Chapter 11 - An Extramarital Affair?!
Fourty minutes later, Shinichi and Ran were standing on a plaza in front of a building with a huge glass front, which housed the office of Ran's mother Eri Kisaki. Ran led the way and Shinichi followed her through the large lobby, where the personal at the desks was busy taking calls and advising visitors. The two of them went straight past them towards the elevators, since Ran already knew where her mother's office was. They entered one of them and Ran pushed the respective button to take them to the right floor.
Shinichi took off the sunglasses, since they weren't for indoor use, and put them in one of his pockets; Ran was humming some song, getting more excited and happy the closer they came to her mother. After getting off the elevator, they went to the door, which had the words Kisaki Law Office on it, and Ran pushed the button of the doorbell of the little intercom of the office. After nothing happened after the first push, Ran pressed the button a few more times. Since it took a rather long time until there was a reaction, Shinichi deduced that the secretary of Ran's mother, Midori Kuriyama, was not in the office at the moment. Finally, the Queen of the Courtroom herself opened the door, wearing a purple blazer and a rather risqué black dress; Ran downright shoved the flowers in her face and cheerily exclaimed: "Congratulations, Mom!"
"Huh?" Eri stumbled back a little bit, completely taken by surprise. "R-Ran? And..." Eri's gaze wandered from her daughter to the boy who was standing behind her (hiding behind her one might say). "...Shinichi Kudo?!"
"H-hey..." Shinichi weakly greeted the woman who had given him more than one stern (and scary) lecture back when he was actually around the age of Conan.
Eri turned back to Ran, ('Thank god...' Shinichi thought when she did), and looked at the flowers with confusion. "Ran ... what do you mean, congratulations?"
Shinichi and Ran entered the outer office, where the desk of Eri's secretary was empty, as expected by Shinichi. Eri closed the door behind them and the three of them moved towards the door of Eri's office. "Come on, don't tell you've forgotten!" Ran chirped, still as cheerful as before. "Today is a super important anniversary after all!"
"Anniversary?" Eri asked, while she opened the door to her office. Her cat Goro was expectantly waiting in front of the closed door. "But, you know that today is not my birthday, right?"
"Of course I know that! I'm talking about the day on which you and Dad had your first date!" Ran grinned from ear to ear and blushed. They went into Eri's office and closed that door behind them too.
Eri was still baffled by everything that had happened so far. "P-pardon ... me?"
"After I woke today, I accidentally knocked over a photo album and discovered some old photographs with all kinds of handwritten commentary from you!" Ran explained. "First date, first meal, first case, all that kind of stuff." Ran turned her head around. "Isn't that right, Shinichi?"
"Y-yeah..." Shinichi said, standing (hiding) behind Ran again. 'Guess that dragon was a much more romantic and happy person when she was younger, and before her marriage went down the drain, to make such lovey-dovey photo albums...'
"And as your daughter, it's my obligation to celebrate such an important, life-changing anniversary!" Ran concluded her explanation.
"I'm really sorry, Ran," Eri coldly said. "But today I'm not in the mood to dust off such silly memories from a different life."
"Mom!" Ran yelled.
"Oh, and another thing. I have to ask you to stop bringing me flowers..." Eri, not bothered by Ran's chiding yell at all, said and knelt down to pet Goro. "This little one might eat them; for cats, even seemingly harmless flowers might be dangerous..."
"Huh, I didn't know that. Well ... I can maybe put them in the bathroom then," Ran said and started to look around. "Let's see, a vase ... vase ... vase..." She mumbled before she spotted one in the corner of her mother's office. "Ah, Shinichi, would mind handing me that vase over there?"
"Sure," Shinichi said and picked up the vase, but before he could give it to Ran, Eri came over and took it out of his hands.
"Not this one," Eri said and put it back into the corner. "Pick one from the shelves over there, alright?"
"S-sure..." Ran said and turned around to do just that.
Eri turned her gaze from Ran to Shinichi. He gulped. "Shinichi-kun, Shinichi-kun ... how long has it been?" She coldly smiled. Scary. "About ten years now? You have changed quite a bit."
"And you look almost the same as you did back then, Kisaki-san," Shinichi replied, with a nervous smile. 'Although the last time when we met was really the time when you rescued Goro from Kogoro-san,' he added in his thoughts.
"My, my, so polite. I bet Yuki-chan drilled you to give that response to women like us, didn't she?" Eri inquired.
"Something like that..."
"I'm glad that she finally managed that," Eri sighed, "you were never much polite or friendly to me back then..."
"Mom!" Ran chided Eri from the desk, where she was still busy putting the flowers into the vase properly.
Shinichi's eyebrow twitched. She may be scary, but he wouldn't just take everything. "To my defense, you never gave me much reason to be polite or friendly back then ... especially since never showed me friendlyness or politeness yourself either..."
"Shinichi!" Ran chided her childhood friend from the desk.
