File One Hundred and Fifty: Repetition
"I'm sorry to have kept you all until late today," Sato said, shooting an apologetic smile through the rear mirror. "I'm sure you're all tired from the interrogation, aren't you?"
Truth to be told, it was more like 'dead on his feet' for Conan, but since that seemed to have become his perpetual state of being at some point in his short eight years of life, he didn't bother correcting her.
Instead, he leaned his head against the window, watching the streetlights zooming by their car like comets through heavy eyelids. What a tough night it had been, the one before this one ─ filled with nothing but dread, and complete with an existential crisis his brother had barely even managed to pull him from.
Though, to be fair, there were times that he felt like he was still hovering on the edge of that abyss, holding desperately on a grip so feeble that hardly kept him from plummeting down once again.
Taking a deep breath, Conan closed his eyes. He thought of what Sato had told them, about those few seconds after the accident before Date passed away. He found himself picturing a memo book held by a trembling hand, blood smudged all over. His mind painted a probably accurate replica of what Takagi's face would have looked like as he held it, probably between his own two hands, before Date's slipped and flopped back onto the ground.
It was hard to keep his mind from finding points to connect it to another memory. To convince it, too, that the scene was of an adult passing his dear notebook to his partner, and not of a teenager placing his glasses back on a younger, tearful sibling.
But it was easy to see what they had in common, for Takagi Wataru and Date Wataru may not have shared a single drop of blood, but their bond was as genuine as it could get. To anyone else, they were brothers, and that was all what mattered.
As it should, Conan thought. They didn't need to be related to call themselves brothers.
We don't need to, came a thought that, while tempting, Conan couldn't call foreign. A voice familiar as his own that he couldn't ignore, for he wouldn't believe his own lies.
Conan took another deep breath, though this time, it resembled more a huff than anything else. They had gone through this last night, right? Those precious memories they both shared, they were all the proof he needed, like his older brother had said.
Then that's what you need to focus on, he told himself. Your own memories.
Thus, the hand that once lay cold and limp on the ground held his, and the blood became a carpet of pink, cherry blossom petals for them to walk through. And suddenly, the voice grew quiet.
"Maybe the culprit has a grudge against Detective Takagi," Mitsuhiko was saying, by the time he had the mind to actually pay attention to the world outside himself. "Maybe the case was actually a homicide, but Detective Takagi concluded it as suicide..."
"Not a chance," Conan said, and Mitsuhiko jumped, startled, before turning to him. Later, it would fall on him that his friend might have thought he'd been asleep. If only. "It wouldn't only be Detective Takagi if that was the case. There are more police detectives, not to mention the forensic team."
Besides the fact that nobody had requested a re-investigation for any of those three cases. That would be much of a dead-away, but sadly, didn't happen.
The way Sato frowned told Conan that he had made his point across.
"All three suicides occurred the say after Date-san got into the accident," she told him. Conan had to conceal a wince, because that had to be tough ─ even by his standards. "Takagi-kun was still dazed because of the incident, so the one who concluded that it was suicide was me."
"And you aren't the one about to die either by dehydration, starvation or strangulation," Conan added, then paused and stared back to the front in contemplation. "Wait, you actually break your spine in the last one, which means that it would be-"
Then proceeded to click his mouth shut, encouraged by the look Sato sent him from the rearview mirror.
Perhaps, if he feigned sleep, and did it right this time, she'd ignore him and forget this. So, he curled into a little ball, tucked tightly against the car door. Closing his eyes, Conan wished he was back home ─ only that he was past the point of knowing where that was.
"Maybe it's the lady who went to medical school?" he heard Genta say.
And then Conan sat right back up, a scowl fixed on his face because, really.
For Haibara Ai, it was an utterly mundane morning in which she strolled out of her room.
Though she wasn't much of an early riser herself, she had decided it would be an exception today as she raised a hand to muffle a yawn, a silvery dolphin pendant glimmering in the first golden rays that timidly peeked out of the horizon. She was nowhere close to the eight-year-old addict known as Kudo Conan in terms of coffee addiction, but she'd admit that a cup would be heavenly right now.
Coffee, then back to the basement lab. And see if she could whip out together some semblance of progress on the antidote by the end of the day ─ to dig out some well-needed sense of accomplishment that had been missing those days. Anything, no matter how small, would be great at this point.
She stopped dead in her tracks upon getting to the living room, her nose tickled by a certain aroma that would probably summon a miniature detective at her side if it was just a bit stronger.
Now, it wasn't weird to walk into the room to see a pair of coffee mugs ready at the kitchen table. What was weird, however, was that she had been witness to, with her own two eyes, the Professor's snoring self, tucked out in his bed back when she got up earlier.
Then, if it wasn't him ─ her breath hitched suddenly ─ who could it be-?
"Hey, what are you-?" She blinked in surprise at the extremely familiar voice. "No, you can't do that. No. Go back. You'll get sick."
It did not take long for her eyes to catch sight of the slightly wavering tail of her beloved feline companion, skillfully climbing over a sofa's armrest to paw at an extra mug she hadn't spotted before. And ducking out of her way, with a scowl ready on his face as he tried to keep the kitten away, sat nobody else but the one teenage detective she now regretted having told Agasa to give an extra pair of keys to her home to.
Keeping back a sigh, she crossed the room and promptly plucked Irene into her arms. Shinichi instantly glanced back at her, the surprise watered down with an awkward chuckle at the sight of her raised eyebrow.
"What do you want?" she asked him.
