Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume 2 - Chapter Pr

A few hours before writing this manuscript at an out-of-the-way lodging house in Ginza during my time in Tokyo, I was at a bar called Lupin with Osamu Dazai and Ango Sakaguchi—or I guess I should say Osamu Dazai was drinking beer, Ango Sakaguchi was drinking whiskey, and I was drinking coffee because I was going to be holed up all night writing this manuscript. 

The conversation just so happened to shift to a certain fashionable novelist who uses his works as a tool to seduce women. Ango Sakaguchi claimed that this novelist was an idiot, while Osamu Dazai said we probably couldn’t use our writing to seduce women even if we wanted to. He said women are grossed out by novels like ours, and even if we tried to seduce them, we’d fail miserably…or in his words: “We’d fuzz it up.” 

—Sakunosuke Oda, “The Literature of Possibility” 

PROLOGUE 

I headed to the pub, feeling as if someone was calling me there. It was eleven o’clock at night; I slipped through the streets like a fugitive from the ghostly glow of the gas lamps before walking through the pub door. Tobacco smoke wafted all the way up to my chest as I descended the stairs to find Dazai already seated at the counter, twiddling a cup of liquor between his fingers. He was usually here. Without taking so much as a sip of what he’d ordered, Dazai quietly stared at me. 

“Hey, Odasaku,” he said with a mirthful note in his voice. 

I lifted a hand and greeted Dazai before taking the seat next to him. The bartender placed my usual on the counter before me without even having to ask. 

“What are you doing here?” I said to Dazai. 

“Just thinking. Y’know, philosophical and metaphysical things.” 

“Like what?” 

Dazai pondered for a moment before answering, “For most things in life, it’s harder to succeed than fail. Wouldn’t you agree?” 

“True,” I answered. 

“That’s why I should attempt suicide rather than commit it! Committing suicide is difficult, but it should be relatively easier to fail at attempting suicide! Right?” 

I gazed at my glass for a few moments. “You’re right.” 

“I knew it! Eureka, as they say! Well, there’s no time to waste. Let’s test the theory. Barkeep, got any detergent on the menu?” 

“No,” the elderly bartender behind the counter replied while washing a glass. 

“What about detergent with soda?” 

“No.” 

“Nothing, huh?” 

“Looks like you’re out of luck,” I added. 

I scoped out the pub once more. Being in the basement, this place naturally had no windows. The interior was like a quiet, inconspicuous badger’s nest packed with a counter, stools, empty bottles lined up against the wall, taciturn regulars, and a bartender wearing a crimson vest. This underground space was so crowded that people could just barely squeeze through the aisle. Everything in there was old, as if their existence were carved into the space itself. 

I took a sip of my liquor, then asked Dazai, “So you’re in a philosophical mood tonight, huh? Did you mess up at work or something?” 

“Yeah, I messed up. Big-time.” Dazai pouted. “It was a sting operation, see. It all started when we got word that some merry little group wanted to steal our smuggled goods during delivery. These friendly fellows were willing to snatch the bread out of our mouths, so I was certain they’d be some sort of imposing band of fearless warriors. I lay in wait to ambush them—my heart was racing with excitement. I thought if all went well, I could die a heroic death on the battlefield. But the dozen or so armed guys who showed up were a real scrappy bunch. The only thing worth mentioning is the machine gun–equipped canvas truck with a rocket launcher attached. I was so disappointed that I set up a trap in the warehouse, but when we surrounded them and attacked, they ran away crying. Thus, I unfortunately avoided death once again. What a boring waste of time…” 

I figured as much. I couldn’t imagine the man ever actually making a mistake on the job. 

“What group were they with?” 

“We caught one of the little balls of energy before he could escape, so he’s being tortured as we speak. Probably shouldn’t be long before he talks.” 

Those guys had some guts. I’d certainly consider them fearless warriors, seeing that they weren’t afraid of the relentless Port Mafia’s retaliation. And despite Dazai’s disappointment, they came with machine guns and rocket launchers. They weren’t complete idiots with no grip on reality. 

Too bad it was Dazai they were up against. 

We had a saying in the Port Mafia: “The greatest misfortune for Dazai’s enemies is that they are Dazai’s enemies.” If he wanted to, he could even have a picnic in the middle of a firefight. Dazai was practically born to be in the Mafia. 

