Part 3

Episode 31

A case came for Ranpo that day, but instead of taking it, or dumping it on her, he gave it to Atsushi, which made Junko rather curious.

When she asked why he sent Atsushi on his own, Ranpo told her he wouldn't be alone because Junnichirou was already at the scene of the incident, and when she clarified the thing she was confused about was the fact that he sent Atsushi of all people and whoever accompanied him wasn't really a concern, he just told her:

"He wants this one, trust me."

And of course she wanted to trust Ranpo, and of course she would never tell anyone that she didn't, and of course she looked into the case, and of course Ranpo was right all along - this was a case Atsushi needed to take. But not in a particularly pleasant sense.

She continued digging around some more after Junnichirou texted her that 'Atsushi-kun just ran off in the middle of the case(◞‸◟)???', hoping she could find something that might serve as comfort in his hour of need, but what she found - she wasn't sure what she should do with.

"Osamu-san, why are you on the roof?" it took her a while, but after confirming he never showed up to work, she figured he might have never even left the dorms, and sure enough, she found him laying on the roof.

"Hiding from the Feds."
"You're a detective, you work for the Feds."
"Yeah, and they actually expect me to work, that's why I'm hiding!"
"You know God doesn't want us going up there..."
"You go up here all the time."
"If I fall and break all my bones I can just heal myself, if you fall – "
"I might die?"
"Not from that height you won't, you'll just get really hurt, and it would be very painful."

At that point Osamu finally sat up and looked down at her.
"Something on your mind?" he asked, and she nodded. "Is this about Atsushi-kun?"
"Well, yes."
"Are you curious?"
"Mostly worried."

He stretched a bit, and with some reluctancy, decided to climb off the roof.
"He's a big boy now, he'll be fine." he said as he walked down the stairs to stand in front of her. "Whatcha' got there?" he then snatched the file she was holding.

"Records about the victim. I thought Atsushi-san would like to have it, but now that I read it, I'm not so sure..."
"Why's that?" Osamu started flipping through the pages.
"Well, I figured... I get that it's complicated, but, this man was kind of like a father figure for him, in a way... I wasn't sure what I should do with this – "
"So you're asking me?" Osamu chuckled, "aren't you usually the one with advice that doesn't have psychologically-devastating results?"
"No, but, parental guidance was not really something I ever craved, or even cared for, I wouldn't really know how losing it this might affect him."

Osamu raised an eyebrow and lifted his eyes up from the file to examine her expression.
She looked distracted, as if she didn't realise the gravity of what she was insinuating.

The beauty of talking to Junko, Osamu observed over the years, is that since they both stood on equal intellectual footing and shared more or less the same foundations of understanding of the world, subtext wasn't really a commonly recurring thing. They were both fully aware of every single layer and every single detail of every exchange, and more often than not, that awareness allowed them to understand and comprehend any interaction in its entirety.

But sometimes, they would have small gaps between their approaches to looking at life that would prevent a perfect 100% synchronisation, and that would mostly lead to her saying something vague, and him wondering what she actually means by it.