𝐈 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐍𝐃

vi | vera natura

translation — "true nature"
song recommendation — some girl by andy grammer

" i didn't know you, i didn't even know me

i was a soldier, i was a one man army

i thought the future didn't apply to me "

present day, 2023
beika city

"Mama?"

The woman hummed as she made his lunch bento for school.

"Doesn't Conan-kun remind you of Shinichi-niisan?"

Tamaki paused, looking at her son with a contemplative frown. Even though she had only seen the boy once, Tatsuya brought up a good point. He looked similar in appearance to Shinichi, down to the small piece of hair that stuck up on the back of his head. Now that she thought about it, Conan looked a lot like he did was he was seven years old.

"He does," she murmured, going back to preparing the food. "But don't bring it up. Shinichi's been missing for a while now, but it may be a sore subject to Conan-kun." She gave Tatsuya a comforting smile. "I'll look into it a little when I have free time, okay?"

Tatsuya nodded, giving his mom a smile. "Okay, Mama."

"Good boy."

~ — — — ~

Slamming her car door shut, Tamaki looked around and fiddled with the coin locker key in her hand. She had found it outside her apartment door when she was about to go for work inside an envelope with her name written on it in elegant script. She was immediately worried because she recognized the handwriting, so she immediately rushed to the building containing the coin lockers. She ignored the strange looks she got as she moved toward the coin locker number designated on the key.

Tamaki wasn't naive. She knew what her old friend had been planning to do, and while she admired the reason, she knew it was foolish. Her friend also knew this but had to do it on the chance that they would follow their word. Tamaki was doubtful. The fact that her friend had sent her the locker key was enough to tell Tamaki that her friend's plan was most likely going to fail.

Sticking the key into the door, she unlocked the locker and opened the door. She bit her lip at the bag of cash inside and grabbed it. She couldn't leave it there for those people to find it. One billion yen can go a long way depending on how it's used. With those people...she didn't even want to think about what those people would do with that amount of money.

Shutting the locker door, she quickly left the coin locker room and went back to her car. Throwing the bag into the backseat of her car, she glanced around before getting inside. Looks like she had some evidence to turn into the police.

~ — — — ~

"Looks like this case is shut. Hirota Masami committed suicide," Megure concluded as he and Takagi stood in the main office space of headquarters. "However, we still don't know the location of the money."

"I feel bad that it was Conan-kun who found the body," Takagi murmured.

"Takagi-kun." Miwako walked over to the pair of men, looking slightly concerned. "Have you seen Tamaki at all?"