Ikebukuro, in front of the Raira General Hospital
“Izaya……Orihara-san.”
Kazane had gone to visit Kadota after he had got into a car accident, but she happened to run into a man, whom had left a strong impact on her out of anyone she had met in the past, on the street in front of the hospital. He was Izaya Orihara. He was one of her brother’s few friends, and a close friend for a long time where they could be called inseparable, unlike the occasional moments he would talk with Kadota and his group.
What arose to Kazane’s mind were the memories of when she was still a middle schooler a few years ago.
A few years ago, on a pedestrian bridge in a certain place in the city.
“Well then, what should we talk about?”
A Raijin highschool student who wore a black school uniform said that with a gentle smile.
Even the middle schooler Kazane had heard about him from time to time.
She had heard that her unsociable brother had made a friend who was part of their biology club back in middle school. However, she had also heard rumors that he had hurt Shinra in a fight at the time. Nevertheless, they still had apparently continued associating with each other normally, so Kazane did not think it was that big of a deal. But considering the realism of the situation, how she approached it could be thought as careless.
And it was not like Kazane had reached out to him, unlike with Kadota. She had been called out to by the other when she was walking around the city.
“Hey, you’re Kazane Kinomiya-chan, right?”
“I heard from Kadota and his friends. You were asking them about Shinra, was that right?”
And just like that, she was taken to the top of the pedestrian bridge. Even so, she still felt that odd chill from earlier. The reason for the chilling sensation was a single trivial and unsettling detail.
Would Kadota-senpai talk about me to others so easily?
Kadota knew that Kazane’s circumstances were complicated. Kazane did not think he would not talk to others about her without asking first. Perhaps Kadota trusted this man Izaya Orihara to be reliable and tight-lipped and talked to him about her, but from what Kazane could tell this person did not give that kind of impression.
“Umm……Did you really hear about me from Kadota-san?”
And because of that, Kazane ended up asking him that question straightforwardly. Later on in life, she would have a job where she would have to ask questions without fear, but at this particular point in time she was no one more than a middle school girl.
After making a slightly surprised expression, the man who called himself Izaya Orihara replied to her with the edges of his mouth curling into a grin.
“Well, of course that’s a lie.”
“Eh……?”
“Dotachin is……Kadota-kun is not the type of person who’d mention other people’s business so carelessly.”
An alarm rang throughout Kazane’s whole body as Izaya confessed this readily before her. However, aware that the public eye was on them on top of the pedestrian bridge and that the man in front of her was her brother Shinra’s friend for certain, she managed to suppress the urge to run away.
“Then how did you know about me……?”
“Because I looked into you. Earlier you were talking with Shizu-chan……You were talking with that blond haired monster earlier, right?”
“You mean Heiwajima-san?”
“You don’t need to attach the ‘san’ suffix to his name.”
Izaya continued on with a stiff smile, leaning his back against the handrail of the pedestrian bridge.
“Well, whatever. Anyway, I was intrigued by you as you talked with that monster normally. I saw you hanging around here recently. I was quite certain you were looking for me…… I was overly self-conscious. Man, this is embarrassing. I thought my time for popularity had come.”
Izaya had expressed without a hint of timidity, but then his eyes narrowed and he stated.
“When I looked into you, I was surprised. Who would have expected you would be Shinra’s younger sister of a different father.”
“……!”
“Do you want to know how I figured it out? Who do you think gave me your personal information? A friend? A teacher? Or do you suppose it was one of the neighbors in the local area? Have you ever counted how many people know of your connection with Shinra Kishitani? Ahh, that’s right; maybe it was your parents.”
“P-please stop.”
It was no longer just a premonition. Kazane realized instinctually and rationally that the man in front of her was a ‘danger.’
“Ah, my bad. More importantly, how about we talk about Shinra? ……Shinra is that, you know. If I can be so blunt, he has no sense when it comes to choosing his friends. The fact that he’s friends with me is proof of that.”
