Chapter Text
day six
Conan's eyes drifted towards the badge on the table. He tilted his head, presumably in an effort to read the upside-down characters, and idly drummed his fingers until he could make them out.
"Sergeant Wataru Takagi?" he scoffed.
Takagi watched him closely. For the last half-hour the world outside had ceased to exist; Conan and himself were all there was, confined together until Mouri-san returned. The habitual, incessant click of nails against steel reminded him of suspects who couldn't stop flicking their lighters in the hot seat. It was a coping mechanism, music to soothe the savage beast, subconscious and damning, but Conan lacked the usual apprehension of someone who knew they were in deep trouble.
"You’ve never told us what your official rank is before. That's one rung below inspector, isn't it?" he continued. "Nice job, Takagi-keiji, they'll make a good ol' boy out of you yet," he crooned.
He ignored it, instead trying to put words to the disquiet. Names disperse the fog of the unknown, he recited. But did he really even know anything to begin with? Conan was an enigma: a proven child decidedly unchildlike, some contradictory performance of amateurism and expertise. And it had always been like that, of course, but here in this cold, metal box… it was different, somehow. It felt sinister.
Surely he was being toyed with, manipulated and used as he often was as a convenient pawn with police privileges, but he suspected that this time it was not in pursuit of justice. And certainly not in service of benign curiosity.
Toyed with. Yes, that was it.
The room seemed to darken. He was suddenly cognizant of the M60 resting in the holster hidden behind the flap of his coat, pressing into him like a ready hand on his waist.
“I'm not anxious, if that's what you're thinking," Conan smirked, as if to answer his thoughts. "Are you?"
Takagi's eyes widened. He shifted his jaw and accidentally swallowed the mint he'd had stuck between his cheek and molar. After the discomfort subsided, he quietly cursed no longer having a distraction to cull the effects of his ruminating.
Just over his shoulder, the clock struck four. Sweat collected on his brow and he wished he hadn't forgotten his water at his desk.
"You know something," his voice finally cracked.
"I know a lot of things," Conan jeered.
"Okay," Takagi ventured, "then tell me all you know about the whereabouts of--"
The square in his back pocket suddenly buzzed to life. He hid it well, but it had the same jarring effect as someone putting ice down his back on a slow day, a rude awakening from the procedural tunnel-vision.
Deflecting the look of disappointment from Conan, he traded his lull for focus and turned away to check his messages.
You need a warrant.
He stopped himself from making a noise should anyone hear it.
doesn't it count as a wellness check? he typed. The response came quickly.
This is a little more than a welfare check and you know it.
Don't get us into any shit.
He knit his brow.
suggestions? loopholes?
Sorry, but that's it.
Mouri-kun won't let me keep going without going through the proper channels.
that's not like him.
It's how it is.
He spared a glance at Conan, who was studying him fiercely. He grimaced.
Shiratori-san might jerk him off about a lot of things, but not this. He was right: it wasn't his place to instigate, especially without probable cause. All he had was a cryptic, anonymous tip, a hysterical ‘witness,’ and a gut feeling.
Edogawa Conan killed Kudou Shinichi,
the caller insisted. When he scolded them not to pull pranks on the police, he was cut off.
He knows a thing or two about what happened to the girl who disappeared, too.
That was three days ago.
It was an outlandish claim that couldn't possibly hold water. Would anyone be so eager to investigate such an absurd tip? He didn’t really believe it himself. Frankly, that he was even entertaining it at all was a little embarrassing– well, embarrassing enough that he was being careful not to proceed officially.
That said, he was quickly learning that bureaucratic inconvenience only kindled his curiosity. Absurd as it was, Conan himself was absurd, was he not? Case after case, he had proven himself intelligent and formidable…calculating, even. Genius was capable of both great and terrible things. And he couldn't speak for the others, but he'd noticed time and time again that he seemed to know how to play a Machiavellian game and win.
Perhaps the caller had noticed, too. The warning had come to him directly, after all - they had bypassed the official tip line and called his extension. That probably stood for something and it was a detail he couldn’t ignore.
Still, gut feelings and hunches were mere embers against the fires of doubt. And as Shiratori-san had pointed out, he had no authority to fan the flames…yet.
He looked back to his phone.
okay. but one more thing
can you ask around 5-chome for kudou shinichi? just if anyone's seen him recently. off the record
When there was no immediate reply, he hastily– and begrudgingly– tacked on another text.
i’ll grab lunch next week.