"I never had the opportunity to! You always dragged Ran into stupid things, coming back from playing with bruises and dirty clothes! Among the group made of my useless husband, the carefree Yukiko, the permanently relaxed Yusaku-san and me, I was the only one who seemed to take parental responsibilities seriously, so it was my duty to tell you off!" Eri explained.
'You didn't seem to care much about your parental responsibilities when you left a six year old Ran alone with someone you call my useless husband...' Shinichi thought bitterly, but this wasn't a thing he would dare to say out loud. Instead, he said: "We were just children, playing around and having adventures is simply what children do!"
"And I was just a parent, caring for the safety of their children and showing them the limits of what they should do is simply what parents do!" Eri replied with almost the same wording and then extended her arm for a handshake. "But, that's long in the past now ... peace?"
Shinichi looked at her hand for a moment, before he shook it. "Sure ... peace..."
Eri pulled him closer during their handshake (for a second Shinichi was worried she'd dislocate his elbow) and whispered with an even colder tone in her voice: "Just to be clear, this peace is for the past and not the future. Parental responsibilities still play a big role in the teenage life of ones child, if you know what I mean."
"I think I have an idea..." Shinichi said and let go off her hand. 'Tsk, what an unfair life,' Shinichi thought. 'Ran gets my parents, who would love to see us marry as soon as legally possible and I get the angry brute Kogoro Mouri and the ice queen Eri Kisaki, who threatens me like a serial killer, even though I'm not even her daughters boyfriend...' That he was basically set to go on a date with Ran later didn't really come into his mind right now.
Ran went over to the two of them, having not noticed their little exchange during the handshake. "Is something wrong, Mom? I hope I didn't make you mad or anything," Ran asked.
"No, that's not really it..." Eri took a moment to look at Ran. "Since when do you wear belly tops?"
"Ehh? W-well, I had it in my wardrobe for some time now..." Ran stuttered.
"Huh and you decided to wear it today, because it's warm ... or maybe for some other reason..." Eri looked to Shinichi, who offered a nervous smile again. "Well, well, I think I know what's going here wi-..." She stopped in the middle of her sentence, when the phone on her desk suddenly rang. Eri almost sprinted over to the telephone and took the call. "Yes, hello?! Kisaki Law Office here!" Ran looked at Shinichi, who merely shrugged, and the two of them looked back at Ran's mother, who was listening to what the caller was saying. "What, now...? No, that's fine, it's not a problem." She breathed a sigh of relief and smiled happily. "Thank you very much. See you soon!"
'Huh? Mom?' Ran thought.
'That smile...' Shinichi thought.
Eri hung up and said: "I'm really sorry, Ran, but I have to go. Please take of Goro, he'll probably have to use the bathroom soon, but Kuriyama-san should be back any minute now. After that, you two can do whatever, just don't forget your karate club sleepover this afternoon, alright? Okay, bye!" With that Eri hurried out the door and closed it behind her.
Shinichi and Ran stared at the door she just went through. "What was that...?" Shinichi said and thought: 'Do whatever we want ... what did she have in mind with that?! And did she suddenly not care anymore?'
"Who do you think she talked too on the phone?" Ran asked him. "She seemed rather happy about the call..."
"Well," Shinichi slightly tilted his head, "maybe a senior lawyer who helped her out with a difficult case? Although, I'm not sure how your mother would have difficulties with a case considering her skill, but then again, I'm not a lawyer myself..."
"Meow!" They heard Goro behind them and turned around, just to see Eri's cat toppling over the vase she had taken out of Shinichi's hands moments ago and crawling inside it.
"Wah!" Ran exclaimed and ran over to the vase. "Goro-chan! You can't just climb into the vase like that!" She picked up the cat and prevented him from going further into the vase.
Shinichi walked over to the two, observing how Ran handled Goro like that; weirdly enough, he was able to empathize with the cat pretty well right now. "Hm?" Shinichi noticed that Goro held something with in the mouth. "What's Goro-chan holding here? A photo? Must've been inside the vase, I don't think your mother would just leave photos lying around..."
"Huh, you're right..." Ran took the photo from Goro's mouth and let the cat down, who quickly proceeded to flee from the daughter of his owner. She looked at the photo; it depicted her mother, smiling and holding a yawning Goro, together with a tall, dark-skinned man, with long, black hair, tied up in a ponytail, killer sideburns, thick eyebrows and a chin beard. "Who's this guy with Mom?"
Shinichi took a quick glance at the photo and raised an eyebrow. "No idea..." He mumbled and noticed that there was something written on the back of the photo. 'Telephone number, huh...' Shinichi thought; almost instinctively, he went over to the desk of Ran's mother and looked at the phone. First, he looked over the numbers which were on speed dial and indeed found the one which was written on the back. Then he looked into the caller list and found the number again. It was the first one. "Hm, that man is probably the one who just called," Shinichi said.
Ran looked over to him. "Huh, why's that?"