“……”
“But there’s someone far more harmful to him by your brother’s side than me.”
The smile vanished from Izaya’s face, and he mentioned with narrowed eyes the name of one man.
“You know him too, right? That beast that goes by the human-like name Shizuo Heiwajima.”
“……Heiwajima-san is?”
“Come on now, don’t pretend like you don’t know, okay? You have to know what is said about that monster in the city, right?”
“Bu-but he’s a really nice person……”
Izaya interrupted her attempt in defending him in a slightly larger voice.
“If he truly was kind, is it alright for him to throw vending machines at people? Could you say the same thing if he hurts Shinra by swinging a telephone pole?”
“That’s……”
“Ahh, I don’t mean to intimidate you. I’m just saying there’s a possibility of it happening.”
Izaya rested both of his arms against the handrail while tipping his head up towards the sky, and asked with his gaze focused solely on her,
“……So, what do you think? Will you eliminate that barbarian together with me?”
“……Eliminate?”
Kazane was daunted at his proposition. She felt uneasy when the man wearing a school uniform had uttered the word ‘eliminate,’ which was said with a believable aspect to it than comical.
“It’d be easy. It’s something no one else than you can do, since your Shinra’s sister. You can get close to him as he is rampaging and pretend to get hurt. Shizu-chan is a coward when he sees something like that. Once he realizes he hurt a family member of his friend’s, I believe he’ll distance himself from Shinra on his own.”
“……Are you sane? There’s no way I could get behind that.”
“Do you really believe so? I told you just previously. Don’t you think it’ll be too late to do anything if your brother Shinra got hit by a telephone pole that monster swings?”
“That’s……”
Kazane was at a loss of words for a moment, but she resolved herself and stated while looking at him in the eye.
“I think my brother probably has known Heiwajima-san longer than I have. And even so, he has continued to stay with him, meaning he’s already prepared himself for that possibility.”
“Uh-huh. And what else?”
“The way I see it, you seem far more dangerous than Heiwajima-san. But if my brother says he’s friends with you, then I think my brother is seeing something in you that I can’t see. That’s why I don’t have any say on the matter. It’s the same for Heiwajima-san. From the beginning, I have no right to say anything on the friends my brother keeps.”
At that, Izaya made a slightly surprised expression and gazed at Kazane directly.
“……I’m shocked. That was something unexpected for a second year middle schooler to say. And to reply back with hardly no time in between. ……Actually, Shinra was already talking like a grown-up when he was in your grade too, so I suppose this would be a case where you two certainly seem like proper siblings……. Even though you two were raised in different environments. It’s intriguing.”
“You also don’t look like a high schooler.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. ……Still, this sucks.”
“? What is?”
“You should have been pressed to make a choice here.”
“A choice……?”
“Yeah, I thought you’d choose between us which is the suitable friend for your brother in your mind: Shizu-chan who is the accumulation of destruction or myself who is trying to use you and make you despise that monster. Naturally, the general common sense thing you’d want to do is to peel your brother away from both of us though……”
He paused for a brief moment, and after releasing a sigh mixed with a bitter smile he continued on.
“I never expected you to say that you’d acknowledge both of us as your brother’s friends as you were being pressed to make a choice.”
“……If I had chosen either of your assumptions, what would you have done then?”
“Nothing really, I guess? I would just respect your decision and give you my support within my capability. If you ended up saying I wasn’t fit to be his friend, then I may have cut off my ties with him.”
“Cut off you ties with him? You don’t have to……”
Not hearing it as a joke, Kazane had raised her voice, doubtful.
The corners of Izaya’s mouth curled up even more, and he happily and cheerfully strung together, “Ahh, what sort of expression do you think that Shinra would make in that moment? Since it’s him we’re talking about, he may say nothing more than an uninterested hum in acknowledgement. Or maybe he’d ignore my declaration of us splitting up and he’d still come up to me? Even I have a hard time reading him.”
