Bungo Stray Dogs: Dazai's Entrance Exam.

Chapter 1

The seventh.

It rained this morning.

It was a quiet and cold winter's rain, with such an intense cold as is typical of the season.

I pray that I shall live ideally.

I must play the part of one who follows ideals. I must walk forward without fear and without hesitation.

I pursue the honorable future I dream of, for what great satisfaction I receive from my devotion to my daily duties!

If you were to climb up a certain hilly street near the Yokohama harbor and continue just beyond it, you would find the office of the Armed Detective Agency.

It is a building with reddish-brown brickwork. The building has had quite a few years under its belt, and so the strong, salt wind off the ocean has entirely coated the drain spouts and telephone poles with rust. Despite its exterior appearance, it has been constructed quite sturdily; an enemy with a machine gun could while away at the outside without the interior receiving so much as a scratch.

I can say this with a good degree of confidence, because in our past experiences, the enemy with the machine gun has been, by no means, metaphorical.

However, the Agency actually operates out of the fourth floor anyway; the other floors house other, quite respectable tenants. The first floor is home to a café, the second to a law office. The third floor is currently vacant, while the fifth floor holds miscellaneous storage space. We often find ourselves in the café's debt before payday, and when on the occasion that our work causes trouble, we go apologize to the fellows at the law office.

At the time this story begins, I was riding the elevator on my way into work.

I stepped out to stand in front of the door as the elevator descended. A sign hung on the door which proclaimed in a plain font "The Armed Detective Agency".

I checked my watch. I was expected to arrive at work at 8 am, meaning that I had 40 seconds to delay somehow.

Seems that I had run a bit early, hey?

It is my creed to be a strict adherer to scheduled timeliness. While I waited my 40 seconds, I flipped through my notebook and double-checked the day's schedule. I had already checked it once at breakfast, once when leaving the dormitory, and once while waiting for a traffic light, but I have never heard of anyone dying from checking their schedule too much.

I had already committed my work schedule to memory, so I turned it over in my mind as I read. Straightening my collar, I checked my watch once more.

... All right.

"Good morning," I said as I opened the door.

"Oh, morning, Kunikida! Take a look at this! It's bonkers!" There was Osamu Dazai, popping up right in front of the door, grinning. "I've finally arrived! Ah, and what a wonderful world this is! For this, this, is the world of the dead, the gate to hell itself! It's just as I imagined it! Look at it! Misty haze crawling over the ground, moonlight smashing itself against the windows, pink elephants whirling and dancing in the western sky!"

Dazai pranced up and down in front of the door, waving his arms about in exaggerated gestures. What a nuisance.

"Heh heh heh heh, what a marvelous work of literature! The Complete Guide to Suicide! Why, to think I could achieve this pleasure, this delightful setting off down the road to death by merely eating some mushrooms growing off some little, backwoods mountain path! Marvelous! Heh heh heh!"

His eyes refused to focus. His black pupils trembled in little spasms.

One of the clerks beseeched me, teary-eyed, "Please do something, Mr. Kunikida!"