understood and accepted this state of affairs. But being completely unaware, Mikado and Anri were left with nothing but a feeling of loss.

Since coming to Ikebukuro, Mikado had experienced an overwhelming amount of the “extraordinary.”

But the loss of what he considered ordinary was a new thing, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

Time simply passed him by, and bit by bit, Masaomi became a part of the “past” to Mikado and Anri.

One day in April, Mikado invited Anri out into the city.

He did it out of concern for her mental well-being, but she seemed much happier than he expected.

“I know… Lots of stuff happened…but I’m fine now,” she said with her usual sad smile. They engaged in their typical chatter as they wandered the streets of Ikebukuro.

Since that day, Mikado hadn’t asked about Anri’s katana, and she hadn’t asked about Mikado’s connection to the Dollars. Though they
were things worth talking about, they both had an unspoken agreement that it wasn’t right to discuss them without Masaomi present. So despite being mostly aware of the other’s situation, they carried out their normal conversations without touching upon any of it.

They wandered around the town, talking about whatever caught their fancy, but it was still weird without Masaomi there. A silence suddenly fell between them.

Anri broke that silence with a murmur just above a whisper.

“I think…I liked Kida…”

Mikado felt a clenching pain in his chest. He did not let it show on his face, but he couldn’t look at hers, either. He just listened as they strolled along.

“I’m just not sure… I really don’t understand that sort of thing. In fact, I recently learned that someone I really respect is a woman…which meant that it had nothing to do with ‘liking’ her that way, I guess. It really is just plain old respect…”

Mikado had more than a hunch of who she “respected,” but he still kept his silence.

Maybe now—maybe now was his chance to tell her.

Maybe he could tell her that he loved her.

The boy quietly clenched his fist.

And with great force of will—decided not to say anything.

He felt like confessing his love for her now would be a betrayal of Masaomi. No doubt Masaomi would laugh and say, “Dummy, this is what makes you so shy!” But even though he could see that reaction, Mikado still couldn’t tell her.

Maybe he was just a coward. But if he loved her here and she accepted his love, he had a feeling he just wouldn’t be fully happy about it. Not in the way he should.

Instead, he arrived at a decision. If Masaomi came back…

If the three of them were as close as before, or perhaps even closer…

Only then would he tell Anri that he loved her. And if she chose Masaomi at that moment, he would welcome their relationship with open arms. He would probably be jealous. He would feel envy for Masaomi.

But even then, he would be happy for them, he told himself, as he opened his mouth to speak.

“He’ll come back.”

“Oh…?”

“I’ve known Masaomi since we were young. He’ll absolutely come back.”

There was no certain proof of this, but Mikado wanted to put Anri at ease.

“So when he does, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind. I’ll get really, truly mad at him with a smile on my face.”

And even knowing that he was just trying to make her feel better, Anri grinned.

“Both of us together.”

At that moment, apartment building, near Kawagoe Highway, Ikebukuro

Just at the time that two upstanding teenagers were pledging to regain the tranquillity of their lives, an extremely
non
-upstanding being without a head was basking in the pleasure of a tepid, pleasing life.

“It’s so peaceful…”

“It sure is. At the very least, having you happy beside me makes me feel at peace, even if we were in the trenches on the front line.”

The days of rain and clouds were finished. Amid the warmth of true spring, Celty and Shinra were working on a crossword puzzle as the TV played a rerun of a samurai program.

“What’s this horizontal clue? ‘Another name for vitamin E, which improves blood flow and maintains hormone balance.’ It starts with
T
and ends with
E.
”

“Oh, you mean tocopherol calcium succinate?”

“Nice, thanks. For a black market doctor, you sure know a lot about chemicals. You’re like Black Jack, from the old manga.”

“As much as anyone else… And what kind of obscure answer is that?”

As they made the most of their lounging time, Celty couldn’t help but wonder. Was it right for a nonhuman like her to enjoy such an
indelibly human leisure time? With as much time and little to do as she had, maybe she ought to go do some exercise in a graveyard or something. She showed her PDA to Shinra as he read a financial paper.

“This is nice and peaceful… There’s been all this chaos with the cursed sword, the Yellow Scarves, and your dad. It’s so wonderful to just be together and relax for once.”

“If there’s one problem, it’s that the bloodstains Shizuo left behind outside the apartment may be causing the neighbors to avoid us recently. The neighborhood council hasn’t called, either.”

“Well, that’s nothing new.”

On the TV, the shogun protagonist was charging into enemy territory to vanquish the evil villain with his ninja spies.

“There’s the shogun… Speaking of which, what happened with the Yellow Scarves?”

“Hmm? Masaomi, right? It seems he left the group. There was some internal squabbling, even among the former Blue Squares, and everything’s calmed down for now.”

