“How do you know?”
“I know. I know better than anyone else.”
Dazai gazed into Odasaku’s eyes and saw a glow of conviction.
It was clear that those words were supported by some sort of strong basis. Whether it was past experience or someone’s advice—Odasaku was trying to show Dazai the path he himself had once tried to walk. Dazai knew that.
That was why he could bring himself to believe it.
“…Okay. I will.”
“‘People live to save themselves. It’s something they realize right before they die,’ huh…? He was…right…” The color in Odasaku’s face gradually disappeared until he was almost completely pale. He smiled. “I could really go for some of that curry…”
With trembling fingers, Odasaku reached for the cigarettes in his pocket before sluggishly placing one in his mouth. By the time he pulled out a match, his fingers were too weak to hold it anymore. Dazai took the match and lit the cigarette for him. Then Odasaku closed his eyes, smoking the cigarette as he smiled, filled to the brim with satisfaction.
The cigarette fell to the ground.
Dropping onto his knees by Odasaku’s side, Dazai looked up to the ceiling and closed his eyes. His tightly shut lips faintly trembled. The smoke from the cigarette rose straight up to the top.
Nobody said a word.
EPILOGUE
The conflict came to an end, and the city returned to normal. On the surface, the city was no different from before. The economy was good, people woke up and went to sleep, and the bustling days and violent nights continued on. Society and its underbelly appeared unchanged.
A light propeller aircraft glided through the skies over the coastline. There were only a few people on board.
“We’ll be arriving at our destination for the next mission in about an hour,” a young man in a suit said from the passenger seat.
“All right.”
In the reclining chair by the window sat a man with round glasses. In his hands were a few pieces of paper that he was diligently staring at.
“…Agent Sakaguchi, is that a picture of the next target?” the young man in the suit asked.
Ango, the man with round glasses, stuffed the picture away in his jacket pocket in a fluster so that his colleague wouldn’t see.
“No, it’s nothing. Just a personal photo of mine.”
After putting the picture away, Ango turned his gaze to the world outside the window, wistfully looking down at the city below.
Several shadows sprinted through the Yokohama Settlement’s underground aqueduct. Three Mimic stragglers had escaped to the dark channels. They survived because they had not been on the front lines during the battle at the Western-style building.
A dark cloth stretched out like a blade from behind and sliced one of the soldiers in half. The other two turned around and unloaded their submachine guns. Gunfire lit up the aqueduct, cutting through the darkness.
“…That won’t work against me.”
A boy in an overcoat appeared behind them. His black coat danced through the narrow passageway as if it were alive, tearing up the remaining soldiers one after another.
“I need to get stronger—I must reach greater heights! Until he recognizes me, I will lose to neither military soldiers, nor guns, nor even skill users! I will lose to no one! So take a good look! Behold!” Akutagawa shouted as he sped up the dance of death. His woeful screams were absorbed into the Yokohama night.
In the middle of a verdant mountain trail atop a hill overlooking Yokohama was a cemetery with a view of the ocean. There were many new graves lined up—among them a small white burial marker without a name.
Dazai stood before the burial marker, dressed in black mourning clothes and holding a bouquet of white flowers.
“……”
He squinted as the strong sea breeze suddenly gusted past. The white flowers fluttered in the wind.
“I’ll leave this photo here.”
He took out a picture and placed it before the burial marker. Frozen in time were the smiles of those three men.
“I really wish you could’ve tried that hard tofu I made…”
Dazai closed his eyes, then stood absolutely still, rooted to the spot.
The blue Mafia headquarters building towered over the center of Yokohama’s most prime real estate. On the top floor of the building was an office. Ougai sat at his desk, resting his chin on his hand.
“‘Nihil admirari—help the man mentioned above without hesitation in the face of any and all trials’… Hmph.”
Numerous documents were scattered over his desk—loss reports of Mafia-ruled territory. On top of the clutter was the Silver Oracle that Ougai had once written. It had been recovered from the Western-style building after the conflict had ceased.
He listlessly picked up the document and stared at it. The subordinate standing to his side spoke up.
“Boss, it has already been two weeks since our executive Dazai went missing. We should probably gather all the executives for a meeting to decide his successor…”
“Yes… I suppose so,” Ougai replied indifferently while creasing the document in his hands. “We won’t have a meeting. I’m going to leave Dazai’s spot open.”
Ougai stared at the scattered reports on his desk. The organization had received an item of great value, something that more than made up for the total pecuniary damage and loss of talented subordinates. That included Dazai’s disappearance as well. Logically speaking, the results couldn’t have been better. Everything was going according to plan.
Ougai folded the document into a misshapen paper airplane. Then, with his chin still resting on his hand, he threw it. The deformed plane almost immediately crashed into the floor.
“Things sure are going to get boring around here…”
Colorful electric signs lighted the streets of Yokohama’s entertainment district. The area was always bustling with people even through the dead of night.
Inside a certain pub that had an orange lantern hanging out front, there sat a large man with white hair, completely alone.
It was a popular pub for cheap drinks. The man drank out of a sake cup with a sour expression.
