File One Hundred and Fifty-Six: Whispers of Static
Although Ran's suggestion had initially caught her off guard, Sonoko found herself infinitely grateful she had decided to open her mouth. At least, this way, something could now be salvaged from this hell of a day, Sonoko mused as the trio made their way back home.
The taste of vanilla lingering in her tongue brought forward a satisfied smile to play on her lips. When had it been the last time they hung out without a dead body getting in their way? Sonoko couldn't even tell anymore ─ and that wasn't even the most unsettling part of it. The fact that the question had crossed her mind in the first place, as though it was the most mundane thing to ponder about, was what took the cake.
Their lives had never been ordinary in that regard, and this year's summer vacation had done nothing but to establish the notion in her mind. She couldn't even be sure whether it had officially been the worst one so far, but it had to be up there.
Sera shot her a curious glance. "Was it really that bad?"
Sonoko paused, only then realizing she might have spoken aloud.
"Besides that freak accident at Touto Aquarium and the occasional murder? I don't think so, no," she said, after a moment of contemplation. "But I'd have loved to hang out with you girls more."
But Ran had been particularly unavailable this summer, so that had put a damper on things. Even now when she was physically there, walking in step with her, she was… strangely absent. So silent that Sonoko could have mistaken her presence for a mirage that, for whatever reason, could not stop staring at the smiling girl beside them.
"Ever since Shinichi-kun left, it's been quieter, though," Sonoko muttered, as an afterthought. "He's definitely cursed, more so than the brat."
Sera hummed low in her throat. "The more you talk about him, the more alike they seem ─ Shinichi-kun and Conan-kun, I mean."
She wondered if Sera, and her sharp senses worthy of a detective's, had caught her wincing. "You think so?" Sonoko asked, a little too quickly. "They don't really look alike to me."
Even Ran shot her a pointed look. Acting oblivious was one thing, and another was being totally disconnected from reality.
"Not physically, obviously," she corrected herself. "They're distant relatives, right? Shinichi-kun once said his father's side of his family had really strong genes, so that would explain a lot. But besides that, they're as different as day and night."
"How so?"
"Well, the brat is more closed off. Definitely less attention-seeking." She furrowed her brow, thinking. "Wouldn't call him shy, but…"
"I would," Ran cut in with a small smile. "If you compliment him, Conan-kun is more prone to get all flustered and scurry off. I couldn't imagine Shinichi doing that."
The mental imagery didn't fail in stealing a reaction out of Sonoko, though it was more like some odd mixture between a sigh and a chuckle breathed past her lips. As usual, she was right ─ even if she didn't get to admit it out loud, since she had clearly moved past, making it impossible to bring the matter back.
She knew, because Ran had thrown her head back, pensive. Sera simply waited, attentive to each and every single one of her movements.
"He's more sensitive to other people's feelings," Ran added. "Though sometimes… it's more of a flaw than anything else."
And so, Sonoko found herself watching her, unable to draw a single conclusion at all. She wasn't even sure if her friend had noticed it or not, but Ran was frowning, profusely as if shrouded in some memory she had no access to.
Though there was something off, and honestly, Sonoko would be a terrible best friend if she could not see something as simple. Even if she failed horrendously in identifying it ─ glimmering, bright as unshed tears, somewhere behind her all-too-distant gaze.
"Oh!" Her face lit up, yet everything else ─ even her eyes ─ remained the same. "And he's an excellent cook for his age."
"Is Shinichi-kun not good at cooking?" Sera asked, curious.
She tried to smile, but all Sera could see was the thousand-yard stare of a war veteran. "He's terrible," she said, hair cascading down her shoulder as she tilted her head to one side.
Despite the untold stories that surely weighed down this girl's shoulders, the mere mental picture made the detective chuckle. "Hard to believe he's survived this long."
"You can thank Ran for that," Sonoko cut in, "as well as the convenience store two blocks down his street."
"And Conan-kun, right?" Sera added. "Didn't you mention they used to live together at some point?"
Ran paused to look at her. "I didn't."
Sera did not offer a response, instead crossing her arms behind her head as though she was oblivious to the eyes that, narrowed on her form, probed for something hidden beneath the surface. A toothy grin was all she found ─ too wide, too bright to properly look at it. Clearly a defense mechanism.
Ran inwardly sighed, infinitely glad that she had not fallen for that trap. For now, that was.
With a leisurely step, Sera brushed past her and resumed walking. And Sonoko, ever hesitant, gave her a look. But she didn't move, nor did she voice her questions out loud, only capable of drawing her own in the privacy of her own mind.
Ran took a step forward. "Say, Sera-san…"
"Hm?"
"Have we met before?"
And just abruptly as the question came to be, Sera's feet stilled mid-stride. Her face, always so deceptively expressive, hidden away as she simply stared up ahead.
But Ran knew what was in front of her, so close that she could practically feel it against her fingertips ─ the truth, such an elusive and whimsical little thing, that she had been chasing for so long. That was more to the reason to stay like that, shrouded in a silence that spoke volumes of her determination.
