Author's Note: Good evening everyone! Guess what; this is my announcement that I've started the sequel and uploaded the first chapter! The sequel is called "The Following Year" and there's more information about it in the author's note of that story. Since I always feel cheated out of a new chapter for stories I like when it's just an announcement, I decided to also give you guys a special bonus chapter for this story. For context, if I were to write this story from the beginning, I would do it completely different, and one of the ways it would be different is that I would have this as the first chapter to provide a much better setup and sense of tone for the rest of the story.

Roller Coaster Murder Case

Shinichi and Ran were allowed to leave the Mystery Coaster after the police led the confessed culprit away from the crime scene. They'd been stuck there for long enough that the sun had long since sunk below the horizon line and the entire theme park was instead illuminated by the park's lights on everything from the rides to the signs. It was time for them to go home.

And Ran hadn't stopped crying ever since they left the rollercoaster.

"Hey, hey, come on, are you still crying?" Shinichi asked Ran who glared at him.

"How can you be so calm about something like that?" Ran demanded tearfully.

"Oh, I've just gotten used to seeing such things at crime scenes…" Shinichi said off-handedly. "… like bodies in lots of pieces-"

"That's horrible!" Ran gasped and started crying even harder, making Shinichi back-pedal in alarm.

"Come on, Ran, just forget about it, okay? This kind of stuff happens all the time," Shinichi said in an attempt at reassurance.

"It does not!" she shot back furiously and buried her face in her hands again.

Shinichi sighed and gave up trying to console her. He locked his fingers behind his head and glanced idly off to the side waiting for Ran to finish crying when something suspicious caught his eye. It was one of the shady men dressed in black at the roller coaster, the big guy with the square face and the sunglasses. He was standing near the entrance to the hedge maze and looking around – like he was making sure he wasn't being followed – and then entered the maze. What was he up to…?

"Sorry, Ran, but go on ahead without me, alright?" Shinichi said hurriedly to Ran, not taking his eyes off where the black-suited man had disappeared, and he darted off after him.

"What- Wait, Shinichi!" Ran protested.

"Don't worry! I'll catch up with you right away!" Shinichi called back over his shoulder to her and then shifted his focus back to finding the man in black.

He had a hunch that guy would be up to something sketchy and anything he witnessed could be used as evidence to bring another criminal to justice. Shinichi entered the maze and started weaving his way through towards the back, but then paused, thinking. It seemed most likely that the burly man would be meeting someone, but would they have met in the maze? It was possible and they weren't likely to be found together if it was a meeting, but it was still a possibility that someone could stumble across them and their presumed illegal activity. But what about… outside the maze? Shinichi looked up and around at the hedges. These made up the edge of the Tropical Land park grounds and the land beyond it was inaccessible to park guests. There was no better place to have a secret meeting at an otherwise busy and well-lit location.

Shinichi didn't know where the man in black might have gone to slip through the foliage if his hunch was correct, but he found himself a section of the hedge that was thinner than the rest and ducked down to push himself through it near the bottom where there were fewer branches. As soon as he was on the other side of the hedge, he straightened up and brushed some leaves out of his hair then looked around. He'd come out right along the edge of a building, but he didn't see anything.

"Damn it, did I lose them?" he muttered under his breath after walking along the edge of the wall for a bit.

Before he could decide whether his initial theory was wrong and look for the guy in the maze or write him off as long gone, he heard the man's voice from very close by. "Sorry for the wait, Director."

Shinichi felt a thrill of vindication shoot through him as he hurried to the corner of the building and slowly peered around it. There he was! His back was to him and there was another man there. He was short, bald with a thin pencil mustache, and overweight dressed in a dark red suit. He was also holding a large metal briefcase.

"Where have you been?!" the shorter man said in a frantic, hushed voice. "I've been waiting here for two hours, and I came alone just like you requested!"

"I know; I checked from the top of the roller coaster," said the man in black.

"C-Come one, give me it to me already!" said the shorter man, still sounding desperate. Shinichi could see he was sweating, even in the darkness.

"Don't be in such a hurry," the man in black said calmly. "First, the money."

Hearing those words, Shinichi's eyes narrowed. It was a blackmail exchange of some sort. He pulled out his camera from his coat pocket and extended it out just enough from the wall to be able to take pictures without giving himself away to the two men.

