File Forty-Five: A Mother's Regret

When Conan arrived school that morning, he deeply regretted his actions last night.

The reason was right in front of him. Gazes, belonging to every single student, were instantly fix into his form the moment he crossed the doorway of his classroom. Everything had stopped, movement had ceased and silence settled in the moment he took a step inside.

He did his best to ignore the unwanted attention as he made his way to his desk. Which was quite difficult when even his friends were gaping at him, except for Haibara. She was content with just give him a teasing smirk, which wasn't particularly better, but he guessed he would take it.

Kobayashi entered the room not long thereafter. Her reaction when she saw him there wasn't any different than that of her students ─ sans, again, Haibara Ai, of course.

It didn't take a genius to know that all this was because he had made an appearance in the first page of many newspapers ─ angering Jirokichi to beyond belief in the process.

The media had dubbed him as The KID Killer.

And Conan really, really wanted to get back home as soon as possible.

Sighing tiredly to himself, the boy slid his hand inside his school backpack, with all the intention to take out the books he needed for the day. He froze however when his fingers brushed against something completely different.

"Conan-kun?" he didn't hear Ayumi's voice questioning from the seat behind him. "Is something wrong?"

He pulled it out. It was the leather wallet that had Ran's note on it.

And he finally realized it.

Oxhide... Leather!

Completely unaware of the shocked gasps heard in the entire roof, Conan pulled the wallet apart.

He couldn't believe his eyes. Yet, they were there. Words.

Definitely a hidden message, written in English:

"Dear Yusaku Kudo:

?

─ No.1412"

Suddenly he was reminded about something his mother had told him. That it was Yusaku the one that had read the number 1412 as 'KID' by accident, giving the notorious thief such an eccentric name.

"Edogawa-kun?" his teacher's voice brought him back to reality.

When his head raised up, and noticed every single person in the room, including the teacher, staring into his soul, Conan managed a weak, and not convincing at all, smile.

Loads of question followed after that.

Immediately, Conan regretted his actions, again.

If there was something Conan's life had been plagued of ─ besides, obviously, murders and other forms of crime ─ was people that set such a terrible example that it was actually beneficial for the kid. Because thanks to them Conan had learnt, at such a short age, who he definitely should not become in the future.

And Mouri Kogoro was the perfect role model for that.

That was the reason he didn't find it surprising when the child found out the drunken detective had managed eight million yen. Apparently, he had been promised ten million yen for a case he hadn't even solved yet.

Luckily ─ or not, considering he was now stuck inside home, tied tightly against the couch where he had passed out due to alcohol ─ Eri had decided to take matters into her own hands. Even if she fervently claimed that she was doing this for Ran's sake and only.

For all that, he was there right now, simply staring at the woman that had hired Mouri. She was young ─ unlike her husband, who had been targeted ─ and very, very loud. There was a permanent grin plastered on her face, which didn't make her look too concerned about her husband's possible death.

The wife ─ Fujieda Motoka ─ eagerly led them towards the study, where she kept the evidence she had found under her Motoka's pillow. There was a bag, with two different notes that read 'Take it easy' and 'Watch your back', together with a single bullet, making the message perfectly clear.

A knock on the door brought everyone's attention. "Madame," the butler called. "A young lady wants to see you."

"Huh? What kind of person?"

"That is, a beauty as pretty as the lawyer."

Having convinced herself that this woman was, whatever the reason, his husband's mistress, she had rushed to meet that person. Why she was so sure he was cheating on her, Conan really didn't know, and didn't want to know either.

"You thieving cat!" Motoka's shouting resounded through the entire mansion and their ears as if she was actually there with them and not downstairs. "What did you come here for? Get out!"

Partly curious about what was going on ─ but mostly hoping that this, somehow, didn't turn into yet another murder case ─ Conan quickly left the room. Ran and her mother followed not long thereafter.

"Didn't I say that you're mistaken?" a very familiar voice resounded on his ears.

