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It was just like any other day in the Agency for Atsushi. He did his paperwork, did Dazai’s paperwork - or at least, most of it before Kunikida stepped in and forced Dazai to finish his own work for once. He went to the convenience store down the road for a few snacks, and he even got to say hi to Akutagawa, who happened to be passing by! Of course, most of the conversation consisted of light banter and insults, but they both knew the other meant no malice behind their words.
Atsushi hummed happily as he half-skipped into the Agency with his bag of treats, making sure to place a couple of packets by Ranpo’s desk, lest the detective attempt to swipe a few from his stash. It was useless hiding sweets from Ranpo, Atsushi learned from an early stage. Locked draw? Dazai is a handy lockpick, and surprisingly easy to bribe. High shelf? Edgar Allen Poe is impossibly tall, and around almost every day, due to being Ranpo’s boyfriend. Atsushi couldn’t even physically guard the sweets themselves, as Ranpo himself was annoyingly smart. His self-proclaimed title of ‘The Best Detective in the World’ is not far off, so he simply tricks Atsushi into stepping away for a split second, and poof , the entire bag is gone.
So Atsushi found the easiest way to ensure the safety of his sweets, is to rather simply hand a few to Ranpo, who’d just take them anyway if he didn’t. Usually, Ranpo gives him a silent nod of appreciation; although today, it seems he has other plans.
“Atsushi! The President wants you to join me on my next case! Kenji’s gonna be out, so I need a heavy lifter,” He says, as he snaps his mystery novel shut with a loud crack. Kenji recently started going back to school, so from eight in the morning till three in the afternoon - plus another hour or so, depending on if he joins a club - Kenji goes to school.
“A-alright, what case do we have today?” Atsushi asks.
“Tsk, Atsushi, you have to quit your stuttering! And we gotta go downtown; apparently, it was some kinda murder-suicide situation,” Ranpo replies.
So Atsushi places his sweets bag in his desk drawer; giving Ranpo a pointed stare and follows him out of the agency building. When they walk out onto the sidewalk, Ranpo stops for a moment and mutters, “Now, which direction was downtown again?”
Atsushi sighs and grabs Ranpo’s arm, pulling him in the correct direction. Ranpo crosses his arms - or attempts to, with Atsushi tugging on them - and pouts.
“I knew that,”
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They arrive at the crime scene - a rooftop of an apartment building - somehow on time, and a police officer briefs them on the situation.
“We’re looking at a possible murder-suicide,” He says, “The victim is a female in her supposed late twenties, who was killed by her husband, presumed to be in his late twenties as well.”
Ranpo nods, turning to the bodies. “Is there anything else we should know about?”
“There is no physical weapon to be found at the crime scene. The perpetrator is likely an ability user, but we won’t have confirmation till we have an I.D” The officer replies. Ranpo and the police officer talk for a little more, but Atsushi tunes them out; looking over the bodies. Atsushi sighs again. The girl was very pretty, with long dark hair and an attractive face. She probably dyed her hair, as the ends faded into a platinum blonde. She also wore a relatively simple black dress, with lace detailing; though now the black looked more like brown, as red splotches of blood discolored the fabric. He frowns to himself, the girl reminded him a little too much of a certain mafioso that had promised to kill him a month ago. He looked over at the man, the supposed killer. He had lighter brown hair and a light blue shirt. Atsushi frowned, it was weird how the girl’s body had multiple wounds, but the man’s body looks untouched.
“See anything, Atsushi?” Ranpo bends down beside him.
“Well, what's weird to me is that the victim’s body has multiple external wounds, while the perpetrator’s body is untouched. He could’ve drunk a poison, but that would show up in his blood tests, right? And the container for it would’ve been nearby,” Atsushi states.
“Excellent language use! And yes, if there were poison, it would definitely be present at the crime scene!” Ranpo grins. Atsushi gives him a deadpan look. Was this a crime scene, or a school classroom?
“So, if it wasn’t poison, what killed him?” Atsushi turned back to Ranpo, who had put on his glasses.
“An ability, of course!”
Atsushi took a moment to piece it together, then exclaimed, “So, what you’re saying is that there was a third party that killed them?”
“Close. There was a third-party ability user with a manipulation ability, who forced the husband to kill his wife!”
“And then killed the husband to finish the-!” Atsushi nearly finished, when a man dressed in a police uniform bumped into him, almost knocking him over.
