Hiding In Plain Sight

Target Acquired, but Now What?

Shuichi stared up at the small, familiar home, forcing back the memories that the building brought forward. Shaking away the oncoming tears, he led Rantaro and Kokichi to the front door, taking the spare key from underneath the doormat. Odd, it's not locked. "Oh God," Shuichi mumbled, shocked at the state of the house as the trio entered. Everything had been ransacked, belongings were thrown everywhere and broken glass and porcelain covered the tiles.

Images of his uncle flashed through the boy's mind, remembering happy moments from their life together. "Shuichi, are you alright?" Rantaro placed a hand on the boy's shoulder after closing and locking the front door.

"He smiled at us when he died, he accepted it," Shuichi's body stood frozen, tears dripping down his cheeks. "I remember Uncle always telling me he'd die for me, but I didn't expect him to actually go through with it."

"He kept you safe. Even though he paid the ultimate price, he did it for you Shuichi."

"Yeah, don't let it be in vain dumbass!" Kokichi interrupted, picking up random things around the home.

"Right, start looking for a laptop, although might be an impossible feat. People have already searched here," Shuichi's voice quietened to a mumble.

"We don't know until we try," Rantaro smiled, walking toward the living room. Shuichi watched as Kokichi went his own way, leaving the boy on his own. If there's one place his laptop will be, it should be the office. Making his way to the room in question, Shuichi found the door already open, beckoning him to explore. Books piled on the ground, thrown from bookshelves haphazardly, papers and stationery from the office desk had been thrown about the carpet.

Normally he leaves it on his desk, but how would I know, Uncle didn't like me in here a lot. Careful not to step on and ruin any books, Shuichi crept over to the office desk and pushed the fallen chair out of the way. Perhaps I should check everywhere before losing hope, it has to be somewhere in the house. Rummaging through the desk Shuichi found nothing of interest, although, there was a single thing that caught his attention. An empty drawer. More specifically, the bottom of an empty drawer.

Acting on a hunch, the male reached into the light brown drawer and pushed down the corner on the bottom, watching the other end pop up from its resting spot. Crafty as always Uncle. Taking off the fake bottom, Shuichi pulled out the laptop hiding underneath and placed it on the desk. If I open this, what if it alerts someone? I suppose we don't have a choice, it's not like we can bring it back to the shopping centre anyway. Opening the laptop, Shuichi managed to guess the password, granting himself access to all the information he needed. "Sorry, Shuichi but I couldn't find- Oh, you found it," Rantaro entered the office doorway, calling out for Kokichi who remained somewhere in the home. "Let's get going, we should take it back home."

"No, we can't," Shuichi shook his head, searching around the floor for a pen and empty notepad.

"Why not?" Rantaro asked, carefully clearing a path through the sea of books.

"I taught you better than that 'Mami!" Kokichi pouted, crossing his arms as he leaned against the doorframe. "Why would we take an electronic device back to our secret base? Especially that of a detective's. Be careful what you say too, dumbass."

"Oh, right, I see what you mean." Rantaro reached Shuichi, standing next to the male. If we take this home, it could be used to track our location, so it's not safe. Picking up the supplies he found, Shuichi opened the appropriate files on the laptop and started writing down all the information he could find that would interest the group.

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Folding up the notes he created, Shuichi shoved them in his pocket and replaced the laptop where he found it. "Hey, this place looks perfect for ten people to live, wouldn't you say Shuichi?"

"Hm? Oh, um, yeah, I guess," Shuichi mumbled, looking around the home one last time. I suppose Kokichi's right, there's a lot of supplies still here and the police have already searched the place, so they wouldn't think to look here. There are two guest rooms, along with mine and Uncle's, which makes four beds that can fit maybe two or three people. "What if the group moved here instead of staying in that shopping centre?"

"You read my mind!" Kokichi cheered, grinning from ear to ear.

"Shuichi, if I'm correct, there are four rooms here, right? If you lived here with your uncle, then what about the other people who live here. What if your parents come here for anything?" Rantaro held his chin in thought.

"Oh, don't worry about that, my parents won't ever come here, it's impossible."

"I'd hardly say impossible, unless your parents are dead or some shit," Kokichi chuckled. The three stood in awkward silence in the middle of the hallway, bedrooms on either side of them.

"They're in America." Shuichi broke the silence, staring down at the dusty ground. "All they wanted was fame and money, having a child caused Mum to lose a lot of modelling gigs." Shuichi continued, needing to rant about the people he hated most in the world. Now that he'd started, he couldn't stop. "They just threw me to my uncle like I was trash, then told the media that I died so they could gain their fame back through pity. I never want to see them again, I hate them," his voice lowered to a whisper, anger seething through his gritted teeth.

"Every child deserves a parent, but not every parent deserves a child," Rantaro mumbled.

"Enough of the sappy backstories. Do we really have to go all the way back home just to tell them all to come here? Why can't we just use phones?!" Kokichi groaned, his face dropping in despair. Crocodile tears ran down his face before the small male broke out in wails.

"Kokichi, you know why we can't use phones. Aren't you the one that reminded me about the laptop problem? Keep quiet, someone might hear us," Rantaro frowned, placing his hands on his hips. Without further participation in the conversation, Shuichi re-entered the office, opening the drawer where the laptop remained hidden before he took it out again. "What are you doing?"

"Don't say anything incriminating while we have this, this is a big risk to take but we can hide this near our base," Shuichi hushed, pulling out the notepad from his pocket. Writing down his actual thoughts, the boy attempted to keep his handwriting as legible as possible. 'We can take the laptop to the shopping centre and then move everyone here. We need to check the place for bugs first before we leave.' There may not be any bugs around, but we can't take any chances.

After both males read the note, they nodded, searching the home one last time for anything odd, ready to move homes to something more familiar and comfortable. I just hope this can be my way of apologising for annoying everyone.