By the time he recognized it, he had already turned around the corner. Eyes wide as two plates, and mouth threatening to drop into the floor, Conan simply stood there, blankly staring the woman he knew extremely well.

Before he started walking backwards, without making a sound. Then, just as he got out of sight, he felt his back bumping into something.

Legs.

"Conan-kun?" he spun around instantly, just to see Ran standing there, beside Eri, blinking confused eyes at him. "What's wrong with-?"

"Hide me."

"Eh?"

Conan's mouth opened to speak.

"Co-chan~!" he couldn't help the groan that escaped from his lips at the feeling of two arms enveloping him and the floor leaving his feet. "I missed you so much!"

"Mom..." the child growled under his breath.

"Oh, look at you! You've gotten so big!"

"Mom, I'm pretty sure I need oxygen to live..."

"You've gotten heavier, too..."

"... Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Don't worry, Co-chan! You're as cute as ever!"

"That's definitely not a compliment."

Ran's lips twitched upwards, almost feeling bad for the child getting glomped by his mother, struggling to recover his oh-so-precious freedom. Once realizing there was no way out, he went limp on her arms, a defeated look on his face, letting his mother cuddle with him.

Blue pleading eyes met with hers. Ran simply let out a nervous laugh.

Then pointedly ignored the look, which clearly screamed 'betrayal', that he sent her way.

"Yukiko?" her mother gasped, after taking a moment to let the events sink in her head.

Yukiko stopped.

"Eri?"

Conan and Ran blinked at their mothers.

None of them dared to say anything, even as Yukiko seemed to return Conan to the safety of the ground. They both simply stared, confusedly, as the two women looked at each other, identical smirks crossing their faces. Honestly, Conan feared for the worse.

At least, until they clasped hands, grinning to each other.

"Yuki-chan, long time no see!"

"Yeah, how are you?"

Conan was confused, and couldn't stop gaping at the sight of the two women chattering with each other, like two friends that hadn't seen each other for a long, long time. Which turned to be true, according to Ran, since they had gone to the same high school.

"Nevermind that," Conan raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing here?"

"I was asked to come here by Yusaku," the woman explained.

His eyes narrowed a bit. "Were you?"

Yukiko didn't reply to that.

"The only evidence there is are these three items," Kisaki observed. "It'll be a miracle to figure out who the criminal is with this."

"But," this time, the child almost didn't react when the woman kneeled down next to him, trapped him within her arms, and started rubbing her face against his cheek. "With Co-chan here, that miracle may just happen!"

Conan couldn't, for the life of him, figure out his mother's intentions.

Not that he had ever been able to, but something told him that the real reason she was here, in Japan, wasn't Yusaku. Well, it could have been the excuse she had to come visit, but he couldn't help but feel there was something else.

That woman had always been unpredictable like that.

"Eh?" Eri was curious. "Is that true?"

"Well, Conan-kun is very smart," a smiling Ran explained to her mother. "He sometimes points stuff out that seems to be irrelevant, but they turn out to be quite useful for the investigation."

"Yeah!" Yukiko smiled, widely. "That's how incredible my son is!"

"I'm actually surprised you're so happy about this, considering you've always wanted me to be interested in acting, or something like that," with a plain tone, Conan pointed out.

The woman's grip on her son loosened a little. "I wouldn't be able to call myself a proper mother if I didn't embrace each and every single one of my child's strength and ambitions..."

"It's a wonder how you still consider yourself a proper mother."

Her eyebrow twitched. "It's probably for the best," she pinched the little one's nose, quite painfully so. "With such an ugly frown and that nasty attitude, I don't see how you could've succeeded."

Didn't you just say I was cute, anyway?

"Stop that, you're making me sad."

Every single female in the group gave Conan, who scowled while rubbing his sore nose, a confused look, completely taken away by the fact that this child could get emotionally hurt for such a comment.

"Because if that's true, that means I'm actually not adopted, am I?"

This lead Ran and Eri to sigh, watching as the child yelped in pain again when his mother started to pull his cheeks, in anger.

