Imagine Kisaki Eri's state of mind: she suddenly received a call from home saying a human trafficker had shown up—and that the caller had successfully caught them.
To make her believe it, the little thing even held the receiver close enough for Eri to hear the muffled whimpering from someone whose mouth had been covered. Kisaki Eri didn't dare waste a second before rushing home.
The first thing she saw was her own daughter tied up like a caterpillar, along with a little girl standing proudly with her chest puffed out, waiting to be praised.
Mm. The little girl wasn't looking so proud anymore.
"Here's some water." Yimi hugged the teapot and carefully filled Ran's cup all the way, repeatedly sneaking glances at her expression.
Kisaki Eri tapped Yimi on the forehead. "You shouldn't fill a teacup to the brim, understand? Apologize to your onee-san."
It had only been a misunderstanding. Eri was both angry and amused, but being wary of strangers was a good thing. There was no need to scold her over it.
"Sorry. You can pat my head." Yimi obediently lowered her head in apology.
She'd been living in this house for almost a week and hadn't seen Kisaki Eri's daughter even once. Then today, the daughter had suddenly appeared.
Why didn't a daughter live with her mother? Humans were so strange.
And the two of them didn't look much alike. The human trafficker's head was pointy, but Kisaki Eri didn't have horns.
"It's fine. I did scare you by accident, after all. You're really athletic—I couldn't even catch up with you. But do I really look that much like a bad person?" Ran didn't take it to heart.
She felt something inside her collar. She vaguely remembered the little girl stuffing something down it after making the phone call, so she reached in and pulled it out.
It was something folded from a page torn out of a workbook. Who knew which cartoon Yimi had learned it from? It was a pointed placard with the word "SLAY" written on it.
Ran smiled without any warmth, pinched Yimi's cheeks hard, and pulled that bundle of collagen in opposite directions.
"Sorry. You're a good egg," Yimi hurriedly praised her.
"..."
Being tied up by an elementary-schooler at her mother's home was certainly humiliating, but Ran was relieved that the truth wasn't what she'd imagined. Though the actual situation was still enough to complicate their family situation.
Maybe it was the afterglow of narrowly escaping the nightmare of "Mom forming a new family," or maybe it was because this child would be her little sister from now on. When Ran looked at Yimi again, she suddenly found her exquisitely adorable. Maybe because she was a girl, she even seemed quite a bit cuter than Conan.
Ran glanced aside, her gaze following Yimi's anxiously twitching tail from side to side.
Such an adorable girl had actually ended up homeless. How pitiful.
Ran looked at Kisaki Eri in confusion. "Why didn't you discuss something like this with Dad?"
"Why should I discuss it with him? You can't have a proper conversation with someone that heartless." Kisaki Eri, who really had planned to discuss it with Kogoro, turned her head away at that moment.
Back then, she'd been grateful that Kogoro had saved her. Even with an injured leg, she'd still kept cooking for him, only for that man to slap the table and shout, "If I'd known your cooking tasted this awful, I would've told you to go to bed earlier!"
"Don't say that. Dad's messy, but he isn't that bad. He even agreed to let a child of one of Professor Agasa's relatives stay with us." Ran narrowed her eyes with a smile as a scheme began forming in her mind.
"Oh, right. Mom is so busy with work. If you don't have time after school, Yimi can go to the detective agency with Conan. She can even stay overnight there."
Conan could sleep with Dad, while Yimi slept with her.
Then when Mom came to pick Yimi up, Mom and Dad would have to see each other all the time. Their relationship would gradually mend, and before long they'd get back together!
"Conan?" Yimi remembered that name. It belonged to the person suspected of being Child Emperor.
"That's the name of the child staying at my house. Do you know him?"
Yimi thought it through: Conan lived at the human trafficker's house. Conan lived with a detective uncle. The human trafficker had a dad. The human trafficker's dad was the detective uncle!
She tugged on Kisaki Eri's clothes. "I want to go, play at the human trafficker's house."
Kisaki Eri pinched her cheek. "Why are you still calling her a human trafficker? Call her onee-san."
Yimi corrected herself. "I want to go play, at Human-Trafficker-onee-san's house."
