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Fukuzawa had given Ranpo a simple errand, to pick something up at a store a bit out of the way.
Ranpo frowned at the location on the map. “That’s way too long to walk.”
“The train’s only a ten-minute walk away, and once you take that, it’s right in front of the station.”
“I don’t know how to ride a train.”
Really? Even with his intellect? Wait, Ranpo came from the countryside, right? Trains were something foreign than him. It wasn’t completely unreasonable to think that he wasn't familiar enough to know how to buy a ticket.
“I’ll tell you.”
“Do I really need to know how?" whined Ranpo. "You usually take me everywhere. Just don’t send me on errands that far away next time.”
“It’s necessary to understand public transportation if you live in a big city.”
“I’ve been in Yokohama for over a year and I’ve gotten along just fine.”
“It’s not that complicated.” Fukuzawa explained the process of buying a ticket. At first Ranpo paid attention, but as Fukuzawa wet on, his stare got increasingly blank.
“Are you paying attention?”
“What’s the point of a world where trains and buses both exist?” started Ranpo. “They serve the same purpose, right? I suppose buses are better because they aren’t stuck on rails, but in a way trains are better because they’re faster. Why don’t we just combine them both?”
“... Trains go faster because they’re on rails,” explained Fukuzawa.
“Why isn’t every train a bullet train though? Isn’t it a waste to just have every train be normal? And what about airplanes? They’re the fastest mode of transportation of all, but yet people use trains all the time instead of them.”
Airplanes only work over really long distances, Fukuzawa almost said before realizing that would be encouraging him to go on and on. “Were you listening to my instructions?”
“Oh. It was boring so I stopped paying attention.”
Fukuzawa then did what he should’ve done in the first place. He wrote down a list of concise instructions, telling Ranpo exactly what ticket he needed, and handed it to him. Ranpo grabbed the instructions and ran off.
Fifteen minutes later, he got a call.
“Fukuzawa-san, I don’t understand it.”
“What part?”
“All of it,” said Ranpo.
Fukuzawa walked over to the train station where sure enough, Ranpo was standing at the ticket booth, frowning. He waved Fukuzawa over.
“None of this makes sense,” said Ranpo. “The map’s complicated and confusing. The departure times make no sense. Why are they so weird? Why not just have them every fifteen minutes so everyone can remember it? Just looking at this gives me a headache.”
“I told you the exact ticket you needed to buy.”
Ranpo ignored him. “Why do you choose the ticket by pricing? Wouldn’t it make more sense to choose by location? It’s a horrible system. I tried to take a train to get to Yokohama, you know, but looking at everything made me dizzy, so I walked east for three days instead until I bumped into the city. My legs were so tired. I hate walking.”
How does he plan on getting anywhere without riding a train or walking?
“Watch me do it.”
Fukuzawa demonstrated for Ranpo how to buy a ticket and pointed him towards the exact spot he should go.
“I still don’t get it,” said Ranpo.
“Just repeat exactly what I did to get back. The platform to return will be the one you exit on.”
Ranpo frowned but very cautiously made his way through the turnstiles, heading towards the train.
An half hour later, Fukuzawa got a call.
“I got off at the wrong spot and I don’t know what to do,” said Ranpo. "I tried to figure it out, really, but it just doesn't make sense!"
Fukuzawa took a deep breath. Was Ranpo playing around so he wouldn’t have to do the errand? Surely someone with an intelligence like his could figure it out. “Just look at the map, and-”
“I’ve got a headache,” said Ranpo.
“Listen-”
“I’ve got a headache!”
He wasn’t the only one.
Ranpo told Fukuzawa his train stop (it was one too soon) and Fukuzawa reluctantly took the train there to rescue his ward.
“This is stupid!" said Ranpo, sulking on a wall by the ticket booth. "I should’ve just walked. Walking is horrible, but at least it makes sense!”
"This is an important lesson. ”
Fukuzawa took Ranpo to the ticket booth. Ranpo groaned.
"If you do it yourself, it’ll stick better in your memory. Now, tell me, which one do you think it is?"
“I… I…” Ranpo looked up from the map to the ticket booth from the map to the ticket booth to Fukuzawa. He slumped. “The lines all criss-cross. Why did they make it like that?” he said weakly.
Ranpo, who was usually brimming with an annoying amount of confidence, seemed genuinely put back. He didn’t grow up with public transportation, Fukuzawa reminded himself. Ranpo wasn’t used to the hustle and bustle of city life.
Fukuzawa put a hand on Ranpo's shoulder.
"I'll buy a ticket myself, and then you repeat exactly what I do. We can go over the maps tonight."
“All right,” said Ranpo.
---
A week later, Fukuzawa sent Ranpo on another errand, and yet again he was faced with a phone call.
“Fukuzawa-san, I forgot again.” After a brief pause, he added a "I'm sorry."
Fukuzawa rubbed his head. was given verbal instructions, written instructions, visual instructions, and did it himself. Weren’t those the four ways of learning things? What else could he do to make it stick? Make up a song? Draw a picture? No, this was Ranpo, child genius. It was completely in his ability to figure it out if he put enough effort into it. Fukuzawa had told Ranpo to try to reserve it for special cases after the boy had tried to use it on everything at first, but this was an emergency.
“Use your Super Deduction.”
“Got it!”
Fukuzawa had come to accept the fact that when Ranpo called when he was out, there was a three out of four chance it would start with “Fukuzawa-san, I’m lost.” Most of the time Ranpo was close enough Fukuzawa could simply walk him through getting back home, but this time he followed it up with "I think I'm in Osaka."
".. Osaka?” repeated Fukuzawa slowly.
"That's what the sign says. The train was taking a long time and I dozed off. Then I woke up and I was here."
Osaka? Wasn’t that like, two hours away by train? With multiple stops along the way? How do you doze off and end up on the other side of the country? Osaka? How was that even possible? This child could solve the most complex of mysteries in less than a minute. How did he get on a train to go twenty minutes away and end up in Osaka?
“You used Super Deduction, right?”
“I did.” Ranpo sighed. “I don’t think it works right on trains.”
"Well… No ability is perfect."
Ranpo may be a genius, but he could only work off of information he already knew. For him to not figure it out… He really had zero comprehension.
"I can try and take a train back, but I don’t-"
"Whatever you do, do not step on another train!" said Fukuzawa quickly before Ranpo could end up completely on the other side of Japan. “Just stay there. I’ll come.”
“So what am I supposed to do, just wait here and do nothing for hours?” Ranpo whined.
“Yes!”
One stressful train ride ever, Fukuzawa found Ranpo laying on a bench near the train station, two empty ramune bottles at his side, looking bored out of his mind. He perked when he saw Fukuzawa and sat up.
“There you are! I’ve never been this far west before! It’s pretty neat, huh? The air’s different. I think I like Yokohama better.”
"You are not allowed to take a train by yourself from now on," said Fukuzawa.
Ranpo grinned wide. “So you agree that it’s useless knowledge for a great detective? I told you so.”
"It's for your own safety."
“Hey, can we go sightseeing while we’re here?” asked Ranpo, pulling on Fukuzawa’s sleeve. “It’ll be a waste to come all this way just to leave.”
“You didn’t mean to come all this way.”
“Yeah, but now that we’re here, we should take advantage of it.”
"We can look around a bit, but we’re returning by tonight.”
“Yay!”