Conan was on edge for the next week.
He tried to hide it but.. he didn't think he did a very good job. Agasa and Ran both kept giving him concerned looks and occasionally asking if he was alright, but, he managed to convince at least Ran because she eventually dropped the topic.
On the bright side, Agasa wasn't constantly on his tail about visiting "his" old house anymore, because he had been avoiding it for the few days after he saw the Black Organization, not wanting them to see him if they were still watching the house. He figured they probably weren't there anymore and had gotten everything they needed in the previous visits, but he wasn't going to risk it until he knew for sure it was safe.
After a few days, he decided he should probably tell Agasa about the visit. It had gotten pretty hard to keep his jumpiness under control and the Professor had definitely noticed. Agasa had also been a huge help to Conan, and it felt wrong to keep such information from him.
However.. it didn't exactly go over too good. He just kind of sprang it up on the poor guy, with no preamble. He probably could've come up with a better way to bring it up, but...
Conan had been sitting on Agasa's couch, finishing up A Study in Scarlet, when he had suddenly said, "I saw Gin and Vodka sneak into my house a few days ago." He took a calm sip of the coffee Agasa had so kindly made him (which he secretly dumped sugar into to help make it more palatable).
Agasa had paused whatever invention he was working on for a few seconds to process. He then turned around surprised and shouted, "Eh!?" When Conan's words had sunk in.
"They didn't see you, did they!?" He worried.
"Of course not." He said, deciding not to mention when Gin had almost seen him. "I just saw them come out... There was also someone else with them. She was wearing a lab coat so she might've been a scientist or something."
"That's not good." Agasa had worried. "..Oh, so that's what was bothering you." He had realized.
"Yeah. I also saw their car too." He had added.
"Eh?" Agasa had exclaimed in surprise, again.
"It was pitch black, and a Porsche, I think... It was definitely foreign."
"You're not sure? ..Don't you usually know those things, Shinichi?"
Shit. Was Shinichi a car guy?
"W-well, I didn't get a good look at it." He had lied.
"Hmm.. at least you'll be able to recognize it, right?"
"Yeah."
Their conversation had died off there.
The next day Conan went to the library to look at some vintage car catalogues, to pin down the exact type of car Gin had and maybe try to look at some other models so Agasa wouldn't become too suspicious of him. He didn't really get very far though. Turns out there's lots of different kinds of cars. And he had a horrible time too. He never understood cars or why people cared about them so much.
Eventually, after a few days, he finally found it. (He would've finished earlier if not for all the cases and the Detective Boys dragging him everywhere.) He was pretty sure Gin drove a Porsche 356 A.
A day after, the long week had come to a close, and he had finally worked up enough courage to go back inside Shinichi's house. He'd been closely monitoring it and the buildings surrounding it, and didn't see anyone suspicious or any weird foreign cars either, so he assumed it was safe enough to go back inside. (Well, Agasa wouldn't have agreed with him, saying it was too dangerous and far too early, but that is why he did it while Agasa was out.)
He snuck in through the back door, of course, and when he inspected the house, everything was scarily undisturbed. He expected not to see much evidence that they were here, but it looked like not a single person had even been in there for the past month. There were no footprints or fingerprints to be found, and even the layers of dust on the furniture were completely untouched.
While he was there, Conan finally looked through the little bit of the library he had left, and found no useful information. But, it was nice to finally be done with the monstrous task of searching all of Shinichi's house, and be able to apply that information to become more like the detective.
Anyways, Conan was currently chilling in the detective agency, reading what was probably Shinichi's favorite Sherlock book, The Sign of the Four, while Kogoro was sifting through some random files at his desk. Ran had finished the dishes from last night's dinner and plopped down on the couch opposite of Conan.
She looked over, curious of the book Conan was reading. "Oh, is that The Sign of the Four? Did you know that's Shinichi's favorite book?"
Good. He was right.
"Yeah." He said, nonchalantly.
"That reminds me," Kogoro suddenly piped up. "Are your parents still in the hospital?"
What does that have to do with books?
Conan mildly panicked for a second. He hadn't thought of a cover story for Edogawa Conan's parents yet.
