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The Armed Detective Agency office had become a convection oven.
Windows were cracked open to let in what little breeze existed, but mostly it just let in even more heat. And sound. The old ceiling fan hung motionless overhead and below it, a cluster of voices clashing with eachother.
“I’m telling you, it’s not the fan, it’s the cable,” Kunikida said, crouched behind the desk with a determined scowl. “If we get it to work, the agency will be a lot cooler. We need Katai!”
“..Maybe if you’d stop yelling at it, it’d work better,” Atsushi offered, mostly unhelpfully, watching from the side with a sheen of sweat on his brow.
“Yelling helps,” Dazai chimed in from his perch on a nearby windowsill. He had one sleeve rolled up showing his bandages and a popsicle melting slowly in the other hand. “Machines fear dominance!”
Ranpo was lying face down on the floor in the main office of the Agency, limbs splayed out like someone had pressed a human-shaped cookie cutter into a pancake. He let out a low, distressed groan.
No one paid it much mind at first. Ranpo being dramatic wasn’t new. But today, it wasn’t drama. It was defense.
The overlapping voices crashed into his mind like waves pounding against jagged rocks. The clicking of Yosano’s nails, Kenji humming to himself, the laughter from the street below, even breathing.
It all stacked until his skin started to crawl. The heat made it worse. Everything felt loud. Wrong. The air pressed in on him, heavy like wet fabric on bare skin. He rolled around, trying to get it off. But it only made him warmer, resulting in more pants and whines.
His cloak was gone, put on his chair. His hat was thrown away god knows where. Even in just a shirt and vest, he felt stuck.
Every seam, every tag, every thread was touching him too much. His breathing was fast and shallow, and the more he tried to push it down, the more it rose up in his chest like static.
Then it broke.
He let out a sharp, choked noise, halfway between a gasp and a sob. His hands scrabbled against the rug, clawing at nothing. His eyes squeezed shut. The sound wasn’t just loud, it was shattering. Everything around him felt like glass cracking inward. His body jerked, twitchy and frantic like something short-circuiting.
“Stop–stopstopstopstop–” he stammered under his breath, curling in and then out again, a loop of motion he couldn’t finish. His legs kicked once in frustration before going limp again. “I can’t, I can’t hear like this I can’t think–”
From a far-off corner (his private office) the president must’ve heard it. Or maybe Yosano got him. Ranpo wasn’t sure exactly what happened, his head had too much in it to be as sharp as usual. He was only aware that the chaotic white noise of the room shifted, and a few seconds later, Fukuzawa stepped out and into the chaos.
“Ranpo-kun?” he said, voice level but distinctly focused.
Ranpo didn’t lift his head. Didn’t respond. He was shaking ever so slightly. Trembling would be more accurate.
Fukuzawa scanned the room quickly. “What happened?”
“Too much,” Ranpo gritted out, one hand clenching near his face. “Too much noise, too much heat, too many… people.”
That last word came out smaller. Not a complaint. Just a fact. And one that suddenly registered with the others that somehow hadn’t yet noticed.
Fukuzawa crossed the room without raising his voice. “Can someone lower the blinds?”
Yosano nodded and moved wordlessly to pull them shut.
Dazai flicked off the overhead lights without being asked. The office dimmed. It wasn’t silent, but definitely gentler now.
Fukuzawa knelt beside Ranpo, careful not to crowd him. “Is it like last time?”
Ranpo nodded weakly. Tears were forming in the corners of his eyes.“Worse. Can’t… filter.”
He could feel every sound layered on top of the others. The tap of Tanizaki’s keyboard, the songs from the birds, the faint thump of someone’s foot bouncing on the floor. It all sat on his skin like heat rash.
Fukuzawa didn’t touch him. Just sat nearby like a grounded stone, steady and quiet. “Where are your headphones?”
“Too hot. Don’t want it on ears.”
“Understood.”
After a moment, Fukuzawa stood again and addressed the others, voice low but carrying. “Break. Ten minutes.”
No one questioned it. Kunikida got up. Tanizaki grabbed Naomi and slipped out into the hallway. Atsushi hesitated, throwing one last worried glance over his shoulder, but went when Yosano nudged him gently.
Within a minute, the room had emptied.
Only Dazai lingered at the door, arms crossed loosely, expression unreadable. He caught Fukuzawa’s eye, and something passed between them. Some sort of silent understanding before he followed the others out.
The quiet that settled afterward wasn’t total, but it was enough. The air wasn’t cooler, but the weight of it had lifted. Ranpo curled slightly on his side, one arm tucked under his head.
“…You didn’t have to make them leave,” he said eventually, voice scratchy and soft.
“I didn’t,” Fukuzawa said, returning to his side. “They chose to. Because they care.”
Ranpo didn’t answer, but the tension in his jaw relaxed slightly.
“I’ll get you a cooling towel,” Fukuzawa continued. “And a fan. The one in here seems to have stopped working but I might have something handheld. Would that help?”
Ranpo gave a jerky nod. “And water. Cold.”
“I’ll be right back.”
As he left the room, Ranpo stared at the floor, counting the pattern in the fibers of the rug to keep his brain from spiraling again. His heartbeat was still up, but the worst had passed. Sort of like a thunderclap echoing out into silence.
He didn’t hear Fukuzawa return. Just felt the cool press of a wet towel around his neck and a chilled water bottle pressed into his palm.
