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2023-07-30
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1/1
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Courtesy Call

Summary:

A detective receives an unexpected call from an unknown number.

(Contains Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Ch. 5 and Epilogue spoilers.)

Notes:

My friends and I had some theories that didn't end up being canon by the end, but hey, that's what fanfic is for!

Also: One last warning for Rain Code endgame spoilers. Please tread carefully!

Work Text:

It was just past noon, the heat of the sun beginning to warp the air above the cracked pavement, when the detective formerly known as Number One received a call from an unknown number. 

To his burner phone.

To his burner phone, which he had acquired just two weeks earlier.  

He hadn’t been on this case for very long, but he had passed this number around to the local police department and a few other relevant parties. He’d added them all to his contacts, but it was likely one of them passed the number to someone else. This could be a tip, which meant it could be worth his time to answer.

(It could also be a scam call, though that could also give him something to track down later and report in his free time. Not a waste of time either way.)

He brought the phone up to his ear. “Hello?”

Nothing. Then the shifting of fabric, and then a sniffle, close enough to the receiver for the volume to peak and distort, the sound wet and miserable. 

He blocked his other ear to listen more closely. “Hello? Who is this?”

“...Dad?”

Yuma’s chest seized, panic like he hadn’t felt in months (months?) overriding his reason. He ducked through the door of a burned-out storefront, barely keeping his wits enough to check for any other squatters. Nobody behind the counter, nobody in the back, nobody but Yuma and his phone and the crumbling, rotting remains of the drop ceiling, scattered across the linoleum. 

Yuma sank behind the counter, dust kicking up around him, and kept the phone pressed so hard to his ear he could feel the heat of it burn his cheek. “Makoto?”

“Mhmm.” Another wet, sniffling sound on the other end. When he spoke, he sounded like he was speaking around a mouthful of cotton balls. “How are you doing?”

“Wh–it doesn’t matter how I’m doing! Are you alright?”

“Mm.” On the other end, Makoto chuckled. “Shouldn’t be drinking this stuff. The others can’t even digest it. So it’s probably even worse for me than it’d be for you, hm?”

Yuma’s heart sank. “Makoto, what happened?”

“Oh…things. Everything. It’s fine! Kanai Ward’s fine; everyone’s okay! It’s just…another meeting with the UG tomorrow. Yesterday. Next day, too. Power plant had a failure this week. Communication broke down with a few of our suppliers overseas, and…”

He paused for entirely too long. 

“And I’m four. I turned four today.”

“Oh…oh!” Yuma sat up straighter. “I found a few leads on the UG’s homunculus lab, and a contact of mine got me access to some of the paperwork the UG thought they shredded, but I never got an exact date. It’s today?”

“Mhmm. It’s today.”

The rest of Yuma’s consciousness caught up to him, halted, and replayed what he just said back to him. He was missing something vital.

Yuma jolted, and then added, “H…happy birthday, Makoto.”

On the other end, Makoto laughed, genuine delight breaking through the haze of drink and mucus. “Thanks, Dad.”

Dad. It was odd, but nice, once he rolled it around in his head a bit. It would take some getting used to, but it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten used to a new name. It was worth getting used to. 

On the other end of the line, Yuma could hear a soft, fabric thump, like Makoto had thrown himself backwards onto the pile of pillows and comforters atop his bed. “How old are we, anyway? Mentally, I mean. I’m supposed to have all your memories, but I don’t really…it doesn’t seem to add up.”

Just like that, an old tension headache reared its head, the ache creeping up his neck and around his jaw. Yuma thought for a few long moments, and Makoto waited for him, politely silent on the other end except for the creak of mattress springs. Finally, Yuma sighed. “That’s because…I don’t really know any more than you do. It doesn’t add up. I’ve been a ‘surprisingly good detective for my age’ for…a while. I…” Yuma winced. “I hate to admit it, but it was…a little too easy to ignore when there was always a case.”

“Oh. Oh?” Makoto perked up, already sounding a bit more sober. “Would this classify as an unsolved mystery, do you think?” 

Somehow, Yuma knew Makoto was kicking his feet.

“...You could call it that. I do have a theory, though.”

“Do tell!”

“Okay, so…” He thought back, his memories uncomfortably patchy. “I talked to Halara, back in Kanai Ward, when I was…”

“When you were Yuma Kokohead.”

“Right.” Yuma instinctively ducked under the brim of his hat. “And I tried talking to them about how to develop my forte. Because, because back then, I didn’t think I had one.”

“Oh! Oh, that’s adorable!”

“D-don’t call your dad adorable!”

Makoto snickered. 

“Anyway, we came up with a forte we thought made sense, based on…ugh, this is embarrassing.”

“If you can’t tell your identical clone, who can you tell?”

With a sigh, Yuma continued, “So, since fortes are usually based on some kind of ability you already have, we sat and thought about what made me unique, and we landed on–ugh, sorry–My will. And they suggested that a strong will, never giving up, that sort of thing, would probably develop into a forte like…immortality.”

Yuma’s hands fidgeted with the clasp of his coat.

“Oh,” Makoto finally said. “Oh. Oh! OH, THAT’S…OH!”

“Exactly.”

“And that’s why the UG…that’s why I was the only…oh, that's horrible! Wonderful! Wonderfully, perfectly, horrible!”

“It’s just a theory! I can’t exactly find out unless…you know.”

“Right.” If Makoto sounded clear earlier, he sounded stone cold sober now. “Well, as curious as we all are, please don’t give your life just to find out the truth.”

Yuma’s head throbbed, and the sudden pain drew a hiss through his teeth.

