Chapter Text
Atsushi sat sullenly at his desk, his eyes meaninglessly drifting across a page of what could best be described as a mountain of Dazai’s paperwork. The pen in his hand trembled approximately once every ten-second interval, which was Ranpo’s first clue that something was wrong. Of course, there were others, like the bags just visible under his eyes, or the fading floral scent emanating from his character that suggested he had been to a flower shop within the past two hours, and the splotches of dirt he didn’t quite wipe off his leggings that, together with previous details, suggested that he had been at a gravesite.
Of course, it didn’t take a genius detective to deduce whose gravesite he had been at, everyone at the agency knew that Atsushi hadn’t been feeling well since he’d learned about his headmaster’s last…well, controversial, act before death. The fact that the man who had tortured Atsushi for so many years had risked everything to come to congratulate him on saving the city must’ve been weighing heavy on the boy, especially only two days after the case was solved. It was probably Dazai’s advice that led Atsushi to visit his headmaster’s grave, but unfortunately, the closure it supposedly had promised seemed to evade the young weretiger.
It was…sad, really, and the fact that Ranpo was acknowledging it as such probably meant he had gotten a little too attached to the agency’s second-newest member, but Ranpo shrugged off the revelation. The main threat to the agency that Atsushi had brought was gone and Fukuzawa had already given the kid his approval, so there was really no downside to being friends. Logically, it made sense that Ranpo would enjoy Atsushi’s presence, as Atsushi tried his best with everything he did, including any help Ranpo asked him for. Combined with the heart of gold that Atsushi had, it only made sense that Ranpo would warm up to the tiger boy pretty quickly. With that being said, since it was clear to Ranpo that Atsushi was having a tough day, the next logical step was to help him out.
“Hey, Atsushi,” Ranpo called, his eyes trained on some case or another in front of him as Atsushi looked up immediately,
“O-oh, uh, yes Ranpo?” Atsushi stammered a little as he attempted to straighten his posture.
“There’s a drug ring that’s been operating underneath Yokohama River that I’ve been assigned to investigate and I’ve deduced that you’re the best man to get me there.”
“Oh, well, um, are you sure?”
“What kind of question is that? I’m always sure.”
“Right- sorry.” Atsushi stood up, clearly with intentions to walk Ranpo outside immediately but Ranpo held a hand up,
“Hold on Atsushi, we aren’t leaving just yet. By my calculations, it will be easier for us if we head over there in approximately two hours, so, until then, bring those papers on your desk over here, will you?”
“Wait- but won’t it be past dark in two hours?”
“Yep.”
“And…you want me to bring you my paperwork?”
“Dazai’s paperwork.” Ranpo corrected, haphazardly rolling his chair towards the right side of his desk as he folded and stuffed a paper in his pocket.
“...But I thought you hated doing paperwork,” Atsushi stated uncertainly.
“I do, so if I were you, I’d hurry up before I change my mind.” That finally seemed to kick Atsushi into gear as he hurriedly yet somehow carefully picked up his large pile of paperwork and set it on Ranpo’s desk. Ranpo flexed his fingers and opened up his snack drawer, taking out two bags of chips and two soda bottles, handing one of each to Atsushi. The boy somehow looked even more confused than he was before but Ranpo just smiled at him.
“For the next two hours, you are my assistant paperwork completor, and everyone knows that a good assistant deserves a share of the secret snack stash. I know that in this dark, dreary line of work, you will not disappoint me Atsushi.” Ranpo declared and patted Atsushi on the back, placing one of Dazai’s many documents in front of each of them.
Predictably, most of Dazai’s documents were overdue and either listed complaints about his work or demands for better descriptions of the evidence contained in Dazai’s police reports. Ranpo didn’t think half of the papers in front of him were worth the time of day but he knew that if he threw them out Atsushi’s workload wouldn’t be any smaller, which meant it was possible that stress would ruin Ranpo’s plans for Atsushi the rest of the day, and Ranpo simply couldn’t have that. So, Ranpo pushed past his disdain for his current activity and diligently went through the paperwork, deducing whatever evidence Dazai didn’t bring up for a case and writing it down while Atsushi handled the apologies at the behest of Fukuzawa, who had banned Ranpo from doing them some time ago. Ranpo, to this day, still wasn’t sure how the apology of “yeah he’s always like that,” was considered rude but hey, Fukuzawa understood people’s egos better than Ranpo did, and apology work never really interested him anyway.