The man was an executive of the underground organization Port Mafia—Osamu Dazai. 

To an outsider, seeing the title of Mafia exec on a guy who could easily be mistaken for some kid would be a hilarious joke. But they wouldn’t be laughing if they saw Dazai’s list of achievements—a dark and bloody list. Around half of the Port Mafia’s profits those past two years were all thanks to him. A mere stooge like myself couldn’t even fathom just how much money that was, nor how many lives were lost as a result. 

Of course, all glory comes at a price. 

“You’ve got some new injuries, I see.” I pointed at Dazai’s freshly wrapped bandages while taking a quick sip of my drink. 

“Yep.” Dazai smirked as he looked himself over. 

His body was covered in scars, the price he paid for his success. In other words, the man was a mess. There was always a part of his body that was under repairs. Once again, it really made me conscious of how Dazai thrived in the center of violence and death. 

“What happened to your leg?” I asked while pointing, sure that the injury was from a horrific, gruesome face-off. 

“I was walking and reading a book called How to Not Get Hurt Out of the Blue and fell into a drainage ditch.” 

A surprisingly absurd reason. 

“Then what about your arm?” 

“I was speeding around a mountain path and drove off the cliff.” 

“What about the bandages around your head, then?” 

“I was trying to kill myself by slamming my head into the corner of a block of tofu.” 

“You hurt yourself on a block of tofu?” 

He must have been in desperate need of some calcium. 

“I invented a method for hardening tofu. You use salt to absorb the water and place a weight on it…all in your own kitchen, see. It got so hard that you could drive a nail through it. Thanks to that, I know more about making tofu than anyone in this organization.” 

A Mafia executive who’s a stickler for tofu production… The five execs really were on a whole other level. 

“Was the tofu good?” I asked. 

“Aggravatingly so.” Dazai grimaced with apparent disappointment. “I cut it into thin slices, then had it with some soy sauce. It tasted incredible.” 

“It was good, huh…?” I was impressed. No matter what he did, Dazai seemed to reach heights that normal people couldn’t. “Let me try some next time.” 

“Odasaku… You should’ve spoken up right there.” 

I heard a voice coming from the entrance, then turned around to find a young, scholarly-looking man descending the staircase. 

“You’re too soft on Dazai. You should be calling him out and whacking the back of his head with a hammer for every two out of three things he says, or else he’s going to go off the rails. Look around. Notice the awkward silence of all the people wanting to say something. Even the barkeep is trembling a little.” 

His name was Ango Sakaguchi. Dressed in a business jacket and round glasses, he looked like an academic, but he was actually one of us. Ango was the Mafia’s personal informant. 

“Hey, Ango! Long time no see! Looking good!” Dazai raised a hand with a smile. 

“You’re calling this ‘looking good’? I just got back from doing business in Tokyo…and it was a day trip. I’m as worn out as an old newspaper.” 

Ango twisted his neck back and forth as he seated himself atop the bar stool next to Dazai. Then he took off the small crimson leather bag hanging over his shoulder and placed it on the counter. 

“Barkeep, the usual, please.” 

The bartender almost immediately set a golden liquid down on the counter before Ango. He had started making the drink the moment he heard him walking down the stairs. The foam rose out of the glass, glistening serenely in the glow of the low-hanging lights. 

“Business trip, huh? Lucky dog. I wanna go hang out in Tokyo, too. Barkeep, more canned crab,” Dazai said, shaking the empty can. There were already three empty cans in front of him. 

“Hang out? Not everyone in the Mafia lives to kill time like you, Dazai. I was actually working.” 

“If you ask me, Ango,” Dazai continued, a fresh piece of canned crab between his fingers, “everything in this world is just a way to kill time until we’re dead. Anyway, what kind of work was it?” 

Ango’s gaze briefly wandered before he replied, “Fishing.” 

“Oh, nice. Catch anything?” 

“Nothing. It was a waste of time. I heard there were going to be some top-grade items from Europe, but it ended up being nothing more than the usual junk you’d see at a local flea market.” 

Fishing is code in the syndicate for purchasing smuggled goods. Usually, the goods we bought were weapons or illegal articles made abroad. On rare occasions, there’d be fine art and jewels as well. 

