"Yosanoooo it's not faaair!" Dazai's whiney voice rang from the courtyard of the ADA dorms, thoroughly ruining Kunikida's day as it had just begun.
"Of course, the one time the bandage waste gets up early is to be annoying." The blond man grumbles to himself.
"Why do you get to bring home a pretty girl!?" The brunette man complains like a child. At this point, Kunikida came down the stairs to find Dazai pouting at Dr. Yosano, who, speaking of which, was standing in front of a familiar and embarrassed-looking woman.
"How many times do I have to tell you, It's. Not. Like. That!" The two argued.
"I was just taking care of Hirai-san since it was late last night." Yosano explained.
That's it! Kunikida remembered where he'd seen the woman from. She was one of the ADA's clients, the one with the impossible case. Impossible client or not, he was not going to let this throw off his schedule. Walking out of the courtyard, the former teacher wondered if he should go back and intercede with Dazai's antics before he ruined the detective agency's image. While contemplating this, they ran into his senior, who had recently come back from Tokyo.
"Good morning, Ranpo."
"Morning Kunikida!" Ranpo greeted before tilting his head towards the commotion in the dorm courtyard. "What's going on?"
"Dazai arguing with Yosano over some woman, a client to be exact." The younger (yes, younger) man said with a hint of distaste...okay a lot of distaste in his voice.
"Sounds troublesome, who is she?"
Kunikida flips open his notebook to his schedule a few days back where he kept a schedule of his day, including meetings with clients.
"Hirai Yukina." The blond man looked up from his notebook to see his senior with eyes wide open in shock.
"Are you alright?" Kunikida asks cautiously.
"Y-yeah...I... I'll see you later." Ranpo muttered with a far-off look. Despite his better judgment, the younger man only watches in confusion as the older detective goes away in a hurry.
Eventually, Kunikida stops gawking and continues on his schedule.
After running a few errands and finishing paperwork, the detective found himself walking to an address he recently dug up. Knocking on the Japanese-style gate (he had noted the lack of a proper doorbell) the man waited only a few moments before a short mop of red hair peeked out from behind the heavy door.
"Sorry, Officer Koda isn't here...ah-Kunikida-san!" The little girl's face lights up at the realization of who was at her door. "What are you doing here?" She inquired in a noticeably happier tone than when she first greeted the man.
"I wanted to personally check up on you after yesterday's events. I imagine you must still be startled." The detective answered truthfully. Just the day before, the poor girl was strapped to a bomb in the subway tunnels, and although Dr. Yosano arrived on time to save them both, the explosion still went off, causing her, and Kunikida (who was holding onto her) to experience quite a lot of pain. Even excluding that from the situation, having her life threatened like that would be no doubt traumatic for anyone, especially a young child like Aya.
"Oh, I'm...fine, as fine as I can be..." she answers with an unsure smile. It didn't take a detective to know she wasn't. "Um... do...do you wanna go somewhere?"
"I think talking in your house is just fine, no need to go somewhere else."
"Oh...well my dad doesn't let me bring strangers into the house...even though you aren't one, he doesn't know you."
"If that's the case then I doubt he'll let you go somewhere with a stranger."
"..." At this point, the two simply stood at the gate in silence, neither making a move. Kunikida would have been fine standing there until Aya's dad came home to ask permission to enter his house.And he did. Kunikida watched the man get out of a taxi, wobbling and stinking with Vodka even though it was 9 am. Was he drinking this early in the morning? Or was he drinking late at night? The former teacher questioned himself. But why? Why drink so much he's still intoxicated the same day his daughter almost died?
"Dad, can I go hang out with Kunikida-san?" Aya calls.
"Suuure... wha-whateverr..." Officer Koda slurred, pushing past her and into the building.
"Thanks, I'll be back by lunch byeeeeee!" The young girl had already grabbed Kunikida by the wrist and was dragging him down the street with the man in question protesting and telling her that her father didn't actually agree since he was heavily intoxicated.At around 9, a defeated Kunikida returned to the agency, brushing past Ranpo in the doorway, the man swore the head detective smelled faintly of smoke but thought nothing of it. Plopping down at his desk, he started back on his paperwork having been unable to get any work done that morning. There was surprisingly little today so he decided to get back to that impossible case from Hirai. The agent opened his drawr and looked for her case file-wait, where was it?
[Poe]
(this entire part is spoken in English.)
Edgar Allan Poe was sitting in his office at the house provided to him by the guild during his stay in Japan. Since Francis owned a Japanese business and didn't seem to be returning to America any time soon, Poe saw no reason to return to his mansion in Boston either. Also, he doubt Ranpo would agree to move with him if he left. Louisa even tasked the architect with designing a base stationed in Japan to secure the Guild's influence.
Lifting his eyes from the blueprint, the goth briefly swiveled his chair to stare out the window absent-mindedly at the moon-lit forest behind the building. No one really cared much about the mass of oak and pine (except Steinbeck) other than the occasional lost deer or group of birds (in rare cases even an owl) most woodland creatures kept their distance from all human structures so yea, not much to see. Not much to see... usually... for a brief moment, the architect saw the flash of what looked like a deer dashing through the trees as if startled. Poe's fingers twitched at a familiar urge to pick up his sniper once again. Oh how nostalgic he felt for the days sniping animals in the woods, sometimes sniping human targets, sometimes he worked with Mark. Man, how he longed for a nice target, like those two men dressed like ninjas peaking at him from the trees-wait what? Sure enough, hiding in the trees almost out of sight were two ninja-looking figures.
Oh. they were amateurs. The Master Architect of The Guild thought as he calmly took out his phone while walking over the his shelf, pulling out a heavy black case. The world class snpier dialed Fitzgerald's number and put it on speaker while asembling the familiar gun.
"Poe, why are you calling this number?! This is for emergancies only!" The leader of The Guild's annoyed voice demened through the phone.
"T-terribly sorry for the inconvenience but..." Poe stutterd "ahem, was I supposed to expect masked visitors at my place of residence?"
"No..." Fitzgerald answered suspiciously "Luoisa, was poe supposed to expect masked visitors? ... no, you were not."
"well then," Poe started before immediately ducking as a bullet smashed through his window, shattering the gothic vase behind him. "Permission to shoot?"
"In the legs." Fitzgerald clarifies. The sniper nods even though he knew the man on the other side couldn't see it before hanging up and aiming his gun.
That day, The Guild gained two prisoners and a new window.
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Honestly idk yet (from ao3)
FanfictionThe ADA helps an uncannily familiar woman find her brother