Chapter Text
Ran wipes her palms discreetly on her pant leg – or tries to, though the action feels almost foreign to her now. She doesn’t get nervous about much, these days; certainly nowhere near enough to show it outwardly.
At least the chauffeur doesn’t give any indication that he’s noticed, so there’s that. (She has almost no doubt that he certainly has noticed, but equally without doubt he has not-seen much else while behind the wheel of the Suzuki family’s sedans, sleek and black and far less ostentatious than anything else they owned.)
She does manage to resist the urge to check her phone. The instructions to meet had come through Sera-san rather than the usual channels, though the phrasing had still been distinctively Sonoko’s, and made Ran reach for one of the plainer suits in her wardrobe instead of a gown.
And yes – there’s Sonoko now, standing by a rather nondescript door of an equally unremarkable building as they slow to a stop, and Ran alights at the unspoken signal, thanking the chauffeur for bringing her here, even if she is entirely unsure where here is beyond a seemingly random office block in Shinagawa.
The man only inclines his head in acknowledgement before merging smoothly back into traffic as Sonoko beckons her over, opening the door without any key that Ran can see – she’s inclined to assume that there’s some kind of hidden biometric lock, but in all honesty she still has only the barest idea of how these levels of the Organisation work.
Her best friend’s face is unusually (if still quite imperceptibly) drawn as Ran follows her down the corridor to the elevator at the end; a silence only broken when the doors have closed firmly before them, and then only by Sonoko turning suddenly to lean close – enough for Ran to feel a warm exhale on her cheek, close enough to kiss, but instead there’s only a whisper.
“I’m sorry,” Sonoko breathes, fingers tangling quiet and brief with hers, “I wanted to tell you before this, I swear,” and then before either of them can speak any further there’s the whirr of the doors sliding open once again, onto a floor that Ran is almost certain she won’t find labelled on the lift panel and in front of a woman whose appearance only clicks into place when Sonoko’s grasp tightens once more before letting go. “Mama.”
“Sonoko,” acknowledges Suzuki-san, brisk like her daughter rarely is. “You can leave us now, I’ll take Mouri-san from here.”
Ran shakes her head a fraction to stall the instinctive protest she feels rise beside her, stepping out of the elevator before dropping into a polite bow. “Pleased to meet you, Suzuki-san.”
She finds the same gaze still studying her dispassionately as she straightens, but instead of replying Suzuki-san turns to stride further down the corridor, and Ran has no choice but to hurry after her, without even a chance to look back at Sonoko.
Ran’s just about convinced herself into asking where they’re headed when Suzuki-san stops before a door not unlike all the others they’ve passed, though at least this time Ran catches the quick flash of a key card before she’s being shown in, and –
– freezes, disbelief a chill shock in her veins.
(I wanted to tell you Sonoko had said, I swear – )
“Okaa-san?” Ran says – thinks she says, at least, but there’s no mistaking the figure rising now from her chair, no missing the uncensored documents and legal briefs for what is unmistakably Organisation business laid out neatly on the desk before her.
Her mother stands behind the desk, unsmiling and unruffled, like this is simply one of the semi-regular meetings they’d still had when she was in high school. “Ran. Take a seat, won’t you?”