He stayed in his silent panic until Ran saved him by saying, "Agasa told me that they got out but they moved back to America. I can't believe they just left you here. Don't you miss them?"
"U-uh.. not really." He answered nervously, fidgeting with the pages of the book.
"Man, what bad parents." Kogoro said.
Conan hid his face in his book, hoping they wouldn't ask more questions about it.
The doorbell rang, and Ran went to get it while Kogoro tried to get some more information out of Conan.
Ran came back with a relieved, cheerful look on her face. "She's here, Conan!"
He looked over confused and saw Ran with some woman he's never seen before.
"It's your mother!"
No you're not!
Edogawa Conan didn't have a mom yet, and actually neither did the real Conan. She had died when Conan was younger.
"I'm sorry, Co-chan! You must've been so lonely. Let's go home now." The woman said, bending down to give Conan a big hug.
He pushed her away from him and shouted, "Who are you!?"
"Huh? Is she not..?" Ran looked over, confused.
"Oh, don't worry. He's just mad at me because I left him alone for so long." She assured.
"Let's go, Co-chan." She gripped his hand and pulled him out the door, Conan reluctantly went with, stumbling after her. Ran waved after him, saying goodbye, as he got inside the car. Conan gave one last look out the window, with a silent plea for help, as she started to drive off.
This was technically Conan's very first time getting kidnapped. He figured he'd probably been through worse, but his nerves were still extremely high and his heart rate through the roof.
Conan forcefully calmed himself down and gave a look around the car. It didn't seem the child safety was even on, and the kidnapper wasn't keeping too good of an eye on Conan. If he wanted, Conan could easily just get out of the car when they had slowed down or stopped. And, if she was taking him someplace specific, she obviously didn't care if he saw where it was because it seemed she was allowing him to look out all he wanted. Apparently, she wasn't even that good at kidnapping. Conan's nerves settled down.
He gave a look to his kidnapper and finally decided to ask, "Who are you really?"
"Don't be silly, I'm your mom!" She cheerfully said.
"But, my mom is–"
"Kudo Yukiko." She interrupted, with a far deeper and intimidating voice.
Yukiko? That was Shinichi's mom. Why would..?
The kidnapper then went into an explanation of who Yukiko was, as if Conan didn't already know from his own research. She finished by saying, "You're her son aren't you, Kudo Shinichi."
Conan looked up in surprise, then gave her a skeptical look. Did she seriously think he was Shinichi?
"Don't move." She said, suddenly pulling out a gun and placing it right in front of his head.
He panicked for a second before he realized that the gun was obviously fake. An actual Walther 380's trigger was larger than that and, when he looked down it, the barrel was far too large. However, it was still very convincing, and never would've noticed if he wasn't used to picking out those inconsistencies. (His real mom often had real and fake guns just laying around, for what reason he didn't know; she even taught him how to pick out a fake.)
Conan faced his kidnapper and she eventually put the gun back down to focus back on driving. They continued driving for a while longer and eventually came across a somewhat rundown looking, two story house.
She parked the car and brought out the gun again. "Get out. And if you try anything, I can't guarantee you'll get out unharmed." She said, pushing the gun more into Conan's head as emphasis.
When he got out, she fiercely grabbed his arm and dragged him in the building. She set the gun down on a nearby table and let Conan out of her grip.
Conan took a nervous look around the house, but didn't get to see much when she brought out some sort of bottle and soaked a cloth with the liquid inside. He nervously started backing up towards the door, realizing that she was preparing chloroform.
"Well, we're gonna need you out for a while." She said as she pulled him back and forced the cloth over his mouth.
He barely even struggled and accepted his fate, his body falling limp. As the world faded around him, he looked up and saw a.. sad look in her eyes. With slight confusion, he let his surroundings fade to black and drifted off.