“……”
If she had paid attention she would have heard the seriousness behind his words. As he spoke excitingly, he could feel her brother’s true self that she wanted to know of that he had weaved in there. Kazane was about to ask him to further expand on what he had to say with that premonition in mind. However –
“He’s really elusive you know. I never can read what he’d do next. Just like right now.”
“Eh?”
Kazane had tilted her head, confused as to what he had meant by that, when she heard another boy’s voice from behind her.
“Hey! Orihara-kun! What are you doing here?!”
“!”
After Kazane heard that voice and saw Izaya smirk, she realized that the person coming towards them from behind her was someone she knew well. In the next moment, she dashed off like a rabbit without looking back and quickly vanished from the pedestrian bridge.
“……? Who was that just now? Ah, did another girl confess to you again?”
Izaya made a wry smile, shrugging his shoulders at his friend’s comment when he appeared.
“It’s the opposite.”
“I made the confession, but I was turned down.”
Present time, in front of Raira General Hospital.
“Ahh, I see. So you came to visit Dotachin? That’s right; you were acquaintances.”
“……Did you also come to visit Kadota-san?”
Izaya answered honestly to Kazane who had asked him with weary eyes.
“No. I was hit in the head, so I came in for a quick checkup. Besides, it seems Dotachin isn’t seeing any visitors. If you can’t see the actual person, then it’s not a visitation or anything.”
“……So you have the notion to visit someone.”
“Ouch, that’s harsh. Is that the attitude you take with the friend of your brother you haven’t seen in a few years?”
“……So you’re still friends with him then?”
Izaya replied back almost provocatively when Kazane said that half-exasperated.
“On that note, I take it you haven’t yet talked with Shinra one on one then?”
“That’s……”
“You missed your greatest chance on the pedestrian bridge back then. No. You didn’t have the intention of meeting Shinra face-to-face in the first place, right?”
Izaya utilized his sharp words like a blade to mock Kazane.
“Aren’t you just drunk on yourself? Aren’t you just using the circumstance that you have a brother that lives away from you since childhood and conjured up the idea that you’re special compared to the other kids? Are you expecting that you’ll always have a place to escape to if the world becomes unpleasant and you’ll be born anew when you meet your brother?”
“……!”
“You don’t have any incentive to. Aren’t you just scared of meeting normally and become just an ordinary family? If that’s the case, then you’d have a fairly good life-”
Izaya abruptly cut off. After Kazane made a surprised expression for a moment, she then faced him with an enthusiastic smile, her face trembling in excitement.
“I get it……So that’s it!”
“……Wha-?”
“I finally got it after being told by someone! Why I hesitated to meet my brother until now! I see……It’s been on my mind recently! Thank you!”
“……I never expected I’d be thanked for that.”
Izaya said somewhat in disappointment, shrugging his shoulders. Yet Kazane shook her head, smiling.
“I knew it……I also had been just observing you and Heiwajima-san……Izaya-san, you really like to give incentive to people and provoke a ‘change’ in them!”
“And just as I thought you started talking like a completely different character out of nowhere…..What are you talking about all of the sudden?”
Izaya cocked his head in confusion, but Kazane stated back with a smile: words that saw through a part of Izaya’s true nature, in a sense.
“Orihara-san. Unlike Heiwajima-san, I think you could only set situations into motion……. You mentioned that you love human beings……. But what you truly love is the moment a person changes, right……? Yet because of that……I was saved! Thank you!”
Kazane spoke of Izaya’s true nature excitingly, giving her thanks as though she had realized her own as well.
“And so……you hate Heiwajima-san, whom can change himself on his own but you can’t force to change by your hand!”
“……”
Being told that suddenly, Izaya watched the change in her from a hesitant and weary girl to someone overjoyed as though she had solved a puzzle and gave a broad smile.