Because she knew, she could not rush it and grasp it just now. Or she'd be left with nothing but a handful of sand, watching as all those precious answers slipped through and blew away with the wind before she could make sense of any of it.
Finally, Sera flashed her a grin over her shoulder. A gentle, pleasantly cool breeze caressed her cheeks, carrying over a distinctive salty scent.
Yet once again, just like the waves lapping at the shore, it fell short ─ only dampening her toes as if wanting to tease her, and receding before she could grasp it.
Empty-handed, Ran came back home, only to find her father and Conan in the office, sitting on either side of the coffee table.
But as those brilliant blue eyes fixed on her at her arrival, flickering but resolved to give what she'd asked for him, Ran wished she had anything to offer in return.
That night, Ran learned they had another thing to worry about, and that danger was so uncomfortably close this time that it was hard to keep her smile upright anymore.
That night, she found herself unable to sleep a wink ─ the constant, so incredibly distant beep of a call that wouldn't be answered, tucked in between her pillow and her head.
Truth to be told, Conan had almost feared he had forgotten the way to school.
It had been, after all, quite a while since he had last been here. So long that, in fact, he could as well be just waking up from an endless terrible nightmare. If only ─ the scars of the last few weeks still lingered on his skin as if wanting to tell another story, burning hot as the sun of a summer afternoon, witnessing those dreadful days that now were, fortunately, well behind them.
But standing there right now at the school gate, peering up as Ran crouched in front of him, he could not help but feel like he was merely lying to himself ─ that they were nowhere as close to a proper ending as he'd like.
It's only the beginning, a voice whispered within his head, small at first, then louder as Ran began to frown. Were it a conscious action or a reaction that had slipped past her awareness, Conan had no way of knowing.
"Do you have your phone on you?" Ran asked. He nodded his head.
But he could make a solid guess, regardless ─ Ran was either extremely valiant or obstinate to a fault, trying her darndest not to let him see what laid beneath. He wondered if she realized Conan was no different at all, and that if he was able to perceive all sorts of demons roaming free through her mind realm, then it was because he had his fair share of them himself.
"It isn't low on battery, is it?"
"I assure you it's not."
It hadn't been, at the very least, back when he had been a block away from there.
Her eyes did not leave his face. "Check again," she said.
It was in those moments that the boy knew sweet reasonable Ran would not abide by any of his protests, so he complied immediately. Her silence pressed on better than words, her undivided attention working wonders in urging him to hurry up and fetch the damn thing out of his suddenly massive pockets.
Conan could not, for the life of him, decide if telling Ran had been a good idea at all. So far though, everything pointed to the contrary, but a promise was a promise, and the dangers lurking were large enough to be stumbled upon if they didn't know to walk around them. He hadn't had another option, or at least, that was what Conan had tried to convince the mirror about this morning.
Even with a long sleepless night in between, Conan could vividly remember the way her face had lost all color at his confession. Sure, the way she had struggled to conceal the horror frozen at her features had been well beyond his expectations, and therefore, something he had braced himself from in anticipation. But it was her response what had slipped past everything; that trembling hint of forced reassurement blending in with her warm voice was what he had feared to witness the most.
Had it been worth it? Conan couldn't decide ─ hadn't been able either, even as his mouth opened and closed on its own free will to spew all those nasty truths he should have kept to himself. Worrying her unnecessarily, even when they both knew there was absolutely nothing she could do besides praying, with all her enormous kind heart, that a carefree walk to school would not be the last time they saw each other.
Chasing for an answer, he had called that one number ─ that one person who would definitely have known what to do. He had been sent straight to voicemail.
Unlike her, Kogoro had been much stricter. Muting out his beloved, sweet Okino Yoko's angelic voice, he gave him a look he only rarely saw on the man. Severe enough to ground him to the present time and away from the hypothetical horrors relentlessly pulling him in, but somehow soft enough not to send him seeking a way out the predicament he had put himself in.
"I should send you back to wherever your parents brought you from," had been Kogoro's extremely gentle confession. "But if this brat is as sneaky as you're saying, he'll likely figure it out and follow you there."
Then he had pressed a hand to his forehead, as though it physically pained him to think of the countless death scenarios awaiting him. At that, Conan could relate. "I could also lock you up here and not let you out, not even for school. But eventually you'll be alone and we definitely do not need that."
"Child services might have something to say about that."
Ran had barely even given his statement a hint of acknowledgement. "I could walk him home," she suggested. "But that would give it away, wouldn't it?"
And just like that, there it was again ─ the first vestiges of the expression he had been dreading to see the most. "I'll be careful!" he had spluttered out, fingers clasping a handful of his own shorts. "Really, I, uh…"
His voice left all of a sudden, knowing better than to talk when his mind had already drawn a blank.
"Ran will walk you to school." Even now, Conan wasn't sure whether he should have felt grateful or not about Kogoro's interruption. "You will text her or me once per hour ─ you don't have to be too expressive, just confirm you haven't gotten yourself killed yet."
