Disclaimer: This story is a fan-fiction based on 'Durarara!' by Narita Ryogo.
Good reading!
Chapter 4. Afterlife
"Rei! Rei!" Ichi shouted at the limp body in front of him.
The performance was stopped abruptly after the vocalist of Despair suddenly fell on the stage.
Showing no sign of movement, Ichi picked her up. "Shit! Guys, I am leaving to the hospital! It will be much faster to use my motorbike, you guys can catch up later."
He ran towards the exit of the abandoned basement and put her on the bike. Behind, Toshio caught up to him.
"Use this." He said as he circled a rope around Rei and Ichi's bodies and tied it.
A day after the incident
"Anyway, let us talk about the kind of stuff you guys want to do before you die." Izaya asked the morbid question to two women in a karoke box.
The two women in front him merely shook their heads in response to his question.
"I see. But, do you really want to die with someone like me? Are not there loads of other great guys who could do it with you?"
"There are not any. That is why we want to die. Humans are disgusting and life is cruel. We have enough of it..." The first woman said with anger in her voice.
"Yeah." The other woman nodded.
Silently, Izaya studied the two women. They obviously looked depressed and anyone could guess that they were suicidal. Regardless, the reason for them being here was in fact a response to the invitation "Let's Die Together" Izaya had posted on a suicide pact website. The messages were clear and to the point, and explained in great detail, with various methods of suicide and he gave a tremendous words of encouragement to kill themselves. There were even some which were written very formally, like official documents for some renowned enterprise.
The two adult women before him had chosen to die. One because she could not find a job and then blamed the society for that, and the other was simply because she had not been able to recover from the blow of a failed relationship, and both were despairing as such.
Meeting with people who wanted to kill themselves - he had already done it over twenty times. During the earlier meetings, Izaya noticed that many of them did not have much in common, with attitude towards death varied widely. But for around a month or so, the trend was changing. There were more people who clearly wanted to die. They claimed that they received some kind of enlightenment after attending a gig held by Despair, an underground band with rising popularity among teenagers and young adults.
Before the appearance of that said band, none of the people Izaya met had ever really committed suicide in the end. It was truly disappointing. But now, people started to really kill themselves and it made his blood boiling with excitement.
What were they thinking when they decided to die? Was there really no other way? Or perhaps, who did they want to die for? When people decided to die, just what kind of deep despair did they have in their hearts? Orihara Izaya loved humans more than anything else, and thus wanted rather badly to know the answers. But he had not met up with them for the reason of wanting to talk them out of committing suicide.
"So, what are you going to do after you die?" He asked breezily.
"Uh you mean like after going to heaven?" One of the women said dumbly.
She has already decided to kill herself and yet still wants to go to heaven. How bold can she get? But of course, it is things like this that make humans all the more interesting.
"Does Nakura-san believe in the afterlife?" She asked.
Nakura was the fake alias Izaya had randomly come up for himself. He smiled and shook his head and returned the question instead. "Do you two believe in the afterlife?"
"I do. But instead of an afterworld, I think people become wandering ghosts in this world."
"I do not. Death is an expanse of nothingness, just a piece of darkness... but that is much better than this."
Ah how disappointing. This is really disappointing. A total waste of time. They are only junior high standard. The atheists last time were much more interesting. These two only care about themselves.
"Thinking about the afterlife is a right reserved for only the living. But, if this conclusion is something you thought about endlessly and considered thoroughly, then I have nothing to say. But, being forced into the abyss of despair, like getting your life savings scammed by some Lombard, people who have been forced into their hopeless situations by external factors, only then do they have this right."
Izaya went on smiling and lightly said. "But for you, you gave yourselves these problems right? You have already decided to walk the path of hopelessness and you still place your hopes on an afterlife. I do not think that is a good thing to do."
"Um... does Nakura-san... want to die?"
"No." He answered impassively.
After a moment of silence, they started throwing tantrum at him.
"That is too much! How could you lie to us!"
"I think you have gone too far!"
But even as he saw their reactions, Izaya remained unmoved and as seconds passed, the cheerful expression he wore before had completely vanished, and replaced with an entirely different kind of smile.
His expression was stiff as a mask, with smile as cold as an ice. There was this unspeakable terror behind it and it made the two women frozen. It was like some kind of inhuman creature was standing before them.
"What do you mean that I have gone too far? I do not get it." He asked while maintaining that terrible smile.
"Did not you want to die? So what does it matter what I tell you? Even if you were lied to or scolded... you will be disappearing in a while anyway. So if you are anguished because I lied to you, then why do not you just bite your tongue off? Did you know by biting your tongue off to commit suicide, you will not die because of blood loss, but because of a momentary shock that causes the remaining part of your tongue to compress the trachea and thus results in suffocation. That way, all the things you find unpleasant will be gone. You would not exist anymore. It is that simple, and you say I have gone too far. I think it is you who have gone too far."
Izaya's smile was getting more and more hideous.
"You said death was just a big piece of nothingness right? But that is not true at all. Death is actually just disappearing. You trouble will not disappear, just your existence."
Izaya then closed his eyes. When he opened them, his smile had become gentle and relaxing, completely different from his malicious grin before.
"Anyway, I hate wastage. So, could I trouble you to borrow as much money as you can, give it to me, and then die? Because those insurance reviews are really troublesome, and probably are not going to get through, it will be easier if you just loan money. So when you die, at least the money you borrowed will not go to waste. If I sell your registrar and your bodies, I will be able to rake in a good place. Besides, I have some connections which specialise in this sort of thing."
The women made to say something, but Izaya was louder.
"Let me test you. Question one. Why am I sitting nearest to the door?"
As realization hit them, they experienced a totally different kind of fear just now. He was seated in such a way that seemed like he was deliberately blocking the door.
"Question two. What are these wheeled suitcases under the table is going to be used for?"
Only when Izaya mentioned it did the two women realize that there were two large suitcases under the table, placed opposite to their seats.
"First hint. The suitcases are empty."
Trepidation rose inside the two women at the same time.
"Second hint. These two suitcases were chosen because they match your size."
A nauseating sensation permeated them, and it came from their strong revulsion of the man in front of them. Yet there was something else that made the world before them start to spin.
"What is this..." One of them weakly said. Both women suddenly had no strength to stand up.
"Question three. If you two come at me at the same time, you might be able to beat me, so why do not you? Hint. I handed you your drinks when they came earlier."
The world would not stop spinning. In their blurry consciousness, they heard Izaya's voice float past their years. His tender voice was like a lullaby and sucked them into the darkness.
"It is love! You do not have any love for death. You have to embrace death with love. And you have too little respect for nothingness. If it is like this, how could I willingly die with you?"
"I will never... forgive you! I will... kill... you!" One of the women said with her last strength, glaring venomously at Izaya.
"Excellent! If you have the strength to hate then you can live. I am awesome. I saved your life. You have to thank me properly okay?" He responded with a grin.
After the two had lost consciousness, Izaya muttered to himself.
"Ah, but I do not like being hated by humans. I think I will just kill you."
Author's Note:
1. The meeting between Izaya and the two women was a crucial event in Durarara!, thus I put it in this story. It was taken from chapter five titled 'Everyday in the City' in the first volume of Durarara!
2. I think I will closely follow the story in the novel since it has more depth and events that I can tweak freely than the anime.
