Disclaimer : Detective Conan belongs to Gosho Aoyama.

Hello minna-san (everyone)!

I'd like to say a few words before letting you read this fanfiction. First, I'm not a native english speaker, so I'm sure there's loads of mistakes in there. I'll be pleased to hear your advice, and if you point out my mistakes, I'll correct them, but please be lenient and nice.

The other thing I wanna tell you is that it's also the first fanfiction I ever wrote in English. It's been some time since I first said I wanted to write one in English, and I finally did it (well, it's just the first chapter, but it's already a beginning). Maybe it's not very interesting for now, the chapter is kind of short 'cause it's the first, and maybe the way I write isn't very good, but be patient and don't hesitate to let reviews please! :)

Chapter 1 : A Puzzling Code

"Well, this is the spot."

"Eh? Are you sure there's not a mistake somewhere?"

The three kids looked at the sheet of paper in Mitsuhiko's hands and looked back at the high building in front of them. High, clean, and new-built.

"There's no way it's here; we're supposed to find a haunted house!" Genta exclaimed.

"I know, but if we decoded this code correctly, this is it," Mitsuhiko answered.

Ayumi turned towards Conan. "What do you think Conan-kun?"

The shrunken sleuth sighed and took the paper from Mitsuhiko's hands and read it again.

"It's odd, the code is pretty clear, this should lead us to an empty house. Maybe I misunderstood something... But we can also consider that the house has been destroyed to build this building."

"What a shame!" Ayumi said. "It seemed interesting!"

"Yeah, wasn't the code talking about some kind of treasure?" Genta asked excitedly.

"Not really. The code only talks about something that has been left in the house," Conan corrected.

"Oh... Well, then, it probably has been taken away or destroyed when they made this building," Mitsuhiko pointed out.

"You're right," Conan agreed. "Let's play soccer then!"

To be honest, Conan wasn't really keen on visiting that "haunted house" when the kids found the paper. After all, they had visited a lot of them lately, and there wasn't anything special or unusual inside, so he didn't want to lose another afternoon in a dark and dusty house. Moreover, the weather was really good, a clear sky was over their heads, weather that made him want to stay outside to enjoy it after a whole week of rain and cold.

They all headed back for the park of Beika, where all of this had begun, Conan resumed playing with the soccer ball he had with him. They went through some big avenues before finally ending up in some dark and narrow alleys. They were all discussing soccer since they had left, but the subject of the code came back.

"It's really a shame this code lead nowhere, it could have been interesting," Mitsuhiko said.

"Can't do nothin' 'bout it, right?" Genta answered. "We should have found this code before they destroyed the house."

"Right, so stop thinking about it," Conan added. "Whatever this person left, it's gone, and maybe it wasn't worth it."

"But what if... What if the person had buried it?" Ayumi exclaimed. "It could still be there then!"

"No way." Conan answered. "All the buildings have got foundations that go deep in the ground, so even if he had hidden something a meter deep, they destroyed it when they began the construction."

"But maybe he had buried it deeper!" Genta suggested.

"You know, a meter deep is already pretty deep if he did the hole by himself, especially since you can't use instruments to dig in a house, and a building's foundations are going a lot deeper than a meter."

"Well, maybe he used tools to dig if the house was already empty, couldn't he?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"D'you really think he would have the tools to make a hole deep enough to avoid being extracted if another building was built here? Anyway, what's wrong with you guys?" Conan stopped walking and asked the others, half surprised, half irritated. "We've been searching haunted houses since the beginning of the month, didn't you see enough?"

"But there wasn't anything interesting!" Genta argued.

"Furthermore, this code is intriguing, isn't it?" Mitsuhiko followed.

Conan sighed and looked at the code he had kept in his pocket.

"Yeah, well, we've just find it by chance, it was in the park where we were playing, but it doesn't mean it contains something interesting. Look, we thought it indicated a haunted house, and it turned out to be a new-built building, and there's probably nothing left of the house that was here before, so just forget it, okay? We can't ask the people in this building to destroy it because there's a very small chance that something's buried under it. We can't believe what's written there; there's no proof that the person who wrote it really hid anything in that house."

