Durarara!!, Vol. 4 (novel) (15 page)

Chat room

The next day, Ikebukuro

It was a sunny afternoon. Raira Academy uniforms could be spotted here and there throughout the neighborhood.

The first-year students were done with class earlier than second- or third-years, so it was they who were out on the town now.

Kururi and Mairu were walking down the sidewalk next to Sunshine City. They appeared to be walking with purpose—but for whatever reason, Mairu’s footsteps were heavy. It was as if the soles of her feet were sending roots into the earth, and for this one moment, her face was actually gloomier than Kururi’s.

“…Cheer up.”

“Ugh…I’m sorry, Kuru, I’m sorry… But it’s such a terrible shock…”

Mairu was holding a tabloid paper in her hand.

On the front it read “Yuuhei Hanejima and Ruri Hijiribe in a Late-Night Tryst?!,” complete with an article describing the discovery of a meeting between Mairu’s beloved Yuuhei Hanejima and megastar singer Ruri Hijiribe in the middle of the night.

“Yuuhei… Yuuhei’s going to belong to someone else… Oh, if only this Ruri was Kururi instead, then I could bear it. I’d be delighted, in fact! So why, why?! My heart is being torn to pieces! The value of my sadness is equal to Graham’s number!”

Graham’s number was the greatest “meaningful number,” according to the
Guinness Book of World Records
, an amount so vast that anyone who wasn’t well versed in mathematics would quickly overheat in the attempt to comprehend it.

Her sister might not have understood the significance of that, but she did recognize Mairu’s shock. Kururi curled around in the center of the sidewalk and sealed her little sister’s lips shut with her own.

“Mm…!”

Just like Aoba yesterday, Mairu’s eyes widened in surprise.

Two teenage girls locked in a passionate kiss right on the street. It was a sight both tantalizingly illicit and abnormal, and if a staff writer for
Wakahime Club
had been present, he would have snapped photos with tears in his eyes.

Mairu was surprised by that unexpected action but soon took on a blissful look and clutched back at her sister’s body.

As if on cue, Kururi pulled her lips away and grinned.

“…Feeling better?”

“Yeah! I feel way better! Girls’ lips are so soft and wonderful! Especially yours, Kuru! Can I shout yahoo? Yahoo! One more time! One more time!” Mairu danced, writhing with stimulation.

Kururi’s smile vanished. “…You’re creepy.”

“What?! That’s messed up! It’s the most messy of messed-up messes! Just after we had rekindled our love for one another! Not only that, you kiss another girl—your own sister, to boot—and then claim it’s creepy? What’s that about?! Is this a honey trap?! Are you luring me in just to criticize me?! No fair! It’s like… Oh, I know! It’s like you’re the Road Runner, and I’m Wile E. Coyote!”

Mairu’s analogy didn’t make much sense. Kururi hung her head in troubled exasperation, then grinned again as she looked up.

But before she could say anything—

“Hey, heyyy! What’s up, girls? Quite a show you’re puttin’ on!”

“I mean, two girls makin’ out in the middle of the day? Crazy aggressive stunt, yeah?”

“More like aggresstunt, am I right? Hah.”

“So that’s hilarious and all, but can you let us get in on that tip?”

“Why do you do it between girls? It makes no sense. You do that because the guys give you no attention?”

“’Cuz we’ll step in and provide!”

“But only if you can tell us where to find the Black Rider.”

From somewhere inconspicuous, where they had noticed the rather attention-grabbing stunt of girls’ kissing, emerged a group of very
conspicuous
men dressed in striped motorcycle gang outfits.

And as a result, the girls, too, were dragged into Ikebukuro’s holiday.

Roots Smile Café, Higashi-Nakano

In a bar fairly close to Higashi-Nakano Station, with walls lined with various bottles of liquor and a pleasant handmade quality to the furnishings, a number of young people bustled, the sound of their merriment a kind of BGM for the establishment.

At a table in the very back sat two men, facing each other. One of them nervously glanced around, while the other drank a virgin cocktail, his face completely expressionless.

The emotionless man drained his glass, his eyes as cold as ice. When he was done, he ordered another from the bartender, still without a hint of feeling.

He turned to the older man sitting across from him and flatly asked, “Aren’t you going to have a drink, Mr. Kanemoto?”

“I have to go back to the office and work after this,” the restless Kanemoto said politely to the younger man. His table partner had a face so smooth and delicate, he could have passed as a boy—or even a woman. His features were handsome and striking, the very manifestation of beauty in the flesh.

His hair was a combination of countless perfect silky strands, as smooth and flowing as a river, perfectly jet-black and softly feminine.