Glasses had gone slightly askew as the boy slumped back onto the cushion, absolutely useless when it came to concealing the flat look he shot him.
"Texting in class. Wonderful idea."
Like usual, Kogoro hadn't cared about what he had to say ─ so naturally, there was nothing to say it would be any different now. Especially now, he had thought bitterly as the man's attention darted from him and to his daughter.
"You have the brat's friends' phone numbers, don't you?"
Conan's jaw had frozen, wide open in a muted grumble. His neck had not, snapping towards the girl as she nodded with a soft, yet firm, "All of them."
He had felt his whole body wincing, as though stuck by a jolt of electricity, immediately turning back to Kogoro. Seeing him sitting there, unwavering and silent, Conan could barely even grasp the situation he was in.
Frowning, though, he had tried, "You wouldn't…"
"Each one of them, in alphabetical order." But clearly, he would ─ of course he would, was the truth he hadn't wanted to see, despite the frown trying to imply otherwise as it carved itself deeper and deeper in Kogoro's face the more the conversation progressed. "And if they don't answer either, next will be the school, Professor Agasa or the police ─ depending where you were last time you texted. Do I make myself clear?"
This was stupid ─ Conan was stupid, even though he had been called a prodigy for as long he could remember, he could be pretty dumb. And even if he wanted to convince himself otherwise, his mind would always be there to gently remind him that those who foolishly believed that his words would have no consequences whatsoever did not quite fit in that category.
He didn't know anything, now did he? Even as he fantasied about the scenario where they just shrugged this off like they should have, he still couldn't say, whole-heartedly, that he would have preferred things going that way. Or a scenario where he could take everything back, convince the Mouris that this was nothing to get all worked about, and that really, nothing needed to change at all.
Once, his brother had said that words could never be taken back. And besides, despite what anyone might think, Ran was definitely her father's daughter — God knew the strength of her punches could only be rivaled by her ironclad will.
Smoke swirled up towards the sky, mingling with the twinkling stars of a fateful night. Ran was standing in front of him, her large back a shield and her first raised alongside the flames that danced, wildly, behind her determined gaze.
Conan's eyes had darted away, muttering, "You're rather good at being annoying."
"Hey, I've got bills to pay," he had simply said, groaning slightly as he leaned forward, fingers stretching to grab the cigarette box left on the furthest corner of the coffee table. "Can't have you kicking the bucket before your parents' monthly payment-"
Ran had cleared her throat, and as a testament to his impressive reflexes, the cigarette plopped back down onto the table.
And if someone were to ask Conan what it was, he wouldn't probably be able to tell. Was it the way Ran's eyebrows rose unamusedly, shooting a pointing glance at the only kid in the room before going back to him? Or was the way Kogoro's face gone ghostly white, obediently sitting back without even breaking eye-contact with his daughter? Conan truly didn't know.
But what he did know was that, at that moment, keeping a straight face had been nothing short of an herculean task. A small bout of childish laughter had bubbled up inside him, wild and untamable, unfamiliar like an old friend he hadn't seen in an awfully long time.
Sure, their attention had been back on him as quickly as the heat rising to his cheeks. Yet, as he sat there with his hands clamping his mouth shut, as Ran giggled and Kogoro snickered low in his throat, he found himself wondering how nice it would be for things to remain like that ─ to keep this, just for a little while longer.
Mentally crying out his prayers to the sky above, Conan finally looked up from his phone.
"Plenty battery for two entire days," Conan said, flashing Ran a smile. But as her worried frown began to form, he knew he had to be more assertive. "I'll be fine, Ran-neechan. Really."
Her gaze flickered, everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and for a skipped heartbeat, Conan wondered if she had seen anything at all. Eventually it stopped, however, and the girl deflated with a heavy sigh.
"If you say so," she conceded, but Conan could only wonder if she had even been convinced. She went back to studying him again, as though she was trying to memorize every detail of his face, until she gave up with one long warm, if weary, smile. "I'll see you in a few hours."
And then, she leaned forward, pecking him in the forehead before he had a chance to escape. Conan recoiled instantly, suddenly in a desperate search for witnesses to silence that, fortunately, didn't find. Ran was laughing now at least, but seeing that it was at his expense, Conan wasn't sure how to feel about that.
Even after standing back up, Ran didn't leave. Knowing better than to argue, the boy hastily waved his goodbyes to her, and hurried back inside so that she could get going ─ it wouldn't do for her to be late for her classes for just a trivial thing like this.
Once out of her hawk-like gaze, he was free to sigh heavily and pass a hand through his hair. I definitely need to find Generic quickly, he thought. Even if he did miraculously survive him, he wasn't positive about surviving whatever that had been for much longer. But, oh well, he supposed that it was still ten times better than being shipped back to America to his parents, so that was something. Not a kind of something that was hard to accomplish, but something regardless.
So, he checked his phone one last time. Let's see, an hour from now should be… Math, if he wasn't mistaken. It shouldn't be too hard, if he hid the phone behind the math book, a simple text should be no trouble.
