Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 6 Chapter 1 Part 8

Chapter 1 Part 8

“I despise guns as well,” said Akutagawa. “People get cocky when they wave one of these around. But this is the reality of it.”
Akutagawa grabbed the gun, aimed the muzzle at his own temple, and fired every last bullet in its clip.
“Wha—?!”
Each bullet appeared to ricochet off Akutagawa’s ear, but not even one grazed his skin. They were bouncing off an invisible wall before dropping to the ground.
“Bullets are powerless in this world,” muttered Akutagawa without batting an eye. “And yet, my friends in the slum were brutally murdered by thugs who thought they were something simply because they had guns. That’s why I despise these wretched things.”
Right as he threw the gun, the sharp sound of a blade swiftly cutting through the air echoed with a flash of light as the weapon was sliced into countless fragments of metal. The black metal scraps tragically scattered before the young boy’s stunned gaze.
“Kousuke, the weak have no right to decide their fate. If you ever appear before me with a gun again, I will kill you.”
Akutagawa turned his back to the quietly trembling boy and promptly left.

After walking until the empty lot was out of sight, he turned the corner where Oda was waiting for him.
“I appreciate it,” he said in a soft voice.
“This is the last time I help you,” Akutagawa replied sullenly. “From now on, if you want to crush a child’s dream, do it yourself. It should be easy for someone with your talent.”
“Kousuke would idolize me even more if I did it.” Oda scratched his cheek awkwardly. “Sorry for asking you to be the bad guy.”
Oda’s final request to Akutagawa had been to make Kousuke give up on his dream of fighting organized crime.
“The boy is a very good cook,” admitted Akutagawa without making eye contact. “Being a chef suits him far more than fighting crime.”
“You’re saying Kousuke isn’t suited for fighting?”
“That is precisely what I’m saying. He would gladly throw his life away to protect his siblings. In our line of work, those kinds of people are the first to find their way into a coffin. Only those who can cast their anger aside and act rationally end up surviving.”
Akutagawa then began walking away.
“You’re absolutely right,” admitted Oda as he watched Akutagawa leave. “Emotions are at the very center of our existence, but they aren’t the center of the world. There’s nothing at the center of the world. So don’t let your emotions control you, Akutagawa. Do not pursue the beast within you. Stand on your own two feet, rely only on yourself, and be as cold and tough as you can. You won’t be able to survive in this world otherwise.”
Akutagawa suddenly stopped in place.
“…Wait.” He turned his head back slightly and glared at Oda. “Don’t tell me that entire charade was to get me to say, ‘Only those who can cast their anger aside and act rationally end up surviving’? For me to temper my vengeance for the man in black?”
“Not at all. I’m not that clever.” Oda shrugged.
Akutagawa glared at him in silence for a few more moments until he eventually uttered, “I am nothing like that child.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
Akutagawa opened his mouth to object, but he didn’t say a word. Everything he wanted to say got lost in Oda’s apathetic gaze before vanishing into nothingness. He gave up on a response, then turned his back to Oda and began walking off once more.

A privately managed café called Uzumaki was located on the first floor of the multipurpose building where the detective agency had an office. The interior was old-fashioned; the walls, tables, and chairs were discolored with age. The fragrance of coffee filled the air as classic jazz played in the background.
Akutagawa sat at the counter with a cup of roasted green tea in one hand while glaring at some documents. However, no matter how long he stared, the documents did not back down. It was a stack of procedural reports. He had finally gotten to the point where he couldn’t ignore them any longer. They had become a powerful foe that stood in his way and had the upper hand. Sweat dripped down Akutagawa’s cheeks as the paperwork beat him helpless into a corner.
There were no other customers in the café, and the owner was busy wiping coffee mugs in front of the cupboard. It was raining outside.
A café. Rain. Jazz. The smell of coffee.
Akutagawa had those four things necessary to slow the flow of time, but he whipped out his cell phone as if he couldn’t bear the silence.
“It’s me. Would it be possible to exempt me from filling out paperwork this year?”
“Of course not, you idiot,” barked Kunikida on the other side of the line.
Akutagawa replied with a scowl, “Imagine this was a field that would yield twice much if I was to allow it to lie fallow. Wouldn’t taking down twice as many fiendish criminals be better?”
“You’ve been using a lot of farming metaphors lately.”
All of a sudden, the door to the café chimed.
It was a fateful sound—one that would change everything.
In walked a boy wearing a black overcoat drenched from the rain. Droplets of water dully shined on his nearly pure-white hair. He wore a gentle expression that seemed almost apologetic to this world, yet his overall appearance could only be described as nothingness itself. He didn’t have a presence. A tiny spider on a rooftop stood out more than he did.
The boy took his coat off at the entrance, then briefly brushed off some of the water droplets before noiselessly strolling over to the counter and taking a seat next to Akutagawa. The boy walked even more silently than a cat. Akutagawa didn’t turn his head, but he followed him with his eyes the entire time.
“…He’s strong,” muttered Akutagawa quietly.
“What?” replied Kunikida. Akutagawa, however, simply hung up without explaining.
“I’ll have a coffee,” the newcomer said to the owner before falling silent once more. Still as a statue, he didn’t budge even an inch after that. Some time went by until all of a sudden he faced Akutagawa and asked, “Excuse me. I overheard your phone call a moment ago, and I was wondering if you were a detective?”
Akutagawa studied him from head to toe with a piercing gaze before responding, “Yes, I am.”
“I see.” The boy smiled. “To tell the truth, my boss sent me here to deliver a letter to the president of the Armed Detective Agency, but I got lost. Then all of a sudden, it started raining, so I thought I’d come in here and wait it out.”
Without even blinking, Akutagawa replied, “The agency is on the fourth floor.”
“Oh, it is?” The boy’s face lit up. “Thank goodness.”
The owner placed a coffee on the table before the boy. After getting a brief whiff of its aroma, he picked up a sugar cube off the saucer and dropped it into the mug.
One. Two. Three cubes.
Akutagawa silently counted the sugar cubes. Noticing this, the boy faintly smirked as if he had to excuse his behavior.
“Oh, this? Um, you see…my colleagues always tell me three is too many, but I just can’t help myself. Where I grew up, sugar was worth its weight in gold. Old habits die hard, right?”

