Chapter Seven

Hello! Now, the first few paragraphs were written when I was still on vacation in San Diego (it was great but I wasn't able to go to AX; unfortunately it started on my last day there and I didn't realize it was going on until the day was done! Little Tokyo was great tho TAT) and the latter paragraphs were written after I had gotten back. Regarding the reason why this chapter took so long to come out, it was because about halfway through writing it, I realized that I didn't like how it was coming out, and began writing it over and over again (all while in San Diego). It took me until the last day of my trip before I finally managed to like how it was coming and began successfully writing it.

It's only in love and in murder that we still remain sincere.

-FRIEDRICH DÜRRENMATT, Incident at Twilight

"I need more evidence..." Ruri mumbled to herself.

Hakuba, who was standing next to her, raised an eyebrow.

Blood on the bathroom wall. No sign of a struggle there. The testimonies from Yoichi's friends. Sweating, confusion, and trembling hands they all said. After he came from the bathroom. Those were all the clues that they had.

Am I missing something? she thought to herself.

"When did you notice something was off?" Ruri asked.

Atsushi's brow furrowed a bit.

"Around...the time when he came back from the bathroom."

"Did anything happen in the bathroom?" Hakuba asked, cutting into the conversation.

"Well...I went in the bathroom to...y'know, and heard a few groans from one of the stalls."

"Groans?"

"Un. I don't think there was anyone else inside, so it must've been him." Atsushi began to sweat nervously and tugged a bit on his hair.

Why is he exhibiting signs of someone lying?" Ruri fiddled with the hem of the shirt she was wearing, a thing she did when she began to think really hard even when she was still Janet.

If he's lying then he's bound to slip up somewhere.

"So why were you here today?" Ruri looked directly into Atsushi's eyes and even though the question had already been answered, Ruri wanted to hear it again.

"W-Well, exams had just ended and we wanted to just, y'know, party."

He avoided the eye contact.

"But why at the mall? There are no bars here," Ruri prodded a little more.

"Yo-chin didn't want to get wasted since he said he had to work tomorrow so we compromised and came here."

Ruri looked at Hakuba who was busy scribbling in his little notebook.

"Ano, onee-chan?"

A voice startled Ruri out of her thoughts and she looked down to see a familiar little boy with dark hair and enormous glasses.

Before she even realized what she had done, Ruri was several paces away from the boy and on her bottom.

"Ah-Ah-" she managed, pointing in the offender's direction.

"Onee-chan?" Conan's face was creased with childish worry.

"Ruri-chan?"

Looking up, Ruri came face to face with Aoko.

"What's wrong?"

Her friend was looking at her with surprise.

"I-uh, nothing, Aoko-san," Ruri jumped to her feet and gave a quick smile.

"Conan-kun!"

Ruri turned to see Ran pushing through the crowd to get to her small charge.

As she approached the two girls however, Ran's visible worry slowly turned into shock.

"Conan-kun! What were you doing?!" she demanded, making Conan flinch away.

'Ano, he didn't do anything..." Ruri offered.

She knew full well what Shinichi's childhood friend was capable of.

Ran turned to Ruri and to Ruri's shock, bowed low.

"I am so SO sorry!"

"Um, it's alright...er..." Ruri paused deliberately to give the effect that she didn't know who she was speaking to.

"Mouri Ran. A pleasure to meet you," Ran rose to her full height (which was irkingly much taller than Ruri) and gave a sincere smile.

"Ah! You're Sleeping Kogorou's daughter!" Ruri feigned a look of shocked recognition.

"Oh! You know Otou-san?" Ran looked decidedly shocked.

"Do I! I've read all about all of his cases!" Ruri decided she would go with the "fangirl" approach.

"Oh! That's right!" Ruri remembered that Conan had wanted to talk to her.

She crouched down so that she was eye-level with the shrunken teen detective.

"Did you need something?" Ruri asked politely.

"I just wanted to tell you that I saw that onii-chan in the bathroom!"

Eh?

"R-Really?" Ruri was shocked.

"Un! He was holding something in his hand and it looked like a pen!"

"A pen...?"

She pulled the insulin pen (already bagged) out of her pocket and showed it to the boy.

"Did it look like this?"

Conan looked at the pen and then said, "Yes."

So...the main suspect is Atsushi-san?

"Also, that dead onii-chan wasn't in a stall!"

