Disclaimer: "Detective Conan" belongs to Gosho Aoyama.
Thanks a lot to my wonderful beta DoRaeMon (Astarael00 on this site or Rae00 on Livejournal), who has retired in the meantime.
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FS
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SARCASMS
(edited)
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Sarcasm V (1)
"Precipitosissimo"
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It was impossible to talk to Alec without returning to the topic of music. After concluding that his memory must have played a trick on him because there was no reason why the police and Kudo should be interested in hiding the nameplate of Black's apartment, he changed the course of our conversation and asked me whether I had already prepared myself for my concert or not.
"Beethoven is okay. I still have to work on Prokofiev. I need to gather speed for the first and the third Sarcasm. The second Sarcasm is a pain, as expected. I always miss a few keys. The forth Sarcasm doesn't give me any headaches, but I haven't practiced the fifth Sarcasm yet," I informed him in short, jerky sentences.
I didn't feel like talking. My mind was still on Kudo and the nameplate on the postbox of Black's apartment. But, after a while, it became impossible to resist Alec's enthusiasm. And we spent the time until Kudo's return talking about Prokofiev and his Sarcasms, whose sharp dissonances and harshness brought their creator international fame. Prokofiev, who—just like his rival Rachmaninov—was a bitter, cold, cynical man, seemed to have written them out of spite. Ironically, these pieces, which he wrote during one of the worst phases of his life (he was suffering from the lack of recognition the world showed for his works and the consequential poverty) became a great success.
The fifth Sarcasm was probably the most famous owing to its chords at the beginning which reminded one of derisive laughing and which, when they returned after the uncanny middle-part, transformed into the kind of chuckle which got stuck in one's throat. There was a famous quote associated with this last piece of the Sarcasms. I don't remember who said it or where I read about it, as I have a bad memory for names. I don't even know whether I remember it correctly. Regardless, I always think of it whenever I think about the consequences of that summer five years ago.
It said that most of us had once laughed at a stupid mistake and then suddenly realized that, if you could laugh at something which had led to such disastrous, dire consequences, the joke was not on the person you laughed about but on you.
s.
Much to my annoyance, Kudo wasn't alone when he returned. Mifune-san & Co had come with him, along with at least ten boxes of pizza and just as many bottles of wine and drinks.
"Shinichi-kun said you're too tired to go to the restaurant. So we decided to bring the restaurant to you. I hope you don't mind that the three of us are having dinner with you. The more the merrier, huh?" Mifune chirped, linking arms with me. "It was me who bought the pizzas for you," she whispered to me in a conspiratorial tone. "Shinichi-kun wanted to buy rice soup again, imagine that."
Suppressing the urge to tell her that I'd have preferred rice soup to pizza, I smiled and decided to make an effort to behave as amiably as possible under the circumstances. It wasn't owing to her that I felt like shutting myself in the guest room and fall into a death-like sleep but owing to Kudo and the nameplate-affair. I realized with bitterness that I had fallen in love with a mystery freak who wasn't in the least in love with me. And it was mortifying to my pride that he knew about the extent of my feelings for him.
During dinner, Mifune-san, Alec, and the plump police officer—who was apparently on a diet—kept the conversation from dying down while Kudo, the ex-waiter, and I focused on the pizzas. The ex-waiter would smile at me silently from time to time, beholding my face wistfully (when he thought that I wasn't looking) as if he too, found that I bore an uncanny resemblance to his lost love.
I don't remember exactly what the conversations at the table were about. Five years are a long time, especially when you spend them working arduously on a gigantic undertaking which is doomed to fail. Nevertheless, I still have a vivid memory of the moment when the reporters rang at Kudo's door.
"Who would ring at such a time?" Mifune-san asked.
"Probably a new client," the plump man said, greedily devouring the remaining pizzas on the table with his eyes. "We never run out of cases."
"No, it's the reporters," Kudo sighed. He looked over the table and smiled nervously at me. "Please go upstairs and shut yourselves in the guestroom or in my bedroom," he told Alec and me. "Don't open the window and don't switch on the light. Just pretend that you're not here."
Alec and I went upstairs but didn't shut ourselves in as he told us. Since I wanted to hear the official version of the case, I left the door slightly ajar. It was impossible for me to overhear every word they said, as Kudo didn't let the reporters enter his house but received them at the gate. But I could hear enough to understand that the reporters only asked Kudo and the police the usual questions and received the usual answers (No, the police couldn't and wouldn't say anything about the case before they were absolutely sure etcetera) until a reporter—one with a very strong voice—asked Kudo whether it was true that the apartment where the culprits had kept "the last victim"—me!—really belonged to his father, who died in a fire fifteen years ago.
