Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume SS - Chapter 2.1

A Certain Explosive - 1

The scent of tatami mats—something I hadn’t smelled in ages.

I’d been sleeping on the street for a while, so the stench of the damp evening dew and grass were almost all I knew, save for the various city odors mixed in. That’s why the smells of old tatami mats and someone’s home were so comforting and missed.

“Mmm… Hmm?”

Atsushi grunted and cracked open his eyes. His vision was still blurry, blinded by the morning sun peeking into the room from somewhere.

“Where am I?” he mumbled. “I remember last night I was…”

Atsushi traced his hazy memories.

He could remember the warehouse at the wharf. That was where Dazai had asked him to help find the tiger. But then, for some reason, Atsushi passed out, and by the time he woke up, everything was already taken care of.

Furthermore…

“Atsushi, do you remember anything about when you transformed?” Dazai had asked the night before while Atsushi sat in a daze.

“…What are you talking about?”

Dazai then pointed at Atsushi’s arm. “Oh, hey. Your right hand still hasn’t changed back yet.”

“…My right hand?”

And when Atsushi looked down, his right hand had turned into a soft, fluffy—

“Eek!”

Atsushi sat up in a fluster, thrusting his blanket aside. He hesitantly looked down at his right hand…but there was nothing strange about it at all. His hand was normal. No fur, no sharp claws. It wasn’t a paw but an ordinary palm.

He sighed in relief, slowly releasing the air pent up in his chest. Then, he opened and closed his hand a few times, but not only did it not hurt, it didn’t even feel any different.

It was all a dream.

Except it wasn’t. Although they felt like a series of otherworldly events, everything that happened yesterday was real. There was no other way to explain why Atsushi was here. If none of that had happened, he’d be lying in some field or sleeping in a back alleyway right now.

Atsushi slowly observed the room he was in: tatami mats and a low dining table leaning against the wall. The futon was placed in the middle of the room, and there appeared to be a small kitchen close by. Despite being in an old, wooden building, the room was clean without any clutter.

The morning sun reflected off the sparkling windows, and the chirps of frolicking sparrows could be heard coming from the yard.

He wasn’t awakened by the cold, unforgiving rain. This was what should have been ordinary. It was a morning just like any other for most people.

Atsushi looked up in a daze at the light dangling from the ceiling.

“This is the first time in weeks I’ve had a roof over my head…”

Beep, beep, beep! Beep, beep, beep! Beep, beep, beep!

“Ah?!” Atsushi jumped, startled by the sudden beeping. “What’s going on?!”

After crawling out of bed, he timidly looked around until he found the source of the noise lying by his pillow. It was a cell phone.

“Y-yes?! G-give me a second! I’ll be right there!”

He fearfully but hurriedly grabbed it. He’d never had a cell phone in his entire life, so while he knew he had to press a button to answer a call, he had no idea which button that was.

* * *

Ahhh! Wh-what am I gonna do?!

The phone continued to relentlessly threaten him with more beeping even while he panicked. It appeared that whoever was on the other line wasn’t going to give up until someone answered.

“Wh-which button is it?!”

At a loss, he pressed the button with the symbol of a phone on it, then hesitantly placed the device to his ear.

“H-hello?!”

“Good morning!”

He blinked in mute amazement when he heard the merry voice on the other end.

“Oh… Dazai? Is that you?” he asked, overcome with relief.

Dazai was the one who got Atsushi the room at this dormitory to stay in, so it was only natural to assume that he’d gotten him this phone as well. Besides, there was nobody else who would call Atsushi, and that was why he was somewhat embarrassed for panicking so much.

“Nice weather we’re having today, huh? How do you like your new lodgings?”

It was most definitely Dazai’s voice on the phone. Atsushi swiftly looked over to the window where he was met with the blinding light of the morning sun.

“I feel like I’m living in a palace in the clouds thanks to you…especially after sleeping on the streets these past few weeks.” He gently smiled.

“Glad to hear it. The clothes by your bed are a present from everyone at the agency.”

Neatly folded by the pillow lay new clothes. The cloth bag Atsushi had been using ever since he left the orphanage was placed on the floor by the clothes as well.

“Thank you so much for everything.”

Atsushi smiled blissfully. Although he was apprehensive about helping search for the tiger at first, he would never have been able to wake up with a roof over his head like this if it hadn’t been for Dazai.

“By the way, Atsushi, I really hate to do this to you on short notice, but…,” Dazai began. “We have a situation, and it’s urgent.”

His tone was unexpectedly serious.

Atsushi knitted his brow, sensing the man’s restlessness. “An emergency…?”

“Yes, and it’s a race against time. I need you to meet me somewhere right now. You’re the only one I can count on!”

