Disclaimer: Detective Conan is not mine. This fanfic is a translation.
Enjoy Reading!
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The name displayed on the phone screen caught Ritsu's attention.
Manager Tokushige.
No matter how he looked at it, that didn't seem like the kind of contact name an employee of Matsui Corporation would normally have saved. Of course, it wasn't completely impossible.
But the key point was…
Takuya Namiki had lied.
Why would he silence a call from someone whose name was clearly saved in his contacts, then claim it was just a spam telemarketing call?
A thought surfaced in Ritsu's mind. He walked straight over to the young officer who was organizing the victim's belongings and politely asked,
"Officer, have you seen the victim's phone?"
"Yes."
The young officer picked up a black slide phone that had been released just last month. "Here it is. But it's password-locked, so we can't unlock it."
At first glance, the phone didn't seem strange at all.
But Namiki's phone, the one in his hand, was not only the same model, it was also the same color. From the outside, there was absolutely no difference between them.
Could it be…
Had the two of them switched phones? That would explain why Namiki refused to answer the call because the phone in his hand wasn't actually his.
Realizing this, Ritsu immediately took action.
Instead of confronting Namiki directly, he walked over to Ayaka, gently tapped her on the back with his finger, and gestured for her to turn around.
Ayaka looked at the handsome young man in confusion.
"Is something wrong?"
"Could you make a call to your boyfriend?"
It was a strange request, but she didn't think much of it. She took out her phone and dialed Namiki's number.
Unexpectedly, the phone in Namiki's hand didn't ring.
Instead, the one in Ritsu's hand started ringing.
"What's going on?"
Hearing the phone ringing nonstop with no one answering, Megure walked over.
"What happened here?"
"Inspector, perhaps Namiki should explain it himself… why the victim's phone is in his hand, while his phone is here."
Ritsu's azure eyes locked onto the man before him, who now wore a look of panic.
Even if it lasted only a moment, Ritsu had caught that flicker of fear.
Now he was certain.
The man who had been pretending to grieve for his friend was the killer.
"I… I just grabbed Jun's phone by mistake!" Namiki said quickly. His composure was surprisingly strong. He waved the phone in his hand and said,
"No wonder I couldn't unlock it earlier! I must've taken the wrong phone! Look! They're exactly the same. It's easy to mix them up, right?"
His desperate attempt at an excuse was almost laughable.
More pitiful than even the wild animals tamed by a circus.
No matter how he tried to lie, Ritsu already held the decisive evidence needed to shatter the last psychological defense in front of him.
"Then please hand me Hanazaki's phone."
"…Alright."
Ritsu took the phone and quickly entered a four-digit passcode. A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
With an indifferent gaze directed at Namiki, he opened the photo album.
There was only one photo.
He enlarged it and held it up in front of Namiki.
It was a very intimate photo.
In the picture, Hanazaki was smiling brightly. He was holding a rabbit-shaped ice cream cone and happily eating it. Standing beside him, Namiki looked at him with a tender smile, reaching out to wipe some ice cream off Hanazaki's cheek.
They had once been so happy together.
So how had things come to this?
When Namiki saw the photo, he staggered back two steps. Then, like a madman, he lunged forward to snatch the phone from Ritsu.
Before he could succeed, Rei and Date stepped in and restrained him together.
"Takuya…?"
Ayaka hurried to Ritsu's side and stood on tiptoe to look at the phone screen.
It took her more than ten seconds to fully understand the meaning behind the photo.
They… had once been lovers?
Otherwise, Takuya wouldn't have reacted so violently.
"Namiki Takuya!!!"
Struggling violently, Namiki tried to break free. Ritsu signaled the others to release him.
The moment he was freed, Namiki dropped to his knees and crawled over to Ayaka, clutching her legs and shouting desperately, ignoring everyone's gaze.
"Ayaka! Ayaka, you have to believe me! My feelings for you are real! This is all Hanasaki's fault! He drugged me on purpose! He forced me to take that photo to threaten me! You have to believe me!"
"Disgusting… don't touch me!"
Standing nearby, Asamoto suddenly laughed as memories of her relationship with Hanazaki surfaced.
For the past year, she had constantly wondered if she simply wasn't attractive enough. She had even developed body insecurity, believing that the reason Jun never did anything more than hug her was because she lacked charm.