"Here! There's no problem now, right?!" the shorter man said as he opened up the briefcase to reveal four rows and four columns of thick stacks of 10,000-yen bills.

Shinichi's eyes nearly bugged out of his head at the sight. That must be 100 million yen right there!

"Okay, the deal is complete," the man in black said after accepting the briefcase and closing it back up.

"Great! Now give me the film!" the shorter man demanded more urgently still.

The man in black pulled out an envelope from a jacket pocket and thrust it into the other's chest. "Here. All the negatives and prints of your firm's gun contraband. You shouldn't have been so naughty," he said in a taunting sing-song kind of tone as he started to walk away.

The bald man gritted his teeth in anger. "Shut up! Compared to the stuff you guys do, we're-!"

"-I wouldn't say anymore if I were you," the man in black said coolly.

Shinichi was so enthralled with watching the scene play out and taking photos for evidence that he didn't even hear the sound of heavy footsteps crunching grass.

It was only when he heard a deep, chilling voice speak from behind him "Your detective game ends now!" that he remembered, far too late, that there had been another man in black…

A heavy blow struck Shinichi in the back of the head, and he nearly blacked out right then and there as he stumbled forward and collapsed to the ground. His head felt like it had literally been split open, he was stunned, unable to move, and darkness hovered threateningly at the edge of his vision. He could hear words being spoken, but he was only half-comprehending the words in his brain-addled state.

"Aniki!" was the shocked exclamation from the burly man with the shades.

"Idiot. This brat followed you," was the cool reply from the other man with the long blond hair.

The one with the shades gasped. "This brat, he's that detective from earlier! Shit… should I kill him?" There was a metallic click of a gun.

"-Stop. Cops are still snooping around because of the recent fuss," the long-haired man pointed out.

"Then… what should we do?"

"Heh, let's use this…," the long-haired man suggested eagerly. "It's a new poison developed by the Organization. It's supposed to be untraceable in an autopsy: the stuff for the perfect crime, though I heard this is a prototype that's never been tested on humans before."

Shinichi felt more pain in his head as his body was dragged upright and he heard the words as if through a very long tunnel. Something was shoved into his mouth and then a vial of liquid pressed to his lips. He coughed and choked and had no choice but to swallow the liquid and the capsule along with it. Afterwards, he was dropped unceremoniously back on the ground, and he instinctively coughed some more.

"Aniki, we should hurry!"

"Ah… so long, great detective," the long-haired man said mockingly, and Shinichi distantly heard their footsteps grow fainter as they left the area.

()()()()()

The tall, long-haired man, known as Gin among certain circles, and the shorter, broader man called Vodka left the shadowy darkness of the field and stepped out into the brighter-lit parking lot at a leisurely walk. Running would call attention to themselves and considering what they'd just done, that was the very last thing they wanted. A car on its way out of the parking lot stopped in front of them and both saw that it was the bald man that Vodka had negotiated with.

"Excellent performance, Gyuumou. It went exactly as planned without a hitch," Gin said to the man who smiled faintly.

"That means a great deal coming from you, sir," he said respectfully.

Gin smirked slightly. "Vodka." As if his name itself were a cue, Vodka stepped forward and gave the briefcase full of money back to the man. "Please see to it that these fake bills are disposed of accordingly and the Organization will send you a check for all of your assistance tonight."

"Thank you very much, Gin," Gyuumou said with a deep bow of his head and then resumed his drive out of the Tropical Land parking lot.

Gin and Vodka continued their stroll through the lanes of parked cars until they finally came upon a vintage black Porsche, a 356A model made in Germany in 1956, and a car that still looked to be in excellent condition despite its advanced age. Gin moved to the driver's side and Vodka took the passenger's.

As they closed the doors and buckled up, Vodka finally voiced a concern he'd been fretting over. "Is Kudo going to be okay? You hit him in the head pretty hard."

"I didn't kill him, and the cops will find him quickly enough, so he'll get the medical attention he needs pronto," Gin said, though he technically didn't answer Vodka's question.

They left the parking lot without issue and Gin dropped Vodka off at home for the night before heading off to his own apartment. He parked his beloved car, locked the doors, and walked up the stairs to the second floor he preferred. Not on the ground floor where it would be easiest to break in, but not too high that he wouldn't be able to jump down and survive the fall if a situation called for it. He had just reached his front door when he paused and frowned. There was movement coming from the other side of the door. Someone was inside. Raising an eyebrow, he experimentally tried the doorknob, but found it locked, so he pulled out his house key and slowly undid the lock so as not to alert the trespasser inside. Then, he carefully pushed the door open, but it didn't get very far because the chain lock was keeping it from opening all the way.