Ranpo inhaled. Then again.
The first deep breath in hours.
The man sipped at the water slowly, both hands around the bottle like it might float away if he let go.
It was too cold at first but that helped. The shock grounded him, snapped some of the static in his head like dry grass underfoot. The cooling towel draped over his neck was soaked just enough to drip.
Fukuzawa sat beside him on the floor again, legs folded neatly. Not talking. Not watching, but present, the way he always was when Ranpo needed it.
The quiet in the office wasn’t total, but it had shifted into something less jagged. There were distant footsteps in the hallway. A soft breeze stirred the blinds.
Ranpo’s shoulders began to unlock themselves, slow inch by inch.
“…They didn’t laugh,” he murmured after a while.
“No,” Fukuzawa agreed. “They wouldn’t.”
“I sounded ridiculous. Probably looked worse.”
“You sounded overwhelmed,” Fukuzawa corrected. “Not ridiculous.”
Ranpo pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin there, cheek smushed slightly against one arm.
“It’s not always like that,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I can usually manage it.”
Fukuzawa didn’t respond right away. He let the words exist in the room, without rushing to patch over them.
“I used to hide it better,” Ranpo added after a beat.
Fukuzawa glanced at him, not startled, but with the kind of attention that never missed something important.
“You don’t have to hide it now.”
“I know. It’s just..” Ranpo waved vaguely at the room. “It’s like being a puzzle in the wrong box.”
“You’re not in the wrong box,” Fukuzawa said.
Ranpo made a low noise, somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “You always say things like that. But you never explain how you know. There’s no proof or logical explanation–“
“Because I pay attention,” Fukuzawa said simply. “And because I know you.”
Ranpo looked at him, then away. The quiet stretched comfortably between them again, like a blanket pulled over his shoulders. He sipped the last of the water.
“…Can I stay in your office?” he asked after a pause. “Just for a while. It’s quieter.”
“Of course.”
“You don’t have any important President-stuff to do in there?”
“Nothing urgent. The paperwork can wait.”
Ranpo climbed to his feet slowly, swaying a little with the heat still pressing against the windows. Fukuzawa stood with him, steadying him with a hand at the elbow before letting go again.
They moved together toward the back, past desks and case files and one lonely chair still spinning slightly from someone’s exit. Just before they reached the door, the main one opened.
Kunikida was standing there, clipboard in hand, clearly intending to knock.
“Oh– sorry,” he said quickly. His eyes flicked from Ranpo to Fukuzawa, reading the situation in a glance. “I was just going to check if you needed anything.”
“Everything’s handled,” Fukuzawa said. “Ranpo will be taking the day off. Let the others know.”
Kunikida hesitated, then gave Ranpo a small, respectful nod. “Get some rest.”
Ranpo didn’t answer, but the nod he gave back was barely a fraction too fast. He appreciated it more than he could say.
The office was cool, not by much but enough. Fukuzawa had drawn the shades earlier in the day making it dim. The light filtered in soft grey streaks, dancing across bookshelves and a well-worn desk. It smelled like paper and old wood and tea.
Ranpo flopped onto the small couch without ceremony, pulling the cooling towel over his eyes like a makeshift blindfold.
“You sure you’re not hiding important intel in here?” he mumbled.
“There is a safe behind that shelf,” Fukuzawa said mildly.
“Oh?” Ranpo peeked out from under the towel. “Is that real, or are you trying to get me to think about something else?”
Fukuzawa raised a brow, the closest he ever came to smiling. “Why don’t you figure it out, detective?”
Ranpo laughed, and it came easier this time. His voice had the weight of exhaustion behind it, but the tight edge of panic was gone.
Fukuzawa left the door slightly ajar as he stepped out.
Outside, the Agency hummed back to life. Footsteps returned. A soft thunk of something heavy being dropped onto a desk. Someone muttered about the coffee being empty. A phone rang once, then again. It was all normal again, but not intrusive. Not loud the way it had been.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Atsushi asked, handing Kunikida a screwdriver. He’s trying to fix the fan.
“He’ll be fine,” Yosano said, popping a grape in her mouth. “He has Fukuzawa-san.”
“Ranpo-san’s amazing,” Naomi added. “I’m just glad it didn’t end like that time a few months ago.. Besides, he’s a genius!”
“Genius or not, he’s still human,” Kunikida said, mumbling it while trying to fix the cable.
Dazai leaned back in his chair, watching the door that led to Fukuzawa’s office.
“He’ll be bored in thirty minutes,” he said, smiling faintly. “And then he’ll emerge dramatically and declare that he’s solved the mystery of air molecules or something.”
“Should we put money on it?” Yosano asked.
“Five hundred yen says he makes it to forty-five minutes before demanding a snack.”
“No bet,” Atsushi added. “I’m still paying off the last one.”
Kenji joined in, wanting to feel included.“Should we… leave him snacks?”
“You can. Don’t knock.” The purple haired woman responded.
Inside the office, Ranpo curled deeper into the couch cushions, arms wrapped around his stomach like a barrier. His fingers twitched against the fabric, but didn’t clench. His mind was still foggy, but it was beginning to feel like his again.
He didn’t fall asleep, not exactly, but let himself drift.
No pressure. No problem to solve.
Just cool enough to breathe.