Ordinary A: Rendezvous Bolero

May 5, morning, Shinjuku

“…So, he never came back,” the woman muttered as she watched the pot bubble away.

Through the rippling air above the pot, her hair shone, long and black.

Namie Yagiri stood in an apartment bordering Shinjuku’s central park, thinking about the absent owner of the residence…

But the moment only lasted a few seconds.

“This stew turned out better than I expected. If he’s not going to come back, I should take it to Seiji instead.”

She tasted the broth of the dish. Namie’s harsh expression softened and reddened a bit as she thought of herself and her lover Seiji hunched over the hot pot.

If judged solely on appearances, she would seem to be a woman with a childish side for her age.

But that was only if you didn’t know the truth: that she was thinking about her brother.

—And that she wasn’t thinking of familial love, but the carnal, lusty type instead.

Namie turned off the stove and reached for the TV remote.

She sat down on the sofa with graceful ease, stretching her legs and inadvertently exuding feminine beauty into the otherwise empty room.

On the TV, the morning news programs were just starting up.

What’s with this? The TV in here is way nicer than the one in his other apartment.

She proceeded to glare lazily around the interior of the room. While she might have been acting like she owned the place, as a matter of fact, she’d only been there for fifty hours.

Ordinarily, she worked as an assistant to an info broker, out of an apartment located in a different building in Shinjuku. Now that office was empty, though, due to present circumstances.

The info broker took out this apartment as a refuge in case a certain man who wore a bartending outfit came after him—and now he was even hiding from Namie, apparently.

He was supposed to contact her at night, and even that hadn’t happened.

“He can be surprisingly sloppy about certain things. Perhaps that bartender boy caught him and beat him to death,” she muttered as she flipped through the channels. She stopped when it landed on a horoscope segment that she usually watched. Her expression went lustful as she imagined her brother’s face.

The next instant, a familiar name came over the TV speakers.

“A citizen from Tokyo named Izaya Orihara was traveling alone when he suddenly collapsed, bleeding from his abdomen…”

—?!

An abrupt shock to her senses from an unexpected source.

Izaya…Orihara?!

Did she mishear, or was it a different person by the same name?

Her mind suddenly engaged and active, Namie listened closely to the newscaster.

“…the street of a shopping area near the train station. Witnesses claim they saw Mr. Orihara fall to the ground, bleeding. The victim is currently receiving treatment at a local hospital, where police say he had lacerations matching those of stab wounds. They believe it was a random attack by a passerby. As Mr. Orihara recovers, we will wait for more detailed information…”

“Whoaaa…”

The chyron on the screen said, “Injured: Izaya Orihara.” There was no photo to identify him, but it seemed pretty certain that the news report was about the very man whom she worked for. Even the kanji for his name were the same, and it was a strange enough name that all doubt was removed.

Still, the knowledge that her boss’s name was all over the news didn’t provoke any reaction other than pale cheeks.

He got stabbed.

She changed the channel. The other networks were all discussing some celebrity’s love life or airing morning anime, so it didn’t seem like a major national story.

Well, if they take it as just some squabble between thugs, it wouldn’t be treated like a huge deal… And I guess that’s not far off the truth.

Izaya had plenty of personal baggage. Namie was well aware of that after working for him all this time.

She wasn’t particularly inclined to get involved in his personal business, but her employer getting into trouble wasn’t a desirable outcome, either, so she tried to keep herself aware of information that might end up affecting her.

Still, there were so many possible attackers she could think of, the fact that he was stabbed didn’t seem all that notable.

“…”

Namie’s number was placed in his cell phone as a “pizza place,” so she wasn’t worried about the police calling her out of the blue based on that. Would they even bother to track down the individual numbers unless it turned into a murder case? Or did the police regularly go to those lengths for aggravated assault?

Oh… Does this mean really bad news for him?

Namie spontaneously wondered if what was a simple assault today might escalate into a murder attempt within the next few days. Now that the incident was news, and he was reported as being taken to a nearby hospital—what if that boy dressed as a bartender saw the report? What if some other person in an antagonistic position saw it?

