Chapter One

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Poe slunk into his office, quietly closing the door behind him and drawing all the curtains. He walked over to his desk and collapsed into his chair, running a hand through his hair and groaning. Countless documents were piled on his desk and the little TV in the corner of the room was still prattling on, the signal wasn't amazing so the black and white picture kept glitching and the muffled voices scratched at Poe's ears.

The door rattled slightly as someone entered the room. The momentary opening allowed a wave of noise to seep in which luckily faded out as it was closed again. The newcomer walked over and also collapsed  Into his chair. "Do you have any biscuits?" The person beside him asked.
"F-fraid not."
"What a shame."

The little  TV continued buzzing annoyingly ; "At bzzt-bzzt la-bz-nigh -bzzt-  million -bzzt- assets were- bzzt-"
Poe reached his hand out, turning a nob on the TV until the screen faded out.
"Why'd you do that?" Whined the person beside him.
"We're both f-familiar with the story Ranpo." Poe sighed.
"But Pelican Cove is on later!" Said Ranpo.
Poe ignored the man-child and started looking through the reports on his desk. They were all identical.

Ranpo shuffled over on his chair, peering over Poe's shoulder. "Watcha looking at?"
Poe covered the folders with his arms. "Classified i-information." He said.
"Don't be like that." pouted Ranpo.
Ranpo shook a box of rasins in front of Poe. "I'll give you these if you tell me."
Poe narrowed his eyes. "I k-know those come free with the tea cakes you like. I already have a d-drawer full of the other boxes."
Ranpo groaned, putting the box on Poe's desk anyway,
"If they're about last night, you should know the director assigned me to that case this morning."

Poe froze. "W-what?"
"Oh yeah, he told me cos' it got serious or something like that, he'd like me to take over."
Poe's mouth went dry
. "Is something wrong?"
Poe shook his head, "N-no."

Ranpo scooched back to his own desk, and Poe uncovered the leather folders, was that it? He'd been... replaced? Surely not. He'd been in charge of this case since the start and had some very good leads. Not to mention the director hadn't yet  directly removed him from the case.

A small laugh escaped Ranpos lips, he tilted over on his chair and smacked Poe's back, "Silly! You're still on the case but I've joined you!"

A shiver crawled down Poe's spine at the slap and he jumped up, but relaxed a little into Ranpos hand when his words registered. "Oh."

Settling back down, Poe briefly skimmed his eyes over the ink stained papers on his desk, as a part-time writer he didn't need to read it in it's full, picking up the important details from a brief scan was far easier and less time consuming. Besides, whatever was written on them he was already overly familiar with. 

His eyes locked onto a certain word.

"Ranpo?" He called over to the man who was sorting through a crumpled paper bag of sweets. Below the police and detective offices, on the ground floor, there was a sweet shop- one of the best in London, Ranpo had said on many occasions the only reason he "graced the offices with his presence" was because of the sweet shop. Poe didn't doubt it for a second.

"Hmm?" He hummed around a mouthful of hard boiled custard sweets.
"Birdwood Estate... I-isnt that where..?"
Poe trailed off.
Ranpos eyes were closed as usual, but even closed they seemed to widen beneath his eyelids as if realising something. "Yeah."

"I t-thought I'd remembered correctly."

Poe bit down on his tongue. What an unfortunate coincidence.

________

Later that day,  while Ranpo was off with the head of the police force, planning the travel details and sorting out the fees that'd be needed to get to the scene of the crime he and Poe were set to visit,  Poe was enjoying the wonders of the detective unit having a secretary, Louisa was brilliant and made the most divine tea. It was unrivaled. Though Ranpo always commented that she didn't add enough sugar cubes, of course.

As Poe sat down with the warm brew scolding his hands, ready to take a sip, violent knocking errupted on the door of his office,  almost breaking it, sending the blinds that sat on the window back and forth and back and forth. "Hurry up!" An agitated voice shouted.

Poe jolted up, almost spilling the liquid in his hands onto his desk as he hurried to open the door. A short man with ginger hair and a scowl was glaring up at him, though his face softened a little seeing Poe. "Slowpoke." He bit.

Poe gaped, "You're b-back..?"
Before he could say anything more the short man pushed past him, setting a large box on Poe's chair.

"Why the hell did you lock the door when you know I don't have a key, bastard."

Poe was still at a loss for words, "You were released...?"

The ginger man let out a snort, "Hell yeah I was, they can't do a thing around here without me." He boasted.

"I thought - I thought -"

"Me to-  Me to -" Mocked the ginger man, earning him a reciprocated glare, though it was mostly hidden by Poe's Bangs. 

"Why were you released?" Asked Poe, more clearly this time.
"I thought I already told you, they can't do shit around here without me, Oh yeah- I'll be joining you and Ranpo on your little wild goose chase. We better get results or they'll be sending me back." The ginger man picked up the box of rasins still on Poe's desk and emptied them into his mouth, "So much better than prison..." He moaned around a mouthful.

Poe smiled. It was good to have Chuuya back in the detective division, it had been a while.

"Where's the runt?" Chuuya asked, despite being shorter than "the runt". Poe was sure the ginger must be delusional.
"All g-good things come in small packages."
He defended Ranpo.
"How swoon-worthy." Said Chuuya, looking through Poe's drawers, stopping when he found the one with the Rasin boxes. Flicking another open he said, "Have you told the little guy yet?"

Poe flushed, "T-told him what!?"
'mmffh' Chuuya tried to swallow the whole rasins in his mouth,
"Fair enough," he coughed, "best not to end up the same as me."
He downed the rest of the box, almost yet not quite remembering to chew this time.

"Would you help me grab the rest of the boxes from my car?" He asked, smacking his own back through a coughing fit. 
"Of course. Does this mean you're returning..?"

"Depends. If I do well on this case they might not send me back to jail." Poe nodded.

And thus Poe followed the short man through the building and down the stairs. Unfortunately as they walked many people from other divisions noticed Chuuya walking around the building with his head held high and couldn't help but comment unsavoury things like, "Look the fag's back.", "I wonder how many cocks he sucked in jail.", "Criminal-fucker.", "Disgusting." - To that particular comment Chuuya had replied with "I pity your wife, if you find such acts disgusting that is. Poor woman probably has to get her action in elsewhere." Poe had had to jump in between the two before fists started flying.

When they reached Chuuyas  car, a stunning Morris Six MS, the boot was already open with no more than about three boxes in the small trunk. "I'll grab the two smaller ones, get the bigger one."  instructed Chuuya.

As he hauled the big box onto his thigh, trying not to spill the contents of the box as it wasn't securely sealed, Chuuya wasn't doing anything and in fact looked a little pensive. "Is everything O-ok?"

Chuuya snapped out of his daze, "Yeah. It's just. I'll get to the point. Has- has he been caught yet?"
Poe looked at the man, heart aching a little for him, "No... Th-Though I suspect he might've had some i-involvement in the current case we're w-working on."
Chuuya ground his teeth together, "I'll catch that rotten bastard."

________

How tf do people write stuff. I need to snap out of this fanfiction craze (currently my attentions have been turned to the beautiful, scary, deranged world that is AO3) and read some real books - now hold on what am I saying... Those Bingqiu and Hualian fanfictions are based on real books! It's good enough for me! I need to stop ranting - anyway hopefully one day writing abilities will be granted to me by the great Goddess Ling Wen.

No Beta we die like Chuuya 💀💪


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⏰ Last updated: Oct 30, 2022 ⏰

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