At a glance, he looked like a prince out of a girls’ manga, but there
was a chilly personality emanating from him that made him far from welcoming.

Eventually, an order of pasta reached the table, and the young man said in a monotone, “Go ahead, Mr. Kanemoto.”

“N-no, you first, Mr. Yuuhei,” he said, appending a polite title to the younger man’s name. Yuuhei picked up his fork without another word.

It was pasta alla carbonara, the chewy-looking noodles topped with rich cream sauce and fragrant bacon. The young man nimbly rolled his fork until he had accumulated a wad of pasta the size of a golf ball, which he popped into his mouth.

He chewed, carefully and silently, his face a sculpted mask. When he was done, he said, “This is good carbonara.”

The other man slumped and reluctantly grabbed his own fork. “There’s no way for me to tell if you’re telling the truth or not, based on your expression… Oh, what do you know? It is good.”

In comparison to the other man’s lack of emotion, the manager began to eagerly shovel the pasta into his face. He complained, “You know this is right in front of the office, don’t you? I mean…we could have a meeting at a club or someplace else. We’ll pick up the tab. Why here?”

“Because it’s close.”

“Oh, I see… So you’re saying…you
don’t
have any interest in visiting a club?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never considered it. I’ll look into it if I get the chance,” the young man said.

Kanemoto sighed and continued with business. “Well, in that case…are you up on tomorrow’s schedule?”

“I have an interview at a hotel in Ikebukuro at six thirty, and then I’m going home.”

“…Yes, that’s right.”

The conversation paused again. It wasn’t that the young man refused to speak, he just didn’t show any emotion when he did so. Because of that, Kanemoto was unsure of how to proceed or if what he was saying was displeasing his conversation partner.

“…”

“It’s very good.”

“…I know. I already finished mine… At any rate, tomorrow’s interview is promotion for the movie, so keep that in mind.”

“Okay.”

Yuuhei nodded and continued to eat his meal like an animatronic figure. His professional manager Kanemoto looked at the young man and thought,
I only took on this job because Uzuki asked me to… He’s not acting this way because he hates me, is he?

“Um, well…in that case, let’s just get through the next three days, while Uzuki’s off on his honeymoon…”

“Yes, of course,” Yuuhei responded, still cold and mechanical. Kanemoto bowed again.

He had to avoid any displays of rudeness. The attractive young man sitting before him was worth millions—possibly billions—of yen. He was a bona fide money tree.

From the Internet encyclopedia
Fuguruma Youki

An except from the “Yuuhei Hanejima” article

Yuuhei Hanejima—an actor and model. Born in Toshima Ward of Tokyo.

His birth date is unclear, as the president of Jack-o’-Lantern Japan, Max Sandshelt, has claimed on different occasions that he is “a cyborg born in the year 3258,” and “a vampire that’s been alive for over a millennium,” and “a warrior of light from the ancient continent of Atlantis who was never reincarnated.” Calculations from his appearance at the coming-of-age ceremonial holiday estimate that he is just around twenty-one years old.

His real name is Kasuka Heiwajima. As stated earlier, his talent agency is Jack-o’-Lantern Japan.

In addition to his parents, his family includes an older brother. He seems to respect his brother and mentions him often in interviews. No other details about his brother are known. There is a record of a bizarre incident involving a particularly persistent journalist’s car being suddenly flipped over after questioning too closely about Hanejima’s family, but the connection between the two things is not certain.

What is known is that his brother is a terrifying individual. He once
beat a talent scout half to death, and Hanejima’s rescue of the scout was what led to his show business debut.

After modeling for a number of magazines, his first acting role was Carmilla Saizou, the lead character of the direct-to-video movie
Vampire Ninja Carmilla Saizou
. He earned cult attention for his good looks and frighteningly polished acting, and his name spread in certain circles on the Internet.

The next year, Daioh TV’s flagship program
Money Gamer
ran a segment titled “How Much Can You Make in One Month with a Million Yen?” in which Yuuhei used various connections and means to reach a total of 1.2 billion yen, an incident that led to nationwide news before it even aired.

Because the rules of the segment stated that any profit from the experiment went back to the contestant, he was soon known to the public as the extraordinarily lucky boy who won himself a cool 1,199 million yen.

Yuuhei’s reputation as a nouveau riche took the backseat when he exhibited his acting skill in a series of television dramas. His versatility in a variety of roles, combined with his appearance, launched him to stardom.

He is skilled at singing and athletics as well, not just acting. On top of that, his repertoire covers roles from singers to assassins, from cross-dressing to passionate bed scenes. He is known as an actor’s actor.

