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It was inevitable. Ryunosuke should have been prepared for it. Within minutes of receiving the British contingent at the Tokyo port, the whole group of them were embroiled in a case. Sholmes had sniffed it out on the go and literally leaped from the moving carriage, forcing them all to stop and get out, if only to make sure he hadn't broken any bones.
He was already beyond that point, and turning the questioning of some poor concerned bystanders back upon them. "Mr. Sholmes, I didn't know you spoke Japanese," Ryunosuke said. "How did I not know you spoke Japanese?" The bystanders fled the moment Sholmes was distracted.
"I have very little cause to speak Japanese in London, my dear fellow. Now see here: an abandoned rickshaw in the middle of the street! Disrupting traffic at that!" Of course, their carriage was now pulled up behind it, so the flow of traffic was even more disrupted. The carriage driver was looking increasingly impatient. Ryunosuke tried to smile at him and received a chilly stare. "And this lady, she is obviously of particular interest," Sholmes continued, dragging Ryunosuke by the elbow towards the edge of the street. "Madam!" Sholmes called, causing the middle-aged woman to attempt to cross the road to escape him. She found herself chased by a tall, blond foreigner shouting at her in fluent but badly accented Japanese. "Pray, madam! You walk up and down the street as if window-shopping, but your glances towards that rickshaw betray you!"
Ryunosuke looked desperately around for assistance in restraining Sholmes, but Susato-san and Professor Mikotoba were standing by the carriage, watching this unfold with folded hands and matching indulgent smiles on their faces, and Miss Wilson was now rooting around under the tarp on the abandoned rickshaw. Only Lord van Zieks, standing behind the Mikotobas, seemed to have any doubts about this situation. He had his arms crossed and his head ducked down as if to become inconspicuous. It wasn't...really working.
To tell the truth, seeing Lord van Zieks in the flesh had Ryunosuke flustered. In his frequent letters over the past year, van Zieks had seemed much less intimidating than he had in London; without his glower, towering stature, and general aura of menace, he came across as gentle and kind. Ryunosuke had come to see what Professor Harebrayne meant about him. He'd been very proper and formal, and rather bleak in his outlook, but in his treatment of Ryunosuke, he had become not only respectful, but openly admiring.
Ryunosuke had been wondering for so many months what sort of admiration it was. Based on the way they had parted in London, it felt a little bit...well, Ryunosuke had indulged in a few daydreams. Now, his mind was compulsively combining the daydreams with Lord van Zieks's imposing physical presence. Ryunosuke might have underestimated the situation. He'd need a step stool or something. Dear god.
A hand hooked Ryunosuke's elbow, snapping him out of his staring. "Observe!" Sholmes cried. "Iris has found something most intriguing beneath the rickshaw's tarp!"
Iris was holding up a couple of long, bright green feathers. "There's also this crate," she said.
"This lady's furtive glancing suggests a motive of theft. And on her clothes — " Sholmes grabbed the back of the woman's shawl, arresting her progress as she attempted to sneak away, and plucked from the fabric a similar green feather. "Evidence that the crime has already been committed. This woman has stolen an exotic bird!"
"Um," Susato said. "Where has the bird gone, then? And why didn't the lady just leave?"
"You would think she would have stolen the ceramics in this crate as well, wouldn't you?" Iris asked, peering into the rickshaw again.
Ryunosuke came to her side. The ornate, heavily gilded blue porcelain vases were a pretty obvious target. And just a short way up the road, Ryunosuke happened to know there was a store that sold fine artworks. "The woman was planning to steal the ceramics before they could be delivered to the store up there, but she hadn't managed it yet because the street has been so busy, she would have been seen."
As he posited his theory, pointing out the relevant shop, a carriage came barrelling between pedestrians, swerving around the crime scene developing in the middle of the road. Yelping, Ryunosuke stumbled backwards, barely avoiding the hooves of the horse. His heel caught against the wheel of the stationary rickshaw and he pinwheeled, wincing in preparation for an inevitable collision with the dusty ground.
He collided with something a lot softer, and was drawn decisively up against soft black wool, smelling of cold sea air and red wine. He pawed at the cloak, and then looked up into the taut, white face of Lord van Zieks. He's angry with me! Ryunosuke thought, before considering the surprised look in van Zieks's strange, lovely, pale eyes...and the firm arm still holding Ryunosuke up. "Do be careful, my learned friend. I prefer the contents of your skull stay where they are, rather than coming to decorate a horse's hooves," van Zieks rumbled, right up against Ryunosuke.
