Chapter Text
The pay turned out to be decently more than he had anticipated, enough for him to afford to eat at an actual restaurant once in a while, or go to a pastry shop, or maybe even get a chocolate cake! Ranpo’s mouth had started to water at the thought of sweets. After telling him what the pay was, Usagiyama spent almost a full hour explaining all there was to know about the personalities and relationships of the cats.
Surprisingly, Ranpo found himself invested in the drama between Ginggy and Meowvela, an orange tabby with a mean streak and the establishment’s only fully black cat— of which tried to steal his hat and take it away to her secret lair before the lynx lady stopped the dastardly feline.
Ranpo took Ginggy’s side in the drama after that.
His neck was getting pretty sore towards the end, what with the added weight of a cat. As the manager predicted, Dumpling jumped off the boy’s head right as he reached the exit.
Ranpo would be lying if he says he doesn’t miss the warmth the brown cat provided. A shiver runs up his spine, a chill breeze running through him as he limps his way to the library. The sun set a while ago, the only thing keeping the boy warm now being his own body heat and his uniform’s cape which he had put back on.
Usagiyama had offered to call his parents to pick him up, citing the dangers that darkness brings to the streets here, but Ranpo lied and said he lived nearby.
He didn’t need to lie when he said that the sound of a call wouldn’t be enough to wake them up anyway.
Now, the teen finds himself walking as fast as his burning ankle will let him. Something about the pain and the cold seems to force his mind to focus, all thoughts not pertaining to what was right in front of him and the path to the library muted, as if their volume was turned down from their usual loudness.
It is this focus that allows him to make it to the library an hour before the building officially closes. He walks through the side entrance, clutching his cape as the door closing behind him blocks out the cold wind with a hush.
Warmth floods over the boy, chasing away the frost of the night. The section he can see is completely void of people, but he’s sure there’s at least a few students studying for upcoming exams in other sections of the building. This library in particular has many nooks and crannies, after all, including some with cushioned armchairs— a quality that the boy will take full advantage of soon enough, but first he must complete step one of his plan.
Ranpo quietly limps over to where he knows the computers are, rubbing at his arms in an attempt to warm up faster. He hears some papers rustling to his left right as the computers come into view, his eyes drifting toward the noise.
A teen with pure purple hair and tired eyes is staring at him from a distance away, sitting at a large wooden table, having just put away some papers into a folder. Ranpo raises a brow at the other boy momentarily, but looks away after deciding that it’s not worth his attention.
Reaching the computer desk, he pulls out the chair, the sound of the wood against the floor echoing through this open section of the library and grating against the exhausted boy’s brain.
Ranpo practically collapses into the wooden seat with a groan, legs burning from all the walking he’s done today, and ankle practically on fire.
He knows that isn’t a good sign. I can’t have a sprained ankle for the exam. Ranpo realizes suddenly. If I keep walking on it as much as I have been… The teen resolves to stay off it for as long as he can until then. Not that I really can… I should at least find a cane or something.
He doesn’t know where he could find one, doesn’t know for sure that his ankle isn’t fractured at this point, he’s just hoping that it’ll be better by tomorrow when he starts his first shift at the cafe. I’m already hungry again… the boy notes. The sound of the other teen packing up his bag feels so much louder than it has any right to, each shuffle of paper and pull of a zipper scraping the boy’s eardrums. I‘ll have to walk so much, especially if I keep zoning out and missing turns, oh god what if I zone out during the entrance exam—
Ranpo lets out a groan, hands covering his face as he slumps over the keyboard, the sound of footsteps distant in his mind despite how loud they feel to his ears.
I haven’t even applied yet… the teen thinks as the screen of the computer flickers on, the blue light tinting the keyboard. His eyes feel strained. And I need to figure out the exact dates and locations, and I need to send a few emails from my legal guardian’s account and receive a few and then delete them all before he can notice them somehow, and I need to sign up for financial support… my legal guardian isn’t eligible, but there’s gotta be a program for kids who’ve lost—
An image of a hospital bed flashes through his mind, a long beeee sound echoing in his memory.