Even if Kobayashi-sensei catches me, what's the worst that could happen? Kogoro getting a note to inform him about his misconduct? Honestly, he'd be more annoyed at him getting discovered at all. And if they call him instead, I might not even get to hear the end of it…
Hand freezing midair, Conan found himself engaging in a staring contest with his locker. He stalled for a moment, forehead creasing, before his breath left him in a huff. He reached for the handkerchief in his pocket.
I wonder if they fixed that thing with the phone numbers, he thought, grimly. I mean, that must be what happened, right?
Since I was… Ai was in the infirmary with me. If she didn't feel anything was off with the nurse, then it wasn't her who… Well, that.
It was only natural that they would call him ─ Mouri Kogoro, his appointed guardian according to the school files. Nobody at school mentioned anything about his… disappearance, so it was highly likely that they never learned about it. That was only possible if his guardian showed up and took him home as expected.
If the nurse called Kogoro and actually saw him taking… taking me away… Then Irish, or Vermouth…
He stubbornly pretended there was no chill, running down his back and leaving him shivering cold. Handling the locker handle as though it was a precious piece of evidence he didn't want to ruin, he pulled it open.
Maybe I should see to put a lock to it, Conan considered, letting his school uwabaki land on the floor with a muffled thud. Not that he had checked if that would break a rule or two, but what the school staff didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Or him, at any case.
I'll talk to the Professor later, with that thought in mind, he closed the locker back, stuffed the handkerchief back to where it had come from, and undertook his way to class once more.
Once he made it to the top of the stairs, however, the boy felt himself falter. Blinking at empty space, he slowly dropped his gaze where his hands were, to contemplate them for a moment. He shook his head forcefully with a huff, trying to get rid of those pointless thoughts from his head so that he could continue his way to the classroom in peace.
For a grand total of three steps afterward, before he threw his head back and promptly made an U-turn back down the stairs.
He would be fine ─ I will be fine, were the promise he had made her, not even fifteen minutes before the present. Wishing he could impose a little more confidence to his weak trembling voice, smiling brightly as if to dazzle those impertinent, all-too-seeing eyes of hers. A harmless lie he wasn't sure who it was for, who he truly wanted to believe it ─ who he had truly wanted to fool, he couldn't even know something that basic.
What would she think now, Conan could not help but wonder, if she was there with him. Watching as his castle built upon beautiful weak lies crumbled down into a pathetic little mountain of sand.
Watching him. Scrubbing and scrubbing under a running tap until his skin was scrapped raw, red as though blood was still drying on his fingers ─ the blood of those few he kept close to his heart, that he had unwittingly spilled and now was swirling, down and down with the weight of his sins. It just would not come off.
And then, as though stuck by a blizzard, his hands froze solid ─ he jerked back up. Yet, there was nobody out there ─ nobody but the whooshing sound of running water and a young boy in the mirror, suddenly out of breath, bringing a hand to his chest. Glad, all of a sudden, there were no eyes to capture this moment in time he would rather forget.
Forcing himself to breathe deeply once, then twice, he removed his glasses so that he could lean forward. The refreshing cold of the water washed everything out, and for the first time, Conan felt like he could think straight again.
Get a grip on yourself, you idiot, he told his reflection, sternly as a parent who needed his child to see reason. Panicking would not improve his situation at all ─ on the contrary, he needed to focus. Focus on the threat on hand, and see if he could somehow walk out of this in one piece.
With that, he stepped out of the bathroom, seamlessly blending with the steam of students heading to class ─ all of them laughing, blissfully oblivious to the dangers lurking somewhere amongst them, their chatter filling the air. Innocent, immersed in the careless joy of childhood, harmless ─ unaware of the wolf blending in with the herd, tiny and unassuming, concealing the twisted nature of one's mind with a cute little bleat that would melt anyone's heart only so briefly, before he came and burned everything to the ground altogether.
A wolf that liked to play with his food ─ like he had done to Mitsuhiko. But what the boy had seen was nothing but yet another disguise, layers upon layers of deception that left him grasping for clues. No face, no gender ─ nothing but the unsettling feeling at the pit of his stomach telling him to hurry up. And not to class, exactly.
"They could be anyone," Kogoro's voice reminded him, subtle as he had always been.
Like he didn't know that. Conan wanted to roll his eyes, but sadly, the old man wasn't even there to be on the receiving end of it.
"Be extra careful at school. No playing detective this time ─ if you figure something out, immediately call someone else."
And so, Conan entered his classroom, his mind wandering about as he scanned the room.
"They could be anyone, but be especially aware of those closest to you."
At that time, Conan had drawn in a sharp breath, face contorting in an incredulous frown. "You're not suggesting that my friends-!"
"I don't mean them," Kogoro had looked at him like he was stupid — something that, coming from the prime wacky detective himself, felt ten times as offensive as it regularly would. "They've known you for what, two years? There'd already be a butter knife stuck between your shoulderblades if that was the case."
