Conan didn't exactly want to go to the arcade with Ran and Sonoko - he knew how bad he was at video games and having Sonoko there was a very bad idea - but, well, he'd pretty much do anything to make Ran happy.
After the Sunset Mansion incident, things had returned relatively to normal. Cases had started to come in frequently again, and Ran (and, by proxy, everyone else) became less depressed, although she still had her moments, hence why he was eager to go along to the arcade with her when she asked, despite his lack of interest.
But.. he had to admit he forgot about this one detail.
In the corner of the arcade, Sonoko was crouched down in front of him, gripping his shoulders tightly. "Tell me!" She shook him violently. "Tell me now!"
It seemed Ran, fueled by some sort of vengeance, had neglected to tell Sonoko about the KID related details of their excursion, until now apparently, when Conan was going to be spending an entire afternoon with them.
He winced, leaning as far back as he could. "Why don't you ask Ran-neechan? She was there too!" He argued.
"She doesn't care about KID-sama. You do."
He silently groaned in frustration. "But there's not much to say! He didn't really do much!"
"I don't care! Just tell me!"
"But-!"
"Hmm." Ran pointedly said from beside them, a finger on her chin in an exaggerated thinking motion. "You know, I think I remember you talking with dad for a while there." She gave him a menacing smile.
"What!?" Sonoko screeched, shaking him again, causing him to flinch. "You talked with KID-sama!?"
"I- I didn't know it was him at the time!" He quickly lied.
"Oh, really?" Ran drawled ominously. "Hmm, but you seemed so cheerful with him and you're never really like that with dad."
"You knew!?"
"Ran-neechan..." He whined. "Please, I said sorry."
She just looked away with a huff.
Sonoko's grip on his shoulders tightened even further. "You talked with KID-sama and didn't even get me an autograph!?" She shouted, all while furiously shaking him.
He groaned, taking a second to gather back his bearings. "I didn't even get myself an autograph! There was too much going on!"
Sonoko dramatically groaned, finally letting go of Conan to thread her fingers through her hair. "That should've been meee!" She fake sobbed, then turned around towards Ran. "Ran, why didn't you take me with you!?"
Ran lightly chuckled. "You know I couldn't do that, Sonoko." Sonoko sighed, slumping over. "Why don't we go play some games?" Ran asked, placing her hand on Sonoko's shoulder.
"Yeah!" She shot up, suddenly cheerful. "But he's going first so I can make fun of him." She pointed at Conan.
"Hey!"
"Alright, alright." Ran agreed far too easily.
"Hey..!" Conan tried again.
"Let's do that one." Sonoko pointed at some arcade machine next to them, that Conan, of course, didn't recognize. She grabbed his arm, dragged him towards the machine, and plopped him down on the seat. She slotted a quarter in, the interface blinking to life. "Play." She demanded.
"Uh..." He said as he hesitantly placed his hands on the controls. He moved the character around for a bit, before quickly dying to a nearby enemy.
He heard some very irritating giggles from behind him.
"Wow." Sonoko said, hiding a couple more snickers with her hand. "I didn't think it was even possible to die that early on. That's impressive." She complimented in an insulting way.
He glared at her as the red 'Game Over' reflected onto his glasses. He kind of wanted to respond with 'I'd like to see you try' but he knew full well she could do a whole lot better than him. He couldn't think of any other witty response, so he instead just glared and pouted.
Sonoko lightly pushed him off the seat. "Alright, my turn! Lemme show you how it's done."
"Wow." He grumbled. "I'm delighted." He deadpanned, quickly hopping off and sidling up next to Ran.
Sonoko huffed. "You should be." She fed another quarter into the slot, ignoring his clear sarcasm.
Conan let out a quiet 'tch', stuffing his hands into his pocket.
Ran and Sonoko fell into light small talk - something about a new teacher - as Sonoko effortlessly completed level after level, all while holding up the conversation with Ran (which stung a little, admittedly, but he's long since known how bad he was at games. He could count the amount of times he's been to an arcade on one hand, despite their popularity in both Japan and America. Hell, he could say the same about the amount of times he's even played a video game in general, the majority of times being forced by the detective boys.)
