The culprit was already in custody, and the paperwork could wait until tomorrow's shift. Unlike Inspector Megure, who shared a cozy rapport with the Mouri family, Kiichi Higashino found little reason to linger. After sizing up Conan Edogawa and concluding the kid detective was overhyped, Kiichi lost interest in further chit-chat.
Still, he'd give credit where it was due: Conan's knack for freezing time's progression had dragged the world kicking and screaming into an era of smart tech and electric wonders. The side effect? Near-immortality for everyone. Kiichi kept that in mind, a quiet nod to the kid's bizarre legacy.
Best to leave each other alone, though.
If the Grim Reaper wanted to boost his case quota, Kiichi wouldn't complain.
With a quick wave to Megure, he hopped into his car and headed home. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department offered dorms for young officers like him, but Kiichi wasn't one for forced camaraderie. Socializing felt like navigating a minefield, and frankly, he found dealing with criminals far less taxing than small talk with colleagues. So, he'd rented a standard 1LDK apartment in Beika Town—a modest bachelor pad, perfect for someone who preferred his own company.
The door creaked open, and there, crouched by the entrance like a fluffy white rice ball, was his cat.
"Evening, Cowboy," Kiichi said, bending to scratch the Ragdoll's head. He'd adopted the cat two years ago from a classmate who ran a cattery. Cowboy purred, then darted to the cat tree to sharpen his claws.
Kiichi set out food for Cowboy and tossed a teriyaki chicken bento from the convenience store into the microwave. He wasn't exactly a model of domesticity. Living alone meant he let things slide—cat hair dusted the living room floor, and yesterday's chopsticks still sat in the kitchen sink. He wasn't a slob; he just didn't see the point in daily tidying. A quick cleanup every few days kept the place presentable enough.
The microwave dinged. Kiichi retrieved his bento just as Cowboy, having wolfed down his own dinner, leapt onto the table to sniff the chicken. Kiichi gave the cat another head rub, then gently nudged him off. Crossing to the stereo, he sifted through his CD collection and popped in Kanako Kawabe's Violin Lyric Pieces.
This world's entertainment didn't do much for him. Growing up, his parents had pushed him into violin lessons from first grade, a relic of his past life that left him with an unshakable love for classical music, opera, and musical theater—hardly trendy tastes. But the Conan-verse had its perks. Outside of police work, every profession here operated at peak intensity, especially the arts. Despite the sky-high mortality rates and the occasional murderous rivalry, the talent pool was unreal. Kiichi sometimes wondered if the cutthroat competition drove idols and actors to eliminate their peers just to stay on top.
He hoped Kanako Kawabe, his favorite violinist, never ended up as a case file.
Amen, Conan.
Dinner was quick. He cleared the trash and tackled the chores that had piled up since yesterday. The clock showed plenty of time left in the evening—a downside of living alone. With no one to talk to, boredom crept in, and late-night silence had a way of turning introspective gloom into a full-blown emo playlist.
Gaming? Not his thing. He'd loved Tank Battle on the Famicom as a kid in his past life, but retro nostalgia didn't hold up now. His standards were too high. TV was an option, but chasing daily drama episodes felt like a chore. Miss a night due to overtime, and you were out of luck. Recording on VHS was more hassle than it was worth. He preferred the Netflix model: stock up on snacks, bunker down for a weekend, and binge a whole season in one go.
His tiny Beika apartment, a classic Japanese shoebox, felt oddly spacious. Beyond the essentials—table, chairs, cabinets—the only real furniture was his stereo. No bed; he slept on a futon. Cowboy's cat tree and toys probably took up more space than his own belongings.
Low-desire living, perfectly suited for this world's slow grind.
He was adapting faster than expected.
But if he kept zoning out, the gloom would win. To break the cycle, Kiichi grabbed a novel from the bookshelf. In this world, detective fiction was king, fueled by a creator god's obsession with mysteries. The result? Insanely high-quality stories. To Kiichi, today's case paled in comparison to the intricate plots in these books. Yusaku Kudo's work was genius, and Rentaro Niina's Detective Sazama series was a national treasure.
Back in his old life, Kiichi had devoured mysteries, trading Agatha Christie novels with classmates in high school with the same fervor as sneaking peeks at Battle Through the Heavens updates on a friend's phone. But Yusaku was a notorious procrastinator, and Niina, now elderly, had all but retired. New releases were scarce, so Kiichi was stuck rereading old favorites.
The problem with mysteries? Once you knew the killer, the magic was gone. Flipping to the last page first was heresy.
He skimmed a few pages, then glanced at the clock. Bedtime.
Sometimes, he wondered if he should get a girlfriend. Someone to talk to, to fill the quiet evenings. But then he remembered: this was Beika Town. Relationships here didn't end in breakups—they ended in funerals. You either married your childhood sweetheart or sailed off on a good ship to tragedy.
The creator's fetish for childhood romances was no secret. Kiichi had tried to play along, but expecting a grown man to fall for an elementary or middle schooler was absurd. By high school, the academic grind made romance a pipe dream—Tokyo University wasn't exactly a cakewalk, and his pre-transmigration knowledge was running dry. Besides, high school sweethearts didn't count as "childhood" loves.
Now, as a working adult, his options were limited. He knew the canon characters inside out, but none fit the bill. He leaned toward older women, but the pickings were slim. Ran Mouri and Sonoko Suzuki? Too immature, and he wasn't about to chase a Suzuki heiress for a shortcut to wealth. Shiho Miyano—Ai Haibara—was intriguing, but his fondness for her was platonic. Her big-sister persona was just a front for a lonely kid, and he wasn't into partners who radiated emo vibes.
Miwako Sato? She was cool, but more like a bro. After seeing her chug beers and drift through traffic like a street racer, any spark of romance fizzled. Friendship was better.
So many options, yet none clicked.
In Beika Town, the truth might always come to light, but love? That was a mystery Kiichi wasn't sure he'd ever solve.