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Ranpo and Dazai had been observing Kenji all morning.
He was acting oddly nervous.
And it was kinda alarming, Kenji was rarely ever nervous.
So instead of continuing to make up theories for the cause of his behaviuor, they decided to just go ahead and ask him. He's not the kind of boy that will lie to you or try to evade questions anyways:
'Hey, Kenji, are you alright?'
Asked Ranpo, sitting on the top of his desk as he watched the boy go from one side of the room to the other carrying mountains of papers in his hands.
'Yeah, perfectly! Why?'
'You seem kinda nervous and thats not usual for you.'
Then, the boy stopped in the middle of the room, and replied:
'Ohhh... Yeah, I am kinda nervous, but its not the bad type of nervous though! It's a mix of nervousness and excitement...'
'Excitement? For what?'
Dazai sat in Ranpo's desk chair as he observed the boy take the papers he held in his hands to Kunikida's desk. It was paperwork Dazai was suposed to do, but even Kenji knew he would end up leaving it for Kunikida to do it anyways.
'Well, today is Saint Valentine's Day...'
'Oh, right! I almost forgot, Poe is going to take me on a date when I finish working! I don't even know what day I live in... Wait. Are you going to ask someone out, Kenji?!'
In that moment, Kenji's cheeks became deep pink coloured.
'I-Well-'
'It's Kyoka, right?'
Asked Dazai and Ranpo with one voice.
'How did you know?!'
'We know everything, Kenji.- said Ranpo, and Dazai just nodded in agreement- How are you going to do it?'
Kenji went to his desk and opened one of the drawers, revealing a home-made plushie of a white and red cow with a small flower on the top right of its head. It was the same type of flower Kyoka wears on her hair.
'I was going to give her this... I made it myself, I was thinking about buying her one, but I still don't really understand the concept of buying things with money. So, I just took some things from here and there, and sewed it all together. Is it too bad?'
Kenji really wanted Kyoka to like the present, because it was obvious he liked her, so, as any other 14 year-old boy, he was nervous. In the end it didn't matter that he was a detective with super strentgh, he was still just a teenager with a crush.
'It's perfect, Kenji! Don't worry, I'm sure she'll love it.'
'Thank you, Ranpo-'
'Hide it! Yosano and Kyoka are coming!'
Warned Dazai, recognizing their footsteps from the distance. Kenji almost dropped the plushie, and hid it inside of the drawer again, then Yosano and Kyoka entered the room.
'Oh, hi boys!'
'Hello Dr. Yosano! Hi, Kyoka!'
Greeted Kenji, trying to hold back the nervousness in his voice. Ranpo noticed and decided to make him a little favour:
'Hey, actually, Fukuzawa wanted to talk to us three, Yosano.'
'Right now?'
Asked the doctor, clearly confused.
'Yes, right now.'
Ranpo used a voice tone that helped Yosano understand that there was something going on, he would tell her later, but right now, she needed to play along.
'All right then, we should get going.'
Said Yosano, opening the door again.
'Do we need to go too?'
Asked Kyoka, a bit confused about the whole situation.
'No, don't worry, you two can stay here. Bye!'
Ranpo closed the door behind him as he left in a hurry, leaving Kyoka and Kenji alone in the room.
'Now thats weird, they usually want us to be there too whenever theres a meeting. I wonder what happened.'
'Yeah, it's kinda weird...'
Kenji tried to play along, but his heart was beating super quickly inside of his chest, he didn't know if the pink in his cheeks was starting become noticeable, and he was starting to internally panik a bit. But now they were alone, now he had a perfect chance, and he wasn't going to miss it.
'Hey, Kyoka...I wanted to give you something.'
'Oh, really? What is it?'
Kyoka looked at him with those curious blue eyes, and Kenji swears he felt like his heart skipped a beat. But he had to come back to earth. He opened the drawer, took out the cow plushie, and handed it to Kyoka.
'There! I made it myself! I know your favourite colour is red, thats why I made its spots red, and also, I added the little flowers you wear in your hair! But if you don't like it, you can just tell me-'
'I love it. It's perfect.'
Kyoka looked at the stuffed animal with sparkles in her eyes, then looked at Kenji, and those sparkles didn't leave. It was now or never.
'I'm glad you like it! I wanted to give it to you today because... I really like you Kyoka. So I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go get some crepes together after work today?'
For a second they just stared at eachother, and time felt like time had freezed in that same moment.
'...I would love to. I like you too.'
Kyoka looked like a tomato at this point, holding her plushie close to her chest, and not taking her eyes off of Kenji's amber eyes. And they would have stayed like that forever if it wasnt for a voice calling for her from outside of the room:
'Kyoka, can you please come over here for a second?'
It was Atsushi's voice.
'I should probably go see what he wants... I'll see you later.'
Kenji nodded in agreement, coming back from cloud 9. But what happened afterwards caught him completely off guard. Kyoka leaned in and placed a quick kiss on his left cheek. Now it was his turn to become a tomato. He watched Kyoka exit the room as he placed his hand on his left cheek, where Kyoka had placed her lips, still trying to process what just happened.
Ranpo, Dazai and Yosano entered the room again, and started giggling as fast as they saw him.
'I was going to ask you about how it went, but I can already see it went pretty well.'
Said Yosano, closing the door behind her.
'Ugh... Even kids are more succesfull than me in love.'
Whined Dazai as he trew himself in his desk chair. Ranpo sat on the top of his desk:
'Ha! Single loser.'