Durarara!!, Vol. 1 (novel) by Ryohgo Narita

that.”
    One of the women summoned the last of her strength to glare at Izaya.
    “You’ll never…get away with this! I’m going…to kill you…!”
    Izaya looked happier than ever at this threat. He stroked her cheek tenderly.
    “Good, very good. You can survive solely on that drive to hate. Pretty awesome, aren’t I? I just saved your life. You owe me one.”
    Once they were both completely unconscious, Izaya put a hand to his temple and thought it over.
    “Oh, wait. I’m not really into the idea of having a grudge hanging over my head. Maybe I should just go ahead and kill you anyway.”

    Just before the clock struck midnight and changed the date, two shadows lurked in a corner of South Ikebukuro Park. One of them was Izaya Orihara—the other was an actual shadow.
    “
So you just want to sit them on a park bench and leave?
” Celty typed into her electronic notepad—a PDA with a tiny keyboard.
    Izaya read the message and cheerfully confirmed. He grinned and continued counting the stack of bills. “Normally I’d drag them to a loan shark and leech some money out of them, but I’m tired of all that.”
    “Tired? You?”
    He’d hired Celty to help him transport two human beings. When she stepped into the karaoke box lobby, helmet still on, the employee simply pointed toward Izaya’s room. On the other side of the door, Izaya was stuffing two unconscious women into suitcases. Before she could even type a pithy remark, he grinned and asked for help.
    They’d hoisted their cargo all the way to the park, but Celty still didn’t know anything about what had happened.
    “I’m tired of it, and it’s not a very efficient way of getting rich. The more it goes on, the more the police and mobsters will start looking into my activities. And this is only a hobby for me, not a job. Oh, thanks for helping on short notice. The professionals I usually ask were all busy. Usually I’d get a car to take them back to their parents, but with your motorcycle this is probably the best we can do.”
    Anyone who would take on this kind of job was probably not the good kind of “professional.” Celty was not exactly pleased to be considered one of them, but she was used to it by now.
    At least it ended quickly. It wasn’t one of the jobs with a bad aftertaste. But not a good one, either.
    “Is this going to involve the police? I don’t want to get dragged into something.”
    “Nothing you need to worry about. They’re not bodies or anything. You just helped me escort two drunk women to a park bench, nothing more.”
    “Inside suitcases?”
    Izaya ignored her jab, looking over the helmeted biker with great curiosity. Then he asked, “Hey, courier. Do you believe in an afterlife?”
    “What’s this all about?”
    “Just humor me. Consider it part of the contract.”
    “You’ll find out when you die,”
Celty typed irritatedly into her PDA, then added,
“How about you?”
    “I don’t. So to be perfectly honest, I’m afraid of death. I want to live as long as I can.”
    “And yet you drug women for a hobby and sell information for a living?”
    Izaya chuckled shyly. If that expression was the only thing to go on, he’d never be mistaken for someone fully immersed in the criminal underworld from head to toe.
    “Hey, once you’re dead, you’re gone for good. It’s a waste of your life if you don’t enjoy it, right?”
    Celty typed, “
You make me sick
,” into her PDA but deleted it before Izaya could see.
    Izaya Orihara was an ordinary human being.
    He did not wield extraordinary violence to evil ends and neither was he the kind of cold-minded killer who ended human life without compunction.
    It was simply that he possessed both the greedy desire of a normal human being and the personal momentum to violate taboos if they stood in his way at the same time. He was not some charismatic mad villain, he just lived true to his interests. Because of that relentless pursuit of his “hobbies,” he’d found a way