Conan stopped listening when they started talking about Makoto, Sonoko's apparent boyfriend (which he still found hard to believe), and instead looked elsewhere, taking in his surroundings. As much as he didn't like video games, he could admit that arcades were still pretty cool, even if he had little intention to actually play anything. They just looked nice, and were a novel experience for him. At the very least, it was fun to watch others play the games that he could not.
A loud shout of, "Hey, come on!" In perfect English, brought his attention towards a small crowd a few games over. There was a foreign woman playing some fighting game, clearly doing a good job, exaggeratedly whipping the gun around and finishing with a flourish. The crowd broke out into light applause.
Conan had never really seen such an obviously foreign person much in Japan, even less in an arcade.
Ran and Sonoko had also noticed, stopping their conversation. Although they seemed to be a bit more surprised than anyone else, practically gaping at the woman.
"Jodie-sensei!?" They both exclaimed, Sonoko jumping up from her seat.
The woman - or Jodie, according to Ran and Sonoko - looked over at the call of her name. Her eyes slightly widened. "Mouri-san and Suzuki-san!"
They rushed over.
"What are you doing here?" Sonoko asked.
But before she could answer, someone from the crowd said, "Sensei? She's a teacher?"
Jodie froze, with a slightly panicked expression. "No, no!" She turned to the crowd and said, waving her hands around. "You've got the wrong person!" She started pushing Ran and Sonoko towards a more secluded section of the arcade.
"Sorry!" Jodie immediately said as they were more away from the crowd and out of earshot of anyone else. "Please don't tell anyone! It's so hard for foreigners to find a job in Japan. I fear I may be fired if the school finds out about this!"
"No way." Ran quietly said.
"Is that why you're always so serious with your lessons?" Sonoko asked.
"Yes! I don't want to risk anything. But Japanese games are so fun, I could never give them up! I was never able to play them back in America."
"Ah..." Ran and Sonoko both blankly said at her enthusiasm.
Jodie's eyes quickly flickered down to Conan. "Ah!" She suddenly said, leaning down towards him. Conan instinctively flinched back. "Who's this?"
"Ah, that's Conan." Ran said.
Suddenly Josie's overly cheery expression was replaced by something that looked more.. genuine. Her eyes were slightly wide, as if she had just realized something big, as she intently stared at him.
He took a nervous step back, inching towards Ran.
"Er, Edogawa Conan." Ran added. "He's been living with me and my dad."
Jodie now looked more confused instead. He heard her mutter quietly, "Edo..?" Under her breath. She blinked a couple times, the expression being quickly erased, going back to the cheeriness from before. "Ah, nice to meet you!" She loudly said, with the same broken Japanese as before.
Conan just blankly stared at her.
What was that?
She extended a hand out to him, a distinctly American greeting.
He hesitantly took it from where he stood behind Ran. "Y-yeah..." He nervously nodded.
She shook his hand, then immediately stood up and turned back towards Ran and Sonoko. "Ah, I know a really exciting game! Want to check it out?"
Conan had fervently decided that Ran's new English teacher was extremely off-putting.
Ever since she joined them, the hairs on the back of his neck had been almost constantly standing up, and there was a continuous feeling of eyes boring into the back of his head. And he was fairly certain it was coming from her. Often, he'd sneak a few glances at Jodie, and it seemed about half of the time, she would also be looking at him too. Her eyes would immediately dart away, but honestly it was hard not to notice; she wasn't really doing much to hide it. She was starting to really freak him out by now.
Conan took another nervous glance at Jodie.
Ran was playing a fighting game that Jodie had introduced to them (that apparently let you feel real pain - weird if you asked him) which Jodie should be watching - Ran was doing a pretty good job - but unsurprisingly, she wasn't.
Conan found her staring right back at him.
However this time, she didn't look away, and instead kept his gaze and smirked at him - not just a normal friendly smile, but a smirk.
Conan slowly looked back at Ran's game and shied away from Jodie, unsure of what else to do. If he was just freaked out before, it was safe to say he was terrified now.
Seriously, what was her issue? Why was she doing all that? It was incredibly creepy. Could he just meet someone normal for once in his life?
