Trying for longer chapters...bear with me, I'm so used to plotting out and writing based on 2k-ish word chapters that the adjustment may take me a while (thus why this chapter took so long- sorry!) Working on my other stories as well. :) And Happy Holidays!
"Hi Conan-kun! Do you want to go to the police station and visit Satou-keiji after school today? We haven't seen her for a few days, right?"
Shinichi looked up from his math paper and into the smiling face of Ayumi, who'd just asked the question, the girl barely audible above the dull roar of a recessed classroom packed full of small children all playing various kinds of indoor games thanks to the rainy day outside. He nodded in reply, giving one of his well-practiced child's smiles in return as he put down the math. "Yeah, sure! You're right, we haven't visited her yet this week. We should." The Shonen Tanteidan had tried to make a point of visiting the detective regularly ever since the death of Takagi, trying to cheer Satou up and help keep her mind off of her partner's death.
Shinichi did want to help Satou-keiji cheer up and cope as best he could, but he also had a slowly growing, sneaking suspicion that there was a little more to the story surrounding Takagi Wataru's death in the line of duty than had ever been publicly released. He still couldn't quite put his finger on what was bugging him about the whole thing yet, and it was really irritating the shrunken meitantei. That same feeling was also driving Shinichi to want to poke around into the circumstances of that strange fire out on the pier a month and a half ago, and he had little doubt that Satou-keiji was far and away his best best to get information on things. As Shinichi finished up the very basic math on his sheet, he looked up to the well-used chalkboard with a thoughtful expression. After all, Satou-keiji is a very skilled detective in her own right. I'm sure that she's probably doing her own investigating into it, if for no other reason than some final closure for herself...I just hope that I can manage to find out what she's discovered so far. Then again, arranging childlike 'accidents' to get information was something that Shinichi felt he'd become at least halfway decent at.
"Well aren't you looking rather serious this morning." This was said quietly and cooly by Shiho as she walked up the aisle by him before heading to her desk to prepare for the day, Shinichi instantly picking up on the warning hidden within the greeting and nodding to her gratefully. She's right...I've gotta watch that. You'd think after almost nine months I'd be used to being careful with letting my mask drop off by now...
"Ai-chan, there you are! Good morning!" Ayumi quickly walked over to Shiho's desk to meet her friend with a smile. "Wanna go say hi to Satou-keiji with us after school today? Conan said he'll come."
Shiho thought this over for a few moments as she unloaded her backpack before offering Ayumi a nod and small smile. "I'll go as well, then."
"I'll go too!" cried Mitsuhiko, who had apparently overheard the conversation from his desk. "And I think Genta was going to bring her the new Yamen Kaiba movie so she can watch it."
"Heck, yeah!" Genta came running over with the DVD in his hand. "Oh man, it's awesome! It's his best fight yet! I bet she'll really like it!" He then began dancing around the classroom, doing an imitation of some of the fight moves used in the film. "I thought for sure he was gonna lose at least twice, but he won every fight!"
"That's 'cause he'd never lose!" cried Ayumi happily as she, too, did a few mock fighting moves. "He's awesome!"
Shinichi took advantage of the distraction to pull out a newspaper that he'd brought with him and rifle through it quickly before the sensei arrived. Of course, it's been so long now that there's hardly anything written about what happened anymore. It's old news now...but you never know. A breadcrumb trail was still a trail after all, even if it might be a little dried out and stale, and almost no group was better than newspaper pigeons at finding thier sustenance- information. There had even been a time or two before he'd shrunk that Shinichi could recall following that particular flock of birds to the truth of a case- well, following the information that they'd gathered, at any rate. He rapidly glanced through the crime section, finding nothing of interest or that seemed to be pertain to Takagi's murder. Yeah, I should have known. It's been long enough that I really doubt anyone is actively pursuing the story anymore.
Once they got off the bus after the day had ended, the kids walked the short, familiar route to the station, where they seemed to be in the middle of a shift change. They were warmly greeted by the group of officers working there as they entered, waves and smiles coming from even the most stalwart-looking faces. Shinichi's brows shot upwards as he studied the absolutely immaculately kept desk of Takagi Wataru in the corner of the room, complete with clean coffee mug and nameplate still present. That's odd...maybe they're not giving it to someone else so they can keep it as a tribute to him? He found himself wandering over to the desk with a puzzled frown, studying the space intently. Man, it's absolutely spotless right down to the spoon by the coffee mug. Shinichi rubbed his chin as he continued to study the oddly clean area. I mean, I understand keeping it clean out of respect to him, almost like a shrine, but this seems a little above even that...
