Mission Eight: A Lovely Family
It took roughly twenty minutes for the police to arrive on the scene yet, had he been told that several hours had passed ever since, Agent Twilight would probably have believed it regardless of what his own wristwatch said.
Naturally, being a survivor of death implied being no stranger to death, and his line of profession had only reinforced that sense of familiarity over the years. Years of witnessing that one moment when the light would fade from other people's eyes, leaving nothing but a withering husk behind. Sometimes at a distance, sometimes by his own hand, though he wasn't proud of it, but never in a place like this one ─ a place that he had deemed safe, lacking any ties to a shadier business operating in the background that WISE was sure to know about.
Perhaps that was why it felt so different from anything he had experienced before. Because, for once, he hadn't seen it coming.
Or maybe it was because it was exhausting, although that could be explained by a different set of factors.
"Papa! Anya can't hear anything!"
Loid could not help but blink as he was dragged out of his inner musings ─ or not so 'inner', if he was to judge by the little girl pressing her ear to a door. The focused frown adorning her young features made it hard to believe that this was the same kid who, too shaky on her own legs to even stand, had to be rushed away from the theater hall a few minutes earlier.
His hat still sat atop of her head, but the ghostly pallor of her face was nowhere to be seen. At first, he had assumed that being in there with a corpse was a little too scary for a six-year-old ─ which was normal, as opposed to that one brat who had run head-first into the scene. But now, as he watched her eyes suddenly widening and sparkling in what he could only interpret as excitement, he felt as though his logic was somewhat flawed.
He doubted she could actually hear anything from so far off, but he wasn't going to ask.
Especially when there was such a bright grin etched on her face, words leaving her lips in a whisper. If he paid close attention, he thought he could make out something along the lines of "go, Niichan," and "beat the bad guys", and refrained from reminding her that her brother was no superhero.
He was a precocious child that couldn't even reach the bathroom sink without a stool. A cheeky, angel-faced little brat who should probably be kept on a leash for many reasons ─ all of which were delivered to him in the span of a single night.
And he's still inside. A foreign hint of a twist in his stomach accompanied that thought, stealing a sigh out of him ─ anxiety, an old friend that hadn't visited in quite a few years. It had unexpectedly stumbled back on his life ever since Operation Strix was entrusted to him, and nowadays, struck almost daily. He was hoping it didn't decide to move into his life permanently, but as it was, he was starting to lose heart.
Yor-san went with him, he reasoned. She promised she would watch over him.
Therefore, there was no need to worry. It should be more than enough, he assured himself.
His stomach flipped on itself in protest.
Just as he was beginning to wonder if bursting back in would stir further trouble ─ which he doubted since, again, Conan was there ─ Anya stepped away from the door. It opened before he could even ask, and two familiar figures emerged from behind it.
Yor smiled gently at the sight of him. Conan, on the other hand, lifted his head to look at him, then sighed for some reason he definitely wasn't finding out today. Frankly, Loid was amazed that they were both in one piece.
The boy looked bored, though that wasn't uncommon with him. Hands tucked in his pockets, he stared and waited. "Shouldn't we get going?" he asked when Loid didn't move.
"Go where?"
It was one of those rare times that the boy looked so genuinely confused, tilting his head as if trying to grasp the complex meaning behind his words. "I thought you had plans?" he voiced it as a question, although he clearly didn't mean to.
A question he apparently had no answers for. Seeking some, he turned to the other adult available, but only found her waiting patiently for him to speak.
"Aren't we supposed to go our statements?" Yor and Conan exchanged a glance, so Loid added, "We're witnesses."
This time, it was her turn to blink. "Is it necessary for us to do so?"
Conan shrugged. "Formally, I think it is," he said. "But I doubt they'll care if we skip it."
Which didn't explain anything at all.
The rustling of chains filling the air drew Loid's attention to the group of uniformed men that walked past them, toward the nearest exit. In the middle of them was the answer he had been looking for, embodied in handcuffs and a dejected expression on a face he had seen before, crouched over the dead body of the opera singer back on stage.
The case was wrapped up and the criminal was arrested in a little over twenty minutes. Had the Ostanian Police Force always been so competent?
Not, not to this degree, at the very least. From what he had gathered, they often required external guidance more than once to close their cases. Including a high schooler, if he remembered correctly ─ self-proclaimed detective or not, it didn't speak well of them to have to rely on a teenager to do their own work.
Maybe he was overthinking this. It could have been an extremely simple case, or maybe the culprit had confessed by himself. It wouldn't be wise to draw conclusions from one case he happened to stumble into.
"Loid-san?" Yor asked. Even Anya was starting to eye him intently, so he supposed he had spaced out a little. "What would our next stop be?"
Oh, right. The family outing, of course.
"I was planning to visit the museum…"
"I understand!" Yor exclaimed, with a little too much energy for someone who had just seen a corpse up close. "If we hurry, we should still be able to make it before it closes!"
Except there were a little over five hours left before it closed, but he supposed he could appreciate her enthusiasm. He made no comment as she walked ahead, Anya following her to the exit, but didn't realize there was a family member missing until much later, when he lowered his head.
There was Conan, yet at the same time he wasn't, a distant gleam in eyes that stared off ahead. Such a strange sight was that it made Loid forget where he was for less than a second.
Bending slightly, he reached out a tentative hand. It stopped when he realized he wasn't sure what to do with it, and left it to hover uselessly in the air.
He took a deep breath next, and let his arm fall back to where it had been.
"Are you okay?"
The boy's eyelashes fluttered in response, as if he was waking from a long dream. He dragged his gaze back to the man towering over him, raising his eyebrows in askance ─ and, as a side effect, making the spy hesitate. Had he screwed up somehow, he wondered. Was there some kind of miscalculation?
Wasn't it the most natural reaction of a father to worry about his son witnessing a potentially traumatizing event?
Even though he wasn't his father, and this boy didn't really look all that traumatized. He figured that he had, in fact, miscalculated something.
"Oh, you mean the murder?" Conan finally said, breaking the awkward silence. The boy chuckled, and probably would have waved his hand off if it hadn't already been in his pocket. "It's fine. Just another day, I guess."
Loid had the distinct feeling he had heard that before.
Conan crooked his head. "Why do you look like you have never walked into a crime before?" he asked. Probably because he hadn't, Loid guessed. Not by chance, in any case. "What, you haven't? Wow, your life must be pretty boring."
