File Twenty-Two: A Bad Feeling
The word that Haibara had uttered the other day had yet to leave his mind. Not only it refused to leave him alone, it also repeated over and over to the point of driving him up the walls. He had already looked it up in the internet and, predictably so, he only found that it was the national liquor of Bolivia.
Singani.
It should be obvious that it was a codename. A member of the Black Organization who, somehow, was deeply connected with his brother's case.
Maybe he messed with this 'Singani' character and was drugged because of it...
Or, perhaps, Shinichi was...
Conan shook his head, mentally berating himself for even having these kind of thoughts ─ there was absolutely no way that could be true. He... Oniichan is not like that.
He scrolled down for hours, yet he didn't find anything particularly relevant. He should had already expected it ─ certainly, such a strong criminal syndicate wouldn't let their names turn up just by typing a member's codename on the search bar.
Seriously, what did you do, Oniichan? he couldn't help but wonder. It's not like I can just go and ask him. He wouldn't tell me anything and just hide the truth.
He paused, finger freezing on mid air as a thought suddenly struck him.
Back then, he really didn't want me to know he was riding in the same train than Ayumi-chan and the others, he remembered. Why is that...? Ah, could it be...?!
Immediately he scrolled up, searched for the Touto Circular Railway and looked up the stations.
Shinjuku, Shibuya, Toshima, Haido, Chiyoda, Nerima, Ekoda, Arakawa, Taito, Minato, he read every place, and groaned. There's simply no way I could check every single place by myself!
As as he was about to throw the phone against the wall, overtaken by frustration, the device started to ring on his hand. Blinking twice at the name in the display, he picked up.
"What do you want, Hattori-san?"
"Over there is the Tenouji river. There is the Osaka Dome. And were we are in Tsuuten Tower."
Conan looked away from the prismatics and let Ran have a try, before staring at Heiji, who was still pointing to popular places, both ignoring as Kogoro grumbled ─ he truly didn't want to be there.
It had taken him almost an entire day to convince Ran that this was a good idea ─ even if it was Heiji's ─ but it seemed like it had been worth it. The girl was smiling, clearly enjoying herself as she got a nice view of the city.
That wasn't the reason why he had insisted in going, however. Even through Conan really appreciated the free tour through Osaka, there was a strange feeling he still couldn't exactly pinpoint.
For a moment, Kogoro turned around so he could have a smoke. Taking advantage of the lack of attention they were receiving, the child walked up to Heiji.
The teenage detective almost tripped when a little hand suddenly latched on his sleeve and dragged him away. When they stopped, he looked down to meet very annoyed eyes behind thick glasses.
"What is it?" the child whispered at him. "Did you find something about what I asked you about?"
Hattori laughed, awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. "I have nothing about that guy," he confessed. "I went to the hospital already, but nobody knew anything, so..."
"Then, what the hell are you up to this time? You know well enough my brother isn't going to magically appear at your side just because I'm here, right?"
"Nothing really," Heiji blinked, then crouched next to him, so they could be on the same height. "But I'm definitely telling Ran-neechan you are being unusually rude today. Ever heard about respecting your elders?"
"You thought I was seventeen, Hattori-san."
"It's Heiji-niichan to you."
Eyebrow twitching slightly, the boy fought his urge to shoot an anesthetic needle at him and managed to control himself. "Hattori works just as fine," noticing the annoyment on the child's eyes, Heiji laughed nervously.
"Hey, what's wrong with you today?" the kid shook his head, and seemed to take a deep breath. For some reason, he could tell Conan was especially irritated today. "Did something happen-?"
"Sherry got transfered to my class."
"... What?!"
Paying no further attention to the confused, and very surprised, detective, the little boy shrugged and walked away, joining Ran without any word.
Yet Heiji stayed on his place, gaping at the air.
When they sat in the car, the hesitant look Ran sent his way was more than enough to realize that they shouldn't have let Hattori organize the tour.
"You were right, Ran-neechan," whispered Conan, with a sigh, so the Osakan detective couldn't hear him. "Maybe Hattori-san isn't quite right in the head."
As it turned out they were going to drive around city in a patrol car.
"Alright," oblivious about the three passengers' feelings, Heiji smiled widely. "Where do you all want to go to?"
"Home," replied the child, with all honesty.
