Chapter Text
Akemi awakens to bright lights and the gnawing sensation that something is terribly wrong. The stabbing pain of a bullet through her lungs giving way to numbness; her blood, wet and sticky, pooling beneath her; warmth, seeping out of her and fading with her consciousness—all of that had been real. She is certain she died then, a rueful smile on her face as she cursed her own powerlessness.
Yet here she is, sitting in an armchair in an unfamiliar room—only around 4.5 tatami mats, bare aside from the one modest chair she currently occupies, a small coffee table, and the two flatscreens mounted on the white wall before her. She’s still wearing the hotel uniform she used to complete her last deal, though there’s a conspicuous lack of a fatal wound.
She doesn’t know what to make of it. If she really is dead, then this all seems a bit too mundane for Heaven. Or maybe she’s in Hell, given her former associations. But that doesn’t feel quite right either.
The other possibility—that she’s alive—scares her more. If Gin and Vodka had left her to die, and that little detective, Kudou Shinichi, managed to save her, then she should have awoken in a hospital, or perhaps a jail cell.
Unless Gin had decided to return to confirm her death, taking her and that boy away—
She quashes that particular thought before it can fully take root, willing herself to calm down.
No, to Gin, she is a mere fly. Whether she lives or dies is of little consequence to him, though he’s probably ecstatic about getting one over her Dai-kun. Besides, she reasons, Gin is the type to prefer a bullet between the eyes over any drawn out psychological play.
Which brings her back to a grand total of zero clues.
A quick search through the room confirms that it’s just as empty as it looks. To the best of her ability, she can find no listening devices or hidden cameras.
On the coffee table, there’s a small remote, presumably for the TV. Akemi thumbs the power button—weirdly the only one on the otherwise flat device—tempted to see if the screens actually work, but decides she’d rather not run the risk of attracting attention with the sound. She sets it aside, turning her attention towards the door leading out of the room.
As she suspects, it isn’t locked. After taking a brief moment to steel her nerves, she steps out into a short hallway…
And blinks.
Her room appears to be on one end of the hallway. Along the walls on both sides are doors identical to hers, some with name cards, some unlabelled. Across from her room, at the other end of the hall, is another labelled door.
There is only one conclusion she can draw from this layout, and she isn’t really liking it. Could she be the victim of some sort of strange social experiment? A participant in a gruesome battle royalesque game? She stifles a soft snicker as she imagines Shiho’s exasperation at her runaway imagination.
“Neechan, you’ve got to learn to separate science from science fiction.”
The thought of her younger sister brings her back to reality, and she sets out to investigate the other rooms—poking around the ones that are open, leaning her ear against the doors of ones that are locked. All she learns is that every room (that she’s seen at least) has the same setup, only differing in the number of mounted screens. The locked rooms all have labeled name cards, and when she listens carefully at their doors, she can hear movements within, accompanied by the static sounds of the TV playing. Sometimes she makes out the sound of weeping, soft and regretful, and her questions only increase.
Someone has whisked them all away and locked them up in an inescapable place, providing only rooms and TVs to watch. What is the purpose? Social experiment returns as a suspect, but its stay is short, chased away by stubborn common sense.
She finds, or rather, walks right into, the first illuminating piece of the puzzle with the next door. It’s the first one that has a name card but isn’t locked, and in her excitement at feeling the knob twist in her hand, Akemi pushes the door open with a bit more noise than intended.
“For the last time, Morofushi, haven’t I told you to knock?” a man’s voice, irritated but lacking any real bite, snaps. He’s reclined in an armchair—a familiar sight to Akemi by now—only his headful of messy black hair visible over the backrest.
“Well?” he prompts, his attention focused on the image of a woman with a bob cut moving across his screen. She’s wearing the uniform of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, looking unamused as she chastises her male colleague. A police drama, maybe? “Since you’re here, where’s the next installment of the Zero fucked up show?”
The silence grows as Akemi scrambles to find something to say, and the man finally turns towards her, leaning up and over his chair. His eyebrows raise slightly over his sunglasses as he takes her in.
