konpeitou: Because sometimes you have to wonder WHY characters always wear the same thing. So I thought of a reason. And being stuck in bed with a cold or flu or whatever leaves me with nothing else to do except write.
There was a knock at the Agency door and Akiko, ever eager for new clients to charge, leapt to her feet and rushed to answer the call. Shoutarou sighed, debating whether to get up like a good host to greet the client or just sit back in his desk chair and let Akiko handle it for a few minutes. At the little table nearby, Philip deigned to raise his head for a moment but quickly lost interest took a bite out of his toast as he went back to reading his book.
"I have a delivery for Hidari Shoutarou, care of the Narumi Detective agency," the voice behind the door prnounced pilitely.
Akiko sputtered for a moment, caught off-guard and unable to launch into her welcome-the-clients speech, and the two partners came to full attention at the mention of Shoutarou's name. "What is this?" she finally asked.
"I'm sorry miss, I don't know. I just deliver the packages. If you would sign here…?" he motioned the clipboard toward her, but Shoutarou deftly stepped in to sign for his own package. Once the postman retrieved his package he turned and deftly wheeled in a dolly truck piled with packages in from around the corner.
Akiko stumbled back out of the man's way, settling into the couch when she nearly tripped on it, and stared at the small mountain of boxes. Philip settled himself on the floor and immediately began opening the first box available to him while Shoutarou finished up with the postman.
"What the hell did you order?" Akiko demanded in a voice that bordered on a screech. In her mind, the cost of so many packages tallied up and with it mounted a fury at the half-boiled detective.
"I didn't order anything!" Shoutarou snapped defensively. He took his hat off long enough to ruffle his own hair in annoyance before slamming it back on his head. He caught sight of Philip raiding the first box and groaned. "Philip! Don't open that!"
"It appears that we have been sent more clothing, Shoutarou," Philip stated, holding up a long-sleeved cotton shirt in the same style as the ones he wore, only sporting spots instead of stripes.
"I'm aware of that, but that doesn't mean we have to accept it. Now pack it back up so we can return it."
Philip set the shirt down and cocked his head quizzically "Why?"
"Because once was enough, that man doesn't need to keep sending us stuff everytime there's an update to the product line." Shoutarou pointed out gruffly.
"Then why didn't you refuse the delivery rather than accepting it?" Philip wondered, reaching into the box for another article of clothing – a red plaid jacket with a wide and angled flare that he instantly liked.
"Because," Shoutarou winced "It hadn't occurred to me at the time." He ignored Philip's muttered 'half-boiled' and reached for the haphazard clothing to start stuffing it back into the box.
Akiko, thus far quietly confused in her place on the couch, raised her hand in a universal sign of question, "Can somebody explain what's going on?"
The two partners looked at each other, a silent tug-of-war over who would respond and how much to explain, when Philip shrugged and went back to exploring the box, leaving Shoutarou to slap his face with a groan of annoyance.
"Look, it all started back when Philip and I first became partners, before you came along," Shoutarou started, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the door. "We were just doing our thing, still kind of working out he kinks, but doing our best to stop the Dopants. Long story short, one of the Dopants was terrorizing the owner of the Windscale company." Shoutarou lifted an arm to gesture at the logo on his hat for emphasis. "He asked how he could repay us. Seeing as how he hadn't actually contracted us for a case and wasn't our client, there was no fee for our help. We would have stopped that Dopant no matter what."
Here Shoutarou paused to lunge forward and try to stop Philip from opening another box, but the younger boy just deftly snatched another instead and set about opening it before his partner could stop him. Shoutarou grumbled in irritation but as Philip was already rummaging through the box, he sighed and went back to his narration.
"Anyway, this guy was pretty insistent that we let him do something for us. He offered to let us come to his shop and pick out some things we liked, free of charge, as payment for saving him from the Dopant. Eventually I gave in just to shut him up…"
"So what about all this stuff, now? I didn't hear anything about this." Akiko prompted, when it seemed like Shoutarou wouldn't continue.
"It seemed that he hadn't liked our selections," Philip added absently, holding up a pair of cargo pants speculatively, wondering whom they were intended for, "and so it appears that he still feels indebted to us."
"Which is absurd!" Shoutarou added, "It's bad enough that he already gave us each a wardrobe worth more than we could normally make in months of work, he doesn't need to keep doing it."
Akiko mulled this information over, as Shoutarou struggled to keep Philip from opening a third box, and came to the conclusion, "So that's why you guys wear so much Windscale stuff? But why all the same design? I mean, if you had your choice of anything…"
Shoutarou winced, yanked a tie out of Philip's hands, and sat on the floor near his partner. "Yeah, that's just it. I really didn't want to take advantage of his offer – Hell, I didn't want to take it at all, but he just wouldn't quit – so I brought Philip out to the department store, where he'd apparently told his clerks that we had carte blanche, and picked out a few things. At the very least, it was better than letting Philip run around in his pajamas all the time."
Akiko looked Philip over and decided that, given that comment, maybe his current wardrobe made a little more sense.
"Anyway," Shoutarou continued, "We made our selections and headed out. I figured that would be the end of it." He paused try to slap Philip's hand away from another box, but ultimately failed again to stop the other boy from opening the last box. "A few weeks later, we got a dlivery a lot like this one. It seemed that the owner was not content with our slim selections and thought that we deserved more for having done such a great service," he ruffled his hair again in embarassment, "So, his note said, since he didn't have any better idea of our preferences, he sent along every option of every article of clothing we'd chosen. Up to and including the ties and shoes."
"I think this box is for you," Philip stated blandly, pulling up several vests and shirts. Shoutarou just groaned.
"So that's why your wardrobes are all the same…" Akiko muttered to herself, staring at the piles of new clothes scattered across the Agency floor.
Philip handed the vests to Shoutarou, who grudingly examined the new line of colors, and delved back into the box for the last pieces. What he found made him grin, and he pulled them up to brandish at his partner. "Look Shoutarou, this time there are leather pants to match that vest," he said with a wicked smile, eyes glittering.
Shoutarou turned an interesting shade of red as his expression danced between angry and embarassed, which just served to entertain his younger partner into a gentle laugh. The hard-boiled detective yanked the pants out of his partner's grasp and once again reiterated his point that they weren't keeping the stuff.
"But returning a gift is rude, Shoutarou," Philip pointed out, a teasing lilt to his voice to match the quirk of his lips.
While Shoutarou fell into a losing battle of witticism against his partner, Akiko absently wondered if she could get in on the deal. Windscale must have some pretty nice stuff for girls too, right...?