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Ranpo Edogawa, the son of two geniuses. The sole reason for the forming of the Armed Detective Agency. Though he had no gift like his peers he was still exceptional, but today was different. After a long day of doing his usual work activities he returned home to the his apartment and finally broke down. It's been nearly thirteen years since he had lost both of his parents, the few people who truly understood him. He ran into his bedroom and dug through the closet until he found what had been in the back of his mind all day, the last family photo he had left. It was probably taken a few months before their death and him attending the police academy, at least as far as he remembered. It felt like he'd been forgetting them recently, he was twenty six and could barely remember their faces without that picture. He so was terrified of potentially loosing that photo completely forgetting his parents that he'd made it a habit of looking at it every day.
So there he was, sitting on the uncomfortable floor of the closet, looking at his younger self hugging his mother like any kid would as his father held both of them. He looked a lot like his father, with the same dark hair and nose shape. But as far back as he could remember people said that he looked more like his mother, and it just made sense. They had the same green eyes, sweet tooth, and short stature. He missed them, missed his childhood home, missed waking up in the morning to the smell of his father's coffee and his mother's gentle humming as she made breakfast. He'd tried before to recreate that feeling with just himself once he started living on his own, but he couldn't stand drinking just black coffee and he could barely cook anything besides basic foods. He just felt like a little kid pretending to be their parent, except no one was there to hug him and tell him that he didn't need to pretend to be someone else.
An accident, that's all he was told. No one told him exactly what happened, but there were plenty of whispers and speculations he chose to ignore for the sake of his sanity. Although deep down, he wanted the truth. Even now he didn't understand why of all the people in the entire world, it had to be his parents who left him too soon. All kids deserved to have their parents, didn't they? They were supposed to occasionally help with school work, watch him become a man, help him with crushes, heartbreak, job trouble, everything that fit the box of a happy family of three.
He wished things were different, that they never died. Would he have grown up happier? Maybe they'd have seen him graduate the police academy and he'd have worked as a detective with his father, he'd come home to his mother's cooking and share stories about his day with his father. But then he wouldn't have met Fukuzawa, he wouldn't have been the reason for the founding of the detective agency, he would have never helped save Yosano from joining the mafia, never have met Poe... Realistically he'd still have gotten kicked out of the police academy, but having his parents' love and support would have been better than all the boring jobs he had at 14. "I miss you," he caught himself saying to the picture, silently wishing that it would respond so he could hear their voices again. "Mama, papa, why'd you have to leave me?" he sounded more like a child than an adult, but he didn't care. He felt like calling someone, Fukuzawa, Yosano, Poe, even Dazai of all people. He wanted someone to know how he felt and tell him that everything would be okay. Pride be damned at this point, he was grieving more than he had when he found out that both of them were gone forever. That moment was permanently engraved in his mind.
It was just a regular night, he'd fallen asleep on the couch after trying and failing to get the sweets hidden high up the pantry. His parents had gone out for the night. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone. He was all alone...
He'd fallen into a deep sleep, only woken up by a friend of his father from the police station coming in with the emergency key. The older man who seemed to always smell faintly like udon and who's name he barely remembered now, hugged him tightly as he said the words that shattered his world in tiny pieces.
"There was an accident an… and I'm sorry to tell you this, but… but they're gone. Both of them."
And just like that he had to be less of himself and grow up fast, which ended up being more difficult for him than expected. Police academy? That didn't really work out. The military post? Maybe he should've kept his mouth shut like everyone told him to. The Construction site? Looking back he didn't even know how he got that job in the first place. His mail job? They should've been more specific when they said his job was to sort the mail.
Life wasn't easy in the aftermath, at least not until Fukuzawa came into his life and changed it for the better. Establishing the detective agency for him, although there were times he really couldn't stand either of his father figure's friends, if they could even be called that since Fukuzawa was so much calmer compared to Mori and Fukuchi. Then he saved Yosano the way Fukuzawa had saved him not that long before, she became his little sister and best friend. Several years passed, and then he met Poe. The first detective who gave him actual chills, although it took a while until they met again, he was happy that they finally did. Katai, Kunikida, and Dazai came along a few years apart from each other, at some point Haruno, the Tanizakis, Atsushi, and finally Kyouka. They were his strange, makeshift family that came from the ashes of his past. His parents were geniuses and kind enough to help people at every chance, that was the legacy they left behind. The legacy he now carried on and protected at all costs, and even if they never got to see him grow up, he knew that his parents were proud of all his accomplishments.