It was true, Kudo replied, although he couldn't tell why the culprits had chosen his apartment. Probably, they thought that the best hiding place was in the house of your enemy. After all, Casanova had succeeded. So why should they fail?
"They did almost succeed, didn't they?" continued the reporter. "I heard that the police had been waiting for them at three different apartments whose addresses you told them. The police were so late because all of the addresses were wrong. Is that true?"
Yes, it was true. He didn't try to deny it. The addresses belonged to the three men, and he naturally didn't expect them to bring the last victim to another address. But now that he had told them everything he knew, they had better leave him alone and return to their offices to write their articles.
Only one last question before they left: Who was his mysterious mother? They heard that his parents met each other in New York. But none of his father's friends had ever met her. Rumor has it that she was an ingenious scientist. And was it true that she was shot by a mysterious organization shortly before his father died?
Well, he couldn't tell them anything about his mother because he didn't know anything about her either, Kudo said. He had never seen or heard anything of her. They should leave him alone now. Good night!
s.
He immediately knew—or at least I was sure that he knew—that I had overheard them when Alec and I returned to the dinner table. We spent the rest of the evening in oppressive silence while Mifune-san tried to cheer us up by ranting about the reporters: They had never tried to catch a murderer before. What did they know about Kudo's job? Trying to sound him out about personal matters at ten o'clock in the evening was even more impertinent. She could remember that, ten years ago, the reporters were a bit more intelligent. They might have been a pain too, but they didn't try to bother one at home at such a time. Anyway, we were having a party. Let's forget about them!
Although all of us tried to chime in and get into the party mood, our efforts were all to no avail. I had the feeling that all of us were relieved when we heard the clock at the wall strike eleven. Mifune-san rose, exclaiming that she hadn't thought that it was already so late—"Time flies when you're having fun!"—and that they should really drive home now so that we could go to bed.
After they were gone, Alec reminded me of the practical, prosaic side of life when he asked, "The bed in the guestroom is a bit small for both of us, isn't it? Where am I going to sleep tonight?"
Kudo and Alec were not keen on sharing Kudo's bedroom with each other, not only because Kudo's bed was much too small for two people but also because—at least I doubt that—neither of them wanted to share a bed with a stranger. And they couldn't possibly expect me to share my bed with any of them.
The problem was resolved when Kudo told us that there was still the bedroom of his parents, which was situated directly next to his room.
"You can sleep in the guest room," Kudo told Alec. "Haibara can move into my parents' bedroom."
I could have suggested that I stay in the guest room while Alec sleep in the bedroom of Kudo's parents, which would spare us the move. However, I felt that there was a reason why Kudo wanted me to sleep in his parents' bedroom. Hence I took my suitcase and moved into the last room of the corridor while Kudo brought Alec's cello, which he had locked up in the wardrobe of his parents' bedroom, into the guest room. No sooner had Alec seen his cello again than he lost interest in the mysteries around him and devoted his whole attention to his cello, unpacked it, inspected it with fastidious care, polished it, and even began to talk to it. Noticing that everything was all right with his beloved cello, I bid him goodnight, shut the door of the guest room, and left his cello and him alone.
"What about a private talk?" Kudo, who was leaning against the door of his bedroom, asked me when I walked past him.
"Where?"
"Either in your room or in mine," he said. "I'd prefer not to talk in the corridor or downstairs where somebody—" he indicated the guest room where Alec was staying, "—can walk in on us at any moment."
"Then let's talk in your room," I suggest. "But I'm going unpack my suitcase first. I'd like to show you something."
He grinned at me.
"Fine, I'll go downstairs and make us some tea."
s.
The bedroom of Kudo's parents was a vast room with a double bed, a vanity table beside the bed, a huge window with red velvet curtains, a huge desk with a PC and a printer, two chairs, and a gigantic wardrobe with mirrors. I opened the wardrobe to see whether they were two-way mirrors and ascertained that they were not. I was getting paranoid again.
My mother's old cardigan was the first thing to greet me when I opened my suitcase. It was huge, pale blue, and had a hood and two pockets with zippers. She looked lost in that oversized cardigan; and the pale, cold colour didn't match her hair at all. I had never understood why she loved it so much until it dawned on me that it must have belonged to my father.
Now that I knew that he did love her and only died before he could marry her, the cardigan seemed less ugly to me. Nonetheless, I had the feeling that I was standing at the edge of an abyss, hesitating whether to jump down and face the hideous truth or turn on my heels and flee from it. To find out that Kudo was really my brother seemed to me worse than death. Since courage wasn't my forte, I was inclined to choose the easy way out and return to London before I discovered too much about my mother's past.
