File One Hundred and Thirty-One: I Don't Like You
Conan did not believe in the supernatural.
Neither did he believe that mind reading would be viable outside fictional worlds, though there had been moments of doubt whenever Ai was in proximity. It might be possible, however, for highly empathetic people to catch on others' feelings just by a glance, which worked just as fine. Or maybe it was a strong father-child bond he could never hope to understand, for obvious reasons.
While he did not know what it was, it sure was strong. Ran had only locked eyes with her father, and he could swear he had not heard a single word, but next thing he knew, the girl had captured his hand into hers, insisting that they had to go home.
No matter how hard, or embarrassingly childish, he protested about it, her response was always the same.
"Come on! We're leaving!"
"But the case-!"
"Case, case, case!" Conan actually stopped in his tracks, shrinking under the glare that had seized hold of Ran's face. "You are all the same! Just like that stupid-"
She halted, the corners of her lips quivering at whatever had met her sight, right above his head. Forcing a smile to her face, she leaned slightly forward.
"Conan-kun, look outside." The friendly tone now reaching his ears had his gaze, once frightened by her fiery disposition, dulling considerably. "The blue sky has turned bright red. It's time for children to go home."
The motive of the radical change of behavior had to be the door opening behind him, or rather, that certain gaze that wouldn't let him breathe in peace. He knew, because it was impossible for his ears not to pick out the sound of his voice amongst all others, conversing with Kogoro calmly enough, their meaning lost to the little boy.
Everything started to fade away as the noise of steps became prominent, moving further away from where they stood. The sight that met him supported that theory, that of the two aforementioned men, alongside Beppu, Takagi and Megure, walking away, presumably to join the other two suspects.
For the first time, Conan did not follow.
Occhan will be just fine on his own, thought the boy. Since he's not the one Bourbon is interested in…
The benefits of him leaving would probably even outweigh the drawbacks. In the same way that he had previously reasoned that it would be best to keep Sera and Ai apart due to the former's interest in the latter, it stood to reason that the same logic should apply to him.
He sighed deeply, his head hung low. If only there was a way to put a definitive end to this case so that everyone could head back home, safely away from the guy with the creepy grin.
Throwing his head back, he saw Ran's apologetic face. Not that he wasn't trying to hide his frustration, his groan had made it too evident to pretend otherwise, but it did not make her reaction settle any better with him. He could understand where she, and her father, were coming from, of course he did, yet her firm disposition not to let him anywhere close to the investigation was a little infuriating.
He had to admit, however, that she had been right about it being late. One look at what lay outside the window revealed a beautiful sunset he wasn't enjoying as much as the older girl beside him ─ a smile posed on her lips, entranced by the sight.
The blue sky has turned bright red, huh? Conan shook his head. Ultimately, deciding that this was a fight he wouldn't win, was about to tell her to just get over with it, when a thought struck him suddenly. Blue… turns red.
His hand keeping a muted gasp at bay, Conan felt his eyes widen.
"Well, we should really get going," said Ran, stepping out of the window. "Let's let Dad and the police handle the case and-"
She blinked at the bare spot on the floor in front of her. Her shoulders sank, her hand raising to press itself against her face.
"Not this again…"
Way past the next corner and away from her reach, Conan hastened his pace. Eyes narrowing, he spotted that one face that had been haunting him throughout the day.
I've solved the mystery. The culprit is that person.
The last rays of light gently caressed his face, sunset red mixing with that same mysterious blue of a gaze that seemed to hide so much, wandering past the glass window ─ a smile posed on his lips as he contemplated the wide sky like he had done, only moments ago.
Eventually, they crossed paths.
And I'm sure you know how she did it, too… Zero!
Soon, Takagi came into the room to confirm what they had been suspecting thus far. Poison had been found on the lip of the cup, limited to the proximity of the lipstick stain. Hearing those words did nothing to soothe the already stressed out ladies, now exchanging fearful looks with one another as they tried to make sense of their situation. Aloud, one of them wondered how someone had managed to poison Suto's tea with no one noticing.
"Weren't you listening to Amuro?" said Kogoro, eyebrows raising. "The culprit didn't poison her cup. She poisoned her own and switched with the victim's."
"And we're saying that's not possible!"
Yeah, they had said it alright. Because everyone was drinking a different colored tea, making it impossible to mistake their cups. "But the victim had a lemon slice in her tea, right?" he pointed out. "She may not have noticed a change in color-"
He deeply regretted having said anything at all.
"They look nothing alike!"
"Not that an old man who knows nothing about herb tea would understand!"
He felt his eyebrow twitch the further he looked at that certain group of friends he found incredibly irritable right now ─ even beating the bespectacled brat, in an incredible turn of events. Here he had been hoping that things would be a little calmer with the demon spawn being monitored by Ran and not roaming around, strolling into the crime scene as his own playground.
But then again, it would seem it was impossible from the beginning ─ especially with Amuro by his side, free to do whatever he wanted the moment he took his eyes off him. It was alright, though. All he needed was to endure it, at least until Ran took the boy home. Then, everyone would be safe.
"In any case, it's a fact that the culprit killed Suto-san by poisoning her cup," stated Megure. "Because we didn't find the container for the poison in this room, Beppu-san and Happo-san, the culprit must be one of you two, who left the room one after another."
Kogoro nodded, ignoring the clearly indignant looks they were getting.
"After poisoning the cup, the culprit left the room and disposed of the container."
"But the culprit must have been pretty bold."
Of course. It was naïve of him to believe they would leave just like that, that he wouldn't be hearing that childish voice making its way inside the hospital room they were occupying, or that the sight of Ran gasping for breath while holding onto the doorway ─ after undoubtedly having chased the brat all over the hospital ─ wouldn't meet his gaze in the near future.
Yet, there they were ─ Conan's far too wide, innocent-looking eyes blinking up at him.
"If I poisoned the cup, I definitely wouldn't leave." His head tilted ever so slightly. "If someone wiped the cup, moved it, or poured a new type of tea while I was gone, I wouldn't know which cup was poisoned anymore."
Kogoro made to chase him off again, but then paused. The brat had a point there.