“I can’t believe the top dog from the Home Affairs Ministry is drinking alone at a cheap pub like this… Must be lonely, Chief Taneda.”
Taneda looked up in surprise to find a young man sitting across from him.
“You’re—”
“Allow me to pour you a drink.”
The cheerful gentleman, Dazai, tilted the sake bottle and poured the chief some alcohol. After knocking it back in one gulp, Taneda shot Dazai a sharp glance.
“I’ve seen your face in our reports more times than I can count. You’re a regular on the blacklist… So how’d you know I was here?”
“I can figure out most things if I look into them.” Dazai beamed with a shrug.
“You’re supposed to be missing… What brings you here?”
“I’m looking for a new job. Do you have any recommendations?”
Chief Taneda stared at Dazai in shock, but Dazai just innocently grinned.
“I find that hard to believe. There’s a long list of things I’d like to ask you…” Taneda scratched his chin with a finger. “Are you interested in the Special Division for Unusual Powers? If that’s the case—”
“You’d lose your job if I did that.” Dazai wryly smirked. “I don’t like places with lots of rules.”
“Then what kind of job are you looking for?”
“One where I can help people,” Dazai replied without a moment’s delay.
Chief Taneda crossed his arms and stared at Dazai in silence.
“Your record is too filthy. You’d need to lie low underground for a good two years to clean up. But, well…first, how about you answer a few questions? I’ve got an idea that could work.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s an armed agency made up of skill users. It’s kind of a legal gray
area, but they take on and solve troublesome tasks that the military and city police can’t. Their president is a sensible guy. It might be just what you’re looking for.”
Dazai nodded before closing his eyes as if he was contemplating something important. He opened his eyes again, full of determination, and asked:
“What’s the name of the organization?”
“Their name? The company’s name is…”
AFTERWORD
Good evening. Asagiri here.
I ordered the late Sakunosuke Oda’s favorite Osaka-style curry online and tried it. It was extremely spicy, but good. But also extremely spicy. My hand was basically glued to my water glass. The moment I finished, I started planning when I would eat it next. It was that kind of curry. I apologize to anyone reading this in the middle of the night.
Anyway, this is the second Bungo Stray Dogs novel: Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era. While Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exam took place two years before the comics, this novel takes place four years earlier and is about Dazai’s life as a Mafia executive. The title inspiration came from the artist Pablo Picasso’s first works (as a young man) known as the Blue Period. The author Osamu Dazai was rather wild in his younger years, but the Dazai in Bungo Stray Dogs had his own dark days as a youth, too.
Now, if I may digress.
The substance of this novel came to life because of a certain photograph. Authors Osamu Dazai, Sakunosuke Oda, and Ango Sakaguchi were part of a school of writers known as the Buraiha, or libertines. They would gather at a bar in Ginza, drink, and talk about the literary world, novels, their family, and everything in between.
There’s actually a photo of them talking and having a good time that you can find at the Kanagawa Museum of Modern Literature (taken by the photographer Tadahiko Hayashi). Osamu Dazai is trying to act all cool with his legs on the stool, Sakunosuke Oda is facing the camera and smiling, and Ango Sakaguchi has a hand on his glass while listening to Dazai’s story. They’re so relaxed that it’s hard to believe they’re in front of a camera (especially when you consider that cameras back then were huge and the flashbulbs had to be changed with every shot). You can really tell they got along. Not only are these three authors pillars of the literary world, but they seemed to be really close as well. I guess you could even call them “friends.” Such wonderful, sympathetic relationships aren’t easy to come by, and you can’t simply take them back if you lose them. That’s something even normal people like us can understand.
Then, only nine days after the picture was taken, Sakunosuke Oda passed away from a lung hemorrhage due to tuberculosis.
Osamu Dazai wrote “Oda! You did well” in his eulogy for the funeral. Not too long after that, he and Ango Sakaguchi also departed from this world, and now all that’s left is this picture of them. The starting point of this story came from what will never again return, something forever sealed within a strip of film.
As you know, the characters in Bungo Stray Dogs don’t share everything in common with their real-life counterparts. There are a number of discrepancies in the series’s setting that contradict historical fact (for example, it was actually Osamu Dazai who looked up to Ryuunosuke Akutagawa). I have no qualms with readers treating these as entities independent from the actual history.
However, my belief is that the faint glimmers these individuals left behind for future generations (such as the lines written in their stories, or that something within the aforementioned photo) are the very nature of a great author. So to stretch the point a bit, I feel as though this series wouldn’t be able to live up to its name—Bungo—without these glimmers.
Enough serious talk. I just wanted to express my gratitude to everyone for their support and love for the series. Thanks to you all, we are planning on a third novel. I’m going to be extremely busy releasing four comics and three novels within a year, but I really hope you look forward to the continuation of the Bungo Stray Dogs universe.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my amazing partner Sango Harukawa for yet again drawing such beautiful illustrations and cool characters. I’d also like to thank the editors, advertisers, agencies, bookstores, and you, the reader! Thank you all so much.
Let us meet again in the next volume.
KAFKA ASAGIRI
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Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era Page 16