None of them noticed Anya shooting a look over her shoulder.
Especially not Conan, who was fighting not to grin at the incredulity in Loid's face. Just because it's normal for me doesn't mean it's normal for everyone else, was a lesson installed into his brain for sixteen long years. He wasn't about to forget now, but Twilight did not know that, nor did he know what he knew.
Pretending to be none the wiser to his condition worked wonders for the oblivious little kid role he had been hoping to portray ─ besides, there was something oddly satisfying about putting that expression on a usually fake, smug face like his.
He was struck in a child's body and starved for any semblance of entertainment, so he assumed he could be cut some slack for his actions.
"You… knew this was going to happen." The spy's forehead scrunched up, as if trying to solve the puzzle that gazed innocently back at him. "Earlier today, you told me that this was going to happen if I took you with me."
Despite the narrowed eyes fixated on him, Conan felt a smirk grow on his face.
"Sure you don't want to drop me off at home?"
Even though a part of Loid screamed that, yes, it would be better to go home before his day could be ruined beyond comprehension, he just sighed. It would be stupid, he realized, and decided to go through the day as planned.
And pray, to no deity in particular, that there would be no further mishaps in his plan.
Unfortunately, Loid did not drop him off at home.
Therefore, there he was. Staring up to a random portrait of a random sunflower painted by a random guy he couldn't care less about ─ none he didn't know beforehand, however. All thanks to his mother and her week-long museum tour to instill some non-existent love for art back when he was younger ─ older? ─ and eight.
Lots of things had blossomed deep within Shinichi's little heart that day. Sadly, an undiscovered passion for postimpressionism was none of them.
"Um, excuse me…"
Conan turned around, perhaps a little too quickly, in his eagerness to do anything else but whatever he was supposed to be doing. He didn't expect a stranger to be addressing him so casually, even less a child.
Such an oddity deserved his full attention. An oddity that was about a head taller than him, and shifted on his shoes, his eyes flickering anywhere but Conan's face; this couldn't be normal, he thought, but kept it from his face.
"Hey," he said, softly. The kid flinched, which definitely was not normal. Conan pulled out the most friendly smile he could manage as he asked, "Can I help you with anything?"
And waited, patiently on the outside. His eyes took into his form, in the way he grew all fidgety when he got his attention, and tried not to frown so as not to scare the child. He had started trembling, and it took everything from Conan not to pressure him further.
Recent experience taught him children were nothing but timed bombs of tears and screams, and he definitely needed none of that ─ especially when he did not know who was out there, who was responsible for this kid's visible distress. Gentle, he remembered. He needed a gentle approach for optimal results. To find out what was wrong.
Blood had drained from the child's face before he could ever say a word. There was a large hand over the boy's shoulder, and the smile of a man towering over the both of them.
Ah, there. That's what's wrong.
"There you are. I was so worried about you!"
There was something in the man's voice that he couldn't place, but it made Conan pause to think huh, that's pretty dangerous. That was probably why he didn't move an inch as he made contact with him, his gaze narrowing for a split second before it returned to that unsettlingly friendly predisposition.
"A friend?" he asked the child, cautious, Conan would say.
The child flinched under his grip and promptly shook his head before Conan could say otherwise. This kid doesn't have survival skills, he thought, fighting back a sigh.
"Eh?! I totally thought we were!" Conan screeched, eyes wide open. The boy was confused, yet he pretended not to notice. "Hey, hey! Let's play!"
"Sorry, but we have to go now," the man said, and his grip on the child tightened, pulling him backwards. "Come on, say bye-bye to your friend."
"B-Bye-bye…"
A half-hearted wave later, the boy was already stumbling away, dragged by the man's iron grasp. Conan watched the pair go, his hand hanging in the air. The child sent one last look, his mouth open in a muted scream, before it disappeared somewhere to the end of the hallway, behind a door he did not know where it led to.
But he definitely would ─ by taking a step forward.
Alas, he didn't get to take another one. There was a grip on his wrist, and twitching eyebrows, and all he could think was to smile sheepishly.
Loid's glare darkened. "I think I told you not to run off."
In his defense, Conan had not exactly run off ─ just consciously wandered away from his sight. And those of others as well, drawn to themselves by Anya's indiscreet, loud… appreciation of the art that surrounded her.
In any case, it was true that Loid did tell him not to do that. Which was good; everyone should have the freedom to say whatever they wanted whenever they felt like it. Conan was free, too; to listen and to ignore.
Loid actually stopped to give him an odd glance. It didn't mean Conan advanced an inch.
So, he pointed over to the door. "I want to go there."
The spy paused, taking his time to look over the place in question, and his eyebrows shot up over his hairline.
"I suppose it's fine," he said, much to Conan's surprise. "Let's get Yor-san and Anya first."
Well, that was better than nothing, he supposed.
In retrospect, he should probably have gone with 'nothing'.
Which would most possibly be much better than this; him, a giant whiteboard and the laughter of children serving as background music ─ of the eardrum-bursting variety, sadly. One of which belonged to Anya herself, giggling as she doodled across a stained canvas that should probably have been changed eons ago ─ it had been that way last time he had been there eight years ago, so he guessed a change was in order. Not that Anya seemed to mind.
After a few failed attempts to make it look like something a six-year-old would have created, Conan stepped away from his soccer ball drawing to glance around. There were so many children around here, finding that one would be difficult, not to say impossible.
But there's no way out of this place but the entrance itself, Conan remembered, filling at the pentagons with a black, cheap dry erase marker while making sure to spill over the lines, just enough times not to be too obvious. There are a few other exits, but after a group of thieves used them for a heist two years ago, they should be locked shut.
That man shouldn't have not known that, and might have tried to escape there. If he tried to run back to the entrance, I'd have passed by him while we were getting here. Not to say, it'd be suspicious as hell if he entered the Kid's Place with a young boy in hand and decided to turn back immediately after. Therefore, they should still be here, somewhere.
All I need is to wait, thought Conan, keeping a careful eye at the entrance. And then, with so many adults around, I should be able to get that kid away from him.
That was what he'd thought, "Anya, Conan," until Loid called from behind him ─ which may or may not have spooked him a little more than it should. "We're going to our next spot."
Conan struggled not to let the horror crawl onto his face.