“Huh? You’re not Morofushi.”
“No, I’m Miyano,” she answers automatically, and wants to run out the door as soon as the words leave her mouth.
A smirk plays across the man’s face. “And I’m Matsuda.”
Akemi tries her best to banish her blush.
Matsuda sinks back into his chair, interest apparently lost. “Miyano, huh? You new here or something?” he asks lazily.
“Yes, so I’d appreciate it if you could—”
“No thanks,” he cuts her off, tensing as some event on-screen draws his attention.
Another officer, curly-haired and sporting a rather obnoxious smile, has approached the female cop and is doing a rather poor job of chatting her up. Even with Matsuda’s back facing her, Akemi feels a keen heat directed towards the screen, as if he’s trying to burn off this new officer’s face with his glare.
“I’m busy,” he says bluntly. “Go ask Morofushi to explain.”
“Wha—”
“Last door at the end of the hall. Good luck and goodbye.”
Akemi is left standing there like a clam, mouth opening and closing. The words to explain her shock and offense are nowhere to be found, and resignedly, she pulls the door shut behind her quietly. Were she a more vindictive person, like her sister, she might have slammed it as loudly as she could on the way out.
But she isn’t like her sister, isn’t as strong, or as smart, or as capable. That’s why she’s in this mess in the first place.
True to Matsuda’s word, the room is at the opposite end of the hall, across from hers. Morofushi Hiromitsu, the name card reads.
This time, Akemi has the tact to knock first. Feet shuffle inside the room with a nearly inaudible softness—like an Organization operative, the darker part of her mind whispers—before the door creaks open and a pair of inquisitive eyes greets her.
“Yes?” the man asks, patient and warm, where Matsuda had been blunt and snappy. He looks no older than Akemi herself, short brown bangs hanging unevenly across his forehead and a hint of stubble on his chin. Akemi has the vaguest sense that he looks familiar, though she can’t place where she’s seen him before.
“Um, I was told that you could explain what’s going on? I just woke up and don’t recognize where I am.”
“Ah, you must be new here.” The man named Morofushi smiles sympathetically. “Why don’t you come in, er—”
“Akemi,” she supplies, realizing she hasn’t introduced herself yet. “Miyano Akemi. It’s nice to meet you, Morofushi-san.”
At the sound of her name, he freezes, recognition dawning on his face.
“Miyano Akemi…as in Rye’s girlfriend? And Sherry’s sister?”
Her blood chills, and she grows the distance between them in an instant.
Akemi’s mind races through potential courses of action, none of them promising. Fighting is such a ludicrous idea that she feels silly for even entertaining it, however brief. He’ll snap her neck before she gets a single punch in. Running is just as useless, considering there’s nowhere to escape to. She doesn’t fancy locking herself in her room and waiting for him to break down her door either.
Flustered by her reaction—or maybe he’s realized the implications of what he blurted out—Morofushi holds up a hand.
“Wait, it’s not like that. It’s me, Hiro!” When Akemi shows no signs of recognition, he continues. “We met at the Miyano clinic when we were kids. You used to help treat Zero, er, Rei, a lot, remember? Though we’ve only met once or twice…”
Rei. The name dredges up half-buried memories of a boy with dark skin and blond hair who wore a scowl as easily as he did the scratches and bruises on his body. When she concentrates further, fingers fumbling in the dusty corners of her consciousness, she thinks she can recall another boy by his side, fussing over his injuries.
“You’re Rei-kun’s friend? That Hiro-kun?” Though she’s still guarded, some of the tension evaporates from her stance.
Morofushi—or rather, Hiromitsu—seems relieved by the action. “Yep.”
“But why are you with the Organization?”
“It’s a long story,” he says, looking away uncomfortably. “The short of it is that I’m the same as Rye.”
The same as Dai? Then he must be a spy too.
“Why don’t we discuss this inside?” Hiromitsu repeats his offer from earlier. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”
“Alright.”
