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It was probably Thursday. He never checked unless he had to but there was a Thursday-ish energy about the day, like you’re waiting for something to happen and it’s almost there but when it comes it’ll be just a touch underwhelming. That sort of feeling permeates effortlessly into a person’s actions and thoughts, though it’s easily left unnoticed.
On that Probably-Thursday, Ranpo had elected to ignore the call of his deductive abilities, allowing himself to relax somehow even more so than usual. He had no sweets but instead an iced strawberry frappé, the kind with no coffee, dripping condensation all over his right hand and soothing his lethargy. His left made for an effective headrest as he leant against the café’s small table and avoided the patches of stains that littered it. His posture was poor, and his muscles would surely ache later with protests far too overdue to matter, but he had cast aside his worries more swiftly than he had ever solved a crime just to sit there in that moment and admire the words tumbling from his companion’s mouth. With every sharp or fluid movement of Poe’s hands, a creeping anxiety was batted away it seemed.
Later, Ranpo would blame his carelessness on all these things. He knew Poe had a few moments before been airing his delights about the last novel he had written. There were compliments between his descriptions, bursts of admiration woven amidst bursts of inspiration, and Ranpo had let Poe’s voice wash over him in languid waves. Poe laughed lightly, then paused to sip his tea, then reached his hands up to pet Karl, then Ranpo said “I’m in love with you”, and then…
It felt like even Karl was staring at him. Where Ranpo usually basked in the attention of his peers, this felt less like a ceremony of appreciation and more like a public trial. The condensation dripping to the table from the edge of his cup could suitably disguise the sweat that began to assert itself there in his palm, but there was no such luck for the other hand. All the lethargy which had before accented his movements seemed to now only affect the seconds as they slipped by with an agonising slowness. The only indicator that hours had not truly passed as it felt like they had was Poe’s wide, unblinking eyes; surely unable to stare for that long even under such unexpected circumstances.
“I’m sorry?” Poe asked.
Ranpo shifted all at once, a harsh, sharp inhale whistling through his teeth. His eyes tore away from Poe’s in a ditch attempt at self-preservation. “I didn’t mean to-,” he stuttered, “do that. We can, no, let’s pretend it didn’t happen, okay? Okay. Nothing has to change, everything is fine,” he stated with conviction.
“Ranpo,” Poe started, and he leant forward as though to comfort but he couldn’t get a word in edgeways.
“No, no, no, no, we’re not-,” Ranpo faltered, “doing this. There’s nothing to talk about, I didn’t ruin anything, okay? I didn’t.”
“No, you didn’t.”
It should have been a comfort but instead, Ranpo grew more agitated. “You don’t have to be kind just because I’m being stupid, okay.”
At that Poe leant back, like the less grand equivalent of a physical recoil. “I wasn’t aware you thought this was stupid.”
“I put you in an uncomfortable position, stop being so kind about it.”
“I’m not uncomfortable.” Poe’s voice was even. “We both knew you would be the one to say it first.”
Ranpo’s whole demeanour still rang of distress masquerading poorly as grumpiness when he shot back a terse “what”.
“Well,” Poe patiently explained, “you must have already known that I love you, but I couldn’t trust that my own deductive skills wouldn’t be clouded by my desires. I supposed that since you hadn’t said anything the case was that my feelings were not reciprocated, and that you were willing to overlook them for the sake of our friendship.” He held a calm appearance as he said these things as though they were obvious, but the underlying pain of them cracked through as he continued, “or just for the sake of my praise.”
“I didn’t. Know. I didn’t know.” Ranpo’s right hand came up to run through his hair, but the moisture of the drink only served to matt it down, so he let the appendage fall back to the table with a thud. This time, though, he paid no mind to where the old, dry stains touched his clothes. “I didn’t figure it out. I don’t use my skills unless I want to, and I try not to use them on you.” Hiding behind a petulantly, loudly slurped mouthful of the last of his frappé, he pouted, “don’t wanna ruin your books.”
As his chin was rested in the crook of one elbow and his gaze pointedly ignored that of his companion, Ranpo never got to see the smile steadily crawl its way across Poe’s features until a melodious laugh shocked him to attention. Karl clung to Poe’s shoulders as they shook, his arms clutched to his stomach and eyes crinkled at the edges where they closed.