Said brat paid no attention to him, cheekily walking into the room as if he had been invited inside. "There's only one person who could have openly poisoned the cup and never left it." Smirk posed in his lips, he raised his gaze until it met with Amuro. "Right, Zero-no-niichan?"
Who said nothing, even as Ran leaned over to ask the little boy what he was referring to. He did not react at all, further than narrowing his eyes at the kid in question, the same way Kogoro had seen him doing several times in the past.
"Well?" Kogoro approached him, hoping to get the boy off the spotlight ─ as subtly as it might be. "Do you know who it is?"
"Yes," he replied. "I think I know from Conan-kun's hint."
The look Conan shot at him in return told Kogoro how little he believed his words.
"She was able to poison the cup and dispose of the container," Amuro said. "Without leaving the room, she applied poison to her own cup and watched for an opportunity to switch it with the victim's."
Sure enough, that overconfident expression that seemed to be inherent to cocky detectives took hold of his face. "Only you could have done it," he declared, his far too sharp gaze zeroing in on who he believed to be the culprit. "Kosaka Juri-san."
It became evident right away that his deduction was spot on. As per usual with crimes like these, Kosaka's face began to lose color, leaving nothing but a sickly white behind. It only worsened as the private detective continued to describe to the slimmest detail her the crime she had just committed. He said she had probably brought the cyanide to the hospital, poisoned her own cup in anticipation of her friend's visit and threw the container somewhere outside her room.
Despite everything, her friends still stuck to her side, defending her friend tooth and nail. Because there was no way she could have swapped so blatantly different herb teas.
"That lemon is the key to her trick…"
"Wow, it's really blue!" Even though his instincts were telling him otherwise, Kogoro turned around and saw Conan, crouching down at the other corner of the room. "This butterfly pea tea sure is mysterious."
By the time he reached up to him to see what he was doing this time, the boy was setting down a bottle ─ he didn't want to know where he had gotten that. Steam oozed from the cup he held on the other, despite the beautiful, icy blue contained inside. Calmly, he plucked out a lemon slice.
"Damn kid!" Kogoro growled, a hand curling into a fist, raising dangerously. "That's enough of you-"
Conan's expression did not change, the lemon slice sliding from his fingers, dipping into the liquid. It fell back on the infusion, blinking once, before that terribly fake, childish gasp escaped his system.
"Ah-le-le? That's weird!" Conan cried. "This tea was blue, but it started turning red after I added a lemon!"
Kogoro stared for a second, his arm dropping. "Really?"
"Yes. Really."
To his immeasurable disbelief, the beautiful blue began to fade, leaving way to that purplish red to spread all over the cup. Gasps echoed all over the room, their breath taken away at what felt like an unexpected science experiment. Amuro, on the other hand, was barely fazed by it, and simply walked over to the cabinet.
"Naturally, if acid makes it turn red…" This time, Conan did not as much as flinch as Amuro came near, dropping a bit of the baking soda he had just collected. "Then adding the alkaline baking soda Kosaka-san used to clean her cups makes it turn blue again."
Just as predicted by him, soon, that bright shade of blue was back for everyone to gawk at. Amuro smirked as he explained to the slimmest detail how she had committed the murder.
The knowledge that her friends were coming to visit had put the plan going, and her first step had been to ask Suto to drop by earlier than the rest, then requested her to get some hot water for a tea party. Now alone in the room, she had been free to poison the side of the cup opposite the one she would use and throw the container outside the room. Once all of her friends had gathered, Kosaka had suggested comparing teas, and as expected, she had picked the hibiscus tea ─ oblivious of how much that seemingly harmless choice would cost her.
Rather than the desired one, the murderer had served her some butterfly pea tea instead. Thanks to the lemon she had placed beforehand, a rich red colored tea had been readied for her, and Suto had never known the difference. Not even after the switch happened, and she had given out her last breath.
A frown reigned over Beppu's features. "You make it sound as though you were watching…"
Having set the tea down a long time ago, Conan moved closer to the shouting woman. You're not the only one who feels like that, he thought, exhaling deeply.
"But what proof do you-?!"
"Are you okay?!" he let it out in a rather concerned, yet childish, gasp. Her face morphed into confusion as he ran to her. "You're bleeding!"
And soon it transformed back to horror when he grasped her hand, examining her fingers closely ─ or, more precisely, her red-stained thumb. Out of instinct, she brushed him off, holding her hand close to her chest.
"There was one other thing the culprit had to remove from the crime scene." Slowly, her eyes moved away from the little boy, widening out of dread as they met with Amuro's confident smirk. "The lipstick on Suto-san's original cup."
"I see!" Conan exclaimed, gazing up at the woman as if he had seen something so incredibly amazing. "Now that I look at it, it is the same color that Suto-san has been using!"
Nothing that couldn't be checked out by the police ─ so that they could use it as the definite proof that she had committed the crime. "If you examine Suto-san's cup, you'll find proof there as well," said Amuro. "A significant amount of baking soda was mixed into the tea."
And thus, the case was closed with Kosaka seeing no way out but to confess to her sins. Not for the first time, Conan silently listened to the culprit explain how the single desire for revenge had moved her forward. Not for the opportunity to enter his desired school her son had missed thanks to Suto, but for the life that never got the chance to meet the world. As it turned out, Kosaka had caught Suto's son's flu as well.
"I was… pregnant then."
Under the bewildered looks of her friends, she told them about how she had miscarried. About those times when he had thought it had been her own fault for not being careful enough, or how she had deemed it as terrible luck. At least, until Suto's son came by to apologize to his classmate, because he had known all along that he had the flu ─ his mother had thought it would be nice if he could pass it on 'his competence'.
From then on, she knew she had to kill that hideous woman. But she was no better, she later admitted. Since she had let her friends fall into suspicion so that she could get away with his crime. To that, Conan couldn't agree more.
For all that I complain about the friends I got myself… I think it could've gone much worse.
They could be high maintenance, thought Conan, and the principal cause of his migraines nowadays, but at least they were that. Friends, in every sense of the word ─ which evidently wasn't a title that could be earned so easily, seeing everything he had heard in the past few days.
Arms crossed behind his neck, he hummed, letting all those thoughts sink in.