She’s only halfway through the door when she comes face to face with a blond haired man, and then she’s doing a double take. She has only met the man in person once, or so she’d thought, but now she has another name for the Organization’s top investigator and her Dai-kun’s self-proclaimed rival.
“Rei-kun is Bourbon?!”
Hiromitsu bites back a laugh. “He plays a very convincing role, doesn’t he?” He gestures to the chair, prompting Akemi to sit, while he plops down on the coffee table. “We were PSB agents infiltrating the Org. His codename, as you’ve just said, is Bourbon. Mine was Scotch.”
Akemi doesn’t miss his use of the past tense.
“Was? Then you’re…I’m…”
“Dead,” Hiromitsu confirms.
The revelation doesn’t crush Akemi like it’s supposed to, but then again, her suspicions had already been brewing for a while now. You don’t just walk off a gunshot wound like that, after all.
“Then, is this place the afterlife?” She’s never heard of postmortem streaming services before.
“More like a stopover to it.” His gaze drifts back to the screen, expression growing fond and just a little pained. “This is a place where you watch over those you’ve left behind.”
***
In the silence of her own room, Akemi mulls over her conversation with Hiromitsu. It’s a lot to take in, and she’s still trying to process the new information, as well as how she should feel about it.
No one seems to know the origins of this place. What they do know, they either concluded on their own from being here long enough, or through word of mouth from earlier occupants. The responsibility of explaining things to newcomers has inevitably fallen on Hiromitsu, who, to Akemi’s disbelief, has already been here for four years.
“Really, Matsuda should be sharing half the work. He’s been here almost as long. But he’s always too busy watching his dear Satou. Can you believe it? He spends years brooding over the death of his best friend, and when he finally meets him again, he tells him to go on ahead. All because he fell for a girl! Imagine Hagiwara’s shock!”
Here Hiromitsu’s voice takes on an exasperated tone, in what Akemi assumes is an imitation of Hagiwara’s voice. “Seriously, Jinpei-chan! I’m supposed to be the ladies man, but you’re going to stand me up?”
Akemi chuckles, her sympathies going out to the jilted Hagiwara. She can definitely see Matsuda acting like that, even with his friends.
The common thread among them is regret—a burning, acute regret that chains them down even after death. Whether it was from goals they had yet to achieve, unresolved issues, or distraught loved ones, their deaths had not been peaceful. These lingering attachments now bound them to this plane, an entrapment of their own making.
“You must have felt it too, right? As you were dying, the sense that you couldn’t leave them no matter what. That you had to make sure they were going to be okay.”
For Hiromitsu, that person is his childhood friend, Furuya Rei.
Rei, who, after Scotch’s death and Rye’s cover being blown, now toes an incredibly thin line. Hiromitsu had done his best to be vague, but from what Akemi gathered, he had been outed as a PSB spy and had no choice but to commit suicide.
There is more to the story, but Akemi doesn’t begrudge his silence on the matter. It’s never easy to talk about your own death, especially if you were part of the Organization. Akemi herself would never have thought that she had it in her to rob a bank until she’d pulled it off. But she’d do it a hundred times over if it meant she could save Shiho.
Yet that conviction means nothing now. She is six feet under and Shiho is all alone.
“This is a place where you watch over those you’ve left behind.”
Akemi understands the concept well enough. Observe your loved ones, ensure that they’ve come to terms with your death, and move on.
But what if you can never move on?
She thinks of Hiromitsu, who is still fretting over his best friend even after four years. Will Shiho and Rei ever truly be safe while they’re still in the clutches of the Organization?
Discomfort shoots through her hand and she loosens her grip on the remote, eyeing it with a frown. Whatever happens, she promises to herself, she will see it all the way through. Whether that means leaving this place assured of Shiho’s safety, or with her sister by her side, she has yet to know.
Akemi finally presses the power button, heart aching as she takes in the sight of her two most precious people.
Shiho, Dai-kun...I’ll always be with you.
