Bungou Stray Dogs the Untold Origin of the Detective Agency

Section 2: The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency (4-6)

When the police checked the scene of the crime, they discovered a plastic mold of the assassin's fingerprints in the secretary's overcoat pocket. When another squad searched the secretary's house, they apparently found an instrument used for duplicating fingerprints from samples and another mold in the shape of the assassin's fingerprints on both hands. All the evidence backed up Ranpo's claim.

Fukuzawa's client was finally able to rest in peace thanks to Ranpo, which is why Fukuzawa was indebted to him. In other words, he owed him one. Fukuzawa, though, still couldn't comprehend how things ended up like this. He mulled it over. Subjectively speaking, all this boy did was disrupt things, but he was objectively solving the case through reasoning. It was an utterly brilliant deduction. He was able to pick out the real criminal after getting only a quick glance of the scene of the crime and people involved. Even then, Fukuzawa still wasn't able to understand Ranpo's actions, or put more precisely, he still couldn't make sense of what had occurred.

What in the world...happened back there?

"Hey, kid." Fukuzawa spoke up.

"Mmph?"

Ranpo looked back at him with a mouth stuffed with red beans. "Drink your tea," Fukuzawa wanted to respond, but he held back once again. Ranpo would probably just claim that it wasn't sweet enough, just like the mochi. Not having tea with sweets was beyond Fukuzawa's comprehension, but since he believed that it would be rude to talk ill of others' preferences, he merely said "Okay" and moved on.

Fukuzawa was more interested in what had happened in the office, but he stopped himself from asking "What was that back there?" because he knew he wouldn't get an answer from the boy like that.

Instead, Fukuzawa reworded his question. "When did you realize the secretary was behind it?"

"From the very beginning," Ranpo replied, clumsily chasing after the red beans in his porridge with chopsticks. "He was wearing a coat, right? You don't need a long overcoat to organize documents. In fact, your sleeves would get in the way."

Fukuzawa nodded. The tool used to create fake fingerprints of the assassin was in the overcoat pocket. He must have needed the large coat pocket to hide something as bulky as that tool.

"Do these sorts of things happen to you often?"

"Sometimes," Ranpo replied while swallowing down some red beans. "At the workplace, on the side of the street... I used to always stick my nose into stuff that bothered me, but people would just treat me like a nuisance or think I'm weird. After a while, I got tired of it. Sigh. Good grief. The adult world makes my skin crawl."

Ranpo shook his head and frowned in disgust.

"Do you dislike the adult world?"

"I hate it. It makes absolutely no sense."

Fukuzawa felt there was something off about Ranpo's truly appalled expression. It was odd that it "made absolutely no sense" to this boy. Fukuzawa felt the urge to point out that there were also many wonderful things in the world, but he yet again kept it to himself. He didn't feel as if he had the right to tell such fairy tales.

"Fukuzawa, you dare betray us?"

"Was our oath to the welfare of the nation nothing more than a lie, Fukuzawa? Did your words have no meaning?"

Fukuzawa gave up the sword that day, but he could feel its weight against his hip. He wasn't going to make excuses saying that it was morally just, but...

Suddenly, he noticed that Ranpo was staring at him. It was as if his clear, deep eyes were peeking into Fukuzawa's head—as if he had access to the memories hidden in the depths of his brain. Fukuzawa averted his gaze, then said the first thing that came to mind.

"You said you came for an interview earlier. What about school?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Ranpo answered, annoyed. "I was attending the police academy and living in the dorm until they kicked me out less than a year ago."

"They kicked you out?"

"The rules were a pain in the ass. Don't leave the dorm after curfew, no buying sweets, wear these clothes, follow these rules. And the classes bored me to death. Dealing with other people is such a hassle, too. I ended up getting into an argument with the warden and exposed all his past exploits with women, so he kicked me out."

That would certainly do it.

"I've been moving from place to place since then. When I was working and living at a military post, I told everyone about the chief's embezzlement, so I got expelled. When I did errands at a construction site, I got sick of the corporate hierarchy and ran away. When I was working in postal delivery, I found an unnecessary letter and threw it away before checking what was inside, so they fired me. But who would even want a useless letter? Nobody. That's who."

Ranpo made it sound as if it were an accepted fact while Fukuzawa inwardly groaned. Living at a military post, working at a construction site, and delivering mail... They really did sound like jobs this kid wouldn't be able to handle.

"The city really is a mystery to me."

The city—why did he leave his hometown?

"What about your parents back home?"

"They're dead." A faint hue of sorrow flashed across Ranpo's face. "Died in an accident. I don't have any siblings or relatives, either, so I came to Yokohama. My dad told me to go to the Yokohama Police Academy's principal for help if anything ever happened to him. They apparently knew each other, and my dad was kind of well-known for a police officer. But, well, I got kicked out of the academy pretty quickly."

"What was your father's name?"

When Ranpo told Fukuzawa, he was slightly taken aback. It was a name even Fukuzawa knew. There wasn't a soul who worked in his business who didn't.

The man was a legendary detective. The "Headless Officer" case, the "Moonlight Phantom," the "Cow Head Incident"—he helped solve several difficult cases that shook the nation. His powers of deduction and observation were so extraordinary that people called him the Clairvoyant. He was highly respected and praised.

There were rumors that he retired and moved to the countryside, but...he passed away?

"He probably wasn't amazing enough to be known to the public or anything, though. He could never beat my mom when it came to solving mysteries or reasoning, so she always got the upper hand on him when they argued back home."

Ranpo also mentioned his mother's name, but Fukuzawa wasn't familiar with it. Apparently, she wasn't a police officer, detective, or even a criminal psychologist, but just an ordinary housewife. And yet, she was sharp enough to be able to run circles around the legendary Clairvoyant. She must have been one incredible woman.

"Anyway, so that's why I'm here." Ranpo pushed aside a bowl with leftover mochi in it, then said, "I have absolutely no idea what adults are thinking. Having said that, I have no home to return to, and my interview disappeared. I've got nowhere to go."

There it was again. Fukuzawa felt as if something was off. "I have absolutely no idea what adults are thinking," the kid said—and something about how that came across seemed vaguely wrong.

A naive only child raised by genius parents... This kid was different from the others. There was something about how his brain worked that was...extraordinarily different. Fukuzawa didn't know how else to clearly express it, but it processed information more quickly than others. Most people would probably chalk it up to powers of deduction, but...even if the average person couldn't understand him, surely the reverse wouldn't be possible, that he couldn't understand them? There was a decisive discrepancy.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Do I get points for every obvious detail I list in the end?"

Did this kid not realize he was special? That would somewhat explain his odd behavior. Ranpo knew the secretary was the criminal the moment he walked into the office, but the reason he didn't speak up was because in his head, he thought the adults in the room all knew that as well. That must be why he kept rambling on about himself rather than the murder. Or perhaps it was because he had simply lived a sheltered life in a bubble with his parents and no one else. But even if this hypothesis were true, how would one explain that to this kid? "You're special. You have something that others don't." But why? And how different exactly was he? How could it be proved?