"Good morning to you too, Ai-chan."
She fixed him with a long stare, not even blinking once throughout the whole thing. Eventually, she gave up with a shrug, allowing Irene to plop back onto the ground.
Her interest dimmed, the kitten disappeared somewhere in the hallway, and Ai was sure that it wouldn't be long for her bawling to resound all over the house, begging poor Professor Agasa to wake up and feed her. At times like these, Ai wondered if he had really known what was signing up for when he allowed Conan to bring her to them.
"So, what is it?" she wondered, walking over to the counter to fetch the coffee he had apparently brewed for her. A touching gesture for sure, yet the still unknown motive for his visit kept her from being properly moved about it. "It can't be that you need more temporary antidotes ─ the amount I gave you last time should cover another month or so."
Her eyes narrowed, and added, "Unless you're experiencing an increased frequency of…"
Though a bit slow, Shinichi immediately understood what she was talking about and shook his head. "I was actually wondering if you'd do something for me."
"'Something else for me', you mean."
He didn't even look one bit ashamed, instead bringing out a paper bag from behind him and settling it on his lap. The little scientist looked back in askance, but all she triggered on him was a sheepish grin.
"Do you happen to know how to run a DNA test?" He asked him, and she blinked. "If I provided you with some samples, of course."
For a moment, she said nothing, her features hard and unmoving. Her arms crossed over her chest, and her eyelids dropped a little lower as he scrutinized the paper bag he was offering her.
"I'm just a young lady," she said, her mouth twitching into a smirk. "What gives you the impression I-?"
Shinichi said nothing, but produced a second bag and settled onto the coffee table without even chasing his gaze away. Ai paused to contemplate it, drawn by the familiar golden ginkgo pattern that spread all over the shopping bag, and spun on her heels.
"Give me a day and I'll figure it out."
And thus, grasping the paper bag in one hand, the mug of coffee in her other, the girl vanished behind the door that led to the Professor's basement. It was then, and only then, that Shinichi allowed his features to smooth out, his grin to fade away into nothingness.
From his position, the Kudo Manor was only slightly visible from behind the window. Though that didn't stop his forehead from scrunching up, or his lips from pressing against each other into a thin line.
He stepped out of the building roughly fifteen minutes after his arrival, a sedated pace and a frown pinching his little face.
Behind his back, stood the same old Beika Library he had gradually gotten used to frequent first thing every morning, and felt himself stop at the vague notion that his backpack felt heavier all of a sudden ─ even though all he was carrying was a single, yet well-loved book that had not gotten the chance to see the light today.
The library had been empty, and while that was hardly a strange sight to witness, it was never this deserted. Normally, he would be able to spot a mop of raven black hair as soon as he stepped in, and his lips would curve into an apologetic smile because he somehow was always late. A timid little smile would peek out into existence, letting him know that he didn't mind at all. That he was glad that he had made it at all, Conan liked to think that was what it meant.
Of course, he had not really planned to stay for long, but he had hoped he could apologize for his absence the other day, and maybe tell him he wouldn't be able to hang out today ─ he was even planning on lending him his book as a sign of repentance before leaving. But in the end, he hadn't gotten to do any of those things.
Maybe he's sick? Conan wondered, forcing himself to look away to undertake his way back to the police station. There was a busy day ahead of him, so he should get going, he thought. The librarian lady told me he didn't show up yesterday. He didn't come the day before yesterday either, for that matter.
Yesterday, or the day before yesterday… His steps halted lightly, a thought suddenly invading his mind. Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.
Come to think of it, that was what that guy said, right? Initially, I interpreted that part as a way of saying 'tomorrow, or at the latest, the day after tomorrow', but come to think of it…
Could there be more of that, the boy wondered. Certainly, that was something he might have to talk Sato about when he got to the MPD Headquarters… Or actually, he could ask her right now ─ with Takagi's life literally hanging from a rope, he did not have such a luxury as waiting around. If he could save some time while he was heading to the aforementioned place, then he didn't see why he shouldn't do that.
Granted, he didn't actually have Detective Sato's phone number. But he knew that his phone had been buzzing so violently that it could've easily exploded inside his pocket for quite a while now. Clearly, that meant that he was being scolded, and his first guess was them ─ Mitsuhiko, Ayumi and Genta, and for the reason why they were angry, Conan was inclined to believe it had to do with his absence. They probably were already there, and he was running late again.
It's not like me being there will save Detective Takagi's life faster, thought Conan, pulling out his phone to give the messages he wasn't going to read a plain stare. I haven't yet stopped thinking about him, as much as he was sure that Sato hadn't stopped thinking about the police detective, either.
For Conan, it would be a miracle if he didn't fall into delirium by the end of the day, victim to the vicious summer sun slowly but mercilessly cooking him up into stew. On the bright side, the night wouldn't have been as arduous as it could've been, sans the obvious horror and anxiety that must have kept him awake, draining all the little energy he must have left. There wasn't much ground to draw his optimism from, unfortunately.
Finally, he tapped the message icon, and it opened to a photo that Mitsuhiko had forwarded to him. One where Takagi was lying down, belly pressed into the plank as he looked straight at the camera.
And for a moment, Conan felt himself falter, blinking in surprise at his screen, or rather, at the oddly determined expression painting Takagi's face ─ sharp eyes piercing through the camera lens, staring right at him. As if they tried to emphasize something, or leave some sort of message behind.
His eyes drifted downward, to bound wrists and extended fingers, and hastened his pace. Following right after it, there was another photograph that might as well be a perfect replica, hadn't it been that he was hiding one finger this time.