“Hey! You don’t have to laugh!” Ranpo shocked upright, arms crossed and glaring.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he laughed breathlessly, “I wasn’t aware that you could turn it off! Your ability, that is.”
“My…”
For a few moments, Ranpo wasn’t sure how to respond. The number of discoveries he had made in the past five minutes, without the aid of his deductive reasoning to help him retain the thread of conversation, threw him for a loop. He was still quietly waiting for his mind to register and sufficiently process the fact that Poe loved him too; that he had admitted it so easily.
There was a group of people that often complicated his deduction process. Not the most flawless of liars with their seamless body language and unmatched attention to detail, nor the most honest and pure-hearted individuals whose kindness was so often their greatest weakness. It was the ability users. They seemed to reside on another plane of existence at times and try as he might, Ranpo would never be able to meet them there.
“I don’t have an ability,” he stated.
When you find yourself in the deep end, with no hope of rescue, the water will push against your skin anyway. You will feel the cool spray and matt your hair to your cheeks and scalp. The pressure will pull and push your limbs how it pleases. Your lungs will burn, and your muscles will ache, so what is another litre of water to a drowning man.
“Pardon?” Poe’s face held an expression of amusement, but with each second that passed it seemed to slip further away to an unreachable place. The thought that Poe had not believed him was flattering, and yet did little to soften the inevitable blow of rejection which Ranpo had steeled himself for.
“The president told me I had one and he built the whole detective agency so that I could use it. Gave me a special pair of glasses to make my ability work, and he and everyone always told me I was brilliant for my ability and ‘an example to all ability users’ and I like praise, so I never questioned it.”
Ranpo steepled his hands under his chin, fingers interlaced. “That second time we met, when you put me and Yosano in your book?” Poe cringed at the memory. “The character you wrote me as didn’t have glasses, so I couldn’t use my ability in the way I’d been told it worked.”
He rounded out the tale with a drawn-out sigh, eyes closed, and head tilted to one side. “But I had to use it anyway, so I couldn’t really lie about it after that, not even to myself! Sorry, I’m not one of you.”
“Use it now.”
Poe didn’t even hesitate, not a moment needed to come to a conclusion about how he felt in light of these revelations. If in a hospital a doctor tells you with vigour that they have diagnosed your ailments in the seconds after your symptoms are laid bare, it’s natural to fear the worst. Ranpo found this situation to be much like that.
“Huh?”
Poe abruptly stood and rounded the table; it was a show of confidence unlike the usual timid exterior which Poe wore in public, but Ranpo supposed he did not have many more loops to be thrown for. “Deduce me, now. You said you wouldn’t usually, but I suspect we have left the usual at home for today.” And as Poe reached forward to tug Ranpo out of his seat by the sleeves of his shirt, Ranpo found he couldn’t see a reason to deny such a simple request.
“Oh.”
Not obscured by glasses for a change, his green eyes opened as wide as they comfortably could.
“What? The butler did it? Poe, come on,” he bemoaned, exasperated, as each of Poe’s secrets came to light one-by-one.
“That is not what I meant.”
“I know, I know,” Ranpo tried to bat his hands around to brush the issue away, but his sleeves were still held strong in Poe’s grip. With few other options, he looked deeper and struck gold. “Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, oh. And yes, the answer is obviously yes.”
Poe chuckled, “You’re incredible.” His hands released their hold on the fabric of Ranpo’s shirt, leaving it bunched and creased in his wake, as they rose to surround his face instead. “There’s very little you could do to make me change my mind.”
“Poe,” Ranpo whined.
“Pardon, nothing. I misspoke, there’s nothing you could do to-”
“Poe, c’mon I already said yes!”
His cheeks squished a little under Poe’s hands, in a way that was reminiscent of a hamster hoarding its food. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“Poe!”
Poe just laughed and kissed him, but he was smiling too widely for it to be anything other than short and chaste. Where the strong, proud detective found himself floundering in unknown waters with ne’er a hope of rescue, Ranpo considered that smile a life-raft.