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Tanizaki didn’t want to have Noami repair his sleeves again, but he couldn’t help but fidget with them. He had been sent on a mission alone, and although it was just recon it required him to break into the office of the man running the event, J. D. Robb. J. D. Robb was shy and timid, but seemed to be connected to multiple bombings and murders around the Yokohama slums. He was always around the area approximately 5 hours before the crimes and it had been reported that he had been seen walking around with blood on the inside of his coat several times. So, he had been brought in for multiple interrogations in which he dodged all questions thrown at him until his lawyer bailed him out. It had been made abundantly clear to everyone involved in the case that he was most likely the culprit.
Now, they just needed to gather the evidence.
“Ah!” He exclaimed suddenly after tearing the sleeves of his old suit. Tanizaki looked around the hall sheepishly, he hoped no one had noticed; the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself. Luckily, the eyes that were on him disappeared quickly, it's not like that many people had heard anyways. He forced his hands down to the side of his body and hoped he didn’t look as awkward as he felt. Tanizaki tried to catch the eye of one of the servers who was carrying food on a platter, he needed something to hold or else he might end up tearing his whole suit in half.
When the man came over Tanizaki noticed two things, that he looked strangely familiar and also had bright red hair. The man had a bored yet nervous expression on his face when he offered Tanizaki one of the small platters of shrimp that was on top of his tray. The whole experience was awkward, or maybe that was just Tanizaki. Up until the moment that the man walked away Tanizaki knew something was off about the man, whether it was in a good or bad way Tanizaki didn't know. What he did know, however, was that it was almost time for a blackout (courtesy of Dazai) to happen. In said blackout Tanizaki would have to sneak into the office of J. D. Robb and try to find any incriminating evidence he could, Ranpo had deduced that something of importance would be there… but it wouldn’t be a Ranpo deduction if he gave everything away so easily.
A few women screamed as the previously well-illuminated room turned dark and Tanizaki dashed into the hall. He activated his ability as he strolled through the corridor waiting for the lights to turn back on so he could find the right room. When the hall was illuminated again Tanizaki swiftly ran into the office that wasn’t too far from where he was standing and wasted no time opening the door labeled “J. D. Robb.” and hastily making his way into the room.
He sighed as he closed the door and looked up only to see the same red haired server from earlier paused in a position that suggested he was previously rummaging through the desk. The two stared at each other for what felt like decades before Tanizaki decided to speak first, “Uh… W-What are you doing here?”
“I…” The other man hesitated, “I mean- What are you doing here!
Guests are not permitted in this area!”
“I,” Tankizaki wasn’t sure how to respond so he just decided to stay quiet. Apparently the other man made the same decision and the two stared at each other silently for another five minutes. “Um, I just need to look for something… In the desk….” He muttered shyly as he walked over to the desk and quietly rummaged around with the other man.
“I, uh, I’m sorry I can’t let you go,” The server, or not server (it was probably just a disguise) said before pulling two short knives on him. The knives were thrown at him and they pierced through his sleeves and pinned him to the wall with surprising accuracy. ‘So he’s an ability user,’ Tanizaki thought; there was no way those knives could have pinned him to the wall this way with how the man threw them. Tanizaki stared at the man intensely before pulling his arms off the wall with so much force that the knives were ripped out of the wall, ‘Well there goes my sleeves…’ Tanizaki activated his ability and made himself and the knives invisible to the man before getting behind a couch as a barrier. “Fuck!” Tanizaki heard the man exclaim before pulling out a sword, “Tecchou-san, I need backup! Be careful he’s got an ability!”
Tanizaki swore under his breath, he needed to find a way to escape. However, all hope of that went out the window immediately as a tall man dropped in through the ceiling. The man's uniform led him to believe that he worked for some form of military police, and Tanizaki decided his best chance of getting out alive was through surrender. He deactivated his ability and stood with his arms up, immediately the two in front of him got in a fighting stance. “I surrender!” He said, ready to activate his ability if anything happened and the two turned on him. The uniformed one, Tecchou he assumed, beckoned for him to walk towards them and Tanizaki did so slowly. “Why are you here?” The server questioned.