The knife would have hurt a lot less. That was… reassuring, that had been his thought then, and so it remained right now. A dry chuckle pushed past his lips, sort of glad that Ayumi wasn't going to pop up from literally nowhere to murder him with an adorable, sunny smile on her face.
"Good morning, Conan-kun!"
Or she might as well do. Just because of a miracle, and definitely not for any other reason, Conan managed to keep his mouth sealed shut, his insides tearing apart in a startled scream that rattled his heart. So pathetic, he thought grimly, and with a forced smile, he tried to replicate. Emphasis on 'replicate', for Ayumi's odd little grimace told him everything he did, and didn't, need to know.
From behind Ayumi, Maria's head popped up.
She was staring at him so intensely that Conan, honestly, didn't know what to make out of it. After a moment of hesitation, Conan raised a hand, and watched as she flushed at the attention. Responding with a shy, extremely subtle nod, she turned back to Ayumi ─ their chatter resuming from where they had left it off, diminishing into something unintelligible as he walked away.
Ai flipped a page on the book she was reading, but other than that, she barely reacted as he promptly set his bag on the desk next to her, or even as he shot a narrowed glance over his shoulder, where those two girls continued to converse with one another, laughing freely at whatever they were saying.
"It's the ones who will try to get closer," Kogoro's words echoed in the void of his mind. "Those whom you've known the least are who you should be careful around."
"They're getting along, aren't they?" Ai broke his trance, her tone detached as ever and her eyes locked on the pages of her book.
History, he could tell by a single glimpse a mile away, of the nasty kind. The one that was definitely missing from Kobayashi's teaching schedule, or at least, he hoped there wouldn't be a surprise lesson on medieval poisons and execution practices waiting for them as a welcoming treat for the beginning of another cozy semester.
"It's a good thing that Higashio-san is starting to break out of her shell," he added even if, to his ears, it sounded more like an explanation than anything else.
"She approached us earlier, stammering," Ai said. "Ayumi-chan realized right away that she wanted to join."
It didn't come as a surprise, really. Typical Ayumi-chan, Conan mused instead as he slowly sat down ─ knowing her, she just couldn't say 'no' to a new friend, now could she? For the better or the worse, he couldn't help but add, if only mentally, as he proceeded with his normal routine.
As he dug through his things, however, he could hear the unmistakable sound of Genta's explosive laughter resounding from a distance away. Before he knew it, he was staring at Mitsuhiko, or rather, watching as the corner of his lips twitched into a smile he had been afraid of seeing only rarely for now on.
Another boy was with them, one he recognized as Sakamoto Takuma ─ a kid he had rarely interacted with, but now seemed to be talking so lively with his friends that it was easy to forget his and Genta's tendency to be at each other's throats. Children forget and forgive so easily it's scary, he thought, as though he wasn't one himself.
That being said… He felt his brow furrow, arms drawing his backpack closer to his chest. Slightly nauseous, the small detective fervently wished he could write this off as a case of plain, childish jealousy.
"He's not here." Conan jumped, twisting his head to see Ai shooting him a cold, side-eyed glance. "It's you who he wants ─ it's you who we would approach, not them."
He felt the tension drain from his shoulders somehow, disappearing as though someone had cast a magic spell on him. "Oh… Oh, right," he murmured, his voice cracking in a breathless chuckle. "You would've smelled him off already."
Her grip on her book tightened ─ subtly, but enough for him to catch and scratch the back of his head. "Sorry," he rushedly said, hoping to fix things before they turned even worse. Not his speciality, at any rate. "I didn't mean to call you… a dog or something. Again."
But she shook her head, lowering her chin to her chest. Conan let his arm fall back over his backpack, confusion growing with each blink. What exactly he had missed, he had no way to deduce it, no matter how much of a great detective people believed he was.
"I didn't feel anything back then," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Neither Numabuchi nor Generic."
And it was at that moment that Conan knew he had to say something, but as his absolutely brilliant mind failed to put together an intelligently sensible response to the occasion, he could only watch ─ watch her sigh, as though her next words were far too heavy to be uttered.
"My sister, she had that scent too ─ she had always had it, for as long as I can remember," she confessed regardless. "She was aware of it ─ encouraged me, even, to learn to recognize it. To use it, use her, as my danger barometer. But now…"
Her voice left her in the middle, screeching into a strained croak until there was nothing else left. She took a moment, in which Conan said nothing, before a small, bittersweet smile drew itself into her features, as if a canvas.
"This is just me losing it, isn't it? All because of this mundane life I've been granted by mere chance." Ai let her eyes slip closed, deflating as a withered flower. "After almost two years, it's not surprising, is it? I'm getting soft."
"I'm happy for you." She lifted her head back up, sharply, and found him there. Grinning sheepishly back at her. "I mean, doesn't that mean you're becoming a normal human being?"
Her eyes went just a sliver wider, glimmering with something he knew very well, but opted not to notice. Pushing the oncoming chuckle back to where it came from, he busied himself by sliding his hands inside his bag.
"Or well," he added, tilting his head slightly. "As normal as one can be with that thing in your hands. Inside an elementary school building."