Secretly, the other two were currently thinking the same thing.
"Don't be like that, Conan-kun," the Hattori complained. "This will be fun, I promise!"
Somehow, I doubt it.
"Don't tell me..." Kogoro started to yell at him, angrily. "Don't tell me our tour of Osaka is in this car!"
"What? You don't like it? This is the newest model."
Probably because he knew this would be a lost battle, the adult just glared at him, before resting his back in the seat, looking away yet irritation still present on his eyes.
"I feel like a criminal..." Ran commented at some point, an embarrassed blush on her cheeks as she watched the people turning around on the other side of the window, staring inside the car with curiosity.
"Don't let it bother you! You haven't done anything illegal. You can sit in it proudly!"
Conan gave him an unamused look. Befriending Hattori should be illegal.
At least the food had been good. Like, really good. Even if a bit different to what they were used to eat, the udon had been delicious. But what really impressed the boy were the takoyaki ─ much bigger than what he had ever seen in Tokyo.
Ran never stopped looking over her shoulder, however. She had said she felt like someone was watching her.
And they didn't find out who it was, until they arrived at another shop to have some hotcakes. Heiji had left to give his mother a call, after telling the cook to not forget his rice.
It had weirded out the trio. Conan and Ran were commenting on that, when a girl promptly sat on the spot Heiji had been a few seconds ago.
"Ah, that's our friend's..." Ran tried to say.
But she completely ignored her, resting her elbows over the counter, cradling her head with her hands. "You must be Kudo," the girl said.
That startled the three of them, and automatically Kogoro and Ran's gazes were on the little child, who could only gape in confusion. He even flinched when she looked their way, with a knowing look.
"Heiji talks about you a lot," she added. "Someone just like you."
Please don't tell me she is also going to say I'm him...
"Hattori-kun did?" Ran asked, the tip of her lip twitching upwards. She wouldn't be surprised if Hattori somehow convinced this girl about that crazy theory of his.
"Don't play dumb, I already know exactly what happened," then, to everyone's surprise she leaned over the little boy and yelled into Ran's face instead. "You must be that girl Heiji talks about. The girl he met in Tokyo! That Kudo girl!"
They all blinked, cluelessly.
"Wait..." Ran tried to get her to see reason. "You're wrong..."
The other girl just smirked.
"I can tell you something right now," she stood up, and tried to give Ran a very intimidating look. "I have always been friends with Heiji and in the past with a bond of steel! If you want to make a move on Heiji, you have to go through me first!"
Conan blinked twice at her. "Wow..." in spite of it all, he couldn't help but be surprised. "I didn't expect Hattori-san to have a girlfriend."
Then, the girl turned her attention away from Ran and directed it to the clueless boy. He saw her starting to stammer, denying it with all her might, cheeks tinting redder in embarrassment, which only got worse when Heiji finally appeared and asked what was wrong.
Heiji had a good laugh when he was told that Kazuha ─ that was what the girl was named ─ believed Kudo was a girl, and Conan decided his brother wouldn't find it as funny as the older boy.
"Don't let it bother you, Kazuha-san," the child pipped in, cutting Hattori's laughter short. "At least you got the age right."
The girl in question blinked, cluelessly. "What do you mean?"
From behind her, Conan could see Hattori furiously shaking his head, pleading him not to say anything, and it would have worked for any other child with a compasive heart...
Too bad Conan didn't have one.
"Hattori-san genuinely thought I was Kudo Shinichi," he grinned, then turned to Ran. "Right, Ran-neechan?"
With an awkward laugh, Ran nodded her head. The other girl just stared at them, with a confused expression, before turning back to her friend. The way he was looking anywhere else but her face, clearly embarrassed, let her know that fact was none other but the truth.
Naturally, Kazuha exploded in laugher. "Heiji, I knew you were stupid but not that stupid!" she said, between breaths. Hattori just tried to shrink away from sight, knowing well enough that his childhood friend would never, ever, let this go.
"Shut up," he tried to defend himself. "That kid is weird."
"Is that so?" she turned to glance at Conan, who just blinked innocently at her ─ Hattori glared at that lying bastard that knew far too well how to use his appearance in his advantage ─ before kindly smiling at him. "He seems to be a cute little child to me."
"You have no idea..."
