Chapter 20: Follow That Car
Author's note: In Japan, students (all grades before college) are not allowed to arrive to or go from school in a motor vehicle of any kind. They arrive on foot or on a bicycle. I'm not sure why that is. It's the same in Korea, but my husband says that's more because they were influenced by Japan, so he doesn't know the real reason, either, and I unfortunately haven't been able to find anything in my research. If anyone can tell me why, I would greatly appreciate it.
It's hot… was Shinichi's first thought after waking up. His whole body felt like lead, his head stuffed with cotton. He didn't even bother with trying to open his heavy eyelids. He would have been content to go right back to sleep were it not for the feeling he was being stifled. It wasn't even that hot, but the warmth surrounded him on all sides, his head included, so it felt more oppressive than it actually was.
He moved, trying to at least get some cool air, but found he'd somehow become tangled up in his blankets last night. What sort of dreams must he have had for that to happen? He couldn't remember. Something hard was pressing against his leg, too. He must have fallen asleep with his phone in the bed.
His phone buzzed against his side, in his jacket pocket. He frowned. Grunting irritably, he reached down to his leg to remove the offending object. A low moan sounded somewhere above his head. His frown deepened as he struggled to clear the cobwebs in his head. He felt around for the object again, and the blankets moved around him as another moan surfaced. His eyes snapped open, and he jerked his hand back as if he'd been burned.
… I'm in Ran's room, he thought slowly, blinking a few times in the darkness. Why am I in Ran's room?
As his eyes adjusted and he registered a faint light filtering through his prison, he realized he was not, in fact, tangled up in the blankets, but being treated very much like a teddy bear by the bed's owner. He didn't remember going to sleep, but during the course of the night, he'd somehow gotten under the covers. It was so hot because he was surrounded by Ran's body heat on top of being under the blankets. Which meant the hard thing pressed against his leg must have been…
He swallowed hard, completely awake now. He really shouldn't have been so surprised, but since becoming Conan, he had quite forgotten about that little… inconvenience. Far from being embarrassed, though, it really just hammered home the reality of the situation.
He very carefully tried to extricate himself from Ran's arms, but she held fast, her grip as a man much stronger than it used to be. He really didn't want her to wake up in this situation. Normally, he could be as rough as he needed, since Ran could sleep through even the loudest of explosions. Unfortunately for him, studies showed that sleeping habits and patterns were more or less genetic, and since Shinichi could wake up at the drop of a pin unless he was especially exhausted…. Well, he didn't want to risk it. So he waited.
He didn't have to wait long before she finally let go and rolled over, taking the blanket with her. He resisted the urge to gasp at the cool air in the room—a sharp contrast from the heat under the blanket—and very carefully slid out of the bed. Very slowly, he crept to the door and looked back as he quietly opened it to make sure he didn't wake her up. Only when he was safely in the hallway, door closed, did he breathe a sigh of relief.
She'll kill me if she ever finds out about this… he thought, huffing out a wry laugh. It wasn't the first time they'd shared a bed—it happened quite frequently before she was kidnapped, when she still thought he was Conan—but he didn't think she'd take it very well if she learned that he'd discovered her morning wood the way that he had.
Better keep this to myself, he decided before he checked his phone. The battery was almost spent. He pulled up the text that he'd gotten earlier, but it was just Heiji expressing excitement that he would actually get to do something. A quick look at the time told him he still had two hours before class.
Shinichi glanced at the closed door for a moment before turning back towards his room, lest he think too deeply about what just happened. He stopped by his room to charge his phone and grab some fresh clothes, which he brought with him to the bathroom. He had more than enough time for a shower, so he did just that, washing off the remainder of his exhaustion.
Since he was the first one awake—an extremely rare occurrence—he had to make his coffee himself. It was a little strange to think that it was usually already ready for him when he woke up, courtesy of Ran, especially considering he'd usually done it for himself before Tropical Land. He stared bitterly at the brewing coffee, wondering if any of this would have happened if he'd just kept his nose out of other people's business.
He shook his head as his vision blurred. It was a truly useless line of thought for a number of reasons. In the first place, time travel didn't exist, so he couldn't go back and change things. And even if he hadn't followed Vodka that day, his work as a detective would have had him bumping into the crows eventually. Also, being his normal self also didn't guarantee Ran wouldn't get kidnapped. The only thing that would have been guaranteed was that she wouldn't have been turned into him, since those people—whoever they were—couldn't have two of the same person wandering around.