Realizing that her employer’s life might be in grave danger, Namie murmured…

“Well, in any case…I suppose I’m off work for the next few days.”

She stood up, apparently satisfied with just that knowledge and nothing else.

Namie shut off the gas and put a lid on the pot that was still more than half full, her boss’s face already banished to the realm of the subconscious.

In fact, it might not even have been in the subconscious—everything, including any concern for his life or death, might as well have vanished from her brain entirely.

“Seiji…”

She looked out the window blissfully.

…As if she saw her beloved little brother somewhere in the night skyline.

May 6, midday, Ikebukuro, in front of an apartment building

There was a kind of shadowed, downcast beauty to the girl’s face.

Her black hair shone in the sun, and her features had a whiff of foreignness to them. Not in the sense of being from a country overseas, but of something inhuman, like a painting.

Strangest of all was a large scar that ran around her neck. It looked like a surgical scar, as if to suggest that her head had once been severed and reattached.

When one stood next to her, the sight was jarring enough to make one wonder if this was some fantasy realm, rather than the real world. No doubt there were some people who had been enraptured by her upon their first viewing. However…

“Morning, Seiji!”

The bubbly, excited voice that escaped from her lips totally undid any effect her appearance created. It was the voice of someone without any troubles whatsoever, someone who believed that the entire world was in her corner.

Answering her call from the entrance of the apartment building, smiling briefly, was a young man. “Morning, Mika.”

Seiji was dressed in his own clothes, not a school uniform, but one look at his face was enough to identify him as a high school student.

As for Mika, she looked young but often gave off an older appearance due to her otherworldly features. As long as she avoided speaking, that is.

“Where are we off to today? I’ll go anywhere if it’s with you!”

Innocent words. Childish voice.

It was the kind of silly, bubbly thing that people said when they just started going out, but as a matter of fact, Mika and Seiji had been a couple for over a year at this point. When they first met, she would speak to him in polite forms of speech, but at Seiji’s request, she now took a closer, more natural tone of voice that was appropriate for their intimacy.

There was love, hope, and the rock-solid conviction of their relationship in her eyes. She looked as though she had just met the man of her dreams minutes ago.

By contrast, he was totally calm and collected and easily shrugged off her passionate gaze.

“Let’s see… Wanna go catch a movie or something?”

Seiji gave her a weak grin and placed his hand on her shoulder.

May 5, midday, café

The café located in the basement of the major electronics wholesale store exuded elegance. It often found itself host to meetings after work or lengthy, relaxed visits from friends and lovers.

A corner of the stately café buzzed with the excited voices of teenage girls.

“And as soon as he put his hand on her shoulder, Miss Harima just grabbed onto his and squeezed! And he said, ‘Hey, it’s hard to walk like this,’ but his face sure wasn’t complaining! It’s incredible how they never get tired of each other.”

“…Heat…” [They’re so in love.] The gloomy-looking girl spoke to her glasses-wearing partner, who was all amped up. Aside from the difference in attitude, hairstyle, and the glasses, they looked completely identical.

Sitting across from the twins and listening intently was Namie, dressed in a business skirt suit.

“…”

She was silent as the twins described the events as excitedly as if they were their own personal experiences. Overwhelmingly silent.

“…Miss Namie?” asked the girl with the glasses, noticing something strange in her attitude.

There was nothing adding up to an expression on Namie’s face. But her eyes were full of enough freezing force to stop anyone else in their tracks—enough to cause a trickle of sweat down the bubbly girl’s back at least.

“What’s the matter, Miss Namie?”

“Nothing. Please continue, Kururi Orihara and Mairu Orihara.”

“Um…when you use our full names like that, it sounds a bit…intimidating.”

“…Danger…” [I’m scared.]

The girls tensed and crept toward each other, sensing something swirling within the woman sitting across from them. The twin with the glasses—Mairu—decided to dispel the cold touch of fear by putting on a formal smile and continuing her report.