"No way!" he cried. Loid tilted his head, so he grinned sheepishly, holding the marker up. "I haven't finished my drawing yet!"
He contemplated his lone, messy excuse for a soccer ball for a moment, then glanced over to what Conan assumed to be Anya's sad attempt of abstract art, spreading everywhere where their eyes could see ─ even though she was making a valiant, if pointless, effort to cover it with her tiny arms. He had no idea this girl would ever be capable of feeling anything remotely similar to shyness. The more you know, he guessed.
Loid turned back at him again in askance.
"I strive for perfection," he said.
And got no answer at all. Not even in the privacy of his mind, like Anya was used to secretly listening to.
Usually, it was loud within her dad's head, filled with several thousands of thoughts that bumped and overlapped with one another; each word more confusing than the previous one, they habitually ended up wreaking havoc in her own mind, leaving nothing in its wake but a massive migraine.
But now, it was dead silent. Anya wondered how her brother always managed to accomplish such a feat, so effortlessly at that.
At some point, he seemed to give up on him, and Conan was both outwardly and inwardly glad about it. His shoulders dropped the moment Loid's eyes left him, and was already back at scanning his surroundings just as the man turned his back on him.
I just know he's here, he thought. I need to find him, or else…
It looked as though he didn't even want to imagine it, because that was where his train of thought ended. Not that Anya could actually tell what would possibly come next, but if it worried her older brother like that, then it had to be bad.
Niichan mentioned there was a boy in trouble! A determined frown pinched her features. We need to stop the bad guy before he… does bad things.
A bad guy should be plotting horrible things as he walked ─ Anya had watched enough anime to know how it worked. But it was no trouble at all. If she focused very hard, she should be able to read his mind and then-
"Wow, that's quite the masterpiece."
Anya flinched as her attention returned to her dad, and the smile that he put on his face as he examined the picture her back barely managed to cover. Her horror grew, suddenly remembering the pinch she was in.
I need to buy some time, her brother was back at thinking.
And she knew she would have seen his eyes narrowing and acquiring that sharp and absolutely cool glimmer she had seen maybe once or twice in her life, had he been facing her way. But instead, he took a few steps backwards, away from them, and closer to the corner of the whiteboard.
He pretended to casually lean against it, his hands latched behind his back. But Anya realized that he had never let go from the marker he had been using, and could sort of see his hand moving.
Normally, her heart would be beating wildly in excitement, eager to figure out what his next move would be. But now, it galloped in her chest with fear as Loid examined her drawing; no doubt, a second away from dissecting every little secret her heart contained.
His mouth opened, and her eyes scrunched shut.
"There seems to be a pig in the forest."
This time, it was her time to draw a blank. Somewhere in the background, she thought she spotted Conan exchanging smiles with their mother, who didn't seem to realize his was a little too bright to be believable, or that he was still furiously scribbling something behind his back.
"That…" It took everything in her power not to look over where he was, and focus on her papa. "... is Mr. Chimera. He lives in a castle."
"I see. I definitely see Bondman over there." He skimmed past the unidentified representation of his own self and focussed on the most graphic section of her art. And swiftly concealed a wince with a cough. "So this witch-looking must be the princess… And a professional tennis player? No wait, that must be the castle's chef!"
Anya wasn't interested in explaining that the woman in her drawing wasn't holding a wand, but her mama's stabby things. Neither was she going to point out that what he had interpreted as a chef with a frying pan was actually a teenager with those magnifying lenses she had seen detectives using several times ─ in movies.
Far from any of that, the girl simply nodded along.
"Ah-le-le? What's this thing?"
Finally, her dad's gaze was lifted off her, yet she couldn't even allow herself a sigh out of relief.
Conan batted his eyelashes, curiously examining the drawing as though he hadn't been the one behind it all. Her mama had walked up to him at some point, her head cooked to the side as she peered over his head.
"That's a strange drawing," Yor pointed out.
"What is it?" asked Loid, approaching the duo.
Anya followed close behind, moving around her dad's legs in order to get a glimpse of it. And once she did, she stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening as two plates. There was a doodle, of a grinning face wearing a top hat and monocle, and beside it there were three identical characters ─ the letter 'z'.
The girl held back her breath ─ she had seen Bondman enough times to recognize a code when she saw one. And since it was her older brother, secretly teenage detective Shinichi Kudo, who had drawn it, it had to be one.
And, beyond any doubt, the secret message is…
Her eyes narrowed.
… something Anya has no idea about!
After a few minutes of analyzing it, Loid stepped out, a smile posed on his lips. There certainly is something odd about this drawing, he thought. When presented with such an ample space for drawing, children tend to use as much space as possible. Except for, probably, his newly adopted son ─ though, to be fair, even Conan's soccer ball was massive in comparison to it. But this one is small enough to miss at first glance, and I can't seem to find a direct correlation to those two drawings.
The doodle grinned back at him, the letter 'z' repeated over for some reason that escaped completely.
Laughing lightly, the man let his hand atop the boy's head ─ who jumped a little too violently to be normal behavior for a son at the receiving end of his father's show of affection. Yor didn't seem to notice, miraculously enough.
"I'm sure it's nothing you should worry your little head about." Conan's eyebrow twitched, but Loid ignored it. "It's just an ordinary drawing."
It's definitely a cypher, Loid reaffirmed, just as the boy started scowling, tensing up as if he had a lot to say, but couldn't truly put it into words. It couldn't be from WISE ─ they operate differently.
From the position of the drawing, he would have assumed it had been made by a child ─ a short person wasn't out of the question, but he had not met an adult this small, and probably would never. Not small enough to draw this at such a short height from the floor without gathering the attention of any passerby.
That being said, it's hard to believe a child made this. Because, if the estimated height was something to go by, this kid couldn't be older than six. At that age, their fine motor skills would barely have improved ─ but this drawing was neat, the strokes strangely precise and controlled. If he didn't know better, he would have assumed the artist to be a teenager, or maybe a young adult.
"T-This is-!" Anya suddenly screamed, jolting him out of his thoughts, but the confused blinking she received from three different ends made her hesitate. She shook herself out of it to point over at the mysterious code. "It's the magic man!"
Loid was at a loss for what to say. "Magic man?"
She nodded vigorously. "The magic man! Anya saw him on TV!"