Eventually, the woman let go of him in order to pay attention to the rest of the case, simply following after the butler, who was leading all of them to the security room. Silently, Conan trailed behind his mother, walking beside Ran, watching as the woman talked, giggled about something with Eri.

Conan was aware. Conan was well aware that he would never, ever be able to understand such an eccentric personality as his mother's. That was a fact.

But he was observant.

At least observant enough to small little somethings, such as the tension on her shoulders or the shadow behind her eyes, that slipped through the mask of such professional actress like she was.

Predictably so, Fujieda Mikio had been killed.

By itself, the case hadn't been the most complex one Conan had seen on his life, but at first he didn't seem to see what he was doing there ─ Eri and Yukiko were doing most of the work.

One hint from Yusaku ─ relied by his wife ─ later and the case was solved and shut. The killer had been the butler, who simply wanted to protect the garden the late madam had treasured so much. The victim had wanted, after all, to demolish the house, and the butler couldn't take it.

Even so, Conan had been forced to see the Night Baroness, aided by Eri, showing off and taking all the credit, even if it had been her son who had, reluctantly, told her his deductions.

It was very late when they got back home. His actual, real home at Beika Town, District 2, Block 21.

"Hey," the child sighed, feeling very much annoyed as he let himself be carried, against his will, inside the house. "You better not be thinking of kidnapping me or something."

His mother had asked Ran to keep him with her for a couple of days, and the teen had accepted ─ after Conan had actually whined about that, to which Ran had replied with an angry 'Conan-kun, that's your mother!', to which he couldn't really argue.

"Come on, Co-chan, why do you think I would be able to do something like that?" she pointedly ignored the dirty look her child directed her way. "I was being honest when I said that Yusaku sent me here."

Conan's annoyed posture dissipated when Yukiko placed him back on the ground. His curious eyes watched her shuffle through her several bags in the living room - he figured she might have left them there right after arriving to Japan.

"Let me see... I bought a few things earlier today. I should be able to fix us something to eat..."

"Mom?"

"Yeah?" she didn't look away from her bags as she shuffled through them.

"Are you okay?"

Her movements came into a halt the moment those words reached her ears.

The constant ticking of a clock pertentrated the entire. Mother and son just looked at each other, still as the silent night, unwilling to break the quietness that had settled in with just a single, simple question.

The ticking didn't stop.

Yukiko then moved, shifting slightly on her feet as she watched his son. Searching blue eyes were piercing through her soul, trying to unravel the secrets that her heart contained. Worried, even if the child would never admit it.

That made her smile instead.

The mother closed the distance between them. For once, the young boy didn't even try to move, even as she kneeled down right in front of him.

"Despite it all, you really never change, do you?" her smile faltered slightly. "You have always been such a perceptive little boy."

Frowning a bit, Conan decided to speak. "What happened?"

Yukiko hesitated, her conflicted eyes watching her youngest son for a few moments until she let out a sigh.

"Shinichi called the other day."

At first sight, Conan didn't seem to react. If anyone had paid attention enough, however, they would have seen a slight, barely noticeable jump his body gave because the shock, or the subtle narrowing of his eyes, upon understanding the implications those words carried.

"He told us everything that has happened," she explained. "Including the fact that you've found out about... that."

"Did you know?" Conan was honestly surprised about the shake of her head the woman offered as an answer. "Not even Dad?"

"He kept it secret from all of us," Yukiko said. "He must have been trying to protect us by not involving anyone."

"But why?" the child raised his voice a tiny bit. "Knowing Dad, he should have been able to figure it out instantly! Why didn't he-?"

"Because it's about Shinichi."

Conan didn't understand what she meant at first until she, patiently, explained to him.

"Conan, your father is only human. He might look like he would never, ever make a mistake in his deductions, but if it involves you or your brother, things are bound to be different."

Everything began to make sense to him, even if it didn't fail to shock him. The thought of his father, of all people, actually failing to reach the truth by himself would have been inconceivable a few years back.