When Conan woke up, he took a second to gather himself and figure out where he was. The first thing he noticed, when he tried to get up, was the tightly bound ropes restricting his arms. He dizzily pushed himself up and noticed he was in a very dirty and unfurnished kitchen. There was only a refrigerator and a sink, and all sorts of trash and random spare parts littered all over the floor. He noticed a window and walked over to it. He shimmied onto the counter to get a good look outside, and realized he was on the second floor of the same house from earlier. (No wonder the house was abandoned; who puts a kitchen on the second floor?)
He startled when a man had shouted from the other side of the door. "Why isn't he dead yet!?"
Conan walked over to where he heard the voice coming from and noticed a small hole in the door. He peeked through and saw two people, the woman from before and a man who was wearing a strange costume with a creepy mask, a top hat, and a long cape-like coat.
"B-but.." The woman nervously interjected. "The higher ups in the organization said to bring him back to study the side effects of the drug."
Organization? Drugs? Now this was even weirder. There's no way they were actually from the Black Organization. If they wanted to kidnap him they'd do it with no one around and leave absolutely no trace, not by doing some sort of charade pretending to be his mom. But that begs the question: Why do they think he's Shinichi? And, how do they even know about the Black Organization? The only one he's ever told about them is Agasa. And, Conan knows he would never tell anyone that. Conan was utterly confused.
Then, the man went silent. He suddenly turned around and almost looked straight at Conan. He immediately ducked behind the door. He then heard footsteps coming closer to the door, and realized he was coming. Conan quietly rushed back to the middle of the room and layed back down, pretending to still be knocked out.
He waited nervously until the man said, "Looks like he's still asleep."
Conan quietly sighed in relief as he heard the footsteps of the man walking away from the door.
"But, is he really Kudo Shinichi? He just looks like a kid to me." The man asked.
"It's hard to believe, but it's true." The woman said. "The day Shinichi disappeared and the day this boy appeared in the detective agency is the same, and all the cases around him got smoothly solved. No matter how you look at it, that's Shinichi!"
Heh... Really?
"And he shrunk because of the drug?"
"Yes! I still can't believe it."
"Well, let's try it out." The man said sinisterly, while reaching into his coat.
"Huh?" The woman said.
"I have some with me." The man brought out a case of the pills. Conan's eyes widened in surprise. What drug!? There's not actually a drug that shrinks people. He just made that up.
"If we test it on someone else, we can see if it actually shrinks people." The man continued.
"But who..?" She asked.
"That man having a deal with us tomorrow. The organization wants him dead anyway, so it'll be a good time to try it out. And after that, we'll kill that kid!"
A shiver went up Conan's spine.
"But we were ordered to keep him alive!" The woman interjected.
"And just let someone who knows about the organization live!?" He yelled back.
"F-fine." The woman gave up.
"The deal tomorrow is at 1PM. Make sure to get some rest."
Conan heard them rustling around, and getting ready to sleep.
Conan sighed. He still had no idea who these people were. He's already concluded they're not from the Black Organization, but then, what were they talking about? He thought for a second that maybe they were from a completely different organization, but what they said was too specific. Maybe they were lower ranked members. He didn't hear them refer to each other with an alcohol name, so maybe only the higher ups had those. But why would they send such low ranks for such an important task? Even if it was just a deal, Gin and Vodka, who seemed to be higher ups, were also sent for "just a deal" back at Tropical Land.
However, even if they weren't from the Black Organization or were lower ranked members, and even if their gun was fake, they were still dangerous. This was all his fault wasn't it. If he hadn't pretended to be Shinichi in the first place, he wouldn't even be in this mess. He should've known that all this was too dangerous for him to handle. He didn't want to die.
Conan sat up and violently shook his head to rid himself of such deprecating thoughts. This is not the time to be thinking about that. He had to think of a way to get out of this. He was not going to die anytime soon if he could help it.
Conan stood back up and looked out through the hole again. They both seemed to be fast asleep (well he only assumed for the man because he still had that mask on). Conan then wandered around the room looking for something to help him get out of the ropes. He found all sorts of things that could potentially cut the off rope, but they didn't seem sharp enough and it would take hours to cut through. The best thing he found was an empty wine bottle he could break to get some glass shards. He decided that was his best option even if it may alert his kidnappers. He grabbed the bottle, wrapped it in a cloth, and smashed it on the edge of the counter. He flinched at the loud noise and waited for any signs that they woke up. It seemed he was in luck; he didn't hear a single thing from other than some slight snoring.
