The room smelled faintly of cigarettes and faint cologne, a quiet residue of nights spent tangled together. Ranpo Edogawa lounged against the headboard, arms crossed, feet propped carelessly, wearing that usual smirk that concealed far more than anyone realized. Their relationship had always been simple: physical, occasional, mutually satisfying, with no pretensions of love or attachment.

Tonight was different. The boy across from him moved lazily, humming while straightening the blanket around him. Something was off. Ranpo’s sharp eyes, trained to observe the slightest anomaly, picked up the subtle details almost immediately: a faint swelling in the abdomen, the way the boy’s posture shifted unconsciously, a pale flush under his skin. Normally, he might have ignored it—until he combined it with the minute changes in scent and subtle alterations in behavior he’d noticed over recent weeks.

His mind raced through possibilities, ruling out illness, diet, or fatigue. Each deduction sharpened the picture in his mind until there was only one plausible conclusion. Ranpo’s smirk faltered, replaced by a rare flicker of astonishment. His partner, his casual companion, was pregnant. And not just recently—the signs pointed to weeks, maybe months, before he had even been involved.

He leaned forward, fingers drumming lightly against the edge of the bed, heart oddly heavy despite his usual irreverence. His gaze flicked over the boy, taking in the soft curve of his belly, the slight tightness of his shirt across it, the careful way he avoided any sudden movement. Ranpo’s mind, so used to solving mysteries of crime and deception, now wrestled with one far more personal, far more urgent.

“I… think you’re pregnant,” he said softly, the words out of place in his normally playful cadence.