Work Text:
Your regrets are boxed up neatly in long rows in the locker of your mind, and every year you clap your hands and ring the bell to catch the gods' attention, and flick on the industrial light for them. The bulb flickers and buzzes over the pale file boxes, gleaming wetly off slashes of blood-red evidence tape, and catching the deep grooves of black marker engraving stark labels across each face.
If the gods can just help you take one more regret out of the locker, lay one more soul to rest -- preferably one more than you'll gain over the coming year -- but even just one, you'll be content. But it's not going to happen. You know, deep in your soul, that they aren't listening. There's just too many people begging at the shrine for them to hear any of you.
So you go back into work, drink bad coffee and file paperwork, book robbers and rapists and frauds, and wait for the boss to send you down to the evidence room.
There's a Tokyo transfer this year, a rookie you get stuck with when it's time to dust off the files. At least it's somebody else to haul boxes and wipe down shelves while you do the real work. Not that there's anything to find, again... why you pray at New Year's is beyond you. It never helps.
You're getting too old for this. Or maybe the rookie's crueler than you thought. Or maybe you're just too desperate, because the rumor from Tokyo sounds like it came from a cheap manga, possibly even one of those American ones with all the spandex... but you find yourself copying a case file, signing it out, and packing for Tokyo anyway.
You really are an idiot.
Except that when you diffidently mention the rumor to the men in Tokyo's Investigative Unit One, your self-depreciating little chuckle dies in perfect silence. Much to your surprise, you find yourself bowed out the door by Satou-keibu herself, a paper with scrawled directions folded in your hand and her 'good luck' echoing through your heart.
Perhaps it's not such a silly rumor after all.
The paper directs you to a crumbling mansion in Beika, its family nameplate new and blank, the gate unlocked and overgrown with wisteria. It makes it hard to open the gate, though it gives way on silent, well-cared-for hinges once you do manage, and that leaves the occupants enough time to notice you: you spot a flicker of movement in a window.
The man who opens the door for you looks surprisingly young at first glance, a mop of dark hair and bright eyes behind a pair of chic reading glasses, but he has the faintest hint of crow's-feet next to his eyes, laugh lines at the corners of his mouth. And by the time he's seated you in a small parlor, you've recognized the eyes of a fellow man who's spent too many years seeing the underside of life. His grin quirks a little more lopsided when you realize this, and he bows himself out.
You suspect he's left you for more reason than arranging refreshments. The parlor is a haven of clues to this man, very masculine in nature, the walls lined with formal bookshelves and lesser pieces of art. The books have all had their dust jackets removed to reveal the hidden beauty of the embossed hardcovers. You recognize a number of the titles -- the full Night Baron series holds a place of prominence to the left of your couch, framing small bronze statues of famed classic detectives and thieves. A brooding idol of Holmes seems to be getting his nose tweaked by a smug Lupin on the middle shelf.
This is not a place where secrets seem appreciated, but that's just on the surface. All the books are novels; the statues are of characters. Masks and fiction. Without the bright dust jackets, it requires a close look to identify the different titles: they're all anonymous in their similarity, easily hidden without their masks.
The man returns with a tea tray. He's changed his clothes, tamed his hair a bit-- but no. Though the same knowing, too-old eyes shine out of that face, this man truly is as young as he first looks. This is not the man who met you at the door, but a stunning lookalike.
Masks and fiction, anonymous in their similarity... it does fit the rumor, unless they're really that good and know how to fake their own comfort zones to change their apparent psychology.
Over tea, they finally introduce themselves, and you're not the least bit surprised to hear the same word that made you think the rumor came out of a manga. Doppelganger, that Western word for false twins. You introduce yourself, allow them to draw out tales of your town -- the beauty of the mountains, the shrine where you secretly ask the gods' help every year, the recent festival -- compliment their tea and the skillful selection of dishes, all the fussy stuff before you can get down to business.
Finally, the elder takes the tea away, and the younger fixes you with a professional stare that adds ten years to his eyes, and asks to see the file.
He takes your case.
You firmly remind yourself that, rumors aside, there's no reason to think that he'll finally crack it. You also remind yourself that you aren't giving up; this is just a copy of the file, the case is still yours. It doesn't help calm your heart, stem back the surge of hope or the faint guilt at turning the case over, but it does help you keep your polite expression as you and your host bow to each other, as you turn to be shown out.
And that's when you realize you missed the biggest clue of all. The most important piece of artwork in the room has been hanging on the wall behind you all this time, modestly out of your field of vision. It's a painting, the sole portrait in the entire room, of a family of three whose men look exactly like your hosts.
Only, you realize immediately, the clothes are easily twenty, thirty years out of date. Then the woman's face twists into recognizability, a Kudou Yukiko past her acting career, but still far too young to be current. The moustached man next to her would be her husband, then, which explains the predominance of the Night Baron books in here...
And the cocky youth grinning from the image would be their son. The famed, long-missing Detective of the East, Kudou Shin'ichi.
Your eyes snap straight to the elder of your hosts, leaning in the doorway. He's the only one of the pair near the right age... but no. His eyes are a shade too far off, his nose entirely wrong to have developed from the young teen pictured. Besides, he's not the one who took your case.
Now you understand the secrecy, the melodrama of the rumor. It keeps the pair safe, secluded from all but the most serious comers. To look so much like the renowned detective, a boy who possibly died because of his fame... they're just paying heed to their predecessor's warning.
You bow again and leave.
And when, weeks later, after you arrest the culprit in your cold case at long last, you stop by the local shrine, clap your hands, and pray.