Chapter 16 Symbol

"Ayumi, can you see something moving?" Genta whispered to the girl besides him, obviously no longer able to keep quiet and frankly, Ran couldn't blame him. It was just not normal for children to simply sit still, especially not if nothing happened and nobody knew for what they were waiting exactly. In the last 10 minutes Ran was always expecting to see a glimpse of white followed by the appearance of the mysterious phantom thief, but nothing alike happened.

"Shhhh", Ayumi hissed back trying to seem patient, but Ran had noticed how her feet started to twitch since the 5th minute. And even Mitsuhiko had started to play with the corner of his jacket, only Conan and Ai sat in silence, not moving a muscle. Almost she spoke up, demanding to know what they were waiting for, when a faint rustling of leaves and twigs could be heard.

Immediately everybody was ceasing every other activity besides listening and, with growing tension one could hear how the noise came closer.

A smirk broke out on Conan's face, confirming everybody's suspicion that this was what they were waiting for.

Eight pairs of eyes were starring intensively at the slightly open window, no body daring to blink, fearing to miss something.

The noise now started to stutter, as if the person who caused it became aware of how close they were to their target location and halted from time to time, listening for any unusual sounds.

Now they could even see how branches in the distance moved, but despite the rather short gap, between them and their visitor, the sounds were oddly silent, but that just underlined the skills and expertise of Kaito Kid.

Suddenly every indication of the approaching guest vanished, leaving behind only the natural noises one would expect in a forest, consisting of bird chattering and the whistling of the wind.

Everybody was now like petrified, holding their breaths, waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting

And then suddenly a small something plunged through the window gap, lading on the stack of clothes and before somebody could move a finger, Conan flung himself forward, a huge sieve clutched in both hands, and slammed it on top of the piles of clothes, trapping the newly arrived guest in it.

All eyes stared at Conan as he shifted his body to the side, allowing them to see the prisoner, and proclaimed, "This is our thief."

Ran could feel her jaw drop and judging from the amused look on Conan's face, hers wasn't the only one. Inside the makeshift cage, a small ball of fluffy, brownish grey fur dashed around, trying desperately to find a hole to escape.

"A SQUIRREL!?", Ran, Hakase, Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta shouted in union, startling the poor creature even more and even Haibara had a dumbfound expression on her face.

"You don't have to yell that much", Conan scolded them," or the squirrel will die of a heart attack."

"But… but… A SQUIRREL?! How? I mean… how did you?" Mitsuhiko was the first to find his voice again, asking the question everybody tried to answer.

"When you have eliminated the impossible," Conan started his usual quote" whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." But when only confused faces stared back at him, he started to elaborate over the case, "My researches have proven with no doubt that nobody present could have committed the crime, either because of physical incapacity or lack of time. This meant that obviously an outsider would have to be the culprit." he then continued, gently patting the head of the squirrel which he carefully took out of the cage, still securing a steady grip on the hide of his neck, "However, there isn't any other house in the next few kilometres and the probability of a hiker being the culprit was minuscule. Besides, committing the crime would require a person to sneak behind the house, have the strength to lift themselves up to the window while taking care of the branches in some way and seeing where Ayumi hide the chocolate or stumbling over it by accident.

After all this, it would still not explain what the person was doing behind our house and why they decided to only steal the chocolate and not even touch the luggage that was still standing in the room. If we put all of this together, we learn that our culprit only cared for the food, while he was nimble enough to make the required stunt, so it had to be an animal and because birds would have a hard time getting past the branches, I suspected it was some kind of small mammal." Concluding his narration, Conan looked at the stunned faces of his friends, smiling over their bewildered expressions.

"Couldn't you've told us this WITHOUT making us wait of 15 minutes in absolute silence.", Genta then roared, visibly upset, but Conan only retorted, "I didn't have enough prove so I had to catch our little culprit" while helping the little thief to climb up on a branch and watching as it dashed away.

"Come on guys" Genta said, still mad at Conan" let's play something fun instead of a waiting game.", and Ayumi and Mitsuhiko were quick to agree, dragging Ai and Hakase along to partake in the game too, leaving Ran and Conan behind,

Still slightly amazed over the solution, Ran just watch as her little brother looked after his friends, looking like a father who let his children go, proud and a little sad at the same time. It quite suited him and Ran recognised again what an important role he played for his friends, behaving more like an older brother than a normal friend. She couldn't help but feel a warmth spread in her chest, fuelled by the feeling of pride for Conan, but it wasn't the pride a sister would feel, but rather the pride a wife would feel for her husband. A month ago, the thought would have sent her in a state of embarrassment and denial, followed by nervous breakdown, but now she couldn't help but feel happy. Slowly approaching the grade schooler, who has turned once again to look out of the window, from behind, she spread her arms and hugged him, resting her chin on his shoulder.

"Hey, Conan-kun" she started, "shouldn't you feel disappointed over how dull the case was?" she asked him, faint curiosity tainting her voice.

"I guess, I should," the little boy in her arms admitted, sounding a lot older than he looked, "but you know, right now I'm just glad that it wasn't something serious." , he continued. His answer surprised Ran who hadn't expected that and like he sensed her confusion, Conan started to explain, "I have seen, death, despair and betrayal that often that I am just grateful for such low stakes, not feeling obliged to solve the case right, not feeling the doubt of whether I caught the right culprit or not and not seeing what hurt and dread the solution causes." The little boy in her arms chuckled slightly, "Of course, a detective should eliminate confusion, allow his client and fans to see the truth and be a symbol of truth, but unlike in fiction, the closing of a case is not the happy end. Humans live on, fight against all the negativity of losing something and even though they know the truth, this doesn't bring back what is gone. A symbol is only a façade after all, built to spend comfort to everybody who doesn't question, but it's not a solution. At some point, every symbol will fall and what was locked away will only hit harder, than it ever could before", the small boy ended.

The eanesty and dread in his voice startled Ran, how could a boy with the tender age of seven have such sophisticated and painful thoughts over reality and the human being? And even though she knew that the small boy would rather carry those burdens, than ignore the truth, she couldn't help but want to lift this weight of his shoulders. Pulling him closer to her, she tightened her hug, spending as much comfort to Conan as she could… and he accepted it wholeheartedly.


As always all right go to Gosho Aoyama, the original creator of the Detective Conan Universe.

Questions and review are highly requested and if you want to know how the story continues leave a follow.

No Kaito Kid this time, but it was a lot of fun to write the mystery in a way that implied his involvement. Let me know what you thought of the small case overall.

I hope you liked it so far and are thrilled for more.

Farewell