Conan looked up to see the others' disappointed faces.

"Come on, don't look at me like that, it's not my fault!" Conan defended. "We'll probably find another case soon!"

"I hope so," Ayumi said. "It's been a so long time since we hadn't solver something!"

"Yeah, she's right!" Genta added.

"We would just like to do something useful," Mitsuhiko finished.

"Well, you'll have to wait until we find something. It's useless to hold on to anything you see that might be a case," Conan said.

Genta grunted. "I don't want to wait, I'm bored of playing soccer and hide-and-seek. You're too good; you're winning each time. It's not fun!"

"What about going to the professor house?" Conan suggested. "Haibara didn't come with us, right? We could ask her why and play some video games."

"Yeah, you're right," Mitsuhiko agreed. "But didn't Haibara-san say why she didn't come with us?"

"No, I don't remember," Ayumi answered. "She just said she had to do something and won't come with us today."

"Then maybe we shouldn't go," Mitsuhiko suddenly said.

"But you were the first to say it was a good idea!" Genta pointed out.

"Yes, but maybe we're going to disturb her, or maybe she don't want us to come and see what she's doing..."

Mitsuhiko suddenly stopped seeing the mischievous smile on Genta's face.

"Do you think she's doing something bad?" he asked.

"No way! It's not like her!" Ayumi assured.

"Do you think she's hiding something?" Genta suggested. "After all, it's not the first time that she didn't want to come with us."

Conan rolled his eyes. He knew Ai sometimes didn't come with them because she wasn't in the mood to do so or because she wanted to work on the antidote. He didn't think she was doing anything really interesting, but the kids had invented a whole story now and wouldn't stop before they had see with their own eyes that the quiet scientist was doing nothing out of the ordinary. So he followed as they moved to the direction of the professor's house.

Conan yawned as he made his way towards the agency. The afternoon had ended up with all of them - including Ai - playing new video games. When they were before the screen, the excitement and their will to win made them very attentive, but now that it was over, it made Conan feel tired.

He had talked a little with both Ai and the professor, both were fine and hadn't anything really new to tell him. The professor was working on new inventions and Ai was a little ill-at-ease lately, because of both Okiya Subaru's presence in Shinichi's house - even if she was becoming more and more used to him - and Sera's recent habit of lurking around, even if Conan kept telling her that it was her way back from school, especially when she was going on the way back with Ran and Sonoko.

Anyway, now, Conan only wanted to get home, eat and sleep. He was currently reading a book, but as he played a little soccer with the others before they had find the code, he didn't think he would read much that night.

Conan had barely walked into the agency and said "Tadaima" when he heard Kogoro talking in a serious tone to someone on the phone. Conan walked inside, curious to know what was happening.

"Yes keibu, I'm coming right now," Kogoro said before hanging up.

The sleeping sleuth went to take his coat while Conan approached his office to see what he had seen him write during the call. While making his way towards the office, he asked innocently.

"What's happening? Did you get a case ojisan?"

"Yes, Megure-keibu's asking my help on a murder case."

Kogoro said something else, but Conan didn't heard it. He had just seen the address written on the paper: the one of the building they had just visited this afternoon.

"I'm coming!"

I suppose most of you are familiar with the suffixes given in this fanfiction and the few Japanese words I used, but I'll give some short explanations just in case.

So, "keibu" means "inspector." It can be used as a suffix or simply to say "inspector". For officers of a lower rank (like Sato or Takagi), I'll use "keiji,"which can also be used to refer to a police inspector.

"Tadaima" is something you say to your family when you get back home from work or school, and people usually answer "okaeri."

"Ojisan" is what Conan calls Kogoro, it means "uncle," but in Japan you can use it to talk to people around the age of Kogoro. ;)

This chapter has been beta-read by both Dagron and dreamingfifi, so thanks to both of them ^^