Conan sighed and started sifting through the shards. Once he found a sufficient piece, he started sawing at the rope and eventually cut through. When he freed himself, he stretched his arms out, feeling the blood flow through them.
But what now? He could use the rope to escape through the window but it's not like he could just go back to the Mouri's or try to find a phone and call the police. There's still a possibility those people were from the Black Organization and he didn't want to get others involved. It was also still really cold outside and he didn't want to risk getting hypothermia. It seemed he'd have to stay in the house for the night. Conan thought that it also might be a good idea to try and follow them to this deal tomorrow. He might figure out what is actually going on and what this drug they're talking about is.
Conan went to try and hide inside the fridge, but it was really gross inside. It smelled like death and there was mold all over the place. With disgust, he quickly closed the door and went to look for another hiding place. He checked the cabinets but there was too much stuff in them and he wouldn't fit. Conan was worried now; he didn't see any other place in the room he could use.
Well, might as well try outside this room. As he was walking towards the door, he walked over a mat and almost tripped when the floor moved from under him. He looked under and found a trap door leading to a small hidey-hole. Conan's face lit up, glad that he was able to find such a perfect hiding spot.
He hopped inside and quietly closed the door. Despite the cold, dark, and cramped place he was in, he eventually managed to doze off.
Conan was suddenly awoken by a loud shout. "He's not here!"
"What!?" The man shouted angrily. The few traces of sleepiness left his body.
"Look, the room's completely empty! He must've escaped out the window and used the snow as a cushion." The woman said, looking down at the snow outside.
Conan heard her rush out of the room, but the man didn't follow. "What are you doing!? We have to go find him!" She yelled back.
"Wait." The man said. "He's still in here..."
Conan just barely stopped himself from gasping.
"W-what!?"
"He made it look like he jumped out the window, so he could escape after we left."
Conan's heartbeat quickened.
"Come out brat!" The man suddenly shouted.
Conan's grip on his knees tightened.
"How dare you try and trick me! I'LL KILL YOU!" He kicked at the cabinets, which broke with a loud crack. Suddenly he stopped.
"Heh heh heh... So that's where you are."
Conan's breath caught in his throat. He heard footsteps cross over his hiding spot. He closed his eyes and waited for the trapdoor to be ripped open.
"DIE!"
...But it never did. Conan slowly opened his eyes and slowed his breathing.
"Looks like you were wrong." The woman said.
"Tch. We'll search for him after the deal."
He heard them walk out of the house, and their car drive away. Conan let himself calm down. He finally pushed open the trapdoor and got out of the cramped space. He stretched out his sore limbs and rubbed his back. Sleeping in such a position probably wasn't the most healthy thing.
Conan then went to search the next room over, to try and find any clues to the location of the deal. In the trash can he found a newspaper with holes cut out of it, and the calendar was also missing a day. After filling in the missing pieces, he figured out the deal was going to take place at Beika Hotel, with something to do with the number 30.
He put on a hat and a scarf he found in the house and took off towards the hotel.
Conan managed to sneak himself into room 301, where the deal was taking place. He had realized that the 30 was referring to the parking space, and had found a small 1 next to the number, meaning room 301. He currently hid inside the room's closet, after he had called the bellboy and ordered a meal as a distraction.
It seemed they didn't notice yet, and he would be able to hear all about the deal.
"Well, let's make a toast." The woman suggested while picking up a glass from the table.
"Wait." The man interrupted.
It seemed Conan's luck ran out when the man said, "Why don't we welcome our extra guest first."
Shit!
"Extra guest?" The woman wondered. "Is it that boy!?" She realized. "Is he hiding inside the cart?" She lifted up the cloth and looked under. "Wait, he's not here!"
"No." The man said. "The cart's just a decoy. He's actually hiding inside the..."
Conan heard him walk closer to his hiding spot and waited in anticipation.
The door to the closet flung open, and the man finished saying, "..Closet!"
