dont think i shared this black org au bit with agasa and heiji yet, enjoy
Kudou Shinichi’s face stares at him the moment he turns into the street. It’s a little unnerving. A few days ago Heiji had barely known that this guy existed and now he had seen more pictures of him than he had of Kazuha.
The missing person’s flyer is sunfaded and weathered, barely hanging onto the lamppost at the corner of the street. Two pictures of Kudou Shinichi are printed on it side by side and below were the words: Have you seen me? One of them is a scan of an actual picture of Shinichi in his preschool uniform sans the hat. Next to it is a digitally edited image, the text below stating that he might look something like this today. It lists the date of his disappearance and asks to contact the local police or a private phone number with any leads. Heiji takes a picture of it. It’s been hanging for a while but not longer than a year. Someone had put this up recently.
He files it away for later and continues down the street. It’s a posh and quiet neighbourhood, with rows and rows of giant mansions in European styles. The house of Professor Agasa sticks out like a sore thumb.
It’s a modern build, oval in shape and two stories tall. It reminds Heiji more of the ambitious concept sketches of a new architect than a real house. Giant frosted windows all around the rounded ends and a weird looking overhang over the door. Through the fence there is a modest front yard and a funky looking yellow car in the driveway, equally as round as the house.
Heiji pauses before he tries the gate, glancing over to the neighbouring house. The faded plaque still reads ‘Kudou’. The gate and fence are overgrown with shrubbery, paint chipping off the metal. It sits there ominously looming over the street like the haunted house in a theme park. Another time, Heiji thinks to himself and goes for Agasa’s front door.
He rings the doorbell and almost immediately a muffled booms comes from behind the door making Heiji jump off the stoop and back onto the path. He stands there bracing himself and flinches when the door opens.
Professor Agasa looks just like in the pictures, the years barely touched him but something covered his entire front in soot. He coughs a little, rubbing dust from his eyes and smiling sheepishly. “I’m sorry about the noise I’ll keep it down.” He says before he even sees Heiji fully. He blinks. “Are you a new neighbor?” He asks and Heiji manages to shake off the shock.
“No. Hattori Heiji. I’m a detective. I’m looking into the Kudou family case?” Heiji tells him, pointing toward the Kudou house sitting next door and braces himself for the argument to come.
Agasa is full of surprises. His mouth falls open, eyes wide and glassy. “You’re investigating that old case?” He asks as if he can’t believe it, lip trembling.
“Yeah.” Heiji says slowly, a little unnerved. “I heard you were a friend of the family and was hoping to ask some questions.” Agasa rushes forward to grab his hand, looking at him with so much earnest gratitude it makes Heiji dizzy.
“You are! I can’t believe it. Come in, come in.” Agasa says, full of manic energy. He tucks at Heiji’s hand, leading him toward door before he rushes inside, leaving Heiji to follow. After his earlier experience trying to get people to talk about this with him, he can’t help but feel relieved at the ease of being invited. “Don’t mind the mess.” Agasa tells him, running around wildly as Heiji shuts the door. And it is a mess. Different kind of mess from Mouri’s agency. This was the sort of organized chaos of a creative mind at work.
The interior of the house was equally bizarre as the outside. In the middle was a round kitchen surrounded by a bar counter and stools, one half circle of the oval was covered in bookshelves and fancy rugs, making a reading nook of sorts. Open in the living space further in the back was a bed, next to the door was a tv and couches, behind them a table with a PC.
“Make yourself comfortable, I will be right there.” Agasa tells him and Heiji looks as he runs towards a back door with something metal and smoking in his hands.
Heiji walks around, taking in the space. His feet carry him to the desk and the computer on top of it or rather the stack of freshly printed paper on the corner. Kudou Shinichi looks at him from mint condition missing person flyers. The older version of his face is slightly different from the one he saw outside. He takes one of the papers from the stack as Agasa comes back inside, a little less soot covered.
Heiji lifts the paper. “You made these?” He asks and Agasa deflates a little.
“Yes. I update them every once in a while. Hasn’t worked yet but-“ He stops himself, gesturing over to his kitchen bar. “Please, sit. Are you hungry?”
Heiji opens his mouth to decline but his stomach takes the opportunity to growl. “Starving actually.” He admits and Agasa begins to fly around his kitchen.
