AN: Oh hey, it's me, back with another oneshot! This time it's a bit of a missing scene type of thing- the mentioned, but never shown, conversation between Heiji and Sonoko before he headed to the Mouri Detective Agency to demand Shinichi's whereabouts. Let Sonoko and Heiji interact more, Gosho, because I'm pretty sure there's a lot of potential for hilarity between the two of them.

Information Gathering from the Local Rumor Mill

Characters: Heiji Hattori, Sonoko Suzuki

Summary: When scouting for information, the best place to go is usually to someone who has zero desire to keep their mouth shut.

"If it's Kudo-kun you're asking about, maybe you should try speaking with Suzuki-san."

"Suzuki-han?" Blinking slightly, Hattori Heiji gave the young man that he was speaking with a rather curious look. "Does she know him? Kudo Shinichi, I mean."

"Yeah. Suzuki Sonoko. You could say they're something like childhood friends, although I suppose calling them friends might be saying a bit too much." It hadn't been that hard to find a classmate to question, and the one he did find was more than willing to answer any questions that he had.

It was almost as if he didn't think all that much of Kudo Shinichi's mysterious disappearance.

Coming to the school the one who had been named as his rival by the newspapers was actually his second option- really, he had planned on heading straight to his house. But upon arriving there, he discovered that the gates were locked, and from the look of it, nobody had been living there for awhile. The old man who lived next to him had confirmed that much- that Kudo Shinichi's parents lived out of the country, and that Shinichi himself hadn't been home in over a month or so.

All of it served to make him more and more curious. He had thought that there was something strange going on when he'd noticed that Kudo hadn't been up to anything lately, and it would appear that he had been right. Being absent from his home, and not showing up for school... he couldn't help but want to untangle the mystery behind his disappearing rival all the more.

"An'? Where can I find this Suzuki-han?" Heiji asked.

"At this time, she's usually at her club. She's a member of the tennis club." He told her, turning his attention towards the window. "You can see their courts from here, right? If she's not there, she's probably in the clubroom right behind them. Well, aside from her, you could ask Mouri-san, but..."

"Mouri?" Heiji blinked. For some reason that name rang a bell for him, but he didn't quite know why. "Another friend of Kudo's?"

"Yeah. Mouri Ran. They're close, childhood friends. Her club doesn't have practice today, so I think she's probably already gone home by now." The classmate told him. "Besides, I don't think she knows anything much about where Kudo-kun has gone off to herself, otherwise she'd probably go and drag him back herself."

In the back of his mind, Heiji couldn't help but think that this Mouri Ran sounded a bit like Kazuha. With a quick grin, Heiji thanked the person he had been speaking with, making his way down the hallway, heading for the stairs. He was finally starting to get somewhere- that was what his instincts were telling him. One way or another, he had no plans to go back home until he had gotten to the bottom of this... or until someone came to physically drag him back.

First, he'd find where it was that Kudo Shinichi had gone off to- and then he'd settle things between them, once and for all. Honestly, to think that even his stern father had praise for the young man, even when he gave him nothing but grief for his own detective work... that was what pissed him off the most!

What was so special about this Kudo Shinichi anyways? Between the two of him, he was confident that he was probably the better detective. That said, he'd never actually met him before- but nevertheless, he was full of confidence that he could take the smug looking guy he had seen on television before down a few pegs.

Arriving at the tennis courts, Heiji glanced around for someone he might be able to talk to. Calling out to a member that had taken a break for some water, she quickly directed him to the girl named Suzuki Sonoko, even going so far as to call out to her for him. He couldn't say that he wasn't grateful, considering how focused she looked on her practice- somehow he got the feeling she was the type who didn't care too much for being interrupted.

"So yer Suzuki-han?" Heiji asked, carefully glancing her up and down. That last name too rang a bell from somewhere, if not in a different sense than that of the Mouri girl's. Vaguely, he wondered if she was somehow related to the Suzuki Group, but put that aside for the moment- it wasn't important, after all.

"That's right." Sonoko noted, carefully glancing the young man who had come here for her up and down. She didn't recognize him, and yet it seemed as if he had heard of her- but not that well, if he obviously didn't know her face, which ruled out any hopes of this being some kind of romantic development. "You don't go to this school, I don't think. Who are you?"

"Me? I'm Hattori Heiji." Flashing a broad grin as he introduced himself, he took a step back, allowing her to get to her bag, so she could take a drink of water. "I've got a few questions that I need ta ask ya about a friend of yers."

"A friend of mine?" Sonoko blinked, before a slightly knowing grin crossed her face. "If it's about Ran, don't even bother. That girl's already taken."