"OH! There she is by the door, Conan!" Shinichi was pulled out of his thoughts thanks to a gentle, but insistent tugging from Ayumi on his sleeve. "Looks like Genta and Mitsuhiko are saying hi already! Let's go over there too!" She grinned widely before heading over to Satou, who was greeting the Tanteidan with a wide smile as she finished checking in and heading towards her desk.
"Hello, everyone! It's very good to see you!" And it really was; Satou still wasn't sure how she would have gotten through the first week, before Takagi's letter, without the Shonen Tanteidan's smiling faces and her coworker's stalwart support. "How have you all been?" She waved them over to her desk, moving some reports out of the way so that there was space on her desk.
"We got to make paper flowers, and I saved mine for you!" Ayumi eagerly held out a small, red paper flower attached to a green 'stem' made of soft green, flexible straw that they'd made in art class earlier that day.
"And I brought the new Yamen Kaiba movie for you! You'll really like it!" Genta offered Satou the DVD that he'd brought with him. "He fights five monsters in it! And he fights two at the same time once, too!"
"Thank you both so much! The flower is very pretty!" Satou placed Ayumi's flower into a small vase that she had on her desk, and she then tucked the Yamen Kaiba movie into her purse. "I promise I'll bring the movie back as soon as I'm done watching it, OK?"
While the Tanteidan were holding Satou's interest, Shinichi noticed a small lime green Post-It note on the floor. He went to pick it up to hand it back to Satou, but after he read what it said he found his curiousity piqued even more. Now isn't that interesting...
He's still on our payroll?
Of course Shinichi had absolutely no idea who the 'he' referred to was, but the possibilities were pretty interesting. 'Our' payroll was likely referring to the police department, although he couldn't be sure of that. There was one way he could try and find out, though...Cue Curious Kid Questioning Time, he thought with a barely suppressed grin. One of the benefits to being small: being able to ask nosy questions without getting in trouble most of the time.
"Satou-keiji, I think this fell from your desk!" He held the note up to her with a deliberately innocent smile. "Is there a bad man taking money from the police or something? Maybe we can help you find them!"
"Oh, no. This is, um, something I'm looking into on my own time. Thank you, Conan-kun." She smiled and took the note before sticking it into her desk a little too quickly for Shinichi's liking.
Satou-keiji, there really is something more going on here, isn't there? Shinichi was glad that everyone else was too busy talking to notice him frantically writing down a few notes in a small notepad that he kept with him. Time to do a little 'looking into' things on my own...
"I had to lose Satou-san three times coming here, you know. Do you have any idea how hard that was to do?" Chiba halfheartedly grumbled at Takagi as he stepped into Takagi's newly rented apartment with a few bags of groceries, shrugging off his green windbreaker onto a small hook on the door after getting the groceries to the small kitchen. He then scanned the small, very bare but well-kept cream-toned apartment and shook his head. "You need to get at least a futon and table or something, Tak-err Takenaka-san. This place could really use some furniture in it." They'd decided quite a while ago that even someplace where it might be safe, they wouldn't use his actual name. You never knew who could overhear, after all.
The first statement caused Takagi to give the other man a small smirk. "I used to ride surveillance with her, remember? Believe me, I know how good Satou-san is at tailing someone." Takagi laughed lightly as he began unpacking his groceries. "Thanks for doing this, by the way. I just didn't want to risk bringing cold things home on the bus from school during rush hour." He carefully packed milk and eggs into the small fridge. "And yeah, I know I need to get some furniture; sleeping in a sleeping bag is beginning to get a little old. We just have to figure out how to cash my paychecks first..."
"Ah, so you DID enroll at that school today then. I think it's a really good idea, it'll help you not stick out so much." Chiba walked over with a nod. "Do you need money for uniforms or anything in the meantime?"
"Yeah, I do- I have a week to get a uniform ordered from the school. Which is why we have to figure out how to cash my paychecks." He put away the last of the groceries and turned to Chiba. "Maybe you can use that wig go and deposit them in my account? But then it would show activity on my account and that would be a bad idea..." Takagi made a face as he drummed his fingers on the tiny cabinet he'd put his things away in, trying to come up with a good solution for the problem that wouldn't possibly risk the people that tried to kill him discovering that he was still alive.