"What?! Someone else has been kidnapped?"
"What makes you believe that, Conan-kun?"
Hardly even remembering when he had placed the phone next to his ear, the small detective raised his voice, "I don't just believe it," and told whoever was on the other side of the line. "I know it happened."
Sato's unmistakable voice hummed over to him, meaning that his friends must have put him on speaker. Not that he particularly minded about it ─ in fact, it made things faster to explain. He broke into a sprint as he turned around the corner, and forced himself through elaborated breaths.
"The picture that was sent to me. Detective Takagi held up ten, then nine fingers up," Conan explained, hurriedly. "Ten-code ─ it's a brevity code the police used to communicate, though plain language is preferred nowadays. 10-9 stands for-"
"Say again," Sato answered before he could finish his thread of thought. Conan could swear her eyebrows were knitted together in her confusion, even though he couldn't see her. "That's what 10-9 means, I'm certain. Nevertheless, I can't-"
"Repeat."
This time, Conan could swear he could see her blinking. "What?"
"It's also, 'repeat', which retains the same meaning," Conan explained. With the building in plain sight, he encouraged his feet to move all the faster. "But if you think in even simpler terms, and more specifically about the word 'repetition'..."
"Repetition… As in an event repeating itself." She fell in a thoughtful silence for a moment, and Conan allowed her to gather her thoughts ─ and his own breath. "I see. If the event is Takagi-kun's kidnapping, that means…"
"That someone else has been kidnapped too, yeah."
Startled, the woman spun around to see sweaty, panting young Edogawa Conan standing directly behind her. The other trio peeked from around her to watch him, but failed to say anything as he brazenly made his way past her and closer to the entrance.
"Also, it's Hokkaido," Conan said.
"Hokkaido?" Mitsuhiko wondered.
He paused an inch away from the front door to glance over at his friend. "You guys told me," he said, oddly exasperated. "That he was talking a little strange."
Ayumi nodded for her own group. "The tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow," she told him, eyeing his friends for a second before turning back to the boy. "It was a little weird, how he phrased it…"
"Because you aren't from Hokkaido," Conan answered her. "In Hokkaido dialect, 'the day after tomorrow' is said as 'tomorrow or the day after tomorrow'."
Sato's eyes widened as two plates at the revelation, but the boy only stared at her, patiently awaiting her to connect the dots on her own ─ her gaze had fallen into the tip of her shoes, the gears of her brain turning with all the might to get out the last piece they needed to figure out the criminal's identity.
"Natalie Kuruma-san," she finally said, much to everyone's surprise. "Among the three women who committed suicide, she was the only one from Hokkaido."
Genta practically jumped to his feet. "Wait, what does that mean?" he asked, desperate to get into the conversation, yet failing spectacularly. "What does that have to do with anything?!"
"Maybe someone close to her is the one who kidnapped Detective Takagi." Conan's eyes narrowed, his face hardening with each of his words. "And the reason for his crime… is Natalie-san's tragic romance story with Detective Date."
Shock was written in each and every one of their faces, forcing him to explain, "The word written in the calendar, it wasn't the English word 'date'. It was Date, as in Detective Date. That probably was her marking when Detective Date would come spend the night with her."
Sato sucked in a shaky breath. Conan's face dipped forward, a strange shadow taking over his eyes as he shared the next part of his theory ─ lost in his own mind, or rather, on the images it produced, to his utter delight. A bloody memo book passed down to Takagi, a diamond ring exactly the way KID had described it as a testament of the love that, unlike that fragile soul of his, would never fade away from existence.
"They had a date the day she committed suicide, didn't she?" he muttered, his voice much softer than before. "Unaware of Detective Date's accident, she waited, and waited some more. Then, when it became obvious that he wouldn't come, the thought began to settle in ─ the horrifying thought of the love of his life dumping her. And then…"
A snapping sound, a chair being knocked over ─ toes growing colder with every sway of a rope.
"And… And then, two years later, Detective Takagi realized what happened, and wanted to tell her bereaved family about it."
Sato could not argue about that logic, being just as aware as this boy of the stories that had been circulating around the First Division for an entire day now ─ that of Takagi tearing up at the sight of a photo in the memo book. If one was to assume that he had just confirmed that it was from Natalie Kuruma, then everything would make perfect sense.
"But wait!" Mitsuhiko was arguing. "But this is about Detective Date, isn't it?!"
Genta nodded. "It has nothing to do with Detective Takagi!"
"Maybe," Conan conceded. "But it does have to do with Wataru-san."
At the bewildered expression he received, he clarified, "Imagine for a moment that you're her mother and that your daughter, to make your English-spoken life a little easier, did not call her boyfriend 'Date-san', but 'Wataru-san'. Two years after her demise, Detective Takagi Wataru tells you he has something to report about her…"
Then they'd obviously assume that the bastard that had dumped and driven his daughter to suicide had the nerve to show his face two years after the fact, and would be understandably mad. For Conan, 'mad' people did not just kidnap, bind people in planks and threaten to hang them up, but that could just be him. To each their own.
Sato did not look entirely convinced, however. "But Natalie-san's parents got into a traffic accident on their way to pick up her body."
"Then, who picked up her body?"
"If I remember correctly, it was a middle-aged man who was also an English teacher."
Someone who, according to her, also took her belongings to her. And apparently, from what she had heard, the man had been unconsolable ─ broken by the loss of the one that he regarded as his own daughter.