She seemed a little more exasperated now, and even Conan was staring at her as if she had grown a second head ─ though he had spotted him just now, pressing a hand to his forehead as if suddenly developing a migraine. Loid wondered if he should do something about it.
"The magic man! Kaito Child!"
"Um…" Conan raised a hesitant hand, his mouth twisting awkwardly. "Isn't it Kaito KID?"
Anya nodded. "Kaito KID!" she exclaimed, and Conan shook his head, dejectedly.
Kaito KID? Twilight had certainly heard about him before, the infamous phantom thief that had disappeared eight years ago. Apparently, he had recently returned, but Loid failed to see what this had to do with that.
But it still remained true that this doodle did resemble this thief ─ top hat, and monocle and all. And there were also the three 'z's scribbled alongside it. Sleep, he thought, wrapping his head for possible related words that made a little more sense. Dream… Slumber… Doze…
Nap. KID… KID. Nap. In a split of a second, Twilight's eyes had opened as if they could finally see the light. Kidnap.
Someone's been kidnapped.
He didn't get to see Conan's grinning face. Bingo, the boy thought, watching in pure satisfaction as the spy lifted his head, and instantly started scanning his surroundings ─ swapped his environment in an instant, eyes focusing on each and every face that cohabitated that room they were in.
Neither did he notice Anya's wide eyes focused on him, and only him. Even if she couldn't hear his thoughts, blended with her older brother's endless rambling, it was easy to feel the gravity of the situation; a boy had been kidnapped, and for Anya, it was beyond scary. Just from thinking about being taken by a bad guy, and away from her, made her tummy flip on itself.
They had to save him, Anya decided. Before it was too late.
Mother… Father… Neesan… Where are you?
Anya had to physically stop herself from gasping when an alien voice invaded her head. Hand clamped to her mouth, she desperately sought its source.
Please, it continued. I don't know what to do!
The girl took a step backwards ─ her brother and father still had not caught sight of him, her mother bent slightly to inspect the odd drawing of the whiteboard, and she felt more than ready to burst out crying.
Anyone, please…
Her breath slipped away, her body turning around on its own. Emerging from behind the whiteboard, his small hand clutched by a much larger one, she saw it from afar; the same pallid, freckled face she had seen in her brother's mind.
Please, save me!
She took a deep breath in, and released it in an ear-shattering whine.
"Don't wanna!"
Never had Loid shifted his attention so quickly to her, yet it hadn't been fast enough. The spot behind him was strangely vacant, and it wasn't until he lifted his head that he spotted that certain blur of pink darting across the room.
"Anya wants to play more!"
And behind her, there was blue zooming past a bewildered Yor, and Loid had to repress an exhausted sigh to see Conan running off again ─ after his sister, for a change. In the half-a-second it took him to even process what he was seeing, let alone worry about the most obvious consequences, Anya had promptly barreled into someone.
She tumbled down onto the ground, and Conan hastened his pace to catch up with her.
Sharing one look with Yor, both parents made its way there. Fulfilling his role as an upstanding citizen, the spy supposed an apology from his daughter's behalf was in order.
Conan had already crouched in front of the girl at that point, checking for damage. He scanned her over for a moment, and once having ascertained no injuries at all, he allowed himself to shake his head.
"You need to be more careful," he told her.
Anya averted her gaze as she nodded, and suddenly, he found himself unable to scowl at her. He relented, smiling lightly as he rose back to his feet.
It was short-lived, however. The man flinched as soon as he made eye-contact, unconsciously tightening his grip on that one kid that wouldn't stop staring at him, with that one kind of gaze that he had probably seen a handful of times already.
Apparently, the guy Anya had run headfirst into was the kidnapper he had been looking for. What are the chances, really?
Conan's jaw dropped to the floor and shamelessly pointed at the kid. "It's you!" he screamed.
It was hard to hide his satisfaction when the man's eyes began to dart in every direction in something Conan could easily identify as panic. Nice that he still could instill that kind of fear in criminals even though he barely even reached their knees.
Loid was making his way to them. For the first time, he was glad.
Startled, the boy blanched as Conan brazenly reached forward and wrapped his hands around his wrist. "Say, say!" he chirped cutely. "Let's draw some pictures!"
"I…" He shot one glance at his kidnapper, then tried to smile. "I'm bad… at drawing."
Wow, still no sign of survival skills. It must be clinical.
Anya was probably giving him that plain stare of hers, but for plenty of reasons, he pretended not to notice. Instead, he crooked his head to one side, and blinked at him.
"But you must have been drawing for a while," Conan said, forehead scrunched up in his own confusion. He pointed at the entrance with one hand, crossed over with the other to motion at the whiteboard area, then halted, thinking. "We met before, and you didn't walk out of this place until now…"
Nobody answered him. Again, Conan pretended to be none the wiser to that, turning to Anya with a grin. Anya stepped back by reflex.
"There was a picture like that, wasn't it? It was bad." Conan laughed, but Anya only stared back. "You know, that one…"
The Kaito KID code I made, Conan thought.
Anya gasped, her eyes suddenly wide. "The magic man!"
Conan's smile was more genuine at that, illuminated by delight. "Right! The Kaito KID one!"
Just in time, the couple was only a few feet from reaching him, and the kidnapper was moments away from melting into a puddle at their feet ─ served him right, that bastard. He must be aware, thought the detective, that he was only moments away from hammering the last nail of that coffin named 'prison'.
In a stroke of age-appropriate emotional maturity, Conan flashed him one last grin. And instead of waving him goodbye as he would've liked to, he waved the fake couple instead.
"Dad! Mom!" he shouted, pitching his voice so high that he would probably have scowled, had he been a mere external spectator of his own charade. "You won't believe who I found!"
Loid's step faltered for a moment too brief. Conan could perfectly pinpoint the instant realization sank in ─ his eyes had narrowed slightly, and if Conan was to guess, it must have been the fact that Conan was holding the boy, who was being grabbed by this shady man in turn.
If the coffin was prison and Conan was the hammer, then Loid would probably be the nail.
"He's the one who drew it!" the shrunken detective shouted, as obnoxiously loud as his little lungs allowed. "The strange drawing with-!"
