Yoko Okino's apartment lacked distinctly feminine touches. From the decor to the furnishings, it resembled a standard, sleek high-end unit of the era—functional, impersonal, and revealing little about its occupant.
The body had been removed from the living room, leaving behind only a stark white outline and a congealing pool of blood, its edges darkening to a rusty black. To preserve the scene, the room's slightly cluttered state had been left untouched.
"But it's excessively warm in here," Inspector Megure remarked, tugging at his collar. Despite being inside for mere minutes, a fine sheen of sweat was already visible beneath the brim of his hat. "Do you normally keep your home at this temperature?"
Yoko Okino shook her head, her expression puzzled. "No, never. And I'm certain I turned the climate control off when I left today."
"Curious. The victim is unlikely to have adjusted the thermostat himself..."
"Inspector, here are the initial scene photographs."
An officer handed a set of freshly printed photos to Inspector Megure. He glanced through them quickly before turning. "Haruki, would you care to see these?"
"Of course."
Haruki accepted the photographs. Kogoro Mouri leaned in as well, stroking his chin in an exaggerated display of deep thought.
Conan, meanwhile, was already conducting his own covert survey of the living room, seeking any detail the police might have missed. He had cataloged most of the visible evidence before they'd even arrived, granting him a head start in this unspoken contest.
This time, I have the advantage...
The thought was cut short as he knelt by the sofa, his gaze catching a glint in the crevice between the cushions. A woman's earring. Got it.
He rose quickly, ready to announce his discovery, when Haruki's calm voice cut through the room, directed at the recording officer.
"Excuse me. Was there a water stain documented here originally?"
"Yes, approximately in this position," the officer confirmed, crouching near the outline to point at a specific spot on the floor.
Haruki walked over, his eyes scrutinizing the area. His gaze lingered on a distinct, small indentation in the wooden flooring beside it. He gave a slight, confirming nod.
"And this stool beside the body's position—it hasn't been moved?"
"Correct. Only the victim was removed. Everything else remains in situ."
"I see. Then the manner of death could be suicide."
"Eh?"
The pronouncement hung in the stifling air, met first by stunned silence. Kogoro Mouri recovered first.
"Now, hold on. The victim died from a knife wound to the back. How could that possibly be suicide?" His tone wasn't confrontational, more a patient correction for a junior ally—after all, this was Eri's nephew, practically family.
"Allow me to outline my reasoning," Haruki said, his voice methodical. "Let's begin with the water stain near the body, evident in this photograph." He held up the image, showing a large, conspicuous damp patch on the floor. "Combined with the abnormally high ambient temperature in this room, if we consider what that stain might have been before it evaporated, a strong possibility is ice."
"Ice?!"
"Precisely. Now, observe this minor indentation in the floorboards, captured here." He displayed the next photo. "If we postulate this was made by the handle of a knife... The victim could have used this indentation, along with a block of ice, to fix the knife in place pre-mortem, with the blade pointing upright—"
A bolt of pure deduction flashed through Conan's mind, illuminating the entire, macabre mechanism in an instant.
But how did he piece it together so fast?!
Conan stared at Haruki, his own discovery momentarily forgotten, his mouth slightly agape.
"—And then we have the stool," Haruki continued, his logic assembling the scene with chilling clarity. "In this otherwise disordered space, it is placed with conspicuous neatness. The reason is simple: it was a necessary part of the apparatus. After setting the ice and the knife, the deceased would have stood upon this stool, and then thrown himself backward, with sufficient force, onto the upturned blade."
"He would not have died instantly from the impaling wound," Haruki continued, his voice clinical, completing the grim picture. "So, he retained enough strength to struggle and roll over, leaving him face down—deliberately crafting the illusion of a murder."
Silence followed his deduction. Apart from Conan, who had arrived at the same conclusion moments later, the others wore expressions of stunned disbelief. The theory seemed outlandish, yet the physical traces at the scene offered no clear rebuttal.
Finally, Ran voiced the central, lingering question. "But... why? Why go to such lengths to frame Yoko-san with his own death?"
"That, I don't know," Haruki replied softly. His strikingly refined features settled into a mild, habitual smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I tend to shoot the arrow first and find the target afterward. Solving a case is similar; once the method is clear, the motive can be traced in due time. Besides, I don't even know the deceased's name yet."
A weighted silence fell over the group.
After a moment, Yoko Okino spoke up, her voice barely a whisper. "His name... is Fujie Akimitsu."
"Yoko-san?!" Manager Yamagishi's face paled.
Inspector Megure's brow furrowed deeply. "You stated earlier you didn't know him."
Yoko Okino lowered her head, then confessed: Fujie Akimitsu was a boyfriend from her student days. She had recognized him the moment she saw the body.
Listening, Haruki had only one detached thought: As expected of an actress. Her initial performance was flawless.
"So," Kogoro Mouri boomed, constructing a narrative, "this Fujie, after Yoko-san rejected his plea for reconciliation, flew into a rage and chose to kill himself to frame her?"
Unexpectedly, Yoko Okino shook her head. "No. He never asked to reconcile. This was the first time I'd seen him in years."
"Ah? Then—"
"Hey, Uncle Mouri!" Conan interjected, holding up the earring. "I found something strange under the sofa."
The discovery of the earring, identified by Yoko as belonging to fellow idol Ikezawa Yuko, swiftly unraveled the tangled threads. Summoned to the scene, the arrogant Ikezawa confessed: she had stolen Yamagishi's spare key. Jealous of Yoko's success, she had been sneaking into the apartment to dig up compromising information. That day, Fujie had arrived, mistakenly embraced her from behind thinking she was Yoko, and was violently shoved away before she fled. Despondent and humiliated, he then enacted his desperate, tragic plan.
Then came Yamagishi's own confession, heavy with guilt. "The reason Fujie broke up with you back then, Yoko... was because I went to him. I told him to. Your career was just taking off. A discovered romance would have been devastating. I used the line, 'for Yoko's future.'"
Yoko could only stare, stunned.
"How could this be..." Ran murmured, her heart aching with the sheer, preventable tragedy of it—a cascade of lies, misunderstanding, and cruel coincidence.
Kogoro, however, snorted with cynical pragmatism. "Hmph, sounds noble. But if he was willing to leave for 'Yoko's future' back then, why seek reconciliation now, at the peak of her career? And choose such an extreme method? Whether it's a exposed relationship or a murder scandal, the result is the same: ruin for an idol."
"Dad!" Ran protested, feeling his view was too harsh, yet lost for a counter-argument.
Conan then turned, his gaze seeking a different perspective. "Haruki, what do you think?"
"Me?"
Haruki, who had been quietly sketching on a notepad, looked up, seemingly pulled from his thoughts. He offered that familiar, mild smile. "Personally, I don't see the need to either condemn or praise the deceased."
His gaze was distant, assessing the human wreckage before him as one might a broken mechanism.
"Likewise," he added, his voice low and final, "I don't seek to find aesthetics in death."
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