Ran watched with a shocked expression as Kogoro acted foolishly. Anyway, after waiting a bit, Conan arrived, and when he saw me, he tried to run away again, but Ran quickly called him.
"Conan! I have something important. Please help me."
At Ran's urgent request, Conan also paused for a moment. In the meantime, Kogoro grabbed Conan.
"You brat, what trouble have you caused now!"
"Eek!"
Ran approached the caught Conan and said.
"It'll be quick. Can you help me for a moment?"
Conan seemed to give up and was about to reveal his secret directly.
"Sigh... I'm actually..."
Knock knock knock!
Then, a knocking sound was heard from the door. Upon hearing it, Kogoro, who was holding Conan, opened the door to see who had come.
"Yes, this is the Mouri Detective Agency, but..."
"I have something I'd like to discuss for a moment..."
"Eh, eh, eh?! You are?! No, way!!!"
When the woman who entered removed her deeply pulled-down hat, it was visible that she was the actress and singer 'Yoko Okino', often seen on TV. Kogoro was a fervent fan of Yoko Okino, whether because she was beautiful or because of her songs, it was hard to tell.
"So, I have a case to entrust... Huh? Cassian, how are you here?"
I had known her since we filmed a few commercials together in the past.
"Long time no see, Ms. Okino."
Seeing that, Kogoro said.
"You two know each other?"
"Yes, we got to know each other while filming commercials together before."
"I see. Ah! This is no time for that."
Kogoro left Conan and went into the room to quickly tidy up. Ran and Conan looked at Kogoro with pity. How fast he did it, it didn't take long before Kogoro came out of the room. He had changed all his clothes and came out with his hair neatly done.
'Wow~ amazing. To shave and come out in such a short time...'
"What difficult matter brings you here, miss~?"
Yoko was baffled by Kogoro's show-off attitude but soon composed herself and began to tell her story.
"So..."
It was roughly a story about being scared and unable to sleep due to a stalker.
"That bad guy! How dare he do such things to Ms. Okino!"
Kogoro, perhaps because he was also a fervent fan of Yoko, empathized and got angry together. Then, Yoko's manager who came with her spoke to Kogoro.
"Um, we'd like you to investigate this case as discreetly as possible... If it gets to the police's ears, the image might be..."
"And who might you be?"
"Manager Yamagishi."
Kogoro had a significant temperature difference when talking to men and women.
"Hmm, a manager... Understood, we'll investigate discreetly."
Kogoro got Yoko's address, phone number, and even a signed autograph with her name, reassured her not to worry, and suggested going together to check her house. Then Ran said.
"Dad! Can I come too? I want to see what a popular singer's room is like!! Conan, you want to see too, right?"
"Yes."
"You can come, but you must not interfere!"
"Yes!"
Frankly, this didn't make sense.
'A daughter following her dad to his workplace, where a corpse might appear... And a dad who allows it... This is really... If I think deeply, am I losing?'
Since it's roughly based on a manga original, I let it slide and followed along. But while following, Yoko kept glancing at me.
'She did that even when we filmed commercials together. Could it be that she has feelings for me?'
When we arrived at the apartment where Yoko lived, Yoko unlocked the front door with her key.
"Here it is. Now, inside... Huh? Ah... Uh..."
As soon as Yoko opened the door, she looked inside and was too shocked to continue speaking. Seeing that, Kogoro quickly opened the house door.
"What happened!"
Clatter!
Kogoro hastily opened Yoko's front door.
"No, this is!"
In Yoko's living room, a man was seen dead with a kitchen knife stuck in his back. Seeing that, Ran and Yoko screamed.
"Kyaaaah!"
"Call the police!"
The manager quickly stopped Kogoro.
"Wait! If this gets known to the media, Yoko will be caught up in a scandal! Can you keep it secret somehow..."
"That makes sense. This case should be kept secret... It seems possible!! This is a murder case!!!"
I went inside and looked at the corpse, then said.
"This is a suicide."
Everyone was surprised and looked at me. Kogoro said to me.
"No, with a knife stuck in the back, how can it be suicide?"
"If you look at the back of the corpse, the knife is stuck too deep into the spine. This is a wound that can't be made by someone stabbing."
Hearing that, Kogoro looked closely at the wound. Kogoro, having worked as a detective, understood immediately upon seeing the wound.
"I see. But with that alone, you can't say it's suicide. The fact that a knife is stuck in the back is unexplained."
"Here, you can see an indentation similar in size to the back of the kitchen knife? And isn't the room too hot?"
"I see. But why is that?"
I pointed to the chair behind the corpse and said.
"Probably, the person who committed suicide here froze the knife upright, placed it here on the indentation, and jumped backwards to kill themselves. And they raised the room temperature to erase the evidence. If a large person like this falls backwards from a chair and gets stabbed, such a deep wound is possible."
"That... makes sense.... Anyway, quickly call the police first."
"Yes, yes!"
Yoko's manager hurriedly went to call the police. Then I continued.
"Here, you can see that the suicide victim is holding Yoko's hair, probably trying to frame Yoko for stabbing him. If stabbed this strongly from behind into the spine, it would be near instant death, so he couldn't grab her hair."