“There was an antique watch that wasn’t so bad, though. It was crafted by a watchmaker during the late Middle Ages. It’s probably a fake, but someone will be willing to pay for such fine craftsmanship.” 

Ango gave us a glimpse of a box wrapped in paper inside his bag. On top of it were things he brought with him during his business trip, such as a small umbrella and cigarettes. 

“…What time did the deal end?” Dazai suddenly asked while observing the goods. 

“Eight PM. And I came straight back after it was over.” Ango smirked wryly before adding, “At any rate, I did what I was paid for, so it looks like I’m not going to be fired today.” 

“That’s pretty meek coming from you, Ango Sakaguchi—you’re the man who knows everything about the Mafia,” Dazai added with a smile. 

Ango, the Mafia’s personal informant, exchanged secret information with other syndicates. He wasn’t affiliated with any of the executives’ factions. The boss gave him direct orders for when a deal would take place, and he formed alliances with other syndicates, sometimes acting as a mediator to convey critical and highly sensitive information involving collusion, defection, betrayal, and the like. Put simply, he was a secret messenger. Almost all the important information that decided the course of the syndicate went through Ango before reaching the boss. Naturally, if he were tortured to talk, the intel he could provide about the Mafia would be worth more than gold. A role as essential as his could not be left in the hands of an idiot. It required someone as tough as wrought-iron wire. 

“Compared with the youngest executive in Port Mafia history, my achievements are no different from a schoolboy’s. By the way, are the two of you here today for a meeting of some sort?” 

“Were we, Odasaku?” 

“No,” I answered in Dazai’s place. “We didn’t plan this. Dazai just happened to be here when I came by.” 

Stuff like this happened all the time. 

“Oh, really? I just had a feeling I’d run into you both if I came here tonight, so here I am.” Dazai grinned, as if amused by his own words. 

“Did you need us for something?” asked Ango. 

“Not really. I just thought if I came here, it’d be one of those nights. That’s all.” 

Dazai then flicked his glass with his fingernail. 

I knew what he was trying to say. We often gathered at this bar as if we were trying to avoid something. Then we would shoot the breeze under the guise of “communication” until the dead of night. We frequently ran into one another here for some reason. Even though we were all part of the same syndicate, Dazai was an executive, Ango an informant, and I a bottom-of-the-pecking-order grunt with no title to speak of. Under normal circumstances, we shouldn’t have even known one another’s names, much less drunk together. But here, we could hang out regardless of position or age. Perhaps it was thanks to our vast differences in the Mafia’s hierarchy. 

“By the way…,” Dazai abruptly muttered while staring off into space. “Odasaku, it’s been a while since we all started drinking here together, and yet, I’ve still never really heard you complain about work.” 

“I agree. Unlike Dazai and myself, your work is somewhat unique.” 

“There’s nothing unique about what I do.” I shook my head. “I just don’t have anything worth saying. I’d only bore you.” 

“There you go being all secretive again.” Dazai tilted his head to the side, disgruntled. “Honestly, Odasaku, out of the three of us, your job is the most interesting to talk about. So spit it out. What’ve you been up to at work this past week?” 

After thinking for a moment, I began answering while counting the jobs on my fingers. 

“I investigated a theft at a shopping arcade under the Mafia’s jurisdiction. The culprits were a few local elementary school kids. Then I went to the home of an affiliate group’s lackey to look for a missing pistol, which I found in his rice cooker while I was cleaning up. After that, I mediated a quarrel between the wife and the mistress of one of our shell company executives. Lastly, I disposed of a dud that was found behind the Mafia’s office.” 

“Hey, Odasaku, I’m begging you. Please switch jobs with me.” Dazai leaned forward, sparkles in his eyes. 

“Not a chance.” 

“But you found a dud! Did you hear that, Ango? Why does Odasaku get all the fun jobs? It’s not fair! First thing tomorrow, I’m going to the boss and telling him this executive’s gonna quit ’cause he doesn’t get to handle duds!” 

The other executives might’ve keeled over if they’d heard that. Ango apathetically replied, “You do that,” just as he always did. 

In a sense, I was part of the Mafia in name only. All the jobs that came my way were the crap jobs no one else wanted to deal with. Simply put, it was because of my lack of achievements and rank, and since I didn’t work directly under any particular executive, it was really easy to push the petty jobs that didn’t make a profit onto me. Basically, I was the Mafia’s errand boy. I didn’t do this just for kicks. That one time when I was caught in the middle of a screaming match between that executive’s wife and lover, I seriously considered biting my tongue off—twice. But the reason I was forced into this position was simply because I couldn’t do anything else. 

