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Edgar Allan Poe was… distracting.
He didn’t even seem to realise it - and no one else did either. Poe had taken to sitting by Ranpo as he wrote his novels, both because he enjoyed the company, and he was pretty much the only person who could convince Ranpo to do actual work. (Purely because of constantly bribing him with buying him snacks, or letting him read his new mystery novel early.)
So, that wasn’t really the problem. Ranpo could do his paperwork, it was just boring. But he couldn’t focus, because Poe kept being so distracting!
He’d swept his bangs to the side, revealing one grey-violet eye, and the rest of his hair was brushed past his ear. But because his stupid, soft-looking, curly hair was too short to stay there, he kept moving it back, and it made something in Ranpo want to stare .
He’d never actually touched Poe’s hair before. Well, a few times, when reaching up to grab Karl off his head - but never properly . He’d never run his fingers through it, or tested to see how springy it was, and he really, really wanted to, because it’d probably feel lovely and silky, and -
“ Yes! ” Poe muttered, as his glare mellowed into a pleased smile, and that was it . There was no way Ranpo could focus when there was the equivalent of a planet in the room with him. Poe had finally done it, he was so tall he achieved his own sphere of gravity. Ranpo glared at his tallness, eyes trailing down the lines of his legs, and wow, those really did go on forever -
“Ranpo, what are you looking at?” Dazai’s words cut through his thoughts instantly, and Ranpo snapped his head around to stare at him, his teasing expression implying something .
“The window.” He lied.
Dazai snorted. “Sure.” before he closed his eyes, and laid back down on the couch, feigning sleep.
Now that Ranpo thought about it - why wasn’t Dazai staring? Why wasn’t anyone else distracted by Poe? He was sat there, being all tall, and dark, and mysterious, and honestly really adorable with the way his expressions changed so fluidly with whatever he was writing. And no one else cared! He was balancing his laptop on one knee and twirling a pen with one hand, that was just cool, come on .
Ranpo frowned. Why was he the only person distracted by Poe? Was everyone else suddenly blind?
He felt uncomfortably similar to how he had when he was fourteen. Everyone was ignoring the obvious answer for a reason they all knew, except for him.
But that was because he saw the answer sooner than everyone else. So, logically, he was the only one who realised Poe was so distracting, and everyone else had yet to catch up. There! Mystery solved!
Although, not quite. He still had to figure out why Poe was so distracting in the first place.
There, a new case! Why On Earth Is Edgar Allan Poe So Damn Distracting?
Ranpo didn’t often have problems that genuinely stumped him. For example, the trains were actually easy enough to figure out, but they were filled with people, and run by people , and made him a bit anxious, so he’d just… sort of never learnt on purpose. This wasn’t one of those scenarios.
Which meant he had to actually investigate. How utterly tragic - but he’d do it, because Poe was worth it.
Really, Ranpo would do a lot for Poe. He’d worn big waterproof coats for him before, and that was saying a lot , because waterproof was amongst the materials that made him want to be sick with how much he hated it. But Poe was insistent whenever it rained, and, well, he was hard to say no to when he gave him the big ol’ raccoon eyes.
Anyway, he was getting distracted again. By Poe! The fiend!
The logical steps to take were to lay out all the possibly distracting things about Poe, narrow it down to the obvious reasons, and make a deduction from there. Easy.
Except. Well.
Ranpo’s list looked like this:
-Hair (curly, soft)
-Karl (acts cute with him)
-Eyes (really nice colour)
-Clothes (weird but charming)
-Boots (weirdly hot? Why so tall?)
-Books (interesting, well written)
-Face (nice to look at)
-Smell (like old books and expensive stuff)
-Smile (rare but big)
-Laugh (adorable)
-Pen collection (adorable x2)
-Music taste (weird (note; look up the cure) but really cool)
-Tall (distracting)
-The way he stands (looming)
-The way he sits (complicated. Too long limbs)
-That sad face he makes when he wants something but isn’t actually sad (adorable x3)
And that was just the first page. Of the first section, which was meant to be all purely superficial aspects that Ranpo found distracting, and would logically make others distracted too. The second page was more… how should he put it, ephemeral things. (Thanks for the vocab lesson, Poe.) Things like how he had a bit of an intimidating aura, the potential that someone could sense his ability and its inherent power. His personality traits, like how he was quiet with everyone until he became comfortable, and then he proceeded to explode into theatrics and unreasonable confidence, and even recklessness. Or how he cared for Karl so much he’d personally sew extra pockets into his cloaks and coats to hold snacks, and in a few cases, Karl himself.