"That's the culprit you're looking for," Conan said, nodding at her decisively. "If he found the text mail along with Natalie-san's belongings and thought that Detective Takagi dumped her…"
Then it would be a matter of time before it was Detective Takagi's corpse, swinging from a rope this time. That must have been the image that had suddenly overridden all other of Sato's thoughts, the little detective could tell somehow. Maybe it was the split second where her expression had morphed into something else beyond surprise ─ that pallid-faced, wide-eyed kind of 'something else'.
Her eyes flashed, then closed. Breath in and breath out, her frown had become more of the professional, focused kind Conan was used to. That didn't stop him from narrowing his eyes on her.
Nodding at him, she turned back to the entrance. Before he realized what he was doing, he was blinking up at the puzzled face she was making, and the tiny fingers that had, completely on their own, clasped tightly on the hem of her shirt.
He recoiled, as if it burned. "I, uh," he hesitated, unsure of what to really say. Sato's gaze was intensifying, if possible, which didn't help the matter at all. "You will save them, right?" he strangled out, leading his gaze back to hers ─ wide, searching for something, even though he didn't know what exactly. "Both Detective Takagi… and the other hostage."
It was as though he had said nothing at all and they both were standing there, in a perpetual silence Conan couldn't get rid of. That was until Sato finally seemed to snap out of whatever trance she was in, her lips curving into a gentle smile.
Conan did not know how to react when she crouched in front of him, placing a hand on top of his head.
"There's nothing for you to worry about," she told him. "The police will take care of it, so thank you for everything, Conan-kun."
Conan struggled to put together a proper thought, let alone for a coherent sentence.
She didn't wait for it, and instead rose back to her feet to disappear inside the building for good. But even as her presence had evaporated with the promise of finishing everything on her own, as her job demanded, there was a certain sinking feeling on his stomach that wouldn't leave.
"Conan-kun?" Ayumi called for him. "Is everything-?"
Ayumi cut herself off with a gasp that she shared with her other two friends.
Alarmed, she tried again, "Conan-kun, where are you going?!"
At last, they had a name.
Fuemoto Ryusaku was the person they were looking for, an English conversation teacher that had quit because of an illness. He was thought to have left for his hometown in Hokkaido last month, and even though his current residence was still unknown, they did know that he had yet to move from the flat he used to live in.
That should be enough ─ it had to, a voice reaffirmed, in the back of Sato's head. Behind the glass, the buildings appeared to be so ridiculously tiny as they soared several meters above, and as she looked at them, the detective couldn't stop herself from wondering if he happened to be nearby.
It was fortunate that she hadn't brought the tablet with her, for she wasn't sure what would await her if she took just the briefest of glimpses of it. Or how she should take it, whatever it was.
Takagi-kun… Hold on a little longer.
Her fists clenched against each other, tearing her gaze away from the window. Before she realized it, a frown was stealthily crawling into her features.
"Wow, amazing!" That surely snapped her out of her thoughts. Even without the childish voice suddenly screaming up from close, Sato believed that the extra weight in her lap would have done the job extremely well. "So this is Hokkaido? I don't think I've been here before!"
Refraining herself from sighing out loud, Sato patiently plucked the boy out of her lap and settled him back in his seat. "It's dangerous, Conan-kun," she admonished patiently. "You could get hurt."
She wasn't even sure if she was talking about being out of his seat in a flying helicopter, or something else entirely. To be fair, she wasn't even certain that Conan didn't know it either, but he nodded energetically anyway, and looked back ahead with a little smile on his face ─ just like the polite, well behaved little boy he was known to be.
Well, for anyone that did not belong to the MPD, that much was clear. Well-behaved little boys did not sneak into a police helicopter ─ which, coincidentally, was on its way to apprehend a possibly dangerous criminal.
To be fair, it kind of was her fault for being too distracted to notice the tiny, smiling menace currently sitting at her side, at least before the helicopter was a couple thousand feet and incapable of returning the lost child back to where he belonged.
"The kind maintenance man let me through when I asked him," Conan chirped, surprisingly bright considering it was about the seventh time he had explained the same thing in fifteen minutes. Judging by all the ogling from the rest of the crew, it wouldn't be the last either. "I guess he forgot I was there."
They exchanged all sorts of glances, and certainly, Sato wouldn't be surprised if another came forward with yet another question, or asked the young boy to repeat his explanation, slower and in simpler terms this time.
Because there was so much that mystified her about this child, yet she knew better than to ask all at once. Experience had been a great master in that regard.
"Let me guess," she said instead. "You told him that Detective Mouri Kogoro asked you to look at something for a case."
Conan faced her. "Of course not!"
Though his uncomfortably placid smile was far more telling, in Sato's opinion.
"Then, if there was no Mouri-san involved," she shot the boy a pointed look, but he didn't even blink. "Why are you here?"
It was that same old experience that had long stripped her from her ability of being surprised at his immediate lack of input, or rather, the doe-eyed innocence that gazed back at her. But it allowed her to recognize that kind of silence, the split-second delay of his answers and even the slightest of twitches of a well-practiced cloying smile.
"I just thought you would miss me, Detective Sato!"
'Recognizing' and 'deciphering' were no synonyms, unfortunately. Or else, she would have been able to understand what it meant.
She would be able to understand what Conan was so scared of. Perhaps it had to do with the hostage he had been talking about? Sato had no way of knowing.
"Detective Sato," she heard her name being called, by an older male voice this time, promptly finishing the absolutely pointless conversation she'd been involved in. "We've spotted the suspect's residence. Preparing for landing."
