Durarara!! Light Novel Volume 08/Chapter 03

"When you're rattled, it's best not to rush into any hasty decisions. ...My words mean nothing. Only you can overcome your past."

- Yuuhei Hanejima to Ruri Hijiribe

Daydreams & Extremes @ Past & Present is the third chapter of the eighth Durarara!! light novel.

Synopsis
Ruri Hijiribe has never met her grandmother, but her grandmother's classification by their small town as a "monster" causes Ruri to feel a connection to her, and she becomes Ruri's connection to the monsters she admires in film. Her work in creating monsters for the entertainment indstry eventually causes her to meet Yuuhei Hanejima, and later, Jinnai Yodogiri, who turns her into a pop idol. Through him, Ruri first learned of her inhuman blood, and she had been manipulated into being abused by his wealthy beneficiaries until the day she met Shinichi Tsukumoya online and learned that they had killed her father, and the monster Hollywood was born.

In the present day, Ruri is thinking about the destruction she has caused as a monster, feeling hypocritical about praying for the safety of Yuuhei and Yuigadokusonmaru. She, Yuuhei, and Shizuo Heiwajima leave Celty Sturluson and Shinra Kishitani's apartment at dawn, and Kisuke Adabashi, who has been watching the apartment all night, begins organizing the rest of the conspiring stalkers.

That day, Yuuhei and Ruri meet with Max Sandshelt, the president of their talent agency. He has a compromising photo of Ruri with Yodogiri's beneficiaries, being cut and bleeding, but Yuuhei refuses to hear the story behind he photo until she is truly ready to tell it.

Anri Sonohara agrees to take care of Yuigadokusonmaru in the meantime, failing to notice a stalker following her home. Mikado Ryuugamine spends his first day of summer vacation searching the Dollars website for anything to do with Ruri's stalker, and when he finds what he is looking for he calls Aoba Kuronuma in a panic.

Shinra is left home alone when Celty leaves to scout the area around Ruri and Yuuhei's home. A man dressed as a delivery driver enters the apartment, kicking him to the floor and beating him repeatedly. Outside of Yuuhei's apartment building, Celty receives a call from Mikado, urgently telling her to return him for Shinra's safety.

For the first time in half a year, Masaomi Kida is back in Ikebukuro. His first mission is to make amends, and while stopping Shizuo to apologize, he agrees to go to dinner with his group, until Vorona notes that they are being followed.

Chat Room
The newest chat room members are talking, and Chrome shows them how to use private mode, taking the opportunity to secretly tell the others that Ruri Hijiribe's stalker is not one person but a group working together within the Dollars.

Character Debuts

 * Kasane Kujiragi

Cultural References

 * One of Yuuhei Hanejima's previous works, Silence of the Manservants (執事の沈黙, Shitsuji no Chinmoku), is a play on the title of the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs (羊の沈黙, Hitsuji no Chinmoku). This fictional work was first referenced in episode 7, which aired around three months before the publication of volume 8.