Kazuha rolled her eyes. "It doesn't matter how weird a child can be, you said Kudo was in high school. How did you even think...?"
"Hattori-kun thought Shinichi had shrunk, somehow," Ran pointed out.
Like so, Kazuka burst out laughing again.
This kept on by several hours, even after their food had came. When it did, Conan had simply started eating his hotcake, caring far too little about the killer glares sent his way to do anything else.
"Hey, what was all about?" at some point Ran, the ever romantic type of girl, asked with enthusiasm. "What did you mean with the 'bond of steel'?"
They explained to them that, when they were children, they had stolen some handcuffs from Heiji's father's desk, and got stuck together for an entire day, so they had to do every single thing together. Kazuha even kept the link from the handcuffs on her omamori.
"And despite all of that... you're not together?" Conan asked them.
Both of them looked straight at him, blushing furiously.
Now, Kazuha was seriously reconsidering her view of Conan as a 'cute little child'. Heiji, on the other hand, was too busy blushing to even think of telling his definitely-not girlfriend something along the lines of I told you so.
"I already told you, little boy," Kazuha smiled at him ─ even if the kid could see she was forcing it, and probably wanted to kill him. "Heiji and I just grew up together. If you have to call it something, I'm his big sister."
Conan raised an eyebrow at them, while Ran only smiled widely, totally engrossed into their relationship. They then, for some reason, started arguing and the child couldn't help but remember another certain pair, that also was incredibly in love, and in denial.
"Why is everyone like that?" the child said to himself, as Ran talked with Kazuha and Heiji, while they went back to the car. "Isn't love supposed to be, like, just a bunch of chemical reactions? Is it that hard to admit it?"
Kogoro paused when he heard that and gave the kid a long look, who stared back at him with curious eyes. For some reason the man started laughing, which annoyed the child a little bit.
"You'll know when you're older, brat."
With that, the adult walked away, leaving a very confused Conan behind. He would've pouted right then and there, but settled with an annoyed groan before heading back to the patrol car as well.
Once inside, the group started to decide where they were going to go next. That was it, however, until they felt a loud sound and the car bouncing violently.
They were horrified when they saw the dead body with the knife stabbed on his chest, through his pocket, that had fallen from the sky to the car they were in.
Forced by Conan, Heiji ended up telling everyone what was going on. Apparently, there was a serial killer going around, and the only thing in common between the three victims was that they had been strangled, then stabbed through their wallets, and through their chests.
There was no relation between the victims, at least until Sakata ─ a detective that had been touring them around Osaka with Heiji ─ appeared and showed them an old video he had found. They saw an old footage of Goshi Sotaro, an assemblyman that had been caught in a scandal, while he was taking away in his car, surrounded by paparazzis and interviewers.
The secretary was trying to push them away, and they recognized him as Nagao Hidetoshi, the first victim. Noyasu Kazuto, the driver, was the third one.
Now, Conan wasn't amused at the sightless when Hattori, without any warning, silently plucked him up from the hood of his shirt and hid him under his jacket, but he didn't complain. At least this way he would go along.
Once Hattori sat on the car and zipped open his jacket, he popped his head out and took a deep breath, startling Sakata a bit.
"This kid here helps a lot," Heiji explained to the man, and Conan gave him a sheepish smile, before going to the backseat.
"But won't Mouri-san be worried about you?" Sakata asked, hesitant.
"It's okay! I will call him later."
They had decided to check on Okazaki Sumiei's apartment ─ the woman they had seen driving away in a rush on the crime scene ─ so Sakata called her. After picking up, she immediately pleaded for help, as she suspected she was the next victim.
"Please calm down," said Sakata, with a firm voice. "I'm coming right now, lock your door!"
Conan looked towards the window and mentally cursed. "We've just passed the building!" he told them. "You need to turn back, Sakata-san!"
"I can't," he told the child, with a frown. "There's so much traffic, we won't make it back."
Suddenly, Heiji opened the door, startling the other two.
"What do you think...?" Conan said to the teen, incredulously.
"It'll be faster if I run."
The child gave the heavy traffic a long look. "You can't be serious..."
"Watch me," the Detective of the West smirked.
Before jumping off the car ─ which had thankfully stopped when the boy had hinted he was going to do that ─ and running across the street. With a sigh, the child did the same, dodging cars going their way and shouting apologies to the angry drivers.