Which is how Heiji finds himself peeling carrots while Agasa browns some meat in a pot after offering to help.
“How did you know the Kudous?” He asks, sleeves rolled up his arms. It’s good to keep his hands busy.
“I met them both separately actually. Yuusaku’s agent got into contact with me when he needed a consultant for one of his books. Yukiko and I met over a shared acquaintance. Quite the surprise when they told me they were getting married!” Agasa says brightly. He wipes his hands on the apron he had donned on and grabs a picture stuck to the fridge with a magnet. It’s an old picture, Agasa’s hair still had some brown. He is standing next to a young Yuusaku and Yukiko, all of them in fancy garb and Yukiko holds some sort of award into the camera with a huge smile. Agasa smiles at the picture before putting it aside. “I still can’t believe what happened.” He says and Heiji cuts the carrots, dumping them into the pot as he goes.
“Do you know anyone who would want to harm the family? Bitter exes or scorned colleagues?” Heiji asks and starts to stir before the meat can burn. The sizzling startles Agasa to take over for him again so he can finish up cutting the vegetables.
“No. Yuusaku could be a lot- both of them could be really. Big personalities, those two but they were charming. Made friends wherever they went.” Agasa tells him with an absentminded smile.
Heiji finishes up the carrots moving onto potatoes. “Any of those friends around a lot? Anyone who might have known something going on?”
Agasa strokes his chin. “Not really. Most of their friends were overseas. Though Yukiko had an actress friend who was over frequently.” He closes his eyes to think. “I always got their names mixed up. Vineyard. A mother and daughter. The mother died very young and her daughter got into the acting business after. Chris and Sharon.” Heiji wipes his hands and writes the names down quickly. “I ran into the daughter a few times, nice woman but never talked much with her.”
“Was she in Japan the week of the disappearance?” Heiji asks before resuming his peeling duties.
Agasa frowns. “I don’t think so but I’m not sure.”
Heiji just nods, something to look into more later. They focus on cooking for a while, setting up the box curry mix to simmer and the rice to cook and settle at the bar counter as they wait.
“You said you knew Yukiko through a mutual acquaintance. Who is that?” Heiji asks.
“Kounosuke Jii. He was the assistant of a magician that Yukiko learned under. I helped him build some of the contraptions used for the tricks.” Agasa says.
“Kuroba Toichi, right?” Heiji asks to confirm and Agasa nods. “An actress learning to be a magician, isn’t that a little odd?”
Agasa smiles. “Yukiko was always like that, always looking to learn new things. She had a bunch of odd skills. One year she decided to pick up an instrument and learned to play the piano in a few months. Could never keep her mind still. She and Shinichi were both like that.” He says and his voice breaks a little by the end, eyes brimming with tears. He stands before Heiji can offer comfort, walking over to one of his shelves to grab a picture frame. It’s of Agasa, a little more gray than in the previous image and looking very concerned with a baby on his arm that tries to grab his hair. Agasa’s smile is trembling as he looks at it. “If I just hadn’t gone on that stupid trip. Or let him come with me.” He says with deep rooted regret it makes Heiji’s throat swell with emotion.
“I heard you were at an exhibition or something?” He asks before Agasa’s eyes spill over. The man clears his throat, setting down the picture frame with care onto the counter.
“I was asked to show off a drone prototype at an aviation museum.” He explains bitterly, shaking his head. “Shinichi wanted to come along so bad. But it was a school night.”
“He was into planes?” Heiji asks, a little surprised. So far the kid had seemed very aloof to just about anything but Heiji reminds himself that Shinichi was a six year old at the time. No six year old could be serious all the time.
Agasa beams at the memory. “Few things could excite that boy but any mode of transportation he was interested in. As a baby Yukiko would drive around the block with him when he couldn’t sleep. Drove the neighbors mad with her speeding.” The rice cooker chimes and they break to eat. Heiji scarfs his portion down quickly and Agasa has a similar pace, both of them admitting to each other sheepishly that it was the first thing they had eaten all day, too focused on their work.
“The night you came back from the trip. Tell me what happened?” Heiji asks carefully and Agasa takes a deep breath.
