Bullet Train (Movie Tie-In Edition): A Novel

by Kōtarō Isaka

People call him the Wolf. Not because he’s heroic and solitary like a lone wolf. More like he’s the bullshit wolf that the boy keeps crying about.

‘What kind of schoolkid looks up to the tax bureau? You’re the fucking worst.’

Listen, my failures are my own. They have nothing to do with my blood type.’ ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Tangerine says brightly. ‘Your failures come down to your character and your lack of judgement.’

Teenagers often talk about dying or killing each other or something killing them, without any of the weight that the words should hold,

Laws work for people who steal things and beat people up. The authorities can cite legal verse and administer the appropriate penalty. But when things aren’t so clear-cut, when dealing with a vaguer sort of evil, laws don’t work as well.

Saying someone’s a legend is basically the same as saying they’re a myth.

For a moment he pictures a footballer who makes a risky play, the sort he would never normally try, in the hope of making up for mistakes earlier in the game. A desperate gambit to regain good standing. Nanao realises he’s never seen it work. Failure only begets failure. But a player in the hole has to try.

what I do know is that when you’re up against a smart guy, you can’t let them do anything they want to. Absolutely never. Doesn’t matter how small a thing it is, they’ll be up to something that we can’t see.