He buried his hands in his hair, and stared at the multiple lists in front of him. Half of these were just the same thing repeated with different words, when he looked at it again. It was all his creativity, kindness, awkwardness and, just, Poe -ness. He’d written himself into a corner - what was distracting about Poe was that he was Poe.
Which meant he had to move on to his second hypothesis, and part two of his investigation, his personal least favourite.
“I’m not hallucinating, am I? Are you doing paperwork? Without tall, dark, and handsome here?” Yosano was leaning over his desk, smiling at the messy piles of paper.
…Interviews.
“Yosano,” Ranpo began slowly. “Do you find Poe distracting?”
Yosano blinked. “Like… in general? Not the other kind of distracting, you know I don't swing that way,” She chucked, and then looked towards Poe’s usual seat, next to the window and Ranpo’s desk. “Uh, I guess? At first I did.”
Ranpo’s head perked up. “You mean you don’t find him distracting anymore?”
Yosano shrugged. “No, not really. He was distracting at first, because there was a new person in the office all the time - but now I’m used to him. And he makes better coffee than Kunikida.”
“He doesn’t even like coffee.” Ranpo muttered. He mentally crossed off Yosano as a worthy interviewee. As much as he loved her, she noticed next to nothing. Although… she had spent a significant amount of time with Poe, what with him practically working Ranpo’s exact hours these days.
Ugh. He was gonna have to ask every single member of the Agency.
“I mean, a little, but just because he’s tall and spooks me sometimes! I’m more used to him now, don’t worry!” Atsushi assured him, looking oddly worried about offending Ranpo. He should be more worried about offending Poe, in Ranpo’s opinion.
“No? He’s pleasant to be around, and he makes you do your paperwork. Why would I be distracted by something that helps my schedule?” Of course, Ranpo should’ve expected this answer from Kunikida.
“No. He cuts apple slices into bunnies for me when he’s stuck on his books. He’s practically part of the Agency now.” Kyouka stated flatly, eating one of said apple bunnies. Ranpo added ‘ kind to children ’ and ‘ can make apple bunnies but never made some for me??? ’ to his list of distracting Poe things, which was quickly becoming a compendium of everything he knew about Poe at all.
“Why would I be distracted by your boyfriend?” Dazai asked, looking up at Ranpo like he’d suddenly announced he was renouncing all sugar and going to live a life of mindlessly copying words onto paper.
Ranpo blinked. “He’s not my boyfriend, where did you get that idea?” because Poe was a boy, well, a man , and he was his friend, but he wasn’t his boyfriend . Did Poe even like men? Would Poe even be interested in him like that?
Dazai frowned at him, and gestured to the hunched up figure of Poe writing quickly on his laptop, before pausing, scribbling something onto a sticky note, and putting it on the side of Ranpo’s desk, looking up and catching his gaze, smiling bashfully and looking back down at his laptop. Ranpo smiled to himself, he loved Poe’s little sticky note messages. Normally they were just doodles of Karl, or Ranpo, or occasionally, Agency members, but sometimes they were bad jokes or puns Poe had thought of on the spot.
“...I don’t follow.” Ranpo said flatly. “Anyway, are you?”
“No? He’s great and all, but it takes a lot more than a goth American twink to get my attention, y’know.” Dazai smiled to himself, and promptly slipped his headphones over his ears again. Ranpo rolled his eyes. Yeah, of the course. The so-called ‘twink’ needed to be French-Japanese, and have bright orange hair to catch Dazai’s attention.
“Yep!” Kenji replied brightly. “He’s so cool! You know, he wanted to know all about the village, he asked me so many questions about it! He said he might put it in a book!” his eyes were practically sparkling in joy.
Ranpo hummed. Was this a Kenji thing, or a Poe thing? Because Kenji had a slight habit of… well… to call it hero-worship was a bit much, but he tended to idolise older Gifteds. Most likely a Kenji thing, then.
“Not really.”
“Nope.”
The Tanizaki siblings were worse than useless. They barely paid attention to anyone that wasn’t each other, why did Ranpo even bother?
“I know now really isn’t the time.” Ranpo said, opening the Agency’s supply closet to see Port Mafia Executive Chuuya Nakahara tangled up with Dazai. He, understandably squawked in indignation, but that might’ve also been because Dazai was quite determined on seemingly eating his neck.
“ What? ” Chuuya hissed, pushing Dazai’s smug face away.
“Edgar Allan Poe. Do you find him distracting?” Ranpo asked, privately wondering why they kept insisting on making out in a closet. Didn’t they share a whole apartment together?
