Bungou Stray Dogs x OC ~ Alter Ego

Chapter 15

"She likes to play with us, doesn't she?" the dark-haired man grumbled, crunching furiously on the lollipop in his mouth.

"But Ranpo is the best of detectives, so he'll find out in a jiffy!" chirped a small and energetic voice, that of Kenji.

The said detective seemed to think for a few moments about the words of his colleague with blond hair, before letting a victorious smile appear on his lips.

"Indeed, I'd almost forget it, it's so obvious," Ranpo replied proudly. "Let's see..."

The dark-haired man swept his gaze over the little group gathered around his desk, on which he had nonchalantly placed his feet.

"Tanizaki!" he finally sang, holding up the letter in his hand. "Take care of translating this, will you?"

The redhead, startled at the mention of his name, did not take long to run to their best detective, earning a groan of displeasure from Naomi. The latter's brother grabbed the black and gold paper page, and did not waste a second taking out his phone, in order to enter the text written on it.

At least, he tried his best. Because, even if he had studied English during his school years, he had never been really good at using it in everyday life.

But hey. Of all the detectives here, he was certainly the most comfortable in this field. That was probably why Ranpo had appointed him to do such a task, no doubt.

He could understand a few words without needing to translate them, but he was not confident enough in his abilities to make whole sentences without the help of the internet.

After several long seconds of hesitation, while the insistent glances of his impatient colleagues seemed about to strike him dead on the spot, he managed to enter everything, without error, into his phone.

The automatic translation he got was not great, as expected. But he did his best to make sense of the sentences spoken aloud.

"Extremely happy to see that you have not usurped or falsified your good name, dear detectives. I am sorry that I had to impose so many riddles on you, although I am sure that you did not have too much trouble deciphering them. They were primarily meant to cover my back in case someone else tried to get hold of them, knowing how much the case I want to tell you about must remain secret, just like my identity. And, of course, they were intended to strengthen my decision to come to you."

Tanizaki paused for a moment, to catch his breath and to judge the reactions of his colleagues to this beginning of a letter.

It was Kenji who spoke before everyone else.

"Dazai? Didn't you say that this girl was blind? How did she write all this without seeing anything?"

The bandaged detective let out a laugh at the innocence of the boy in the blue overalls.

"Yes, she did. When I saw her, she was wearing a blindfold to hide her eyes and was carrying a cane to guide herself, although she didn't use it much."

"I think she's just very skilled even without her eyes. She has a better sense of direction than normal, and it helps her to find her way... Right?" asked Tanizaki, unsure of what he was saying.

His colleagues seemed to think for a few more moments.

"Or is she not really blind?" proposed Naomi, who was back to her brother in the meantime, embracing his arm tightly.

"Nah," Ranpo declared categorically. "She doesn't have the use of her eyes, that's for sure, especially if you consider her previous letter and the words she wrote on it. But it is very likely that she lost her eyesight at some point in her life, and that it is not a fact of birth. She can write a letter without going over the lines, the sentences are straight... The only oddity is the fact that she also writes titled to the left, even in calligraphy it is rare."