"Is something wrong, Conan-kun?"
He hadn't noticed he had done so aloud until Amuro asked that. Startled, he stopped right in his tracks and stared back silently.
Behind him, he thought he could hear Ran shuffle nervously. Kogoro was giving him a cautious glance, even as he continued to converse with Takagi.
"I was just wondering about those ladies…" The lie slipped from his tongue easily enough, turning over to the girl to give her the most clueless expression he could muster. "Shouldn't they get glasses, just like me?"
Ran wasn't sure how to reply.
Conan's face contorted into a little frown. He argued, "I mean, how come they didn't see Kosaka-san adding the baking soda?"
The girl blinked once, leaning slightly forward, closer to the boy. "You're still worried about that?" she asked, forcing a smile to her face. "The case is already closed thanks to Amuro-kun. No need to keep pondering over it."
Standing back, a pout popped right into sight. "But maybe they do need to get their eyesight checked…"
Amuro's chuckle resounded, relieving the high schooler to think of another answer.
"She sprinkled the sugar cubes on the table with baking soda and hid it in the bottom of the container," he explained patiently. "There's nothing suspicious about adding sugar to herb tea."
Conan awed quietly. "You're amazing, Zero-no-niichan!" he exclaimed, a grin stretching all over his face. "Your deductive skills are incredible!"
As the young waiter laughed the compliment off, the little boy parted from Ran, trotting to the exit of the hospital they had been in for almost an entire day in, but did not walk out. Watching Kogoro and Takagi step into the nearing night, the boy stopped.
"I doubt there's anything else Kogoro-ojisan could teach you." His bright grin untouched, and his hands tightly clasped with one another behind his back, Conan spun on his heels to face him. "Should I ask him to let you graduate from his teachings?"
Amuro's eyelids slipped closed, a cheerful smile present on his lips as well. "I still have a long way to go. But I've learned a lot from him." He stopped right in front of him, adding, "Maybe I could teach you a thing or two in the future, Conan-kun."
It took everything in his power for the kid to keep his expressions from shifting. "Thank you, but I'll be fine," he said. "I, too, can learn lots of things from him!"
His eyes opened up again, seizing him with a stare that pierced through his soul. "I can imagine."
Not that he would have managed to say anything even if he had the chance, but with Ran's grip secured around his wrist, easily opening the door and taking him outside left little room for anything else. She took over the conversation, spluttering some nonsense that was lost in Conan's sea of wild thoughts and crazy conclusions.
Only Kogoro's words filtered through afterwards. An innocuous comment that was thrown right at Takagi the moment they joined them again, "I can't believe she poisoned her own guest," he said.
"I wonder if this hospital is cursed." Takagi's statements were far worse, however. "It sounds like something happened here before."
All of a sudden, he was all too conscious of Amuro's focus shifting from Ran to the police detective. Conan's breath hitched, eyes widening in horror as he came to understand what would leave his lips next.
"The announcer, Mizunashi Rena, was a patient here. An injured man caused a panic, trying to force his way into a room. There was a bomb scare, too-"
"Should you be telling us all of this?" Conan blurted out in a panic. Once the attention moved right to him, he pulled out a rather awkward smile, adding, "Instead of going back to the station, I mean. Won't you get in deep trouble?"
Takagi blinked cluelessly, but once he caught sight of his wristwatch, everything made terrible sense. "Oh, no!" he cried. "I don't have time to be hanging out here!"
Conan could not help it ─ his lips curved upwards in both relief and satisfaction.
But of course, Amuro had to ruin it. "You don't know anything about a man named Kusuda Rikumichi, do you?"
Takagi's face contorted in confusion, and for a moment, Conan hoped it wouldn't ring a single bell. But, eventually, his face lit up, eyes snapped open.
"Come to think of it, we found a damaged vehicle a few days before the bomb scare. It belonged to a Kusuda Rikumichi."
If anyone noticed how violently he had winced, nobody gave out any sign of it. Takagi had definitely not, in any case, and simply continued to spew out all details to possibly the most dangerous person in a mile radius.
"Apparently, he was a patient here, but he suddenly disappeared. It's a mysterious case."
Safe inside the depths of his mind, Conan could see a man. Slumped over the door, an extremely battered car, blood oozing from a wound to his head. A macabre scene that, no matter how many times he had witnessed in the past, he had been unable to look away.
"There was blood all over the inside of the damaged vehicle. Some bloodstains were less than a millimeter across…"
"You're quite an unusual one, boy," Akai's deep voice, which he had not heard ever since, had uttered, slight amusement tinting the cold, insipid indifference. "Any other kid your age would be terrified at a sight like this."
"That's because I've grown used to seeing it." He remembered he had laughed back then, dryly so. "What's left after Death's cold grip takes someone away."
And just like that time, Conan's eyes slipped closed, too ─ struggling to come into terms of the inevitable outcome he had, in vain, trying to keep away from materializing. As proof of that, Bourbon's eyes had narrowed slightly with the natural realization that came.
Kusuda Rikumichi had been shot with a gun. Conan knew it had happened, he had seen it with his own eyes. And clearly, as of now, Zero was aware of that fact as well.
"See you guys later!"
Yeah, just go. It's not like you've possibly endangered one life, at the very least, on your way out. Conan barely kept himself from glaring. Thank you, Detective Takagi. You're the best.
Like that, he stood there, quiet in his place. Moving not a single muscle as Amuro claimed it was time to part ways, or he would be late for some other compromise or whatever. He did not pay enough attention to the excuse, per se, but they did meet eyes once. It had been only a split of a second, but for Conan, it was nothing like it. His legs were already aching from standing too long, his head heavy for keeping it up to meet him for what seemed to be hours to an end before he turned around and left.
And by the time he left, he finally allowed the air to rush from his system ─ lungs burning like he had been underwater for an eternity.
Even after wishing for it so desperately, his presence did not entirely vanish with his departure. The silence prevailed, sinking onto his shoulders in a reminder of what had just happened, or that there were still a couple of gazes settled on his being, expecting some answers without explicitly asking for them.
So, he sighed.
"Yeah, you guessed it," Conan said. "I know who Kusuda Rikumichi was."
