Sugar, Spice And Murder

1

Good day/evening ya fruity bastards, did ya miss me?

•••

Ranpo was bored. Simple as that. He didn't like being bored.

With the Guild freshly defeated, jobs weren't coming in as quickly and his only source of entertainment in the office was out on leave because he was busy patching up his marriage. It had been rather entertaining yesterday how much of a mess the former Mafia Executive had been. Ranpo had watched in rapt amusement as Nakahara Osamu ran into things, put salt in his coffee, and choked on his food.

It definitely didn't take genius intelligence to know that the Nakahara household had had a rocky evening from his behavior. The fact that he was let out of work the next morning by Fukuzawa did not come that much of a surprise to Ranpo. While he enjoyed his entertainment, he acknowledged that "Dazai" needed to get his head on straight.

Other than Kunikida's mostly silent crisis, no one else truly seemed to bother with the uncovered marriage, mostly deciding to grill their coworker when he returned. So, with finished cases littering his desk, and no one interesting enough to people watch, Ranpo dragged Atsushi into accompanying him into finding Poe.

Much to Ranpo's enjoyment, the mystery writer was still in Japan on a work visa unattached to the Guild for an architectural project on the outskirts of Yokohama. Atsushi dropped him off by the work site next to a temporary building where he saw Poe through the window making changes to a floorplan with two other people. One seemed to be an engineer, the other the head of the construction crew. Poe was dressed differently, not that it came as a surprise considering he was working on a jobsite rather than the settings Ranpo normally saw him in.

His nicer clothes had been replaced with work pants and boots and a button up with its sleeves rolled up. His hair was pulled away from his face, exposing violet grey eyes that looked tired but stern as he leaned to write something at the edge of the paper, the two others in the room nodding in agreement and taking the plans out to the crew.

Ranpo brushed past the two people as they headed out, Karl bounding over to greet him as soon as he stepped into the building.

"Hello!"

"Ranpo?" Poe looked up at his entrance, surprise on his face. "What brings you here?"

"I got bored," Ranpo said simply, doing his best to ignore the feeling that bubbled up in him at Poe's attention. He picked up Karl, letting the raccoon make himself comfortable in his arms.

"Is there nothing to do back at the Agency?"

"Most work is just helping fix everything, nothing interesting. I need a challenge. Have any new mysteries for me?"

Poe shook his head, looking a bit anxious at the admission.

"I've been in regular meetings, it's not done just yet."

Ranpo pouted but sat on the corner of the table.

"Well, I'll stay here then."

"You...but I don't have anything for you?"

"You're plenty interesting yourself, Poe. Tell me about your project."

"Oh," Poe flushed. He brushed his bangs back into his face, covering his eyes.

'Cute,' Ranpo thought, a smile on his lips.

Poe pulled out a packet labelled 'Yokohama Hayashi Veteran's Memorial Specifications', flipping to the first page, his hands shaking slightly.

"The local government official Hayashi Kei reached out to me nearly six months ago for me to design a memorial museum out here for officers local to Yokohama who lost their lives in the war. I suppose he thought I would be...particularly suited to the job."

"Because you're ex-military."

"Yes, I suppose it's no surprise that you're aware of that."

Ranpo grinned at him, but returned back to the packet. Poe seemed to get more comfortable as he continued to talk about his design and the intricacies of it. Ranpo liked listening to him, he found, especially when talking about another passion of his.

•••

Poe was apologetic when he realized he talked for the better part of the day, with occasional interruption from the crew, about the memorial. Ranpo, however, was far from bored.

"I'm sorry, I doubt that is what you wanted from me, and I've kept you so late-"

"I liked it."

"I'm sorry?"

"I liked it. It's a passion of yours. That's what makes it interesting to hear about."

"Oh," Poe's face was bright red.

"And since you've kept me so late, you can walk me back to the Agency Dorms if you really feel bad about it."

Poe grabbed his coat and held the door for him, a mild guilt written across his face. Karl hung off Ranpo's shoulders like a scarf against the brisk evening air.

"No need to feel so guilty, Poe," Ranpo laughed. "I came to be entertained and I got that. I would have stopped you if I wasn't interested."

"Not, um, not everyone wants to listen to someone talk about architecture for a majority of the day."

"Well, I do. Say, what do you think of that house over there?"

Ranpo pointed at a house as they passed. One he knew from the previous conversation was something that Poe wouldn't particularly like. Much to his amusement, his companion cringed.

"Oh, uh..."

"Don't hold out on me. Who else is gonna hear it? There isn't anyone else on this street right now."

"You're sure?"

"Mmhmm."

"Well, to put it frankly, the house looks just the same as every other house on this block. There is zero originality aside from the color of the house. The windows are mismatched and poorly placed to let in proper light or appropriately compliment the exterior of the house. The window trim is the same color as the rest of the house, making it look rather flat and boring as there isn't anything that will stand out to the eye. They were clearly going for an asymmetrical design but they haven't properly balanced it so it looks crowded. It's more of an uncanny valley version of properly done modern architecture."

Ranpo listened intently as Poe went on to detail even more about the house and any other buildings Ranpo would point out, both negative and positive in his commentary.