The only solace was that he was in a crowded arcade. She wouldn't be able to do anything (if she wanted to at all) without anyone noticing. So far she was just glancing at him far too often than normal and acting just.. weird, in general.
But, for some reason, it was oddly familiar, giving him a strange feeling of deja vu. An insistent one too. But he couldn't figure out why. It was frustrating.
The hairs on the back of his neck uncomfortably stood up again. Jodie was probably staring at him, but it was of no use to acknowledge her. He was more curious about why this was so familiar now.
Conan racked his brain.
It almost felt like he's been through something like this before. Did he know someone that acts like Jodie? It took him no time to decide that no, he didn't. Based on what he's gathered from the few minutes he's been around Jodie, she was overenthusiastic, but with spurts of real seriousness mixed in. Well, Hattori was kind of like that, except his excitable additude actually felt genuine, and Jodie's somehow did not, as if she was faking it.. for some reason.
(And the way she spoke was odd too. Her Japanese was incredibly broken, but not in a usual way. Her grammar was mainly correct, she just exaggerated the wrong parts of the words to make it sound like she wasn't quite fluent yet. She was faking that too. Again, weird, but not exactly his primary concern.)
Actually, Hattori had kind of acted like that when they first met, constantly sneaking glances at him. Or, well, that was when he thought he was Shinichi, not when they first met, but... Maybe Jodie knew something too. That was incredibly worrying.
Now that he thought about it, Jodie was actually acting more like when he first met Haibara than Hattori. It was quite similar, the way Haibara had this strange fixation on him and kept glancing at him, even the smirk, because she already (supposedly) knew him-
Conan froze.
If he weren't so busy panicking over the revelation he had just now, he would've facepalmed at how he didn't notice something so obvious earlier.
Jodie was American. She had realized something when Ran said his name was Conan. She was confused about the name Edogawa.
Because she knew him. Not as Edogawa Conan, but as Takayama Conan.
He suck in a sharp breath, immediately looking towards Jodie. ...It seemed he had blacked out for a bit in a panicked fugue because now she was playing some racing game instead. And - he started frantically looking around, before he found the other two - Ran and Sonoko were just a bit up ahead watching a game on the big screen that looked a lot like the one Ran had been playing earlier. At least Jodie couldn't stare at him anymore now that she was focused on her game.
But.. if she apparently knew who he was, that he wasn't Edogawa Conan, then why wasn't she saying anything? Unless, she was waiting until they were alone? Or maybe he's just been blowing this whole thing out of proportion and Jodie doesn't know who he is and is just weird?
He shook his head.
No, no. There's too much evidence pointing towards it. Why else would she act like that? He would almost think that she thought he was Shinichi, like Hattori or Haibara, but then the thing with the names wouldn't make any sense. And, actually, she had shaken his hand as a greeting, and Japanese people barely ever do that. That could just mean she didn't know that yet and used that kind of greeting with everyone, or, she already knew he was American.
He suddenly froze again as a thought came to him.
What if she was in the Black Organization?
His mind was just a few moments away from spiraling into a panic because of that thought, before he forced himself to stop and just think.
How likely was it that she was actually a member..? Well, he didn't think a member would stare at him so obviously. If they wanted to observe him in some way, they would instead do it far more subtly, or from afar. Although, no one else seemed to notice - because they were all focused on the games they were playing - but the point still stood. She was making it far too obvious to Conan, and she clearly knew he knew, which was something a member wouldn't do. Unless.. she was somehow even more sick than the others and liked to 'play with her victims' and wanted to scare him before killing him or something, which was actually very possible-
Okay, stop, that is not helping.
Okay, even if she was from the Black Organization, then why would she want to kill him? Even if she knew who he actually was, that shouldn't theoretically matter. He should still just be some random kid to her. Unless she thought he was Shinichi- no, already ruled that out. Or maybe she knew he was involved with the organization in some way..? Possibly. Wait-
Conan internally facepalmed - too panicked and scared to do it for real - at how he managed to forget that. That Haibara's sister, Akemi, a fully fledged Black Organization member, seemed to recognize his name as she was dying. So it was entirely possible, and maybe even likely, that his family had something to do with the organization, and so, if she were a member, Jodie could have a reason to take attention of him-
Stop, stop, again, not helping.
