Ikebukuro—in the past
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A ship rocked on the waves as it made its long voyage to Japan.
When he wandered into the dark, afraid, the boy encountered “her.”
But his fear eventually turned to trust—and trust into love.
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Then he mustered his everything to protect that love and asked a question.
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“Hey, Celty, when you find your head, will you be going back home?”
Shinra was only six years old. Celty responded to him by writing on a piece of paper.
“That’s right.”
“I want to go with you.”
“…? That’s nonsense.”
“Then I don’t want you to go,” Shinra whined.
Put off by this, Celty scrawled, “I am not your toy.”
“I know. I don’t care if I never see my toys again.”
“Apologize to the toy makers.”
“I’m sorry,” little Shinra said dutifully, bowing to some unseen, imaginary toy factory.
Celty noted to herself that this must simply be how children acted. She wrote, “Why do you want to be with me?”
“…Because we’re family,” Shinra said. That made sense to her.
The boy hadn’t had a mother around. Perhaps he felt some kind of motherly nurture from her presence. But if she was his example of what constituted “motherly,” he was likely to grow up warped somehow.
“Listen to me, Shinra. I’m not human. I can’t be your family.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” she repeated, then paused her writing.
“I can talk with you like this, Celty. We live in the same place. Or do you think we can’t be in the same family because you’re not rejistered in the household sertifikit or the sensus?”
“Those are some very big words, you know.”
Celty thought it over and answered him very carefully.
“I am too different from human beings. If you live with me long enough, you will dislike me.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“It’s true,” she said, trying to distance herself from him.
Shinra fidgeted. “Then…if I don’t get tired of you, will you promise to stay here?”
“If that’s true, I’ll consider it.”
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She wasn’t entirely accustomed to human society yet, but over the last two years, Celty had learned much from news, television shows, manga, and other channels of contemporary Japanese culture.
She recalled a news segment where they’d said, “Unlike pairings of childhood friends in fiction, they rarely go on to a romantic relationship in real life.” She assumed that Shinra was simply being a child and would grow out of it.
If he sees my face every day, he’ll get tired of me eventually. Or…sees everything but my face, I suppose.
She added the last part as a self-effacing joke, but as a matter of fact, it was a crucial piece of information.
He couldn’t see her face, hear her voice, or read her expressions. And perhaps it was this fact of life that helped Shinra hold tight to his affection for her over all those years, without growing tired of her.
To Shinra, Celty Sturluson was like a blank canvas. Bit by tiny bit, he learned what expressions she made and what elicited her happy smile, and he sketched it out onto that canvas.
After about ten years had passed, Celty had a firm image within Shinra. It was the result of seeking out her true face, not of pushing his own hopes and ideals onto her.
And perhaps that was why he was still madly in love with her now.
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No matter what obstacles might exist between the two of them.
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Ikebukuro—alleyway
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On a street heading toward Sunshine City from the opposite side as the shopping district, a man and woman ran into each other.
But it was not by any means a coincidence.
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“…I’m surprised. You overcame Saika’s curse in quite a short amount of time,” said Kujiragi, who looked anything but surprised—and yet there was a faint note of it in her voice.
Standing across from her was Shinra Kishitani. Right about the time that he had identified Celty’s location, he spotted a vending machine soaring through the city. Manami surmised that the vending machine was heading toward where they would find Izaya and ran after it.
Meanwhile, Shinra passed down streets with signs of destruction here and there on the way to Sunshine City.
And in the midst of that trip, Kujiragi—also chasing after Shizuo and Izaya—sensed the presence of his Saika.