A Familiar Face
Everyone learned that on the night of the fire, all three tenants of the Mokuba Apartments had happened to be out — which was the only reason none of them had perished.
Moreover, judging by what the Detective Boys had heard from Sugiura Kaito yesterday, the fire could almost certainly be pinned on an arsonist — very likely the suspicious tenant Kaito had mentioned. Which meant the culprit had to be one of those three renters.
And thanks to the contents of Kaito's diary that Officer Yuchang had only just obtained, they now knew the boy had privately nicknamed the three tenants the Man in Red, the Man in White, and the Man in Yellow.
The Man in Yellow had returned to the apartment last night. The arsonist was, in all probability, the very person Kaito's diary had labeled yellow.
The Detective Boys, who had been listening to the diary's contents nearby, agreed that this yellow figure seemed deeply suspicious.
"Officer Yuchang, what kind of people are these three tenants?" Conan lowered his head and thought for a moment before looking up to ask.
Officer Yuchang promptly had the officer beside him bring the three tenants over.
As the three unfamiliar figures gradually drew near, Qiqi noticed that Haibara, standing next to her, was breathing faster and faster — and seemed to be trembling.
She found it strange. Haibara was always so calm and composed; she almost never reacted this way. So Qiqi turned her expressionless face toward her, tilting her head, her magenta eyes full of bewilderment.
She studied Haibara's face and body language closely. Her gaze was locked on the three people approaching from ahead, and undisguised fear and tension were written across her features. Haibara's lips quivered faintly, and her hands had clenched into fists without her seeming to realize it. Everything about her spoke of a profound unease — a dread of these three strangers.
Qiqi didn't understand why Haibara would be afraid of them, but she didn't ask. She simply imitated what Ayumi had done before and took Haibara's hand, hoping to comfort her.
She had badly misjudged, however, just how cold her own hand was. The moment she seized it, Haibara flinched in shock.
Watching the three tenants draw closer, the dread in Haibara's chest swelled and swelled. HerOrganization-radar snapped on in an instant, and she felt it with perfect clarity — the crushing pressure of the Organization radiating from all three of them. The sensation turned her body to stone, as if some invisible force had bound her in place; she could barely move at all.
Just as Haibara was screaming inside, I have to get everyone away from here, right now, or they'll all—, an icy hand suddenly seized the one hanging at her side. Her heart stopped. For a terrible instant she thought the Organization had noticed something wrong with her, that they had already caught her.
If her body had been capable of moving, she would almost certainly have flung that hand off in sheer panic the instant it touched her.
But as it happened, she couldn't react at all — and that was fortunate. Once the first wave of terror passed, Haibara registered that the hand gripping hers was very small. A child's hand, still soft with baby fat.
Running through the people around her, she realized at once who it was. Qiqi.
She turned to look, and sure enough, Qiqi was gazing up at her with worried eyes, and something in Haibara's chest quietly warmed.
Qiqi might be a little slow to react, but she had sensed Haibara's emotions in mere moments. She had been right about her all along — Qiqi really was a perceptive, sincere, good child.
And then — whether because she was finally coming down from the shock, or because of Qiqi's clumsy comfort — the pressure that had clung to her like a shadow suddenly vanished from Haibara's senses entirely.
Her taut nerves slackened all at once, leaving her almost at a loss for what to do.
By then, the other children had noticed Haibara's strange reaction too, and they all turned to fuss over her, asking whether she was feeling unwell somewhere.
At their words, Baizhu crouched down and reached out to touch her forehead, carefully gauging its temperature. Only after confirming there was no fever or anything else unusual did he let out a breath of relief.
A soothing smile spread across his face, and he said to Haibara in a warm, gentle voice, "If anything feels wrong, little miss, you can tell big brother anytime. Big brother is a professional doctor, you know — I'll have you back on your feet in no time!"
Haibara stared at him in silence, a flicker of surprise passing through her eyes. Somehow, the way Baizhu had just acted reminded her of her sister.
Back when she was sick, her sister had always taken her temperature just like that, hovering over her with the same concern.
Faced with Baizhu's tender, attentive gaze, Haibara gave a small, dazed nod.
By this point the three tenants had walked up to the group. From right to left they were Mr. Hosoi Ryuhei, a carpenter; Mr. Okiya Subaru, a university graduate student; and Mr. Makabe Gin'ya, a freelancer.
Which of these three was the Man in Yellow?
Officer Yuchang was just opening his mouth to have the officers take the three tenants aside for questioning when, before the words could leave him, he heard the self-proclaimed doctor standing beside Conan look at one of the tenants and ask, with a hint of hesitation in his voice, "Excuse me... Mr. Okiya, was it? Have we met somewhere before? You seem... familiar."
Okiya Subaru — Akai Shuichi, faking his own death — stood among the crowd at that moment, his gaze resting on Haibara Ai without so much as a flicker, all while quietly taking stock of his surroundings.
When he saw Baizhu, Kir's attending physician, walking shoulder to shoulder with Conan, a thread of surprise stirred in his chest. He didn't put much weight on the coincidence, though; his attention was fixed where it belonged — on his target, Haibara Ai.
What Okiya had never anticipated was that Dr. Baizhu would suddenly address him — and with a question like that. He couldn't help wondering, with a flicker of unease, whether the man had noticed something.