No need to look to know her surprise had lessened considerably.
"Says the one with the book that's thick enough to serve as a murder weapon," she pointed out, flatly.
Wordlessly, Conan slid the half-pulled book back in his bag. He paused, pondering, then grinned.
"Don't you want to borrow it-?"
"No."
He left it at that. A shrug of his shoulders later, she was back to her book, though if you asked Conan, it was as though something had changed – something subtler, easy to miss if you weren't careful enough, but softer. Warmer, even.
The silvery glint of the dolphin he had gifted him caught his eye, as she absently fiddled with it. It stole a little smile out of him, before leaning forward to rest his chin in a nest made of arms, on his own desk.
And then, as if someone had snapped their fingers to bring him back to reality, his smile faded away.
She can't feel anything anymore, huh.
That was when the door to the classroom slid open, drawing his attention to the smiling teacher peeking in, all the while as the excited childish chatter diluted into nothing but a murmur that was soon to die altogether.
But Kobayashi never closed the door behind her. Instead, she shot one quick glance over her shoulder, nodding in a way Conan could only describe as encouraging, before resuming her way to her desk.
Conan perked up, curiosity tugging at him as he watched the new figure hurry on her feet to reach Kobayashi, as if that could somehow make her presence less obvious to any watching eyes. Long black hair cascaded down her shoulders as she dipped her head forward, wine-colored lips pressed together as if their owner wanted nothing more than to hide behind the large glasses she wore.
"Hey, Conan," he heard Genta whispering at him from the seat behind him. "Who's that?"
Instead of turning, Conan merely raised his eyebrow and hoped that Genta could perceive it even without any visual stimulus. "Do I look like I know?" he muttered, flatly.
The annoyed grumbling that came afterwards made him realize that he did get the message, regardless. Good for him.
It was no mystery that class 3-B was extremely populated. Nobody really knew why that was, but as the months passed by, it had simply become common knowledge and brushed over as a fact of life that, truth to be told, Conan had always been quite comfortable with.
The more kids stuck in between four walls, the more inconspicuous one would become if they chose their sitting positions well ─ second or third to last in the row, a little away from the window and voila. You had officially turned into another brick in the wall ─ just keep it quiet and you may have enough time to run if, say, a criminal syndicate member were to pass by to say 'hi'.
Of course, it was a tad harder when your friends had created their own little detective club and the homeroom teacher so happened to be a mystery freak, but all in all, Conan could say he was more than happy with his current predicament.
Naturally, too, someone had to go and ruin it according to what his fate dictated. Someone whose identity had no clue, but that his life-decisions were more telling of his mental faculties than they probably should. Because, yeah, while assigning them an assistant homeroom teacher to lift some weight from poor Kobayashi was a sensible idea, it was already September. Freaking September, seriously?
"What's wrong, Conan-kun?" Ayumi said. "You haven't finished your lunch yet."
Conan took his time to answer, hitting 'sent' first before putting his phone down.
"Haven't gotten the chance to, yet," he answered, finally turning back to his bento.
Which, of course, only had them all exchanging confused glances. Time was limited, however, so he opted to stick a rice ball in his mouth instead before the next bell stole that chance away from him.
"Who were you texting?" Genta asked, eyebrows raised.
"Ran-neechan," he answered, his mouth full of food. Ai made a face, but he had his own priorities to be caring about that.
The last message I sent was cut off in the middle, he recalled. Wakasa-sensei walked up on me from behind and I had to hide my phone.
A cut-off message is almost as bad as none at all, as it is open to any interpretations of what might have happened. I have to be careful.
But that was a bit too much information for all of them ─ the questions that were to follow suit weren't the ones he wanted to answer, lest send them scrambling for a shadow they weren't going to find. Mitsuhiko definitely didn't need that after that waking nightmare he had fought the other day, and surely Ai, who habitually lived in one, did not either.
He could deal with this all on his own, it was fine. Really.
If only…
His phone laid right in front of him, strangely far away despite being none too far of reach. A light pressure in the home button and he found everything he had expected to see ─ that ugly photograph of Kogoro and himself the old man had set as his wallpaper in his drunken stupor and Conan had sort of forgotten to change back. Those big white numbers that let him know that there wasn't as much time until he had to check in with Ran again… And nothing else. No notification, no new message, no nothing.
Nothing but a message he knew had been left unread. Hesitantly, his hand wavered over the phone, fingers itching to type something else out.
With a huff, however, Conan finally plucked it out and shoved it back into his pocket.
"Um… Excuse me…"
Someone was calling for them, their voice so low and timid that he would have been inclined to attribute it to their particularly shy classmate Maria. But if the slight maturity in her tone was not indicative enough, then the height of this person was more than enough to determine that, in fact, it was not her.
"Wakasa-sensei?" Ayumi echoed his own thoughts, confusion painted in each corner of her face. "Is something wrong?"
Her gaze flickered all over, a nervous tick he was just starting to recognize as usual on her character. "Well, I was wondering…" she began, her voice soft as the wind. She shifted in her spot, uncomfortable. "Do you kids know where I can find some lime?"
