Wrote almost all of this on my phone. This is what happens when your computer decides it really doesn't want to work for you at all for about 24 hours.

#

Shotaro arrived at the agency just as the delivery man was leaving. Looked like they'd ordered from his favourite ramen place, even more reason to go after Akiko if she did end up stealing his lunch. He pushed the door open. "I'm home."

"You're late," Akiko sang back, grinning at him from the office's small dining table. She was already eating out of one bowl, and she tapped her chopsticks on a sealed bowl in front of the other chair. "You're lucky I'm just too nice, Shotaro."

He scoffed. "More like you know what I'd do if you touched my lunch." Giving her a poke in the forehead as he passed on his way to the desk, he withdrew the envelope from his pocket. "Here, Boss, the payment from the case."

Soukichi Narumi barely glanced up from his own ramen and the file he was perusing. "Keep it, Shotaro." When Shotaro blinked in confusion, Soukichi raised his eyes to meet his apprentice's. "It was your case, wasn't it? You earned it."

"Right..." Shotaro pocketed the money again and couldn't hold back a grin. "Thanks, Boss." He sat across from Akiko and peeled the lid off his ramen.

For a few minutes, Soukichi returned to the case file and let Shotaro eat, but then he spoke again. "How did it go, by the way?"

Shotaro swallowed and set his chopsticks down. "Really well. I found the ring in time. She accepted and he tried to invite me to the wedding."

"You said no, right? You'd ruin a wedding's atmosphere." Akiko spoke so matter-of-factly that Shotaro bristled. This little brat...

"I did say no, but that wasn't the reason!" He scooped up more noodles, and some of the soup splashing across onto Akiko's hand was surely an accident.

She let out a horrified squeal anyway. "See, that's what I mean! I don't want you anywhere near me on my wedding day!"

He snorted. "Right. Like any guy wants a spaz like you for a wife."

Her mouth hung open for two seconds before distorting into a pout. "Dad, why'd you have to take such a rotten guy as an apprentice?"

Soukichi sighed, eyeing his daughter and apprentice. "You two should try to get along. You're scaring all the flavour out of the food."

"You mean he is," grumbled Akiko, and Shotaro resisted the urge to kick her under the table.

Instead, he looked out towards the window, his eyes inevitably catching on the hooks above his boss' head, where the detective's favourite fedoras hung. Shotaro blinked. Something was wrong. "Boss, isn't that white one your favourite? When did the brim get torn?"

Both Soukichi and Akiko looked up, but it was Akiko who answered, head craned around to see the hats. "What're you talking about, Shotaro? The hat's fine."

He looked again. She was right. He could've sworn there was a chunk torn out of the brim... But it was whole. "Oh... Must've been a trick of the light, I guess."

"Maybe you need glasses." Akiko frowned.

"I do not." There was no bite behind Shotaro's retort. He glanced at the white fedora again before returning to his lunch. He'd definitely been imagining it.

~~~

Raito greeted several members of the house staff when he entered the Sonozaki mansion. He tried to remember all their names, especially when someone new was hired. It was polite, of course, but it also helped him keep his memory sharp.

"Raito!" Barely three steps into the door, he nearly jumped out of his skin as his older sister stormed towards him. "What took so long? I thought you got off school early today!"

"I did! I went to the library…" He waved the books in his arm a bit for emphasis. It had struck him as odd that Wakana had sounded so urgent when she asked if he was on his way home yet when she called him. "Was there something I forgot, sis?"

Wakana Sonozaki let out a long, annoyed sigh, and pressed her hand to the side of her head. "Oh, Raito… it's the radio manager's birthday today, and I asked you to come to the work party with me! You need to get out more!"

Oops. All the memory training in the world wasn't going to help him now. "Ahh… sorry, sis, but there's a big exam next week, and I haven't studied much…"

Wakana laughed, reaching out to give her little brother a shove on the shoulder. "If you don't want to go, just say so, Raito. We both know you read so much you could pass a test on anything." She walked past him, headed for the door as she called over her shoulder. "I'll forgive you this time, but if you don't get your nose out of those books, you'll never get a girlfriend!"

Raito glared as the door clicked shut behind his sister, and he tried to ignore the burning in his cheeks. "Shut up." Gripping the books tighter, he headed for the mansion's library. He did have an exam coming up, but he had to admit he was glad he didn't have to go to the party. He loved his sister and her radio work, but crowds bothered him.

He set his three library books on one of the tables and began scanning the shelves. America. Law. Justice. He was sure there were some books on it…

His hand paused on a black, leather-bound spine with no title on it. Narrowing his eyes, Raito pulled it down to find the gold-bordered cover had no title either. And when he opened it, the pages were blank.

"What the—" Numb fingers dropped the book, which hit the library's hardwood floor with a sharp bang. After a second, he shook his head. Why was he reacting so strongly? It was just a book…

He bent to pick it up again, and blinked. It wasn't black, but dark blue. And it did have a title: The Collected and Translated Works of Jack London. He opened the book again and there were words. He'd read it for a foreign literature course last summer.

Raito shook his head and put the book back on the shelf. Maybe Wakana was right. He definitely studied too much if he was starting to see things.

#

Writing Soukichi is really hard. Like… he gets barely any screentime in the duration of the show and movies, and for just about all of that he's being unbelievably badass. How write in normal situations. I am confused.