"Geez," the kid said to the teen once they were safe on the sidewalk, as they kept running. "Do you want to get us killed or something?"
"You followed me, kid. It's your own call."
"Aren't you supposed to be the responsible adult here?"
"Never said I was."
Her body had been found on the community bathroom, and it had confused the boys, leaving them unable to understand why would she leave her room when she had been told not to.
Later, then they checked on her apartment, they had found two recorded messages, allegedly from the killer. The first one had been to make her go and witness the previous murder, and the other one was to intimidate her, and tell her she was the next in line to die.
The first one had been made at 13:08 and the second at 13:10.
Conan's eyes had not left the phone ever since, and that caught Hattori's attention. Once noticing the puzzlement of the older boy, he explained.
"Two minutes," he simply said, and Hattori immediately understood. "It's like the killer had complete control... I've got a bad feeling..."
Immediately after saying those words, Heiji's eyes opened widely. The child turned to the older boy, blinking his eyes as he tried to comprehend what had made him turn as pale as a ghost, and had caused him to shake like a leaf.
Before he could ask, however, Heiji composed himself and tried to shrug his worries off. He wasn't entirely convinced, but he figured he would ask later.
Hattori was strangely quiet throughout the car ride back from Okazaki's apartment, as he stared at the rear view mirror with a rather pensive look. He was so deep in thought, he completely missed Sakata trying to talk with him.
Eventually he snapped out of it, letting Sakata tell him what he had wanted to say. Both boys' eyes brightened with realization when he said that they found something else the victims had in common.
Their driving licenses had been pierced through their wallets.
Through further investigation they discovered that all four victims plus Goshi and the wanted murderer Numabuchi Kiichiro were in the driving class.
The day they graduated was also the day an instructor ─ Ineba Tetsuji ─ died in a drunk-driving accident.
Conan felt his blood running cold at that.
"Conan-kun!" at the familiar voice, Conan stopped on his tracks. Sure enough, with her hands on her waist and a stern look on her face, stood Ran. "Why did you disappear all of sudden?"
The child flinched.
"I'm sorry," he tried to apologize with a sheepish smile, even if he was slowly stepping away from the older girl. "I was going to call, but I kind of forgot..."
"What do you mean you forgot?!"
Hattori couldn't help but let out a small laugh at that. He found amused that this kid wouldn't blink an eye at the sight of dead bodies and bloody crimes , yet he would cower away at the sight of his sister figure when she was angry and ready to scold him, like any other normal child.
He frowned. Yes, even if he was unsettlingly smart and bright for his age, Conan was only seven. And this case was related with a serial killer. If he kept hanging around him like that...
"Conan-kun! Conan-kun, hold on!"
The scene he had seen in his dreams last night played itself in his mind, again. The knife stabbing into the little chest. Ran screams as she held the child, holding his stomach while he rolled and cried in agony. Out of breath. In incredible pain.
So, when Inspector Otaki told him they were there to take the kid home, he didn't protest. Even when the child did, Hattori just decided to take him away for a second and kneel down in front of him.
He had to be the adult here.
"Leave this case to me," he said to him. "It's getting late. Children should be in bed already."
Conan let out a dry chuckle as he crossed his arms across his chest. "And what if I don't want to?" he said, defiantly. Hattori, however, found it funny. He had never seen Conan acting like a petulant child before.
"You will have to answer to Ran-neechan then."
Settling with a low growl, he gave up. Just as he was about to leave, Heiji stopped him, so he watched with curiosity as he slid his hand inside his shirt and pulled something out.
He was shocked when an omamori, which resembled the one he had seen on Kazuha a lot, was placed around his neck. "Hey, Hattori, this isn't really necessary..." he managed to say, as the teen tucked it inside his shirt.
"It's okay," Hattori said. "Just make sure not to lose it. I want it back, you hear?"
"I'm sure you do," soon, there was a teasing grin on his little face, shifting his eyes to look somewhere behind Heiji. "Because someone you hold very dearly made it specially for you, right?"
Judging by the blush on the detective's cheeks, Conan knew he had just hit the nail on the head. "I wonder if you know who I'm talking about, considering you didn't even turn to look," the kid continued.
"Give it back," Heiji held his hand to him, with a very annoyed expression on his face.