“I’m here to investigate J. D. Robb. I’m an employee at the Armed Detective Agency,” Tanizaki responded.
“We’re here to investigate as well, do you have any form of I.D. on you? Just to confirm that you work for the ADA.”
“Not on me now, I’m only here to gather incriminating information on J. D. Robb. I didn’t think I would need to I.D. myself, we thought the opposite, really.”
The orange haired man sighed and rubbed his temple, “...That’s believable. Tecchou, what do you think?”
“I think we should allow him to investigate with us, under supervision, and then we can confirm his identity at headquarters.” Tecchou replied while looking at him intensely.
“I agree, if he tries to run then we can assume he’s some sort of criminal. Tecchou-san, you watch him while we investigate, if he tries to run you catch him, okay?”
“Okay, Tachihara-san,” Tecchou replied. So, Tanizaki and the orange-haired man, er, Tachihara began to search through the room. Tanizaki flipped through a stack of letters written to Robb he found in a locked drawer that he had to bust open. He was skimming over one of the letters in the middle of the stack when he found a line that mentioned one of the bombings that had happend a few weeks back, and strangely enough reprimanded Robb for doing a poor job on a bombing. Tanizaki remembered this bombing in particular, it was listed as a key event in the case and the main reason for Robb’s suspicion. He had been seen on surveillance cameras with black gloves on, but only had one on after he left the scene of the bombing just two hours before it happened. It wasn’t enough to convict him, even though what was assumed to be the glove was found at the scene later on, but it was the only lead the case had.
“I think I found something!” Tanizaki called out to Tachihara. Tachihara rushed over immediately and leaned over Tanizakis shoulder to view the letters. Tanizaki took the one he was talking about and held it out for the man to read, and Tachihara grasped his hand to steady it so he could read the letter. Tanizaki tried not to flush at the intimacy, especially with Tecchou watching. “This suggests that Robb isn’t doing this out of his own free will, we need to-” Tachihara started.
“Wait what, he's obviously doing it out of his free will. Look, there's no evidence to suggest that he was manipulated into this, only that there's someone masterminding the situation.”
“No, look closer. The language used is forceful and implies that he doesn’t have a choice. And, I’m assuming you're familiar with information relating to the interrogations and how timid he was during them, unless he's an amazing actor I don’t think that he could possibly be dominant enough to control a whole operation. Also, he's obviously nowhere near smart enough to do any of this alone when you look at the evidence ...and judging by all the gross misspellings in the few letters he wrote but never sent. The language in the letters this person sent him is forceful and has threatening undertones, and he’s also had an amazing and charitable record up until now. Why would that be?”
Tanizaki was amazed, how could he gather all that information in such a short time? Although no one could even begin to rival Ranpo’s deductive reasoning, Tanizaki would say Tachihara would probably come as close to it as anybody could. “You’re right, that's amazing Tachihara-san!
“O-Oh thank you,” The man responded humbly as he rubbed the back of his neck. Their conversation was cut short by the sound of footsteps getting closer in the hall. Quickly, Tecchou (somehow) jumped back into the ceiling leaving Tachihara and Tanizaki to hide on their own. In the corner of the room there was a small storage closet that Tachihara had left open while he was searching through the room earlier. Tanizaki quickly shoved the letters back into the drawer and closed it, still holding onto the one that would count as ‘incriminating evidence’ as he rushed him and Tachihara into the closet. Inside, the two had to stand upright and Tachihara was pressed to Tanizaki’s chest. There was about a centimeter height difference between them, which made the position slightly uncomfortable as Tachihara tried to remove his head from its awkward position under Tanizaki’s chin. When he finally managed to do so, his head was resting against Tanizaki’s shoulder.