As if to encapsulate his thoughts on the situation, someone had screamed from within the arcade. A few more screams started to erupt from the crowd, and Conan almost felt half tempted to join because, honestly, that was a very reasonable response to realizing that someone knew your real identity and may be a member of an organization that may want to kill you. However, that was before he realized that people were screaming, and that something bad had probably happened.
He looked where all the commotion seemed to be, around some guy sitting in a game chair. However, the guy didn't seem to be very alive, his eyes wide open and mouth slightly open with a bit of drool dripping from the side.
Conan almost wanted to cry, because now was quite possibly the worst moment for someone to die, when that woman was around. He walked over to the body and prepared himself for what may become the most nerve-wracking murder investigation of his life.
The victim was Bitou Kengo, and, according to Ran, he had died right in the middle of playing that fighting game; his character had just suddenly stopped. He was renowned within the arcade for being one of the best players, especially with that game. Although he was quite rude and generally disliked, meaning there'll be lots of suspects.
The police were at a loss of how he died, which Conan understood even though he thought it was fairly obvious he was poisoned.
"But, we still don't know how he died." Megure voiced, proving his point.
"Yes, there are no obvious wounds..." Takagi added.
Conan climbed up onto the machine next to the body. "What if he was poisoned?" He said, startling the two officers.
"C-Conan-kun..!" Takagi said in surprise, quickly grabbing Conan off the machine.
"Look!" He pointed at the body as well as he could within Takagi's grasp. "It looks like he was strangled but there's no strangulation marks on his neck. So, he was poisoned, right?" He asked cheerfully.
"But, Conan-kun..." Megure smiled down at him as Takagi placed him back on the ground. "He died suddenly during the game and he didn't eat anything during it either. And, if he was poisoned beforehand, his condition would've gotten worse and someone would have noticed." He said as if he was explaining something simple to a child - which, that's kind of exactly what he was doing, except the fact that he was half wrong kind of ruined it.
"But maybe he was poisoned with a needle or injected with something." Conan suggested - even though it wasn't really a suggestion, and just the truth (if he was right).
Megure laughed. "But if someone did that wouldn't he have made a fuss?"
Okay, this was starting to get a little annoying.
"But Inspector-" He suddenly stopped in his tracks as a shudder overcame him. He slowly looked over his shoulder to see, unsurprisingly, Jodie staring expectantly at him. He almost half forgot about her with the whole murder to investigate (unsure how he was even able to do that in the first place).
A concerned, "Conan-kun..?" From Megure, brought his attention back to the topic at hand.
Conan looked away from Jodie and back towards the Inspector. "Ah." He nervously laughed. "You're right..!"
"Exactly." Megure nodded.
Conan heard some very ominous sounding footsteps coming from behind him. "Actually, Inspector..." A familiarly accented voice spoke. Jodie crouched down next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He practically felt his whole body tense up at once. "I believe he was trying to say that this is an arcade." She continued. "With all the games on and lights off, it's very loud and hard to see! I don't think anyone would be able to notice." She turned her head to look at him. "Right?"
It was all Conan could do to shakily nod.
He barely even noticed Megure gasping and ordering for an autopsy to be done, while looking at Jodie, terrified.
It seemed she actually noticed his state, considering she was looking at him with worry and concern more than anything. She removed her hand from his shoulder and stood up.
Conan was able to relax minutely now that she wasn't inches away from his face, and that she apparently wasn't meaning to scare him this much, but only minutely.
"Wait a minute." Megure suddenly said. "Who are you?" He asked Jodie.
"Ah, my name is Jodie Saintemillion!" She greeted in English (notably without a handshake). "I'm an English teacher!" She added, back to Japanese. "Nice to meet you!"
"English teacher..?" Megure muttered. "Ah!" His face lit up. "Hello, my name is Juuzo Megure!" He said in English, albeit with a heavy Japanese accent. "I am a Japanese porisman!"
"No, no! It's policeman." Jodie corrected, stressing the 'l' in 'policeman'.
"P-porisman?"
"No, policeman!"
"Poriiisman?"
Next to them, Takagi had a hand up to his forehead in secondhand embarrassment. "Inspector..."
