Chapter Text
Edgar loved books. Especially goth poems or mystery books. He loved to read them, and he would write stories of his own. Or fanfics, but only when he was sleep-deprived. Tonight, he was staying up reading the Twilight series (not as good as everyone says it was, it was just cheesy romance after all). His adoptive family was already fast asleep.
He set the book down on his nightstand. His house was small, and his room was way smaller, although the room just looked like a library with a bed. His bed was decorated with many black, purple, and beige pillows and blankets. He also had an embarrassing amount of stuffies on his bed.
And, of course, the plushies were his favorite animals, cats, ravens, and raccoons. He rolled onto his back and stared at his ceiling. He loved books so much, but yet, he knew no one he wanted to read them like he did. Or maybe it was that he was to shy to ask.
So he would start a book club.
He picked up his notebook and started to write out what it would look like to him.
- Lots of books.
- Writing tools, pens, papers.
- People (?)
That was a problem.
He didn’t have many friends. Well, he did have his friends (more like classmates or acquaintances, he often didn’t talk to them), like Lousia or Lucy, but they usually didn’t have time for him. They did start dating a few months back, and they were too focused on that. Maybe Lovecraft or John, but they were dating too, and Lovecraft was… quiet. Not the type Edgar or Lousia was.
Thinking about them made him feel single.
There was also Scottie Fitzgerald, but it would be weird to have his teacher's kid as a friend. Mr. Fitzgerald didn’t even let her join Edgar’s friend group (which Mark had proudly nicknamed ‘The Guild’).
Maybe he would friend someone from that one group everyone called the ‘Port Mafia’. To be honest, Edgar was afraid of them. Like the short ginger, who Edgar would sometimes see beating up the other guy who always tried to kill himself. Or maybe the pink-haired one, who was rumored to have sent multiple people to the nurse's office. The school nurse, Mr. Mori, was rumored to have done some… bad things to one blonde middle schooler, the kid who tried to off himself, and the scary girl who had the butterfly pin.
There was the ‘Decay of the Angel’, which was one of the smallest yet most popular groups at school. The group had the kid with heterochromia (who was not hetero), his weird genius Russian boyfriend, Bram, and Sigma. He only knew their names because he had seen Bram reading literature from years ago, and he saw Sigma writing things a lot.
There were also the ‘Hunting Dogs’, who were mostly made up of hall monitors and some student council members. Mr. Fukuchi was in charge of the student council, so most of the hunting dogs knew him.
The hunting dogs had the 14-year-old looking girl, a ginger guy (who he saw also hang out with the ‘Port Mafia’), the one who he saw put sour creme on a donut, and Jouno (whose name Edgar knew because he was curious on how he could read even though he was blind).
And then there was the A.D.A.
He didn’t know much about it.
Except that Ranpo Edogawa was in it. And his dad (Mr. Fukuzawa was one of Edgar's counselors.)
Ranpo Edogawa.
Ranpo Edogawa was his rival. He spent every second pondering ways to one-up him. The thing about Ranpo is that he was a genius. He was smarter than Edgar himself. The smartest kids in his grade were; himself, Lousia, the russian one, the suicidal one (somehow), the Sasaki girl (who was expelled for… suspected murder), and Ranpo Edogawa. There were also people that he knew were geniuses who had graduated, like Oda and Ayastuji.
All this thinking was stressing him out, and he just wanted to go to sleep. He turned off his lamp and put his headphones in, before slowly falling asleep.
It was a fresh new day. And this fresh new day was a little too bright for Edgar. He got up stretched, showered, got his clothes on, and walked downstairs. It seemed like John and Frances were both still asleep. He didn’t usually eat breakfast, but today he made himself toast with jam, which his mom used to make for him.
He poured himself a cup of coffee. He liked coffee a lot, but he only liked it if it was black. He never really liked anything sugar-filled or sweet.
Edgar then walked to school, the sun beating against his skin. It was a mystery how he stayed so pale all the time. He put in his headphones, listening to classical music.
It took almost 10 minutes to walk to school. He went inside it. Edgar quickly headed to his homeroom. He sat in the far corner of the room, at his desk.