What's this about, Takagi?
I’m off today. Why didn't you run this by Sato or Megure instead?
The phone snapped shut in his palm before he could really think about doing it. Or before Shiratori-san could agree to taking his lunch money.
He caught Conan’s watchful eye in the next moment and puffed his chest out, suddenly awash with a sense of injustice. The answer was obvious, wasn’t it? Ayumi-chan had disappeared, and if Kudou-kun could be declared officially missing too, then he just wanted to find them, right?
The sound of his own voice startled him. "Where is Kudou Shinichi?”
Conan canted his head, surprised by his audacity. An ominous, knowing smile crept across his face.
"In here," he offered, thumping his chest. "With me."
Takagi’s skin prickled. He sounded so sure of himself. Too sure of himself, actually, for having given such a baffling non-answer. Was he just wasting his time?
“I’m not playing around, Conan-kun,” he warned.
"And I am?” he fired back. “How can you know ? Maybe I am telling the truth. Can you prove it?"
"Don't--"
"Get real,” he growled, cutting him off. “I'm not a suspect. And you can't make me tell you anything, either."
"Well, no," Takagi admitted, suppressing a nervous chuckle. The grip on his phone slackened some and in the same moment he became aware he had been squeezing it like a stress ball. He rotated it in his hands, its rounded corners and worn finish warm in his palm. "You can't be a suspect if there is no crime. But you are a person of interest, especially if you have something to tell that would hint at one."
It would've been funnier if their circumstances were different, but part of him was relieved Conan had said the quiet part out loud first. And maybe he’d realized it too when he shot him a stuffy little pout instead of mouthing off right away, a jarringly childish gesture that betrayed his otherwise cruel demeanor.
There was a silent, mutual understanding that they both knew the jig was up, and yet…
“Okay,” Conan grumbled, shoving his hands under his armpits, “what exactly are you accusing me of, here?”
“I never accused you of anything,” Takagi assured him, “but you did say you ‘know things.’ Can you tell me those things?”
“Pee is stored in the balls.”
“... Conan-kun. ”
Conan rolled his eyes, folding his arms tighter across his chest. “In some countries, over two-hundred policemen die in the line of duty every year. By contrast, law enforcement agencies can account for over one-thousand civilian deaths annually. How do you think the public feels about the cops when they either kill or keel over instead of doing their jobs?” he huffed, glowering at his captor from just above the rim of his glasses.
He clearly meant to provoke him, but oddly, Takagi was randomly struck with the thought that he had never had a direct line of sight to Conan-kun’s eyes before. He was spellbound by the unique color, a shade of mahogany peeking out from behind the glare of his lenses.
Huh. What did Conan just say to him? He didn’t hear it. He’d forgotten what he’d wanted to say, too. Mahogany? That
was
a unique color. All his years of looking at lineups and he couldn’t think of a single person who had had anything close. What kind of lineage did someone need to have to inherit red-tinted eyes? That seemed a bit off, didn’t it?
He kept looking. He thought of space photography and the fantastical pictures of nebulae he sometimes saw in magazines, red clouds of dust in the ether.
Soon, he was cognizant of the pressure in his teeth, the involuntary clenching of his jaws. The skin around his eyes felt tight… but he couldn’t look away. The nebulae exploded into rivers of blood and the stardust of lost worlds, swirling into the reddest painting he’d ever imagined.
Now his eyeballs stung. He couldn’t blink. He wanted to stop, but… nothing would listen. Instead, his mind was swimming upstream, battling against rapids he couldn’t remember falling into. He’d not moved from his chair in almost an hour, but his bones ached like he’d been training relentlessly for weeks… useless all the same.
Stop. Stop! Why couldn’t he stop? His lungs were on fire. Blood ignited like gasoline in his veins, soot choked his throat and every breath was a gulp of acetone stripping him raw from the inside out. His vision blurred, pulsating in rhythm with the heat traveling through his fingers, and yet… he could still see them … and they could surely still see him …
God, what was happening??
Conan suddenly erupted into hideous laughter, ripping Takagi unceremoniously from his trance. Visions of fire and brimstone ceased the moment he was allowed to blink, with barely a second to recover before being addressed again.
