Yimi had more or less figured out what detectives were supposed to do, but she still did not really understand how to do it. So during an after-school Detective Boys get-together, she spent some of her allowance on a detective novel.
She could not understand it at all. Everything in it was too difficult for a first grader, and she could not even recognize all the characters.
Kisaki Eri's hand reached over and took the detective novel from her. "We finally came out on vacation. Don't spend the whole time buried in a book. Can you even understand this?"
"No."
"I thought so. This is a little too difficult for someone your age." Eri flipped through the first few pages. Yimi had circled a dense scattering of characters and words with a pen.
Even though her first time attending school at the temple school had not lasted very long, Kitty still remembered Keine-sensei's good habit of having her circle every character she did not recognize.
"Is this child your daughter? It'd be such a shame for a kid to come to the pool and not swim. They sell swim rings over there," said a man with a little beard on his chin.
"She's my adopted daughter. This child hates water." Eri adjusted Yimi's hat.
It was a custom-made sun hat designed to cover her cat ears, comfortable enough to wear even in hot weather. Eri actually wanted to take Yimi into the pool to play, but she worried that other people's strange looks if they saw the cat ears might hurt the child's feelings.
Besides, a swimsuit that let her tail out without exposing any skin would also have to be custom-made. This group trip had been arranged too suddenly for Eri to have one made in time.
For once, it was not Mouri Kogoro taking Yimi out to play. Eri and a group of lawyer colleagues had arranged a trip to Karuizawa, and naturally, if there was somewhere fun to go, she brought Yimi along.
As for why Ran had not come... Eri was a little embarrassed, after all. She was still thinking of using this trip as a chance to pick out a wedding-anniversary gift for that man.
Eri pressed a hand to Yimi's head. "If you see something you want later, you can tell me. But you may only choose one thing, understand?"
"Okay."
Eri bent down and picked up a tie. "For an adult man, a tie or a belt would probably be a better gift, right?"
With this warm, harmonious scene—even bringing her adopted daughter along shopping—Saku Norifumi was honestly starting to wonder whether Kisaki Eri was trying to hint at something.
Fortunately, he was given no chance at all to misunderstand. A certain absurdly lucky unicorn standing outside the shop cried out, "Mom! Why are you here?!"
...
Ran panicked. Mouri Kogoro did not panic at all. Sure, the scene looked easy to misunderstand, but who in the world brought a little brat along on a date?
He stared at Yimi with dead-fish eyes. "Want ice cream? Strawberry."
"Want." Yimi automatically tucked her head under Kogoro's hand and offered herself up for a head pat.
They looked extremely close, leaving Conan unable to tell whether Kogoro was deliberately taking advantage of Yimi's mechanics to put on a show for that other man.
Ran was still staring fixedly at Saku. "So, Mom, why are you all here?"
Yimi raised a paw. "Queen said, to pick a weddi—mmphwah..."
"Honestly, haven't I told you not to call me Queen?" Eri laughed awkwardly while trapping Yimi's cheeks between both hands and kneading them several times, cutting off her attempt to blab.
Then she pulled Yimi against her side so she could stop her in time if she tried to blurt out anything else.
"Queen of the Court—that's the title everyone privately agrees suits you," teased a young-looking woman as she walked over, followed by several other lawyers.
"It's not just your undefeated record. That overpowering presence of yours is so strong that even judges seem to lose ground in front of you."
"So it wasn't just a nickname Yimi made up." Conan muttered under his breath.
Watching the wariness in Ran's eyes, Saku smiled. "Come to think of it, every time Mouri-san solves another case, Kisaki Eri-san cuts that section out of the newspaper."
Eri hurriedly defended herself. "That's only because Yimi really likes the work her uncle does. I clip them out for her."
Blame-the-kitty.
To change the subject, Eri looked at Conan again. "By the way, little boy, you really are Yukiko's second child, aren't you?"
"Huh?" The light vanished from Conan's eyes in terror.