“Hahaha! Hahahahaha! This is a surprise! It’s been a while! That I’ve been the one observed! Ahh, I see, I see! You really are Shinra’s sister! You’ve shown me something truly intriguing, whether your analysis was right or not!”
After he laughed for a while, his eyes narrowed before continuing.
“I see, I get it; you’re quite something. You may be able to see many people objectively. I think that quality is suitable for a magazine writer, don’t you think?”
“You think so……? I’m happy to hear that!”
Izaya faced her with a devious smile and dropped a bomb of a revelation.
“The only one you can’t look at right in the eyes is your brother, Shinra.”
“?”
“You don’t know what state your brother Shinra Kishitani is in right now?”
“He was gravely injured to the point where he was in a coma like Dotachin.”
A few hours later, in the hospital lobby.
Kazane had finished with her visitation with Kadota safe and sound after that. Except Kadota was still refusing visitors, so she could only greet Kadota’s father in the waiting room. The moment she had heard Kadota’s life was out of danger, the subject of her concerns shifted to her brother’s situation.
My brother is gravely injured? What had happened……?
Although there was also the possibility that the informant was making up nonsense, she had not seen her brother walking around the city in a while. He never was someone to go out often to begin with, but since he wore a white coat that made him stand out in the city, Kazane had spotted him fairly regularly.
Just as she sat down in a lobby chair, pondering to herself, she noticed a woman came from the cafeteria and was looking at her.
“?”
Kazane tilted her head in confusion when the woman asked with an emotionless voice.
“Are you……Kazane Kinomiya-san?”
“Wh-why……How come you know my name?”
“It is simple. You are Shinra Kishitani-san’s half-sister, correct?”
Hearing that, Kazane’s eyes widened and she stood up from her chair.
“Um……Are you an acquaintance of my brother?”
“……I am unsure myself. I know of Shinra Kishitani, but he has no idea who I am.”
The woman gave an odd statement and after a silent pause she told Kazane her name.
Without either of them knowing that their encounter crafted by chance.
“I am……Kasane Kujiragi. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Ikebukuro, in front of the Raira General Hospital
“Izaya……Orihara-san.”
Kazane had gone to visit Kadota after he had got into a car accident, but she happened to run into a man, whom had left a strong impact on her out of anyone she had met in the past, on the street in front of the hospital. He was Izaya Orihara. He was one of her brother’s few friends, and a close friend for a long time where they could be called inseparable, unlike the occasional moments he would talk with Kadota and his group.
What arose to Kazane’s mind were the memories of when she was still a middle schooler a few years ago.
A few years ago, on a pedestrian bridge in a certain place in the city.
“Well then, what should we talk about?”
A Raijin highschool student who wore a black school uniform said that with a gentle smile.
Even the middle schooler Kazane had heard about him from time to time.
She had heard that her unsociable brother had made a friend who was part of their biology club back in middle school. However, she had also heard rumors that he had hurt Shinra in a fight at the time. Nevertheless, they still had apparently continued associating with each other normally, so Kazane did not think it was that big of a deal. But considering the realism of the situation, how she approached it could be thought as careless.
And it was not like Kazane had reached out to him, unlike with Kadota. She had been called out to by the other when she was walking around the city.
“Hey, you’re Kazane Kinomiya-chan, right?”
“I heard from Kadota and his friends. You were asking them about Shinra, was that right?”
And just like that, she was taken to the top of the pedestrian bridge. Even so, she still felt that odd chill from earlier. The reason for the chilling sensation was a single trivial and unsettling detail.
Would Kadota-senpai talk about me to others so easily?
Kadota knew that Kazane’s circumstances were complicated. Kazane did not think he would not talk to others about her without asking first. Perhaps Kadota trusted this man Izaya Orihara to be reliable and tight-lipped and talked to him about her, but from what Kazane could tell this person did not give that kind of impression.
“Umm……Did you really hear about me from Kadota-san?”
And because of that, Kazane ended up asking him that question straightforwardly. Later on in life, she would have a job where she would have to ask questions without fear, but at this particular point in time she was no one more than a middle school girl.