***
Fate, Hiromitsu decides, is one strange bastard. And a hundred percent a raging asshole, if he’s to consider how his parents met their end, and the flaming trainwreck that was his and Rei’s infiltration into the Organization. He doesn’t usually put much stock in fate, because who would want to accept that their demise was simply meant to be?
Yet by some inexplicable happenstance, he’s crossed paths with not only the late Hagiwara, Date, and Matsuda (he isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or cry at the fact that their whole squad has been here minus one) but also Miyano Akemi.
Akemi, as she has insisted he call her, is a gentle girl—friendly, effusive, the kind of person whose smile lights up the room. Hiromitsu can see why the normally unsociable Rei opened up to her, and how Akai, stony and aloof, fell for her.
It’s a shame, really. She had been just a child when she was swept up into the Organization’s dark wings, growing up under its shadow by no real choice of her own. By the time she was old enough to yearn for freedom, it was already too late—her thread had been irrevocably entangled with the black of the Organization.
Until it’s cut, and she ends up here.
With their shared history as former members of the Organization and a past that runs deeper than either had initially realized, they’re quickly on track to becoming good friends. Soon, they’re trading stories and even screens, throwing out comments as if they’re watching one long movie.
“What a loss!” Akemi laments when she finds out Akai has cut his hair short following his return to his true identity. “He had such beautiful hair.”
“A terrible case of heartbreak,” Hiromitsu teases, earning him a light punch from Akemi.
“Jeez, Hiro-kun! Don’t joke about that. He’s probably just laying low from the Org.”
“I’m only half joking. Rye’s a hard one to read, but he always seemed happier after being around you. I think he really did love you.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Akemi warns him, but she’s glowing for the rest of the day.
Hiromitsu isn’t sure what prompted him to speak on Akai’s behalf, but he’s felt a sense of gratitude towards the FBI agent ever since he offered his help all those years ago. The fact that the incident led to such a massive misunderstanding is only part of the reason why he’s now so invested in Akai’s wellbeing.
Of course, Hiromitsu can’t reveal that particular fact to Akemi just yet, as he’s pretty sure that saying, Hey, so my best friend thinks your boyfriend killed me and has sworn eternal vengeance on him won’t go down so well with her. Akemi is nice, but everyone has their triggers. He isn’t about to go tripping over hers like a drunken rhinoceros.
Akemi, for her part, seems to still hold fond feelings for Rei, laughing with Hiromitsu as he recounts a tale of one of his friend’s more absurd covers, or worrying excessively whenever her childhood friend gets on the wrong side of Gin’s hair trigger temper.
“Rei-kun is still as headstrong as ever, I see.”
“Of course he is. He’s just gotten better at hiding it.”
Despite their comments, neither of them complains when Rei sends a veiled insult Gin’s way. They’re both secretly wishing they’d been bold enough to do it when they had the chance.
Another time, Hiromitsu is rushing into Akemi’s room short of breath, a haunted look on his face.
“Akemi...holy shit. In the time I haven’t seen him, my brother grew an insane mustache!”
He stumbles back to his room with her in tow, and they spend the afternoon tearing apart the aforementioned mustache.
“Oh my god! Is he trying to be Zhuge Liang?”
“That Three Kingdoms fanatic, he’s finally done it.” Hiromitsu shakes his head, feigning disgust. “Why, nii-san, just why…”
Things hadn’t always been so lighthearted between them, though. In the beginning, with Shiho still a part of the Organization, Akemi was a mass of anxiety and worry.
Hiromitsu still remembers how she nearly collapsed in his arms one day, tears in her eyes, as she choked out the news that Shiho would soon be executed. Without a second thought, he’d accompanied her to her room, hoping to god this wouldn't end with him giving Akemi his condolences. He’d seen enough tears he couldn’t wipe away to last for several lifetimes.
Miyano Shiho was not someone Hiromitsu knew well. As Sherry, she boasted a genius and a cold disregard for life that made her the ideal Organization scientist. Bourbon had said as much from his few encounters with her.
