It was a beautiful day, Ran Mouri decided, as she stepped out of her father's rental car to look up at the magnificent house before her. The famous "Sleeping Kogoro" had accepted a seemingly easy case to ease a woman's mind. It was just a simple affair investigation so what was the harm in bringing along Ran and Conan? A little countryside air would do them all some good.
"Oh! Mouri-san!" a woman said as she opened the front door. "I'm so glad you could make it!"
"I brought my daughter and house guest, too. Is that alright?" Kogoro asked indicating to the two behind him. Ran smiled warmly at the woman. Conan simply looked bored.
"Certainly! Please, do come in. We were just about to eat lunch. I'd like for you to join us."
The woman led the trio through one gorgeous room after another until they finally reached the dining room. Several people were already seated around the table. The four took a seat. Everyone happily smiled at them…except for one. Conan noted the strange expression on the woman's face at the end of the table. She looked as though she'd just seen a ghost. Conan glanced at her, a suspicious look in his eyes.
"Please, allow me to introduce everyone," the first woman said. "I'm Jen Yamaguchi. This is my sister, Kaede Toyashi. She built this house many years ago."
"It's so beautiful!" Ran said happily to Kaede.
"Thank you," Kaede responded with a slight bow.
As everyone was introduced, Conan kept his eyes on the strange woman at the end of the table. With every introduction, her expression became more and more strained until finally, Jen reached her.
"And this is a dear friend of mine, Kaori Ma-"
"No!" Kaori yelled, jumping up and knocking over several cups in the process. "Don't introduce me!"
"Kaori? W-what?"
"Don't you see the little boxes with our names? We've just become important characters! That means someone's gonna die here! And someone's gonna be wrongly suspected! Run while you still can!"
Kaori sprinted out the door before anyone could get a word in.
"Wait!" Jen shouted after her before giving chase. "Don't run! You won't have an alibi!"
Everyone else simply stared after them in silence before calmly returning to their meal.
"So about this case…"
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Yeah, yeah, I know. Not completely original. Similar ideas have been done before. But really, I just couldn't help myself. The plot bunnies have been bugging me for about a week now to write this so I couldn't just say no. Now that that's out of my system, back to Changes.