"I understand," she said, nodding her head.
And promptly fixed Conan's seatbelt, without even pausing to ask for his permission. The boy did not complain, either, sitting as the helicopter lowered back to the ground ─ quietly still and patiently. While it should be a blessing in other circumstances, at this point, Sato knew much better.
She knew so much better that she definitely did not miss the little hand moving as soon as they landed, no doubt heading to undo his belt. Sato reacted quickly, seizing the boy with a stern look.
"You're not coming," she stated, a certain edge in her voice that told him she was not budging. Before he had the chance to even gape in disbelief, she turned to another officer that had come for backup. "Keep watch on him."
And like that, she headed out ─ leaving Conan behind, arms crossed in front of his chest and the faintest of pouts crawling onto his face.
They swarmed into the apartment complex without further delay, and in a matter of seconds they were all there, crowding behind a specific door with their guns ready in case anything happened. Hardly necessary, it would seem ─ at least at first glance ─ judging by the affable tone of the voice that, partly muffled by both the door and distance, invited them inside.
Fuemoto was in there, alright, swirling a cup of red wine with one hand, holding ─ Sato tensed ─ what appeared to be a switch of some kind. She could make a strong guess on what it was for, and was fairly certain that she would be right.
"You've finally found me," he said, a strange, twisted smile of sorts playing at his lips. "While waiting for you, I was about to doze off and accidentally push the switch off the bomb."
A bomb, it was obvious that would be the case. Sato wished she could be surprised about that one.
His expression wasn't one to shift either, not even at the flash of a phone camera reflecting in on his glasses. From all the way from Tokyo, the Detective Boys assured her that he was the man who had approached them the other day with that one package in between his old, frail hands.
The same hands that had taken Takagi away ─ that were soon to be dyed with the deepest shade of red if they weren't quick enough.
Keeping her face straight was a battle Sato wasn't sure she'd win, even though she would have to. "Tell us," she demanded, her voice unwavering, "where Takagi-kun is."
"Are you the one? The detective who's the superior of Detective Takagi Wataru?" Her lack of answer unwittingly triggered a sneer from his part ─ partly drowned in alcohol as he took a long sip of his glass before adding. "I see. Just like he said, you're quite a beauty. But that doesn't mean he's right for dumping Natalie-"
But in an instant even his words ceased to be, forgotten as her hands found the collar of his shirt, and admittedly, her forehead met his. A sharp cry and the sound of shattering glass met her ears, and a few feet away from her the spilled wine spread all over the crystal shards ─ but was forgotten, at the fire taking over the detective's gaze.
"Now, listen well before I knock you over!" Her voice raised, her grip tightened. There was a certain shuffle of feet, heading closer, but was ignored. "The man you kidnapped is Takagi Wataru, and Natalie's boyfriend was Date Wataru! She wasn't even dumped!"
Be it for the violent widening of his eyes, or the sick pallor his face had suddenly acquired, Sato could tell his shock was as genuine as he was making it to look like.
The steps had come to a halt, just behind her, as the man began mumbling. "But…" He licked his lips, "In the mail she sent out, she said that Wataru wouldn't come anymore-"
"Of course he wouldn't! He was run over by a car and passed away that day!"
From the looks of it, his brain couldn't grasp what she was trying to tell him, and neither could it comprehend the weight of the grave mistake he had committed.
As the man tried to take his time and let him sink in, Sato decided she'd have to shove that down and skip to the next important part.
"Hurry up and tell us!" she demanded. "Where is Takagi-kun-?!"
He coughed.
Her hands slowly released him, watching in shock as his flew over to his own throat ─ desperately, clawing as though he could reach something if he dug deep enough. Eyes wide enough to pop out from its sockets rolled all over the room, frantically ─ as if seeking something he couldn't find, no matter how hard he tried.
Soon, he was coughing again, and it began evident that he was choking.
"He's been poisoned!" The familiar, youthful voice was fairly quicker than her own thought process. It was barking at someone in the back. "Don't you just stand there. Call an ambulance! Quickly!"
Next, there were two sets of steps ─ one heading away, another heading closer to her. She didn't even pause to acknowledge the mop of dark hair that popped up into her vision, oddly mesmerized by the broken glass that laid a few feet away.
Wine spread all over where her eyes could see, oozing like blood from an open wound.
Little had he known then, he had also guided those wild eyes to rest, widening just a little wider, if possible, at the crystal glass that had caught her attention.
And as the world grew blurrier, Fuemoto, with all the strength that remained in his weary soul, lifted his gaze one last time. As urgent yelling and hushed whispering blended with each other into a senseless mush of white noise, he recognized him.
The shadows that morphed into a small figure peeking out from a doorway, just barely as if held by an overwhelming bashfulness proper for such a young little one, or even a crippling sense of fear that paralyzed him from head to toe.
But then his lips curved into a smile, and suddenly, Fuemoto felt incredibly cold.
And then, his eyes darted back to the front and found a pair of brilliant blue eyes, flickering all over his face as if seeking something he couldn't find. A gaze so awfully young that was almost familiar, yet powerless to shake off that shock that was so clear, so refreshingly genuine, behind those thick glasses of his.
As darkness edged over his vision, the old man grasped his tiny shoulder.
Conan's hand instinctively reached for it, furrowing his brows as he tried to concentrate on the mouth that opened and closed, reminiscent of a fish pulled out of water. The culprit made a choking sound instead, and then he slumped back onto the couch.