Eri continued, "People in your family all have this habit. That brat Shinichi used to do it too—always slipping bits of deduction into ordinary conversation..."
Conan hurriedly waved his hands. "Ahaha! Compared with Auntie Yukiko, I'm actually more closely related to the professor. Speaking of which, Uncle Kogoro also likes collecting the cases Auntie Eri wins—ow!"
Naturally, he received a punch from Kogoro.
The method worked extremely well for changing the subject. But when Conan noticed that Ran did not scold Kogoro and then come comfort him this time, he instinctively felt the suspicious gaze behind him without even turning around.
Conan turned around anyway and met Ran's narrowed-eyed smile head-on.
"Come to think of it, ever since Conan started living at my house, Dad's deduction skills have improved by leaps and bounds." She said exactly that.
If Conan had suffered from rhinitis, the fright probably would have cleared his nose on the spot.
Eri hadn't had any contact with Kudo Shinichi in a long time, but Ran knew perfectly well that Kudo Shinichi did not have a younger brother.
A plump lawyer came over to smooth things out. "It's rare for all of us to run into each other like this. Why don't you two call a temporary truce and have a good drink together first?"
Eri did not mind. It was not as though she planned to remain separated forever anyway.
...
"Ritsuko, your hands are so tiny and cute~"
"Oh, Mouri-san, you really know what to say."
Once Mouri Kogoro got drunk, he became completely carried away. Leaving his own wife off to the side, he kept pestering Lawyer Ritsuko, who had deliberately kept filling his glass.
Eri's cheek twitched again and again. She grabbed Yimi's hand and left.
"Meow!" Yimi reached back helplessly and watched the unfinished ice cream on the table get farther and farther away.
"Mom!" Ran hurried after her to comfort her, her suspicions about Conan temporarily forgotten. The highest priority right now was whether this family of four could remain intact.
"You know Dad is always like that when he gets drunk... Besides, Mom, weren't you shopping for a tie with another man today too?"
"Yes. If I'd known, I wouldn't have bought the thing at all." Eri let go of Yimi's hand, pressed her palm to the child's head, and gently pushed her toward Conan, signaling for her not to listen to this upsetting adult business and to go play instead.
...
"I read this book. There's no, bowtie in it at all." Yimi frowned and showed Conan the detective novel in her hands.
"Normally nobody does things that way. You haven't been telling people about my stuff, have you?" Conan glanced at the mystery novel.
It had even been written by his father, Kudo Yusaku. The densely circled characters made the pages painful to look at. How the hell were you supposed to follow the plot like this?
Conan raised an index finger. "But if you're interested in this stuff, I recommend Sherlock Holmes."
"Sherlock Holmes, uses a bowtie?" That was the only part Yimi cared about.
Conan shook his head. "Detectives have nothing to do with bowties. Look at Uncle Kogoro. He doesn't have one, and he's still a detective, right? Oh, want to go play ball later? I still have allowance money, so I can buy one."
He wanted to hurry up and act like a real child in front of Ran for a while, even if it was a little late to start cramming for the role now.
Yimi shook her head and continued with the same subject. "But Kogoro is, knocked out by you."
Kogoro's previous cases had also been solved by Conan.
She shoved the book directly into Conan's hands, then held out one of her own. "I'll give this to you. Can you, let me borrow the bowtie?"
Kitty wanted to copy Conan's homework and become a detective by following the exact same process.
Conan opened his mouth to refuse, but then remembered that Ran had just begun suspecting that Uncle Kogoro's cases had something to do with him. If things went badly, she might search him.
After hesitating, he gritted his teeth. "You can play with it for one day. Don't use it recklessly. Give it back to me before we leave tomorrow, and don't use it in front of anyone we know."
Because basically everyone Yimi knew also knew him.
Conan knew Yimi was fairly good about keeping promises. It was only one day, so surely nothing would happen.
How could there possibly be so many cases in the world that he ran into one every single day?