Ranpo silently complained to himself about the monotony of his situation as he went from paper to paper but he was nothing if not determined to carry out his plan despite its weight on his sanity. He had no idea how Kunikida managed to do this sort of stuff every day. Finally, the end of their two hours was up, and as Ranpo expected, that was all the time he and Atsushi needed to finish all of Dazai’s paperwork.
“Ah, it looks like we made it just in time for our investigation, Atsushi.” Ranpo declared as he stretched his legs before hopping out of his chair. Atsushi blinked, his mind just seeming to comprehend that there was no longer any paper in front of him to fill out as he looked back and forth between Ranpo and the completed stack of paperwork.
“...We just did a week’s worth of paperwork,” Atsushi murmured.
“Yep! With the world’s best detective on your side, reverse engineering cases for cops is child’s play!”
“Yeah, it really is.” Atsushi broke out of his trance and smiled up at him, “Thanks Ranpo, you’re the best.”
Ranpo took the praise in stride, letting it cover up the past two hours of self-subjected suffering as he replied,
“Well of course I am! Although, you can thank me properly by making sure I get to the river safe and sound.”
“You bet I will!”
“That’s the spirit!” Ranpo was, admittedly, half tempted to ask for a ride there by tigerback, but he held himself back, opting to walk instead for the sake of timing.
Ranpo and Atsushi arrived at the river about twenty minutes after leaving the detective agency, and, as Ranpo promised, they uncovered secret passageways that snaked barely underneath the riverbank. Such tunnels directly underneath running water would normally be impossible to upkeep due to the current, which meant that an ability user was involved, Ranpo figuring out the rest of the relevant details within the next five seconds. Admittedly, there was less fanfare than Ranpo usually solved cases with but it was to be expected, he had places to be after all.
After a quick call to the police department, Minoura and his team showed up to take the case, and Ranpo explained to them who the culprit who made the tunnels was, as they were in the gifted record’s database, while also explaining it was likely that they had been blackmailed. When asked why, Ranpo explained the inconsistencies and poor design of the tunnels, along with the fact that the case had been discovered because of an exchange that was seen happening during a public event, in broad daylight, meaning that they were practically begging to be caught. Ranpo would bet that the tunnel maker had quit the drug industry but, due to the usefulness of their ability, had been dealing with threats levied against their family.
“You can find our culprits here and here,” Ranpo circled two places on the map Minoura handed him, “Make sure you don’t start making noise until you have the place surrounded, they’re not high-level threats, but they are ability users. Anyway, I’ll leave the rest up to you Minoura, come on Atsushi, we’ve got one more place to go.”
If Minoura asked any more questions, Ranpo didn’t hear them, dragging Atsushi further down the river bank until they finally came to a nice hill.
“This is the spot,” Ranpo stated as he flopped into the grass, gesturing beside himself and continuing before Atsushi had the chance to ask what he meant, “Come lay down with me.”
Atsushi only hesitated for a moment before he nodded and sprawled himself across the grass similar to Ranpo.
“Now what?” Atsushi asked.
“Look.” Ranpo pointed upwards, Atsushi following his gaze to the sky where stars sparkled in the moonlight, his eyes widening slightly enough to confirm that Ranpo had made the correct decision in coming here. Ranpo smiled to himself as he looked at the stars, tracing shapes with his fingers with half a mind.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Ranpo asked after a while.
“Yeah…it must cost a lot to keep those lights on so far in the sky.” Atsushi breathed. Ranpo’s mind halted for a split second after that remark, the meaning of the statement taking longer than usual to reach him.
“That’s right...You’ve been inside most of your life, haven’t you Atsushi?” Ranpo murmured.
“...Yeah, I guess I’ve never really seen these lights before, they’re usually not visible, right? Is there a holiday today?” The innocence of the question threw Ranpo off a little, but not enough to prevent him from enlightening his coworker,
“You’re right Atsushi, they usually aren’t visible but no one’s controlling them. Those stars are far past any human’s reach, gifted or otherwise. You can think of them as other worlds, ones that would take hundreds of years to get to but are just visible to us in the form of small lights. No one turns them on, they simply appear at night in the same spots when there aren’t any clouds or smoke to block our vision.”
“Wow…does that mean there are other people all the way out there?” Atsushi asked, his eyes set on the sky.
“It’s possible, but there’s no real evidence of it. I happen to know that Mr. Fancy Hat came from another dimension at the very least but I doubt it was from any of those stars.”