Sato's eyes were on him, watching him as he pressed his thumb to his wrist, then tensing when the boy sighed with a shake of his head.
He said nothing as she buried her face into her hands to muffle a scream. Just closed his eyes solemnly, standing back from the person whose lips were now sealed for all eternity, just shy of revealing the whereabouts of the man Detective Sato's heart ached for.
Back to step one, they were.
And step one was, as the little detective was accustomed to, a crime scene. Nothing new under the sun, Conan supposed, half-tempted to huff as the unpredictable twists of destiny, while he allowed his gaze to take into his surroundings.
The apartment where Fuemoto Ryusaku had been waiting for the police could not, by any means, be considered as 'fancy', but he wouldn't say it was a bad place to live, if a little dirty. No surprises there, the boy considered, as he remembered that he hadn't been there until a few days ago.
Simple as it was, there was barely anything remotely interesting in this dimly lit room. Or, well, that was what he would have said, had the wine bottle and the explosives casually sitting atop the coffee table.
All in all, it might have been a fortunate thing that the rest of the police force was too focused on the body, or else they wouldn't have allowed a kid to get that close to explosive materials. Free of Sato's inquisitive eyes, he wandered over, closer to it.
Perhaps it actually was a suicide. He thought that would be the most obvious conclusion to jump into. He was planning on using this if the police detained him by force.
A shiver overcame him just at the thought. That was close.
Luckily for them, that appeared to have been his Plan B. His favored course of action likely involved the small container sitting there right next to the wine bottle. Taking out a handkerchief from his pocket, he gingerly picked it up to blink at it from close, turning it over to find that it was completely unlabeled.
He stared at it for a bit longer, and then some more.
Before opening it and bringing it to his nose.
"No, you don't."
And now his hands were empty. Sato was towering over him, one hand was tucked in her waist, and in the other, he held that little recipient that had caught his attention before. Confiscated out of his reach.
Her mouth opened, but before the sound even reached him, Conan rushed over to the other side of the room, and ignored the surprised, collective gasp as he pushed past the many investigators. Nothing had prepared them for a boy climbing up the couch to settle next to the body, sure. But that must have been nothing in comparison to a boy leaning over to sniff at his mouth.
Conan jumped back, as if hit by a jolt of electricity. Bewildered, he stared at Fuemoto's deathly pale face, and did not react further.
Sato grabbed at the hood of his t-shirt, extracting him from the scene. He did not react to it in the slightest, staring deep and unblinking at the female detective as she, after letting him back onto the floor, stood in front of him with her arms crossed.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, her eyes narrowing in what Conan would define as suspicion. "I thought I left someone in charge of you."
Right now, it was entirely possible that Sato was wandering in the exact opposite of a pleased state. It almost triggered a sense of compassion, or maybe guilt, at the thought of what would happen to the guy Sato had entrusted Conan with.
But what else could he do, really? Admit to his crimes while she was like this?
Yeah, no.
He smiled, big and bright. "He must have been tired," he chirped, tilting his head slightly to one side. "I was sitting there, quietly as he asked me to, and he just… nodded off."
And if he brought his hands together behind his back, then it definitely was to enhance that innocent, small appearance he had been granted with, and he was by no means trying to hide his wristwatch from her sight.
She leveled him with a more intense look. Conan forced himself to keep his grin on his face from crumbling down as her eyebrow rose.
"Why did you come here?" she asked, but he didn't answer. "I want the real reason this time."
There… was no escaping this, now was there? Before he knew it, his gaze was wandering everywhere but her form, with no clear aim besides staying away from her scrutiny.
They found Fuemoto for some strange reason, his corpse resting on the couch Sato had approached earlier, and could not help but think of how tightly he held onto him. On those glassy eyes that, just moments away, had been vivid ─ desperate, in a way not dissimilar to someone that wanted to hold onto living for a little while longer. Somebody that wished so passionately that he could see another day, up until he gave out his final breath.
Would it be like that for the poor man the culprit had misdirected his wrath at? Conan could not help but wonder if that was the thought that had been haunting Sato, ever since she had received Fuemoto's gift.
The desire to protect a loved one ─ the squeeze of a heart at the sight of their tormentor's eyes. To this day, Conan's hands felt a little too damp to pretend he didn't know what he was talking about.
His mouth had gone dry. He tried to moisten his lips, but it didn't help.
"I…" he croaked. "I was afraid."
Sato looked confused, as if she couldn't understand why the boy had brought his hands to his forearms, as though bracing himself from the cold in the middle of August. She still approached just a little closer, lowering to her knees in search of the visual contact Conan seemed to avoid like the plague.
"Of what you would do…" Conan elaborated, his voice barely above a whisper, "if he refused to tell you where Detective Takagi is."
It took a while for his words to think in, but when they did, Sato's shoulders dropped as if released of a tension she wasn't aware of having. Softer, she regarded the boy for a moment, allowing a small smile to paint itself on her once strict features.
"Oh, Conan-kun," she said, making sure her tone was more amiable this time. "You didn't have to worry about it ─ I'm a member of the police, after all. I would never-"
"You don't know that."
Finally, she got what she had been looking for, yet at the same time, did not find what she'd been expecting ─ even though she wasn't certain of what she had been expecting to see, in the first place. All she knew was that a strange glint had taken over that all too young gaze, and that while identifiable, it clearly did not belong there.
