#/yuusaku highkey dying in the bg

[presumenothing]

death of the author

or, 600 words of the other (not-really-)writer!au cc: @mintchocolateleaves​ who knows why bcc: geronimo by aura dione aka default crackfic soundtrack

“Somehow I never realised how much bloody paperwork’s involved in police procedure? Especially for junior officers.” Hattori’s face is already buried in his hands, but somehow he still manages to facepalm harder. Fortunately his laptop mic is still sensitive enough to pick up ‘muffled Osakan grumble’. “If I have ta fill in another warrant request I swear I might just murder somethin’.”

Shinichi is not quite commiserating. “Yeah? Well you try having four clients in as many weeks express their disappointment that I didn’t follow my father’s footsteps. Like they’d actually rather I be writing crimes rather than solving theirs!”

“At least you don’t have ta write ’em up afterwards, d’ya? Still’s the better end of the deal.”

“No, I just have to dodge the paparazzi,” Shinichi retorts, dry as (dry) ice. “Besides, I hardly think you could write any worse than me.”

Pause.

“Actually I’m pretty sure I could,” Hattori says, in that thoughtful way that mostly means his mouth is functioning on autopilot from his brain. “Y’know what, I’ll even bet a week-long trip to Osaka on it!”

“Are you out of your mind,” Shinichi retorts reflexively, except he’s kinda also mirroring Hattori’s grin and dammit. “Anyway what d’you mean, you’re betting a trip – ”

some (much) time later:

Megure decides to make the call one afternoon during his break from filling in staff appraisal forms – which are mostly bureaucratic formality anyway: his team is good and he wouldn’t really change anything about them (except maybe for Sato-kun and Takagi-kun to be less… obvious about things).

Anyway. He’d meant to bring it up at their previous case but forgot, so he picks up his handphone now and presses the speed dial thing that Chiba-kun had helped him set up.

Kudo-kun picks up on the seventh ring, sounding a little distracted.

(Way back before he disappeared – officially speaking – he’d always picked up at the first ring unless he was in school, but Megure doesn’t mind the development. Even when Ran-kun was around the detective never failed to focus when it came to crime scenes; if he’d been in the force instead of his own agency HR would probably have made him the poster child for work-life balance.)

“Megure-keibu! What is it, a case?”

At those words Megure automatically checks his landline from Dispatch – which thankfully remains as quiet as it’d been a minute ago – and hopes that Kudo doesn’t somehow deduce his silent sigh of relief at that.

“No, we’re just done finishing up on that Takazawa case, thanks to your help. I just wanted to run something by you, actually.” He continues at Kudo’s questioning hm. “I got a call from one of my old school friends the other day – she’s the editor at this publishing house in Yokohama, and wanted to check if I might know whether you’re writing anything? You know, short stories, mystery, stuff like that.”

Kudo sounds oddly amused at that. “Why, did they receive something with my name on it?”

“More than one, sounds like,” he confirms. “Which is why she was concerned if someone was trying to publish under your name, and she’d heard that I work with you, so…”

“Sounds like the fraud must really be terrible, then,” Kudo-kun answers, and he definitely sounds entertained now. “Well, you can tell her that it can’t have been me if they’re really that atrocious – that’s what you were going to say, right?”

“Yes,” Megure admits, “but…”

“Oh, it’s alright, I’m not worried about fraud or whatever, it’s not like whoever this is tried to impersonate my father anyway,” Kudo finishes cheerily, and boy is he really in a good mood today. “If there’s nothing else, keibu?”

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urs sincerely, local dead author