Word count: 3614
Warnings: uhhh your mom
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Poe took a deep breath as he shut and locked the door to his room. He'd taken a ginormous risk. One that could cost him his life. But.. that would soon change. He pulled out a book from his coat. He always had one on him, so he knew carrying one around wouldn't be suspicious. He opened it, and took out a page that stood out from the rest. It look like it'd been messily ripped out from another one, it was put in this book only to hide it.
With a shay hand, he took his pen and dipped it into ink. His heart pounded. Whatever I write on this... becomes real. He had to take a moment to let that thought sink in. He puts the pen down, not writing a thing yet. He brings a hand to his forehead, pushing his overgrown bangs out of his face, perplexed. Troubled. What should he do?
He carefully picked up his phone, taking a small breath. He had only a few contacts. All were the guild, except for one. That was Ranpo. And that was it.
Ranpo was someone Poe looked up to, someone he adored. Someone that he cared about. Unfortunately, he couldn't say the same for Ranpo. He was fairly sure he was just a connection for Ranpo. If Ranpo needed something, he could always just use Poe. Use. That's all Poe was. Just something to use. A tool. And he was sure that was the only attribute that made him valuable to Ranpo.
Poe decided to practice writing first, on normal paper. What would he write? Ranpo cares about me. Simple enough.. right? Poe took a small breath, grabbing his pen and writing "Ranpo Edogawa cares about Edgar Allen Poe" on the paper. He wrote it quite small, because he wanted to make sure to save as much space as possible for whenever he needed to write something else.
He put the paper away in the book, and put the book on the bookshelf. The bookshelf full of half finished novels. Some novels he deemed unworthy of finishing- ones Ranpo wouldn't be proud of. Or his first few attempts at romance novels.. that he would live himself in hopes of the characters he used loving him.
He could write Ranpo in many many ways. But any way where Ranpo showed affection to him didn't matter. Because Poe knew it was just a book. And Ranpo didn't care about him. He had many romance novels. Some he'd even written in his own injury. Severe ones. And he felt every bit of that pain. And Ranpo would care.
Not in real life.
Ranpo would only care if Poe wrote it down.
On the other hand, Ranpo was Poe's existence. He didn't feel even remotely complete without him around. And the fact that the other couldn't give a shit about him— it drove him insane. Not in a literal sense. But in a sense where it was to the point that he had risked his life to steal a page from the most dangerous book in history.
And he'd succeeded.
Tomorrow, he'd go to the agency with a new mystery novel he'd finished. And on top of that, tomorrow would also be his birthday. He picked this day specifically to do this. He knew that if it was a normal day , it might be difficult to discern Ranpo's caring behavior from the one he had now. He wondered how Ranpo acted around people at the agency. He cared for them. Lucky.
Poe assumed that tomorrow, if he saw Ranpo, Ranpo would act like nothing was different even knowing his birthday. Wouldn't give a shit about it. But now that he'd written it down— Ranpo would have to acknowledge it, right? Poe could hardly sleep that night. Ranpo's going to care about me.
Poe hated how long it took him to genuinely fall asleep. The next day he'd gotten up late, cursing at himself as he did so. He got up and changed, taking a small breath. He brushed his hair, and fed Karl. He made his bed and cleaned up his desk space. He took the page he had hidden in the book, and got a smaller book to hide the page in. Then he got the mystery novel he would show Ranpo, and sighed. Okay.. this'll work. It has to. It literally had to. He wrote it down. Ranpo had to care about him. Poe had been losing himself over the assumption that he didn't.