"People challenge their convictions every single day until they die," Conan told her, his eyes flickering away and down to where his small hands were clenched together, a little over his chest. "Most would be surprised by how… malleable they are. Given the right circumstances."
His hands trembled as they tightened around each other. It made her stomach twist, for some reason.
"We all have the ability to both love and hate just as passionately, after all."
Just like that they both remained, stuck in frozen time for as long as it took for her to process the words this boy had just professed. It was him the first to move, however lethargically, spinning on his heels to leave.
She stood behind, dazed by the many questions that prevented her from forming a proper thought of her own. About that retreating back, far too small, carrying a weight her mind would probably fail to grasp.
Away he took a step, and then he took another.
"C-Conan-kun!"
Then stumbled sideways, as a blur of a figure came out of nowhere and promptly barreled on the unsuspecting kid. As the shock slowly came to pass, the female detective took a tentative step forward, peering down to see a pair of elementary-aged boys in a heap on the floor, where it should have been one.
Conan sat up slowly, hissing and massaging the back of his head. "That hurt…" he mumbled to himself, eyes scrunched close in pain. "Hey, what's the big idea-?!"
The crying face that awaited him upon opening his eyes again had his words dying down abruptly. He instantly recognized the raven black bangs that covered about half of his face, and those dark eyes that, once brimming with excitement as they conversed of the last mystery novel Conan had lent him, were dark with exhaustion and glassy with tears, but recognizable in any case.
"H-Honda?!" he stammered. Honda gave him a shaky nod, and Conan straightened. "What are you-?"
He halted to a stop, his eyes widening with the realization that had suddenly struck him. Immediately, he turned to exchange a look with Sato, who nodded in understanding, before crouching over the distraught little boy.
"So you're saying that the culprit committed suicide…"
Silence reigned all over the room once more the moment Superintendent Kuroda's words made themselves known. Police detectives all around stopped what they were doing to stare at each other, sharing with each other the overbearing sense of dread that had taken over everyone, all at once.
The group of young children were no exception to this rule, and watched from where they were drowning in a crowd of adults at Kuroda. They noticed him sighing, pressing a hand to his forehead as he carefully listened to what Detective Sato was telling him from over the phone.
"So Conan did tag along, after all," Genta concluded in a whisper. Both of his friends turned to give him a puzzled look, which he received with a hesitant step backwards. "I mean, it is Conan…"
The worst of all was that neither of them could tell him off, or pretend to be none the wiser to their friend's strange ability to draw instant death whenever he walked into a room.
"Let's not mention it to Conan-kun, okay?" Ayumi suggested, her lips curving into an awkward smile. "He won't like it."
Mitsuhiko snickered, his laugh short and tense.
"What, you recovered the hostage?" Kuroda suddenly said, drawing the children's attention. "What hostage are you referring to, Sato?"
"Oh," Ayumi pipped in. "That must be the hostage Detective Takagi was warning us about!"
Genta nodded. "So Conan was right." His nose scrunched at the thought that followed. "Again."
The Superintendent regarded the group for a while, omitting any kind of commentary about what he had heard. He returned to his phone call, allowing himself to be filled about the rest of the situation he had missed, and the kids soon went back to whispering to one another, the contents of the conversation lost in the void of background muttering and Sato's professional droning.
From the corner of his eye, however, Kuroda shot a discreet glance towards the children again. He made a note to ask Sato about this 'deduction' this young lad had pulled after Wataru Takagi was recovered, safe and sound.
This tiny detective known as Edogawa Conan.
Several hundreds away, a bespectacled little boy broke out into a potent sneeze.
Groaning, he wiped at his nose. I definitely hope I'm not going down with a cold, he thought, stubbornly arguing with himself that the chill that had suddenly run down his back was nothing but his own imagination. Because that would ruin what little I've left for my summer vacation…
Conan didn't consider himself a hopeless optimist, but considering that he had yet to catalog his holidays as a failure, he wondered if he could be counted on one, or if he was just in a perpetual state of utter denial and delusion.
"Conan-kun?" He was brought out of his internal musings by Honda's frail, hesitant voice. He shot him a questioning glance, watching as the boy instinctively tugged his security blanket tighter around himself. "Are you alright?"
Conan could've laughed at the absurdity of the situation. "You know, that's what I should be asking you." But he didn't, and raised his eyebrows in compensation. "I was starting to worry when you failed to show up for a couple of days in a row."
Honda remained silent, his friend sighed as he dropped his head.
"Thought you had a cold, though. I definitely didn't expect this."
"Sorry."
"Hey, come on now. You didn't get kidnapped on purpose, now did you?"
He left it out with a laugh, standing up from where he was sitting without waiting for a response he didn't think he needed. Sato was calling them over so that they could get going, so he obeyed ─ partly because he didn't want to tug at her already thinning patience, but mostly because there wasn't anything else to investigate, so there was no point in it.
Nobody noticed the other boy's eyes darkening as he regarded his friend closely before rising to his feet as well.
Sato climbed up into the helicopter first, pausing once she spotted that one cop slumped over his seat inside, completely out cold. As she stood there in silence, her mind stuttering at the uncanny sight that had welcomed her, Conan maneuvered from under her arm and settled in front of him, kicking his feet with a bright smile on his little face.
For a moment, she stared at him, her expression like that of someone who didn't know what her next thought was supposed to look like. She seemed to give up, eventually, shaking her head, and pushing the passed out man to rest over the window so that she could sit.
Honda came next, timidly glancing around before positioning himself next to Conan. Then he lowered his gaze to his lap and stilled. Probably sensing something, be it the slight trembling of his lips or his slightly hitched breathing, Conan turned to him and put on a kind little smile.
