"Going to the Professor's place again? Come home early, Yimi. Conan, keep an eye on her and don't let her run off." Ran said this with a smile and a wave.
Conan: "...I know, Ran-onee-san."
What did she mean, keep an eye on Yimi so she did not run around? I'm obviously the one who runs around the most.
Conan held the back of his head and stared at the sky with dead-fish eyes.
With that attitude, she was practically treating him as Kudo Shinichi outright. This could not go on. Under this kind of pressure, he did not think he could keep hiding it much longer.
Staaare~
Yimi stared at him without blinking.
"What?!" A guilty Conan backed away two steps.
"Why can't I, be a detective, even though I already, solved a case?" Yimi asked unhappily.
This time she had clearly exposed the culprit all by herself, yet the mission still showed as incomplete.
"Did someone say you can't be a detective? Haibara wouldn't say something like that." As far as Conan knew, Haibara had always been gentle with Yimi.
But if they were talking about the connection between Yimi and detective work, he did have something to say. "Compared with a detective, you're more like an eyewitness, aren't you? What kind of detective personally witnesses the crime scene and then starts deducing?"
Yimi smacked one fist into her palm. "A detective is, someone who goes somewhere, and somebody dies. That's how you become one!"
"No!"
...
At Professor Agasa's house.
"Don't move." Ai leaned close to Yimi's face and tested different makeup items against it.
Yimi had never been interested in makeup. As far as she was concerned, aside from loving to scare her with Tom and Jerry horror movies, Grandma's biggest flaw was that Yimi could often smell these pungent scents on her.
Shiori and Aunt Fubuki had both tried putting makeup on her before, but Yimi lost interest after tasting it. This time Ai had given her a filled bun, so she obediently sat still and let herself be fussed over.
There was no need for perfume. Yimi already smelled very nice.
"How is it?"
Once she was finished, Ai turned Yimi around to show Conan.
Conan looked up once, then lowered his head again. "Little kids don't need makeup at all, do they?"
The little girl already looked like a doll. With makeup on, she was actually less cute.
Maybe it was his imagination, but Conan always felt that this woman pretending to be a child had become even more affectionate toward Yimi.
Conan lowered his eyes to the newspaper from that day. It said the culprit had committed suicide out of guilt... Impossible. Who committed suicide after causing that much chaos? And whose suicide involved a gunshot that went from the forehead through the back of the skull?
It looked as though Haibara's feeling at the time had been correct. That old man probably had been a member of the Black Organization, only to be silenced by someone else afterward.
He did not know whether to feel relieved. At least this time the cause of death was not cardiac arrest. He was almost ready to withdraw his suspicions about Yimi. If only Ran could gradually withdraw her suspicions about him the same way.
Conan put down the newspaper and looked at Haibara. "Speaking of which, how's the progress on that thing?"
"That thing?" Ai played dumb.
"You know, that thing. Didn't I tell you before about the fever and the Laobaigan? You should be able to guess there's a connection..." With Yimi present, Conan could only awkwardly gesture at his height as hard as possible.
He had once gotten lucky and temporarily returned to his original size. The formula had been drinking Laobaigan, a Chinese baijiu, while running a fever. Afterward he tried drinking it while healthy, but all he got was roaring drunk.
Because Yimi already had a history of causing trouble with alcohol, Mouri Kogoro had even gotten scolded by Ran over it.
But Ran had been giving him the cold shoulder lately. If he did not meet her once as Shinichi, he might really have no choice but to tell her the truth.
"That..." Ai's gaze shifted aside.
Although her desire to return to adulthood was no longer as strong as before, she had not stopped researching it. She could already produce something that restored them temporarily.
Conan looked at Yimi, who had run over to a mirror, and finally relaxed enough to speak more freely. "Ran's attitude right now is giving me chills. It's like she already knows everything, but she just refuses to ask whether I'm Shinichi."
It was not only what she had said that morning. At dinner yesterday, Yimi had accidentally spilled soup on her collar, and Ran had immediately pulled out a tissue to wipe it for her.
Then Conan, trying to test Ran's attitude, spilled some on himself too. Ran simply threw the tissue in front of him and told him to wipe it himself.
If he really were a seven-year-old child, how much psychological damage would that kind of favoritism cause?
"Are you stupid?" Ai packed away the makeup case. "When a girl acts like that, it means she's waiting for you to confess the truth on your own."
"You think I should tell her too?"
"If you're not afraid that once she knows, she'll try to get involved and end up dragged into the Black Organization, then go ahead and tell her." Ai left him with only that sentence, picked up the makeup remover, and went to find Yimi.
She saw that the child did not seem to like the makeup and was rubbing her little face in front of the mirror.
"Stop. I'll take it off for you." Ai gently wiped Yimi's face and remembered what had happened that night in the fire.
The child carrying her on her back had charged straight into the flames, yet the fire had curved around them as though desperate to avoid them.
Now Ai finally understood why her sister had told her that she absolutely had to stay by Yimi's side.
"Right—makeup!" Conan's eyes lit up.
...
Then an unexpected guest came to visit Professor Agasa's house.
"Hello! You must be Yimi, right? You're even cuter than Conan said. I heard about you when I talked to Conan on the phone." A tall, beautiful woman with curled hair bent down, took Yimi's little hand, and shook it up and down.
This was Conan's—or more precisely, Kudo Shinichi's—mother, Kudo Yukiko.
Yimi, who had never met her, turned to look at Conan. But he did not know what identity his mother planned to use here either, so he had not introduced her.
Yukiko smiled and lifted a bag. "You're shy, aren't you? Conan told me you love sweets, so I bought you a strawberry cake as a greeting gift."
"Cake. Thank you, Auntie." The kitty thanked her politely.
Yukiko's expression darkened slightly. She pinched Yimi's cheek. "Do I really look old enough to be called 'Auntie'?"
"Mmph!" Yimi hurriedly broke free and looked her up and down.
She thought back to people she had considered aunties before, like Asuna.
Yimi corrected herself. "Thank you, Grandma."
"..."
Yukiko took back what she had said. This child was not cute at all.
The reason she was here was simple. Conan had successfully obtained the temporary antidote Ai made for him. But Ran already suspected that Professor Agasa had somehow turned him into a child. If "Conan" and "Shinichi" did not appear at the same time, Ran would never believe it.
So while he temporarily returned to Shinichi's form, somebody of roughly Conan's size had to disguise herself as "Conan" at the same time. Ai, who was actually eighteen years old, was obviously the best choice.
As for the voice, they could have the Professor build another mask-shaped voice changer and pretend Conan had a cold.
Yukiko took Conan and Ai into another room and got to work.
Half an hour later, Ai appeared in front of Yimi, who was watching television, completely disguised as Conan and wearing a mask. Yukiko had sent her over to see whether she could fool the kitty.
"Why are you wearing, Conan's clothes?" Yimi saw through her before she even spoke.
Scent did not change.
"Thought so." Ai was not surprised at all that Yimi recognized her.
"Congratulations, Host, on unlocking the achievement [You're So Funky]. Reward: 5% portal energy."
"Meow?" Yimi looked at Ai in confusion and read the achievement aloud. "You're so funky."
"..."