After making a slightly surprised expression, the man who called himself Izaya Orihara replied to her with the edges of his mouth curling into a grin.
“Well, of course that’s a lie.”
“Eh……?”
“Dotachin is……Kadota-kun is not the type of person who’d mention other people’s business so carelessly.”
An alarm rang throughout Kazane’s whole body as Izaya confessed this readily before her. However, aware that the public eye was on them on top of the pedestrian bridge and that the man in front of her was her brother Shinra’s friend for certain, she managed to suppress the urge to run away.
“Then how did you know about me……?”
“Because I looked into you. Earlier you were talking with Shizu-chan……You were talking with that blond haired monster earlier, right?”
“You mean Heiwajima-san?”
“You don’t need to attach the ‘san’ suffix to his name.”
Izaya continued on with a stiff smile, leaning his back against the handrail of the pedestrian bridge.
“Well, whatever. Anyway, I was intrigued by you as you talked with that monster normally. I saw you hanging around here recently. I was quite certain you were looking for me…… I was overly self-conscious. Man, this is embarrassing. I thought my time for popularity had come.”
Izaya had expressed without a hint of timidity, but then his eyes narrowed and he stated.
“When I looked into you, I was surprised. Who would have expected you would be Shinra’s younger sister of a different father.”
“……!”
“Do you want to know how I figured it out? Who do you think gave me your personal information? A friend? A teacher? Or do you suppose it was one of the neighbors in the local area? Have you ever counted how many people know of your connection with Shinra Kishitani? Ahh, that’s right; maybe it was your parents.”
“P-please stop.”
It was no longer just a premonition. Kazane realized instinctually and rationally that the man in front of her was a ‘danger.’
“Ah, my bad. More importantly, how about we talk about Shinra? ……Shinra is that, you know. If I can be so blunt, he has no sense when it comes to choosing his friends. The fact that he’s friends with me is proof of that.”
“……”
“But there’s someone far more harmful to him by your brother’s side than me.”
The smile vanished from Izaya’s face, and he mentioned with narrowed eyes the name of one man.
“You know him too, right? That beast that goes by the human-like name Shizuo Heiwajima.”
“……Heiwajima-san is?”
“Come on now, don’t pretend like you don’t know, okay? You have to know what is said about that monster in the city, right?”
“Bu-but he’s a really nice person……”
Izaya interrupted her attempt in defending him in a slightly larger voice.
“If he truly was kind, is it alright for him to throw vending machines at people? Could you say the same thing if he hurts Shinra by swinging a telephone pole?”
“That’s……”
“Ahh, I don’t mean to intimidate you. I’m just saying there’s a possibility of it happening.”
Izaya rested both of his arms against the handrail while tipping his head up towards the sky, and asked with his gaze focused solely on her,
“……So, what do you think? Will you eliminate that barbarian together with me?”
“……Eliminate?”
Kazane was daunted at his proposition. She felt uneasy when the man wearing a school uniform had uttered the word ‘eliminate,’ which was said with a believable aspect to it than comical.
“It’d be easy. It’s something no one else than you can do, since your Shinra’s sister. You can get close to him as he is rampaging and pretend to get hurt. Shizu-chan is a coward when he sees something like that. Once he realizes he hurt a family member of his friend’s, I believe he’ll distance himself from Shinra on his own.”
“……Are you sane? There’s no way I could get behind that.”
“Do you really believe so? I told you just previously. Don’t you think it’ll be too late to do anything if your brother Shinra got hit by a telephone pole that monster swings?”
“That’s……”
Kazane was at a loss of words for a moment, but she resolved herself and stated while looking at him in the eye.
“I think my brother probably has known Heiwajima-san longer than I have. And even so, he has continued to stay with him, meaning he’s already prepared himself for that possibility.”
“Uh-huh. And what else?”