Kudo was eighteen, meaning that he was a few months (nine or ten?) or almost a year older than me. According to what I had heard from the reporters, his mother had been a scientist and been shot by a secret organization while his father had died in a fire. Adding those pieces of information to the things Black told me, I drew the obvious conclusion that Kudo and I must have had the same mother—who hadn't been shot because my father had rescued her before the organization could execute her—and probably even the same father. Still, there were things which didn't fit into this version of the story. Black had told me that my mother's boyfriend had been shot while the reporters said that Kudo's father had died in a fire. And I couldn't imagine why my mother had left Kudo in Tokyo (where he was raised by Agasa?) while she and I moved to London. She was, despite her outward coldness and indifference, a very affectionate person. I couldn't imagine why she would abandon her son. It just didn't make sense.
There was only a soft knock at the door before it flew open and Kudo came in.
"You need a lot of time to unpack you suitcase," he said, sporting a deadpan expression on his smug face.
"You need a lot of time to make tea."
"No, I didn't. I've been waiting for you. The tea is getting cold."
"And I was waiting for you to call me when you're finished."
"Why didn't you get the idea to come into my room when you were finished?"
"Not everyone enters another person's bedroom at night as a matter of course like you do."
"I knocked before I entered your room."
"You knocked only once and then immediately opened the door," I corrected him.
"So what? It wasn't like you were naked when I came in."
"What if I had been naked? What would you have done?"
"I'd have apologized and left the room after telling you that you should put on some clothes and come to my room to have tea. What else should I have done?"
"Why do I have the feeling that we're bickering with each other every time we are alone?"
"We haven't been alone with each other that often," he remarked, gallantly opening the door of his bedroom for me; and I wondered why such a gesture always seemed a bit mocking to me when it came from him.
"Thank to your friends," I retorted. "But the tea is still hot. You've been lying to me."
He had set up a huge tray with fragrant jasmine tea and chocolate biscuit on the floor and placed two cushions next to each other in front of the provisional "tea table".
"You've been lying to me, too, 'Miyano'," Kudo said. "And don't blame everything on my friends. We didn't have much time with each other because your boyfriend absolutely had to come to Tokyo."
I flopped down onto the floor, thinking that it wasn't fair of us to have tea without Alec. But Kudo seemed to have something to tell me which he didn't want anyone else to hear; and I tried to set my guilty conscience at ease with the thought that Alec had never liked tea and rather disliked sweets.
"Alec isn't my boyfriend," I began, deciding that it was the best moment to give up the whole game.
"I'm glad that he isn't," Kudo smiled. "Honestly, I doubt that he is love with you. His cello is a great rival, isn't it?"
"No, it's more like an ally. I'm not in love with him either. But how did you guess that he wasn't my boyfriend?"
"I was sure that he wasn't when you didn't want to share a room with him. If you had been his girlfriend, you wouldn't have minded."
"Maybe the only reason why I didn't want to share a room with him was that I feared he would snore and wake me up in the middle of the night," I argued. "Why could you be so sure that I wasn't his girlfriend?"
"I had the feeling you'd rather share the room with me than with him."
"You're being delusional!" I declared, piqued about his self-assured smile. "I would never share a room with you."
He chuckled. "But you're doing it at the moment."
"No! No, we're having tea together. That's all to it! Let me remind you that it was you who wanted to have a private talk with me. Afterwards I'm going back to your parents' bedroom to spend the night there."
Kudo rose and walked to the wardrobe with the mirror.
"Oh no," I murmured. "You can't possibly mean that!" I knew there was something wrong with the wardrobe in my room. It only didn't occur to me that it might be connected to Kudo's wardrobe and probably also functioned as a lift. That's why Kudo claimed that we were sharing a room.
"Look," Kudo said, glowing with pride. He opened his wardrobe, pressed a small button, closed the door of the wardrobe again, and then stepped back. The whole wardrobe gradually sank into the floor, revealing another wardrobe, which I recognized as the wardrobe in his parents' bedroom.
"Agasa and his inventions," he chuckled. "Now I can either walk through your wardrobe into your room or just pull at this string."
"Let me guess. The other wardrobe would disappear, too. And we would be sharing one room."
"Exactly," he said, pulling at the string. The wardrobe sank down into the floor, as expected. Kudo had just turned the two rooms into one.
"I'd like to keep an eye on you in case something happens," he explained, his "something" evoking the image of black-clad assassins sneaking through the dark house to take revenge on the people who had dared to oppose their secret organization.
"What would Ran say if she knew that you're going to share your room with another girl?" I asked, making a feeble attempt to protest.
"Well, we'll see it tomorrow." He smiled. "I gave her a call when I was making tea in the kitchen. I told them I was too busy with the cases to come to Osaka at the moment. Hence Agasa and she will come to Tokyo instead. Ran said they'd be here by tomorrow night."
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