Loid's widening eyes, along with Yor's opening mouth, made the boy hesitate ─ what was with that, he wondered. But the next thing he was aware was of fingers ─ a trembling grip on his shoulder, sweating through his blazer. After turning around, he was met with eyes that flickered everywhere and nowhere in a single second and a man that trembled ─ that pleaded in silence for mercy, for him to keep his mouth shut.
So that you can fade into the background and take this kid away? Yeah, not a chance.
Evidently, he must have picked up on the boy's refusal, because his grip tightened considerably ─ and this time, Conan winced, tried to shake himself away. But the man hardly yielded at all ─ just continued latching onto him, squeezing, digging his nails into his shoulder, and it fell on Conan that this, probably, hadn't been a good idea at all.
But suddenly, it was gone; the next grunt of pain resounding in the air, yet not from his lips. Unaware of when this came to be, the detective found himself staring back in shock as a figure manifested right to his side, as fingers ─ far too delicate to be Loid's, far too slender to be Anya's ─ curled around the man's wrist.
From his position, Conan couldn't see Yor's face. "Please, pry your fingers away from my son." Though from her voice alone, the boy believed he could paint an accurate approximation of it in his mind.
The man breathed out something intelligible, his hand sticky on Conan's shoulder. But then, the detective heard a sickening crack, and before he could even cringe, he was free ─ free to see a grown man's legs giving out under him, whimpering as he nursed his wrist to his chest.
Conan stared in amazement, while the boy, now liberated in the process, stumbled backwards ─ gaping at the scene instead of running away as any sensible kid would probably do. Anya wasn't any different from him, though in her defense, she hadn't been the kidnapping attempt victim.
Loid had yet to move from his spot, a safe distance away, with an unreadable expression. Something on it snapped her out of it, the weight of her actions finally dawning with a furious blush on her face. Excuse after excuse, she started rambling, and though Conan wasn't sure who she was apologizing to ─ not to the criminal at her feet, that was for sure ─ the boy felt the tension drain from his shoulders.
A pang of nostalgia made his lips curl. Nothing I haven't seen before, or felt on his own skin. Well, to be fair, the person he had in mind had never broken a single bone on his body ─ but Shinichi was certain he was just lucky, that she had never really tried at all.
"Mit-chan!"
Yor halted in her tracks, her head whipping towards the entrance. At the doorway, there was a teenager ─ around Shinichi's age, maybe a little older. Hair matted with sweat, wheezing as though she had run a marathon, then started another one, she stumbled into the Kid's Place. Her eyes, already wide open, grew even bigger as though they couldn't believe what they were seeing, and only after ascertaining it wasn't a mirage they were seeing, they began filling up with tears.
In a second, she had crossed the room. As she buried the freckled child into her arms, all but knocking him off his feet, Conan realized it ─ their faces; they were the splitting image of each other, those two.
Something must have clicked in the boy's mind, as tears finally slipped from his eyes. "Neesan!" he cried, nuzzling on her chest. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to wander off!"
She shook her head in a sob, whispering something that Conan couldn't quite hear, but didn't feel it was his place to know about. Instead, he felt a sigh coming in, and after a glance over at the wounded criminal on the floor, the smirk sparked into life.
Later, when Inspector Megure arrived for his second crime in over two hours, he would find the criminal hunched over in the ground, all of his fighting spirit and desire for freedom gone at the need for medical treatment. He wouldn't ask many questions, and would probably just shake his head and be grateful that yet another case was closed without issue.
Only the child would remain, his gaze on the door that one strange family had excused themselves from. He would think of that certain bespectacled boy, of that smile that so innocent had seemed at first, had but rescued him.
"Mit-chan? Hey, Mit-chan…"
His eyebrows would then draw closer to each other, remembering he hadn't gotten to thank him and his family for practically saving his life.
"Mitsuhiko!"
Mitsuhiko then would snap out of it, and awkwardly scratch the back of his head as he promised his sister he wouldn't get distracted again. Together, they walked away from the scene, and to meet up with their parents after what felt like ages ago.
Okay, thought Twilight. Maybe walking out of that home that day hadn't been as much of a brilliant idea as he had believed it to be.
Perhaps, he should be contacting WISE to have them investigate if there was a legitimate reason crime rate had apparently risen exponentially overnight. Because he might be a spy, and therefore not prone to anything akin to a comfortably peaceful life, but even he could recognize this was kind of pushing it.
At the opera theater, a murder. At the museum, a kidnapping attempt.
Surely, that had been enough crime for a day ─ should have been. So, he had assumed nothing wrong would happen if they made a brief stop at the local tailor shop, seeking anything remotely presentable for everyone to wear at the school interview. And at first, everything seemed to go normally, and Loid had felt himself breathe out at the realization that, finally, everything was perfectly normal.
But Conan had pointed at the cashier, and with those round, brilliant blue eyes of his fixated at the proprietress, pointed out, "That lady is hiding some coins under her sleeve!"
Which was unfortunate, and yes, absolutely illegal ─ but Loid supposed he could work with that. He hadn't worried much about it, and by the time they had wandered into a photograph studio, it had admittedly disappeared from his mind.
Yor had sat down in an elegant chair, her lips a bit too tight. Loid made sure to maintain a perfect smile on his face as he stood behind the two children ─ Anya, extremely tense in her attempt to look good, ironically enough. He fully expected Conan to be reluctant to cooperate, to look away just as the photo was about to be snapped.
But surprisingly, he had been attentive, his eyes wide and focused on the camera lens. Loid did not have the time to be elated at the change of behavior and unexpected obedience, because Conan had to ruin it while screaming, "Don't take the photo! There's a bomb!"
Loid didn't have any idea of how he spotted that, but he had been right ─ easily fixable, though. It wasn't hard to disarm, and it was solved within seconds when it was revealed that the photographer's middle brother wanted him dead because of an inheritance or something.
Eventually, they got their photograph, and Loid realized that Conan had rolled his eyes.
"We, the Nationalist Party, believe that there's a road to peace with the West."
Taking the past few hours into consideration, Loid assumed he could be excused for his actions. It remained true, however, that none of those present were aware of any of it, and felt entitled in their own.
But, even though he was aware it was improper, at best, Loid could not bring himself to pay attention to the politician making a speech to a crowd he had willingly walked into. Probably not one of his brightest ideas, with him too distracted to set an example for the children he had been trying ─ emphasis in trying ─ to culturalize in a single day.
