Prey and Predator [Ranpo x Reader] + Bonus ✓

9. Blank, Bland, Empty and Hollow

I came back home through the store's front and greeted my brother who to my surprise was tending the store behind the counter. On an ordinary day I would've remarked his "lack of responsibility" for being absent from work so regularly recently, but the puzzlement from Ranpo's riddles, along with the annoyance his attitude gave me, worked against calmly addressing the matter.

'Mum told me you went to visit the classmate who brought you work. How was it?'

'Yeah,' I answered without giving much thought, heading upstairs to my bedroom after providing such a blunt reply to his question. He did not follow me up nor did he press on the matter, perhaps knowing why I was so out of it that day.

When I was a child, he comforted me whenever I seemed upset from the day I'd spent at school, often buying me my favourite candy bar on our way back home when he still picked me up from school. It seemed he could read right through me whenever I wasn't having the best of days, and once I'd reached my early teens he began giving me some time to detox alone. He still seemed to be able to identify the cause of such distress nonetheless, always providing me with the right advice and method of comfort depending on the situation.

It was no doubt the same was happening this instance. He must've known I was denying his suspicion on any of these crimes even though he'd spent more time in the interrogation room these past two weeks than he spent at home. And I'm not willing to accept he is a suspect in any anymore. I will prove his innocence even if that means I have to work with people who get on my nerves - Mr Diabetes for instance.

I looked at the thin binder resting on my desk, the one which had been provided for me the previous day. The pages left inside consisted of the profiles of each culprit, a picture of their victim, and the crime report which resembled one my father had solved in his former years. I picked it up and skimmed through. 'Wouldn't it be illegal to give an ordinary citizen detailed reports on each crime? Even worse if they are a relative of a suspect shared commonly between these?'

I flipped the thin block of pages back to the first case. The file itself did not look like one of those forms which seemed to be filled in offices - as seen in movies - for the information was condensed to what a mere citizen such as myself would understand.

Denji Ki, 24

Japanese literature professor

Charged for 1st-degree murder

Mr Ki was charged for the death of one of his pupils, one who had agreed to meet with him by the bridge where the crime took place. The former teacher - former for he has lost his job to serve several years in prison now - confessed to having planned the murder for some time, and chose this particular student for he had been one who had admired the offender greatly and had not doubted nor held any suspicious of his intentions when summoned to meet outside school.

He confessed to having provided the male student with a home-baked pastry that had had an additional touch of injected cyanide poison to kill the pupil on the spot, succeeding in completing such a task. The next step of his plan was to have the act seem as though it were suicide, so he mustered all strength he had and pushed the corpse over the rail.

His scheme faltered when he realised the student's shoes had remained on his feet, giving away to the belief of the authorities that this wasn't an act of suicide, and if it were, an unconventional one.

Out of horror, he rushed to the nearest library - hoping no one had seen him - and admitted to having hidden far into the deepest end of the quiet facility, reciting on paper the act he'd done in hopes this would help his unease.

"I wrote a poem about it and left the library, fearing someone had seen me write it. I wandered the streets and placed it inside the mailbox of a household near a small convenience store which my pupil told me he frequented sometimes. I was hoping whoever got this letter would take it to the police and they would find me. But I chose to give myself in, instead. I'm sorry..." - had been his last recorded words during the interrogation he faced before being escorted to a cell.