However, outside of acting, he eliminates virtually all emotion, carrying out conversations like a flat-voiced robot. This makes him an ill fit for talk shows, but many of his fans find this to be cool, and he is therefore known as naturally expressionless. In his words, “I used to cry and laugh as a kid, but I learned by the example of my brother, who had extreme emotional swings, and that’s why I act like this. But I still deeply respect him.”

In one nonfaked hidden-camera prank segment, Yuuhei was accosted by “yakuza” actors, who threatened to cut off his pinkie
finger, but he showed no fear and did not resist. Right as they were about to sever his finger with a knife, the program staff had to intervene and cancel the segment.

In another incident, a stalker gave him a silent cold call on a day off, and he stayed on the line for twenty hours, until the stalker gave up. (This is only known because the silent pressure was too much to bear, disintegrating the stalker’s will and causing her to turn herself in to the police.)

This mechanical personality does not endear him to others, and he has virtually no close friends in show business. For this reason, his private life is shrouded in mystery, and the interior of his home has never been filmed.

He owns a number of cars, most notably some foreign sports cars and luxury models like Mitsuoka’s Le-Seyde and Galue, and he recently expressed a desire to own the Mitsuoka Orochi in a TV interview.

Because he chooses his purchases on taste with no thought for price, it is not uncommon for him to wear a cheap accessory from a one hundred–yen shop and an ultrafine million-yen accessory at the same time. He does not seem to find this odd at all. [citation needed]

Due to his ability to seemingly do anything perfectly, he has the Internet nickname “Secret-Shame Curator.” This is because he is considered “a character so perfect, he’s the kind of secret shame that you create in middle school and try to forget about when you grow up.”

When the agency president heard about this, he said, “Then we need to make him even more perfect” and whipped up a poster with angel wings, devil horns, and nonmatching color contacts. He managed to get this image on the cover of a niche magazine, but it looked so good on him that it only made him more popular. Inexplicably, the poster also went viral overseas.

Yuuhei kept a blank expression throughout the photo shoot, but afraid of the rumors that he was “only pretending to be blank to hide his incredible rage,” Max Sandshelt supposedly went back to America for two weeks for his own safety—an anecdote that aptly describes the eeriness of his icy expression.

After he had achieved both fame and fortune, Yuuhei stunned the showbiz world when he accepted an offer to film a sequel to
Vampire Ninja Carmilla Saizou
, a work that everyone assumed was his
own
secret shame.

When a celebrity magazine ranked him third on their list of “Actors Who Never Say No,” he responded with, “Carmilla Saizou is a very respectable character. He’s a wonderful ninja who knows the true meaning of love,” in his usual deadpan, leaving everyone else unsure of whether he meant it or not.

He was tabbed by Hollywood director John Drox to play the lead in his pet project
Cruiserfield
, which films in Japan this spring, leading to increased interest abroad.

And this soon-to-be Hollywood star was causing Kanemoto to come down with ulcers.

A man named Uzuki had been Yuuhei’s manager since his debut, but for these three days, Kanemoto was tabbed to take over as a substitute manager while Uzuki was on his honeymoon.

I didn’t think he really acted like a robot all the time.

Kanemoto had always assumed that Yuuhei’s iron mask was just another act he put on for the TV cameras. Anyone who saw his effortless swing of emotions when he was in character would naturally assume that this blank-faced automaton was the true act.

But this young man was anything but natural.

“Well, I’ll be going, then,” Yuuhei said in front of the Jack-o’-Lantern Japan building after their meal, as he got into his car.

Today he was driving a Ferrari. Kanemoto didn’t know much about the specific model, but he could recognize that it was a Ferrari from the red color, distinct body, and horse logo.

In the passenger seat was a plastic bag from a convenience store carrying a beef bowl inside it, probably for a late-night meal.

A guy with eight luxury cars, buying a cheapo mini-mart beef bowl
,
Kanemoto marveled as he watched the younger man drive off. He felt like he was watching a hermit in person.

Yuuhei Hanejima was the agency’s diamond, a jewel that shone brighter the more it was polished. As such, Kanemoto was filled to his core by a desire not to see him damaged. Yuuhei himself might be indifferent to his own worth, but his sheer talent in every regard helped him fend for himself.

Kanemoto understood this, but he couldn’t deny the overwhelming pressure not to have that diamond tarnished while it was briefly in his care. He was sick with envy at his newly married coworker in more ways than one.

But to his great misfortune, that very jewel would be dragged into Ikebukuro’s holiday the very next day.