DURARARA DVD Vol.2 Shizuo Gaiden Part I.
March of a certain year, somewhere in Tokyo
"Over-thinking is worse than not thinking. Have you ever heard of that saying?"
"......"
The man standing next to the white-clad man gave no reply after he heard the question.
The man in white, however, continued to speak from behind his medical mask unbothered.
"Basically that says it's no good to think too much. But even so, I can't stop myself from over-thinking, because this might very well be the most important question in my life."
"......What is, Kishitani-sensei?"
The voice that just addressed him as "Kishitani-sensei" would bring to the listener's mind the image of a cold iron plate. The man in white smiled heartily and answered without even turning around.
"White Day, of course!"
"......"
His conversation partner fell silent again. The man in white - Kishitani Shinra - didn't seem to mind as he went on with both the handiwork and the dialogue with a visibly flushed face.
"Last month I just got a giri chocolate from the girl I have a crush on. Well, she insisted that it was giri but it was infinitely close to being a 'real' Valentine chocolate......a chocolate so 'real' and surrounded by such an erotic adult-only aura! Yet for the crucial White Day gift I'm still struggling to figure out what to give to her in return......"
"I see. I get what you're trying to say now."
The man with an expressionless face nodded robotically and looked at Shinra with cold eyes as he said:
"......Anyway, I hope you would be kind enough to concentrate on your job at hand for the time being."
The things his gaze was fixated upon were - red, and silver.
The tallish man who lay on the bed had a silver medical tool inserted in the raw red flesh on his arm.
He was somewhere between conscious and unconscious. His eyes were closed, but low groans could be heard escaping his throat every now and then.
"Ah, actually I was just trying out this new method to help the patient relax......yep."
Before he finished the sentence the man in white was already pulling his surgical tweezers out from the red flesh on that arm and bringing them over to the tray placed on the bedside table.
A lead-colored piece of metal fell from the tweezers and clanged against the tray despite being dipped in blood.
"Is that really the way you treat a bullet just taken out from the body?"
The man in white replied matter-of-factly as he heard the question.
"No idea. How about asking a real surgeon that question instead?"
"I see there's no way you'll ever become one."
"If I may remind you, it was you who entrusted me with this in the first place. If I were a real surgeon I wouldn't be operating on a patient in an office unless the circumstances absolutely demand it. Haha."
"Even among underground doctors you're the only one who would fuss about White Day when you're extracting a bullet."
As the sarcastic remarks from the expressionless man filled the air, the doctor in white stitched the wound in a fluid series of movements.
"That's because you can't afford making a wrong move on White Day any more than you can afford it when extracting a bullet. Haha. Must have been hell for him when he got shot. Would be pretty chill if he gave whoever shot him some marshmallow-soft strangling in return for this lead-colored chocolate."
The man who just got an operation was at last awake. Hearing Shinra making these remarks as if talking about the weather, he managed to say in-between his groans:
"Big Brother Shiki............can I beat this guy up now......?"
"Hold yourself back. His skills are unquestionable."
The man who had just been addressed as Shiki let out a sigh and said to his subordinate with a cold look in his eyes.
"And I get to go first when we do beat him up."
Somewhere in Ikebukuro
"You know what White Day is?
He's an iron man born in the land of snow.
He makes Antarctica into shaved ice, he makes the Arctic into Rerere-no-re!"
A van was driving along an Ikebukuro street.
As he heard this phrase from a certain commercial on the radio, Kadota Kyohei - the man sitting in the navigator's seat - frowned and repeated:
"......Rerere-no-......re......?"
"They probably just ran out of ideas after they used 'shaved ice'."
Came Togusa's answer from the driver seat. Kadota sighed as he said:
"Is this really the way you advertise for marshmallow candy?"
The commercial they just heard was apparently from a new confectionary company advertising for its White Day special product.
In the TV version there was a CG of a giant robot doing some ice-shaving with a broom - but the phrase alone left Kadota with no idea whatsoever of how the marshmallow might taste like. He simply tilted his head in confusion.
"Togusa, have you ever tried that marshmallow?"
"No......I'm not into sweet stuff. For Valentine's Day I only got chocolate from my older and younger sisters."
"I see......Yumasaki and Karisawa, have you ever tried that marshmallow before?"