He rubbed at steadily throbbing temples. Coffee first, think later. He didn't even wait for the pot to finish filling before swiping his first cup. As the coffee entered his system, his mind finally cleared. He went for a second cup, taking more time to savor it this time, and thoughtfully stared into space.
As I thought, I can't wait for Kid to come, he thought. I'll call Takagi as Shinichi before school, and then fill Kid in later, if he hasn't already discovered the new plan…
A noise at the doorway interrupted his thoughts. He turned just in time to see Ran sluggishly shuffle in, eyes half closed. He blinked a few times at her zombie-like state as she shambled to the island counter and sat down. She put her head down on the linoleum, and stopped moving. Shinichi frowned. Ran was a morning person, so why…?
Right, he thought, mentally berating himself. It's because I'm not. Since she'd always woken up before him, he hadn't realized it.
"There's coffee," he offered, peering at Ran's face. She stared blearily at him. He hesitated, then, "I can't be that bad in the morning, right?" She blinked slowly, almost as if she were trying to digest his words.
"… 'm not used t'it…" she mumbled, her words slurring strangely since her cheek was still pressed against the countertop. She yawned. "If we'd switched bodies, maybe you could understand a little…."
He nodded thoughtfully. It would be an enlightening experience at the very least. He couldn't imagine being a morning person in the first place, much less imagine what it would feel like to suddenly not be one.
Shinichi slipped out of his chair as Ran closed her eyes again, and brought her a cup of coffee. He set it in front of her face, hoping the aroma would help just enough to at least have her sitting upright. He checked his watch. It was still very early.
"I need to make a phone call," he said as she slowly sat back up. "I'll be back in a bit." She belatedly grunted in acknowledgement as he left the room to retrieve his still charging phone. He bumped into Subaru in the hallway, and the man stared down at him in mild surprise.
"You're up early," he commented. Shinichi just shrugged.
"Don't get used to it," was all he said. Subaru chuckled a bit as the small teen stalked upstairs. Once in his room, he grabbed his phone and voice changer. He sat on the edge of his bed as he prepared the latter, twisting the dial in the familiar pattern he knew would imitate his real voice. On his phone, he quickly picked out Takagi's number from his contacts list and hit "call." The man picked up after two rings.
"Hello?"
"Takagi-keiji; this is Kudo Shinichi."
xXx
It didn't take nearly as long as he thought to convince Takagi of what he needed. He just had to claim he'd heard about the red minivan from Conan, and everything else went smoothly.
With that taken care of, he packed up his backpack and headed back down the stairs. By the time he'd finished, Ran had already woken up completely, and was just finishing making breakfast. It was a little eerie, to think that if he'd woken up at his usual time, he'd have never known she struggled so much in the mornings.
As he re-entered the kitchen, Ran turned to look at him, taking a skillet from the stovetop.
"Did you finish? Who did you call?" she asked as she prepared a plate for him. It was almost as if her earlier strain hadn't happened at all.
"Just Takagi-keiji," he said as he went back for his coffee cup. "He's going to see what he can do to monitor the traffic footage around recent kidnappings." Ran hummed thoughtfully, recalling their conversation from last night. She handed him the plate she was holding.
"Is it okay if I get my hopes up?" she asked. Her words were said in jest, but there was a sad, desperate tone tingeing them. Shinichi's chest felt tight.
"I can't really say no, since my hopes are up, too," he replied honestly. Tentative relief flooded her face. There was still trepidation, of course, since he hadn't given a definitive answer; that was something he couldn't do, given how little he knew at this point. The outcome of this leg of investigation could still go either way, so until they got some kind of result, everyone was more or less in the dark.
On the other hand, it was highly unlikely they wouldn't snag something out of this, which was why Shinichi was so hopeful. Of course, the fact that they needed to wait for results wasn't exactly something either of them wanted to hear, given how much time had already passed.
Shinichi came out of his thoughts as he watched Ran take a few bites of her breakfast while standing next to the sink.
"I've been meaning to ask you," he said carefully as he settled himself into a chair at the island counter. "How come you don't eat breakfast in the dining room?" Ran's movements stilled. "I mean, you do everything the same way you did at the detective agency except for eating, and you still eat lunch and supper in the dining room…"
Ran was quiet for a long time. Shinichi wondered if he hadn't stepped into a minefield.
"… I… I don't really want to talk about it right now," she whispered, still facing the sink. Shinichi backed off immediately; he had no desire to lose the trust he'd gotten back, nor did he wish to become minced meat. He had more than enough personal experience in pushing Ran's buttons, and this time he recognized the warning signs.
