Bungo Stray Dogs: Dazai's Entrance Exam.

Chapter 4

The thirteenth.

I returned home after a lengthy absence and now pen these pages.

A life's worth of fear were instilled into this single day.

It is due to the efforts of myself and my colleague that several persons narrowly escaped the jaws of death, yet be that as it may, not all share this lucky fate.

Thus is the state of reality. The problem emerges from reality itself. If we were to break away from the realm of the real, then some problem-riddled human world would surface. It would be a reality such that no man would be capable of change. Ergo reality must depend on both the facts of our births and our deaths. We know this reality to be the truth.

We can view this other reality lacking death only in our own minds.

And thus the series of cases drew to a close.

The Agency and I worked to deal with the aftermath. We were subjected to inquiries from the city police, damage reports from the insurance agencies, and the clamoring press. The office was swamped in a mountain of work. We were so busy we didn't have the slightest bit of time to be lost in sentimentality.

Perhaps sensing the volume of work, Dazai abandoned all his usual duties and vanished on the pretense of "investigating something". He was going to get it the minute I found him.

The victim of our last case was an airplane and its large cargo of civilian passengers. Once it was reported that a foreign terrorist group was responsible, tracking down the group's ringleader was added to our list of duties as well.

We received quite a bit of praise for defending the country against an unprecedented tragedy, but there was still much public outcry for us to be held accountable for our inaction in the first case. I supposed the criticism from the death of the kidnapping victims would fade in time.

One day after finishing the usual elephantine quantity of reports, I was called into the president's office.

"Excuse me," I said, stepping in.

The president did not look up from the paperwork spread across his desk. "How goes the work?" he asked.

"I'm still buried up to my eyeballs in it. To make matters worse, that fool Dazai ran off again. He can't abide paperwork, so he delegated it all to the office staff and is now probably off investigating for the police. He deserves to be pushed into a vat of boiling water. If he lives, good. If he doesn't, all the better."

All the president said was, "Don't get caught." He gathered up his papers and stored them in an envelope before looking up at me. "You did well. You earned a certificate of merit from the general of police. 'A paragon of detective work for our city', he says. It is a weight off my shoulders as well. For a time, I considered closing the agency."

Oh my.

Before I could say anything, the president continued. "No business exists more precious than the human life. And if the Agency's existence were to encroach upon a life - but that matter is now resolved. By your doing, Kunikida." He pointed at my forehead.

The president never shared his personal anxieties with anyone; perhaps he was exhausted.

"And now. Did you complete your assignment?"

My assignment. The entrance exam.

Dazai's judgment with which the president had tasked me.

"I've already made my decision," I said. "That man is the worst. He ignores my orders, wanders off in the middle of jobs, obsesses over suicide, womanizes, detests labor of any kind, and shirks all his office duties. He is charismatic to an extent that he is an utter misfit. He wouldn't last three days in another job without being shown the door."