Kadota asked the male and the female in the back seat as he looked into the back mirror.
Upon hearing his voice, Yumasaki Walker - the young man with slit eyes who could very well be half-white bent forward as he answered:
"Nah - , I don't think we've tried the one in that commercial a moment ago - . But that aside, Togusa-san, I'd like detailed information on your older and younger sisters - namely, whether they're in 2-D or 3-D."
"2-......what?"
Not exactly getting what Yumasaki was saying, Togusa shot him a look via the back mirror and asked.
But the one who answered was the female in the back seat.
"Wasn't he asking if the younger and older sisters are figments of Togucchi's imagination?"
The driver looked shocked for a second before roaring back after Karisawa Erika bent forward like her male companion and asked this question.
"Why do they have to be figments of my imagination!? If all I had to do was imagining things I'd far rather fantasize about that idol Hijiribe Ruri becoming my girlfriend and......ahhhh, I can't do it! I can't even begin to think what on earth I'm supposed to on a date with Hijiribe Ruri....... Ahhh! Whatever! You guys, buckle up! I said, buckle up!"
As they listened to Togusa's rants the two people in the back seat buckled up and exchanged conversations anyway.
"Actually I'm pretty fond of seat-belts. Makes you feel like you're the pilot of something."
"Ah, me too me too! Makes you feel like you're becoming one with the vehicle, doesn't it? You even get this feeling that the vehicle's gonna transform into a robot or something!"
"Don't you even think about transforming my beloved van into a robot!"
But the absurd conversation continued in the back seat despite protests from the driver's seat.
Kadota sighed heavily in the navigator's seat as commotion took over the entire van.
"White Day......I see."
His sighs were met by grinning faces from the two in the back seat.
"Whoa, the way you sighed calls for some serious explanation."
"What what what? Dotachin, you got any bittersweet memories for White Day?"
"It's nothing like that, you idiot. ......Well, it's something the old boys of Raijin High School - though it's Raira Academy now - around my time would definitely be reminded of on White Day......some have even half-seriously called that 'Bloody White Day', actually."
"Anyway. In short......it was about Shizuo and Izaya......"
♂♀
Some years ago, Raijin High School (later Raira Academy), Ikebukuro
"......The hell is this?"
It was the morning of March the 14th.
Regardless of gender, a considerable portion of the student body was looking thrilled for White Day. This young man, however, simply tilted his head like an owl and stared into his shoe box.
His name was Heiwajima Shizuo.
He was a freshman at Raijin High School, though he looked pretty mature.
He was later to become an Ikebukuro legend by the name of 'God of Destruction in a bartender suit' - but for now his reputation was limited to rumors circulated among high school students in the neighborhood depicting him as "a ridiculously strong fighter, Raijin High School's Shadow Boss".
But before one could talk about who the "Shadow Boss" was, Raijin High School did not have anyone who claimed to be the "Light Boss" to begin with. Not to mention Shizuo himself was not interested in being a gang leader or marking territories.
Nevertheless, this beckons the question of why he had come to be regarded as such -
"Hi there, Shizuo. Heard you kicked some more asses yesterday?"
With a sullen look, Shizuo turned to face the bespectacled boy who had just talked to him.
"You took them down with a soccer goal in Second Ground, didn't you?"
Anyone would have thought he said them as some sort of soccer-related metaphor; yet the words meant just literally what they meant. Kishitani Shinra - the bespectacled student - patted Shizuo on the shoulder as he let out light-hearted chuckles.
"And then the manager girl from the Soccer Club cried and said 'Goal posts are not bats! You shouldn't hit people with them!", am I right? Though I have to say that the manager was a pretty fearsome personality herself for saying stuff like that when students from other schools were lying half-dead around her."
"Then the manager of the Baseball Club yelled something like 'Bats aren't for hitting people either!" and somehow those two girls began to fight. I went straight home so I have no idea what happened afterwards."
"Well. I would have asked for details on that catfight......thought I should tell you though that the new rumors this morning have already called you the Sorcerer Under the Goal. The folks from other schools whose asses you kicked started them, I think.
"Like hell I should know."
Shizuo answered furiously, though his gaze never moved an inch from where his shoe box was.