Megure startled, looking towards Takagi. He cleared his throat, a slight embarrassed flush on his face. "Anyways, we know the murder method now but, it'll be hard to find any suspects out of so many people"
"We'll have to ask around to see if anyone noticed who got close to the victim." Takagi said.
That's true. Usually Conan would've been paying more attention and notice something like that, but regrettably he was a bit too busy fearing for his life.
"Ah, but you may not have to..." Jodie said, causing Conan to flinch. She looked up at the ceiling.
Everyone followed her line of sight, to see a conveniently placed security camera.
After watching the camera's footage, they came out with three possible suspects.
The first was Dejima Hitoshi, an employee from the arcade. He was replacing the coin box in the machine right before Bitou had sat down to play. The second was Shimizu Takayasu, another renowned player from the arcade, yet he often came in second place to Bitou. He was the one who had gotten beaten to a pulp against Bitou (presumably..) during the game he died in, and he had spoken with Bitou right before the game. The third was Emori Toshitsugu, some old guy who was just picking up a coin he dropped next to Bitou during the game. (And, technically there was a fourth, Jodie - because Ran and Sonoko had stepped away and Conan admittedly wasn't paying attention - but he highly doubted it was her. She seemed to be much more focused on himself and she probably wouldn't have been able to do so well on her racing game if she had.)
And, predictably, all three of them had a motive. That would've been more frustrating to him if he did already have an idea of who the culprit was.
Bitou was injected on the right, so it couldn't have been Emori because he had only approached Bitou on the left side. It also couldn't have been Dejima because Bitou had still talked with Shimizu after that. And so it only could've been Shimizu. And, that game didn't actually show who was playing which character, so the 'Shimizu' that got absolutely beaten could've very easily been Bitou's unmoving character.
Conan hadn't known what he did with the needle (and subsequently the evidence), until he heard an odd clinking sound coming from the group whenever they walked. He had pretty much figured out that Shimizu had placed it on the floor in some way, and one of them had stepped on it, attaching it to their shoe. At least the coin he inserted for the game should probably still be sufficient evidence (his fingerprints shouldn't be on any of the coins in the basket if Dejima had replaced it just before, unless he was the murderer).
Now all he had to do was give his deduction. Sonoko was already sitting down on one of the game's chairs, so thankfully he had no need to maneuver her over to one. He flipped up his watch lid, aimed it, and pressed the button. Sonoko passed out, hitting her face straight onto the game's steering wheel.
That was for earlier.
"Eh, Sonoko!?" Ran said, surprised.
"Sonoko-neechan, are you alright?" He asked with fake worry as he went over and pushed her up into more of a natural position, instead of facedown on the wheel. He stuck a speaker he hid in his hand under her collar, then scampered away behind the machine.
He brought up his bowtie, double-checked it was set to Sonoko's voice, and lifted it up ready to begin.. when he suddenly saw a shadow loom over him.
Every muscle in his body immediately froze.
He forgot about Jodie again. How did he forget about Jodie? This was quite possibly the worst time to forget about the woman that knows one of his secrets and may or may not want to kill him, when he's doing a sleeping deduction. Letting a potential Black Organization know about that was extremely dangerous and would probably get him killed-
...He should probably look, or do something, rather than just stand there in terror.
Conan slowly looked up at the person standing above him, then paused.
"Oh." He let out an immensely relieved sigh, releasing all his stored tension. "It's just you Takagi."
Yeah.. he probably should've checked if it actually was Jodie before panicking over it...
Takagi lifted an eyebrow, looking a bit confused, before deciding it wasn't important and asking, "Conan, what are you doing over here?"
He nervously paused. "U-uh..." He stuttered, unsure of what to say. Maybe he had been a bit too relieved earlier. Well, at least he's not Jodie. "N-nothing!" He cheerfully said.
He then realized he was still holding his bowtie out. He then promptly released it, adjusted it back into place, and smiled brightly up at him, clasping his hands behind his back.
Takagi did not look impressed.
"Just, uh..." Conan trailed off. He brought out a hand and made a shooing motion with it, saying to go away, not knowing what else to do.