“The way I see it, you seem far more dangerous than Heiwajima-san. But if my brother says he’s friends with you, then I think my brother is seeing something in you that I can’t see. That’s why I don’t have any say on the matter. It’s the same for Heiwajima-san. From the beginning, I have no right to say anything on the friends my brother keeps.”
At that, Izaya made a slightly surprised expression and gazed at Kazane directly.
“……I’m shocked. That was something unexpected for a second year middle schooler to say. And to reply back with hardly no time in between. ……Actually, Shinra was already talking like a grown-up when he was in your grade too, so I suppose this would be a case where you two certainly seem like proper siblings……. Even though you two were raised in different environments. It’s intriguing.”
“You also don’t look like a high schooler.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. ……Still, this sucks.”
“? What is?”
“You should have been pressed to make a choice here.”
“A choice……?”
“Yeah, I thought you’d choose between us which is the suitable friend for your brother in your mind: Shizu-chan who is the accumulation of destruction or myself who is trying to use you and make you despise that monster. Naturally, the general common sense thing you’d want to do is to peel your brother away from both of us though……”
He paused for a brief moment, and after releasing a sigh mixed with a bitter smile he continued on.
“I never expected you to say that you’d acknowledge both of us as your brother’s friends as you were being pressed to make a choice.”
“……If I had chosen either of your assumptions, what would you have done then?”
“Nothing really, I guess? I would just respect your decision and give you my support within my capability. If you ended up saying I wasn’t fit to be his friend, then I may have cut off my ties with him.”
“Cut off you ties with him? You don’t have to……”
Not hearing it as a joke, Kazane had raised her voice, doubtful.
The corners of Izaya’s mouth curled up even more, and he happily and cheerfully strung together, “Ahh, what sort of expression do you think that Shinra would make in that moment? Since it’s him we’re talking about, he may say nothing more than an uninterested hum in acknowledgement. Or maybe he’d ignore my declaration of us splitting up and he’d still come up to me? Even I have a hard time reading him.”
“……”
If she had paid attention she would have heard the seriousness behind his words. As he spoke excitingly, he could feel her brother’s true self that she wanted to know of that he had weaved in there. Kazane was about to ask him to further expand on what he had to say with that premonition in mind. However –
“He’s really elusive you know. I never can read what he’d do next. Just like right now.”
“Eh?”
Kazane had tilted her head, confused as to what he had meant by that, when she heard another boy’s voice from behind her.
“Hey! Orihara-kun! What are you doing here?!”
“!”
After Kazane heard that voice and saw Izaya smirk, she realized that the person coming towards them from behind her was someone she knew well. In the next moment, she dashed off like a rabbit without looking back and quickly vanished from the pedestrian bridge.
“……? Who was that just now? Ah, did another girl confess to you again?”
Izaya made a wry smile, shrugging his shoulders at his friend’s comment when he appeared.
“It’s the opposite.”
“I made the confession, but I was turned down.”
Present time, in front of Raira General Hospital.
“Ahh, I see. So you came to visit Dotachin? That’s right; you were acquaintances.”
“……Did you also come to visit Kadota-san?”
Izaya answered honestly to Kazane who had asked him with weary eyes.
“No. I was hit in the head, so I came in for a quick checkup. Besides, it seems Dotachin isn’t seeing any visitors. If you can’t see the actual person, then it’s not a visitation or anything.”
“……So you have the notion to visit someone.”
“Ouch, that’s harsh. Is that the attitude you take with the friend of your brother you haven’t seen in a few years?”
“……So you’re still friends with him then?”
Izaya replied back almost provocatively when Kazane said that half-exasperated.
“On that note, I take it you haven’t yet talked with Shinra one on one then?”
“That’s……”
“You missed your greatest chance on the pedestrian bridge back then. No. You didn’t have the intention of meeting Shinra face-to-face in the first place, right?”
Izaya utilized his sharp words like a blade to mock Kazane.