"Ran?" Heiji blinked, before shaking his head. "No, the one I want ta ask ya about is Kudo Shinichi. I heard ya know him."

"What, so it's not Ran?" Almost sounding vaguely disappointed, Sonoko merely quirked a brow at who he was actually after. Somehow even when he wasn't here, he still managed to bring her nothing but trouble. "But that's right, I do know Shinichi-kun, unfortunately."

He was starting to understand what that classmate had meant by his earlier comment now. Still, at the very least, she did appear to be someone that would be knowledgeable about where his fellow high school detective might have run off to, if she was familiar enough with him to be on first name basis.

"And? What is it that you want to know about Kudo-kun?" Sonoko asked, folding her arms in front of her chest, casting a quick glance down towards the bag that was hanging off of Heiji's shoulder. "I don't remember him mentioning anything about knowing a guy with an Osakan accent before."

"Ah, that's because he doesn't." Heiji told her quickly. "I'm actually hopin' ta find him. I haven't heard anythin' about that guy lately, so I thought I would come an' see fer myself what's goin' on. An' maybe challenge him if I get the chance."

"Challenge?" Sonoko blinked. She didn't think he was speaking of soccer, so that left only one other thing... and it was that other thing that almost vaguely made her grimace. "Don't tell me you're another high school detective?"

"That's right!" Heiji told her, all but beaming at her words, pointedly ignoring the tone with which she had spoken them. "They call us Kudo of the East and Hattori of the West! That's why I got a bit lonely after not seein' that guy's name crop up in the papers fer awhile! So? Any chance ya know where he might be, Suzuki-han?"

"Lonely...?" Sonoko half muttered to herself, wondering about that choice of words. "Who knows. He hasn't told me anything, at the very least, but then again, we're only really friends because we share one."

"Although, come to think of it..." Sonoko trailed off, putting a hand to her chin in thought. "If there's one strange thing that I've noticed since Shinichi-kun has gone missing, it's the fact that Ran's father has suddenly started to get famous. Before, that bumbling detective couldn't solve so much as a single case, and now suddenly, people are calling him the Slumbering Kogoro, or whatever."

"Slumbering Kogoro?" Heiji blinked, something clicking in his mind. "Ya don't mean the Sleepin' Kogoro, do ya?"

Come to think of it, he had noticed that name turning up in papers around the same time that Shinichi had disappeared, though he hadn't paid that much attention to it at the time. It hadn't really seemed all that relevant- but perhaps he needed to rethink that assessment. Mouri Kogoro... now he understood why that Ran girl's last name had stood out so much to him.

"That's right." Sonoko said, nodding her head, a rather sly grin crossing her face. If Heiji didn't miss his guess, this appeared to be something that she had only just thought of- but well, it was still worth chasing, whatever it might be. He could make a rough guess of it, though.

"Maybe all this time, Ran's been hiding Shinichi-kun at her place?" Sonoko ventured. "They are basically husband and wife, after all. It wouldn't surprise me if the source of her father's sudden fame was because of Shinichi-kun. Like he's been calling him or something in secret all this time."

"Why would he do that?" Heiji asked. That smug looking guy that he had seen in the newspapers... he didn't think he was the type to allow someone else to take credit for his own deductions.

"If I recall, Ran complained to him the other day that the reason her father wasn't getting any work was because of him." Sonoko told him, tilting her head in thought. "Maybe he felt guilty about it? Well, truth be told, I have no idea what goes on in that mystery idiot's head more often than not, nor do I really want to."

"An'? Do ya know where this Mouri Ran girl lives?" Heiji asked. It sounded like a reasonable enough theory, and even if it wasn't, he could at the very least get the address of the other person that he wanted to speak with out of her. How lucky for him that one of Kudo's friends was something of a chatterbox.

"Of course I do! I've known her since we were little, after all!" Sonoko told him. "But, if Ran's really hiding him, you might have a tough time getting it out of her. Although I suppose if you tell her you're a fellow high school detective, she might let something slip."

"I'll keep that in mind." Heiji told her, his grin quickly resurfacing. How could it not? With every step he took, he felt as if he was getting closer and closer to his goal- he wasn't going to leave here without facing down that so-called rival of his.

Or at the very least, that had been the plan. But plans, as they were, had a way of going awry in ways least expected. And frankly, Heiji wasn't certain which was more beyond his predication- that Kudo Shinichi had been forced to take some mysterious drug, and had been shrunken down to the size of a child...

...or that he would end up becoming best friends with the one he wanted to challenge.