Double Black

a new beginning (for me, you and us)

Exactly at 12 a.m., familiar voices rang out throughout the Detective Agency office; each of them chanting aloud the same thing,

"Happy New Year!"

All members of the Agency had decided quite in advance to celebrate the beginning of the new year together, and what better place, than the office space that they all had to themselves. Everyone had pitched in to bring snacks and ingredients for hot pot, which Haruno-san had been more than happy to set up. The office was still decorated from the time they recently celebrated Christmas in there, and it was left just like that.

New decorations were really just too much effort. So now there was food, there were decorations, and there were drinks for all age groups, courtesy of the Agency's resident doctor. Yosano had been a little too happy to take upon that job, as expected. She had her fair share of expertise regarding sake and other wines, after all.

All of them spent the last minutes of the year warming themselves up by the hotspot stove, sipping on drinks out of various cups and glasses. The well wishes were called out as soon as the clock struck 'new year's'. Once all that was done, it was Kunikida who brought up their next course of action,

"Happy new year, everyone. True to tradition, I propose a shrine visit. The question is when. Shall we go now or wait till tomorrow morning?"

Atsushi spoke up, "Um, I think we should wait till the morning if Dazai-san is going to come along."

Ranpo scoffed, "That guy is on leave for tomorrow too."

Next to him, a slightly tipsy Yosano complained, "No way, why is he so hell-bent on spending the holidays alone?! Even though we invited him to join us for this party."

Naomi frowned, specifically pointing out, "Dazai-san didn't join us for our office Christmas party too."

In all his excitement, Kenji suggested, "Isn't Christmas for couples in the city?! Then what if Dazai-san has someone else he'd rather spend the day with?"

The doctor refuted that idea right away, "There's no way. Like who, one of the ladies he keeps pestering for a double suicide? There's no way, right, Ranpo-san?"

The detective shrugged, "Well, who knows. He might."

Of course, this led to the two of them staring each other down, the doctor demanding any information that her usual betting partner might have about their suicidal co-worker that he wasn't revealing. Sighing to herself, Kyouka spoke up,

"I think we should go right away. That's sort of the spirit of new year's, right?"

Fukuzawa joined in the conversation at this point, "I agree. Going right now would be the best."

Together, all of them decided that it would be very annoying if they were to go to one of the big, well-known shrines. It would be too crowded and uncomfortable to get to, especially considering how large their group was. Fukuzawa-san, however, knew of a remote shrine nearby, which is where all of them finally decided to go.

Fastening their coat buttons and strapping on their shoes, all members of the Armed Detective Agency made their way to the shrine, laughter and singing swirling through the winds above them. It was really fortunate that Yokohama was currently in peace, after all.

Remote as the small shrine claimed to be, there were still other people there when all of them finally got there. Not many,  though. Just two. On closer glance, it was obvious who those two people were. As it happened to be, all Agency members knew one of those two quite well, and were vaguely familiar with their partner as well.

Standing right in front of the shrine, the two people had their hands folded in prayer; the short, redhead of them had their hat tucked under their arms a they prayed solemnly. As for their taller partner, he kept tugging at his scarf as he prayed, apparently rather cold.