And softly, he began to talk to him, even though his words were lost to her amidst the sound of the engine. She assumed that they didn't exactly matter, for the boy's shoulders had begun to, ever so slowly, to relax. And shyly, his lips curved in a valiant attempt to replicate his friend's expression.
So the kidnapped boy was Conan-kun's friend. Truly, she didn't know why she was getting surprised any longer ─ not after almost two years full of twists that her mind wasn't able to keep track of anymore. Especially when this boy was in close vicinity ─ which was almost every single day, come to think of it.
But for a change, she considered, this might be the kind of twist they needed right now. With little Honda probably on the verge of a breakdown right now, a familiar face around probably was the best way to approach him.
Just this once ─ or should she say, once again ─ she'd let Conan take control of the situation. She sure hoped she wouldn't regret this.
"I… met Takagi-san at the airport," Honda began, his voice just above a whisper. "I was supposed to go visit my friends, but I found him and approached him."
Conan didn't hide his surprise. "Why did you approach him?"
"Because I knew him ─ we've met once or twice before," he said, then frowned to himself as he added, "And he looked a bit… troubled. I was worried that something had happened to him."
Both detectives, young and older, exchanged a look of understanding. For the reason he had appeared to be so distraught had definitely to do with what they knew about Kuruma Natalie.
"So I, uh, kind of slipped in his flight?"
Honda tried a sheepish smile, glancing over at the female detective from the corner of his eye. She fought off the massive sense of déjà vu by avoiding looking over at Conan entirely so that she could pay attention to his statement.
"I'm small, so nobody noticed me there. Not even Takagi-san until I, well, started following him around after landing."
"You were that worried about him?" Conan asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm sure Detective Takagi didn't appreciate that."
"He was sort of mad, but didn't scream at me." He let out a little laugh. "More like, sighed, and eventually let me tag along."
Figures. That sounded exactly like something Detective Takagi would do. In crime scenes, it took a lot of pestering, but it would be a matter of time before he yielded ─ had Honda tried a similar approach? He was a quiet little boy, but it was not impossible. Conan was supposed to be a quiet little boy at first glance, to begin with.
"He had something to do, and was going to take me back home once he was finished. He was… called to some strange building and he…" His forehead scrunched up, shaking his head from side to side as he huffed. "Sorry, it's a bit fuzzy. I think he shielded him from a hit? I think I must've fainted, because next thing I knew, I was in that house with that man."
Conan had fallen silent, his eyes sharpening as the story progressed. Sato saw his hand rising to strike his chin so, knowing that there was a big chance she wouldn't talk any longer, turned to the other boy with a soft smile on his face.
"It must have been scary," she said. Honda nodded lightly, sinking into his seat. "Thank you for telling us everything. If you remember anything else, make sure to tell us, is that alright-?"
"Was there someone else?" Conan pipped in, suddenly. Perplexed blinking was all the response he received, so waving his hands a bit exasperatedly, tried again, "In the culprit's house, did you see any other person-?"
"It was just the two of us," he replied. "It was a small place, so I think I would've noticed if someone else came in. Like you did."
Conan lowered back onto his seat, slowly, as the words sank down into his mind, and his mouth that had been left slightly agape, clicked shut without making a single sound at all. Eventually he nodded, smiled a bit as he thanked his friend, and turned away.
A troubled gaze was reflected back at him, sharp and vivid, unlike that man's glassy, dull eyes. He thought of the container they had found ─ now confirmed to be cyanide, and written off as the means for a suicide nobody had been able to prevent.
Even though his mouth did not smell of bitter almonds, thought Conan, frowning to himself. In death, his face was pallid, white as a sheet, instead of the cherry red it was supposed to be.
That being the case… The hand that clung to him, the palpable desperation pumped into his veins until his heart ultimately stopped… The wide horrified eyes that wanted to tell him something…
Conan shook it off with a wave of a hand ─ what was he saying? A third party poisoning the wine without him knowing would be impossible. Honda had said it, hadn't he? That there had been nobody else in there beside himself and the victim-slash-culprit.
I didn't even have enough time to make a thorough check with Detective Sato around, he told himself. I must've been wrong.
And there he was, jumping into the wrong conclusions again. He mentally laughed to himself ─ that was close. Had he raised a fuss about it only to turn out that nothing was wrong, well, he didn't even want to imagine what expression Sato would've put on.
With a life on the line, time was a sensitive thing. He doubted Detective Sato would've appreciated it if he wasted more of it.
Now that was settled with, Conan rested his chin against the window, contenting himself with watching the clouds slowly moving past them as they soared the skies. There was no time to waste, he decided ─ unless he wanted to foolishly risk Takagi's life, he couldn't keep getting sidetracked like that.
Not even once did Honda take his eyes off his friend, his lips sealed throughout the rest of the trip.
A/N
Spoilers for movie 27 below!
shahralSAH699: Yes, I've seen those news circulating around. I was surprised at first, but then again, it kind of makes sense. It's been stated several times that Shinichi and Kaito are identical, so it'd be weird if they weren't related.
Though going by this logic, shouldn't that also apply to Ran and Aoko, though? They're also pretty similar. There's also Okita, who looks like Shinichi… And so on. Maybe we should wait for everyone to be revealed as cousins! (joking)
Well, in any case, I don't actually mind ─ it could be fun, even. I'll wait until I watch the movie and see how that plays out.