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Chuuya sighs, shakes his head down at the disheveled man in front of him, then says, “well, you’re coming home with me, whether you like it or not.”
“Am not,” Ranpo insists, childish in his protests. He’s not just soaked through, he’s dripping with the rain and blood—what he’d gotten himself into, Chuuya doesn’t know, but he’s sure as hell not getting called into Mori’s office tomorrow and getting chewed out for letting the Agency’s top detective bleed out on the street.
“I don’t think I need to explain to you that you don’t have a lot of choice here,” Chuuya tells him, pinching the bridge of his nose. Why are the smartest idiots the hardest to deal with? “C’mon, up you go. My place is the closest anyway.”
“Why can’t you just take me back to the Agency?” Ranpo fires back, straightening up and stumbling to his feet. Chuuya almost reaches out to steady him. “It’s not that far from here, either.”
“Well, do you want me to?” Chuuya asks. Ranpo presses his lips together, caught. Of course he doesn’t want to trouble the Agency when he’d gotten injured purely because of his own mistakes. Chuuya’s willing to bet Fukuzawa had warned him to sit this one out. Whatever he’d been doing. “Thought so. Now hurry up and let’s go, before I change my mind and leave you to die.”
“This kind of injury wouldn’t kill me,” Ranpo mumbles, but he lets Chuuya sling an arm around his shoulders and help him set a manageable pace as they walk. It’s a hassle to carry his umbrella, but he resolves to just brave the rain and dry off as soon as he gets home.
Ranpo most certainly notices Chuuya activating his ability to make the process easier, but miraculously, doesn’t complain about this.
“You’re not telling anyone about this,” he says as they make their way across the street, rain pattering against their skin, the ground, soaking into Chuuya’s hair. “I don’t want anyone knowing.”
“Sure, sure,” Chuuya agrees tiredly, already knowing this’ll cause more headaches than it’s worth. And yet, he can’t help but feel that he’d the right thing, anyway.