Chapter Text
After spending the entire day making sure everything was perfect, preparing the perfect dinner, and finalizing the character cards, Edgar was finally ready to receive his guests.
All he needed now was… The guests.
“Oda, are you-”
“Yes, Edgar, I’m absolutely certain I sent out the invites.” Oda huffed, cutting him off. “You worry way too much.”
“And you sent the, um, message via raven to the lovely Ranpo Edogawa?” Edgar asked, with a shy smile, fiddling with the napkin that was sitting in front of him on the table.
“Of course I did, I wouldn’t dream of forgetting.” Oda vanished from his seat at the table, then rematerialized behind Edgar. “Relax, Ed, it’s all gonna work out, okay? Although, I’m not so sure about things working out with Ranpo. He did RSVP with a plus one.”
Edgar chewed his lip to hide a frown.
“It’ll be fine,” He mumbled. “Just his company is enough for me. He’s the only person who can truly understand my intellect, you know.”
Oda laughed, softly, patting Edgar on the back. “I know, not even me, who’s been living with you for years, gets you like Ranpo does.”
Edgar laughed along with him, feeling some of the tension leave his shoulders.
He had prepared this dinner party to be a gathering of like-minded authors, with the intention of challenging them to solve one of his cases, although with Ranpo there, it may not be much of a challenge at all.
At that moment, disturbing him from his thoughts, the doorbell rang.
Oda gave his shoulders one final squeeze, before poofing into the doorway that led out of the dining room.
“C’mon, these guests aren’t greeting themselves, Ed,”
Karl wound around Edgar’s shoulders to comfort him, as he pulled open the door, revealing Mark Twain.
“Hello, Twain,” Edgar greeted politely.
“Yeah, hello to you too, gloomy. It said potluck on the invite so I brought this knife!” Twain brandished a large blade. “We can hunt for food in the backyard! Wait… Does this place have a backyard? Oh god, you don’t have a backyard do you? Just something else to tack onto your sad existence.”
Edgar didn’t say anything, so instead, Oda jumped in and offered to take Mark’s coat, which he handed off with a polite smile.
+++
Next, at the door was Louisa May Alcott.
She offered a shy smile.
“It’s, uh, it’s quite lovely to be here, thank you so much for inviting me!” She managed, face turning slightly pink.
“Of course, Louisa, please, come on in,”
+++
“Poe,”
“Yosano,” Edgar replied.
No matter how many times he encountered her, she would never stop being incredibly intimidating.
“I would’ve brought a dish, but unfortunately, I was in surgery all day, I hope you don’t mind,” She explained, holding up her empty hands, as if proving she didn’t have anything.
Next to him, Edgar could see, out of the corner of his eye, Oda shiver in fear.
“That’s-That’s perfectly all right, Yosano, please, just come in.”
+++
“Hello, Edgar, darling,” Kouyou cooed, reaching forward and kissing him on both cheeks. “And, Oda,” Said with a slight bit of derision.
“Hello Kouyou,” Edgar replied, allowing Oda to slink behind him to hide from her. “Oh, and your character card!”
He handed over the thin slip of paper, which Kouyou accepted with a grateful smile.
“Oh, Edgar, dear, can’t I get a different one? She seems so… Poor.”
Edgar sighed.
+++
“Eddie! How lovely to see you!” Dazai exclaimed.
Edgar tried to hide his involuntary flinch at being called Eddie.
Oda and Ranpo were really the only people who he felt comfortable with using nicknames for him, but other people just got away with it, because he was too shy to correct them.
“Dazai, you’re looking well this evening. Your outfit seems a tad… Fancy though, I did say it was casual, you didn’t have to dress up.”
“Nonsense, Edgar,” Dazai tutted, patting him on the head, which made Oda wince in sympathy. “One can never be overdressed.”
+++
“Good evening, Kunikida.” Edgar greeted, politely.
Kunikida smiled back with a respectful tip of his head and Oda was strangely silent, merely staring at their new guest.
“Good evening,” He replied.
They lapsed into an awkward silence after that, so Edgar merely stepped aside, to usher him through the doorway.
+++
“Um, I apologize, who are you?” Oda asked, and he did look remorseful, so Edgar hoped the woman would let it slide.
“Um, Gin. My name is Gin.”
“Right, right… Come to think of it, I do think I sent out an invite with that name. Come on in,”
+++
“Ah, Chuuya, how lo-” Before Edgar could finish, Chuuya cut him off, which caused Oda to frown in disapproval.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s lovely to see me, whatever, can we get into the wine already?”
+++
“Ah, what a lovely evening, comrade.” Fyodor said, with a small smile, that seemed more malicious and off-putting than anything.
“Indeed… Did you bring a, uh, potluck item?” Edgar smiled, nervously.
Fyodor produced a bottle of vodka from his coat.
Oda snatched it from him, taking a swig, then disappearing down the hall.
“How… Wonderful,” Fyordor murmured. “A spirit for a spirit! You
do
know how to party, Poe!”
+++
Once the guests had gathered in the dining room, Edgar took his place at the head of the table.
He took a deep breath, preparing to speak.
And then another.
… And another.
Finally, after an encouraging nod from Oda, he finally said,
“Welcome, to my humble abode, for this occasion. We’re short a few guests, but Agatha Christie sent a letter in advance saying she would be late, and I’m sure Ranpo has his reasons.” He cleared his throat. “So, before you, are your, um, character cards, which is who you shall be for the evening.”
“Okay, well, mine’s just fucking bullshit!” Chuuya exclaimed. “It says I’m a goddamn duchess!”
Across the table from him, Dazai hid his snickering in a glass of water.
“I’m not quite satisfied with mine either,” Louisa said, softly. “It says that I’m a Greek diplomat b-but I don’t speak Greek,”
“Oh, wanna trade, Lou?!” Mark exclaimed. “You can be this rugged outdoorsman! I’ll take yours, because
I
can speak three kinds of Greek!”
“Actually, Edgar,” Kouyou demurred, hiding a frown behind her fan. “I’ve made a few changes to mine, perhaps we can-”
Oda slammed his glass onto the table. “No trading, no alterations. Edgar handed them out and wrote them the way they were intended so leave. It. I'll bring out the soup course."
And with a wave of his hand, there it was. People marveled over it, but he waved it off as 'typical ghost stuff'.
It was in moments like these that Edgar was intensely grateful for Oda, because he most likely would never be able to stick up for himself otherwise.
Oda smiled at him from the other side of the table and gestured for him to continue.
“Right, well,” Edgar began, but was interrupted again.
“Sorry we’re so late,” Ranpo said, with a cheerfully unapologetic grin. "Ango got held up with some paperwork at the office."
"That's fine," Edgar replied, with a broad smile that looked borderline manic to everyone else, but Ranpo found incredibly endearing. "Come, sit."
Edgar guided Ranpo over to the spot on the left-hand side of the seat at the head of the table, which just so happened to be Edgar's, then practically exiled Ango to a spot squished between Dazai and Fyodor.
"Well then, I believe we decide turn order with who's birthday is closest," Edgar murmured to himself, looking through a pamphlet, innocuously labeled 'how to throw a great murder mystery dinner party so your crush will notice you'.
Yosano took a deep breath and stood, with a sharp, "Before that, I have something so say-"
Then, as if sensing the change in atmosphere, the lights went out.
There were shouts of confusion across the room and a loud 'thump'.
When the lights came back up, Ango was dead, face down in the soup Oda had just served a few moments prior.
Chuuya snorted and took a sip of his wine.
"Looks like
someone's
enjoying the soup."