"So, those nurses who mentioned you have been here…" Kogoro began. "Were they telling the truth?"
He nodded. "I saw it happen. All of it." His head rose, a frown knitted onto his young features, an unwavering gaze meeting theirs. "This time, I'm not trying to hide the truth from you two," he said. "It just… doesn't depend on me ─ since it's about someone else's life."
Despite everything, his fiery determination began to waver. But he maintained his chin up, his eyes from averting. "And the FBI. I think that's classified information, just by dropping that name… It's not that I don't trust you. I mean, I-"
Saying not a single word, Ran sighed. She kneeled down, her hands posing on each of his shoulders, so that she could settle with that gaze up from close. However intense it had been, Conan could not help but feel a little warmer just by looking at her.
His shoulders relaxed. He took a deep breath, then continued.
"The FBI has done a good job protecting me. Jodie-sensei included," he told her, quietly. "I'm going to call her tomorrow. Oniichan, too. He's not nearly as cool as her, but he's quite reliable when it comes to it…"
Ran had not said a single word, her fingers lax around his shoulders with no signs of clenching. No clues about what in the world could be going on in her mind made his frown more prominent.
His hands rose to place over hers, gripping lightly. "What I mean to say is… I don't think I'm in danger!" he said, much louder this time. "And there'll be lots of people watching my back… And if you're planning on grounding me, there's a day I really, really need to do something. No cases, no Organization ─ probably. So, whatever you decide to do, could I, please, only for that day-?"
The rest of his ramble latched to the confines of his throat, unable to rise back to the surface. Eyes large with shock slid to the side, catching sight of her dark chocolate locks, currently tickling his cheek as she clutched him, closer to her body warmth he wouldn't be able to escape, even if he wanted.
But of course, Conan did not try to move.
"You better not worry Ran." Even from his position in Ran's arms, he got to see Kogoro's severe frown. "Or I'll make sure you won't take a single step out of your room until you're twenty, you hear me?"
A soft smile caressed Conan's features.
"Loud and clear."
"Sorry, were you asleep?"
"The real question is why you are up at this hour."
Feet dangling, swinging back and forth rhythmically without even trying to, Conan released a long, exhausted sigh. "There's a lot on my mind," he said, smiling lightly against the phone. "I had decided to talk with you about this tomorrow-" Pausing, he glanced over to the clock at the wall. "Today, I mean. Later today."
"Bourbon again?" He heard the slight note of concern in his older brother's voice, but pretended not to notice.
"I met him today. In a case," said the little boy. "He solved it, naturally. Occhan was too busy trying to chase me off to pay attention to anything else."
Silence prevailed, as per usual, when such a topic emerged in their conversations. More so than usual, since it was impossible for Conan to make out the sound of his brother's breathing, having it hitched and stopped completely the moment he mentioned the case. For a moment, he wondered if he was supposed to be the one to break it, gaze lowering to the tiled floor from the agency, listening attentively for anything on the other end.
Nothing ever came from his part.
"Say," Conan uttered, in a fragile whisper ─ as if afraid to break the silence that had cemented over themselves. "Do you think I'm the reason he's still lurking around?"
Shinichi did not answer, verbally, at least. Conan did hear a surprised noise from the other side of the line, so he continued, "Occhan has that theory, and believe it or not, it's quite a solid one. Considering it's him, you know."
"I… can't deny the possibility."
The boy barely even shifted from his position. "I thought so," he muttered, sounding dejected enough, as if he had been expecting to hear those words. "Which means that Ran-neechan and Occhan could be in potential danger just by living with me. Great."
Lips pursed, tightly pressed against each other, Shinichi could only scrunch up his forehead. Wishing, more than anything else in the world, that it would be just fine. That he knew with astounding certainty how much of an unlikely scenario that was ─ that he knew how those people moved like the back of his hand and that the boy would be safe.
But what had happened a little over a month ago was still fresh in his mind. Because of his arrogance, he had almost lost him, the boy on the other side of the phone.
After all these years, I know nothing. Nothing at all.
His grip on the phone tightened, and he bit his lower lip.
"Unless…"
Shinichi paused for a single beat.
"Did you know his nickname is 'Zero'?" Conan mumbled, then added, like an afterthought, "Zero, like the organization that doesn't exist…"
"It's just that. A nickname." A frown instantly settled amongst the confusion. "You shouldn't give it any more thought."
"But isn't it weird? Back at the Bell Tree Express, he tried to capture Ai instead of killing her on the spot," argued Conan, hopping off his chair to move closer to the glass window, to stare back at his reflection. "She's been clearly labeled as a traitor. No matter how important she is for their investigation, or whatever they're doing, she's clearly not going to collaborate, so why bother?"
"They'd find a way," replied Shinichi, grimly. "If they decide her abilities are crucial for their objectives, they'll do whatever it takes to make her collaborate. "
Conan shivered at that, feeling as if the room had dropped a few degrees just at the thought of it.
"And what about you? They tried to kill you before. Why wouldn't they now?" Conan said. "Bourbon could have shot you on the train."
"They might still be under the impression that I had stolen data from them. If he didn't kill me there, it must mean that they still haven't recovered it. Capturing me to extract information is their last option now."
"But he could have just captured you at the hospital."
Shinichi racked his brain to pull together a plausible explanation, yet failed horrendously.
"There is, too, his insight to instantly see the truth…" Conan took over right away. His finger had long raised to rest over his chin as he continued to voice his thoughts. "And you. I can't see you befriending a criminal ─ unless it's KID, but he's mostly harmless, unless it concerns my mental health-"
"I wouldn't entertain that thought for much longer if I were you." Conan's words stumbled with one another as they stopped short to pay close attention to what his older brother had to say next. "Or you'll end up like me."
It took a while for his words to sink in, and even longer for their meaning to be processed, but when they did, Conan could not help but let his eyes widen dramatically. That thought that his brother was requesting to get off the map… had once been born in his mind as well. Was he saying that? Moreover, it had been that way of thinking what had brought him where he was now. Or so he was getting from that.