Because… 

“Then at least let me go with you next time. I won’t get in the way.” 

“I wouldn’t recommend that.” Ango glanced at Dazai out of the corner of his eye. “Forget searching for criminals or looking for lost goods. Bringing Dazai to solve a lovers’ quarrel is just going to be pouring oil into the fire.” 

“Who wouldn’t want to keep a relationship’s fire burning? Sounds wonderful if you ask me.” 

“See? What did I tell you?” 

I took a silent drink without responding to Ango’s point. 

“Dazai, maybe you should get a hobby before you start meddling in other people’s work,” continued Ango. “Something more wholesome than attempting suicide.” 

“Hobbies? Hmm…” Dazai pouted boyishly. “Chess and Go are too easy, though. They’re boring. What else is there?” 

“What about sports?” 

“I hate getting tired out.” 

“How about studying, then?” 

“Too much work.” 

“Then how about cooki—? Wait. Forget it.” 

Ango lowered his head and covered his mouth. He must have remembered when Dazai made us that “peppy hot pot.” It gave us plenty of pep, just as the name suggested, but we had no memory of what happened the next few days after we ate it. When we grilled Dazai later about what was in the hot pot, he just giggled. 

“Oh yeah, I created a new hot-pot recipe. Would you guys be up to trying it next time we hang out? I call it the ‘superhuman stamina pot.’ You can run for hours without getting tired after eating it. It’s a dream of a—” 

“Not in a million years,” Ango sternly declined. 

“If it keeps you from getting tired, then it might be pretty useful before a hard day’s work,” I added. 

“…Odasaku, that’s exactly the problem right there. You’re enabling Dazai. You don’t speak up, and that’s why he goes off the rails.” 

I see. So this was what Ango meant by “enabling” him. You learn something new every day. 

“Barkeep, do you have a hammer?” 

“I do not.” 

“Oh, too bad.” 

“Guess there’s not much you can do about that,” Dazai said with a smile. 

“Sigh… I just got back from work, and my head already hurts…” Ango hung his head. He must have had a rough day. 

“You work way too hard, Ango,” I told him. 

“Yeah, you do.” 

Ango glanced sharply back and forth between Dazai and me, then said, “It would appear so. I feel like I’m working unpaid overtime right now. I should get going.” 

“What? Leaving already?” Dazai asked, a hint of disappointment in his tone. 

“To tell the truth…” Ango’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “When I’m here drinking with you two, I almost forget that the work I’m doing is illegal. Barkeep, thanks for the drink.” 

Ango removed his belongings off the counter, then stood up. 

“You take that bag with you when you go out of town for business?” I asked, pointing at his small leather bag. I didn’t have any specific reason for asking; that’s just all I could think of to stop him. 

“Yes. It doesn’t have much in it, though. Just some cigarettes, a weapon for self-defense, a small umbrella…” Ango opened the bag wide to show me its contents. “And this camera I use for work.” 

“Oh, hey. Let’s all take a picture together,” Dazai cheerfully suggested out of the blue. “To commemorate today, y’know?” 

“Commemorate what?” I asked. 

“To remember we were here. Or to celebrate Ango being home. Or to celebrate you disposing of that dud. Anything will do, really.” 

“Whatever the executive says,” Ango stated with a shrug before pulling a black camera out of his bag. It was an old roll-film camera, with the black paint chipped off here and there from age and use. 

“Make sure it looks cool,” said Dazai. 

Ango smirked as he took a picture of Dazai and me together. Then, by Dazai’s request, I took one of him and Ango by the counter. Dazai posed by placing one leg on the stool and leaning into it. “Taking it from this angle makes me look more handsome.” 

“Why did you want to take photos all of a sudden, Dazai?” 

“I just felt like if we don’t take a picture now, there’ll be nothing left to prove we spent this time together, I guess.” He grinned brightly. 

It turned out Dazai was right. That ended up being our last opportunity to photograph that invisible something among the three of us—the only thing to make us aware of the void left behind once we lost it. We never got another chance to take a picture together in that bar. 

Because one of us died soon after.