Work Text:
Poe had been having a quiet, productive day. He’d nearly completed outlines for not one but two future stories in a fit of inspiration, and he had even found the time to take a trip to the good shopping district, the one a few train stops away but with a better selection of stores, in his opinion. As he settled into his seat on the train home, a thought crossed his mind. He’d just bought some tea and snacks, and the office of the Armed Detective Agency was a stop before his own.
He quickly checked his phone. It was getting late, but probably still early enough in the evening that Ranpo would still be at work. If Poe was lucky, he could convince him to stick around a little while longer by plying him with food. He wanted a second opinion on the plots he had come up with earlier, and who better than one of his most honest critics?
With that settled, he soon found himself hesitantly opening the door to the Agency’s office, calling out “Hello? I, I’ve come to visit Ranpo...is he here?” He closed the door behind him, wincing at the loud noise it made as the doorknob just barely slipped out of his fingers. The office was relatively quiet, most of the employees seeming to have already left for the day. That Ranpo did not immediately come to greet him made Poe reconsider having come at all. He had probably left, the sun was setting, after all, it was probably much later than he’d thought it was.
Just before he could officially decide to retreat for the time being, the door opened behind him. He startled, stumbling forward before whoever had just entered ran into him. It didn’t matter now. Whoever it was, this was too much. It was time to go home; he could try again later. Come back a different day, hope the few assistants left in the office wouldn’t talk about it too much, wouldn’t tell Ranpo more than a few details—
“Poe! Hello? Poe?”
—Oh. Speak of the devil. Poe really wished his luck were better. Taking a deep breath to collect himself, he turned to face the person he had come to meet in the first place.
“I was out shopping, and I was wondering if you’d, um, have some tea with me and give me your thoughts on my latest work. Neither piece is near perfect by any means, but I would like some feedback before I take things in the wrong direction…” He hoists his shopping bag in a gesture of offering. “I brought snacks…”
Ranpo shrugs noncommittally, and Poe finally notices he’s holding a plastic bag full of sweets of his own. “I guess. Let me take a look at what you got, okay? You go make tea, and then we can sit down and you can get my input, alright?”
He probably should have been insulted at being ordered around. He definitely should have held tight to his bag and refuse to allow Ranpo to rifle through his groceries. In fact, he should even have told Ranpo to make the tea himself, since he knew the office much better than Poe himself did.
He did not do any of these things, however. He returned eight minutes later carefully carrying two cups of black tea and set one down in front of Ranpo.
He gestured to Poe’s shopping bag. “You didn’t have anything that good. I bought some chocolate and stuff, since it’s on sale. You keep all that for later. Oh, thanks for the tea, though,” he added after a moment, as though he had to think for a moment to remember that it was polite to thank people for fulfilling a request.
Poe pulled a chair from someone else’s desk to take a seat next to Ranpo. Deciding to take a moment to settle in, he reached down into his shopping bag to fish out the box of cookies he had bought. Not the healthiest or most elegant option, but it would suit the tea well enough. He glanced over at Ranpo, who had already unwrapped one of the boxes of chocolate he had bought—had he bought all the same kind?—and was carefully picking through the rows. He seemed to have some kind of ranked order for which he wanted to pick, and clearly already knew exactly what filling was in each one.
After several moments of Ranpo carefully picking through sweets, Poe cleared his throat to get his attention. “Ranpo, my plot ideas?”
He didn’t look away from the chocolate, but waved his hand in Poe’s general direction. “Sure, go ahead. I’m listening, promise.” Poe felt like he had reason to doubt he had even the majority of his attention, but with luck that would mean it would take Ranpo just a little longer before he interrupted Poe’s explanation of the beginning of the plot with the end of it.
“...and then she meets the gardener, who lives in a small cottage on the edge of the property. He’s worked for the estate for over thirty years, and is a close confidant of the owner, who...”
“Hold that thought,” Ranpo interrupts. He holds a single piece of chocolate out towards Poe. “Here, you can have this one.”
Poe hesitantly plucks the chocolate from Ranpo’s fingers, inspecting it silently. What could be wrong with this one? He’d eaten most of the rest of them already. He couldn’t be feeling guilty for not sharing. Not only was that unlike Ranpo, but he had bought all of the chocolate himself; there was no reason for him to even consider sharing.
Ranpo offered by way of explanation, “I guess it kind of feels weird to not share chocolate on Valentine’s Day.” Oh. Oh. He did feel guilty? For a reason like that, too! Before Poe could get too excited, however, Ranpo tacked on, “I don’t like the raspberry-filled ones anyway. I’d just toss ‘em out, but that seems like a waste. I’ll give them to you instead, since you’re right here.”
He should have been disappointed. Instead, he found he couldn’t help but smile as he popped the chocolate into his mouth. He didn’t care much for raspberry, either. But it didn’t taste quite the same as usual. It complemented the tea, actually. Poe wouldn’t really mind if every box Ranpo had bought had one or two raspberry-filled chocolates in them.
Poe was starting to feel a little excited after all. This was nice. It was comfortable being here, in a nearly-empty office, everything being cast in a golden glow from the setting sun. He wouldn’t mind staying like this for a little while longer.
“I already know you’re planning on having the gardener be the fall man for the actual murderer, by the way. Daughter of the manor’s owner. Gardener watched her grow up, can’t really say no to her, wants to protect her because he sort of sees her as his own daughter. She’s got a whole contingency plan to take him out, too, in case he doesn’t do as she says, but he doesn’t find that out until the end when the detective is hot on her trail.”
Poe was pretty sure hadn’t even mentioned yet that the lord of the manor had a daughter. He began to ask how Ranpo had figured this out, but he was beaten to the punch.
“Your narrators aren’t usually women. Here, take it, this one’s raspberry too. They wasted two perfectly good spots in this box of chocolate. That one was pretty good, I’d say someone else might be really surprised when the reveal happens. What’s the other story you came up with?”
It took a moment for Poe to collect himself. He took a quick drink of tea, followed by the chocolate Ranpo handed him. “The second one is a little more straightforward, are you sure it’s even worth your time?”
“If it takes me more than five sentences to figure it out, I’ll let you pick whatever chocolate you want from the next box. If not, you’re stuck with the rejects still.”
Poe knew it would not take Ranpo five sentences. Ranpo knew it would not take him five sentences, and he hadn’t heard a single word of the story yet. But this was nice, and the raspberry ones didn’t taste quite as bad as he had remembered them being. He was really beginning to like them, actually.
“You’re on, then.”
He had a total of eight raspberry-filled chocolates that afternoon. Yes, they weren’t so bad after all.