With a very strong hunch of what this all meant, Gin pulled out his phone and dialed a number in his recent contact history. He then held the phone to his ear and waited. He heard the phone start to ring over the line and he also heard a phone ring from within the apartment. The line picked up and a woman's voice answered, "Yes, Gin?"

"Sherry, please let me into my own apartment," he said in a tone both amused and exasperated.

"You're here? At the door?" the woman identified as Sherry sounded surprised and Gin could now hear footsteps within the apartment.

"Where else would I be?" he said rhetorically with a bemused shake of his head as he closed the door completely and waited.

The metal chain clinked shortly after and the door swung wide open this time, revealing the young eighteen-year-old prodigy scientist of the Organization that was beaming up at him with the brilliance of the sun. And she was his girlfriend. He ended the call and shoved his phone back in his pocket before he stepped into his apartment and snatched her up into his arms, holding her tightly and kissing the top of her head. Sherry's smaller arms wrapped around him too and clung to his back as she nuzzled into his chest, humming happily to herself.

"I didn't expect to see you tonight," he said in a soft murmur.

"Of course I had to!" she protested as she pulled back to see his face. Her brow was creased slightly. "How did it go? I didn't expect you to take this long; were there any complications?"

"A minor one," Gin admitted. "Vodka and I got to the theme park and found Kudo just fine, ironically riding on the very Mystery Coaster we were planning on riding to see if we could spot him from up high…" It may have sounded stupid of them to try looking for a single otherwise unimportant teenager in a crowded theme park from a speeding roller coaster, but despite Vodka's habit of never removing his shades, he had pretty good vision in high-speed situations. "… but then there was a murder on the very coaster we were all riding, so that took some time to resolve. Don't worry, I'm fine and Kudo solved it, naturally, but that's why I'm so much later than you expected. Once we actually enacted the plan, it only took a few minutes."

Sherry glanced down and nodded slowly, her expression distant and thoughtful. "So if my drug works as it's supposed to, then Kudo should be shrunk and make his way back home. I hope the Professor's there to meet him, hold on a moment."

She broke out of his hold and fished for her phone in her pants pocket to call the retired, aged Arquillian scientist who lived next door to the Kudo household. "Hello, Dr. Agasa? This is Sherry from the Men in Black; do you have a moment to talk? … Ah, I see. I'm sorry to bother you during your dinner, but I was informed by one of my colleagues just now that Shinichi Kudo has been shrunk per the original plan to protect his life from the Raizan mob boss… Yes, the one that put a bounty on his head for exposing his unsavory, non-alien ventures. Kudo should be heading back home shortly; can you be there to meet him? … Excellent, thank you, and call or text me after you've finished installing him at the Mouris, please… Thank you, you have a good evening too."

With that, Sherry hung up the call and smiled with satisfaction to herself. "So far, so good. Everything's working out smoothly."

"All that's left to do is wait for the scientist's update. Does Akemi know you're here?" Gin asked as he finished hanging up his coat and hat and switching from his shoes to the slippers.

Sherry shook her head softly. "No, she thinks I'm still at the lab working overtime getting caught up in an exciting research project and she has to work late at her other job tonight, so she'll never know otherwise as long as I'm home before midnight."

Gin grinned wickedly and raised an eyebrow at her playfully. "Ohh? Midnight, huh? I can think of a few things I'd like to do to you before the clock strikes twelve and the spell is broken."

Sherry blushed a little and tilted her head down, but there was nothing shy or innocent about those lidded eyes or that coy smile playing across her lips. "Did you think the debriefing of Kudo's current status is the only reason I came over when I could have asked for the update via call or text? It's been so long since our last liaison, I might forget what it feels like to be loved by you."

"Oh, is that so?" Gin asked as he approached and grabbed her waist, then lifted her straight up into the air. She let out a surprised squeak and reflexively grabbed at his shoulders when she started overbalancing. Gin held her close and grinned up at her as he coaxed her legs to wrap around his waist while he started walking to the bedroom, "Then I better get started right away on reminding you what my love feels like, right Sherry?"