Conan stared at her, wordlessly, and slowly let them slide to one side. Kobayashi was literally right there.
"What do you need that for?" Mitsuhiko asked back.
"We're playing dodge ball in the yard for fifth period PE, so I thought I'd draw some lines during lunch," she answered. "But the line marker was nearly out of lime, there's hardly any in reserve in the storehouse either."
"You could, you know…" Conan nodded towards the other side of the room, where Kobayashi still stood, conversing with some other group of students, unbothered. But Rumi only stared back at him, and for a moment, so did he.
Finally, he deflated with a sigh. "You could check the old storage shed."
"Oh," Genta pipped in. "You mean that rundown storage shed that seems haunted?"
"I heard a teacher once got locked inside and starved to death in there," Mitsuhiko added, a mischievous grin carving on an usually serious face.
"Yeah!" Then, with a deeper voice and hands flailing about, Genta added. "Help me! I'm hungry! Give me eel~!"
Ayumi burst out laughing.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. What kind of ghost would ask for eel?"
"More like, what ghost would need to eat?" Conan wondered out loud, his eyebrows raised despite the little smile creeping up on him. Seeing that Wakasa was somehow still there, eyes wide and face pallid as the ghost Genta had tried to portray, he couldn't help but add, "Yeah, I'd be quacking in my boots too if that happened."
That seemed to draw Ai's attention. "What is it?" she asked the woman. "You don't know where it is?"
Wakasa winced, violently. "I do, but…"
"Alright," Conan said, a wide grin on his face. "Good luck, then."
And went back to stuffing rice on his mouth, mentally counting the minutes before they had to go back to class. Surrounded by a silence that felt especially heavy, unlike what he'd be inclined to believe in other instances, he pointedly focused on his water, taking his sweet time taking a sip before returning to the rest of his lunch.
"Hm," he hummed, not raising his head yet. "I seem to be under the impression that there's someone watching us."
"She's still there," Ai pointed out, flatly.
"That's the whole point."
Lowering her head ever so slightly, the woman started to shift awkwardly in her place. As if making a point, or a plea to the skies above not to turn into an eel-beggar of a spirit in some rusty shed at the end of the day, he still refused to look. Kobayashi could deal with this ─ gladly, even if there was even the slightest hint of a mystery to solve. No matter how senseless and childish, at least that was something. Right?
Right?!
Wakasa had yet to move, however. His friends had yet to say anything at all, to do anything but to stare at him as though they were judging him.
Seconds turned into minutes, the clock said, and no changes whatsoever. Grumbling, Conan stuffed a bread in his mouth, and without further ado, stomped out the classroom.
At first glance, it was an extremely ordinary day. Hallways bustling with careless laughter and snippets of stories and complaints alike about a summer that had ended all too soon, marking the beginning of another semester – just another day in Ekoda High, none too far of the ordinary for the usual thing they were used to.
Except, it had been exceptionally quiet since that morning.
For Aoko, the first bad sign was the empty house. Strange in its own sort of way, but not exactly an indicative of what was really going on ─ why was nobody home, she had wondered, her heart in her throat as she hastily made her way to school.
Her worries were soon quelled, if only momentarily, the moment she found him. Kaito, with his trademark shark grin, leaning against the lockers and asking what the hell had taken her so long to get there. Lost in thought, she had only stared back, unable to piece it all together.
The boy even had the nerve to appear concerned, even nonchalant as he explained that Kudo was too busy out in the wild chasing crows for education. Whatever that meant, Aoko would never know, the ring of a bell stealing the chance from her before she could recognize its existence.
It didn't make sense, until that recess, she was allowed a respite to check social media in her phone. Her eyes had widened slightly, Akako watching her in silence as if somehow knew what was going through her mind ─ raising no questions as she promptly stood up from her desk, leaving her lunch unattended to dart out of the classroom.
And there, she was left fumbling ─ grasping onto the doorway to regain the balance lost in an abrupt stop.
A black feather turning from side to side between his fingers, a violet gaze cast on it ─ they looked lost in some other dimension she could not reach, and shuddering, Aoko realized that this was a sight none too unfamiliar to her.
She had seen it once, exactly ten years before today.
So, she allowed herself a deep breath before approaching, her voice gentle, her steps careful. "Kaito."
And then, the black feather stilled in his fingers, his shoulders suddenly rigid. It wasn't like him, she realized grimly, for him not to notice her. But she omitted her opinion in the matter, instead coming to a stop, leaning against the windows right next to him ─ offering nothing, absolutely nothing, but her presence at the very least.
Kaito soon flashed her a grin, and leaned over the windowsill to stare out ─ or as a half-hearted attempt to keep her from noticing the strain in his face. If it was him, Aoko could never tell for sure.
"You don't have to pretend," she said, not giving him a chance to speak. It wasn't like she couldn't imagine what was to come, anyways. "It's today, isn't it?"