"Just remember this, Conan." There was a serious note in his voice, maybe tinted also by what sounded, to Conan's ears, desperation. "Whatever you do, never believe that man's words."
"Oniichan…"
"Promise me, Conan. Please."
His reflection in the glass window frowned back at him and sighed audibly. "... Okay," it said. "I promise."
It did not go further from that, and soon enough, they had bid their goodbyes. Once there was no sound but his own breathing, Shinichi allowed himself to flop back onto his bed ─ exhaustion hitting him in waves even with no signs of physical exertion.
He raised his arm, gazing intently at his screen.
His fingers curled tighter around the phone, as if they could crush it if he tried hard enough ─ have the glass creaking from one side to the other, crossing over that adorable sunny smile he wasn't sure he would ever see again. But that old photo remained there, stored in his phone, absolutely intact ─ a reminder of those times he could not go back to.
Even to this day, he could still feel Ran's warmth as she shuffled closer to him, far too focused on tidying down her middle school uniform to notice it. He could still hear Conan's cute little giggle as he positioned himself in the middle, clearly enjoying every second of it.
A smile creeped up Shinichi's face, even though he was no longer there.
But faded lightly as he raised his head to stare at the engraved words that commemorated his dear, far too young, brother. It was almost laughable, and made it sick, all at the same time, to see those words, 'Kudo Conan', even though the boy was still among the living, and certainly, there was nobody to pay his respects to.
It was just the result of a carefully planned ruse orchestrated by his parents. None of this was real, so logically, there was no reason for him to be standing there, bracing the cold.
He bowed his head briefly before standing upright again, placing the phone inside his pocket, and turned away from the grave.
This being a reality was a thought he couldn't fathom ─ and that right there was, ironically, the sole reason for him being here. To soak into this sight, engrave into his mind just like those words in the cold, cold tombstone ─ and gather, like that, the determination to keep going. So that this staged show his life revolved in nowadays never got a label reading 'based on real facts'.
Suddenly, a chilly breeze swept through the cemetery, raising goosebumps on Shinichi's skin. In front of him, a young man waved, proving that he had never been alone to begin with. He inwardly flinched, all too conscious of the tombstone that, however fake, had his family name engraved on it. It would be naïve of him to believe he could trick him into thinking he was not related to any of it.
"Bourbon," he said, keeping everything out of his tone, smiling accordingly. "This isn't the place I'd expect you to see you at."
"That's what I'd say," replied Bourbon. Naturally, his eyes wandered over the grave, and added, "Family?"
Even if he were to lie, he would find it on his own. "Little brother," he replied. "Died in a traffic accident two years ago."
Bourbon went solemnly serious, offering nothing but a quiet, "I'm sorry."
Shinichi nodded. "I'm sorry about your friend, too."
He turned to him, needing no words to convey the need for him to explain what he meant with that. "It's not the first time I've seen you hanging around," admitted Shinichi. "Date Wataru-san, right? I've heard about him from the police."
More like, he had asked Megure about it once he had caught sight of the name, and had gotten a little more insight from Takagi, too. But suddenly, he had no time to worry about it. Bourbon's eyes had narrowed slightly in his form, and despite himself, Shinichi found himself smirking arrogantly.
"According to Detective Takagi, he would often mention a gentleman friend he made himself at police school. One that he could not contact, no matter how hard he tried," he said. "It makes you wonder, if they were this close, why would he go no contact so out of the blue?"
A smirk quirked Bourbon's lips upwards.
"Maybe he couldn't contact him because he was worried it could endanger him," concluded Shinichi. "Because he was infiltrating a criminal organization as a high-ranked member."
Bourbon made no sound for a beat, then shrugged. "You truly are a detective in your own right, Shinichi-kun," he said. "A terrifying one."
"Aren't you worried about me selling you out?"
He laughed for some reason. "So that you can stage my death and help me escape?"
Stunned, Shinichi stood back, unable to utter a single word. Bourbon merely smiled amusedly, his gaze falling, for one last time, at the tombstone the teenage detective had just been staring at.
"Is this the reason you're risking your life for?" Bourbon asked.
And Shinichi did not answer.
A groan erupted from the confines of his throat, dropping the phone at his bedside and burying his face into the pillow.
For the first time, he had no idea of what could happen in the near future.
A faint beep announced that the call had ended. Using only one hand, the child tucked the phone safely inside his pocket, raising a cup to his lips with the other, smiling lightly at the caffeine gently caressing his taste buds. In silence, he stood in his pajamas, shifting from one foot to the other, eyes far too alert for such ungodly hours into the night, keeping watch for every movement on the other side of the window.
A white Mazda parked on the sidewalk. Conan took another long gulp of his coffee.
The gentle chiming wafted over the silence of the small café, yet nobody cared enough for it.
Icy cold blue pierced through the darkness and fell upon him. Conan smiled sheepishly, plopping down into a chair, sipping on his coffee ─ noisily so.
"I guess I've finally found it," said the man, shrugging as he smiled. "Who's the small rat that has been sneaking inside Poirot for a while."
"Hi, I'm the rat," was all the answer Conan gave him. "Thanks for the coffee, Zero-no-niichan!"
Amuro eyed him for a while and moved towards the kitchen area. Conan did not move a single muscle, but the soft clattering of cups filled the room, followed by water being boiled. The sounds matched perfectly to that of someone brewing some coffee, so he shrugged it off, waiting patiently.
"It's dangerous for a young boy like you to be out this late." Amuro's voice came from the kitchen. "Mouri-sensei and Ran-san would be worried if something happened to you."
"It'd be dumb to try something. They're sleeping right above us as we speak, so I could just shout really loudly," replied Conan. "And even if I couldn't, I've left a message to all my friends and a super skilled detective I know. Telling them I'm here, with you, just in case."
Silence sank in right after those words, which didn't break until the moment Amuro's face emerged from the shadows, a cup of coffee for himself in his hand. He took a long sip and smiled.
"Are you scared of me?" Amuro asked, then added, "You're a cautious one."
"Neurotically cautious, I'd say."
"Well, I can't blame you. You've accompanied Mouri-sensei in several cases, haven't you?" Not even waiting for a response, Amuro leaned slightly forward, allowing the boy to see his eyes glint dangerously under the faint moonlight. "So, did you decide you wanted me to teach you a few tricks, after all?"