That, and the fact that crowds were greatly favored by run-of-the-mill pick-pocketers. Murder was certainly possible, but not likely to happen without a solid motive and an absurd amount of either planning or luck. Normally, he wouldn't even consider that something would go awry in a place like this, but those few hours into his family outing had shaped into a new person, and now he didn't seem to get rid of the idea that a simple robbery could easily turn bloody in seconds.
Conan had definitely sensed all the staring from his part, reason for which he kept shifting on his feet in clear discomfort. Lateral damage, decided the spy; so far the boy had demonstrated he wasn't just skilled in attracting ─ or being attracted to ─ trouble, he seemed to have a knack for spotting it, even predicting it in some cases. He wasn't ashamed of relying on it, especially if he had the chance to figure out what it was while he was at it.
He was, however, slightly reluctant to admit he tensed up when Conan raised his hand ─ and fully expected him to point at something and shatter all semblance of this fickle, fake peace they lived in. For twenty minutes, at most.
But all the boy did was cover his mouth to stifle a yawn.
Just as he was about to deflate with relief, Loid remembered he was supposed to be a father. So he fixed his face into a stern scowl.
"Pay attention," he told him.
Normally, he wasn't above acting like the world's worst hypocrite, but he never was this obvious. But he would have to be one, because he knew that patriotism was extremely important within Eden and he would have to instill a lot of it on his children.
Knowledge of politics and history was a must for those two.
Conan crossed his arms behind his head. "They all say the same thing."
This one was probably a bit too knowledgeable. He thought he ought to do something about that, although he had no clue how he was supposed to fix a lost cause like this one ─ or the irate glances shot towards him, which the boy reflected with plain indifference. Loid thought he heard someone snickering in the background, and he was suspecting it wasn't as unrelated as he would have wanted.
A spy should never stand up in a crowd ─ he didn't need to be part of a secret intelligence organization to know that. He would have said he wanted to give up and head back home, except that he didn't have one. The apartment he was renting was practically a base of operations for his mission, he reminded himself.
Suddenly, he was remembered that he had adopted two children. First came the little fists gripping his pants, then the pressure of her head to his knees ─ Anya wasn't holding up so well, that much was clear. She had acted like that, dazed amidst the flow of students walking out of their entrance exam with Conan in tow ─ something like this should have been predictable, so he couldn't understand how he hadn't been able to see it.
"Let's go rest somewhere," Yor suggested.
And for once, Conan was actually cooperative, nodding and obediently tagging along after Loid plucked Anya up from the ground. He hurried alongside them without saying a word at all, hoping to get the distressed little girl away from that place as soon as humanly possible-
Anya lifted her head. "Papa, I'm hungry."
But had the nerve to laugh out loud at the absurdity of their situation.
Taking his pretend family to a fancy restaurant shouldn't have been a big deal. Even though he knew beforehand that instilling proper etiquette on those two would be close to a herculean task ─ especially Anya, if his suspicions regarding Conan's background were to be proved true ─ Loid thought it wouldn't be anything he couldn't handle.
"No, Anya. Don't just pick the nuts off the top, and no eating with your hands." He looked away from the girl and his chipmunk-like cheeks to his wife, "Yor-san…" only to find her tracing the blade of the knife with a finger, oddly mesmerized. "Uh… Hm."
Slowly, he forced himself to look away from the strange scene that he could not find an explanation for, and almost reluctantly, fixed his gaze on his supposed son ─ or, rather, his son's back. He was kneeling on his chair to look backwards and anywhere but his meal or his family, and for some reason, Loid didn't find within himself the will to be surprised any longer.
He released a long, heavy sigh. "Conan," he called. "It's improper to stare at other people."
The boy gave him an outrageous look. "But that clearly married man is dating another woman!"
Coming from the table directly next to them, he heard a woman gasp. Partly covered by the boy's innocent blue eyes on him, Loid saw a lady rise to her feet to slap the man sitting across the table. She whipped her head back with a scowl before storming away, the clicking of heels cutting off with a violent slam of a door.
Conan sat back again and chewed on a mouthful of pasta, contentedly.
Loid buried his face in his hands.
"Don't mind, Papa," his daughter said, her eyes cluelessly wide as she clutched at her utensils. She would have to keep her elbows away from the table, but good enough, he supposed ─ he couldn't really ask for more, honestly. Anything else would be impossible.
I definitely picked the wrong child. Anya choked on a peanut, but thankfully Yor had it handled, allowing him to grimace to his heart's content. Children, he corrected himself. He picked out two of them ─ two ─ and somehow none of them had been a good choice. For several, varying reasons.
No, this is all because I was expected to rely on others. After this mission was over, he would surely avoid this kind of approach for future ones, no doubt.
Conan was back at eyeing that man from before, who was now pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead ─ a feeling that Twilight could actually empathize with, especially after today. He wondered what had caught the boy's eye this time. Was it the pile of peanuts he had pushed to the side of his plate, in enough quantities to have Anya drooling and begging for some? Or was the angry red rash that peeked out from under his sleeve as he raised his arm? Loid truly had no way of knowing ─ and wasn't sure he wanted to know, either.
"Um…" Yor's soft voice pulled him and Conan out of their musings. "Why don't we go get some fresh air?"
"Sure!" Conan nodded, then turned over at the man he had been kind of harassing for a while. "Oh, sir? I think you'd want to avoid whatever your wife cooks up for you tonight." He grinned, bright as the sun. "She knows about your affair ─ and your allergies!"
Worst of all, Loid couldn't brush that off as childish, senseless ramble. Instead, all he had been able to do was ask for the bill, and hoped that the waiter would hurry things up so that they could leave this place, and this stranger's bewildered, slightly terrified, gawking.
It was a nice place, Conan would give her that.
The park Yor had taken them to had no remarkable attributes to it, but that was charming in its own sort of way. Located somewhere in the outskirts of town ─ but thankfully not quite in Beika yet ─ and secret for many, judging by how little people hung around this place, the boy thought it wasn't all bad.
It was nice, actually. There was a breeze too gentle to even mess with his hair too roughly and had quite a pleasant sight from the pedestrian street beneath. It almost made him forget himself enough to smile, oddly content.
