Detective Conan
Best Laid Plans
by
Sgamer82

It should've been just another day, Conan thought. The plan had been for everyone to get together for baseball. Then Genta told everyone he couldn't find his
mitt. That had necessitated a quick detour to Kojima Liquor and the apartment right above it. Genta explained he was absolutely positive he'd left it in his room.

That's when the trouble began. Genta's bedroom was visible only in scattered patches. Everything else consisted of dirty laundry, scattered toys, manga volumes and magazines, and assorted snack wrappers.

"Why is your room such a mess?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"Well," Genta began. "My mom was scolding me for not cleaning my room like I was supposed to. I got mad and said I liked it that way. That's usually the point I get bopped on the head or something, but then my mom said 'fine, live like a pig, then'. It's been great until now."

"Because this is your first time having to actually locate anything?" Haibara asked.

"Yeah!" Genta answered, oblivious to the irony.

Normally, Conan respected Genta's mother. The simple ability to manage a boy as energetic as Genta Kojima spoke volumes. He could even see her logic here, having been subjected to the "learn your lessons the hard way" school of parenting himself when he'd been a boy originally. He only wished events hadn't transpired in the way they had, because he knew exactly where this had to go. A glance at her face told Conan that Haibara had come to the same unhappy conclusion.

"There's only one thing to do," Ayumi declared, arms folded across her chest.

Here it comes, Conan thought.

"We're going to have to clean Genta's room to find the mitt!"

A chorus of groans from all three boys rang out. Unfortunately, because it had been Ayumi who said it, there was no getting out of it. Genta and Mitsuhiko were putty in her oblivious hands, and Haibara's attempts to back out fell to Ayumi's insistence that this should be a team effort. That left Conan, who didn't have it in him to disappoint Ayumi no matter how much he'd rather play ball, glove or no glove. Or do almost anything else

So commenced the cleaning of Genta Kojima's bedroom, whether he liked it or not. The five of them got trash bags and got to work. Haibara managed to get out of the bulk of the cleaning by making her job keeping everyone else on task, such as by making sure none of the kids got caught up looking at one of the scattered manga or playing with one of Genta's toys.

Overall, the chore went by mostly without incident, barring Haibara suddenly escorting a dazed and red-faced Ayumi out of the room. Inspecting where she had been cleaning, the boys found a pile of dirty laundry from which Ayumi must have picked up a pair of Genta's underpants, judging by their presence by themselves next to the pile. That had sent a red-faced Genta rushing out of the room to beg forgiveness. As a result, Conan and Mitsuhiko were left alone for the next ten minutes to clean in unspoken agreement that they were not getting mixed up in that. The sound of Haibara's scolding Genta confirmed the wisdom of this decision.

Many hours later, the task was done. Genta's room wasn't exactly spotless, a few but if clutter were still scattered around, but Conan estimated you could see about 95% of the carpet now. Genta's mom called everyone to lunch and, as they left, Conan noticed Haibara hang back a moment, then from her handbag she extracted a black baseball glove and threw it on a random spot on the floor.

"How long have you had that?" Conan asked her.

"From about the time I had Kojima-kun apologizing to Yoshida-san."

"And you didn't mention having it before now why?"

"You did see this room when we walked in?"

"Point taken," Conan conceded.

"Besides, Kojima-kun's mother asked me not to when she gave it to me." Haibara grinned at Conan's stunned face. "She said she trusted my judgment to decide when he had cleaned enough to find it."

With that, she left the room to eat and left Conan to ponder that Genta had just been double teamed by the two females in his life he respected and feared above all others.

Poor Genta never had a chance…