"Nope. I'm going to sell it."
"Go ahead, it's not like you're going to get much from it."
"It depends, do you have fangirls? Well, I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't any considering, you know, you."
"Hey..."
Just as they were talking, Kazuha had felt someone staring at her, so she glanced that way. Blinking confusedly, she only noticed the child talking with Heiji about something. It only puzzled her more.
"Is something wrong, Kazuha-chan?" Ran asked when she noticed her weird behaviour.
"It's a bit weird," she commented. "Usually, Heiji is terrible when it comes to children. So, seeing him getting along so well with Conan-kun..."
"Well, it is Conan-kun. He's a bit different from other children," Ran giggled at that. "You know, I'm pretty sure that boy wants to be a detective when he gets older."
Kazuha smiled a bit at that, then looked at the pair again as they started to walk back towards the group, even if the child didn't look so pleased with that. He kept silent throughout the entire ride, almost as if he was sulking, even when Otaki had to turn back because they had found the criminal's car.
The child was so quiet, that nobody noticed him gone until Ran turned to talk to him, only to find the spot next to hers empty.
All of that lead to Inspector Otaki staring at the young boy that had come along without anyone noticing, eyes fixated on the wood cabin. "He's inside," he told then, notchantly.
"Boy, where did you come from?!" Otaki yelled, in surprise.
"The car," he replied, before pointing at the bin. "Look there. There are a couple of receipts that might catch your eye, Inspector."
True to his words, it seemed like everything had been burned, besides various pieces of receipts from a convenience store, including one from that day and another for a few days ago. Nobody would eat some many bentos, and eat one every single day.
"But, boy," Otaki smiled at him. "The criminal would be seen if he went to the store."
"I never said it was the criminal," Conan pretended to blink, innocently.
The inspector understood the implications after a few seconds, so he immediately ordered his undermen to enter the house. Even so, it was the young boy the one to find the trap door in the ceiling. Luckily, the inspector was able to convince the child to get back to the floor, and to let them handle it alone.
Numabuchi Kiichiro was found, chained to a pillar, begging for food. So, they handcuffed him and began to take him away.
Ran arrived at the place, just in time, running his way before falling into her knees. After checking if the boy in front of her was alright, she let out a long sigh, and placed her hands over his shoulders.
"I thought I told you not to run around, Conan-kun," she scolded him. "You worry me."
Conan opened his mouth to reply, but he couldn't say anything. It was all too fast for to accurately tell what was going on, but one second Numabuchi was on the floor, after allegedly having tripped and the other he was running straight for Ran, who was blocking the exit, with a knife in hand.
It was because everything happened so fast that Conan didn't have time to think. Purely out instinct, the young boy jumped in front of the girl, and he felt the pain, as well as the air knocked out of him.
Conan barely noticing Ran's arms holding him as he curled around his stomach, which hurt so much that he thought for a moment that he had, indeed, been stabbed. It wasn't until a few seconds that he began to recover, then he realized he had somehow been saved.
"Conan-kun!" Ran kept calling his name over and over, obviously worried. "Conan-kun, hold on!"
"Someone call an ambulance!" he heard Otaki yelling.
It was then that Conan realized he was making an scene, so he forced himself to sit up. "I'm fine," he struggled to smile in an attempt to reassure everyone. "It's just a scratch."
But Ran was still unconvinced, so she quickly lifted his shirt the nasty wound he was definitely going to have. Instead of that, something fell and hung from the boy's neck.
"An omamori?" she blinked.
"Ah," he realized what she was talking about and held the amulet on his hands. "It's Hattori-san's omamori. He let me borrow it, so it must've protected me."
Kazuha just gazed at the child, a bit surprised.
"Heiji did...?" she mumbled.
He felt around the omamori, and his eyes opened, with curiosity. Then, he opened it, only to get surprised at the sight of a tiny silver key that had been hidden inside.
It was at that time that Conan understood, not only how he had been saved, but also what was that weird item doing inside.
Heiji had been shot when trying to save Sakada, the criminal, from suicide. Everyone was worried that was the end of the detective's life, and it wasn't until he pulled a dramatic scene where he closed his eyes, prompring Kazuha to cry over his body and the other three to gasp in shock, then suddenly waking up and yelling at them for not letting him sleep ─ apparently, the boy hadn't been able to have some sleep when planning their tour through Osaka.