Conan forced a childish grin out. "I want to be a detective like you are!" he exclaimed. "So I want to learn lots about you!"
He seemed surprised, even though the child was certain it was nothing but a pretense. "You're quite the curious individual, too." Despite himself, the boy felt himself frown. "I know. You ask a question, then I'll ask you another. So that both of us can learn about each other, how does that sound?"
It wasn't like the boy was overjoyed at the suggestion, but he nodded vigorously in any case, grinning from ear to ear. "Then, I'll start! Umm..." A frown pinched his face, a hand moving to cradle his chin as he pretended to be having the hardest time in his life trying to think of a single question. "What's your least favorite color?"
"Red," he replied, without a shadow of doubt. "Normally, you'd ask what your favorite color is. Why is that?"
He shrugged. "Never said I was normal." Then, after a pause, asked, "What made you become a detective?"
"I just felt like it. The thrill of solving a complex case… You must have felt it before, right?" Conan offered no answer to that, but Amuro smiled either way. "It's my turn, isn't it? Let's see… Favorite food?"
This time, the boy had a rather difficult time answering. "Does cheesecake count as an answer?"
"You'll use up your question."
"Okay, fine. It's cheesecake then." Conan's gaze fell on the cup, avoiding eye contact as he asked. "How did you know I don't like raisins?"
"Oh, you don't like them?" Surprise tinted his tone, yet the boy obviously could not bring himself to believe any of it. "Well, how about… A weakness about yourself."
"I can't hold a tone in a bucket," he replied rapidly enough.
A choking sound had his head snapping back up, and this time, he was genuinely surprised to see the organization member pressing the back of his hand to his mouth, as if to keep, strangely enough, a laugh to escape him. "Sorry," he said, waving a hand. "That reminded me of a friend I had."
His eyes squinted slightly. "Do you have any friends?"
"What's with that face? Do I look like someone who can't have any friends?" Of course, it was a rhetorical question, so Amuro did not feel it was of utmost importance to press for an answer.
Everything dissolved, and for the briefest of moments, Conan could've sworn that he had seen those piercing eyes lowering to the still steaming cupping in between his hands, a shadow Conan could not recognize swiping all of what made him so intimidating and leaving something else. Softer, yet also foreign.
"I had a few good friends," he answered. "Friends I'd give anything-"
"-to bring back?" Amuro's head snapped back up, and for the first time, did Conan see such genuine shock on his usually pleasantly calm features. "Did you lose contact with them, or did they-?"
He cringed at the abrupt dragging of a chair. Amuro had risen from his seat unexpectedly, a frown etched into his features as he looked down at him.
"I think we had enough," Amuro pronounced. "It's late and you shouldn't be up, Conan-kun."
No matter how deeply interesting he found it, the child did not make a single comment about his reactions. Rather than that, he gulped down the rest of the coffee, leaving the cup on the table as he hopped off, a childish smile stretching from side to side in his face even as Amuro watched him, without moving an inch from his spot, so intensely at that.
His fingers were grazing the doorknob when he stopped, not by his own volition.
"Why did you want to meet me?" Amuro's voice reached his ears. Calm, but unyielding. "The real reason this time."
"I wanted to set something straight with you."
Slowly, he turned until he was facing him, his expression unchanging.
"I don't like you."
Amuro barely even appeared hurt, more like amused. "I could tell," he admitted.
"And I'd chase you away from Ran-neechan and Occhan if I could. But I guess that's something I need to put up with." Despite the smile lighting up his face, his eyes narrowed dangerously on Bourbon's form. "But if any harm ever comes to any of them…"
A smirk quirked Amuro's lips upward. "What would you do then?"
Conan settled him with a long, scrutinizing look. It tore away from him finally, spinning on his heels. Drowned by the silence, the gentle chiming barely made itself known, but Conan stepped out into the darkness of the night either way.
"Anything," was everything Bourbon heard before the door clicked shut again.
Once outside, the boy wasted little time scurrying back inside the building, away from the prying eyes that were, with utmost certainty, still glued onto his body from the other side of the window. Only when he climbed up the first step did he allow himself to breathe out, his hand resting on his chest to feel the light thumping of his wildly beating heart.
Never again, he thought.
He plucked his phone out after that, quickly scrolling through his messages, stopping when he stumbled upon his detective club chat group. He could have sighed in relief, seeing that nobody had yet read the last text he had sent. Luckily, that meant that he could just delete it, and pretend he sent random nonsense by mistake when his friends asked about it. Explaining all of this would be a pain.
The phone started buzzing in his hands, so abruptly that Conan barely kept it from slipping from his grasp and clattering noisily to the ground. For a moment, he braced himself, eyeing almost fearfully at the screen, yet his gaze dulled when he did not find his older brother on the display, but something entirely different.
"What?" he answered, blandly. "You were awake?"
"Of course I am, ya moron!" The Kansai dialect boomed past his eardrums, resounding straight into his brain. "After that creepy message I got, who wouldn't?!"
"My bad. I didn't get to delete it before you could read it."
"That doesn't explain anything! You wrote 'In case anything happens to me, it was Amuro Tooru'. Who the heck-?"
"Oh, that's just Bourbon."
A beat of silence ensued.
"B-Bourbon?! That sounds like someone from that organization…"
"I can see what makes you such an excellent detective, Hattori." He heard him drawing in a breath, so he quickly added, "Relax, all I did was talk with him. That text was just a safety measure."
"I assume Kudo did not get one." No answer was needed ─ both of them knew the chaos that would ensue if the sleuth were to read such a cryptic message. "Are you in danger?"
It took a while for Conan to put out a response together. His brother's words were still fresh in his mind ─ about how much of a danger that man was, and how he should never believe whatever came out of his mind.
But there was also that face he had made, softening involuntarily at the mention of his possibly deceased friends. Conan was aware he should trust none of it, but something deep within himself told him he, in that brief moment of weakness, was being the most genuine he had ever seen him. His regret had been palpable, like that of someone who chastised himself every night for not doing anything else to prevent a tragedy.