“Aren’t you just drunk on yourself? Aren’t you just using the circumstance that you have a brother that lives away from you since childhood and conjured up the idea that you’re special compared to the other kids? Are you expecting that you’ll always have a place to escape to if the world becomes unpleasant and you’ll be born anew when you meet your brother?”
“……!”
“You don’t have any incentive to. Aren’t you just scared of meeting normally and become just an ordinary family? If that’s the case, then you’d have a fairly good life-”
Izaya abruptly cut off. After Kazane made a surprised expression for a moment, she then faced him with an enthusiastic smile, her face trembling in excitement.
“I get it……So that’s it!”
“……Wha-?”
“I finally got it after being told by someone! Why I hesitated to meet my brother until now! I see……It’s been on my mind recently! Thank you!”
“……I never expected I’d be thanked for that.”
Izaya said somewhat in disappointment, shrugging his shoulders. Yet Kazane shook her head, smiling.
“I knew it……I also had been just observing you and Heiwajima-san……Izaya-san, you really like to give incentive to people and provoke a ‘change’ in them!”
“And just as I thought you started talking like a completely different character out of nowhere…..What are you talking about all of the sudden?”
Izaya cocked his head in confusion, but Kazane stated back with a smile: words that saw through a part of Izaya’s true nature, in a sense.
“Orihara-san. Unlike Heiwajima-san, I think you could only set situations into motion……. You mentioned that you love human beings……. But what you truly love is the moment a person changes, right……? Yet because of that……I was saved! Thank you!”
Kazane spoke of Izaya’s true nature excitingly, giving her thanks as though she had realized her own as well.
“And so……you hate Heiwajima-san, whom can change himself on his own but you can’t force to change by your hand!”
“……”
Being told that suddenly, Izaya watched the change in her from a hesitant and weary girl to someone overjoyed as though she had solved a puzzle and gave a broad smile.
“Hahaha! Hahahahaha! This is a surprise! It’s been a while! That I’ve been the one observed! Ahh, I see, I see! You really are Shinra’s sister! You’ve shown me something truly intriguing, whether your analysis was right or not!”
After he laughed for a while, his eyes narrowed before continuing.
“I see, I get it; you’re quite something. You may be able to see many people objectively. I think that quality is suitable for a magazine writer, don’t you think?”
“You think so……? I’m happy to hear that!”
Izaya faced her with a devious smile and dropped a bomb of a revelation.
“The only one you can’t look at right in the eyes is your brother, Shinra.”
“?”
“You don’t know what state your brother Shinra Kishitani is in right now?”
“He was gravely injured to the point where he was in a coma like Dotachin.”
A few hours later, in the hospital lobby.
Kazane had finished with her visitation with Kadota safe and sound after that. Except Kadota was still refusing visitors, so she could only greet Kadota’s father in the waiting room. The moment she had heard Kadota’s life was out of danger, the subject of her concerns shifted to her brother’s situation.
My brother is gravely injured? What had happened……?
Although there was also the possibility that the informant was making up nonsense, she had not seen her brother walking around the city in a while. He never was someone to go out often to begin with, but since he wore a white coat that made him stand out in the city, Kazane had spotted him fairly regularly.
Just as she sat down in a lobby chair, pondering to herself, she noticed a woman came from the cafeteria and was looking at her.
“?”
Kazane tilted her head in confusion when the woman asked with an emotionless voice.
“Are you……Kazane Kinomiya-san?”
“Wh-why……How come you know my name?”
“It is simple. You are Shinra Kishitani-san’s half-sister, correct?”
Hearing that, Kazane’s eyes widened and she stood up from her chair.
“Um……Are you an acquaintance of my brother?”
“……I am unsure myself. I know of Shinra Kishitani, but he has no idea who I am.”
The woman gave an odd statement and after a silent pause she told Kazane her name.
Without either of them knowing that their encounter crafted by chance.
“I am……Kasane Kujiragi. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
