Ch1: Coffee Break

The blaring horns from the many ships at the dock signaled their departure, as family and friends wave their beloved good-bye. As for Shinichi, he came back home to Beika, Japan. After his parents left to travel the world, he was left alone to fend for himself. He was called out to a murder case in Germany right when he turned eighteen, and ever since then death has trailed him like a plague, a curse. He moved to new places, different countries, solving homicide cases right and left. He really lived up to his name as "Thanatos" or the "Death Reaper", whatever they called him as he passed by. But it'd been more than four years of constant moving around, and Shinichi decided that was long enough. He wanted to go back home, and stay away from the constant deaths.

Shinichi stepped off the slipway, breathing in the nostalgic humid air of home. Oh, how he missed this town. Megure-keibu has agreed to pick him up and drive him back to his parent's old mansion, and help carry all his luggage in. It wasn't more than twenty minutes when Shinichi saw a sleek black automobile pull over by the curb of the street. The doors swung open and Megure stepped out along with another man coming from the opposite side.

"Kudo-kun! It's good to see you again!" Megure hollered as he lumbered over to Shinichi, grabbing his hand and shaking it firmly.

"Good morning Megure-keibu, you too, uh..."

"This man is Nakamori Ginzo, the head of the police task force here." Megure answered.

"It's nice to meet you Nakamori-keibu. I'm Kudo Shinichi, a detective." Shinichi said, extending out his right hand.

"Likewise..." the older uttered. He had dark bags under his eyes, and yawned every so often, he didn't sleep well last night Shinichi thought.

"Let us not waste anymore time standing here, I know you're eager to get home soon. And I took the privilege to buy you some coffee on our way here. You can make some when we get to your house. Sorry if you waited long."

"Oh no, not at all. Thank you for the coffee though. I really appreciate it." Shinichi said, a smile on his face, knowing for a fact that there would be some beloved coffee for him to drink when he got home. He opened the back door and tossed his bags and luggage in before huddling into the backseat of the car. A minute bustling about, Megure and Mouri-keibu followed suit, and Megure switched the engine on as the car purred to life. They drove away from the ports and into the town's busy streets. Despite the four short year span, the town went through a drastic change from the visible increase in population, to the many new buildings he had never seen before. He never thought so much can change in so little time.

"It's good that you finally decided to settle down Kudo, you're just a kid but you're seeing more of the world than I will ever see in my whole life! I thought at this rate you were never going to come back honestly, with all those crazy cases you encounter. Hahaha!"

"I thought the exact same words at some point, but someone has to bring those criminals to justice, and bring the truth into the light." Shinichi replied nonchalantly. "I just happened to be lucky, and things seemed to settled down a lot. I wanted to go home and relax for a day without being surrounded by dead bodies."

"Che...Kids like you should stay at home, snotty brat." Nakomori grumbled in his seat, earning a small nervous laugh from Megure-keibu.

"Don't worry about him. He's always like that, but he's a good man."

"Mhm hmm..."

A few minutes of driving on the bustling road and a trip down memory lane, was it until the Kudo's mansion came into view. It looked old and abandoned, and the two front elm trees were withering away. Shinichi remembered how kids used to avoid his house because they thought it was haunted and was possessed by a yokai. Ridiculous. There was no such things as possessions, hauntings, or yokais. He did believe in the afterlife though, a place where the deceased can go and live on. Another reason why he likes solving homicide cases, so the dead can move on and murderers brought to justice and locked away in prison. The car drove up onto the driveway, and with a turn of a key, the engine stilled.

Shinichi fumbled out of the back seat, thrilled to be back home. Raising and arm and stretching his other behind his head, he inhaled, arching his back before exhaling.

"You must be tired form the long trip. Why don't you go on ahead, Nakamori-keibu and I can handle the rest. I know how you love your caffeine so much, go make yourself a cup and relax, we got it." The older man said grinning, while Nakamori glared at him but was already at the back of the car grabbing the bags.

The younger detective smiled. "Thank you."

He gradually made his way to the front of his door, and fished out his keys. Slipping the key into the lock, he turned it until he heard an audible 'click'. Smiling, the young teen turned the handle, and pushed open the door. Light filtered in lightly from the window curtains into the dark room. Slipping off his shoes, he stepped in, walking over to the curtains and sliding them aside; letting the warm sun rays flood the room. With a better view of the interiors of the house, Shinichi could see the shelves and tables were only coated in a light layer of dust, just barely.

"Has someone been cleaning in here regularly?" Despite the four years of neglect, he expected there to be a lot more dust.

"Oh that's right! Muori-san's daughter have been coming by sometimes to check up on your house." Megure explained as he carried in Shinichi's luggage.

Ran

Shinichi inwardly smiled knowing Ran has been coming over to take care and clean his house while he was away. "Thank you, I'll go visit her to say my thanks. You can just bring my things to my room over there. It's the third door down the hall on your left."

"Alright then, I left the coffee in your kitchen."

With that Shinichi walked out of the room, into the kitchen. Sure enough there was a large bag of coffee on the counter waiting for him. The young detective began brewing his beloved coffee, afterwards bringing a cup of steaming hot black coffee with him, and into his study. How long has it been since he was able to sit down with a cup of coffee and read books all day? Picking out his all time favorite book, The Study in Scarlet, he set his cup on the table and flopped down in his large favorite armchair with a content sigh. After a moment of bags and luggage thumping onto the ground, it was finally silent in the large Kudo mansion, besides the ticking of the clock in his study.

Megure and Nakamori-keibu probably left by now

Hours of flipping pages with sips of coffee in between, day steadily turned into evening, and evening steadily turned into night. Before he even knew it, he had already fallen asleep, book still in hand and the near empty cup of coffee turned cold. What he didn't know, was the white cladded figure with a pair of indigo eyes gleaming in the dark, sitting leisurely by the open window.