Tanizaki’s attention to Tachihara’s position against him shifted when the door to the office opened and someone stepped inside. The person (presumably Robb) was walking normally when suddenly the sound of his footsteps came to an abnormal sounding halt. ‘He knows we’re here,’ Tanizaki thought. Quickly, he activated his ability to hide them in case the man decided to open the closet. The goal of the operation was to achieve information without notifying Robb that anyone had done so, but the two knife-shaped holes in the wall had probably given them away. Tanizaki heard Tachihara curse nervously under his breath, so Tanizaki squeezed his body in a way that was hopefully comforting to the other. Tanizaki studied his face (as much as he could with the only light they had coming from under the door) and saw the others eyes suddenly narrow. Tanizaki’s attention was taken away from him as movement resumed in the office, the rhythm of the steps had changed into a more cautious routine. Drawers were being opened and Robb was looking all over the room as searched for any possible intruders, or evidence of some. “Tecchou is leaving the scene, we’re on our own for now,” Tachihara whispered into Tanizaki’s ear.
“How are we supposed to get out?” Tanizaki responded quietly.
“We wait,” Tachihara told him solemnly. The two stood quietly for what seemed like forever as the footsteps made their way across the room. It was no surprise that Robb would eventually check the supply closet. “Don’t worry, I’ve activated my ability,” Tanizaki whispered into Tachihara’s ear. The door opened suddenly and it took everything in the both of them not to jump as they came face to face with Robb. Tachihara averted his eyes from the man while Tanizaki stared him in the face. His eyes were sunken in and his brown hair was greying, he was only 36. These were telltale signs of stress and only confirmed Tachihara’s theory, Tanizaki couldn’t wait to get back to the ADA and relay this information to them. Robb grunted and slammed the door shut. “Fuck!” He screamed before storming out of the office, Tankizaki and Tachihara escaped through the window soon after.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tanizaki stared at the table in the meeting room absentmindedly. Ever since the mission at J. D. Robb’s event Tanizaki had been thinking of Tachihara, the agent he met there. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to ask for the man’s contact information before the ADA came to retrieve him from the Hunting Dogs Headquarters. Hopefully Tachihara would be at today’s meeting, after the two Hunting Dogs agents had found him their employers decided it would be beneficial to the case if they teamed up. “Tanizaki-san, are you okay? You’ve been staring off into space quite often…” Atsushi asked nervously.
“Oh, I’m okay. I’m just thinking…” Tanizaki trailed off.
“Well, please see Yosano-san if anything feels off!”
“Alright,” Tanizaki responded, and he also smiled for good measure. Atsushi wasn’ convinced, but sat down next to him anyways. The meeting was starting soon. Soon enough Fukuzawa walked in trailed by the all five members of the Hunting Dogs. They all sat around the table (Tachihara was right next to him!) and the meeting commenced. “I’m guessing that you have brought all the materials I requested?” Fukuzawa started off glaring at Fukuchi.
“We have,” Fukuchi nodded, “Tachihara-san, please lay them on the table.”
“In front of me!” Ranpo added cheerfully as Tachihara got all of the materials out.
“W-We think that someone is manipulating Robb,” Tachihara explained, “The letter contains forceful language and we don’t think that Robb would be smart enough to pull something like this off by himself.”
Ranpo put his glasses on and looked over all the materials, “You’re correct,” He said with a smirk. Tanizaki gulped, that smirk meant Ranpo knew something no one else did.
“Well, who is this person?” The young girl who was somehow a member of the Hunting Dogs asked, Teruko, if he remembered correctly.
“I believe that if we find the name of the woman in this photograph… we’ll have the mastermind of the situation.”
“H-How do you even know that? What evidence do you have to support that theory?” Jouno shouted as he stood up.
Ranpo stifled a laugh as he held up a photograph, “You probably don’t know this because you’re blind so I’ll describe the picture to you. In this photograph it appears a woman has stopped Robb on the road, but she's obviously handing him something. It looks like it's a piece of paper and I’d say that it's the letter that Tachihara-san and Tanizaki-san revived considering that this picture was taken two hours before the next bombing,” He said as he pointed to a picture taken from one of the cameras. Sure enough, in the photograph there were two people, Robbs and a woman. Tanizaki knew better than to doubt Ranpo’s thinking and decided to ask, “Well what should our next move be?”
