Part 3

A Couples' Thing

"Gooooooddddddddddddd" Ranpo whined flapping his arms around, "come hereeeeeeeeeee nowwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!"

Atsushi was sitting at his desk, so were Junko and Osamu, each of them were doing their own thing as they had a little chat and Atsushi did his best to listen, but got distracted by Ranpo's yelling and looked up from the forms he was desperately trying to fill out.

"What do you want, you big baby?!" Kirokugakari yelled from her office.
"Come here, come here!!!" Ranpo continued whining and flapping around.
"Whaaaat do you waaaant!!!!!" she growled, stepping out and walking towards him.
"Come kiss me I'm bored!!!"
"I'm not going to kiss you every time you're bored, stop annoying me!!!"
"You have to kiss me! It's your job!"
"My job is to manage Human Resources."
"I'm a human resource! Manage me! Gimme a kiss!"
"That's not what managing means!"
"But GOoOOoooOoOOooOooooooOooOOoOoOd"
"UGHHHHH. Fine." she groaned, stepped over to Ranpo and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Nooooooo" he whined again.
"What now!?"
"I want a REAL kiss!!!"
"FIIIINEEEEE." Kirokugakari caved. She climbed to sit in Ranpo's lap, straddled him, put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him. He hummed contently and patted her head when she broke the kiss, she hissed at him in response and went back to her office.

Atsushi knew the two were close, but he's never really given it much thought, he had no idea their relationship was the kisses-on-the-mouth kind.

"Can't help but respect the guy's craft." Osamu nodded thoughtfully and clapped, impressed.
"Wait, what?" Atsushi looked at Ranpo, then at Osamu, and then finally at Junko. "Are God and Ranpo going out?"

Junko was visibly startled by the question.
"I don't... uhh... I wanna say.... probably?.." she blinked, then looked to Ranpo for answers. "Senpai, are you and God going out..?"
"Like on dates? Ew, no, who wants that?" Ranpo snorted, completely missing the point of what Atsushi was actually asking.
"No, like," Atsushi cleared his throat when he noticed his voice cracked, "are you two a couple?"
"HUH?" Ranpo raised an eyebrow. "Are you dumb?"
"Senpai! That's rude!" Junko scolded.
"Sorry, sorry, rhetorical questions are rude. You ARE dumb." Ranpo pointed a blaming finger at Atsushi.
Atsushi was kind of hurt by that.

"But, you are doing it, right?" suddenly Osamu joined the conversation.
"Doing what?" Atsushi and Junko both asked together.
Osamu blinked, "you know, it." he turned to look at Ranpo, "you're boning, aren't you?"
"Well, you know." Ranpo shrugged.

"Oh heavens, would you look at the time, I'm late for an appointment with my therapist. Bye." Junko slammed her laptop shut and ran out of the office - the intimate relationship between her superiors was not a conversation she wanted to take part of.
Atsushi took her example, just as uncomfortable with the subject as she was.
"I... gotta... I... Kyouka-chan is with Yosano-sensei, they shouldn't be alone. Who knows what'll happen, amirite? Ok, umm, bye." and he ran off as well.

"Kids." Ranpo shrugged.
"They are adorable though." Osamu waved at them as they ran away, closing the door behind them.
"So, are you together?" he asked Ranpo once the two children were gone.
"Define 'together'." Ranpo responded in an analytic tone.
"You're exclusively seeing each other, you go out on dates, you do things together, you are a couple?"

"Are you and my apprentice a couple?" Ranpo asked after a pause.
"That's... different." Osamu sighed, "it's complicated."
"Not the way I see it." Ranpo tilted his head back. "It's pretty simple. God and I like the way things are. It's simple. It's easy. We don't really need a label, but you can call it whatever you want, we don't really care one way or the other. We just do what feels right, people can call it whatever, societal protocol doesn't really matter to us. Do you feel the same way about whatever it is you've got going on?"
"I think she's doing alright all in all, I mean, things are... well, difficult, but, you know..."
"I think you're doing a pretty good job."
"What? Really?"
"Yeah, she's doing a lot better now."
The two exchanged a sad chuckle.