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If anybody went looking for him, Conan Edogawa could be found tucked in the farthest corner of Poirot, sipping on a comically large cup of iced coffee held between hands too small for a beverage its size.
When Azusa had asked why he was alone, he explained—with disheartening monotony—that Mouri-san had gone away for work again and that Ran-neechan was with a friend. But don’t worry! he quipped, There's no school today and I have plenty to do anyway! I promise I'll get out of your hair soon.
She laughed and tried to dissuade his sense of urgency, but he insisted that he felt bad about Mouri-san always taking advantage of her as a 'free babysitting service.' Then he slid across a handful of change for a large iced coffee with hazelnut syrup and whipped cream.
Indeed, she watched over him like she had been asked to do numerous times before, but as he had proven time and time again he knew how to look after himself and generally didn’t get up to any mischief like a normal child left to their own devices. That wasn't a surprise, though. Everyone—herself included—already knew Conan-kun was a little strange, if only because he seemed a little too mature for his age, but today… she couldn't help but notice he seemed... different.
Sometimes, when the café emptied out and she got to wiping down tables, she could hear him growling in the corner, his head pointed straight down at his feet, below her line of sight. The coffee cup clenched in his hands in rhythm with his mumbling, and sometimes his voice fell in lieu of a sharp breath, the kind of noise people made when they were in pain.
It alarmed her on a deeper level than a child simply causing trouble, but whenever the urge took her to check on him, he’d suddenly return to normal and there’d be nothing to ask about before she'd even taken her first step towards him.
"Conan-kun?" she finally called. "Are you okay?"
“Mhmm!”
The smile she put on for him was disingenuous, if only because she didn't really believe him, but… if he said he was fine, he was fine. She resumed her duties and left him alone.
But the instinct to keep her eye on him didn’t go away. Methodically, she sprayed and wiped tables and chairs row by row, organically shuffling her way towards Conan booth by booth until she had inconspicuously shimmied her way within earshot. The effort paid off, and still two or three tables away, she finally heard him speaking.
"Behave,” he growled, seemingly to no-one. He jerked his head to one side, as if shaking off a headache.
Then, in a voice that was still his, but spoken like it was from the mouth of another person: "N-no."
"You will behave, lest you'd like us both to be sent off,” it switched again.
"I don't care what happens to y—"
"Oh, please. We've been through this. You can't fool me."
"You—"
"Shinichi, shut up."
He suddenly threw back a big, long gulp of coffee, as if doing so would drown out the other voice. It seemed to work.
When he set it down, he was quiet again, and as he wiped the coffee from his mouth with the back of his sleeve he finally caught Azusa looking his way. In terse silence, they exchanged stares for long enough for Azusa to become uncomfortable.
Finally, her voice eked out from a sore throat. “...Conan-kun?”
“I’m okay, Azusa-san,” he replied, cupping his hands around the cup.
“Promise?”
“Promise.” He put his lips back around the straw and resumed sipping at his drink.
Reluctantly, she resumed her work without asking any more questions, and soon took to the rhythm of her shift as the next wave of customers began to trickle in. But she made sure to keep Conan-kun in her sights more often than not… just in case.
Astonishment was the only way to describe what she felt when she found herself wishing he would start grumbling again, if only… selfishly… to affirm she wasn’t crazy. Because as before, whenever she tried to catch him in the act, he seemed normal - it was only when her head was down and her attention seemed fixed elsewhere that the other voice resurfaced and his entire demeanor bounced between extremes like someone flipping a switch.
With only six minutes before her break, enough customers had cleared out again for her to have a go at the floors. The opportunity to get close to Conan once more prompted her to snatch up a broom and dustpan in a hurry, and she began to work her way along the wall, slowly encroaching on the little booth in the back. Sure enough, she heard him mumbling again:
“...No choice—”
“You’ve always had a choice.”
She got closer. Three booths left.
“Please, I beg you, don’t—”
“Idiot. A choice is a conscious decision. You made yours.”
Two.
“Why can’t you just—”
One—
“Do you like eavesdropping on children, Azusa-san?”
She flinched, then instinctively froze. A sudden chill ran down her spine. She could feel his gaze on her, and it took a monumental amount of willpower to dare to look his way.
He was still sitting in the same booth, but was now perched on the opposite bench, eyes wide and unblinking like an owl watching prey from the treetops. When had he moved?
"Well?” he demanded. “Do the lunatic ravings of your child customers amuse you, Poirot lady?" he repeated, in the more aggressive of his two voices. It sounded nothing like the Conan who had gleefully ordered his usual iced coffee treat, its sneering cadence so fundamentally wrong coming from the mouth of a child that Azusa bit the inside of her cheek to ensure she wasn’t dreaming.
She felt his eyes on her once more as he waited expectantly for his answer.
She had no rebuttal and slowly clenched her hands around the handle of the broom. If he were to approach her for any reason, she feared she would not be able to move.
After some moments of silence, Conan tilted his head. Then, horribly, he smiled. "It's okay," he giggled. "My lips are sealed. Your secret is safe with me."
She shuddered. If she thought he acted too mature for his age before, now she thought it went even deeper than that—now she was convinced she was talking to something merely pretending to be a child.
"I— I'm sorry, Conan-kun," she found herself apologizing. The words wheezed out alongside a breath held too long.
"You should be," he snapped, sliding off the bench to return to the other side where his coffee awaited him. He resumed drinking almost immediately, his little hands cupped near the lid as his legs swung merrily beneath the table. To anyone on the outside looking in, he appeared like a perfectly normal child.
"I said I was okay,” he mumbled. “Leave me alone."
Not only did she feel awful for having been caught keeping too close of an eye on him, but now she didn’t even want to do that and that made her feel worse. She hesitated for a moment, her grip on the broom loosening with each passing second Conan-kun paid her no mind, and after a prolonged silence, she finally shifted her weight into a step, and then another, and another… the light scratching noise of plastic bristles sweeping the tile floor following her as she absentmindedly resumed her duties in the opposite direction. Mouri-san might be upset, she thought, but I’m… I’m sure he’ll understand.
There was no more mumbling to be heard. She didn’t notice when Conan had taken his leave; the next time she thought to check on him, he had already gone.