“Ah, I see…” Atsushi remarked halfheartedly as if the existence of other dimensions were nothing compared to the sight above him. Ranpo knew the feeling, as odd as that was. There was just something about the shining stars in the sky that made Ranpo just want to exist underneath them instead of uncovering their secrets.
Ranpo wasn’t sure how long he and Atsushi simply laid there staring at the stars, only that it was long enough for him to trace out fifty unique shapes in them before he sighed,
“I suppose we should get back to the agency dorms.” Ranpo tisked as he sat up, haphazardly brushing grass out of his hair.
“Oh…! Yeah, you’re probably right. I mean, I guess we can’t stay here all night, right?” Atsushi responded.
“I’d prefer not to but if you want to stay here all night, you’re welcome to come back after you guide me back to the dorm,” Ranpo replied nonchalantly.
“Really?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Well, I thought it was your special place and I don’t want to intrude…”
“Here then,” Ranpo pulled out a piece of paper he had folded into his pocket earlier and handed it to Atsushi. Atsushi quickly unfolded it and looked the paper up and down,
“A stargazing permit…? Wait, is this a real thing?”
“It is now! Congratulations Atsushi, this is now your very own special spot, I’m simply a visitor. Now you’ll have no problem doing whatever you want down here guilt-free, isn’t that great?”
“Ranpo…I…but…why?” Atsushi asked. Ranpo tilted his head in question,
“Why what?”
“Why would you do all this for someone like me?” Ranpo blinked, puzzled at Atsushi’s question,
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…sharing your snacks, doing my paperwork, showing me the stars…it’s not something you would normally do right? Not that I think you’re normally mean or anything, it’s just…why go through all that trouble just for me?” Ranpo furrowed his brow,
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your question Atsushi. Are you implying that you’re not worthy of my time?” Atsushi didn’t respond, his downcast eyes providing the answer Ranpo needed.
“Well that’s just stupid,” Ranpo sighed as Atsushi gazed back up at him in surprise, “Do you really think that I, the world’s best detective, would ever waste my time with someone I didn’t deem worthy of it? Why? Because of something that your headmaster said to you? Because everyone in your orphanage talked down to you? I don’t care how worthless they thought you were, their words are just as, if not more, worthless than the dirt beneath your feet. The only opinions that should hold any value to you are those at the Armed Detective Agency, especially if that opinion comes from me.”
Ranpo pointed directly at Atsushi as he continued,
“And I say that you, Atsushi Nakajima, are a valued member of the Armed Detective Agency. You were instrumental in our battle against the guild and a resolute protector of those weaker than you. Not just anyone can have a selfless heart like yours Atsushi and I think it's about time you accept that fact. You've done more than enough to earn my friendship and what I've done for you today was simply an extension of that.”
“...Ranpo…I- don’t know what to say.” Atsushi looked up at him with an expression Ranpo struggled to place.
“Well, I never said you had to say anything, I was just pointing out the truth.”
It took Ranpo a few seconds to realize that Atsushi was now crying, tears running down his face at a steady pace. Ranpo must’ve extended his arms subconsciously because, within the blink of an eye, Atsushi had practically thrown himself around Ranpo in a hug.
…Admittedly, this was not Ranpo’s area of expertise. He could deduce the source of any problem but the second emotions got involved, Ranpo was at a loss. Did I say something to upset him? And if I did, how am I supposed to know what it was? Am I supposed to apologize right now or would that be counterproductive? I don’t know…what would Fukuzawa do?
Ranpo ended up settling for awkwardly patting Atsushi on the back instead of saying anything, letting whatever was happening run its course. If Ranpo said something wrong, he’d just have to trust that Atsushi would tell him about it after he had calmed down. Until then, Ranpo simply had to wait, and something was soothing about that fact. For some strange reason, it reminded him of Yosano.
After another minute or so, Atsushi detached himself from Ranpo, hastily wiping the tears from his eyes.
“S-sorry Ranpo, I-…I didn’t mean to get so emotional…” Atsushi sniffed, “But, thank you. Really. Thank you so..., so much for today.”
Ranpo…didn’t know how to respond. How Atsushi was thanking him was the kind of response Ranpo would get if he saved someone’s life or stopped a bombing, not for simply taking some time out of his day. Ranpo couldn’t remember the last time someone had thanked him so profusely for something so…minor but here Atsushi was, acting like Ranpo had just saved him from a burning building.
“...You’re welcome,” Ranpo eventually said, “It’s what friends do, right?”
Atsushi smiled, bright and genuine,
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
The next day, Atsushi no longer had circles underneath his eyes.