I'm keeping up with the schedule again! =3

I'm sorry if some chapters seem a little boring, but they're essential! The exciting things always come after the boring things, ne?

Review Replies!

Nataeiy1- Thanks, I was working really hard on getting the moment to be not too abnormal. Looks like I did it!

The Shang Kudarung- Now that you mention it…Kaitou KID's and Tuxedo Kamen's uniforms area complete mirror of each other! Not counting the monocle and the mask, that is. XD

Yolapeoples- Whew, that's good to hear. Love your Bumper Stickers story, BTW!

Shinigami- …that's…a long review. XD I can't reveal anything, though. It'll spoil the surprise.

Katiesparks- Demo, Katie-chan, I just don't have the talent that you have! You can capture the characters soooo well! Especially in Snapshots! *nods*

Miyanoai- …is your review unfinished? I'm just going to guess that that line made you laugh. =D

Ziraulo- Yes! Vaccinate all of them before the cold plagues your place!

YoshimiKurosaki- I…don't really have anything to say to that. XD Thanks for reading!

Vixeriffic- Actually, that's the only time he'll ever be meeting Miwako before he became a keiji. I think I said too much. XD As for the Yuusaku thing…well…Yuusaku was staring at his manuscripts when opening the door to the study so his didn't notice! See, completely explainable! XD

Midori: I'm back, minna-san! Thanks to Ruth-sama's care and The Shang Kudarung's coffee and hug (and some horribly handmade get-well cards from Tessa-san)…

Tessa: Hey, I tried!

Midori: …anyways, I'm all better now! We do not own Detective Conan!

Me: See? Midori-chan's back! Oh, and Kudarung-san, don't call Tessa with any honorifics. The only one who's qualified enough to do that is Midori-chan… (Even I can't do that…and I'm her creator…)

Chapter 7

There were more people in the store this time. Maybe because it's Friday.Wataru thought as he noted the unusual amount of people in here. Most of the people were in the Desk Area (which is in the inner part of the store), reading whatever books they had found. Shinichi and Wataru walked straight into the Book Area.

"This is the shelf you found the mouse, ne?" Shinichi said as they stopped at the top left corner.

"Hai." Wataru said as he unconsciously let his feet take him to the spot where the mouse was found.

"And that, is the shelf I knocked over yesterday." Wataru said as he pointed towards the said shelf. He and Shinichi both looked that way, and Shinichi frowned.

"This isn't enough. We don't even know where to start looking!" Shinichi cried as he put a hand to his forehead, trying to think. "There has to be a pattern in this somehow, but what?"

As the boys stood there, trying to think this out again, a voice cut into their train of thoughts.

"Ah, Shinichi-kun," It said. They both turned their heads to look at the source of it. It was Nikiyo. "Wataru-kun, too? You two seem to be hanging around a lot."

"Wataru-senpai is going to spend a night at my house tonight." Shinichi replied. "Oh really? Hope you have a good time there, boya." Nikiyo said as he ruffled the older boy's hair, then he leaned into his ear, "Just between you and me, never stay in the kitchen alone with Yuusaku-sensei, he might blow you up."

"B-blow me up?" Wataru stammered. Nikiyo just shrugged, "Or himself up. It depends on what he's trying to cook."

Ah, so that's why Shinichi said "usually buys dinner".

"So, why did you come today? I don't see Yuusaku-sensei around." Nikiyo asked them. "Wataru-senpai and I are looking for something." Shinichi said. Then he stared at the books in the bookshelf, his eyes widening as if he had realized something. Wataru and Nikiyo both looked quizzically at his expression when Shinichi suddenly turned to Nikiyo, "Ne, Nikiyo-san, how are the books arranged?"

Nikiyo, a little taken back by his urgent tone, thought for a moment, "Well, they're arranged by hiragana, of course. This shelf you're standing at starts with 'a'. And that one…" Nikiyo pointed to one Wataru had knocked over the day before, "…starts with 'ga'."

Shinichi had already whipped out the notepad and flipped to the page of the diagram, writing down the hiragana to the shelves that were mentioned. "Arigatou, Nikiyo-san. This is a really big help to us!"

"This is?" Wataru, feeling completely out of the loop, asked. What does the arrangement of the books have to do with this?

"We're going to the desk area to do some researching, ja ne!" Shinichi said as he grabbed Wataru by his wrist and led him to the desk area.

"Ano, Shinichi-kun? What was that all about?" Wataru asked after they settled down at one of the desks. Shinichi just shot him another question without answering Wataru's, "Ne, Wataru-senpai, count to ten, will you?"

"To ten? Doushite?"

"Just do it!"

"Okay…ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku, nana, hachi, kyu, ju." Shinichi wrote them down it hiragana as he counted. Then he looked at the diagram again. A smile of victory appeared on his face. "Souka! Wagata zou!"

"What did you get?"

"Mitte!" Shinichi said excitedly as he pointed to the hiragana of the numbers. "The mouse is the first one, right?" Wataru nodded. "And 'ichi', when written in hiragana, starts with 'i'. Now, the shelf that you found the mouse in…" he pointed to the said shelf in the diagram, "…has books with titles beginning from 'a' and ending at 'o'!"

Realization dawned Wataru. "Souka…and the dragon's 'go' starts with 'go'…and it's found in the bookshelf that begins with 'ga'!"

"Exactly!" Shinichi was grinning (or smirking, whichever you prefer) from ear to ear. "So, according to this, 'ni' and 'nana' should be in the shelves that begin with 'na', 'san' should be in the 'sa' shelf…"

"…'yon' should be in the 'ya' shelf, and so on and so forth, ne, Shinichi-kun?"

"Un!" Shinichi nodded. "Let's go find which hiragana the other bookshelves start with!"

DCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDC

For the next few minutes, Shinichi and Wataru had looked through all of the book shelves.

"So, going from left to right on the last row with the five vertical shelves, it's arranged like this: 'a', 'sa', 'za', 'ta', and 'da'. The second row with the four vertical shelves with the show case in the middle, it's 'ka', 'ga', 'na', and 'ha'.

"The two longer horizontal shelves contain two sets each, one with 'ba' and 'pa', while the other with 'ma' and 'ya'. As for the four smaller horizontal shelves, one can only contain three hiraganas. The one that's on the most left has 'ra', 'ri', and 'ru'. The next one has 'ru', 're', and 'wa'.

"The ones that are to the right of the opening contain only English books. So I guess we can rule out those two, right?" Wataru asked when he finished analyzing what they had sorted out. Shinichi nodded. "Let's look for them in the left half of the store today."

The left half of the store had the shelves that began with "a", "sa", "ka", "ga", "ba", "ra", and "re", but that doesn't matter. If their deduction was correct, they would only need to look in the "sa" shelf, "ka" shelf, and "re" shelf. As for the "za" shelf that's kind of in the middle, Shinichi had decided that they'll look in that shelf today, too.

Wataru had just found the third statue, the tiger. He triumphantly held up the statue and smiled. One down, nine to go.Wataru stood up and turned to go to the "ka" shelf. The ninth one, the monkey, should be there.

That's when he felt it. It almost made him drop the jade tiger he was holding.

The phrase "feel one's eyes on you" became all too literal when it came to Wataru. He had always been able to feel another person's gaze on him. And what's more, he can tell what kind of gaze it is. It's something like a sixth sense he had developed since kindergarten.

He thought he had felt them all. Glares, proud ones, loving ones, envious ones, curious ones, fascinated ones, all of them.

But never before had he felt one so threatening and dangerous.

The look itself was bad enough to send a chill down Wataru's spine, but the feeling it was coated with chilled him to the very core.

He fought the urge to look around and crouched down behind the shelves. As long as the person couldn't see him, the feeling will vanish on its own.

As he looked for the monkey statue, he could help but think of the feeling. Why would anyone have those kinds of feeling towards me? What did I do wrong?

He was reluctant to stand up when he found the monkey statue. So he half crawled to where Shinichi was. "Shinichi-kun!"

Shinichi only had one statue with him. It was the snake. He pouted a little when he saw Wataru, "Hey, no fair, you've found more than I do!"

"Shi-Shinichi-kun…I've got a bad feeling about this…" Wataru said nervously. Shinichi looked at him weirdly, "Oi, we still have seven more to find! Don't back out now." He walked over to the "za" shelf. Wataru stood up to follow him, but he immediately regretted it.

The feeling's still there!

It was so intent that Wataru was sure a normal person could have felt it, too. "Ne, Shinichi-kun…don't you feel anything?"

"No. Why?"

"Ia, betsuni." Wataru thought quickly. Why can't Shinichi-kun feel it?! Only a real slow person wouldn't be able to feel that, and Shinichi-kun certainly isn't slow…so that means… the person couldn't see Shinichi-kun!

Wataru immediately shook his head.But that's impossible! The shelves are only a bit higher than Shinichi-kun; any normal adult would have been able to spot him immediately when he's standing up, like right now. Unless the person is really short, or…

His eyes widened with realization. … Or he's sitting down! He quickly glanced over to the Desk Area, looking for the pair of eyes that are focused on him. But, as he had expected, the feeling evaporated as soon as he looked at the Desk Area's direction.

Kuso…There's too many people there. I can't pinpoint the gaze! He clenched his fists. Itai…dare ka?

"Wataru-senpai!" Shinichi shouted, "C'mon! I've already found the rooster!" Wataru shook himself out of it and went to help Shinichi.

But the feeling was there whenever he stood up.

Five minutes later, they uncovered the eleventh and twelfth statues, the dog and the pig.

"Well, that's it for today!" Shinichi said happily as he looked at the six statues they had uncovered today. "Ah, it's already seven! Let's go back, Wataru-sen…" Shinichi trailed off when he saw that Wataru wasn't listening to him at all. The older boy was looking uneasily at the Desk Area.

"Wataru-senpai?" Shinichi tugged at Wataru's hand. Wataru seemed to snap out of it as he suddenly bobbed and turned his head to look at Shinichi. "We need to go home now!" Shinichi tried again.

"Oh, right..." Wataru responded, but he turned his head to the Desk Area again, this time gaining Shinichi's interest. "Is there something there?"

"No…not really…" Wataru replied, and then he grabbed Shinichi's hand. "Here, do something for me, will you?"

"Eh?"

"Here." He led the younger boy to the counter, where the Desk Area wasn't blocked by the shelves. Then he faced the Desk Area while having Shinichi face himself. "Stand here." Wataru could still feel the gaze. As long as the person doesn't look away, then maybe…

He almost sighed with relief when Shinichi's expression changed. The future meitantei had quickly whipped his head around towards the Desk Area. He…he felt it, too. Whew, that means the person, whoever it is, isn't just glaring at me. He's glaring at us.

Demo…naze da?

To be continued…

Ah…I'm sorry if Shinichi seemed a little oblivious in this chapter! If you have to, blame his shortness as a seven-year-old. XD

I think my hits counter in my profile page is broken…I mean, there were nine reviews, but only five hits to chapter 6…How is that even possible?!

Oh, and BTW, if there is any point that you don't understand, you can always complain. They're not counted as flames! =D

Reviews please!

~ruth~

Next up: Six down, four to go. Shinichi and Wataru discover something shocking as they continue to dig into this mess. And who is the mysterious person that's glaring at them, anyways?