“After that, they went to the Metropolitan movie theater, where they’re watching Vampire Ninja Carmilla Saizou’s Beginning now! Or perhaps it’s over already?”

“…A bit…” [Ten minutes left.]

“Ah,” Namie murmured, lifting her coffee to her lips. “Thank you for all your observations and reports. Here is a token of my appreciation.”

She slid a card over the table without emotion. It was a bank cash card.

“That shouldn’t leave any traces behind, but I can’t guarantee it’s one hundred percent safe, so I recommend that you withdraw the entire balance and destroy it. The pin number is zero one six four. You’ll find three hundred thousand yen, as we agreed upon.”

“I’ve meant to ask,” Mairu piped up apologetically, “do you really mean to give us all that money?”

“Of course. Why? Do you have some suspicions?” Namie replied, baffled at the idea. Even the questioning tilt of her head was captiviating—but the cold nature of her face froze the spines of anyone who saw it.

“It just seems like a lot of money for watching what your brother does and telling you…”

“That is silly. For one thing, understanding more about Seiji is so valuable that it cannot be measured in currency. I merely arrived at the sum by calculating the amount of time that you watched him and converting what Izaya Orihara paid me during that period. It is not worth your concern.”

The sisters leaned in and whispered to one another.

“Sounds like Iza is paying Miss Namie a hefty hourly wage.”

“…Test…struggles…” [Maybe since it’s his first time hiring someone, he didn’t know a reasonable rate.]

Namie was close enough to hear what they said, but she gave no reaction whatsoever. She merely said, “I happen to think that I offer value greater than what he pays me. Watching over your capricious family is far tougher work than I ever imagined.”

They replied, “Oh, you mean that someone stabbed him?”

She paused and then, seeming to realize something, asked the twins, “Have you…heard about what happened to Izaya?”

“…Station…morning…heard…” [The police called this morning to tell us.]

“Mom and Dad are both overseas for work, so the fuzz came to us first. I told them, ‘He can rub some spit in the wound and be back on his feet in no time!’ Then the lady on the phone yelled at me for talking about my own family like that.”

Kururi admonished, “…Annoyance…” [Of course she did.]

But there was no pain or worry in her face about the fact that their brother was stabbed. Perhaps he really didn’t mean that much to them.

For her part, Namie wasn’t interested in her employer’s family bonds, so she immediately switched topics. “Well, there’s one thing I’d like to confirm about what you just reported.”

“What’s that? Just to clarify, my report contains subjective opinions, but no embellishment!” Mairu stated.

“What does Seiji…normally call her?”

“Huh?”

The twins looked at each other, not understanding the question. So Mairu gave her an off-the-cuff answer.

Without thinking, unfortunately.

“Umm, normally, he just refers to her as Mika. Usually, Miss Harima talks all polite with other people, in a way that gets kind of weird, but lately, she’s been way more frank and blunt when she talks to him. According to another upperclassman we asked, they just started doing that as a mark of celebration for reaching a year together, so—” Mairu blabbed, until she was cut off by a strange sound.

Krakl.

With a dry crunch, the coffee cup fell from Namie’s hand. It bounced off her knees and fell to the ground. Fortunately, she had finished the liquid, so nothing splashed out onto her clothes or the floor. But Kururi and Mairu were more focused on her hand.

Within her fingers was the snapped-off handle of the cup.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am! Are you all right?” stammered an employee, who rushed over at once. He assumed that something was faulty with the cup and that it had shattered on its own.

“…I’m fine. Nothing to worry about,” Namie said, still cold. She gave the apologizing man the broken piece and sent him away, then lifted her cup of water.

Again, it was an elegant action, but Kururi and Mairu didn’t fail to notice one crucial detail.

There were no cracks in the cup. She had broken off the ceramic handle with nothing but the strength of her fingers.

“Um, Miss Namie?”

“…Mystery…?” [What is it?]

The girls thought they sensed the cloudy presence of hatred in the air before them, and they pulled away slightly.