Underneath was not food, but some sort of bizarre, elaborate contraption and solid fuel made from a claylike putty. Sticking out from the contraption was a fuse with a cord that connected to the lid in Dazai’s hand. Stuck to the back of the lid was a scrap of paper that slowly fluttered down onto the table:
“I said to keep your eyes on me and me alone.”
Wrapped around the rim of the lid was a motion-sensor cable.
“……Uhhh… Is this…what I think it is…? One of those things that goes boom if I pull the lid any more than this…?”
Face still frozen in a smile, Dazai turned to his colleagues. However…
“Huh…? Tanizaki? Kunikida?”
…they were gone before he’d even realized. Sensing danger, they’d bolted out of there like scared rabbits. All that remained were Dazai, who couldn’t even move a muscle, the bomb on a plate, and the other patrons, who began to realize what was happening and started to panic.
“…Uhhh…………”
Dazai pondered, looked up, looked down, thought about the position he was in, then considered what he ought to say next before murmuring feebly:
“…Uncle.”
It was the night before the new employee, Atsushi Nakajima, joined the agency—and the night had only just begun.
THE UNTOLD ORIGINS OF THE DETECTIVE AGENCY
Around that time, there were rumors of a highly competent bodyguard in Yokohama. Give him a sword, and he could kill a hundred villains. Give him a spear, and he could take on an entire army. An all-rounder when it came to martial arts, he had a mastery of everything from iaido to jujutsu. The man was also well educated, spending his days off either reading or playing Go. Levelheaded and calm when it came to work, he always took pains to protect his client with a sort of lupine composure. If one had to name a flaw, it would be that he never worked with others on the job and trusted no one.
In short, a lone wolf.
He kept to himself to such an extreme degree that it made people think, That guy doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever working with a partner, much less as their boss.
An untamable wolf with silver hair…
His name—Yukichi Fukuzawa.
This brief tale is a record of one man’s struggle, of his growth—
—and of parenting.
Fukuzawa looked extremely surly that day. The weekend crowd rolled back like the tide as he strode down the avenue. Even cars stopped as he walked across the pedestrian crossing, even though their light was green. All of this was due to the sullen aura radiating from his expression.
However, he wasn’t exactly in a bad mood. He was drowning in self-loathing. His client had been assassinated, and it was all very sudden. As a bodyguard, Fukuzawa had two main types of work: contract jobs where he would provide safe guidance during times of peace while rushing over to help during emergencies, and one-off bodyguard gigs protecting someone or something for a day. The client killed this morning was from a regular contract deal. She was a certain company’s president who he’d sworn to guard only a few days prior.
They had never talked outside of work. Fukuzawa made it a point to avoid getting personally involved with his clients, so he didn’t know anything about her as an individual, nor did he have any inclination to. However, he was once asked if he wanted to become a full-time guard. Hating the idea of working for a specific company and having subordinates and colleagues made it easy for Fukuzawa to instantly decline the offer. Nevertheless, if he had stayed by her side as her personal guard, then perhaps he could have changed her fate.
From what he heard, the assassin pushed the president out of her office window earlier that morning. There was already proof who did it, which led to the perpetrator’s swift arrest.
Fukuzawa arrived at said location, a reddish-brown brick building relatively close to the harbor. The structure stood on top of a slope and seemed fairly sturdy for such an old building. As he entered, he saw yellow crime-scene tape surrounding the ground right under the president’s office.
The wind was strong that day, causing the tape to flutter in the wind. Fukuzawa averted his gaze. While the victim’s body had already been taken away for examination, there was no hiding the enormous bloodstain on the ground. Fukuzawa checked his emotions at the door, then passed by the crime scene, walking under a sign that said S&K CORPORATION. Following that, he got on the elevator to the president’s room.
/> “Hey, thanks for coming all this way. If you could give me just a minute, I’ll be finished here shortly.”
In the president’s office was the secretary wrestling what appeared to be a pile of documents—not something one would expect to see where a murder just took place. The office was big enough to fit around thirty people if they were squeezed in tight. But instead of people, the place was crammed with documents. The desk and floor were drowning in a sea of paper with almost no sign of what they once were. They all appeared to be important documents as well. The secretary, a sickly-looking man dressed in a black coat and a crimson necktie, was lining up some of the papers across the room. He stared at the field of paper, pulled a few files out, and returned them to the bookshelf before lining up some more documents.
“What are you doing?” Fukuzawa naturally asked.
“See these documents here? I’m sorting them,” the pallid man replied. “Because I’m the only one familiar with them.”
It was hardly a serviceable explanation, and Fukuzawa was not any closer to understanding. But, well, he figured it had something to do with the man’s job. Whether sorting documents on the day your boss was killed was disrespectful or simply good work ethic was something Fukuzawa couldn’t decide, but it reminded him that a horrific event had just occurred.