“Kogoro-kun saw me drive up and waved me down. He asked if I knew where the Kudous were, which I didn’t. I got my spare key and let them in when they told me nobody had gotten a hold of them.” Agasa closes his eyes, hand on his forehead. “Yuusaku could get absorbed in his work. I went to the library to check if that was the case and-“ He chokes and Heiji lifts his hand.
“I read the report.” He says to spare Agasa the need to retell him.
Agasa swallows hard before he lifts his head. “That big house has so many hiding places. I searched through it all night, twice when the rest of the police got there. Turned my house upside down. I was hoping Shinichi would have been hiding somewhere.” He says, lips a trembling line and as Heiji watches him struggle to speak he prays to every god he knows that Agasa is innocent in all this. “But he wasn’t.” Agasa adds eventually.
“Shinichi spent a lot of time with you.” Heiji says to prompt further.
Agasa nods, taking a moment to blow his nose and dry his eyes. “He had his own key. He’d come over after school and do his homework over there.” He says and points toward the living room area where a couch table sits between the two couches. “He’d be done so fast and then demand to be entertained. He was-“ He stops himself. “He’s-“ The words fail him again. “So smart. Smarter than some adults I’ve met, even at that age.”
Heiji smiles faintly at the adoration in every line of Agasa’s being. The Kudous really had been the man’s family. Heiji can’t imagine the grief that must have followed that terrible night. “I heard Yukiko and Yuusaku had been fighting before the disappearance, do you know anything about that?”
Agasa sighed. “Yukiko was a passionate woman. She could get angry quickly but she would calm down just as fast. It didn’t always pair well with Yuusaku’s aloofness.” He says diplomatically. “They fought sometimes but it rarely lasted longer than a day.”
“Did Shinichi ever mention anything?”
“Couldn’t hide a thing from that boy. He would come over and tell me when they were fighting as if he was disappointed or annoyed with them.” Agasa laughs a little and Heiji cannot help but find the image of a child complaining to his neighbor about his irrational parents. Precocious indeed.
He thumbs through his notes, looking for more things to ask and lands back on his wild scribbles from the police station. “According to the airport, Shinichi and his mother flew to China a few days earlier. Any connections there that you know of?”
Agasa thinks for a bit before he shakes his head. “I wouldn’t rule it out but most of their friends were from America.”
Heiji just nods. He doubts they actually set foot outside of Japan, at least not through official means. He blows out a breath. Now with a full belly and sitting down for a prolonged time, the day catches up to him. His head full of images and snippets, thoughts spinning wildly. That’s why he usually doesn’t do cold cases. Before he’s even started he feels like he’s already too late.
“Tell me about that magician. When did Yukiko stop working with him?” He asks.
“Before she started getting big into acting. She was discovered by her agent while acting as Kuroba’s assistant and she quit some time after.” Agasa says.
“Were they on good terms?” Heiji asks.
Agasa nods. “She mentioned him occasionally. They talked over the phone from time to time. Jii never mentioned him being bitter or anything about her leaving.”
Heiji nods, mind going faster than his pen. His notes of today were a mess comparable to Agasa’s house. Organized chaos. He just hoped he could find his way around tomorrow. “What’s Kuroba up to now? Do you know?” He says, halfway itching to look the man up on his phone but settles for writing himself a note about it in between his mad scribbles.
“Ah, he died several years ago.” Agasa says and Heiji pauses in his writing to look at him. He’s a little sad but not as devastated as he is when talking about the Kudous. They weren’t as close it seems. “A prop malfunctioned- not one of mine.” Agasa adds hastily and Heiji bites his tongue. It wouldn’t have been his next question but it had definitely occurred to him.
“Was that before or after the disappearance?”
“A few years after. I went to the funeral with Jii.” Agasa tells him and Heiji nods again, pinching the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. Only realizing now how much they burn.
“Right, okay.” He says trying to think of more to say but he can feel that it’s enough for today. “I should go but this was a huge help. Can I come back if I have more questions?” He asks, helping Agasa clean away the dishes into a concerning contraption of a dishwasher.
“Please, if I can help in anyway let me know. Where are you staying? I can drive you. It’s too late to be on the subway.” Agasa offers eagerly and with a look at the time Heiji doesn’t mind taking him up on it.
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