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Ranpo Edogawa has many thoughts about Atsushi Nakajima.
Ranpo has thoughts about most people he interacts with, and he's good at figuring out people on first meeting. He's never disliked Atsushi, despite what some of his earlier actions may suggest, and he finds himself having tentatively let him into his circle these days.
See, Ranpo isn't someone who has much concern for society at large.
When he was a kid, alone in the world and kicked out of an academy with nothing but the clothes on his back and whatever little amount of things he'd had on him, nobody had concerned themselves with helping him as he wandered the streets for six months until he ran into Fukuzawa by chance and met the first adult to give a damn since his parents. He's reasonably a bit jaded against people as a whole for it despite knowing everyone can't possibly be bad, so the people he does let in are limited and carefully selected and scrutinized.
Once they're in his circle, there's not much he won't do to protect his people. That said, he knows he's a little uptight about the screening process beforehand, hence the whole not necessarily wanting to send the Agency (cherished people) to rescue Atsushi (some guy who had just come into his life and there was no client contractual obligation to protect) off the boat that one time.
Right or wrong, Ranpo is a guarded person.
After a while, though, Atsushi had sort of grown on him as new Agency members sort of always have. Ranpo gets used to people eventually, and he's figured by now Atsushi is not the sort of person he's jaded against.
He does annoy him sometimes. He won't pretend he doesn't, but it's because they're kind of…different. Very different, actually.
Ranpo is all mind-based in decisions, but Atsushi makes ninety-nine percent of his choices with his heart, and Ranpo has never been able to not be a little frustrated with people who refuse to use their head and just listen to their heart. He thinks it's a nice sentiment and all to pretend your feelings will always produce the best outcome, but it's also utter nonsense to him (and he does not like nonsense).
That's the core difference anyhow. Ranpo will almost always make the choice that is the most logical and will be better for the Agency (the only exception being doing whatever it takes to himself to protect the Agency), and Atsushi has this sort of way of thinking where he's usually going to do what is morally right to him even if it's logically a very stupid choice. Ranpo can't really condemn him for doing what he thinks is right (especially when the Agency itself would and has made him do the same), but it does kind of make his eye twitch when it puts Atsushi or other Agency members in danger when decisions are made that way (though he knows the last thing Atsushi actually wants is to cause an issue for the Agency).
Ranpo just isn't really very outwardly feelsy to begin with. Atsushi has his heart on his sleeve, and Ranpo…isn't necessarily cold, but he isn't exactly apt to sit and have a heart-to-heart with anyone. He kind of despises doing that sort of thing (and that's a whole other can of worms).
Despite all these differences between them and how they operate, Ranpo can't help but find himself having let the kid into his circle of designated people he cares about.
Perhaps it's even because of the differences, actually.
Maybe it's Atsushi's tendency to get himself into danger trying to do what's right that makes Ranpo want to step in and curb the harm. Maybe it's the fact that most every objectively risky thing Atsushi does is out of an attempt to do right by people. Maybe it's that Ranpo knows Atsushi has something he wants to prove to someone.
Maybe it's that Ranpo can't make himself hate Atsushi wanting to believe that everything can be solved by doing your best, no matter how naïve he thinks it is. Maybe that in particular is because he tried to look for that same blissful concept when he was younger, too, and was unlucky enough to find that doing your best isn't foolproof.
Maybe it's not.
He'll try to say it's not that he sees a glimpse of the desperate hope his younger self once had in him, anyway.
He guesses that maybe some less jaded part of him wishes Atsushi could be right, that every problem was as simple as following your heart.
In any case, Ranpo Edogawa has many thoughts about Atsushi Nakajima, and he does not hate him.