But he had seen things that he thought that would never happen developing in front of his eyes, so the idea of his perfect parent becoming... human wasn't so far fetched as it could have been.

Because there is no way the word 'perfection' could exist in such an flawed world as the one they lived in.

"Is there a reason he called just now?" Conan asked, curiously. "It's weird he hasn't done that until then."

"He didn't say much, but I think he was afraid to," Yukiko replied, honestly. "He must have guessed that Yusaku would want to be involved if he found out."

"And is he going to?"

"He pleaded us not to get involved," there was a long sigh, once more. "Even if it pains us, we will respect his wishes."

There was a confused look on Conan's eyes, that the retired actress ignored. She knew perfectly well that he could not understand their decision, as they both had always been known to do whatever they saw fit, regardless the wishes of other people.

Especially if it concerned Shinichi. When he was deeply involved into this shady business.

Her gaze then softened all sudden, puzzling the child even more. He didn't have the time to ask, though, because he found himself being brought into a hug.

No, not one of those annoyingly tight hugs where her mother would rub her face against his, much in his dismay. This one was more gentle and sincere, in a way.

"It must have been hard, right?" there was a gentleness in her voice that Conan rarely heard on her. "Dealing with all of this on your own."

The child's tension vanished, his gaze softening as well as he finally got what she meant.

"I can't say it wasn't," he honestly replied.

Yukiko smiled softly.

"You have been brave, you know that?" her hug tightened even more. "Very, very brave."

He couldn't help the humorless chuckle that emerged from the depths of his throat, fueled by the many, many memories where he would be around those people in black, terrified of them finding either him or the people he held close to his heart.

Such as the other time. When he had been all alone in that dark locker, shaking and hugging his knees, tightly, praying that Gin didn't open that door and put into an end to everything he knew and cherished.

"I'm not brave, Mom," he barely whispered. "I'm far from it."

Her hand went to the back of his small head. "Being brave is not about not feeling fear," Yukiko said, gently pressing his face against the crook of her neck. "Is to act, to keep living despite how terrified you are."

Conan didn't know what to say about that.

"Believe me. You're the bravest young man I have ever met in my life."

Wordlessly, the child returned the hug, allowing Yukiko to bring him even closer to her body, burrowing himself deeper into his mother's arms.

The ticking of the clock continued, but this time around it went unnoticed.

It was an insomniac Yukiko that wandered through the halls of the silent night. She had tried to sleep for hours, but was ultimately rendered unable to close her eyes.

No matter what she did, she couldn't sleep. Not when that feeling in the pit of her stomach was still there, mind torturing, reminding her of all those times she could have acted better. When she could have been better.

Reminding her that she was such a terrible mother.

I wonder if you are feeling the same right now, Yusaku, she wouldn't doubt it for a second.

Desperate to soothe her nerves, the woman gingerly opened the door of the room. Through the darkness, she could make out a bundle of blankets, rising and falling in a steady pace, soft, barely audible snores filling the silence.

"They think I'm dead," the voice of her eldest resounded in her ears, as she quietly tiptoed her way inside. "That I took all clues, information and every single piece of evidence against them to the grave."

She stopped right beside the bed, shoulders dropping slightly and a faint smile drawing on her face at the sight of the very young child sprawled across the mattress. Giggling soft enough not to disturb his slumber, she couldn't help but remember the old times.

When she, and Yusaku, would find both her sons cuddling with each other, having falling asleep on the sofa when their parents weren't looking.

"If they find out you know everything, not only will they eliminate you. They will also begin to look into both of your lives, and won't stop until they squeeze out every single little detail, until there's nothing left."

With uppermost care, the mother's fingers curled around the blanket, tucking his child, tightly. Her smile faltered slightly, letting in its place a weird, pained grimace.

"And it won't be long until they find out about Conan."

So, kneeling down next to his bed, Yukiko simply watched her son, who still was sleeping so soundly and contently that warmed her heart.

But it was more like a bittersweet feeling.

My young, young boy. To think you have been through so much at such a short age. Far too much, even for an adult, to handle.