“Dad?”

“No, it’s…” There was something just on the tip of his tongue, something just at the edge of his awareness, and if he could just remember, then–

The thought scattered, fading into the humming background noise of cadavers and methods and motives.

“It’s...I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. Besides, you’re the one who called me, uh…” He tried to string the words together into something reasonably polite. “Not…doing so well. Are you okay? Things sounded…bad.”

“It’s…Hm, it’s bad, but I’m managing.” Makoto said primly. “The city chose me for this job, so it’s my responsibility to make sure they don’t regret it.”

Yuma paused, gnawing at his cheek. “Chose you for which job?”

“I…As part of the referendum, they voted to keep me as the CEO of Amaterasu, which means I’m the de facto leader of the city. For the time being. Until we get a proper system of governance installed.”

“Mhmm.” Yuma rubbed at his chin. “And what do CEOs typically do?”

“Wh–We both know what they do. They oversee the operations of the company, ideally.”

“And handle government negotiations, and local infrastructure failures, and supply management?”

Makoto sputtered. “I owe it to them! They shouldn’t have to worry about things like this, and if I can just get everything back on track, then–”

“Then something else will go wrong, because it’s a whole city! Makoto, we’re…They trust you, but you’re one person.”

Makoto fell back against the bed with a creak of mattress springs. “One person.” A delirious chuckle crackled through the speaker. “We’re just one person, the two of us. Number One, they called us. The Greatest Just-One-Mind in the World.”

“Yeah.” The part of Yuma’s brain that had trained itself to listen carefully, to pick words apart for contradictions, continued to hum. “And I don’t think you would have called me if you hadn’t already figured out what you needed to do.”

Makoto sighed.

Under his hat, Yuma smiled. “If you can’t tell your identical clone, who can you tell?”

“Aha, touché! Well played, detective.” With a tick, Makoto flicked the receiver. 

“Alright, then, detective.” Yuma flicked the receiver right back. “Lay it out for us.”

Again, Makoto sighed, but it tapered off into a laugh. His voice shifted, then, into something sterner, something uncannily familiar. “I trusted them with the truth. They trusted me with leadership of the city. And so I need to trust them again.”

“Mhmm.”

“This isn’t a job for one person. I need to be a real manager. I need to delegate some of this work.”

“Yep.”

“...Like I’m doing right now, by calling you in my time of need.” At that, his voice lilted back up into its usual higher, more teasing range. “Two ‘greatest minds’ are better than one, after all.”

Yuma grinned. “Got it.”

Makoto sang a little victory chime, and with a soft thump, shoved both his face and the phone into a pillow. Voice muffled, he started to speak again. “You know, the other Yuma Kokohead has started branching out. Trying to find ways to apply the same…local Kanai Ward nutritional profile, if you will, to other types of food. There’s been high demand for desserts, as you might expect, and he’s started selling puddings, ice creams, even pastries! The cupcakes are nice.”

Yuma snorted. Elegant change of subject, there. Makoto could be subtle when he liked, but he probably knew Yuma would let him get away with it if he wasn’t. 

“Really!" Makoto chirped. "He’s got a few flavors at this point: Vanilla, strawberry, green tea…”

“You should get one.”

“Hm?”

“As your dad, I, um…” Yuma stuttered. “I think you should get a cupcake. It’s your birthday.”

“That…that’s a very nice idea. I like that idea.”

“Actually, one second–” Yuma pulled the phone away from his face, tapping away at it for a few moments until he heard the ping on Makoto’s end.

“‘Deny or Accept,’” Makoto read the notification aloud. “‘Birthday cupcake fund. You have been sent…’ This is more than enough! The other Yuma Kokohead sets very reasonable prices!”

And from his shares in Amaterasu alone, Makoto had thousands of times more money than Yuma had seen in at least three lives, but it was the principle of the thing.

“I guess now you can get a few cupcakes.”

“I… thank you,” Makoto gushed, audibly sincere. “This is the first…This is a perfect birthday present. I’ll savor every bite!” 

Yuma took a deep breath, closing his eyes. His chest ached, strange but not quite unwelcome. “I really wish I could give it to you in person.”

There was silence on the other end. Then the creak of mattress springs, and a soft chuckle. “You know, you’re not the only one I’ve been tracking. I’ve kept tabs on your friends as well. I can give them this number, if you’d like.”

Yuma froze. The familiar old excuse from his familiar old life was at the tip of his tongue, the Thank you for offering, but I’m in the middle of a case right now, but that ache in his chest compounded, screaming, before he could manage a single word.

It screamed: Hypocrite! Hypocrite!

What the hell have you been doing?!

Yuma tilted his head back against the filthy wall of the burned-out storefront and laughed. 

Makoto’s voice crackled over the speaker. “That’s not a no.”

“It isn’t,” Yuma managed, catching his breath. “It’s actually a very nice idea. I like that idea.”

“Wonderful!” Makoto clapped. “Ah, what name should I give them?”

He took a moment to consider, but really, there was only one answer, wasn’t there?

“Yuma. Just Yuma.”

“Just Yuma it is! Aaaand…”

“Wait!”

“Waiting!”

“And tell them I said I’m sorry. For disappearing like this.”

Makoto’s voice softened. “Absolutely. Anything else?”

“No. No, I think that’s it.”

“Aaaand sent. I’d expect a call in…five…four…three…”

“Wait, what–?”

Yuma’s phone beeped. Incoming Call. Unknown Number.

“Makoto, wait–!”

“Let me know how it goes! Goodbye! Thank you for the cupcakes!”

“Makoto!!”

Click.