Conan looked up with surprise and fear, in plain view of his kidnappers.
The man pointed the fake gun from before at him and said, "Did you think I'd fall for such a trick?"
Conan looked up at him and gave him a confident smile, despite how panicked he still was.
The man just stared at him for a moment. He then lowered the gun and sighed. He then said with a completely different voice, "You already figured it out, didn't you?"
He then took off his mask and Conan immediately recognized him as Kudo Yusaku.
"Huh?" He squeaked out in confusion. "Then the..." He pointed over at the woman.
"Sorry, Shin-chan." She said (also with a completely different voice) as she tore off the latex mask, revealing the face of Kudo Yukiko. "But if even my own son didn't recognize me, that means I still have it as an actor!" She gushed.
Did Kudo Shinichi's own parents think he was actually their son!? Wait, Agasa must've told them.
"So that giant man is..." Conan looked over as the middle of the man's jacket opened up. "Professor Agasa!" He groaned.
"You went along with this plan!?" He asked incredulously.
"Ha ha, sorry."
Conan sighed and sulked over to the couch.
"Oh come on, Shinichi. Don't be mad." Yusaku said.
"Why wouldn't I be mad!" Conan yelled. "You chloroformed and tied up your own son!? You're insane!"
He knew the Kudo family was out of their mind, but this was far more than he expected.
"W-well, when you put it that way..."
"But, Shin-chan! We were worried about you. You weren't in your house." Yukiko said.
Conan crossed his arms and looked away like a normal bratty child would.
"We did this to test your detective abilities." Yusaku said. "You did everything as I expected, well.. except when you figured us out at the end. How did you know, by the way? Did we make a mistake?"
"Well, I didn't know it was you guys. It's just the gun was obviously fake so I wasn't scared when you pointed it at me."
"Hmm... That's surprising. This was a really high quality one." Yusaku pulled out the fake and looked at it quizzically.
"Wait..!" Conan interrupted. "You knew I was in the kitchen storage!?"
"Of course!"
Conan groaned and held his head in his hands.
"Well, you are also to blame for not noticing I was dressed up as the Night Baron, from my own novels."
"Of course I wouldn't notice!" Conan yelled, leaving out the 'because I'm not actually your son, and wouldn't have read your books' part.
"I thought I was gonna die." Conan looked down angrily.
"So let's leave this dangerous country. Come with us back overseas."
Oh no, he was not going back to America after he went through all this struggle to sneak onto a plane just to get to Japan.
"Yeah, Shin-chan. We did this to make you realize how dangerous of a situation you're in. So come with us-"
"No!" Conan yelled. "I don't wanna!"
"Shin-chan..."
"I already know how dangerous this is! You didn't have to do all that. And I'm not leaving Japan so soon!"
"Sh-Shinichi!" Yukiko yelled.
"Why not?" Yusaku interjected. "Let's let him do as he wants for a while."
"But..."
"Well if you're going to be staying here, there's no need to rush packing for the flight tomorrow. But we should get you back to the detective agency. It's getting late." Yusaku continued.
"Well, if you're okay with it honey..." Yukiko said. "I'll go get ready!" She said rushing to the bathroom.
"Well then, we'll let Ms. 'Edogawa' take you back and me and Agasa will head back to his place." Yusaku said. He walked towards the door and gave a Conan a look.. which he couldn't decipher the meaning of.
"Okay..." They left out the door, leaving Conan with Yukiko.
A newly disguised Yukiko came out of the bathroom. "Let's go, Conan-kun!" She said with a wink.
Conan sighed and followed her out of the hotel.
On the taxi ride back, the realization finally struck him. Kudo Shinichi's parents thought that he was their son. He slightly tensed up next to Yukiko. (He was sitting next to Kudo Yukiko for Christ's sake!) Oh god. There's no way he's gonna pull this off for long. They're going to figure him out. Especially Yusaku; he was also a really smart detective wasn't he?
Conan tried to hide his nerves and put on a bored expression for the rest of the ride.
They soon arrived at the agency, releasing Conan from his prison, letting him leave this problem for tomorrow.