Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 3 Chapter 3 Part 3

Chapter 1 Part 3

“Greetings!”
It was an energetic voice, reminiscent of a clucking chicken. Fukuzawa turned around to find a boy standing in the entrance to the office. He appeared to be around fourteen to fifteen years old with long eyelashes and almond-shaped eyes. He wore a rustic cape with a schoolboy cap, while an old-fashioned flat satchel hung around his waist. His short hair was scraggly and uneven; he must not have had a mirror handy when he cut it.
“Whew. Some crazy wind we’re having today, huh? I know some people say go where the wind blows, but don’t you think this company could’ve chosen a better place to build their office? It reeks of salt from the ocean, it’s all the way up on a hill, and it feels like you have to go through a maze just to get here! What was the president thinking?! This is exactly why Yokohama’s no place to live. Oh! Also, I ran into a seagull on the way here. Good thing they’re so nasty, huh? It grossed me out so much I ended up giving it one of my rice balls before I could stop myself.”
The mysterious boy said all of that in one breath. With a big smile on his face.
Right in front of the president’s office. “…Huh?” the secretary inanely spluttered.
There was perhaps no better way to sum up everyone’s feelings than that one single utterance.
“You’ve seriously never heard of a seagull before? Freaky-looking rats with wings, those things. They must’ve done something real horrible in a past life. I mean, have you ever actually taken a deep look at their eyes? You can literally see the madness! Anyway, not to change the subject, but I’m one rice ball down, so I’m getting pretty hungry. Got anything I could eat?”
“Excuse me? Uh, um… Excuse me?” The secretary was absolutely baffled.
It stood to reason. The young boy was mirthfully rambling on until he suddenly saw something in the room and shut his mouth. His almond eyes surveyed his surroundings before creasing even further.
“Hmm… Looks like you’ve got your hands full.”
Fukuzawa came back to his senses. Who was this boy? He seemed like nothing but trouble.
“Eh, not that it’s any of my business. Anyway, could you give me the paper? Oh, is it somewhere in the pile? You expect me to find it? Sounds like a real pain in the neck. Hey, Mr. Secretary, how about you find it for me while you’re busy killing time? Besides, I’m not interested in the fingerprints in this room.”
Each thing he said was more bewildering than the last, and some things didn’t make sense at all. “Killing time”? “Fingerprints”? The boy began to walk, heading toward the center of the room—toward the center of the ocean of documents. Right as the bottom of his foot was about to step on the first wave of papers—multiple documents with the company seal that looked like contracts with other companies…
“Ack! Wait, wait, wait! Stop right there! Do you have any idea how many years it took to close those contracts?!”
…the secretary grabbed the boy by the shoulder, barely stopping him in time. The boy stared at him, puzzled, then took a moment to deliberate.
“Nope,” the boy replied before beginning to walk once more.

“Ahhh! Stop that!” the secretary shrieked as he desperately snatched up the documents. The boy’s foot landed right where the documents once lay.
“See? You can do it if you really put your mind to it,” the boy said with a smirk.
“What is wrong with you?! Regardless of the tragedy that occurred here today, this is still the president’s office! Authorized personnel only!”
“I know,” the boy admitted nonchalantly. “But I’ve been authorized. I was told to come in for an interview today. Isn’t it obvious?”
An interview?
“O-oh… You’re the applicant. I do remember the president mentioning something about conducting an interview for an apprentice office clerk…”
An apprentice office clerk? This destructively disobedient kid?
The boy claimed it was obvious he came in for an interview, but Fukuzawa was taken by complete surprise. He simply figured it was some sort of gremlin or troll who had shown up to make some demands now that the president had passed. The kid stood out like a sore thumb.
Fukuzawa turned his gaze to the secretary, who was still arguing back and forth with the boy near the entrance. He wanted to help, but he was standing by the door to the adjacent room, far from the entrance. The sea of paper on the floor blocked his path, making his only option to observe the proceedings.
“Sheesh, just look at the mess you made here. I get that you didn’t want anyone to search the room, but…this? Adults puzzle me. What a puzzling world we live in!”
“P-please stop talking nonsense!” the secretary screamed in falsetto.
Fukuzawa’s curiosity was sparked, for he saw a hint of dismay in the secretary’s pale expression.
“I understand why you’re here,” the secretary continued, “but our company has no time for that right now! The president was assassinated. Therefore, your interview must be postponed. I have to find which documents are missing and report it to the authorities before the suspect is turned in to the police—before they hook ’em and book ’em! Now please just go. Run along, now.”
“For the last time already—I know,” the boy complained with a pout. “Do you enjoy stating the obvious? I came to get my certification. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