But now she realized,
It wasn't that she lacked charm.
It was because he simply didn't like women at all.
From the very beginning, he had been deceiving her.
"That's too much! If you like men, then don't mess with women!" Asamoto shouted angrily and kicked Namiki hard in the back with her high heel.
Afraid she might kick him again and cause serious injury, Morofushi stepped forward to calm her.
"Please calm down. If you seriously injure him, it might give him grounds to sue you."
But in her irrational state, Asamoto snapped at him angrily,
"Stay away! You men are all the same!"
"???"
The male officers who had been quietly watching the drama unfold all raised their heads.
Well then…
She'd just lumped them all together in one strike.
The most innocent victim was undoubtedly poor Morofushi, who had tried to help. Looking wounded, he lowered his head and muttered something quietly, probably complaining that his good intentions had been rewarded with hostility.
"Ayaka, you can't treat me like this! Didn't we agree to get married at the end of the year? Let's go register the marriage now, okay? I'll marry you right now!"
Even while kneeling on the ground, Namiki still didn't realize the gravity of his crimes. He only desperately hoped that Ayaka, who represented his future financial prospects, wouldn't abandon him.
In the end, the hysterical Namiki was taken away by the police.
At the police station, he confessed that during their university years, he and the victim, Jun Hanazaki, had been in a romantic relationship.
But as time passed, he noticed that Ayaka Matsui, the company president's daughter, had developed feelings for him.
So he broke up with Hanazaki, claiming that "his family was pressuring him and that a relationship that couldn't be made public was too suffocating," and quickly began dating Ayaka.
His reason for dating her was simple,
Her identity as the president's daughter would allow him to climb the corporate ladder rapidly.
And it worked.
Within just one year, he was promoted from an ordinary employee to section chief. After promising President Matsui that he would marry Ayaka, the president even agreed to make him department manager and give him 5% company shares.
But things took a turn.
After realizing that Namiki had broken up with him because of Ayaka, Hanazaki, feeling betrayed, chose an extreme approach.
He drugged Namiki, took intimate photos and videos of them together, and used them to threaten him into maintaining a secret relationship.
If Namiki refused, Hanazaki would expose everything.
Knowing this couldn't continue forever, Namiki devised a poisoning plan.
Yesterday, he bought a lipstick and gave it to Hanazaki, suggesting he occasionally give gifts to his girlfriend. He also said Hanazaki should act more intimate with her, or Asamoto might grow suspicious.
Hanazaki had a habit: after eating something with his hands, he would subconsciously lick his fingers.
So Namiki placed the poison inside the inner packaging of the lipstick.
As long as they went out to eat and ordered hand-held sushi, which Hanazaki liked, the poisoning could be carried out quietly.
But Namiki had never expected this.
When Hanazaki opened the lipstick at home, he discovered the plan.
Yet because of his extreme feelings for Namiki, he chose to reveal their love in the most tragic way possible,
Through his own death.
The phone had been deliberately purchased to match Namiki's.
All the threatening photos and videos had been deleted.
Only one photo remained.
The photo taken on the first day they became a couple, when they had asked a passerby to take a picture for them.
"Phew… love really makes people lose their minds," Jinpei muttered with a half-lidded glare. "What a waste for Hanazaki."
"Humans are complicated creatures," Rei said thoughtfully. "And emotions even more so. But in homicide cases, crimes of passion really do make up a surprisingly large percentage."
Jinpei grinned mischievously.
"That's why if you never fall in love, nothing bad happens. For the sake of my life expectancy, I'm staying single forever!"
Date laughed.
"Hey, hey, could you not say that in front of someone who actually has a girlfriend? Mine treats me very well, you know. You can't just dismiss all love like that."
"Damn it! Another chance for you to show off?!" Jinpei gritted his teeth, suddenly reminded of his own first love. Speaking of which, had Kenji finished that group date yet?
"Hahahahaha!"
Morofushi burst out laughing again. Jinpei always managed to make him laugh, perhaps his funny bone had Jinpei's name written all over it.
Ritsu quietly looked up at the night sky.
Did this count as the first case he had solved?
Tonight's moonlight… was rather beautiful.