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

the twentieth time that Izaya had met in person with the suicidal, and he was struck by how little he noticed in common among them. Everyone had their own way of approaching death—some couldn’t stop themselves from laughing, and others couldn’t stop themselves from setting up the DVR of their favorite show before they left to kill themselves.
    However, none of the people that Izaya had met had ever actually committed suicide. And that was
very disappointing
to him.
    The news ran reports on suicides. In recent years, the media picked up on cases where people had met online to commit suicide together. Because of that, the total suicide number was more than thirty thousand a year ever since.
    What drove them to kill themselves? Did they have no other options? Were they prepared to die for the sake of others? How deep was the despair that surrounded them when they went?
    Izaya Orihara loved people. Hence, he wanted to know them.
    However, he wasn’t meeting with these women in order to convince them not to die. The reason none of the people Izaya met had killed themselves wasn’t because they were insincere looky-loos or were too afraid to die.
    Beneath his calm exterior, Izaya’s true nature flicked its tongue.
    Izaya let them talk for a while, explaining their motives for suicide, but eventually he changed the topic with a bright question.
    “So, what are you two planning to do
after you die
?”
    Both women were momentarily stunned by this question.
    “Huh…? You mean, like, heaven?”
    They think they’re going to commit suicide and get to heaven! How impertinent. This is what makes people so fascinating.
    “Do you believe in the afterlife, Mr. Nakura?” the other woman asked Izaya. The name Nakura was just an alias he made up.
    Izaya chuckled at their responses and shook his head, then turned the question back on them. “What about you? Do you believe?”
    “I believe. Maybe there’s no afterlife, but some people stay behind as ghosts to wander around,” one of the women said, trailing off.
    “I don’t. There’s nothing after you die, just darkness—but at least it’s better than this,” said the other. A giant red
X
popped into Izaya’s head.
    Ugh, what a letdown. What a terrible, terrible letdown. I’ve just wasted my time. What are they, middle schoolers? At least the last group were all atheists. They were fun. These ones are just drunk on themselves.
    Izaya decided that these two were not taking the idea of death seriously. Or perhaps they were, but only in a way that suited themselves. His eyes narrowed, and he smiled with a hint of derision.
    “Oh, come on. Why do you care what goes on after life if you’re going to kill yourselves?”
    “Huh…?”
    The two women looked at Izaya in bewilderment. He continued softly.
    “Believing in a world after death is a right reserved for the living. Either that, or you have to have done some major philosophizing about death. If that’s the case, I’ve got nothing to say. Or perhaps if you’re truly driven to the depths of despair or being hounded by unscrupulous loan sharks.”
    His calm, benevolent smile never wavered.
    “In your case, that pressure is coming from the inside, isn’t it? You can’t just choose death because you’re hoping the world after death is better.”
    At this point, the women realized that they’d spoken at length about their motives for dying, but the man with them had not spoken a word about his own situation.
    “Um, Mr. Nakura…are you actually planning to die?” one of them asked, straight to the point.
    Izaya didn’t bat an eye. “Nope.”
    For a brief moment, the only sound in the room was the muffled bleed through from adjacent karaoke booths. Abruptly, one of the two women erupted, like a dam breaking.
    “I don’t believe this! You lied to us?!”
    “Of all the… What a horrible thing to do!” the other added reprimandingly.
    Izaya’s expression did not budge.
I had a feeling they’d react this