“I see… So there’s no worry about them going after Mikado or Anri.”

Celty stretched luxuriously, indulging her sense of relief, and rearranged the shadow that covered her body. The tight, cramped riding suit turned into a sheer tank top, boldly exposing her white arms and shoulders.

“Whoa! What? What’s that daring change of clothes about? If you’re going to challenge me like that in the middle of the day, why, I’ll just have to take a quick shower, make the bed, and…huh?”

“What?”

“Well…usually that’s about the point you blast me in the stomach or pinch my cheek to make me shut up…”

“As it happens, I really am challenging you,”
she wrote teasingly into the keyboard, but right as she was about to show Shinra, the doorbell rang.

“Huh…we have a visitor.”

Oh, geez.

The timing was so perfectly dreadful that Celty slumped over the table in disappointment.

“Is it those books I ordered? Or maybe the neighbors are complaining…”

“Go get ’em, soldier.”

Celty could not entertain guests, so she stayed hidden in the back room and started working on the crossword again, when…

“Hiii! The adult man before me must be the Mr. Shinra Kishitani! It’s such an ultimate delight to encounter you!”

What in the world?!

Baffled by the bizarre Japanese she just heard, Celty put the helmet on and peered over toward the entranceway. She was worried that it might be a solicitor of some kind of dangerous drug…but that was not what she saw at the front door.

It was a young white woman, using every inch of her ample body to embrace Shinra.

…

…Huh?

There was a strange foreign woman squeezing Shinra, chuckling through her nose and spinning him around. The sight was easily forceful enough to completely shut down Celty’s mind for a moment.

The next instant, the entranceway was filled with a black mist.

“Wh-whoa! Celty, that’s too much! Too much shadow!”

“Wow! My vision is suddenly very broke. Is this questionable phenomenon the result of the disappearance of lighting equipment?”

The white woman speaking baffling Japanese had a very mature figure but an extremely young, nearly girlish face. Celty emerged before her, the shadows writhing from every inch of her body.

“Ce-Celty!”

She stepped in between the two to pry them apart and held up her PDA with trembling fingers so that Shinra—whose face was pale—could see.

“Don’t worry, I’m totally cool. I’m not going to be stereotypical and beat you up before you can explain this. I’m an adult, so I’m sure I can understand the situation, of which I’m sure, I’m sure.”

“You are definitely losing it! I can tell from the end of your sentence!”

“I’m totally cool! I’m cool enough to talk through a boom box on the…”

Celty was interrupted from the process of keeping her cool by the white woman’s sudden embrace.

What?! I was not expecting this!

“Oh! You must be Miss Celty, the no-headed woman of obsidian clothes! I was firmly desiring to encounter you!”

Being embraced by a total stranger of the same sex was a first for
Celty. Totally flustered, she set the font on her PDA to English with trembling fingers.

“WHO ARE YOU?”

When the woman saw the all-caps message, she let go of Celty, stepped back, and entered an extravagant bow.

“I have committed an error. The title Emilia is mine. In attempting to deepen family bonds, I initiated a passionate embrace.”

“Family…?”

“Family?” Celty and Shinra asked at the same time. The girl named Emilia straightened up and bowed again, much deeper than was necessary.

“I have remarried Shingen. In America, it was last year.”

“Huh?!”

“Um, well…huh? Wait, I didn’t hear about this. I had no idea, no idea, vehemently no idea!” Shinra protested, his neck stiff as he side-eyed Celty. “Er, and…if I’m not mistaken, Emilia, you look younger than me.”

“Years have no relation to ardor. Thus spake Shingen!”

Again, she embraced Shinra. Again, Celty’s shadow writhed.

When she realized that she was feeling jealous of the newly appeared woman—who was, in fact, Shinra’s mother by marriage—Celty clenched her fists tight.

Damn…what’s with this woman and her “close but no cigar” speech?! If she’s talking like that on purpose, I’m gonna smack her! Even Yumasaki wouldn’t accept someone this weird! I…I don’t want a peaceful life if it includes a sitcom character like her!

Celty was so frazzled by the sudden event that she was starting to lose the boundary between truth and fiction. She finally gave the woman a closer look—and spotted something that caught her by surprise.

A white lab coat.

Shinra recognized her question ahead of time and quickly asked it for her.

“Huh? You have a lab coat, too. And it’s the same as Dad’s…”

“Yes! I am employed at equal workplace of Shingen! When Shingen weddings me, he stated, this company researches on Celty. So from time to time, we will incision.”

Wait. Just a damn minute.

“Umm, isn’t that the kind of information you hide, so that you can go after Celty in secret…?”

“Shingen said Miss Celty will easily allow to dissect. We have an order to study hard the mysteries of dullahan body for the company! So next time, please to come with for laboratory.”