“Takagi-keiji,” Conan sneered, his tone dark and domineering, “so what if you find Ayumi-chan? Or Shinichi-niichan, for that matter?”
Leaning forward, he splayed his fingers across the table, dragging out the metallic slide of nails against steel as they uncurled from his fists. “Do you think if you pick up all of Ayumi-chan’s teeth, they'll promote you to Inspector?” he grinned.
The silence hung just long enough for Takagi to recover some of his faculties, but he was too dazed to respond. There were echoes of something in his head… phantom sensations all across his body like flies on his skin… but ultimately, Conan got to watch as the police sergeant, his face a crinkle of puzzlement, examined his hands and the floor beneath his feet as if he were seeing them for the first time.
That moment of respite, too, was ripped from him when the door suddenly crashed open. Mouri Kogoro burst into the sterile interrogation room, his expression a rough amalgamation of recently-dormant paternal instincts that hadn’t seen use since Ran-san was Conan’s age.
He spared neither of them any formalities. “Wait outside,” he growled, fidgeting with the stale cigarette in his mouth. Conan didn’t fuss and dismissed himself without another word.
“Detective,” Kogoro started, “I don’t appreciate being lured away so you can… do whatever the hell with the kid behind my back.” He waved his hands for emphasis. “I’m still this brat’s legal guardian. And brats have rights, whether I like it or not.”
Takagi still wasn’t at one-hundred percent, but he could read the discontent in Kogoro’s body language well enough. Unfortunately, the most he could do was bumble out a slurred, “No, of course not…”
“What the hell is this all about, anyway?” he demanded. “Not only do you trick me into leaving the kid alone with you for questioning , but you sicced Shiratori on me too? To get permission after the fact?”
He bit down on the cigarette, studying Takagi and his somewhat disoriented manner, expecting him to defend himself.
“...I got a tip,” he finally admitted.
“Tip? Tip for what?”
“We’re looking for two individuals. Yoshida Ayumi and Kudou Shinichi.”
Kogoro almost laughed. The familiarity of both names spurred something in him, but not enough to change any opinions. “And who’s your tipster?”
“Anonymous.”
“Oh, of course.”
Takagi hesitated. "They mentioned Conan-kun by name."
Kogoro sighed. “Tell me you’re not taking this seriously,” he pleaded. “Surely you realize how ridiculous a claim that is. The kid is seven .”
He didn’t answer right away. He was talking to the man who, probably better than anyone, could testify to just how abnormal a seven year-old Conan was, which– prior to the conversation he had just had with him– was really the only thing lending this ‘tip’ any credibility. He didn’t have anything tangible and was banking on Kogoro being a little more cooperative about it on that basis.
“It would be irresponsible to ignore it.”
Kogoro nearly exploded. “Irresponsible? My god, man. It’s a fucking joke. That Kudou brat fucked off months ago and kids endanger themselves all the time. Suggesting Conan or any other brat his age had anything to do with either of them disappearing is ludicrous.”
Takagi steeled himself for the next part. “Mouri-san, won’t you please just answer a few questions about–”
“No, no, I don’t think you get it, Takagi-keiji,” Kogoro snapped. “I’m not answering any questions and I’m sure as hell not going to let you rope the kid into whatever illicit investigation you’ve got underway here.” He stole a glance at the one-way mirror off to their side. “Does the Inspector know about this?”
He didn’t answer.
Kogoro inhaled slowly and plucked the cigarette from his mouth, rolling the chewed filter between his fingers. “I urge you to reconsider this before you’re forced to live with the shame of chasing a false lead,” he warned.
The door slammed shut. The noise seemed to scare off the last of his daze.
Fingers on his temples, Takagi deliberated in silence before checking his phone again out of habit. There was an unread message from Shiratori.
FYI, Mouri-san’s going back. Said he ‘figured it out.’
Thanks for the heads-up , he thought bitterly.
Still feeling the shame of their conversation turned sour, he eventually slunk back to his desk with his head lowered, trying to make himself seem as small as possible. He thought he heard the usual hecklers call out for his attention but ignored them, marching steadfast against the crowd of more sensible people who knew when to call it a day and into the open room that housed his little corner of the world. He practically fell into his chair.
While he didn’t exactly have a window seat, he did have a respectable view of the street below and, as he sat there brooding, eventually caught a glimpse of Mouri-san and Conan-kun heading off in the direction of the nearest station.