"These guys really have you running scared, don't they?" Chiba frowned as he studied his now-teenaged friend. "I know you mentioned a bunch of them in black jackets and fedoras, right?"
Takagi nodded, eyes shut in recollection, the little he could recall flashing in front of his mind's eye. "It seemed like a uniform for them or something. They were all wearing them, actually." He then shook his head before opening his eyes and looking up at the ceiling. "They really knew what they were doing, too...we couldn't even radio for help before they knocked us both out. One second we were getting ready to move in and make our arrests, then the next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital like this." He moved his hand up and down in front of him to indicate his shrunken body. In fact, his alias had been borne out of Chiba and Megure frantically trying to come up with a pseudonym to register Takagi under at the hospital, where they'd taken him thanks to a combination of smoke inhalation and his incredibly high fever. Luckily, because they were policeman all the two had had to say was that he was in the witness protection program and under police protection for the hospital to not bat an eye at registering him without proof of identity.
"Oh yeah! I picked up your mail." Chiba walked back over to his windbreaker and pulled out the things he'd collected from the PO box. "I think I'll probably have to stop delivering your letters to her though, with the way she's tailing me now. Sorry." He then shook his head. "I understand why you started writing her, but do you really think it was a good idea?"
"Well, I sure didn't want her to keep thinking I was dead." Takagi gave Chiba a serious look. "But I guess you're right. For now, until I can think of a way to explain...well, me shrinking, I guess, I don't think it would be a good idea for her to find me. And if she's tailing you like that, she'll probably find me eventually." He offered Chiba a smile. "Thanks for helping out, but I'll figure out something else. Maybe I'll deliver them myself if you guys can tell me when she's working so I know she won't run into me."
"I still think we should let Megure-keibu know that you told Satou-san," replied Chiba as he settled into a rather uncomfortable, temporary steel chair that was about the only stick of furniture in the apartment. "Just so he doesn't keep wondering why she's keeping your desk so tidy."
"You didn't tell him yet?" Takagi gave Chiba a puzzled look before nodding. "You definitely should. I don't want thinking that he has to keep it from her." He sighed. "Besides, I'm sure that she's digging around about what happened to me anyhow, knowing her."
"OK, I will." Chiba nodded before deciding to change the subject. "So how is the school you're going to? Must be really weird to be attending high school all over again, eh?"
"It is, and I also got stuck in a class with a real prankster," sighed Takagi as he pointed to his green suit jacket, which was pockmarked with what looked like some kind of yellow paint, a particularly large splash of color being located on the right shoulder. "I learned what one of my classmates meant by always having an umbrella handy around the guy the hard way. He'd rigged up a bunch of balloons filled with paint above everyone's desks while we were at lunch."
"Sounds like an...interesting guy," replied Chiba with a laugh as he studied the pain-laden jacket. "I hope it's water-soluble paint, at least?"
"Yeah, it's supposed to be but we'll see when I go to the laundry tomorrow." Takagi shrugged as he, too, looked at the jacket. "I give him credit, though- you should have seen how elaborate the rigging was. It was a real piece of work, all across the ceiling and rigged to the teacher's chair too with some invisible fishing line."
"And he managed all that during lunch?" Chiba raised an eyebrow. "He must have worked fast then, too."
"Yeah, and he told me a story about releasing a skunk during chemistry class too." Takagi laughed lightly as he shook his head. "Well, thanks for dropping things off, but I don't want to keep you for too long. I know you have early shift tomorrow."
After Chiba said his goodbyes, Takagi really looked around his new living quarters for the first time since moving into the place a month ago. He supposed Chiba was right - it definitely needed some furniture and a few touches of life in it. Right now, it was suspiciously barren if some nosy neighbor were to peek in through the windows- and this apartment complex definitely had its fair share of those, as he'd learned after the first few days of pointed stairs and gossip when they thought he was out of earshot. I also need to get a few things to make it look like a family is living here and not just me once I get some money, Takagi added mentally as he began to go over possibilities in his mind. His parents were more than happy to help by giving him cash so that he could buy food and clothes, but he didn't want to burden them for much longer. Maybe a large jacket left laying on a couch or something...just something to give the appearance that there's someone besides me here. He continued to wander through the small apartment before deciding to take measurements for a futon first thing in the morning so that he could go shopping after school.