Ranpo smirked, “Find Robbs and then the woman… Dazai-san and Kunikida-san are taking him into custody as we speak seeing as we have the proper evidence to do so now. We’ll call you and Tachihara-san in to do the dirty work once we’ve figured out a plan.”
And so the meeting ended and members of both groups decided to chat while waiting for Dazai and Kunikida to arrive. Tanizaki walked up to Tachihara without thinking first so this was going to make for another awkward conversation. “Uh, hey Tachihara-san,” He said without thinking.
“Oh, Hello Tanizaki-san!” Tachihara replied.
“I never got your phone number.”
“O-Oh!” Tachiara said as he blushed a little, surprised by the bluntness of the statement, “Of course! It’s 0X-XXXX-XXXX.”
“Thank you,” Tanizaki responded cheerfully as he added the man into his phone.
“I’ll be sure to text you later Tanizaki-san… I look forward to working with you on our next mission!”
“Oh, me too. I wonder what it's going to be, I suppose we’ll find out later.”
“Ranpo sure is ama-” Tachihara was cut off by the sounds of a struggling man held tightly by Kunikida. He and Dazai forced him to the table and handcuffed him to a chair, “We’ve got him, now tell them what you told us,” Dazai said menacingly.
“I didn’t say anyth-” He started.
“Bullshit!” Kunikida screamed as he slammed his fist on the table in front of Robbs.
“Just tell us what he said,” Fukuzawa sighed.
“He said that the next bombing is going to be tomorrow, near the harbor. We don’t have an exact location yet though…” Kunikida said.
Suddenly, a green light enveloped the room and the eye color of robbs changed to a beautiful shade of violet, “Such a pathetic creature I’ve created…. I suppose it couldn’t be helped,” Robbs, or whatever was possessing him, said. Members of both groups readied their weapons. “Now, now, don’t be so hasty,” It said, “Just go where I tell you to and we won’t have an issue, or that much of one anyways. Good thing I kept the locations of the other bombings set to happen tomarrow a secret from my little puppet.”
“Where do you want us to go?” Tanizak asked, standing protectively in front of Tachihara.
“Oh~!” It squealed joyfully although her eyes indicated something other then joy, “Young love is so beautiful isn’t it? I expect you two, and only you two, to come to this location. The address is XXXXX, write it down. Maybe I’ll spare a few of the children I was going to kill.”
“Wai-” Tanizaki called out before Robbs body suddenly vanished.
“I guess we’ve got no choice other then to go…” Tachihara said determidly.
“It said nothing about listening devices, Tanizaki-san, Tachihara-san, take these. We’ll be on standby outside of wherever this is just in case,” Fukuchi informed.
“I’m surprised you had those ready, it’s almost like you were expecting this…” Dazai pondered quietly.
Tanizaki paid no mind, he grabbed the device. It looked like a brooch, he put it on under the coat wrapped around his waist so it hopefully wouldn’t look too out of place. He felt a comforting hand on his shoulder, “It’ll be okay Tanizaki-san,” Tachihara told him. Strangely, he felt like everything was okay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When they arrived at the address Tanizaki and Tachihara got out of the car immediately. It was a warehouse, which Tanizaki should have expected. If it weren't for the innocent civilians whose lives depended on the success of this mission, Tanizaki would have laughed. They made their way inside, no weapons were drawn because they figured that if the person possessing Robbs asked them to be there they wanted to tell them something. “Hello?” Tanizaki called out.
“Oh! You’re here!” A woman emerged from the darkness. She clapped her hands together, “Shall we get started?”
“Started with wha-AGHHH,” Tanizaki screamed as he collapsed. Tachiharai ran over to him and knelt by his side.
“My ability, Birthright, will cause anyone to fall head-over-heels in love with another, isn’t that wonderful?” She started, “It’s too bad that I only like to use it before I kill someone.”