“Why would I find your boyfriend distracting?” Chuuya asked, his anger dissipating into confusion. Dazai made a noise of agreement.
“ Exactly what I said.” he nodded sagely. “Now, Ranpo, if you don’t mind-”
“Use protection.” Ranpo interrupted, before shutting the closet door.
“...And that’s why I’m going insane.” Ranpo finished, sighing heavily, draping his arms over Fukuzawa’s desk. The only solution he’d managed to come to was that it was him, and him alone that found Poe distracting. Which meant it was a problem with him for whatever reason.
“Like, why aren’t I used to him yet? I’m at his apartment all the time! And I’m the one who keeps dragging him into the Agency with me! I don’t get it .” he whined miserably, listening as Fukuzawa sipped his tea, unbothered. A true monster.
“Ranpo… can I see that list of things you found distracting about Poe?” Fukuzawa asked gently. Ranpo took the crumpled sheet from his pocket, because at this point, it was easier to just carry it around with him, with how often he was adding to it.
Fukuzawa neatly straightened out the paper, and hummed. “I see. Ranpo, when you are distracted by Poe, how does it work?”
“Huh?” Ranpo lifted his forehead off the desk. “What do you mean?”
“Explain to me how you’re distracted by his presence. How does it affect you?” Fukuzawa said simply, folding his arms.
Ranpo hummed. “Well, sometimes I just look at him. ‘Cause he’s nice to look at. And then I end up wondering what his hair feels like, or if he has a skincare routine, because like seriously , his skin is unfairly clear.” Fukuzawa nodded, so Ranpo continued. “And I like his hands, they look like they’d be nice to hold. And when he hums to music sometimes, I wonder what he’d sound like singing. And he even distracts me when he’s not around! I keep thinking about him whenever I see cool notebooks, or black animals, or just - everything .”
“It’s worse than I thought.” Fukuzawa said solemnly. “Ranpo, I know we don’t discuss this sort of thing often, but…” he sighed. “Are you attracted to men?”
Ranpo blinked. “I’m attracted to smart people. Men included.”
Fukuzawa sighed even heavier . “And isn’t Poe your,” he cleared his throat. “ Rival , because he’s the only one who can keep up with you intellectually?”
“Yeah? What does this have to-” and then it hit him.
Oh.
Oh .
Ooooooohhhhhhhhhh .
“Oh,” he said, eloquently. “I’m an idiot.”
Fukuzawa smiled at him, tiredly. “We both know that’s not true.”
“ Poe! ” Ranpo announced, walking into Poe’s apartment, because, well, he would’ve done this at the Agency, but if this was going to work , he needed to be considerate of Poe’s feelings, and he would probably hate this happening in front of all of Ranpo’s co-workers.
“Hello, Ranpo.” Poe didn’t look up from Karl on his lap, raking a wiry brush through his fur. Karl himself looked pretty happy, snuffling slightly and looking cosy as hell. Ranpo felt a small flash of jealousy, before he remembered Karl was a literal raccoon .
“I’ve come to a deduction about a personal case.” Was he meant to feel this awkward? In his mind, he’d sort of just… swooped in and told Poe everything effortlessly, and then they’d kiss, or something.
Eugh, he’d been reading too many of Yosano’s bad romance novels. But the real mystery of them was how bad the writing could get! He couldn’t just stop!
Wait, Poe.
Poe had looked up now, one of his eyes revealed by his hair being brushed back. He was looking expectant now, and a little excited. Why were Ranpo’s palms sweating? God, Poe had such pretty eyes.
“I fear I am deeply in love with you, you’ve seduced me with your gorgeous writing and devotion, your weird goth clothes, freakishly long legs, and stupid American accent.” was what Ranpo intended to say.
“I’m gay! For you specifically! You made me gay!” was what came out.
Poe blinked at him. “I’m… sorry?”
Ranpo made a small, frustrated noise. “I - you - you’re hot , damnit, and I like you. A lot. Like romantically.”
He expected Poe to flush bright red, stutter, and be generally adorable, but instead he just smiled brightly. Ranpo’s heart skipped a beat.
“I know. I like you a lot, too.”
Wait. What?
“Like,” Ranpo leapt onto the couch, Karl wisely jumping off his owner’s lap. “Like romantically? Wait, how did you know before me?”
Poe smiled gently at him. “It can be hard to solve a case when oneself is the prime suspect.” he pointed out. Ranpo opened his mouth to speak, but then decided he’d much rather shut himself up, and leant over to Poe to press their lips together, and do just that.