summary:After being set up on yet another awkward blind date by his parents, Pat has had more than enough. To stop them from interfering - or rather, to shock them into never interfering again - Pat enlists his childhood rival to be his fake boyfriend. It’s only when everyone starts to genuinely believe them that Pat and Pran realize they just might be in over their heads. a/n:This fic is set in a canon-divergent universe where Pran was never transferred to another school and their university friends are also their high school friends. At the start of this fic, Pat, Pran, and Ink are 17 years old, while Pa is 16 years old. Fic title is from the song I Can’t Fall In Love Without You by Zara Larsson.
preview:
“I can’t just fake-date anyone, Pran. It has to be someone that my parents will hate.”
“Wait, you’re not - ” Pran let out a terrible choking noise that sounded halfway between a breathless gasp and an incredulous laugh “ - you’re not seriously saying…”
“Think about it,” Pat continued hurriedly, hoping he could manage to convince Pran of his admittedly ridiculous plan before he could slip back into his bedroom, shut the window behind him, and never speak to Pat again. “If I pick someone that my parents might actually like, they’ll want me to date them forever until we get married. But if I pick someone they hate, like you - ” Pran visibly winced “ - then they’ll do everything they can to convince us to break up.”
“I…can think of at least ten different problems with your plan,” Pran managed to say after staring at Pat for an uncomfortably long time. As much as Pat wanted to think Pran was stunned into silence by his sheer genius, he knew Pran well enough to know what he was really thinking. “First, wouldn’t that just create more problems for you? Instead of bothering you about dating someone, they’ll bother you about not dating someone - that someone being me.”
Pat shrugged. “It wouldn’t bother me. It’s not like we actually like each other.”
“That’s not what I - never mind,” Pran said with a weary sigh that Pat was all too familiar with, his nose briefly scrunching up in distaste.
It’s been a long time since I wrote anything, practically a year and 2020 was awful and 2021 didn’t start off well either because of a relative’s death. But anyway, I hope you guys like what I’ve written.
If you wanna support me, I would be highly grateful. My paypal is: paypal.me/filterish
It was truly horrible that Ran was dealt such a awful card in her life. An alcoholic father, a workaholic mother and an innate disposition of wanting to please people whom she loved.
She could have lived with the first two cards but it was the third one that made her life difficult. Wanting to do the best she could at academics so she could get praised by her absent parents, wanting to have friends so that she could answer her mother’s questions about her friendships with conviction, wanting to work so that she could take care of the monetary burdens… wants, wants, wants.
To be honest, all she wanted was peace. To not be involved in her separated yet together parents’ tumultuous relationship. Sometimes thinking about her family made her chest hurt and throat tickle. She loved her mother and she loved her father. But she didn’t love them together. And when she came to realize that at the age of twenty, she finally let go.
She had worried and schemed to get her parents back together practically her whole life but now, she knew that if they didn’t want to be together, all her efforts would be in vain. So, at the age of twenty, with a heavy heart, she decided to let her family go. She stopped calling her mother to fix a date with her father, she stopped pestering her father about giving a fuck about her mother. And then came the realization that she was lonely. So lonely that her heart ached.
She hadn’t managed to make friends, life long friends people would go on about, because she was focused on bettering herself so that her parents would praise her. On the flip side, she had gotten into one of the best universities in Tokyo and was studying her desired subject about Medicine. Most days she could live with the pay off. Having a stable career would help in surviving alone a lot.
People in her class would invite her to hang out and she would say yes, just to sit there and observe them. For some reason, the buzzing chatter of her classmates soothed her a lot. They would gossip or discuss about classes or professors and Ran would sit there with a slight smile on her face and her heart feeling lighter. She craved companionship.
With that thought in her mind, she decided to open up with her college classmates. She knew the names of the people in her class, thankfully and so, with a cheery smile she used to plaster on at her high school, she slid into the conversation about the college’s professors.
“… And Tsukiyama-sensei gives us so maaaany diagrams to draw,” Hayami-san was whining, “I have a part time job to do and then that teacher’s homework… I don’t get the time to unwind at all.”
“He does push us a lot,” Ran said and noticed the sort of surprised looks of her three classmates, though they quickly covered it up.
“You find it hard too, huh, Ran-san?” Sonoko-san said, “With your grades, I thought it would be easy for you to catch up.”
Ran quickly grabbed the opportunity to continue the conversation, thankful that the atmosphere didn’t turn awkward at her sudden interruption, “Ah, well, I don’t actually have a lot to do, you know? Mostly studies and a part time job as an assistant at a detective agency.”
“Detective agency?!” The three of them exclaimed and faced Ran fully.
Her smile grew sheepish as she said, “Ahhhh, but, nothing interesting happens when I’m there. Usually, I just have to compile all the data and file them.”
“But, still! You must have found something interesting there!” Aoko-san said, with her eyes shining with excitement, “A case? Or a person? Have you ever helped the detective, Ran-san?”
Ran shook her head no, “I’m not allowed to work on the cases, Aoko-san. As a matter of fact, I’ve not even seen the detective yet, I usually work in the evening, after my classes are done.”
Hearing that, the three of them looked concerned and Hayami-san spoke, “Ran-san, are you sure that’s safe? I mean,” she shared a look full of concern with Sonoko-san and Aoko-san, “you have never seen whom you work with, right? What if it’s some super shady guy?”
