Durarara!!, Vol. 1 (novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

named Izaya Orihara. He’s bad news—you don’t ever want to mess with him. He’s from Shinjuku, though, so you’ll probably never see him.”
    “Izaya Orihara…what a weird name.”
    “Coming from you?” Masaomi laughed.
    He couldn’t deny that one. Mikado Ryuugamine was an extremely overwrought name meaning “Emperor of the Peak of Dragons.” In the past the family name had been a prestigious one, but his parents were plain old office workers. He didn’t know much about the family finances, but if they were sitting on some sizable inheritance, they probably wouldn’t have raised a fuss about his private school plans.
    His given name was the part meaning “emperor” and was supposedto speak of a grand future, but the other kids in elementary school just made fun of him. People got used to it, though, and it never developed into full-blown bullying.
    But unlike his school back home, where each grade only had one class with the same people in it, he was about to join a group of complete strangers in a totally new location. Would they see him as a man worthy of his name?
    Probably not
, Mikado thought.
    Masaomi sensed his apprehension and tried to cheer him up.
    “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s a little fancy, but it’s not a bad name. As long as you act like you own the place, no one can complain that your name doesn’t suit you.”
    “…Yeah. Thanks,” Mikado replied. The light turned green.
    “Oh, speaking of guys you shouldn’t mess with…you should steer clear of the Dollars.”
    “…Dollars.”
    “Yep. Not the Wanderers, the Dollars.”
    “Umm…whatever you say. So what kind of gang are they?” Mikado pressed, now driving the conversation rather than listening passively.
    “I don’t really know much about ’em. All I know is there’s a lot of them, they’ve all got a screw loose, and they’re supposed to be a gang. I don’t know what color they rep, though. Then again, like I said, they’re cracking down on the color gangs, so they might have broken up already for all I know.”
    “Oh, I see…”
    An awkward silence settled between them. They walked across the intersection toward a sharply angled building across the street. There was a stylish automobile displayed inside the ground floor, which melded pleasingly with the striking design of the building itself.
    Mikado was gazing at the building and its car, lost in thought, when he heard a strange voice.
    The moment he heard it, Mikado thought it was like an animal roaring. But upon more careful consideration, it came from the middle of the street, far down the road. The next time it sounded, Mikado identified it as an engine. It still sounded like the growl of an animal, but given that it was coming from the street, it had to be the exhaust pipe of a car or motorcycle.
    Mikado stopped in his tracks to watch the disturbance, but Masaomi simply watched calmly.
    “You’re lucky, Mikado.”
    “Huh?”
    “You get an up-close-and-personal look at an urban legend on your very first day in the big city.” Masaomi’s face was expressionless, but there was a glint of hope and excitement in his eyes.
    Speaking of which…
    Mikado recalled other times that Masaomi’s eyes had reflected that light. When he spotted a plane flying over the school in the middle of class. When he found a tanuki wandering onto the school grounds. Little occasions when the out of ordinary intruded upon the typical day.
    He was unsure of how to get Masaomi’s attention, when—
    The
being
appeared before them.
    A shadow in the shape of a person riding a pitch-black bike without a headlight.
    It wove through the traffic—and passed by the boys without a sound.
    “?!”
    After several seconds, the engine roared again. But the next moment, it was once again silent, the only sound the faint screeching of tires on asphalt. It was so quiet that the engine had to be off entirely, but the motorcycle kept running without losing speed—it almost seemed to be