Maybe it was wishful thinking, but a part of Conan was almost certain that he knew one of those friends of his, just like the back of his hand.
"I'll be fine," he eventually said.
There was a sigh on the other side of the receiver, leaving Conan to wonder if Hattori had ever been convinced.
"Try not to give Kudo a heart attack," he settled with that response, a note of resignation in his voice. "See ya."
For the second time, Conan cut off the call and placed the phone back in his pajama shirt pocket. Stretching himself, he began his way up the stairs as quietly as possible.
He had to catch some sleep before talking to Jodie tomorrow, and surely, waking Ran or Kogoro up for a stern scolding for what he had done would be counterproductive for his goal.
Morning arrived far too quickly.
It hadn't been supposed to be a long talk. In fact, Conan had hopped into Jodie's car while under the impression that they would probably drive for a block or two before they were finished and he was free to get off again. All he had managed to do was request for the FBI to keep Kusuda Rikumichi's suicide a secret, since Bourbon appeared to be disturbingly interested on it, when her phone had rang.
Like that, he had wound up tagging along to a case investigation, again ─ a murder attempt this time, fortunately, despite what the scene that had met his eyes upon their arrival would suggest, or rather, the drying pool of blood that had formed under the stairs of a park in Haido.
"Camel!" Jodie could not get over her surprise when she saw her coworker there. "What are you doing here?"
It was like the third time already he wound up as a murder suspect, Conan mused internally, unable to decide if he was impressed or disturbed. It took some skill to do that.
Though, to be fair, Jodie was getting the worst part for sure. Shibuya Natsuko, the victim, was her friend, to whom she had last talked with, over the phone ─ Camel's, as it later turned out, because hers had been dead at the time. Her call history showed that Jodie had called an hour before it was reported.
Jodie was beyond confused, and worried, all at the same time. "Natsuko didn't fall today?"
"It happened at nine last night," informed Megure. "She didn't have her wallet or phone on her. We couldn't identify her until this afternoon."
"But we knew she was a teacher," added Takagi. Conan perked up. "We followed that lead and discovered the victim was Shibuya Natsuko-san."
Tilting his head, the boy asked, "How did you know she was a teacher?"
"Oh, there were a bunch of answer sheets inside her bag…" Takagi began, then paused. "Wait, Conan-kun?! What are you doing he-?!"
"Was there anything written on them?" Conan barely even batted an eye.
"Y-Yeah. They were all filled in and graded. I think some had even scored 100 points and had flower circles on them…"
"Then she wasn't attacked here." It was hard not to roll his eyes when several clueless gazes fell upon him ─ even Jodie, for crying out loud! Didn't she used to be a teacher until recently?! "Why would she carry graded test sheets home? You're not supposed to do that. Or so Kobayashi-sensei says."
Actually, no, he hadn't heard it from her. He hoped she wouldn't mind.
"Which means she was attacked at school," concluded Jodie.
"I see. The culprit stuffed the papers on her desk inside her bag to make it look like she was attacked on her way home," added Camel. "They accidentally included the answer sheets."
Conan nodded with a broad smile, pleased that the case seemed to be progressing smugly, especially when Jodie remembered her friend had mentioned a meeting with a student's parent.
With that new lead rising to the surface, the boy soon found himself hopping back inside the car ─ not knowing that this might as well be only the beginning of one of his toughest cases ever.
"Huh? This place?"
"Is there something wrong, Detective Takagi?"
"Eh? No, not at all."
Laughing in a terribly forced manner, Takagi hurried to follow the inspector. Conan watched him in silence, pondering over that response that confounded him more than it answered his concerns, before skipping ahead as well.
There was nothing remarkable about this place, nor was it surprising that it had wound up as the actual crime scene. A school like no other, however unpopulated it was due to the ongoing summer holidays. Children surely knew better, nobody in their right mind would be in school grounds proximity if given the chance. Except for Conan, apparently, even though this was not his designated one.
Even from inside, it was pretty plain and ordinary, not too different from his school. He would have liked to say that it was weird that someone would attack another in such a place, but really, it wasn't. Conan had seen enough.
A woman's head peaked out into the hallway, her eyes widened in surprise. He couldn't blame her ─ even if she couldn't tell it was the police, a bunch of unfamiliar people bursting into the school and roaming the place as if a daily occurrence had to be a sight to behold.
Her surprise, however, turned out to be directed to specifically one person. "It's you again…" Of all people, it was Takagi.
"I came here for another matter," he said, scratching the back of his head.
"We are here for an investigation." Megure stepped up. "A teacher has been attacked here."
Naturally, her hands went to her mouth instantly, muting a shocked gasp.
"We'd like to inspect Shibuya Natsuko-san's desk," the inspector added regardless. "Would you tell us where it is?"
As the woman offered him a shaky nod and motioned to them to follow her, the little boy could not avert his eyes from the police detective who had been here at least once in the past, for reasons he had yet to figure out. Haido Elementary School was a quiet place, or at least, no crimes had been reported to have occurred here before this one ─ he would have seen it mentioned at some point in the news, which he usually checked in the mornings almost religiously. Or, alternatively, Megure would have also been there with him, but this woman did not seem to recognize him. So, in conclusion, no prior case had brought Takagi near the school grounds.
At some point, Takagi felt a shiver strike suddenly. Slowly, his gaze lowered, and met an intense gaze that not even glasses could filter out, slightly narrowing in suspicion.
"C-Conan-kun…?"
"You don't have any children, do you?"
"... Eh?"
His eyes squinted some more. "No, that's not it," he mumbled to himself, averting his gaze to walk right past him. "It's evident just by looking at him."
"W-What's that supposed to mean?"
No answer. Deflating with a long sigh, the police detective was forced to resume his job with no further complaint.
The subsequent arrival of the forensic team confirmed what they had already known ─ under the ultraviolet light they found blood marks on her desk, proving it as the place where Natsuko had been attacked, yet no sign of the murder weapon was ever found. What they did find, however, was Sugamoto Yoshiharu ─ a physical education teacher who, according to the woman from before, had offered Natsuko a ride back home the night before.
