005. Outsides.
The bright flashes of light that assaulted his vision as soon as he opened the front door felt like they almost blinded him, but they certainly didn't surprise him. Thankfully, the flashes only lasted for a few moments as the reporters quickly realized that it was Conan Edogawa, Shinichi's only slightly famous younger cousin that was coming out and not the super sleuth himself. Though, that didn't stop them from pushing past each other in attempts to be the first one to ask him questions.
Pasting on the best little kid smile he could under the circumstances, Conan shut the front door to the Kudo mansion behind him and bravely strolled down the walk, out the gate, and faced the reporters.
"Is Kudo Shinichi still inside?"
"What, if anything, has he told you about the vast criminal syndicate take down?"
"How long has he been working on the case?"
"Do you know why he decided to work with the American FBI instead of the Japanese police force like he always did in the past?"
That last question almost made Conan frown as he fought the urge to tell the reporter who asked that question just how stupid he was. Past articles had already come out detailing how certain police officers, their higher ups, and elected officials had been cooperating with the Black Organization. And as far as he knew, the FBI, unlike the Japanese police, had always been able to root out the spies in their ranks. Still, he wasn't about to tell that to these reporters, and he had to keep up the image of an intelligent child that was in fact a child and not a teenage consciousness trapped inside the body of one.
"Oh, Shinichi-niisan still hasn't come home," Conan chirped up at them. "I just came here to grab a few books to read. Did you know Shinichi-niisan has a whole library filled with nothing but mystery books?" He spread his arms out as he said this, gesturing wildy with seemingly child-like excitement. "And he told me that I could come borrow them whenever I wanted to as long as I returned them. See, I wanna be a detective when I grow up, just like him!"
After he was done talking, the reporters visibly deflated. As he pasted an expression of innocent confusion on his face, they thanked him for his comment, and the crowd dispersed quickly, meaning the shrunken detective could walk home in relative peace.