Fukuzawa walking away as Mr. Mitamura closed his front door, shutting the kind man out for good, the wife gripping the little boy’s shoulder like a shackle.
Ms. Mitamura falling fatally ill, how her husband responded by putting him in the dorms where he can ignore his existence, how the boy never saw their daughter again until that fateful day. The younger kid being the only one that actually cared about him as family in some way instead of nothing but a trophy at best.
(I need to go back, I need to save her I can’t I can’t I can’t go back)
Ranpo’s thoughts grow fuzzy, ill-defined connections and memories drowning along a river of vague substance, mind focusing on everything and nothing in particular as his chest aches. The world feels loud despite the near-silence, each tap of a footstep like a kick to his mind. He wants to tear out the static that has consumed his body and soul, wants to rip off the layer of wool from his mind—
The boy squeezes his head, nails digging into his scalp as he presses his palms into his eyes. He lets himself quietly whine to ease some of the pressure building up behind his eyes and in his heart, the distressed sound growing louder and louder without his intention as he feels the icy river of thoughts drift to his leg and the computer in front of him and his stomach and—
A hand grasps his shoulder, the touch burning through his clothes.
Ranpo spins around and clumsily pushes himself in the opposite direction of whoever just grabbed touched him, eyes going wide as he trips backwards over the chair as his legs get tangled up on it, a stabbing pain running through his ankle yet again.
The boy lands on his back with a loud shout as the impact hits square on an existing bruise, his feet somehow ending up on the seat of the chair, his vision blurry from how he pressed his eyes in and the burning tears that were building up in them.
The blurry form of the purple-haired teen is looking down at him from behind the chair, one hand hovering a bit behind where Ranpo’s shoulder once was.
Neither say a word.
It takes a moment for Ranpo to notice how fast he’s breathing. The boy forces his lungs into more regular movement as he blinks away the blur and tears from his eyes.
Ranpo notices the surprised look on the other teen’s face, how he seems unsure of what to do now.
…I may have overreacted.
“Are you… okay?” the other boy breaks the silence.
“Y- yeah,” Ranpo automatically replies, voice quiet and cracking.
“You sure?” the other teen says as he lowers his hand, brow furrowing.
“Yeah,” Ranpo says with forced confidence in his voice. “I’m good, just startle easily,” the boy claims as he moves his legs off the chair, failing to suppress a wince as he rolls over some of his bruises in the process of sitting up. “…Good, minus some injuries, that is.”
The other teen stares at him with an unreadable expression. “Teenagers can be mean sometimes,” the purple-haired boy states.
Is that a threat, or… The boy on the floor tilts his head. “Are you going to be mean?” Ranpo questions. I hope not— that would be such a hassle. The other teen looks at him funny.
“Nah,” the purple haired boy says with what Ranpo assumes is either a smirk or a soft smile. “Just stating facts.”
The boy on the floor blinks. He thinks back to the academy, back to the other kids in the dorms. The way they occasionally pushed others around, taking advantage of people’s lack of strength whenever the teachers weren’t looking in order to bully them out of their lunch or out of events. Kids returning to the dorms with black eyes and busted lips wasn’t an uncommon sight to see.
“Yeah?” Ranpo finally says with a raised brow. He carefully crosses his legs and rests his chin on his hand. “Kinda an ominous thing to say to someone on the floor as a teen yourself.”
The other boy pauses for a moment, processing Ranpo’s words. The purple-haired teen lets out a hearty laugh as he finally realizes something.
“I guess you’re right,” he says in between chuckles. “I’d ask you if you want some help, but you seem pretty comfortable on the ground right now.”
“No, I’d like some help,” Ranpo says as he uses the chair to stand back up. “How do you apply to UA?”
The other teen’s eyes widen slightly. “UA?” he asks, face contorting into confusion a moment later. “Did you not apply to high schools with the rest of your class?”