Despite knowing that the bushes over there were a perfect spot, if unconventional, for snipping. That you could easily pretend someone drowned in the fountain if you slipped the right drug in their coffee, or how simple it would be to push someone off this fence he had climbed onto ─ or rather, pushed himself up just enough to cross his arms over it, even with his feet hanging in the air, because he absolutely refused to sit there and risk being held from the waist by Loid like Anya was ─ and 'accidentally' deck their head against the one directly beneath them.
Conan could probably just slide between the bars and survive. And he would probably then smash his head by himself if that happened to him.
"I don't come here that often either, but I wander over here when I'm exhausted from work," Yor said. "Thinking about how the work I do helps everyone in this city encourages me to work harder."
Glancing over at Yor, Conan found a fond smile on her face. If she wasn't his prime suspect for a murder case, the boy would have thought it was almost admirable; someone striving to help people out in such a rotten society they were forced to live in… It was a breath of fresh air.
Slowly he looked away, resting his chin on his crossed arms, and had to fight off a smirk from his face. They do look like bits of trash from up here, like Anya had said before. Bits of trash that rolled in the pavement, back and forth, as they carried on with their lives, unaware of when they would be taken away by an unfamiliar set of hands and left alone to rot somewhere else.
There was a time where Shinichi was proud of his job in this society they lived in. Helping sort out the trash so that the world became a better place, as minimal as the improvement it would be. He would never extirpate crime from this country, there wasn't a day he wasn't reminded of this terrible fact. But he liked to think that he was changing some lives out there, even if just a little.
It had been a while since he had last seen his name written in the newspaper.
Yet it seemed like little had changed at all, with him stumbling upon so many crimes even without Inspector Megure time and time again going out of his way to ask for his oh-so-valuable insight. I've been through so many cases I've lost count already, he thought. Too many, I can't remember most of them anymore.
Again, Anya had turned to glance back at him. Yet this time, she didn't immediately turn as soon as she noticed she had been spotted, as Conan was used to ─ just stared at him, with those big emerald eyes he couldn't hope to read. He pretended not to notice.
Criminal rate has been increasing after my shrink, though. Are the criminals' brain cell density decreasing to compensate?
While it hadn't been long since he had gotten a case, not by a long stretch, it had been long since he had gotten a challenging one, come to think of it. That was something to ponder about later, for sure.
Speaking of crime… Is that guy about to-? He stopped himself when the old lady was shoved onto the ground, and the thief took off running with her purse. Yup. Saw that coming.
Too busy with the thievery developing in front of their eyes, nobody noticed him hopping back onto the ground.
But what they did notice was Yor hopping over it with a determined frown and a loud, "You won't get away with it!"
She had jumped off the moment they realized she had shouted at all, and despite himself, Loid found himself rooted on his spot, watching as Yor skillfully hopped from fence to fence in her chase to the robber, disregarding the stairs altogether.
And would probably have stared for a lot longer, hadn't he noticed that blue blazer and that distinct cowlick, sliding down the hill, and past the bars, to reach the level ground with a frown so determined ─ so similar to Yor's that he would have pegged him as her actual son.
The entire day they had lived through proved how useless it would be to shout after Conan, so he didn't try. Just picked Anya up and made it to the stairs.
"Thank you for escorting me all the way here! You're a fine young man."
Once again, Conan strangled out an awkward chuckle ─ like he had been doing for long enough for his face to hurt from the effort. Surely his arm would be sore in the morning, all because of that elderly woman that kept on shaking his hand, so forcefully that it was hard to keep himself upright in that small body of his.
Skidding into the crime scene had sounded like a wonderful idea at first, so cool as he had pictured in his mind ─ he should have known it would vary from reality. He should have known he would end up with a scraped knee, and several minutes late, only arriving at the scene after Yor had rushed off to chase after the criminal.
Him, in a grade schooler's body, actually catching the thief before this woman, possessor of a Ran-esque strength and will, could ever lay her hands on him, was a truly ridiculous thought. With nothing else to do, Conan supposed he could tend to the victim instead.
There had already been a few hours into the afternoon when they ran into the assault, so he wasn't surprised to see an orange-tinted light shedding over everything in sight the moment he stepped out of the hospital, the lady in tow. Ever since then, she had been thanking him for his help, a little too enthusiastically for a simple walk to the hospital, and given him so much candy he could stuff his pockets with.
"You don't have to stay," Conan told her, after refusing even more candy. At least she wasn't offering money anymore, so he guessed it was better. If slightly. "You should go back home before it gets late, Obaasan."
"Oh, don't you worry about that, dear." She waved her hand, giggling at him. "I'm not in a hurry, and besides, I have yet to thank your mommy and daddy."
Normally, those words would provoke a shiver out of it, instigated by the mere idea of having another set of parents when, really, he had enough with one as it was. But this time, he found that his body hadn't really reacted to it ─ his eyes had just flickered forward, somewhere in the distance, unable to think of anything to say at all.
"I… don't think they're coming." The lady seemed surprised, and that had been the only way he even noticed he had talked at all. He scratched the back of his head, a faint blush warming his cheeks at the realization. "I-I mean, I didn't exactly tell them I was there."
She brought her hands to her mouth, muffling a quiet gasp. "You can't do that!" she told him, a concerned frown taking over her face. "They must be worried sick about you right now!"
About that, Conan wasn't one-hundred percent sure. It would probably be true, were he an actual member of a real family created organically and with no intent but to raise a child with love and care. But he had only known his 'mother' for about a week, and his 'father' had only picked him because he thought he could be useful for a world peace mission. There was nothing remotely organic in a forged family, after all.
And he knew what it looked like to that woman, elderly enough to know more of the world than he would ever comprehend at his sixteen years of age. He could recognize the pitying look she gave him when he climbed up into a bench, and stared blankly back ahead.
Maybe I should just go back home. Only that home was in Beika, and not available any longer. Not after he did what he did; how he had messed up with the worst kind of people there was, and ran away to protect those of the few his heart actually cared for. Without them in the picture, Shinichi truly had no place to return to. Nobody to return to, nobody to search for him.
The lady sat silently at his side, a hand over his knee and a patient smile on her face.
"They will come," she told him.
And Conan wasn't sure if he wanted to believe her. His existence was practically a fabrication, a lie just as half-baked as the one the woman was uttering ─ he knew better, he really did. Maybe he shouldn't wait any longer, he realized; the later he gave up on this useless waiting game, the later he would get back to the Forger's apartment, and the more annoyed Loid would be after he walked back in. And that wasn't something he wanted to experience.