Takagi looked exasperated more than anything, as anyone typically would when told what to do by a child.
"Or actually-!" He realized, his mouth open, ready to speak, before he quickly shut it, realizing that no that wouldn't work anymore.
He was planning to use Ran and some police officer for an experiment to show a part of the murder method, but now that he remembered Jodie existed, he probably shouldn't do that anymore, and instead should get this deduction over with as soon as possible. And he didn't want to just suddenly stop the deduction right after he started it either.
He lightly shook his head. "Nevermind, just.. go stand over there." He motioned at the space between the machine he was hiding behind and the one next to it, so that he would be blocking anyone from the entrance, namely Jodie.
Takagi had a small, sarcastic smile on his face. He heard him mutter, "Yeah, yeah..." Under his breath as he backed up towards the spot.
"Uh, turn around." Conan added, making a twirling motion with his finger.
Takagi let out a quiet sigh, before turning around.
Conan sighed in relief a second time, then ducked back behind the machine.
Well, that went better than expected - now Jodie can't sneak up behind him! - but it also could've gone a lot better... He would've preferred it didn't happen at all. As much as he's glad that wasn't Jodie, Takagi's probably going to be ten times more suspicious of him from now on. But, he'd much rather have Takagi learn of his sleeping deductions than Jodie.
A loud shout of, "Sonoko-kun!" From Megure made him realize that he's just been letting Sonoko sit there without saying a word for a good minute or so.
He quickly brought his bowtie back up and 'ahem'-ed into it. "Sorry Inspector, everyone's sheer stupidity just left me speechless..."
"Oh, that was incredible, Sonoko!" Jodie said as they walked down the sidewalk away from the arcade back home.
Conan really wished they didn't have to walk home with her, but it made sense why Ran and Sonoko would want to, and he didn't think he could think of an excuse not to. But, to compensate, Conan was nearly cowering behind and next to Ran, which was the furthest position he could be from Jodie.
"Yeah it was really cool!" Ran gushed. "Your deduction could put Shinichi to shame!"
"Ah, Shinichi! Wasn't he that guy at the festival?" Jodie recognized as she stepped in front of Sonoko, closer to Ran.
Instinctively, Conan flinched further behind Ran. He couldn't even bring himself to be embarrassed at how childish he was acting because he had a very good reason to be absolutely terrified right now. If Jodie was going to kill him, it would after he gets home and probably during the night, meaning he might get killed soon. As one would expect, that is not a comforting thought. (Although, he still didn't quite have it in him to completely cling onto Ran. He wanted to keep some of his dignity, even in times of peril.)
"Yes! That was him." Ran answered with a smile, albeit a slightly sad one.
"He is very cool!" Jodie said in English. Ran smiled back.
"Ah!" Sonoko suddenly said. "We have to go this way, Sensei." She pointed down a separate street.
"Bye, Sensei!" Ran waved, following Sonoko in the opposite direction.
"Goodbye!" Jodie said back. "See you tomorrow at school!"
Conan quickly scampered to be in front of Ran now, to be further from Jodie, letting out a small sigh of relief now that they were leaving Jodie (even though he should probably be even more scared now that she would be able to kill him easier - out of sight out of mind he guessed).
"Bye, bye, cool guy."
He felt a shudder pass through his body, nearly causing him to shiver.
He just knew that was directed towards him. She wouldn't make some special creepy nickname or sound so menacing for the others (even if he had no idea why she chose to call him that). (And he was also the only guy among them, so there was that too.)
He slowly and hesitantly turned around, almost scared of what he might see. But instead, he just saw the back of Jodie's head as she walked away in the opposite direction.
God, he just knew he wasn't going to get any sleep tonight.
Jodie unlocked her apartment, stepping inside. Her keys clinked together as she set them down on the table.
"Ah, you're back. How'd it go?"
"Good. I confirmed our target." She replied.
"Oh, that's great!"
"Yeah. She's already disguised and staying at the school. I don't believe she plans on doing anything soon. And.." she smirked, "there may be something else..."
"Hmm?"
She shook her head. "Nothing..."
"So, do you know what we're gonna call her?"
"Why not.." she plucked an apple off from the table, turning it around in her hand, "Rotten Apple..."