Tachihara stood in front of Tanizaki, his pain had subsided but he still lay on the ground. He loved Tachihara, more than the simple crush he had on him before, more than anybody should love a person they just met. ‘I’m such a creep, it’s a good thing she's going to kill me,’ He thought, ‘Tachihara-san deserves someone who isn’t like me… like this. Someone who isn’t insecure, shy or awkward. Someone competent, unlike myself.’
Tachihara stared at Tanizaki worriedly, he wasn’t doing anything just laying on the cold cement ground. “Shame I was expecting a much more fun reaction, but this isn’t unusual unfortunately. Poor thing will be put out of its misery soon enough anyways,” She said before pulling out a gun, “I really should have gone for you, but you see I can’t use my ability on more then one person at a time…”
Tachihara stood still, tensed but not worried, as long as he could control the bullet Tanizaki would be safe. She raised the gun about to shoot, but then she lowered it. “I wonder why you don’t look so worried, I can tell you’re stressed and focused but not worried, why is this? Do you hate your dear little friend?” She asked. Dammit, he hadn’t expected this. Nobody had ever done this. He heard a pained little noise from Tanizaki, he was looking up at Tachihara now with depressed eyes, of course her little assumption had worried him. “Of course not,” Tanizaki let out a sigh of relief at that, “I just…” He trailed off unsure of how to finish.
The woman smirked, “At least I’ve prepared a backup,” She said and pulled out a tiny red button from her pockets. Tachihara pulled out a knife and started the motions to throw it at her, but then she pressed the button and Tachihara heard a loud boom before he was thrown back five feet and knocked out.
Luckily, he came to rather quickly. He saw the woman having trouble escaping, a couple of boxes had toppled over and blocked her escape route, not to mention the flames also doing so. Tachihara looked over at Tanizaki who had definitely taken the worst of the blow and felt his blood boil. He raised the knife still grasped in his hand and willed it to cut the woman's achilles tendon, preventing her from running. If he was going to die, if Tanizaki was going to die, she was also going to die. The woman dropped in agony and screamed loudly, “You bastard! You’ll pay for that!” But Tachihara used his ability to throw her gun away from her, he didn’t want to worry about a stray bullet. He crawled to Tanizaki’s motionless body and moved his head onto his lap. What was taking the Hunting Dogs and ADA so long? Couldn’t they hear them and what had happened. Tachihara had trouble just crawling to Tanizaki, he knew there was no hope. Tears escaped his eyes as the woman continued to scream in the background. Tears flowed through his eyes as the flames seemed to close in around him, it was such a hopeless scene. It was just his luck that something like this happened… especially right after he met Tanizaki.
Tachihara let the ugly sounds escape him as well as he planted a kiss on
Tanizaki’s dirt-covered forehead and rested his head on the ground to the side of the other, and willed unconsciousness to claim him…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Tachihara awoke for a second time Tanizaki was sitting next to him. Tachihara jumped out of the bed and fell onto the floor with surprise, “H-How are we-”
“Tachihara-san calm down please! Let me help you up!” He said as he gathered Tachiharas arms in his own and started to pull him up. Once Tachihara was situated on the bed Tanizaki explained, “They were unable to get in through the flames and had to helicopter somebody in to retrieve us after the explosion. Yosano-san patched us both up right away, I was in the worst shape so I was first which is probably why I’m awake before you. The Hunting Dogs are still here, they’ll probably take you home as soon as they reali-”
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too. Wai- Not that I’m okay but that you’re safe because I really care about you and I think I lo- Not because of Nora’s ability or anyth- her name is Nora Roberts by the wa-” Tanizaki rambled nervously.
Tachihara grabbed the sides of his face and laughed, “Look at me Tanizaki-san. I knew what you meant.”
“Ahahha, yeah…” Tanizaki replied as he rubbed the back of his head knowingly.
“Tanizaki-san, would you like to go on a date with me. I don’t have to go back with the Hunting Dogs immediately.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
Tanizaki smiled, “Sure.”