"It's dangerous for a woman to walk around at night by herself," he said. "But when I came to the faculty office because I thought she'd be ready to go, she wasn't here."
"What time was that?" asked Jodie.
"After 8:30, I think. I asked security to lock up and went home."
"What were you doing before then?"
"I was organizing the gym's equipment closet."
Hands latched behind his back, Conan stepped forward. "Do you have a car?" he asked.
"Yeah, I do. Its engine is acting up, so I came by train today."
He hummed, deeply in thought. Just in time, the door opened up and Takagi's face came into sight, bringing along the two ─ yeah, multiple people ─ who had been supposed to meet with the victim last night.
Ueno Akiyo was the kind of woman Conan would prefer not to have as a mother ─ and coming from him, he supposed it was saying a lot. She was loud, stuck up, and had come to warn Natsuko not to 'seduce' her son ─ by wearing far too short skirts, or whatever. They had met after eight last night for about ten minutes before leaving.
Kandachi Fumiyuki was not better off. Apparently, because of her daughter's poor handwriting, the victim had marked his daughter's answers wrong even though they had been correct. From the way he shouted just by telling others about it, Conan could picture how it would be for the teacher to deal with this sort of thing. Remind me never to become a teacher, he thought.
In any case, he did not get to see her when he had come the night before. The lights had been out already, and the gate closed. He brushed past that fact in order to keep complaining about his daughter's text. It was hard for Conan not to roll his eyes at that, arms cushioning his head as he waited for it to end.
"All her wrong answers were actually right. She should've scored 100 with a flower circle, but she gave her a 60 instead!"
Jodie stepped up to defend her friend. "Natsuko wouldn't do something so unfair."
"Want me to show you my daughter's answer sheet, then? And she even hired some weird detective."
Little hands slowly dropped to his sides, a bored yawn caught in the middle of his throat.
"A weird detective?" echoed Megure.
"Yeah. I followed her so I could talk to her at home when he grabbed me by the collar."
Conan could not help a feeling settling onto his stomach, even though he fervently tried to convince himself otherwise. Because there were several other detectives in this world who he could be talking about ─ Conan himself knew, like, three or four of them, and that should be enough on its own. Right?
"I didn't have a choice." His breath hitched ─ he recognized that voice. "She asked me to investigate her stalker."
As Kandachi stepped away from the doorway, gelid blue eyes appeared, accompanied by an arrogant smirk he had probably caught sight of about a dozen of times so far this week. Bourbon?! he cried in his mind, unable to keep his eyes from snapping open, violently so. Why, out of everyone else-?!
"Sorry I'm late, Inspector," Amuro apologized.
The inspector eyed Takagi in turn, who explained, "His number was in her call history,"
His gaze stopped on the kid's form, as per usual, so he did his best not to pretend he was calm, and not at all affected from seeing him again so soon, without planning to, in any case. It was brief, dramatically more swift than any other instances, his attention captivated instantly by the two FBI agents glaring at him.
"Are you two English teachers or something?" he asked, cluelessly ─ as if Conan would believe that.
"Actually, they're FBI agents," Takagi pipped in. "They're helping us with the investigation."
"FBI, huh? The USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation. I see you guys in movies and TV shows all the time." Amuro's eyes had narrowed just a sliver further, his smirk crooked, one side of his lips rising slightly above the other. "Their investigators show up at crime scenes to steal all the credit, smugly interfere with the investigation, offend the local police, and annoy the viewer."
"What?!" Camel reacted, more violently than Jodie ─ though she clearly had tensed up, her forehead scrunching up in indignation.
"Oh, I'm not talking about you." Amuro held both hands in front of himself. "That's just the story I happened to see."
That did little to soothe the situation ─ not that Conan had been expecting anything. If anything, Camel's teeth gritted together, his fists clenching, as if restraining them from acting on their own and landing a hit on the blonde man's jaw. Jodie reacted quickly enough, placing her hand on top of his, whispering something to him Conan could not hear from his spot ─ not that it made the message any less clear. The FBI couldn't go about telling him they knew of his real identity.
What was even more obvious, for the kid anyway, was that this fury could not stem from such a comment. It was a deeper hatred, his smirk a living reminder of their comrade they had lost.
Conan averted his gaze, his eyelids sliding close.
"What?!" when Megure shouted in surprise. "You're the one who reported Shibuya Natsuko-san's incident?"
Amuro nodded. "In addition to investigating her stalker, she asked me to serve as her bodyguard," he said. "I meant to watch her take her usual shortcut through the park. I wasn't expecting her to fall down the steps."
His eyes, now wide open as he took on every bit of information he could collect, could not look away from the man. Listening attentively to his claims, coming to learn that, from inside his car, he had seen a silhouette pushing the victim while standing at the top of the stairs, peering down at her from above. Whoever that was, they fled immediately.
From the sounds that his ears had caught, Amuro concluded the culprit had placed the unconscious victim in their car and brought her to the parking space in the park, near the stairs, to push her down. Thanks to the trees hiding Amuro's car, they had probably failed to see him.
"But why didn't you wait at the scene until we arrived?" questioned Megure. "The investigation would've gone more smoothly."
"I'm sorry. I had another client in my car. They didn't want to get involved."
"But even if she didn't want to, wouldn't your client be a witness, too?" Conan pipped in, head tilting to one side. "She should be involved, regardless."
Amuro eyed him for a beat and smiled. "Oh, did I say my client was female?" The boy's eyes squinted lightly in response, but refused to say anything at all. "My client was sitting in the passenger seat. It's impossible to see anything from that position."
Just like that, the topic was dropped, but never did the young boy stop pondering over it. He had met Bourbon just the other night; he had arrived at the café in his car, wearing the same clothes he had been wearing when he had seen him earlier. Maybe he headed to Poirot straight after the crime, thought the boy. And what about this other client? He didn't deny it being a woman… So, could it be…?
Red lipstick curving into a sinister smile sent shivers down his spine.
There seems to be more to this than it meets the eye…
It felt like this would only be the beginning of yet another extensive, tough case.
What is really hiding under your mask? I'll tear it up into shreds, so be prepared, Zero!
A/N:
CherryGirl 21-6: Yeah, I sure do, too!