His homeroom was relatively small, consisting of Lucy, John, the suicidal one, Scottie, the scary girl with the butterfly hairpin, Sigma, the short ginger, and Ranpo. Lucy and John sat across from Edgar. Although he didn’t talk much, he enjoyed their company and he could tell that they somewhat enjoyed his company.
Near the front of the class was Ranpo, the suicidal one, and the scary girl. He hated seeing Ranpo every day in the morning. It ruined his day having to see Ranpo’s face everyday.
Lucy did an overdramatic sigh. “I wish me and Lousia had homeroom together… you’re so lucky Edgar!” She crossed her arms, “You get to see your crush every day!”
John nodded, “Me and H.P. share a few classes. You get to have all your classes with your crush! But also H.P. needs a break from me.” He sighed, just less dramatically than Lucy.
“I don’t have a c-crush…”
Lucy tilted her head. “But you’re always thinking about him? His name’s Ranpo right?”
Edgar hid his face behind a book, embarrassed. How could his friends even think about that? He thought of all the attempts to one-up him. His grades were only a little bit lower than Ranpo’s, but it was enough to make him obsessive. Plus, Edgar and Ranpo had been enemies in elementary. They were reading a mystery book, and Edgar had found the answer after the first few pages.
But alas, Ranpo had found it after reading the blurb. Ever since then, all he thought about was stumping Ranpo. He was going to embarrass him with a novel that Edgar himself wrote. It would be too hard for the normal person to solve, and harder for Ranpo.
But that wasn’t for today.
Today was the day he was going to set up an after-school book club. He was going to ask his literature teacher to host it after school.
The day passed slowly, he had a test in social studies, and a math quiz later in the day. His scores were perfectly high, but Ranpo’s were annoyingly higher.
After school, he went to literature teacher. The teacher, Mr. Melville, agreed to let them have it in the library. It was decided that it would be every tuesday, after school. He was going to ask one of the artsy kids, like Lucy, or someone who could make a poster for the club.
He walked back home after that, the walk home peaceful as he put in his headphones.
“Hey! You! Come here!” A voice yelled for Edgar.
Edgar looked towards the voice, stumbling through bushes to see a mud-covered Ranpo. Ranpo’s coat was on the ground wrapped around something.
“I’m down here-” Ranpo looked up, “I fell. Can you handle this?” Ranpo disappeared with his jacket before Edgar could answer, and leaving Edgar alone. Edgar was about to leave before he felt something claw at his pants.
It was a baby raccoon, or a kit, which Edgar had learned the proper name for a baby raccoon. The kit looked malnourished. Edgar opened his backpack and pulled out his left apple from lunch.
The kit happily ate it, leaving only the core. Edgar picked it up. He walked back to his house, the kit in his arms. He opened the door, just to be greeted by silence. He wrapped the kit in a towel that he had found in his closet. The kit fell asleep quickly.
Edgar emptied his drawer and put the kit in it. He was tired from school, but he still had to make dinner for himself. He walked downstairs to warm up takeout from the other night. He microwaved eat, then he ate it.
He still had his earbuds in, but he had changed into an oversized My Chemical Romance shirt and checkered sweatpants.
He was reading a book while he ate. That reminded him, that tomorrow was Tuesday. That was the first day of his club. He finished his food and washed the dishes before opening his computer. He was still working on his novel, Black Cat in The Rue Morge, which was about six people who get stuck in a mansion with a killer on the loose.
He was just finishing chapter thirty when he heard something fall in his room. He zoomed up the stairs to see that a bookshelf had fallen over. The kit was nowhere to be found. Until Edgar heard the sound of nibbling.
He found the kit eating one of his old social studies papers on communism and Karl Marx. “K-Karl..?” The kit-er-Karl tilted his head. “That’s your name, right…Karl?” Karl perked up. Edgar smiled before he threw out the rest of the papers, making sure there wasn’t anything Karl could eat.
Edgar could see that it was getting late, so he brushed his teeth and tucked himself in. Karl didn’t want to lie on the towel, so he just… sat on top on Edgar’s head.
And they fell asleep, happy to be both quiet and alone.