“‘Certification’?” the secretary repeated. “Oh, that government-issued document for job searching, yes?”
So this young man was probably receiving government aid to find employment. Ever since the end of the war, unemployment and juvenile delinquency continued to be a pressing issue even in this major city. Therefore, the government had a system to fight back against unemployment through aiding minors who wanted to work. The boy must have been using the program. In other words, he needed a piece of paper issued from the company’s president to prove he’d come there for a job interview, and then he had to turn that in to the government so he could keep receiving financial aid and information.
“I’m sure it’s somewhere in here, but…” The boy glanced around the room. “Look, I don’t have time for this. Hey, Mr. Paper Pusher, can I just shove these useless documents out of the way already?”
“You may not,” the secretary firmly declared. “The very way in which the documents are lined up is part of a crucial methodology for determining the perpetrator’s motive, and I am the only one in this company who can—”
“Uh-huh.”
The boy wasn’t listening. Instead, he nodded as if in understanding and began rapidly picking up the documents around his feet. But before long, he got sick of it and decided to start randomly knocking the papers out of the way with his fingers to clear a path.
“Ahhh!” the secretary screamed in agony. “S-stop that this instant! I—I forbid you to touch even a single page more! It took me five hours to line up those documents!”
“Sure, but I still need to find my document.”
“Then be quiet, go downstairs, and wait! I’ll search for it later.”
“Yet another obvious lie,” declared the boy, albeit for reasons unknown. “It’s fine. I’ll find it myself. It won’t even take a second.”
Not even a second? Around a hundred documents were systematically lined up in the room. It would take more than a quick glance to check them all, so how was he planning on finding one specific sheet of paper so quickly?
“The president was pushed out this window, huh?”
Before anyone even realized it, the boy was standing by the large- framed window and inspecting it with a discerning eye. The secretary was

frantically lining up the documents once more. Thanks to the kid’s rash behavior, around a tenth of all the documents in the room were now scattered about without a shred of sympathy for the one who had to clean them up. Reorganizing everything was undoubtedly going to be a painstaking task.
“Kid.” Fukuzawa couldn’t help but speak up. “How do you plan on finding a single sheet of paper in this mess?”
“Wow, old guy. Didn’t think you could talk.” He cheekily raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been so quiet the entire time I’ve been here; I thought you were a statue… Anyway, it’s a government certification, so it has a seal on it, and the special paper they use is thicker than your normal official document.”
“Old guy”…
Fukuzawa was about to counter with “I’m only thirty-two years old!” but he furrowed his brows, more curious about the last part of the boy’s sentence.
The paper’s thickness? So that was why it would be easy to pick out? But would someone even be able to spot it? It seemed as if it would still take a lot of hard work and patience to find a sheet of paper with such a small difference if it was still buried underneath all these documents. However…
That was when it hit Fukuzawa. The boy had a hand on the window— the wide casement window the president was pushed out of. Outside, the sky was blue. Weren’t there supposed to be strong winds today?
“Oh, look! A parade!” the young boy cheerfully yelled as he flung the sash all the way up.

All at once, the documents began to take flight as if they had come to life.
“Ahhhhhh?!”
A white bird spreading its wings; the cool, fresh air forming a vortex—it was like something out of a fairy tale.
…Unless you were the secretary.
“Wh-wh-wh-what do you think you’re doing?!” “Aha, here it is!”