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Ranpo had made a habit of showing up at Poe’s apartment unannounced. Especially as of recently, the detective would make seemingly random visits, claiming he’d had a case nearby and thought he’d stop by. Poe didn’t particularly mind it when he came to visit. After all, he rarely ever had any other company in his home, except Karl of course. But, even so, it still got a little lonely sometimes.
On this particular occasion, Ranpo had been sprawled across the living room couch, munching down on a bag of frosted animal crackers, when a series of knocks sounded at the door. Poe stood up from the desk where he'd been sitting and hurried over to answer it, having no clue what could possibly be waiting on the other side. When he swung open the door, he was surprised to find a man he'd never seen before standing in front of him. "Excuse me, are you Edgar Allan Poe?"
The young author nodded, intrigued as to what this person was here for. Poe hadn't ordered any packages online recently unless Ranpo had hacked into his Amazon account again.
"These are for you," The man said, holding out 2 pieces of paper resembling very short receipts "Thank you," Poe reached out to take the slip, "h-have a nice day." He shut the door absentmindedly as the man walked away. Ranpo skipped over to observe the paper, apparently curious enough to get up from his comfortable spot on the couch. "Those are movie tickets," Ranpo remarked, pointing to them.
Poe's eyes widened in understanding. He remembered the conversation over the phone he'd had with his agent. Apparently, a movie was being made for one of his poems, 'Annabel Lee' to be exact. The producer, who had grown up in America, was supposedly a big fan of his and was providing him with free tickets to see the movie. Poe remembered how embarrassed he'd felt when he'd heard this news. He wasn't exactly proud of that particular poem. It had been written in a particularly lovesick depressing moment in his life, and now that he’d gotten over it he found the thing quite cringe-worthy.
He explained everything to Ranpo who looked as if he had known the exact situation already. “Well, the movie will be viewing in around 2 hours,” The detective remarked, pointing to the listed date and time the movie would take place. “, So the only logical decision is that we go together.”
“But wouldn’t that be-” Poe stopped himself mid-sentence ‘Wouldn’t that be like a date?’ he wanted to ask, but he choked it down, he didn’t want to ruin this for himself by vocalizing the romantic comparison. However, Ranpo, being Ranpo, had already guessed what he’d meant. “Relax, Karl will be with us, so we won’t be completely alone together.” As if on queue, the raccoon scrambled onto Poe’s shoulder, chirping affectionately, though still looking a little groggy having just woken up from his nap. “I’ll have to call the place ahead of time to make sure that they allow emotional support animals first.” Poe mused, talking more to himself than Ranpo. “I’d hate to have to leave Karl in the car because we didn’t check ahead of time.”
“Mhm, you do that,” Ranpo said, having clearly lost interest. “I’m going to go read that new manuscript of yours.”
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The next hour and a half passed somewhat uneventfully. Poe contacted the cinema they would be visiting, who confirmed that emotional support animals are welcome as long as they don’t cause a racket, which Poe assured them would not happen. Ranpo voiced various mistakes he noticed in Poe’s latest writing, having identified the killer immediately.
“A-alright, I think it’s about time we left,” Poe announced eventually, glancing at the clock anxiously, they’d be cutting it pretty close, if there was the remotest bit of a slowdown on the freeway, they’d surely be late. Ranpo let out an exaggerated groan as he sat up and stretched, “About time, I’d nearly run out of snacks.” He sat down the stapled manuscript onto the coffee table.
The two of them trudged out the door, Karl resting in Poe’s arms. They made their way to the parking garage where Poe’s small car was waiting. It was a relatively new model with hardly any mileage. Poe preferred to walk most of the time and, to be honest, he’d only bought the car to avoid the awkwardness of being alone with an Uber driver on the rare occasion where his destination was too far to travel on foot.
They all clambered into the vehicle, Poe stopping to situate Karl into his custom seatbelt, and then they took off, backing out of the parking garage and onto the streets.
Thankfully, they made it to the cinema relatively quickly. The place was much bigger than Poe had originally expected, with large video screens rolling trailers for various movies, and an entrance big enough for a hundred people to enter at once.
It took almost 15 minutes to get into the actual viewing room. Ranpo had attempted to buy the entire snack bar but with a little convincing or more, begging from Poe, he’d settled for 5 candy bars and a large box of popcorn. They made it just inside just as the last preview faded out and the movie began to play. The place was completely vacant except for the 3 of them so they chose a seat in the middle, which according to Ranpo, was the best place to be during a movie.
It was good that they were the only ones there because Ranpo was quite loud, Poe didn’t particularly mind it, but he was sure if there were other people they would have been quite irritated by his musings.
As the movie progressed, Poe didn’t notice Ranpo steadily becoming quieter until he looked over to find his rival fast asleep, his lap littered with candy wrappers. Something about the sight sent butterflies into Poe’s stomach, he quickly averted his eyes, feeling heat rising in his cheeks.
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When they finally emerged from the movie theatre the sky had darkened to a deep indigo, Poe’s eyes were still a little puffy from crying, the film had definitely done his poem justice. Karl was more energetic than usual. He, like Ranpo, had slept through a lot of the movie, and between that and the nap he’d taken this afternoon, he probably wouldn’t be sleeping at all tonight.
The ride back was quite uneventful, when they returned to the apartment, Ranpo insisted that he stay the night. This wasn’t exactly a new occurrence, so Poe was used to setting up a bed for him on the couch. “Have you figured it out yet?” Ranpo said bluntly.
“F-figured out what?” Poe responded, slightly startled by his serious tone. The detective sighed, looking quite exasperated, then he strode up to Poe, coming much too far into what he considered his personal space. “If you don’t know after this, then I give up.” and just like that, he kissed him. It was not a long kiss by any means, closer to a peck than anything, but that didn’t stop Poe’s heart from pounding in his chest. “W-w-what was..” his voice trailed off, it was like his brain was malfunctioning. A smile was painted on Ranpo’s face as he backed into the kitchen "I'm gonna go look for more sweets now.” and just like he was gone, leaving Poe to fully process what had just happened.