The contents of his skull were about to explode, and it was Lord van Zieks's fault. Ryunosuke scrambled to get his feet back under himself, and then dusted the front of van Zieks's cloak off compulsively. "Thank you!" he squeaked.
Van Zieks's face softened minutely, about the mouth. "You oughtn't encourage his nonsense like this." He straightened his top hat.
"Force of habit, I suppose?" Ryunosuke rubbed his hair, gathering himself. The Lord van Zieks in front of him was the same man from the letters! And the man in the letters was not angry all the time! In fact, he usually seemed like he just needed a break. "I'm sorry, you must be tired after your long voyage. I'm...sure we'll get back to the Mikotoba house...eventually."
Van Zieks raised his eyebrow. "Are you sure there will be room for us all there?"
"Oh yes, there's plenty of room, my lord. I suppose it's a lot of us, but if the others are being noisy, you can come lie down in my room," Ryunosuke said. Lie down in his room? Van Zieks's ears were rapidly turning red. His eyelashes fluttered. Ryunosuke had invited him to lie down in his room.
Ryunosuke quickly turned away from whatever he had just wrought, in time to hear Professor Mikotoba declare, "If she is the pet shop's owner, then the feathers may well belong to her own parrot." Evidently, everyone else was still wrapped up in the game of deductions.
"That's what I said! I didn't steal it, it's my parrot!" cried the lady whom Sholmes was hassling.
"That still begs the question of where the parrot is now, and why its feathers were inside the rickshaw," Susato said, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
Sholmes snapped his fingers. "The rickshaw's runner and passenger are missing along with the bird. The conclusion is clear as day: this was no ordinary bird, but a monstrous creature who seized both of them in its talons and carried them away!"
"We...don't have giant birds in Japan, Mr. Sholmes," Ryunosuke pointed out. "Presumably the parrot stole something from the people, rather than stealing the people themselves. Then they would have run off after it, which is why all three of them are missing."
"The boy is right," the lady said. "My parrot got away and flew off with the lady passenger's hat. I'm waiting and hoping my bird will come back, that's all. Now let me go!" She tried to pull away.
Sholmes pulled her back by the shawl again. "Where are you going without your beloved bird, madam? And what about your beloved pet shop? From the window of which, you see this lady arrive each day by rickshaw, delivering fine ceramics for sale, and from which, today, you sent your trained bird to create a distraction."
"She's been waiting on the street for her bird to come back," Ryunosuke said. "After which, she would have taken the first opportunity to snatch the crate and run back inside her shop. When the art seller and rickshaw man come back, they'll think anyone passing could have taken the vases."
"Behold the return of the vagrant parrot," van Zieks intoned from behind Ryunosuke. Sure enough, a large green macaw was soaring up the intersecting side street. It was shortly followed by a man in working clothes and a lady wearing a very fine blue kimono and clutching an extravagant Western-style hat in her hands, both of them out of breath. The parrot landed on the pet shop lady's shoulder and emitted a blithe whistling sound.
Three men in police uniforms rushed towards the rickshaw and carriage stopped in the middle of the street. "What is going on here?!" one of the policemen demanded.
"Someone was trying to steal some vases, sir," Sholmes explained in his very British Japanese.
The art seller woman pointed and shouted, "You!"
The parrot lady turned around and ran.
"And there she goes," Sholmes said, and burst into a fit of belly laughs. One policeman ran after the parrot lady and the other two rounded on Sholmes himself.
Professor Mikotoba sighed deeply, untucked his hands from his sleeves, and went to intercede on Sholmes's behalf.
Lord van Zieks had retreated to the carriage, standing near its door, between the front and rear wheel. Ryunosuke thought about not poking the bear for a moment, but then the bear looked up and caught Ryunosuke with his glacial gaze. He was still looking flustered, cloak slightly askew.
Ryunosuke was drawn back to him, his mouth running itself nervously. "We're always dragged into these sorts of things. At least he managed to stop a theft. I'm sure Professor Mikotoba will get this all settled quickly."
"Mr. Naruhodo, I believe you may have leaped to some conclusions regarding the contents of my letters," van Zieks said.
Ryunosuke winced. "I swear I wasn't intending to imply anything. Only that Miss Susato and Iris will probably share a room, and Mr. Sholmes will be sleeping with Professor Mikotoba, and so you could sleep with — rather, if you wanted to share my — but then, there's a perfectly nice, Western-style hotel nearby. And anyway, that has nothing to do with your letters..." Van Zieks's eyes were closed. Ryunosuke trailed off.