She wasn't looking at him, but she didn't need to. For the silence she could feel was far more telling, the weight of his held breath a telltale of the grin that had faltered ─ a mask he wore every waking day of his night just beginning to crack, just like that one night she would never forget.
There was a sigh, a clear indication that she'd been right. "You remembered."
"Not exactly," she admitted, ashamed. "I heard they're holding a magic show tonight… in honor of your dad."
"Oh, that," he replied, choking out a snicker that Aoko assumed he meant to sound nonchalant instead of… bitter. "Making money off some dead guy. If they were really honoring him, they wouldn't charge people to see it."
The sting in his words was far too noticeable, even if the reason behind was nothing but an echo he could never bring himself to listen to. The same old aching memories, the answers he couldn't find ─ the silence of an empty home that, only recently with Kudo's arrival, he had just begun to fill. If only barely.
Her head dipped slightly, their shoulders brushing.
"Kaito," she said, very quietly. "You know you don't have to go."
"I know, but…" he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "But the thought that I might find something, or rather, that I might miss something if I don't go…"
"What would you be missing on, exactly?"
Kaito hesitated, like he rarely did, and she glanced over for the first time. She found him at that one feather again, a that same old haunted glint in his eyes she wished to be a stranger to. But no. No, that's not it, she realized a split second later. There was a glimmer of something, all too strangely alien to her, that she had never gotten to spot before.
This year, something was different. Kaito's eyes were different, and now, in them, Aoko could finally see it.
"Anything," he said, his tone bleak. "Anything that may lead me to him."
Looking at him, everything Aoko could see was the light ─ a flicker of hope, raw and almost too dazzlingly bright for her to keep her eyes open.
Feeling her heart twisting, she ventured, "Kaito," but her mouth dried around the words that never came. Her hand found his shoulder, however ─ terribly hesitant, but steady all the same. As if to prove that, for all that was worth, it wasn't leaving him anytime soon. Not if Aoko had any say on it.
Far from pulling away, it gave Kaito the strength to smile ─ for real, this time around. And for now, she thought, maybe that was more than enough.
And so, Aoko let herself smile as well ─ features soft with relief, unaware of the weight of a scarlet gaze finally being lifted off her shoulders. Her expression immovable as ever, she stepped back ─ their silence, meaningful beyond any words, echoing in her ears as she slipped into the classroom. Leaving them to each other's company, and herself alone with her own thoughts.
Not far away, Akako spotted Hakuba sitting at his desk. He didn't even have the decency to lift his head as she approached, or even as she came to a stop right in front of him to study his hunched form carefully.
"No sign of him yet?" she asked, furrowing her brow ever so delicately.
The British detective shook his head slowly, the closest she would get to an acknowledgement while he was like that, transfixed by whatever was on the screen of his phone. She watched him for a minute, as he typed and typed something out, before giving up with a sigh.
Akako didn't make it a step away from there when his expression shifted ─ eyes narrowing at the screen, surprise written all over his face.
"What's wrong?" she asked, but to no avail.
Which was only natural, because there was that look again. The sharpening and darkening of eyes that always came with a tense posture, that morbid kind of concentration shared only by those who would go miles if it meant untangling a particularly attractive mystery on sight. That was about everything she needed to tell that she wouldn't be getting any answers from his mouth in the foreseeable future.
So she stared at him for another full second before she sighed and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, if only to keep it out of the way as she leaned forward. The hand holding the phone twitched as its owner flinched back, likely surprised by the sudden closeness by a moment far too brief, but more than enough to allow her a glimpse of Kudo's name at the top of the screen.
Clearly as day, she could see his status. Online.
Her breath caught, Akako drew back while Hakuba, unusually shaken, simply stared back at it. He snapped out of it fast, however, to bring the phone to his ear ─ a sickly pallor painting over the rosy tone that once gently dusted his cheeks, a frown carving itself onto his features as he waited for a sign of something.
What that may be, the young witch knew nothing besides the fact that she, too, found herself praying for it. Whatever it was.
She heard him gasp, and simply watched him freeze ─ his eyes suddenly wider, wider than she had ever seen them. Before she could even ask, let alone demand an explanation, she found herself wincing at the harsh noise of his chair being dragged back.
Hakuba had shot up to his feet, one hand flat against his desk, the other gripping the phone tightly enough for his knuckles to go white.
"Kudo-kun?" he called out, whispering.
The line cracked faintly in response, the soft rustle of clothes and whispers of static rising to a crescendo leading to the unmistakable sound of labored breathing ─ heavy and painfully raw, sinking onto his soul as though he was the one on the other end of the phone.
His lips parted but his voice failed, as if afraid that even a mere whisper would overlap with something important, shattering whatever fragile thread of connection or precious clue remained.
But then, there was silence.
The line had gone dead.
A/N
It's been a while, huh? This chapter didn't want to get written, but well, here it is now!
CherryGirl 21-6: Yeah, I totally saw that chapter! Can't believe he finally made it. It only took him… Like 20 years? Lol, poor Heiji
Guest: Sure! If you could point out exactly where you noticed those mistakes, it would be a great help.