"What's up, what's up? Did some sneaky fellow slip kid's slippers into your shoe box? Well, considering they have no other way to get to you and all, I would have expected that......"
Shinra took a look at Shizuo's shoe box as he said these words -
What he saw there was an envelope.
Pink-themed decorations lined the edges of the envelope, which was itself secured with a heart-shaped seal.
Realizing that the contents would most probably fall under the category named 'love letters', Shinra's eyes popped to the size of saucers as he let out a wail.
"Oh the f - !?"
"What is there to 'oh the f' about, idiot."
"Shizuo......I've seen people giving themselves chocolate on Valentine's Day, but it's the first time I've seen anyone slip himself a love letter in his own shoe bobobobobobobo - I'm sorry I'm sozkdsjfdoq - "
Shinra was sent a-flying with the iron claw biting firmly into his face.
Students were hurrying past them and staying as far apart from the famous bespectacled hentai and the violence incarnate as they could; the general idea was to just to have as little to do with them as possible. Neither Shizuo nor Shinra seemed to notice that the boys' footsteps were somehow stealthier than usual.
Shinra, after landing on the floor a couple of seconds later, checked to make sure that his face was still there before he resumed smiling and talking.
"Anyway. I'm guessing it's a prank by those sempais who don't seem to like you very much. Or some sort of punishment game among girls. Speaking of which, I thought slipping love letters in shoe boxes was out of fashion these days to begin w - "
As soon as Shinra opened his own shoe box, however, his speech came to a sudden halt.
"......Huh?"
In Shinra's shoe box there was an exact same envelope laced in pink like the one in Shizuo's had been.
As he opened it -
"I didn't get the chance to give you something very important on Valentine's Day. I want to exchange it for your cookies. I'll be waiting for you in Raijin High School's Second Ground at 5 p.m.."
- he saw something along these lines written in a round, feminine script along with sweet words of confession.
Shinra looked around and noticed something.
Around him, male students arriving at the school opened their shoe boxes, stared with popped eyes, and started behaving like some sort of criminal right afterwards.
Fully aware of the inappropriateness of his own behavior, Shinra opened several boys' shoe boxes and looked into them just to be sure.
Just as he expected, Shinra found envelopes laced in pink in all of them.
♂♀
Later the same day (before noon), in the Raijin High School library
"Ahh, that's a prank by the seniors."
With a refreshing smile on his face, Orihara Izaya - the male student with glossy black hair - opened his mouth to say.
Izaya was leaning onto the side of the window frame, his fingers playing with the string tie on the curtains.
"Wasn't there also this uproar when somebody slipped letters that said 'I want your chocolate' in every girl's shoe box last month on Valentine's Day?"
"Yeah there was. Someone sent those letters and signed them with that sophomore Shishizaki-sempai's name."
Shinra nodded. Izaya continued to smile and said in a histrionic tone:
"That's right. Love letters sent in the name of Shishizaki-sempai, the most sought-after individual at Raijin High School. About a fifth of the girls were tricked into skipping their morning classes and rushed to buy chocolate in the neighborhood......as for Shishizaki-sempai himself, he was home sick with influenza like he had been since several days ago."
"So you're saying the culprits were the same group of senior delinquents? I remember there being this massive bet on what percentage of the girls would actually come to wait for him at a certain designated spot after school."
"......Stupid."
The somewhat pissed-off voice came from Shizuo, who was leaning onto a window frame close by.
He was audibly gnashing his teeth, and veins could be seen popping on his temples.
Taking notice of how pissed off Shizuo already was, Shinra continued to ask Izaya questions.
"But the seniors have their day off today since tomorrow's their commencement. I doubt they'd come to school just to pull this prank on people. And wouldn't people realize it's them right away since they've used the same trick once?"
"They'd realize that only if they talked to other male students about this. But there are always fools out there who would keep this to themselves and feel all festive over this little letter they got in their shoe box without bothering to verify it by collecting information from others. It's a gamble, so even if no one comes the event could still stand on its own."
"......Stupid things stupid fools do......"
As the thunderclouds gathered further on Shizuo's face, Izaya cast him a look and smirked.
"Alas, alas, Shizu-chan, why are you looking so mad? Isn't it a good thing that I let you know it was a prank?"