But for some reason, he didn't move.
For some other reason he didn't understand at first, the woman's lips quirked into a soft smile. Conan certainly wanted to ask, yet that didn't mean was successful in his endeavor.
"Conan!"
He felt himself freeze, his brain stuttering at the familiar voice calling out for him. Whipping his head, Conan only got to see a flash of green before it reached him, hands seizing his shoulders as the figure skidded to a stop in front of him.
Blinking, he took into Loid's crazed eyes, flickering all over until they met his, as if searching for something. What he had been looking for, Conan had no clue.
The grip on his arms tightened, yet not enough to hurt ─ just a pressure that reminded him he was there, that he wasn't going anywhere. "Just…" Loid whispered, out of breath. "Just where were you?"
"At the hospital?"
Suddenly, his gaze turned into a scowl, the kind that told Conan he was in deep trouble. Some sort of trouble whose origins Conan wasn't sure he could deduce ─ it wasn't like he had run off to meet a corpse, or a phantom thief in the middle of a smuggling ring attack, now did he? All he had done was take a lady to get a medical checkup, what was the big deal with that?
"Don't." Conan would be lying if he said he wasn't both puzzled and astonished, in equal quantities, when Loid spoke to him; his voice firm, with a hint of some concealed something he couldn't pick up. "Don't ever do that again."
Despite himself, Conan nodded a little robotically. "Will try."
The answer hardly pleased the spy, but Conan didn't live up to please him. Behind them, the old lady giggled, and Loid started suddenly ─ yanking his hands from the child's shoulders as though his skin was scalding.
It took a moment further for Yor to arrive, Anya watching them with clear curiosity while sitting in her arms. The fact that they didn't reach them until much later made Conan conscious of the fact that Loid had practically run off to meet him ─ he hadn't yet worked out the implications behind that fact. And he wouldn't, even as he watched the woman walk up to Yor to thank her just as profusely as she had to him. Rinse and repeat with a composed, yet still slightly winded, Loid.
He genuinely thought he saw Loid blushing at her gratefulness and praise. Maybe he should consider getting an actual prescription for his glasses.
"Thank you, Yor-san," Loid said ─ completely unprompted, if you asked Conan. "Today was a nice change of pace. Now I'll be able to work hard again."
Not what Conan would call 'nice', exactly, but at least he could say it wasn't… as awful as he thought it would be. Loid was smiling at Yor, brightly enough for Conan to forget, for less than a heartbeat, of the spy's second nature, and that it had to be fake. Yor's was a little more believable, complete with a pinkish dust coloring her ivory white cheeks.
Anya blinked at them. "Papa and Mama are flirting," she observed.
Their reaction was dramatic, complete with vividly flushing cheeks. "We are not!" they screamed in perfect synchrony.
It had to be fake ─ it had to be, the logical part of his mind whispered back to him. The other, normally the one he set aside, however, told him that it was okay to hop off his bench and walk over, a light smile on his face that may or may not have been genuine.
"You kinda are," Conan said, shrugging.
Loid's glare was dangerous. And ineffective.
"Does Anya get a thank you, too?" Anya pipped in, peering up at her parents with her wide, innocent eyes.
"Well... I guess we did find the thief because you were hungry again," Loid admitted, all signs of irritation gone as he placed a hand on top of the girl's head. "Good girl."
They found the thief because she was hungry? thought Conan, his eyebrows shooting up. That was some story he surely wanted to hear. Once we return home.
Conan paused, blinking. I didn't just think that. It wasn't a question ─ it was a fact.
With a silent smile perched on her lips, the old lady watched the four of them, in contemplation. "My, what a lovely family you are."
It was nice that he wasn't the only one taken aback by that comment. The lady did not realize it, or probably she did; she smiled wider than ever before, and without adding a word, passed a candy to Anya. Which, naturally, she accepted, and smiled accordingly.
What he hoped that nobody noticed was the smile she had sent him. A smile so sweet that nobody would ever predict what meaning it held within, waiting for him to deduce it.
I told you so.
By the time they arrived back home, the sun had already fallen over the horizon and a chilly breeze was just beginning to settle in. Conan did not think much of it, far too tired from overthinking things, and walked in right as Loid unlocked the door.
It was hard not to notice that, in an instant, things had grown quiet. Quiet, perhaps in a sense of the word that Conan was not familiar with; Anya was loud in her antics as always, Yor kept on banging cups together as she prepared cocoa, and of course, Loid wouldn't stop sighing with every wrong answer Anya gave him when their resumed that mock-interview he had invented.
Should he tell him it wasn't going to work? Probably not. He was no sadist, but maybe, it was a bit funny to see him despair like this ─ it made him look different from the always composed, perfect spy he was making himself to be; more human, Conan dared to say.
That expression was different, too ─ the one he had made when he found him outside the hospital. A different kind of 'different' ─ if that made sense at all.
Mentally shrugging, Conan accepted Yor's offering as she walked back from the kitchen. He would probably ponder about it later, he had enough for a lifetime as it was.
So, for now, all he was willing to think about was how warm the cup of cocoa felt in his little hands.
That was, until the bell rang, gathering everyone's attention and looks of confusion. Who would it be, they wondered, that stumbled into their door so late at night?
They weren't expecting visits, as far as Conan was concerned. They didn't, besides probably Franky ─ who never ever knocked on the door, just normally waltzed in a way that suggested that he very obviously had a set of keys for their door.
"Coming!" Yor called.
And Conan just sat back, frozen with uncertainty, as she walked over and opened the door. He picked up on her shoulders tensing, in what he would interpret as surprise, and the fact that he couldn't see a single thing from where he sat.
Out of the blue, Yor crouched. Conan felt absolutely and irrevocably lost at that moment.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you!" Yor apologized. "Who may you be?"
Unable to contain his curiosity, Conan slowly threaded closer to get a better look at their visitor. First, he spotted a petite girl, brunette, holding her hair back with a tiara. Then, he caught sight of the vibrant blue of her eyes and the broad grin that stretched from side to side in her face; a grin that bode no well for Conan, he could already tell.
Realization hit like a bucket of ice water, freezing Conan solid in his spot.
"Good evening! My name is Ayumi Yoshida!" the girl chirped. "Can Conan-kun come out to play?"