We thought you would be just fine in Japan, with your brother. That you didn't really need us around with him there.

But we were naive, weren't we?

Her hand went to his hair, gently tucking some of it away from his eyes that remained closed, blissfully unaware of what was happening in the world outside his dreamland.

We should have understood we were pressuring Shinichi. We should have understood why he had been so strongly against that decision.

And, above all, we should have been there for you.

For all that I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry.

Bending down, Yukiko pushed Conan's bangs away from his forehead before gently pressing her lips against it, in a tender, heartfelt goodnight kiss.

But I guess it's too late.

We have failed, haven't we, Yusaku?

Conan didn't wake throughout it all, not even when Yukiko closed the door behind her back outside his room. Not even when she leaned down against it, pausing for a moment to take a deep breath and close her eyes.

Not even when she let her hand slid on her pants' pocket, pulling her phone out, before dialing a number and pressing the device against her ear.

"... What do you want, Mom? Do you have any idea of what time it is?"

When that voice, laced with sleep and annoyance all the same, rang on her ears, Yukiko let out the breath she didn't even know she was holding.

And a genuine smile appeared on her face.

Hearing his voice was more than enough for her.

"Co-chan," the child looked up at the mention of his name. "If you don't hurry up you'll be late to school."

Shrugging a bit, the child left the note he had been reading up until a few minutes in order to finish breakfast. Curious about what had caught her child's attention, Yukiko glanced at the note.

"Kaito KID?" she blinked twice. "Hey, doesn't that say it's for...?"

"For Dad, yeah," he simply replied. "It's more than ten years old, though. I doubt it will change anything even if I gave it to him."

"What's up with the random question mark?" she held it between her hands.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out, but I haven't got a clue."

Yukiko hummed a bit. "That reminds me... There was this time when Yusaku asked me to give a card to someone else. It was a weird, just like this one."

Conan's eyes widened slightly in surprise. "Dad did?"

"Yeah. It just had one exclamation mark," the mother commented. "It was a reply to a fan letter that a friend of my teacher had sent him. Mystery maniacs are so weird..."

"Teacher?"

"Yeah, you know. The famous Japanese magician that taught me all about the art of disguise. Kuroba Toichi."

Kuroba Toichi... he went oddly silent at the mention of that particular name.

"Ah, that brings memories," his mother gave him the note back to him, whose eyes rolled, clearly expecting her to begin rambling nonsense, as always. "That was about ten years ago... It makes me feel a little old."

Conan bit down a comment about her age.

"Say," the child interrupted her before she could continue. "Did he have any children?"

"Yeah," she replied confused by his unusual question. Her puzzled expression did not last long, because it shifted to a rather annoyed one once her arms crossed right in front of her chest. "There was that little brat. He was around Shin-chan's age, so they would often play together when they were younger and I went to visit Toichi-san. Even you met him when you were very, very little."

Pondering over it a bit, the child's finger went to his chin, stroking it lightly as he thought. Now that he thought about it, he dimly remembered his father's hand over his mother's shoulders, who cried as she held his little hand, and his brother standing awkwardly there, just beside a girl he didn't know. She seemed to be hugging a boy. Everyone, including himself, were all dressed in black. A funeral? he wondered.

"Why does it sound like you hate this guy so much?" Conan then asked, with a plain voice.

"Because he was a rude little jerk!" she exclaimed. "That kid called me a 'beautiful old lady' when we first met. Can you believe it?!"

"Oh, that's not right."

"Yeah!"

"Why would he call you 'beautiful'?"

Conan quickly left his house right after that, hoping that her fury would recede by the time school was over.

A/N:

ajjr12: I like your idea! I'll really going to take it into consideration for future chapters :)

Asahina Chihaya: Actually, Kuroba Toichi died eight years before canon, as far as I know. Maybe things can change a little bit here? I'm not completely sure XD

Gamergail: Wow, I didn't realize I had made so many mistakes, lol! Anyway, thanks for bringing me those into my attention, I really appreciated it!