"Okay," he said softly, hoping to diffuse her current mood quickly. "Forget I said anything." She still wouldn't look at him, but he did see her give a nod. As long as he kept his mouth shut for a while, she'd be okay. He quietly ate his breakfast.
By the time he was ready to meet the children at the professor's house, Ran's mood had improved considerably. He nodded to himself, making a mental note to not bring up breakfast again.
The rest of the day went on, uneventful. It almost didn't seem fair that everything went on normally while he and Ran experienced life-changing horrors. It was Friday, so the mundane talk of the classroom was all about weekend plans and the like—most of which Shinichi tried to tune out.
He spent the day thinking about traffic footage. It wouldn't be long until he could see it himself, he hoped. Or at least receive some sort of update. He frowned. He was still waiting on information from both Kid and Akai—the latter was excused for taking his time since America was so big, and he wasn't personally looking into it. But he was also easily accessible. Shinichi had no way to contact Kid, so the only thing he could do was wait patiently, completely in the dark as to how much longer he would take.
"… un…"
Perhaps he could buy a cheap phone and force the thief to take it with him…
"… n-kun…"
Or he could secretly stick one of his trackers to the man, but there was a very high chance that sort of thing would be found out before he could glean anything from it….
"CONAN-KUN!"
Shinichi jumped, staring wide-eyed at the little girl who'd just screamed his name with the sort of volume one would expect from using a bullhorn.
"Conan-kun, are you still not feeling well? Class ended ten minutes ago, you know?"
"… I… wha…?" He blinked a few times. Haibara observed him for a few moments, eyes flickering between him and the other children.
"Honestly, Edogawa-kun," she said with an exaggerated sigh, "if you were still sick, you shouldn't have continued coming to school in the first place."
"What, you were still sick?!" exclaimed Mitsuhiko.
"Of course not!" said Shinichi with a scowl. He glanced at Haibara, who was giving him a flat 'just play along' glare. "I-I just…" His gaze nervously averted to the window, and his blood ran cold.
"I HAVE TO GO!" he shouted suddenly, startling even the stoic Haibara.
"Think he's got diarrhea?" he heard Genta ask as he dashed out the door. He might have been mildly amused if he hadn't just spied a red minivan going at a suspiciously slow pace near the front of the school.
It can't be! He thought as he ran out of the building, desperately hoping to get to the street in time. As he rushed past dawdling students, stopping only briefly to grab his outside shoes, he cursed as he got outside just as the van rounded a corner. He raced after it, but lost it almost immediately—he did, after all, only have his own short legs to assist him. He huffed heavily, trying to catch his breath as he looked around desperately for any sign of the van.
"… Shit…"
xXx
"Now, Shinichi, be reasonable!" said the professor after the teen told him what had happened. "That could have been anyone!"
"He's right," said a particularly bedraggled-looking Haibara, tone irritable. "Unlike Gin's car, red minivans aren't exactly rare around here." She sank into the couch, exhausted from having to shake the children off with a believable excuse—what she'd told them exactly, Shinichi didn't know.
"And driving at a crawl in front of the school?" Shinichi demanded.
"They could have been lost," said Agasa. He smiled sheepishly. "I do that sometimes instead of stopping to look at a map."
"Or maybe they were American and thought they could pick their kid up from school—that was quite common when I studied overseas," added Haibara. Shinichi glowered.
"First off, if they were waiting for someone, they'd have been parked. Second, we don't have any foreigners at our school—it would be the only thing anyone talks about, since they're pretty rare here."
"Then they were lost," said Agasa decisively.
"Or they were casing the area," growled Shinichi.
"They were lost," said a new voice from the doorway. Everyone jumped and turned to find a plainly dressed man grinning widely at them, a cap pulled low over his eyes. Shinichi relaxed almost immediately.
"Kid? What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I told you I would come soon, didn't I?" came the matter-of-fact reply. "And when I didn't find you next door, your princess informed me you were most likely here." He grinned again. Haibara's eyes narrowed.
"'They were lost'—you mean the van we were talking about? How would you know?" she asked.
"Well, tantei-kun just looked so concerned about it, so I followed them." Tense silence reigned for a few moments.
"Why were you at my school?!" Shinichi shouted.
"Should we be worried?" asked Haibara, looking much more interested now, a mildly amused smile crossing her face. The thief held up his hands.
"I was only waiting for an opportunity to speak with my favorite little detective," he said, mischief dripping from his voice in a way that made Shinichi's eyes narrow.
"What are you planning?"
"Planning? My dear tantei-kun, whatever do you mean?"