"There's a phone number written on the back of that photo and it's the same number as the one most recently recorded on this phone's caller ID list," Shinichi explained.
Ran turned the picture around to look at the number and then joined Shinichi at the desk to look at Eri's phone, confirming for herself what he just said. Ran frowned. "But ... this guy doesn't look like a senior lawyer who helped Mom out..."
"Well, not really," Shinichi had to admit. "But, you know, looks can be deceiving," he tried to calm her, thinking: 'Trust me, I know all about that...'
"Don't tell me...!" Ran exclaimed. "Could it possibly be that Mom didn't want to give me this vase because she didn't want me to see this photo?!"
"What? I ... I think you're interpreting too much into just this picture..." Shinichi said.
"It's not just that!" Ran said with determination, went over to the vase and knelt down. "Look, there's only crumbled papers and trash in here!" She shook the vase and emptied its contents on the floor. "She probably wanted to use the excuse that she simply used this vase as a bin!" Ran continued to shake the thing, until suddenly a ring dropped out. "What?! This ... this is ... HER WEDDING RING?!"
"Huh, that's right, she wasn't wearing it..." Shinichi said and, in order to feign a lack of knowledge about Eri's habits, added: "I just assumed she wasn't wearing it anymore after ten years..."
"No, she's still wears it, to keep overbearing men away..." Ran said and continued to look at the ring. "So, if she's not wearing it now ... does that ... does that mean ... SHE HAS AN AFFAIR?!" Ran faces grew dark and she grabbed Shinchi's hand. "Come on, Shinichi! We can still catch up to her!" She exclaimed and practically dragged Shinichi out of the office.
"Huh?" Shinichi wondered, but he couldn't really protest against her conviction at the moment. 'Really now, rushing to conclusions like that...'
Just as Ran was about to open the door to the hallway, Eri's secretary, Midori Kuriyama entered the office, noticing the daughter of her boss right away. "Oh, Ran-chan! What a nice surprise!" She chirped, noticing that Ran was holding Shinichi's hand. "Oh my, who is this? You usually never come here with boys in your age, is he your boyfriend?"
"What?" Shinichi gulped. 'Oi oi oi, what's with all the rushed conclusions today?!' He thought and replied: "No, it's not like-..."
"Yes, he's my boyfriend," Ran hastily said, interrupting him.
'O-oi! Did I miss something here? When did that happen?!' Shinichi gaped and stared at Ran.
Kuriyama blushed and a grin came to her face, but Ran continued with letting her mother's secretary say a teasing thing. "No matter now though, have you seen Mom? She went out to meet someone and we need to catch up to her!"
"No, I didn't come across her on my way here," Midori Kuriyama answered, a bit dumbfounded because of Ran's overly serious demeanor. "But if she's meeting someone, she probably went to the Dog Cafe that's close to here. Sensei has been going there often recently when she wanted to meet someone..."
"Dog Cafe! I know that place, it's really not that far away!" Ran exclaimed and started to run again, still holding Shinichi's hand and dragging him along. "Come on, Shinichi, we can make it!" They left Midori Kuriyama standing there and ran straight to the elevators, narrowly squeezing through the doors of an empty one, which was just about the leave. Ran pressed the button for the ground floor ten times, as if that made it go faster. Ran was panting and had a dark expression on her face.
"Ran? Could you let go of my hand before you break it?" Shinichi asked, as her grip became tighter and tighter.
She stared at him for a moment, before a blush suddenly grew over her grim expression and she hastily removed her hand. "Ah, sorry, sorry!"
"It's fine, nothing happened," Shinichi said, opening and closing his hand a few times, to make sure that he could feel it, and then stretched his arm a bit. "Not yet, anyway. I was worried you'd dislocate my arm or just tear it off with your karate champion strength..."
"Yeah, yeah, sorry, but we really have to hurry," Ran said, not turning her gaze away from elevetor lights indicating the floor it was currently on. "Time is of the essence now!"
'Woman, do you even realize what you just did?' Shinichi thought. 'You just told the gossiping secretary of your Mom that I'm your boyfriend. Once Kisaki-san comes back to her office, she will learn about that in no time and then ... phew, almost glad that I'll turn back into Conan to not have to face the consequences of that just yet.' He sighed and stole another glance of Ran. 'Almost glad, but not quite, really; if enduring another lecture/death threat by Eri would turn me back permanently I would take it ... for your sake alone...'
A/N: This chapter has taken quite a bit time to come out, hasn't it? And this chapter then also happens to be one of the shorter ones, ugh, really sorry for both of these circumstances. I promise the next chapters will be longer and come out faster/more frequently (at least a bit ^^). Recently, I became worried that people wouldn't care anymore, since I wasn't updating fast enough, but I'm probably just overthinking this matter, right? Anyway, aside from all that, remember to tell me what you think about the story in a review, as feedback is always appreciated and helps me greatly while writing. Next chapter: adultery investigations! Stay tuned!