"If you would permit me to share your personal space," van Zieks said slowly, without opening his eyes, "I would be honored."
Ryunosuke swallowed, cotton-mouthed. "I keep thinking that you're insinuating things on purpose, but you're much too p-proper for things like that." When had he begun touching van Zieks's cloak again? He worked his hand up to the man's pinkish cravat. It was very silky fabric.
Van Zieks opened one eye. Just the one, in a cattish wink. "Am I?"
"I missed you," Ryunosuke breathed.
"I wanted — " Van Zieks drew his lip between his teeth and looked over Ryunosuke's head. Ryunosuke could hear the argument taking place behind him. "Can they not sort this out faster? The whole of Tokyo is staring at them."
And not at us, Ryunosuke thought. "What did you want?" He sneaked his hand underneath van Zieks's cravat. It was just his shirt over his skin under there, and his heart was pounding as fast as Ryunosuke's.
Van Zieks looked back down at Ryunosuke. "When you said goodbye in London." The tip of his tongue darted out to wet his soft, bitten-pink lip. "I thought, later, I wished you'd — been bolder."
"Bolder like this?" Ryunosuke rocked up onto his tiptoes, feeling van Zieks's sharp, startled exhale on his face. But van Zieks didn't draw away, didn't push him down, and Ryunosuke took hold of his chin and kissed him.
Van Zieks was frozen for a moment, and Ryunosuke just had time to think, oh no, before van Zieks's big hands took hold of Ryunosuke, one around his arm and one at the back of his head, dragging him closer. Van Zieks kissed back, a little awkward, a little stilted, but breathless, grasping. The skin of his face was cold, but his mouth was hot and very soft. A shadow fell across Ryunosuke's face. As he pulled back, dropping back onto his heels, he realized van Zieks had drawn his cloak up when he grabbed Ryunosuke, so that he was halfway inside of it as well, mostly hidden from passersby.
Ryunosuke stared up into van Zieks's wide-eyed face. Had they just kissed? Had that actually happened? Already? Where had Ryunosuke gotten that kind of courage from? Was van Zieks about to snap him in half?
Van Zieks raised his hand to his own mouth, touching his shiny-wet lips with graceful gloved fingertips. With the scowl wiped off of his features, it was hard not to think of him as beautiful.
"I got carried away?" Ryunosuke said.
"I thought about it so much," van Zieks murmured, "that seeing you again in the flesh had me intoxicated. Forgive me."
Ryunosuke cocked his head, and then giggled, his belly full of thrilled, nervous fluttering. "But I'm the one that kissed you."
"Oh. Are you quite sure?" van Zieks said.
"And here we have two gentlemen who just could not wait for a more opportune moment to go off on their own!" Herlock Sholmes said, clapping both of them on the shoulder.
Ryunosuke squawked. Van Zieks slapped Sholmes's hand off of Ryunosuke. "You are a fine one to criticize others for inopportune moments, detective," he snapped. "We haven't even managed to drop our luggage off yet and you're already causing public unrest."
"Oh, we are very touchy. We are also looking rather flushed. Had a nice reunion with Mr. Naruhodo?"
Lord van Zieks somehow became even taller, the stormy creases of his face returning with dire celerity.
Ryunosuke touched his arm timidly. "Er, my lord, we can — I suppose we should get in and drive on, now that that's cleared up?"
Van Zieks's homicidal gaze fell onto Ryunosuke, giving him a little shiver. Then the murder drained out of him. He simply nodded, offering Ryunosuke a chivalrous hand up into the carriage, and then reaching out to give Susato one as well.
Ryunosuke looked at his own hand once he'd sat down. He had magic powers all of a sudden. Magic Reaper-taming powers.
When the carriage finally clattered on towards the Mikotoba house, and Sholmes had been distracted from his suggestive smirking by a lively conversation about Japanese police procedures with Professor Mikotoba and Iris, Ryunosuke risked a shy glance up at van Zieks, whose arm was pressed up against his shoulder in the small space of the cab. Van Zieks was already looking at him. Ryunosuke flashed a smile.
Caught, van Zieks whipped his head to the side to look out the window instead. A soft-looking curl of hair broke loose from his neat coiffure and brushed against the strong, pale plane of his jaw; he reached up with one of his surprisingly delicate-fingered hands to tuck it back behind his ear. Which was still blushing red.
Ryunosuke was so looking forward to showing Lord van Zieks around Tokyo...and sharing his personal space.