Akutagawa quietly stared at the boy until eventually saying, “An orphanage?”
The boy was taken aback. “How did you know?”
“There is something unique about you. The way you’re excessively focused on others’ behavior… The way you keep your distance as if you expect others to alienate you… I grew up in a similar environment as well, and I’ve seen a lot of kids who have run away from orphanages.”
“Is that so?” The boy smiled wistfully. It was the smile of someone who dwelled on the past. “I didn’t have the courage to run away. For the longest time—even now—these sorts of quirks were just second nature to me, even though I know I can have as much sugar as I want… I’ll probably be like this for the rest of my life.”
Akutagawa watched the boy for some time after that until eventually picking up his mug and casually saying, “I put four cubes in this green tea.” The boy’s eyes opened wide. “Sugar cubes? In tea? …And four at that?” “Yes.” Akutagawa sipped his tea with an apathetic expression. “I’m the
same as you. It’s a habit from when sugar used to be a rare luxury for me.”
The boy stared at Akutagawa in mute amazement for a few moments until he eventually burst out laughing as if he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Pffft! Ha-ha-ha.” His laughter instantly made him appear even younger. “So you’re also used to fighting over stuff, right? Like pencils and
notebooks?”
“Of course. Normal people wouldn’t be able to understand… We used to get more competitive over pencils and notebooks than sugar or even meat. After all, you were the freest person in the entire world whenever you wrote something down on a sheet of paper. It was war. Children who didn’t know how to write wanted pencils and paper for reasons unknown to even themselves… How about chocolate bars? Did you fight over those, too?”
“Naturally. They’re basically currency, right? For something so commonplace, there was such high demand for chocolate bars that their value never changed, which was why everyone used them as currency. Potatoes went for five chocolate bars. A day of teaching someone how to read and write netted you three chocolate bars.”
“I once managed to save up three hundred as a bodyguard and backup in street fights.”
“Three hundred?!” The boy was visibly shocked. “You must have been the richest kid in the neighborhood!”
“I ate chocolate for days on end after that until I collapsed from malnutrition.”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha!” laughed the young man mirthfully.
They continued to shoot the breeze for the next few minutes or so. Both boys shared small yet profound experiences that their colleagues would never be able to understand or even empathize with. The two of them could just be kids, something they seldom did around others.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been able to talk to someone like this,” the white-haired boy said with a chuckle. “I probably should just have you deliver the letter for me. By the way, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Akutagawa.”
“I’m Atsushi. Atsushi Nakajima. Could you please deliver this letter to the agency’s president for me?”
The youth named Atsushi pulled a black envelope out of his pocket. There was no address or name written on it, but it was made from the finest paper available and didn’t even make a sound when shook.
“What’s the sender’s name?” Akutagawa asked.
“I was told the president would know who sent it when he read it.”
While observing the envelope, Akutagawa commented, “It doesn’t seem to be anything dangerous, but one can never be too careful in my line of work. I hear there are chemical explosives in the shape of paper going around lately.”
“You’re free to open the envelope and see for yourself. It isn’t sealed.”
Akutagawa faintly nodded, then flipped the envelope over and took out the two sheets of paper inside. However, his mood instantly changed the moment he looked at one of them.
“…What the hell is this?” Akutagawa spoke in a deep voice, quiet and cold as ice. “Is this some kind of joke?”
It was a picture of a woman. She wore a black suit as she stood impassively before the camera. Her eyes harbored no emotion toward the photographer.
“Is something the matter?” asked Atsushi. “This picture… Do you know this person?”
“Oh, that’s Gin,” noted Atsushi as he took a peek at the picture. “Why would the boss send the agency’s president a picture of her, though…?”