Disclaimer: Detective Conan is not mine. This fanfic is a translation.
Enjoy Reading!
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The story goes back fifteen years when Hiro was only seven years old.
It should have been an ordinary night. Seven-year-old Hiro was sitting at the dinner table with his parents, enjoying a meal together. He still remembered it clearly, it was curry rice made by his mother, and it tasted wonderful.
At around 7 p.m., the doorbell suddenly rang loudly. His mother, who had just taken a chilled beer out of the fridge for his father, walked to the door. Seeing that the visitor was someone his father knew, she called for his father, who was still happily eating curry, to come to the entrance.
Sitting in the living room, Hiro didn't notice anything unusual at first. He could hear them chatting amicably by the door, but gradually, the man's voice grew louder. His mother then moved toward the entrance to check what was going on.
But at that moment, his father suddenly let out a groan.
His mother's expression changed drastically. She rushed back and said to the young Hiro, "Hide here. Don't come out until I tell you to!"
Locked inside a wall cabinet, Hiro trembled in fear, curling up as he listened to his mother arguing with the man. Gradually… even his mother's voice disappeared.
All he could sense was a strong metallic smell spreading through the air. At that age, he didn't know what it was. He only wished his mother would call him out soon.
Then, suddenly, he heard singing.
He could tell it wasn't his father's voice, nor his mother's. It was deliberately high-pitched, almost seductive, repeating the same line over and over in rhythm.
Despite his fear, Hiro cautiously peeked through the crack of the cabinet. What he saw was a man holding a blood-stained kitchen knife, humming that terrifying line.
"It's okay now, come out~~"
At this point in the story, Jinpei couldn't help but interrupt, "His face? Didn't you see his face?!"
"N-no… I was too scared to look…"
This was something Hiro deeply blamed himself for. If he had just mustered the courage to look a little longer, he might have been able to identify the man who killed his parents.
Ritsu, who had only known about the incident in general terms before, frowned and asked, "Why was that man looking for you? Did he know you?"
"No, he wasn't looking for me. After 'come out,' he said a girl's name." Hiro's face darkened, and he spoke quickly, "That's right, it was the girl I used to play with when I was a child. She looks exactly like the missing girl reported last night… Her name is 'Yuri.'"
Wataru scratched his cheek. "But why would that guy go to your house looking for a little girl? Do you know her last name?"
"I always called her by her first name. I did attend her funeral after she died from illness, but I was only in first grade… And after that incident, parts of my memory are missing. I really can't remember."
'Post-traumatic stress disorder…'
The thought made Ritsu pause. He realized he couldn't clearly remember much about his own parents either, except for the phrase "Fifty-fifty." Could it be that he, too, had experienced some kind of trauma?
"Even if you didn't see his face, you did see a tattoo on his shoulder, right?" Kenji asked.
"Yeah. I think he stepped on blood and lost his balance, crashing into the cabinet I was hiding in," Hiro recalled. "When he pulled away, I caught a glimpse of a goblet-shaped tattoo on his shoulder!"
"Are you sure about that?"
"I'm certain. When he moved away, he clutched his shoulder like it hurt. The tattoo I saw earlier was then covered by his blood-soaked hand, so I couldn't see it anymore."
Wataru asked, "So what happened to the man after that?"
"I don't know… I must have fainted from the stress. When I woke up, I heard the sound of doors opening and closing repeatedly."
"Was the man still in your house?"
"No. It was my older brother. He had just returned from a forest summer camp. By then, it was already noon the next day. That means I had been in the cabinet for half a day."
Kenji looked surprised. "You have an older brother?"
Rei smiled and explained, "He's actually a very capable detective in Nagano Prefecture now. People even call him the 'Kongming of Nagano.'"
"Huh? I prefer Guan Yu."
"Now's not the time to talk about Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is it?" Wataru said with a wry smile, pulling the conversation back. "Back then, did you tell your brother about the tattoo?"
"No. The shock of the incident caused mild memory loss, and I even developed aphasia," Hiro said, lowering his head in thought. "After that, my brother stayed in Nagano, while I was taken in by relatives in Tokyo. Even after changing environments, the aphasia persisted for a while… until I met Zero in Tokyo."
Rei smiled proudly, recalling their first meeting.
"You'll feel better if you say it out loud."
Back then, Hiro hadn't been as strong as he was now. And he himself had been just an immature kid, constantly picking fights as a way to prove himself, repeatedly interfering in the life of someone who would become incredibly important to him.
Ritsu frowned as he analyzed the inconsistencies in the case. If the culprit had truly been searching for someone, he would have searched the entire house thoroughly… There was no reason he wouldn't have found Hiro hiding in the cabinet.
Unless… he had intentionally let him go.
"Hiro… do you remember the three men at the motorcycle shop?" Ritsu asked.
"Hm? You mean the ones with tattoos? But the culprit wouldn't have left Nagano and just happened to show up around me in Tokyo, right?" Hiro waved it off, clearly thinking such a coincidence was unlikely.
But coincidences that are too perfect are often deliberate.
Combining this with his earlier deduction, Ritsu's expression grew serious. "What if the killer found you in the cabinet, and deliberately spared you?"
"…What?"
Everyone showed expressions of shock. None of them had considered that possibility.
"Maybe the killer believed that by following you, he could find the girl named 'Yuri.' That would explain why a girl who looks just like her was abducted… The killer might have followed you from Nagano to Tokyo. One of those three men at the motorcycle shop is very likely the culprit!"
The logic fit perfectly, even resolving the contradictions. Hiro suddenly understood. "So… he thought following me would lead him to Yuri… That's why he did all this?"
"Yeah. And the reason he killed your parents might have been because he believed they were hiding that girl."
To kill innocent people based on mere suspicion… unforgivable.
Hiro set down the rag in his hand and rushed toward the door. When he noticed no one was following him, he turned back in confusion. "Huh? Aren't we going to investigate those three suspects?"
Jinpei grinned. "Heh, we've already questioned them for you!"
"Huh? Wait, how did you guys even know I was looking for my parents' killer?"
"Idiot! Anyone could tell. You've been obsessively searching for information about the 'Nagano couple murder case' in the computer room."
"…Yeah, that makes sense."
They were all incredibly perceptive, there was no way he could hide it from them.
"Alright, now let's move on to the deduction phase. First up, the class leader in charge of Irie, go ahead."
"OK!"