"Eh?"

"He was fighting with the other onii-chan!"

"Fighting?"

"Un."

"Do you know what about?"

"A girl!"

A girl? One of the women who were with them?

"Did you catch a name?" Ruri was finally feeling like everything was coming together. All of the pieces were aligning.

"Kiku, I think," Conan told her.

"Tell me everything you heard," Ruri told him.

"Eh?! You know who the killer is?!" Megure-keibu eyes practically bulged.

"Hai." Ruri glanced over at Conan who was looking very much like his older self.

"But first, I have to tell you what really happened in that bathroom."

Yoshinari Atsushi shoved his friend, Kinoshita Yoichi, into the wall of the bathroom where Yoichi hit his head and left a small bloody streak.

"Why does she only talk about YOU?!" Atsushi yelled, thrusting his left hand down and jamming the pen's point into Yoichi's right thigh.

Yoichi didn't say a word. He simply gazed sadly at his once most trusted friend.

"Don't look at me like that..." Atsushi mumbled.

"You. You were the one that asked for all this. You were the one who did this to me. You're the reason why I'm never good enough!"

Atsushi screamed at him, Yoichi never flinching.

"You were always so perfect. Perfect grades. Perfect life. Perfect everything!"

Yoichi didn't waver, continuing to look sadly at his friend.

"Everything was great. Until Kiku went for you! The one thing that I wanted! Even that! Even that you took!"

Atsushi pushed the plunger at the top of pen and injected the insulin.

"Even after you two broke up. Even after I consoled her. Kiku still talked about you. Admired you. It was all she ever did."

His eyes began to water.

"Even after I confessed, it was still all about you. Even after you began dating Minami-chan, she still wouldn't give up."

He pulled the pen out.

Atsushi slowly began walking away. As he was turning the handle to the bathroom door, a soft "I'm sorry" went unheard by the young man and he was gone.

"What about the pen? How did he get that?" Megure-keibu asked the teen girl.

Hakuba looked to Ruri.

"He stole the insulin pen from Minami-san when all four were in the restaurant. According to her, she noticed it was missing after Yoichi-san's death and the last time she had checked for it, and still had it, was right after she came from the restroom, and before Atsushi reportedly flirted with her. The only person who was ever close enough to steal the pen, besides Yoichi-san, was Atsushi-san."

"You..." Kiku looked at Atsushi in horror.

"You killed him...YOU KILLED YOICHI!"

"I did it for you!" Atsushi said, trying to smile.

He stepped towards the young woman.

"NO!" she screamed. "DON'T COME NEAR ME YOU MURDERER!"

"Kiku...chan?" the young man looked shocked.

"Arrest him," Megure-keibu told his officers. A confession was all he needed .

As his hands were pulled behind his back and handcuffed together, Atsushi looked at his love.

"I did it for us..."

A shadowed figure watched from above as the man known as Yoshinari Atsushi was taken away in handcuffs.

"It seems we have another detective brat to watch," the figure hissed into a cell phone.

I wasn't expecting Conan to show up... it must be why there was a murder. But why would he come to me? Hakuba has met him before so why wouldn't he go to someone he already knew?

"Ruri-chan!"

"Hai?" Ruri was shaken out of her thoughts.

"I'm sorry today had to be ruined by all that!" Aoko had clapped her hands together in an attempt at forgiveness.

"It's quite alright, Aoko-san," Ruri smiled. "I'm just glad we managed to catch him."

"That's true. You did quite well for someone who's never done detective work, Ruri-san," Hakuba gave Ruri a smile.

"Geez, it sounds like I missed a lot!" Kaito shook his head.

"It's not our fault you ate something bad and had to stay in the bathroom for the entire day!" Aoko frowned.

I doubt he was even in the bathroom... Ruri thought, watching as Kaito and Aoko began to bicker.

Boop. Conan has made his debut! I actually didn't intend to put him in until much later but...well...somehow it turned out like this. I'm also really sorry and there are probably a lot of inconsistencies and things that don't add up, so if anyone spots anything, I will fix them as quickly as possible! Next time, Ruri will go to her first Kaitou KID heist! This isn't my best work by a long shot, but I hope it's still ok!

THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO READS THIS AND DFTBA YOU WONDERFUL, LOVELY HUMAN BEINGS, YOU!

(Also thank you JarayZ for spotting an inconsistency!)