“Nah, the school I went to…” Ranpo starts, realizing his slip-up a moment after. I guess there’s no harm in this guy knowing anyway… he considers. “I got kicked out, but I already graduated middle school anyway— and was almost done with high school actually— and I wasn’t even expelled officially, I just got pulled out because it was less paperwork for him.” He sits back down at the computer and pulls up a search browser. “So it doesn’t officially count against me for school. But I don’t know what I need to do to apply.”
The other teen pauses, his face not in view. After a few moments, he moves next to Ranpo and leans down to look at the computer screen. He’s pretty tall… the boy notes. Likely a year older than me as well. My future classmates will all be around his age, actually. Not that that was anything new to the boy— while people in the academy were around his age, he frequently took classes with folks who were all at least two years older than him, most much more.
“I’m not sure either, but I’m willing to help you through this,” the older teen says. “Try looking on their website.”
“Well obviously,” Ranpo responds, already typing in the website URL. “But did you have to write an essay? Did you have to get your parents to sign something? Any credits to transfer? Any awards?”
He spots the purple-haired teen leveling him a look from the edge of his vision. “Do you want help, or—“ the teen says, strangely pausing mid-sentence. “It doesn’t look like I can help you with this.”
“You can help by answering my questions.”
The other teen frowns, before sighing as he stands straight again. “I didn’t have to write an essay,” he says as he starts off handing counting up with his fingers. “I did have to get my parents to sign some things, and I don’t have any awards or transfer credits.”
Right, Ranpo realizes. Most people are too stupid or just don’t care enough to have those at my age. Good to know that I don’t need to worry about an essay, though. I can get this done tonight.
“Ok, that’s all,” Ranpo says as he looks through UA’s website to find the applications. It looks like I only need to forge a handful of signatures, he thinks as he scrolls through the outline of the process, before moving to filling out the form. I’m currently up to date on my vaccines, but I’ll need to eventually figure those out later on. There’s a lot of forms I need for the transfer credits, so I’ll unfortunately have to go to those schools’ websites in order to figure that out, but I don’t need to log into my legal guardian’s email for this yet… He enters in the information of the middle school he officially graduated from. Wait, no, I need to delete the confirmation email. And I need the reward certificates.
The boy hears a cough from his back right. He turns around to find the tall teen almost glaring at him, fist slowly lowering from his mouth.
“Why are you—“ Ranpo starts, before remembering something the Misses used to do. “Oooh. Thanks,” he makes a shooing motion with his hand, “You can leave now.” The boy turns back to the screen, typing “legal guardian” under Mr. Mitamura’s name.
“…what?” the other teen asks.
“I don’t need anymore help,” Ranpo plainly states as he pulls up the website of the school where he took most of his high school level classes. “You don’t have to hover over me just to be ‘polite.’”
“I get the impression that you don’t understand what that word means.”
“I don’t.” Ranpo wonders how good the other must be at deduction as he downloads his transcript. “I know parts of it, but I can’t make heads or tails of its purpose.” The boy drums his fingers on the keyboard as he waits for the transcript to download. “It’s just… stupid talk that I have to play along with sometimes,” Ranpo grumbles. I really don’t understand why adults are so obsessed with it, he thinks, the words trapped in his throat. Why do I have to say meaningless things? Why do I have to outright lie? Why do random idiots act like they’re better and more deserving from the rest when karma would say otherwise? Why do I always end up having to follow some adults’ commands just to live? What’s the thing that even connects it all? (Is it that I have to shut up—)
The boy sighs. People are just stupid. That’s the truth that Fukuzawa helped him see. Really, this shouldn’t bother him. It shouldn’t.
Not when I’m not even using my Gift.
He hears the purple-haired teen grumble, saying something along the lines of “at least I tried.” The dull thud of footsteps sound out a few moments later, slowly growing quieter as the other walks away.
The file is done downloading.
Focus, Ranpo thinks as he blinks away irrelevant thoughts. He logs onto Mr. Mitamura’s email and clicks the search bar. What was that detective competition called again?