"It's 'Ran-onee-san,'" Kisaki Eri corrected her, then glanced at the time.
Because Japanese students got out of school relatively early, there was still plenty of time. And she'd dropped everything and rushed home the moment she heard a human trafficker had broken in, so she still had work left to do.
Just thinking about her husband made her angry, but she wasn't planning to stay separated forever. If they were going to adopt another child, that concerned both of them. She certainly couldn't leave that man out of it.
"Don't cause trouble for Ran-onee-san while you're there, understand?" Eri lowered her head and instructed Yimi. She agreed so readily that even Ran was a little surprised.
...
A child who had tied her up after mistaking her for a human trafficker one moment was suddenly coming over to visit her house the next. Ran didn't find it too suspicious, though. Kids were always doing inexplicable things, and Yimi probably just wanted to play with Conan.
And Mom agreeing that readily—did that mean she and Dad really would get back together?
Maybe it wouldn't be long before things went back to the way they used to be... no, the way they used to be, but with one more person.
Although Mom hadn't come along, Ran was in a wonderful mood as she held Yimi's little hand and hummed a tune.
"Dad, I have something important to tell you...?"
But she'd celebrated too soon. When she opened the door to the agency, what greeted her was a table covered in empty cans—and a drunken Kogoro.
"Ugh!" Yimi covered her nose.
"Honestly, how did you get this drunk again? We have a guest today!" Ran hurried over, threw open the window, and started cleaning up his cans and bottles.
"A guest? A client? You can't get drunk no matter how much of this beer you drink." Kogoro's face was bright red as he swayed to his feet.
"You're already drunk!"
Ran hauled her father up by brute force and dragged him away to sober him up. "Could you stop getting completely wasted every time someone has something important to tell you? Yimi, please wait here for a little while."
"What do kids know? This is the secret behind the famous detective 'Sleeping Kogoro' falling asleep. Only my daily alcohol intake lets me enter Detective Mode at the crucial moment..." Kogoro flailed his arms and began spouting drunken nonsense.
"Detective Mode!"
Yimi crouched down and stared at the beer Ran had thrown into the trash.
No wonder Junko and Dog-Eyes always liked drinking such awful-tasting condiments. This was Yimi's first time seeing alcohol in cans, though. Usually, what Junko and Dog-Eyes drank was...
Yimi raised her head and looked at the shelves in the agency. She spotted a bottle that looked very similar to what she remembered.
But Dog-Eyes and the others had red or black bottles. This one was transparent.
The kitty climbed up the shelves, took down the bottle of clear liquor, and left the pocket money Kisaki Eri had given her in its place.
She twisted the cap open with all her strength. She wasn't the idiot who didn't know which way bottle caps turned anymore.
The heavy smell made her little face scrunch up.
Did becoming a detective really require such a huge sacrifice?
She took a tiny sip.
"Blegh!"
It tasted awful, but she didn't feel anything else. Famine let her perfectly digest any substance, but did that mean she couldn't enter the state that man had just been in?
She had The World stop Famine first, then took another sip without using Love Train.
...
"Are you sober now?"
"Honestly, I finally got to lose myself in my own world for a while." Kogoro wiped his face after washing it with cold water.
It was only beer, after all. He hadn't been that drunk.
"There's something I need to discuss with you, Dad. Mom adopted a poor child. She's a girl."
"What?!" Kogoro's eyes went wide, and the last trace of drunkenness vanished instantly.
Then he coughed twice and turned his head aside. "What's that got to do with me? Honestly."
Ran planted her hands on her hips, her expression stern. "I brought the child here. Mom gave me permission. The moment we walk in, we see Dad making a drunken spectacle of himself. Conan lives here too—can't you restrain yourself a little?"
"You and your mother really are alike. You both love picking up kids and bringing them home. Drinking is perfectly normal for adults. What's wrong with doing it when kids are around?" Kogoro narrowed his eyes, though he didn't actually object.
That woman wasn't the impulsive type. If she'd decided to adopt a child, she must have thought it through carefully...
He walked back into the agency and was immediately greeted by the sight of a little girl with flushed skin curled up inside a cardboard box, hugging a bottle of clear liquor and babbling something in a babyish voice.