This scene had been finished by Kazuha resting her weight on the wound, giving him a world of pain thereafter. Angry women are scary, Conan had decided.
Which leaded him to the current predicament. Conan was sitting on a chair beside Ran, watching as Kazuha and Heiji, who was in a hospital bed, shouted at each other for yet another silly reason. Ran was sweatdroping, smiling awkwardly at the couple.
But Conan was quiet. Kazuha's heart wrenching sobs when she thought that Heiji had died were still stuck on his mind.
"Why... Why would you do something so dangerous?"
"Because causing the criminal to commit suicide through a deduction... is not a good idea..."
The child frowned, taking out the omamori he still had with him and giving a long look as it rested on the top of his hand. His fingers curled around the amulet, tightly.
"You know," Heiji's voice caused the boy to flinch. "That's actually mine and you haven't returned it yet, you pint-sized thief."
His eyes glanced around the room behind his glasses, blinking confusedly when he realized they were all alone. "Where did Ran-neechan and Kazuha-san...?"
"Kazuha was so fed up with me that Ran-neechan decided to bring her along to buy some drinks. Probably would have punched me in the jaw if she didn't save me," Hattori gave the kid a weird look. "You were right there and you didn't notice?"
"Guess I didn't..."
He must have been too inside his own thoughts not to realize that something like that had happened, right in front of him, he mused.
Hattori was grinning at him, yet the child couldn't bring himself to. "Why did you give this to me?" instead, he asked. "It seemed like you needed this more than I do."
There was a long sigh, and the detective's eyes drifted to the window. The sun was setting already, which meant that Conan and the others must leave for Beika soon. "I had a bad dream the other night."
"Bad dream?"
"You were stabbed," Conan's eyes went wide at that. "And I thought you had died, because Ran-neechan was calling your name so loudly and desperately."
The child shrugged. "That isn't that far from reality," he realized. "I did receive quite a big blow by that killer. Wasn't stabbed by chance."
It wasn't by chance, actually. But it wasn't like he was going to tell him about the key Kazuha had hidden inside the omamori ─ he had promised to the distressed and equally embarrassed girl he wouldn't say a word about it.
So, instead of that, he stretched his hand and gave the omamori back to the teen, who gazed at it for a moment with a rather tender look on his eyes, before setting it back on the little table beside his bed.
Chuckling a bit, the teenager laid on the pillow. "I guess sometimes dreams can be easily misinterpreted, huh?"
Conan's head perked up at his words. Misinterpreted? he repeated on his head, and suddenly, his brother's gun appeared on his mind again. His index finger and thumb went to his chin as he thought over it, for a moment.
"Hey, kid?" Hattori frowned, noticing the boy was thinking intently about something, and went to sit up, quickly. "What's wro-? Ouch!"
At that whine, Conan looked up. The teenage boy was hissing, pressing his hand against his wound, as his face cringed due to the pain he was experiencing.
The child stared at him for a few seconds, before he frowned, concern filling his features.
"Hattori," he called, softly, causing Heiji to look back at him with a curious look. "Will you... Will you be okay?"
The Great Detective of the West just stared at the boy, taken aback by his words, rendered completely speechless. He then realized he must have kept silent for a bit too long, considering the way the kid had focused his glance to the setting sun in the window, clearly uncomfortable, and shifted a bit on his seat.
He did look back at him, startled, when a hand landed on top of his head, messing with his hair a little bit.
"Don't worry," Hattori said to him, with an amused smile. "Heiji-niichan will be okay."
At the sight of the brilliant, and very shocked, blue eyes fixing on the ground, probably due to embarassment, and the tiny nod the kid gave, Hattori could only grin wider.
Sometimes, just sometimes, this little boy could be a bit cute.
And it wasn't only Hattori. Behind the half-closed door, a pair of girls smiled at each other as they huddled together to see.
A/N:
GhostDespair: You know, I can't really answer that lol!
ajjr12: I'm not completely sure about it, but they probably will be a little more involved with the Black Org plot. Maybe not that much because they are normal children, but yeah.
XxThe-Crest-Of-AnubisxX: Yeah, that's basically it. Haibara, just like Conan, is seven and an extremely intelligent child in this story.