"Oh~ I see."
"Probably, before committing suicide, he diligently collected hair from the comb Yoko used. There might be fingerprints there."
At my words, everyone looked at me with amazed eyes. Conan also seemed surprised, opening his eyes wide and staring at me.
"Wow~ amazing..."
"Let's have Detective Mouri take credit for solving this."
Then Ran said flustered.
"Why? After solving it so well."
"I'm also somewhat famous, so getting involved in such cases is a bit troublesome. Detective, please take over."
"I see... Then, I have no choice since my son-in-law asks like this. I'll step in, hahahaha"
Ran and Conan looked at Kogoro, who had no shame, with pitying eyes.
"Ms. Okino, please too."
"Okay, I'll keep the secret, but go on a date with me. That's the condition."
Suddenly, when Yoko made a bombshell declaration, everyone looked at Yoko in surprise and shouted.
"Ehhhhhh!!!!???"
"Actually, I've liked Cassian since we first filmed commercials together. But I didn't have the courage, and with the stalker and work, I was afraid of being a burden, so I couldn't contact you."
"I think I need to consider that a bit."
Yoko said with a face that looked like she might cry.
"Cassian... do you dislike me?"
"I am a fan of yours, Ms. Okino, but..."
As I spoke hesitantly, Yoko made a big concession and said.
"Okay, then at least exchange contact info..."
"Alright."
We exchanged contact information. Then Conan came over, grabbed my pants, and said.
"Brother! You and this sister look good together; why not start dating now?"
'This kid!'
His ulterior motive was obvious. Yoko hugged Conan and said.
"Really? Thank you for cheering me on~!"
"Hehehe!"
Conan made a strange expression and looked overjoyed. This kid's emotions were all over his face. But, young man, do you know that this is a place with a corpse? It's a bit... to laugh like that.
Anyway, the police swarmed in, and Inspector Megure came, talked with Kogoro, took brief statements from us, and the case was neatly concluded.
The next morning, looking at the newspaper, I saw an article with Kogoro's photo prominently displayed. The title was 'Detective Kogoro Solves the Stalker Case'.
"It's good that it was resolved without any issues. But that Conan kid is annoying."
Going to school and talking with Ran, she said Shinichi called at night. Ran said with a bright face.
"You know, he said he's on an important case under a pseudonym and is tailing someone, so it'll take time."
"I see, that's good."
Now, it seemed Ran would stop searching for Shinichi. Well, it wasn't bad; now Ran wouldn't lose sleep worrying.
"By the way, tomorrow is the day Conan transfers schools; I wonder if he'll do well. I'm worried because Conan has some odd aspects."
"He'll do fine. He seems smart in his own way; don't worry too much."
Finally, Conan will go to school too.
'Soon, the little ones will be installed.'
As days passed, I did advertising work, onmyoji duties, and spent time. Due to fame, onmyoji work increased even more. I didn't like having less rest time, but I started earning a lot of money, and my manager started gaining weight from eating well due to the money.
Most onmyoji work involved fortune-telling or exorcism, so-called people possessed by ghosts, but they were mostly people with brain abnormalities hearing hallucinations, so I just pretended to exorcise and easily treated them with [Muyeonjeonbyeon]. Occasionally, there were attention-seekers; I said they needed to eat Thai peppers to be exorcised, and after forcing them to eat a few times, they quickly recovered.
[Yugan] allowed me to occasionally see real ghosts a few times, but in this world, spiritual power is weak, so they couldn't harm living people much.
Living like that, I got a call from Ran.
-Cassian, Conan is at the police station now. Dad is drunk and asleep, so there's no adult; please help.
I'm not an adult either... Anyway, I agreed to help.
"Alright, I'll be right there."
I rode my bike, picked up Ran from the Mouri Detective Agency, and moved to the police station. A murder case that had been unsolved for five years was solved by children's persuasion?
"Conan! Do you know how worried I was! When I heard you were at the police station, I thought something bad had happened!"
'Oh~ the Detective Boys kids.'
The Detective Boys kids were being scolded by their parents who came to the police station, and of course, Conan had to listen to Ran's nagging.
"Wow~ it's the onmyoji brother from TV!"
"Oh, really. Brother! Please sign an autograph!"
"Oppa, me too, please. I'm a fan."
These kids, just after being scolded, saw me and rushed over, begging for autographs. The parents sighed.
"Okay, alright. But from now on, you must listen to your dad and mom."
"Yes!" "Yes!" "Yes!"
I signed for each and patted their heads. While patting Ayumi's head, I pretended to pause.
"Huh??"
"What's wrong, oppa?"
Ran also asked curiously.
"Cassian, what's the matter?"
I kept looking back and forth between Conan and Ayumi.
"These two are connected by fate."
"What!!!??? Really!!!????"
"Yes."
"Wow~ Conan is lucky~ to have such a cute girl, hehehe~"
At my words, Ran laughed, and Conan made a face like he ate something bad. Ayumi was puzzled by my words.
'Revenge, you kid, hehehe.'