Dazai sounded almost like he was pleading.

“Su-sure, of course. I’ll be right there,” Atsushi nervously replied, his expression serious.

Dazai, a member of the Armed Detective Agency, had said that this was an emergency and he needed Atsushi’s help, which meant this had to be something big.

I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I have to do what I can.

“Ready to go, Atsushi?”

“Ready.”

Atsushi put on his shoes and quickly looked up.

“Once you step outside your room, I need you to close the door…”

After leaving his dorm room, Atsushi closed the door as requested. Then he was immediately hit with his next order.

“…and look behind you!”

“Behind me?!”

But when Atsushi swiftly turned around in the outdoor corridor on the second floor, he immediately did a double take at what he saw out of the corner of his eye in the dormitory’s garden.

Wh-what the heck…?!

In the middle of the weed-infested garden was a young man with disheveled hair and a sand-colored coat.

“Hey!” the man called, smiling up at Atsushi.

Of course, there was only one man like this who Atsushi knew: Dazai.

Atsushi promptly rushed down the corridor and scuttled down the rusty stairs, then ran over to the unnaturally placed metal barrel in the middle of the yard.

“Uh… What’s going on?” he asked, just to be on the safe side.

“Take a guess,” Dazai replied.

He appeared to be stuck inside the barrel. His body was folded down the middle with both feet pointing up at the sky in a position that didn’t exactly scream comfortable. Never once in Atsushi’s life had he seen someone stuffed so bizarrely in a barrel before. In fact, getting stuck in a metal barrel was most likely something that rarely happened. Only one thing was clear: This appeared to be Dazai’s so-called emergency.

“Umm… Am I hallucinating?” said Atsushi.

Or maybe some sort of weird dream?

“Nope!” Dazai lightly replied.

Some people used these barrels to take baths, but it didn’t look like that was how he ended up like this. There wasn’t even a drop of water in the barrel. Which meant…

“Were you ambushed? Did you fall into someone’s trap?!”

Atsushi’s voice was trembling. Dazai was a member of the Armed Detective Agency, so maybe one of their enemies caught him unawares and shoved him in this barrel after a fight to the death. Or maybe he used it to roll away from the enemy, barely escaping with his life. There was no other explanation for why he would be stuffed in a metal barrel on the morning of such a fine day.

“I crawled inside this myself.”

“What?!” shouted Atsushi, taken aback.

“Well, you see…I heard about this new method of suicide where you stuff yourself in a barrel, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

E-excuse me…?

Atsushi’s eyes opened wide in disbelief.

“Incidentally, it turns out this is more painful than lethal. To make matters worse, I’m now completely stuck, and I can’t pull myself out. I think I’m going to die.”

Oops-a-daisy! That was essentially what his semi-troubled expression was saying. He appeared to be using every bit of strength he had left just to keep himself from slipping farther into the barrel, but gravity was slowly winning out.

* * *

“Uh… But if you’re looking for a way to kill yourself, then couldn’t you just stay here until this kills you?” Atsushi asked, perplexed.

“I’m into suicide, not pain! What kind of sick person do you think I am?”

Dazai looked at Atsushi as if the boy had lost his mind.

“Uh-huh…”

It didn’t make much sense, but this seemed to be yet another failed suicide attempt.

“Besides, I figured out this wasn’t used as a suicide method—it was used for torture!”

Dazai scowled as he continued to slip into the barrel.

Atsushi decided to deal with this “emergency” the best way he could…by pushing the barrel over. He then placed his hands on his hips and sighed.

Dazai had saved Atsushi the other day when he unknowingly transformed into a tiger and tore up the warehouse, so while the man may have had his…quirks, he was still a member of the Armed Detective Agency.

“Uh…?” Dazai said languidly when the barrel began to roll.

Although it was difficult to even imagine, Dazai was, in fact, a skill user, and he’d used his unique skill to turn Atsushi from a tiger back into a human.

Unique skills…

There were far from a few people in this city who possessed otherworldly powers, and Atsushi was one of them. However, that discovery didn’t change the reality that he faced. Being able to turn into a tiger wasn’t going to help him in any way. It just gave him yet another problem he had to deal with.

Maybe he could use this special power to put on some sort of acrobatic performance to earn a little income.

That was too risky, though; turning into a tiger gave him amnesia and made him go berserk.

In other words, I’m still useless.

And yet:

“Atsushi Nakajima! From today forward, you’re one of us!”

Those were the words Dazai said to him that night, even though he knew that Atsushi turned into a tiger and had no control over what happened.

“You’re a member of the Armed Detective Agency.”

Atsushi was only where he was today because of those words.