Crack. Came the noise of something bring ground to smithereens.
Apparently the window frame Shizuo had been resting his hand upon was now flowing from his hand in the form of iron powder after he crushed it.
"......Stop calling me Shizu-chan."
"Oooh, I'm so scared. Still though, why are you fuming? Let me guess. Your heart can't possibly have soared with the thought that the spring of your life had come at last the moment you got the love letter, can it?"
"It never occurred to you that I'm mad......because I've had to listen to your voice for so long, did it, IZAYA-KUN......?"
"Oi oi, wasn't it you who came to me and asked if I knew anything about it? Shinra, you should remind him too. You could just have not come at all if you didn't want to see my face. Right?"
Izaya smiled hollowly as he turned his eyes to Shinra.
But Shinra tilted his head and said:
"No, actually......it was Izaya who came saying 'So you guys got love letters too?' when we were talking in this library. And then I remember you asking us if we knew anything about it."
"Really? Then my memories must have flown away in fear because Shizu-chan's face was too scary."
"......"
Izaya looked away as he pulled off his usual razzle-dazzle. Shizuo looked as if he could explode at any moment.
The number of students in the library had been declining steeply from the moment Izaya and Shizuo cast their eyes on each other. By now, save for Shinra, Izaya and Shizuo, everyone was gone except one male student standing in front of the shelves reading something with gusto.
"Anyway, you can't start fighting here. You must keep quiet in the library."
Shinra placed himself between the duo about to get into a fistfight with each other and patted their respective shoulders.
"Well, I for one will feel bothered if the library gets destroyed. How about we call it a day for now?"
The bespectacled young man said smiling as he dragged Shizuo by the hand towards the library entrance.
Shizuo still looked as if he was going to tear Izaya's throat to shreds with his teeth as Shinra dragged him out of the library. The only thing that had kept him from going berserk for so long was the common sense deeply ingrained in him since his childhood: when in the library, stay quiet.
When he did go berserk, however, even the most basic kind of common sense that said 'you shouldn't hit people with sign posts' would disappear altogether from his head.
Still leaning onto the window frame, Izaya watched the two of them leave as he called from behind with a smirk on his face.
"I think those seniors are waiting to watch how their prank would go from the warehouse on Second Ground!"
Silence reigned again in the library after Shizuo had left with Shinra.
But it was soon broken by a voice that addressed Izaya coming from between the shelves.
"Don't make too much of a rumpus in the library."
"Yah, Dotachin, didn't know you were here."
The male student who had just been called "Dotachin" looked around to make sure nobody was in the library except them before turning his gaze back onto the book in his hand and asking matter-of-factly:
"......So, what are you trying to do this time?"
"That hurts. You're making it look like I'm constantly trying to do something to others."
"It's not 'look like'. You are behind those things, aren't you? You were behind the trouble our sophomores got into recently with the 'Dragon Zombie' clan. And Shishizaki-sempai wasn't down with influenza. He got injured when fighting the head of the other gang one-on-one, didn't he?"
Izaya wiped his smile off his own face upon hearing this and asked with a challenging look in his eyes:
"You do sound very well-informed......have you got any proof that I've been behind those things?"
The student who had just been called "Dotachin", however, continued to say things in a matter-of-fact way without moving his gaze away from the book.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm not gonna denounce you as evil or anything. I don't give a damn what you do as long as you don't get me or the people around me into trouble."
"......"
Izaya fell silent for a moment before letting that smile creep over his face again and narrowing his eyes.
"Haha, if Shizu-chan is the Shadow Boss, you definitely are like the Light Boss."
"Not interested. It's true we don't have any senior who could take that title. Still, if anyone should be the Light Boss here it would be Shishizaki-sempai. Either way it has nothing to do with me."
"Here, here, don't talk like that. To express my gratitude for your apathy I'll tell you exactly what I'm trying to do today."
"Hmmm?"
Izaya continued to talk in his indifferent tone to "Dotachin", who never looked away from his book.
"Well, now that I think about it, I've already used those senior sempais on a quite a lot of occasions for different purposes. Looks like they're realizing it was me at last. I think they already have my name down in the list of people they'll pay friendly visits to after graduation."
" - That's why I chose to, um, cause them some confusion today."
TBC