"I mean, if you wanted to talk to me, all you had to do was wait until I got home; not wait outside my school like a creep." Shinichi scowled as Kid's grin only seemed to grow wider. He bent down closer to the tiny sleuth.
"Hmm? Do you really want to know?" he asked loftily. "What will you do if I tell you?" He stood back up. "What will the others think?"
"Think about what? Anything that comes out of your mouth reflects on you, not me."
"I suppose so," he said in a tone that suggested otherwise. He straightened up, crossing his arms. "And as fun as teasing you is, truthfully, I do have other things to do today." Shinichi rolled his eyes.
"In that case, you shouldn't have wasted time playing around."
"Hahaha! You're right, of course. I just can't help myself sometimes." The laughter died immediately, followed by a seriousness so drastically different from earlier, it made Shinichi dizzy. He couldn't imagine what Nakamori-keibu went through, since the older man dealt with the thief on a more regular basis than the small teen did.
"First of all," said Kid, putting a hand into his jacket, "I took the liberty of putting everything on here." From some inner pocket, he produced a small flash drive. "Before you ask; no, there are no children listed—I triple checked because you seemed especially worried about that point." Shinichi frowned.
"None at all?" he asked. "But—"
"I'm just telling you the results. As the detective, finding out the reason behind this is your job," said Kid firmly. Shinichi shut his mouth, biting back an indignant reply. He was, after all, right about that.
"Fine," he said sourly. "There's something else I want your help with." He gravely accepted the USB as he prepared for the next request to be met with resistance. The thief held up a hand.
"You'll find what you want on your computer," he said. Before Shinichi even had time to process the statement, Kid was already gone, leaving behind an irritated detective and two very confused scientists.
"… What just happened?" asked Haibara after a few moments of stunned silence.
"Progress, I think," said Shinichi, frowning down at the USB in his hand.
If he was going to hack into my computer anyway, what was the point in giving me this…? he wondered.
"I guess I'll go see what he managed to find out," he mumbled, ignoring the curious questions that bubbled out of Agasa as he headed for the door.
"Shinichi! Hold on—Shinichi!"
"Let him be, professor," he heard Haibara say as he closed the door. "You know what that idiot is like. Give him some time to focus on this new toy."
Shinichi rolled his eyes as he left the two scientists. But Haibara was right—he wasn't going to do anything before verifying what Kid gave him.
He heard Ran in the kitchen as he passed by it on his way to the staircase. The smell of pork told him what to expect when he was done with his business. He allowed a faint smile to cross his lips briefly before schooling his expression as he headed for his room.
He frowned at his computer as he slipped his backpack off his shoulders. It was on, the screensaver having been changed to Kid's signature doodle. The thing bumped around the sides of the screen, grinning at him. He clicked his tongue irritably.
I might actually relish in catching him if I weren't certain he'd still manage to pull off these pranks from prison, he thought, resigned to his new fate of being teased outside of heists. He sighed as he sat down at the desk. He jiggled the mouse and grimaced. The wallpaper had been changed as well. A grinning doodle of Conan greeted him from the screen, looking much too like the Kid doodle for his liking. He's enjoying his freedom a little too much.
He shook his head. He could change it back later, after he was done checking the files on the USB. He plugged it in, and immediately opened the folder. He was graced with a long list of text files.
He skimmed through the content, making absolutely certain all of the information he needed was present. He could look at everything more thoroughly after figuring out what exactly Kid had done to his computer besides mess with the settings. Minimizing the window, he scanned the desktop. His eyes landed on an unnamed file with no thumbnail. He clicked it.
Password Required
Password…? He blinked a few times, then scanned the desktop for anything else that shouldn't be there. Nothing. He frowned, eyes lingering on the USB window. He pulled it back up and browsed the list of documents. After carefully sifting, he found one document with no name, sitting inconspicuously in the middle of the list. He opened it and let an irritated smirk cross his face as he saw what could only be a password typed in it. His agitation faded when he typed it in to the other application and saw what was on it. His mouth hung open dumbly.
Live traffic footage, sorted by city, filled the screen. A map of Japan functioned as a sort of hub menu. One click into any city brought up a list of prefectures with thumbnails. Clicking on a prefecture brought up a list of wards, wards brought a list of blocks, and from blocks to individual streets. Closer investigation revealed he could look up saved footage as far back as two weeks ago before the system deleted it.
He gaped at the screen, completely overwhelmed by the whole thing.
"… How…?" He couldn't even give voice to his thoughts. He didn't know how Kid had pulled it off, but he was willing to let the thief walk free for the foreseeable future for the amount of work he'd done.
It was time to make some real progress.