Title: Randy Or Ryo?
Fandom: FAKE
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ryo, Dee, mentions the Chief, Mother, Ryo’s parents.
Rating: G
Setting: After the manga.
Summary: Ryo ponders the question of why he uses two different names depending on who he’s talking to.
Word Count: 310
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 206: Name at
fan_flashworks.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
What’s in a name? Everyone he works with these days, with the exception of the Chief, and Janet, the red-haired desk officer, calls him Ryo. That, of course, is entirely down to Dee latching on to the fact that he’s half Japanese and demanding to know his Japanese name, then spreading it around to the rest of the 27th Precinct’s detectives without even asking whether or not he minded. And yet, he invariably introduces himself to strangers as Randy Maclean. Is that simply down to force of habit, or is it something more subtle, a subconscious desire, perhaps, to reserve ‘Ryo’ for those he’s closest to, his friends and family, almost as if he’s two separate people, one public, and one private?
He’s long since recognised that there are two Dees; the face his partner shows to the world and the side of himself that only Ryo and Mother get to see, although both of them answer to the same name. That’s surely true of most people; it seems logical to assume that everyone has a public and private side, so why should Ryo be any different? But if he isn’t any different then why does he use two different names?
On the other hand, both names are his, one given to him by his Scottish-American father, the other by his Japanese mother, making then both equally important to him, so why shouldn’t he use both? He has every right to do so, just as he has every right to pick and choose who gets to call him by which name. Randy Maclean is a detective with the NYPD, while Ryo is a friend, a guardian, a partner and a lover, and maybe that’s all the reason he needs for using both of his given names. Maybe he should stop lying here thinking about it and just get some sleep.
The End