Ah! I do believe Sara’s been working on writing that one, in fact.

You’ll find it’s a little unusual, but to be perfectly fair, nothing in the Armed Detective Agency adheres to norms, n’est-ce pas?

Goes a little something like this… I was very much madly in love with her, and drove myself more mad every day that there was absolutely, definitely, 100% percent no way a beautiful princess like her could ever love me in turn.

As it turns out, at the very same time, she was driving herself mad, with the very same thoughts about me! Can you imagine…? Me not loving her…

Soon enough all our fellow detectives knew of this sad and tragic romance where both of us were too silly to simply tell the other how we feel. Yosano and Junichirou trying so desperately to reassure my poor girl, all the while Kunikida was trying to slap some sense back into me. They got sick of it, so to speak. But dear Ranpo-san, he had a plan~

Sara had this cute little habit left over from her days in that European (or was it Asian?) country she’s from. She would kiss cheeks for absolutely no reason at all! She kissed cheeks when greeting someone, but then, one day, she kissed Atsushi-kun’s cheek (he’d done some kind of favor for her, or something.)

And Ranpo-san, being who he is… He noticed.

So then follows him proposing a gentlemen’s wager to the men of the Agency – sans Atsushi who wasn’t allowed to participate (he’d already gotten a kiss, it’d hardly be fair), and Fukuzawa, who said it was abhorrent for a man his age to play such a game with a young girl.

The rules were simple. We all had to be extra nice to Sara today – and how could we not be, she being so sweet – and see who can get one of those little cheek kisses from her first.

I think there was money involved. I say I think, because although there WAS, indeed, a cash reward, I was… Not focused on it. The reward to me, would be Sara’s sweet lips on my skin – if only for once in my life.

The competition begins and I genuinely did not think the others would be so into it. Cue me, Kunikida, Junichirou, Kenji absolutely to our wits’ ends trying to show the other that we’d be the one to get that kiss from Sara. (Poor Sara was just very confused why everyone was being so nice to her that day, but she deserved all the fawning.) Ranpo however, though he was a part of the wager, did nothing at all… 

Up until the very last moment, when I was sure I had charmed her… Ranpo calls Sara over, and does the simplest but at the same time, grandest of gestures.

He gives her a piece of his candy.

He never does that, the greedy bastard! (Pardon my language, Sara does not like it when I curse… Do keep this a secret?) What a manipulative skunk. He’s brilliant, truly. Sara of course, flattered beyond belief, leans in to give him a kiss.

And I steal it right out from under his nose. I push him away and crash my lips onto hers… 

Cue Kunikida screaming at me that it was supposed to be a kiss on the cheek!
In addition, cue me taking Sara on a date the very next week.

I owe all my thanks to Ranpo~~~ He knew exactly what he was doing.