One by one, his coworkers filed home as day faded into night. But he didn’t move, instead thinking of death in its infinite groanings, of disease and car accidents and six year-olds buried alive. Monsters snuffed out hope by turning man on their fellow man. Names disperse the fog of the unknown.
He picked up his phone, readied a notepad, and dialed.
I haven’t noticed anything myself, but I don’t see him as often as you might think, Agasa confessed. But if it helps, Detective, the children– Mitsuhiko-kun, Genta-kun, Ai–kun– seem to have been treating him differently ever since Ayumi-kun disappeared.
Interesting. Inspired by his statement, he thanked him for his time and hurriedly scrolled through his text history with Shiratori for a phone number.
Streaks of fire thinned into wisps of starlight as the sun finally retreated under the horizon.
Yes, Kobayashi confessed. He’s… changed.
How so? he pressed.
Well, for lack of a better word, he’s mean. Even worse– he knows it, and he doesn’t care if you know it, too.
Takagi thanked her for her time, too, and– perhaps subconsciously empathizing with her– apologized for her experience and wished her a good night.
He leaned back and idly observed the twinkling cityscape outside. Bribing the kids out to a group interview with free food wasn’t a bad idea… it might be difficult to arrange without tipping off Conan, but spending his lunch money on the children had the added benefit of keeping it from Shiratori-san.
He had one last number to call but, after the explosive afternoon, was hardly enthused about following through. Still, he wanted to go home. Chiba-kun had been hyping up the wrestling finals all week, and though he had joked that the night of the match would end up being the night he’d need to pull overtime after an otherwise smooth week, he really had meant it as a joke. With lips pursed, his thoughts rumbling about how these calls never got any easier, he dialed the number.
After the longest ten seconds of his life, he finally heard the click of the receiver being picked up.
“Ah, Mouri-san! It’s T–”
“Kogoro-no-ojisan can’t come to the phone right now,” came an all-too familiar, sickly-sweet voice. “Can I take a message?”
A breath hitched in his throat. Subconsciously, his fingers hooked under his collar and began to loosen his tie while his brain scrambled for words. “...Conan-kun,” he managed.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
He exhaled slowly, careful to keep it quiet, suspicious he may have just been reciting lines on Kogoro’s instructions and that he was actually supervising him from nearby. “...Conan-kun, it’s Detective Takagi,” he tried. “Please put Mouri-san on the phone.”
“Kogoro-no-ojisan can’t come to the phone right now, Sergeant Takagi.”
“Fine,” he conceded. “Then tell him the MPD wants to ask him a few more questions about his connections to Yoshida Ayumi and Kudou Shinichi.”
A door shut somewhere in the background. Before he could get another word in, Conan’s tune changed on a dime.
“Little boy blue, come blow your horn,” he whispered. “The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn. But where is the boy, who looks after the sheep? He’s under a haystack, fast asleep.”
Takagi wrinkled his nose and exhaled sharply, this time hoping it would be audible on the other side.
“What did I tell you earlier?” Conan scowled, speaking freely now. “This is a fool’s errand. Stop now before you have to–” he giggled– “ live with the shame of chasing a false lead. ”
False lead… had he been listening to their conversation–
He yelped at the sudden, unmistakable sensation of something wet in his ear. Startled, he tugged at the cord so hard the whole unit jumped a foot closer to him, its illuminated keypad taunting him like eyes in the dark. A rough grimace turned his face. The office had emptied out hours ago, but it didn’t stop him from glaring daggers at the surrounding desks, the receiver awkwardly held at arm’s length as if he were holding a snake.
Once the adrenaline wore off, he brought the phone back under the light of his lamp for closer examination. But it was dry… and so was his face. Had he imagined it?
He padded his temple with a finger and felt his way down to his evening stubble. Nothing.
Anxiously, he placed his ear to the receiver again, fully expecting another assault on his senses, but was instead met with the droning monotone of a disconnected line. Perplexed, he hastily shoved the phone back into its cradle.
He… What the fuck?
Muscle memory took the wheel. He switched off his light, slouched in his chair, and gazed slack-jawed into the darkness above him, tired eyes adjusting to an unenviable view of the drop ceiling.
In a moment of desperation, he briefly considered hitting redial to see if he’d get Mouri-san this time. It crossed his mind he might be a little nuts.
Maybe he’d be better off just starting over tomorrow.