“Aha! And there’s the man who did it! Officers, apprehend him!” Ranpo pointed an accusing finger at the man, who instantly got tackled by four police officers. The man, - tall and spindly, - writhed under their grip, in an attempt to getaway. But his attempt was in vain. An officer handcuffed him and transported him to a small chair and table under a nearby awning, where he sat to be interrogated.
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“I did it, I killed him,” The man confesses.
“Well, that was quick,” Ranpo commented.
“Ah, how boring. I guess I don’t need to prove him guilty then,” He rubs his glasses with a cloth, then puts them back on.
“Unless you’re trying to protect the real killer,” He says, a glint in his eye.
“Tell me, what is your ability? What does it do? Care to demonstrate?”
“R-ranpo..!” Atsushi cries, “We can’t do that without Dazai here! What if he tries to escape!?”
“Relax, Atsushi,” Ranpo waves his hand in a shooing motion. “If tries anything, he’ll likely get in trouble with the court, regardless of whether or not he’s the killer. If he demonstrates his ability and it’s what I’m thinking, then he’ll either get arrested or released,” Ranpo eyes the man, who sat nervously in the wooden chair.
“And if he refuses?”
“Again, he’ll get in trouble with the court; for obstructing justice. Not only that, but refusal just puts more suspicion on him, which I'm sure he wants. So, if his ability is different from the suspected killer, then he’ll be released. No biggie,” Ranpo turns back to the man, who was still tied to the chair.
“Well? Demonstrate your ability,”
“B-but I have no ability,”
“Bullshit. You keep rubbing your hands together every time I mention anything remotely close to an ability. Stop lying,” Ranpo pulls a lollipop from the depths of his pockets.
The man sighs and points to a police officer.
“You there. Walk to the edge of the roof,” The police officer is suddenly very rigid and turns around, robotically walking toward the edge of the rooftop, one step at a time.
Weird, Ranpo thought as he watched the police officer. Why did he confess to the crime, but refuse to having an ability in the first place?
“Shouldn’t we tell him to stop?” Atsushi said nervously, trying hard not to stutter.
“He’s getting dangerously close to the edge!”
“My ability can’t be overridden once I give an instruction,” The man in the chair states.
“If I want to change my mind, I can’t; but, if you remember, my exact words were ‘walk to the edge’” The police officer nears the edge of the rooftop, and goes slack. The officer then lets out a blood-curdling scream and instantly backs away from the edge, falling over in the process.
“Hmm, so he wasn’t aware of his surroundings in that state,” Ranpo mutters.
“But that still makes no sense!” Atsushi piped up.
“Oh? Care to elaborate, dear Atsushi?’ Ranpo smirks. Because, of course, Ranpo’s already got every little detail figured out.
“Uh, How did the man die if he was instructed by an ability? If he killed the woman using his own ability, then killing himself with his ability would result in the same type of wounds on his body, correct?”
“Correct indeed, Atsushi!” Ranpo exclaimed, “The man has definitely drunk a poison, and, if my logic didn’t fail me - which it never does, - the vial for the poison would be in that man’s pocket!” He gestures grandly to the man in the chair. The police quickly searched the man’s clothing, and pull out a small, glass, vial containing remnants of the poison.
“And when the blood tests come back, you will be able to match it to the contents of this vial,” Ranpo held it up in a latex-gloved hand, for the entire crime scene to observe.
“Mr. Detective!” A police officer called out. “We have an I.D on the victims!”
“Oh, finally! A name to a partially marred face!” Ranpo says delightedly, the police officer faltering a bit.
“Uh, yes, so uh-” he fumbled a bit with a sheet of paper, handing it to Ranpo. The detective held it up for Atsushi to see. On it was a paper-clipped wedding photo, the bride in a beautiful white and red floral kimono, and the husband in a dark matching one, with traditional stripes. They posed in a loving embrace in the picture, the bride happily looking up at the groom. It was sad knowing that they’d died not long after the wedding.
“Toshiaki and Akane Sato,” Ranpo recited in a somewhat mournful way. “It’s a shame they died so soon,”
Atsushi, still enraptured by the wedding photo asked, “Is that what a wedding is like?”