Ran chuckled a bit and said, “It’s okay, Hayami-san. I’m trained in karate. Plus, the agency I work at is super reputed. It’s just that the guy whom I’m assigned to is very, very busy and even other employees have said that it’s rare to see him in the office. He works at very odd hours.”
That did nothing to alleviate their concern and Ran felt a bit touched. This was the first time she was having a proper conversation with them and the four of them were practically strangers yet Hayami-san, Sonoko-san and Aoko-san were so concerned about her well being.
Aoko-san was apprehensive and she murmured, “If you say so, Ran-san,” and then in a more chipper tone asked, “Which agency do you work at?”
“Kudo Detective Agency.” Ran replied.
Hearing that, the three of them were even more animated in their response, “THE Kudo Detective Agency?” Aoko-san gasped in disbelief.
“Wait, the famous ex-policeman one?!” Sonoko-san exclaimed.
“The one that has this hot, handsome guy working there?” Hayami-san said.
All of them turned to look at Hayami-san and she shrugged sheepishly, “What? Everybody knows that there is this rumored handsome guy who works there and is seen like once in every millennia,” she said sarcastically.
Sonoko-san swatted her friend and Aoko-san clicked her tongue, waving her comment away and turned her attention back to Ran, “You really work at Kudo Detective Agency, Ran-san? Oh, wow. It houses the best of the best detectives.”
Sonoko-san nodded and said, “Damn, you must have impressed the Kudo husband and wife duo a lot. Seeing that they have such a strict policy and criteria to employ people.”
And with that, the three of them were off chattering about the elusive Kudos. Ran chipped in whenever she could but mostly listened while they were talking. She didn’t have the heart to tell them that only reason she works there is to spite her father in an act of rebellion.
The Kudous were not the reason her father was a piss poor detective but she had spent her teenagers listening to him whine about how Kudo Yuusaku was responsible for the lack of cases in Mouri Detective Agency. And at that time, Ran did what she could to help him, guide her high school classmates in need, put up posters, advertise in newspapers… she did what she could but her father was too prideful to take small cases and too incompetent to work properly on big ones. And by then, the ex-policeman Yuusaku and ex-actress-turned-housewife had established a proper detective agency housing some of the brightest, youngest detectives.
When she cut ties with her family, she decided to do what she wanted. And so, she offered her services to the Kudous. She knew she could be an excellent assistant and she proved herself by working for a week under Yuusaku Kudo herself. From organization to appointments to little treats or snacks for the clients… she did what she could have been doing for her father.
And by the time the week had ended, she was employed with a good salary. She thought that working there would hinder her Medicine study course but the detective whom she was assigned to had a set of orders ready when she entered his office.
She was surprised at first because no one was there to greet her on her first day, just a piece of paper telling her not to come during day time and that her work was to organize the papers that were kept on the table. Sure, there were scribbled notes scattered everywhere on the table but a quick glance clued her in that those were case notes. Case notes of multiple cases, to be exact.
She found it extremely odd that the detective whom she was supposed to assist had never shown himself. All she knew was that his name was Kudou Shinichi, Kudou Yuusaku and Yukiko’s son, and was an excellent detective. He had grown up in the States and had come back at the age of twenty with plethora of experience under his belt.
Ran chalked up never seeing him to some weird quirk of his. Truthfully, she liked working there. The Kudou couple treated her kindly, the assistants of other detectives were warm and welcoming, even the other detectives greeted her and indulged in small talk. The work wasn’t difficult, the pay was excellent, the timing fit her college schedule perfectly; everything was great except for never having seen her superior’s face.
Ran sighed as she brought herself back to present. Aoko-san was talking about the lab work they had just finished and Ran smiled lightly. Having friends like them would be nice, she thought. And swore to herself that she would make the effort to know them better.
That day, she felt very calm as she entered her office. The Kudo Shinichi plaque at the door greeted her and she opened it, mentally gearing herself up for the stack of papers that was bound to be there, only to be greeted by a man, who was shuffling through them.
“Umm… hello?” Ran asked hesitantly, not wanting to jump to conclusions about who this man was.
The man faced her and smiled a bright smile, which left Ran disarmed. “Hello, you must be Mouri Ran-san?” he asked.
Ran felt a little discombobulated, she hadn’t anticipated someone being inside the office. “Uhh… yes, I am. And you are…?” she didn’t want to presume who he was but she had a little inkling of whom he could be.
“Ah, sorry for introducing myself late,” and he walked up to her and held his hand up for a greeting, “My name is Kudou Shinichi… and ahh, I’m supposed to be working here,” he said in a playful tone with a smirk that showed a dimple on his left cheek.
The only thought that crossed her mind at that moment was what Hayami-san had said a few hours before. He really was a gorgeous man.
[ID:two digital drawings side by side on a white background drawn in a semi-realistic style, the one on the left being a sketch version and the one on the right being a colored version. The colored version depicts pink pearl from steven universe as a human with light skin, pink hair, and heterochromatic eyes. Her left eye is brown and her right eye is pink with jagged, web-like scarring over it. Her hair is braided somewhat elaborately into two messy buns. She is wearing a short, sparkly pink frock with a dramatic V neckline, a choker, a silver heart necklace with very faint cracks, long thigh-high stockings, and pink ballet flats. A teal, yellow-trimmed varsity jacket with a yellow star sewn on the left breast is thrown loosely around her shoulders. Her expression is neutral.]
My third entries for a zine series of a friend. I never worked up the courage to post them after the first one, but I guess at one point this was my progress and I’m not ashamed of it.