But Hiromitsu knows how such things can be faked, how one can learn to wear cruelty as seamlessly—but never without burden—as the finishing article of a carefully crafted cover. He knows how deeply one has to bury a heart—beyond the casual reach of any observers, and even beyond one’s own groping hand—to survive in the black waters of the Organization.
Seeing her huddled form now, chained to a wall in her cramped, dirty cell, she looks every part the teenager that she is. Hiromitsu isn’t sure who is more pitiful—Shiho, who’s just learned about her older sister’s death and seeks the same end, or Akemi, who’s forced to watch her younger sister fall into despair with no way of helping.
His heart catches in his throat as Shiho lifts something small and round to her mouth, and beside him, Akemi stiffens.
“No...Shiho, stop!” Akemi gasps, confirming for Hiromitsu that the tiny pill she’s just swallowed is indeed poison.
They watch, petrified, as Shiho immediately doubles over, a low groan escaping her lips. Akemi’s grip on his arm tightens painfully, but all he can feel is the dread settling heavily in his stomach like Rei’s first abysmal attempt at ramen.
What happens next leaves them both speechless. Shiho’s body begins to steam, and then she disappears into her suddenly too large clothes. On the cold cell floor, in place of a teenage scientist, sits a shocked seven year old girl.
APTX 4869. A mysterious drug that Sherry was working on for the Organization, rumored to be able to kill without leaving a trace of its presence. Yet the first victim of it, high school detective Kudou Shinichi, disappeared without so much as a body left behind. In his place suddenly appeared the impossibly brilliant child, Edogawa Conan, whose sharp eyes never fail to see through to the heart of a case.
Who would have thought that the traceless poison would have the unintended side effect of reverting its victim to a child-like state?
Hiromitsu has heard about the child detective from Akemi. That still doesn’t make seeing the transformation with his own eyes any less disturbing or unbelievable.
Akemi looks more hopeful than she has all night as the now shrunken Shiho slips out of her handcuff and crawls through the garbage chute in the corner of the room. Out of the sealed room. Out of the Organization. Towards the dearly sought freedom that Akemi, in all her years of struggling, had never been able to grant her sister.
Hiromitsu stays the rest of the night and well into the morning, supporting Akemi as Shiho makes her treacherous journey through rain-soaked alleys and streets. He squeezes her hand reassuringly when Shiho collapses, tiny legs too tired to take her the remaining few meters to her destination; echoes Akemi’s relief when she ends up in the care of Agasa Hiroshi, who treats her wounds before even questioning who she is; and prays, when she takes on the identity of Haibara Ai, that against all odds, this final member of the Miyano family might live on.
Akemi wipes at her eyes, a small, grateful smile finally gracing her features. “Agasa Hiroshi…How could I ever repay that man?”
“The world would be a far darker place without people like him,” Hiromitsu agrees. Her mother, Elena, as well. Who knows how Rei would have ended up if the kind doctor hadn’t taken an interest in him?
It comes as no surprise to the two that the one Shiho seeks out is the other victim of APTX poisoning—Kudou Shinichi, now living under the alias of Edogawa Conan. Once she makes contact with him, however, Akemi’s worries resurface.
“Isn’t that boy a bit too reckless?” she wonders after the Detective Boys, plus one reluctant Haibara Ai, barge into yet another murder case. “He’s going to get Shiho killed!”
“Eh, you know how kids are. Searching for hidden treasure, defeating bad guys. All in a day’s work,” Hiromitsu comments absentmindedly, a similar scene playing out in his head.
“Hiromitsu, how did you end up like that? Were you hanging around that blond haired boy again?”
“They started it! They were calling Zero names, and when he ignored them, they hit him. I was just trying to help!”
“My goodness! That haafu is going to get you killed!”
“Don’t say that about Zero!”
As kids, he and Rei would get into all sorts of mishaps. So while he understands where Akemi is coming from, he can’t help but feel a swell of nostalgia when he sees this ragtag band of friends scrambling about.
“Normal kids don’t consistently walk in on drug deals and stumble across dead bodies like candy,” Akemi counters.
Hiromitsu has no argument for that. He’s just glad that Akemi’s feeling lively again.