Ranpo looked at him as if he was stupid before realization dawned on him. Of course, a boy sheltered in an abusive orphanage didn’t know what a wedding is like. So, instead of his usual sarcastic remark, he just says “Yes, Atsushi. Weddings are just like that,”
“And,” He adds, just to make Atsushi feel a little better, “Your initial theory ended up being correct! I now officially award you a stamp of ‘Decent Detectve’” He holds up an imaginary stamp and pokes Atsushi’s hand with it.
“Gee, thanks,” Atsushi says, in an amused, sarcastic way.
“Don’t like it? What if I buff it up to ‘Amazing Detective’, huh? How about that?” Ranpo grins. Atsushi grins back.
“Yeah, I like that a lot better,”
“Well, with that all settled, Let’s head back to the Agency!” Ranpo began to skip toward the stairwell when an officer stops him.
“Sorry, we can’t let you leave till we identify the killer,”
“But we did?” Atsushi asks, confused.
“Ugh, he wants the killer’s name and ability,” Ranpo groans, stomping back to the man and scrutinizing his face.
“Don’t you guys have a face scanner or something? Why can’t we go home? We did our job, we did what you asked. We found the killer!” Ranpo continued to complain. Atsushi, unsure of what to do, went up to an officer and asks, “Is that face scanner thing real?”
“Yeah, it is. But not as advanced as the ones in movies and crime shows. See, what the scanner does, is pick up visual similarities in the faces, and narrow our search down to about five or twenty, sometimes even fifty faces in our system,” The officer explains to Atsushi, who looked in wonder. The computer beeped and displayed a message on its screen.
7 RESULTS FOUND
“Oh, good. Now, all we do is get a mug shot of the perpetrator and compare,” The officer hands Ranpo, who had been poking fun at the killer the entire time, a camera..
“You seem bored enough. Get his picture for us, will you?”
“Will it make us go home faster?”
“Yes.”
“Okey, then,” Ranpo held the camera up and snapped a quick photo, handing the camera back to the officer, who hummed in approval.
“Hmph, that’s a pretty good picture. If detective work doesn’t work out, you could always pick up photography or something,” He comments, sitting back down at the laptop on the desk.
“So, now we compare and contrast, right?” Atsushi asks.
“Yep,” The officer says, holding the camera screen up next to the monitor, which had seven similar-looking faces on the screen.
“There,” Atsushi pointed to the third face on the screen.
“Charles Dickens, a murderer from America, two recorded homicides, each he fled the scene disguised as a police officer once the detectives reach a verdict. Last known location was an airport in Minnesota,” The officer mumbled.
“Sounds like a serial killer in the making,” Ranpo commented.
“His ability is Oliver Twist, It allows him to verbally command a person to do what he wills, however, once his command is given, it cannot be reversed or overridden,” Atsushi reads aloud the rest.
“That’s in line with what he’d said so far,” Ranpo yawns. “Can we go home now?”
“Sure, we have the killer now, so no reason to keep you here,” The officer shrugs.
“Wonderful! Atsushi, let’s go to-”
“H-hang on!”
“What. Now,” Ranpo groans yet again.
“Um, Why did this Charles Dickens guy let himself get caught so easily?” Atsushi asked, his voice small.
“Oh, that?” A voice came from the forgotten chair. Charles Dickens chuckles heartily. “I heard that Japanese prisons are quite luxurious, and I wanted a nice place to live the rest of my life worry-free. No tax to pay, no job to work for, just living the life in a small concrete block by myself,”
Ranpo hums in agreement. “Can’t blame him,” He says, “Society today is pretty sucky,”
“But he killed at least four people!” Atsushi exclaims.
“Well, you have a mafioso boyfriend that’s killed at least ten times that,” That shut Atsushi up.
“Now then,” Ranpo extends his hand to Atsushi. “Let’s head to a cafe. I’m beat from all this running around today,”
“Sounds like a plan!” Atsushi happily accepts.
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At the cafe, Atsushi’s mind couldn’t help but go back to the photo of that couple. Could he and Akutagawa ever be like that? Could the two of them be as happy as the couple was in that picture? He sips on his coffee and shudders, too bitter.
“Pray tell, what’s got you so distracted all of a sudden, Assistant Detective?” Ranpo says, munching on a cookie. He probably didn’t need to ask, as he could’ve figured it out right away, but the gesture was nice. Atsushi shrugs and puts his coffee down, going for the sugar packets on the edge of the table.
“Nothing,” He says, softly, “Nothing at all,”
END
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