My Best Friend Looks Like a First Grader

A Memoir by Hattori Heiji

Konichiwa! My name is Hattori Heiji, the Detective of the West. I live in Osaka, Japan, where I solve cases for the Police Department while attendin' high school. I'm pretty famous in my own right, lemme tell ya, but there's another detective you all've probably heard more about: my opposite, Kudou Shinichi, Detective of the East. If you're not Agasa-hakase, Miyano Shiho-slash-Sherry-slash-Haibara Ai (don't ask), Kudou Yusaku or Kudou Yukiko, or Mouri Ran (but she's a special case), I'd bet that you haven't heard about Kudou Shinichi in a while, ne? Not been in the news recently, has he?

Heh, heh. Funny story about that, actually.

Okay, take this as it comes, 'cause it's not gonna seem likely at first, but I swear on my omamori that it's all true. A few months back, Kudou stumbled on an illegal transaction between a local official and a man dressed in black. The man in black's partner caught Kudou—who ain't much of a fighter, not like me or Kazuha or Ran-neechan—and force-fed him some bizarre poison which, instead of killing him—of all things— de-aged him.

That's right, seventeen-year-old Kudou Shinichi now looks like a first grader.

To hide from the men in black, who'd come finish the job if they knew Kudou's still alive, he now calls himself "Edogawa Conan" and lives with his girlfriend Mouri Ran, who has no idea where Shinichi really is, while subtly helpin' Ran's dad "Sleeping Kogoro" solve murder cases. Or rather, Kudou's own version of "helpin'," which involves knocking Mouri Kogoro out with his stun-gun wrist watch and then explaining his deductions using his voice-changer bowtie to sound like Mouri.

If I'm lyin' to ya I swear I'll eat my hat. And I really like my hat.

I didn't find out about any of this—didn't even meet Kudou/Edogawa—until about a month after Kudou got shrunk, 'cause while I was visiting Tokyo he found a way to get briefly big again—though it wasn't as if I needed his help on the case or anything.

After all, I'm the Detective of the West! I'm just as good as him!

Alright, so I had been accusing the wrong person of murdering that diplomat guy. I was having an off-day. God, it really ticked me off that Kudou Shinichi showed up just in time to show me up, when I'd gone to Tokyo just to see which of us was better.

But anyway, movin' on, the next time I ran into Kudou, just a few weeks later, he was still Conan, but now that I'd met the 'real' Shinichi the kid's behavior was strikin' me as funnily familiar. It was when he tried to knock me out (aw, hell no) and use his voice-changer bowtie to 'solve' the case that I figured out who Conan must be. Of course he protested, and of course I was polite about it ("Oi, Ran-neechan, guess what? I've got something to tell you about Conan—"), but eventually he confessed everythin' to me.

So the next time we met we solved the seeming murder-suicide case that was really a suicide and murder intertwined. It's a long story. But a great one! Kudou and I made a pretty great detective team. Ask me about it some other time, though; I got a point to get to.

So we finally cornered the murderer in her would-be father-in-law's bedroom, where she tried to kill herself as well, but Kudou had found the gasoline she'd prepared to do the job. When she realized that the canister was filled instead with water, she broke down. I hated watchin' her sob on the floor, clutchin' her silver lighter like that, sobbing about her lost lover—So did Kudou, I could tell. He began to back away from the woman, towards where the unconscious Mouri-han was sitting.

"Y'know, Kudou," I said quietly. "Maybe we shoulda let her die after all…"

What Kudou said to me then, I'll never forget.

"Don't be dumb," he snapped, throwing his head back ridiculously far to look up at me. "A detective who corners a criminal with logic, but then lets them commit suicide is no different from a murderer."

Harsh words, from a three-foot-nothin' first grader. I laughed it off at the time ("Only the 'perfect' you could say such a thing!") and the woman was carted off to jail. I wasn't exactly hugely friendly with Kudou yet, y'know. That was only my third case with him, an' the first where we had actually worked together. I mostly was just curious as hell about this guy. I mean, he was smack in the middle of the biggest case I'd ever seen, and on top of it all he was almost as smart as me. And he was shrunk. I mean, what the hell, right? That sorta crap should only happen in some sorta weird sci-fi movie, or a lame anime, not real life.

After that case, my flight back to Osaka had gotten in late, and I was tired. Kazuha was supposed to meet me at the airport, but she 'forgot.' By 'forgot,' I mean she was gettin' back at me for laughin' at her the day before, when she came into the locker rooms at my Kendo dojo to ask what I thought of her new hairdo. But really, Kazuha shouldn't wear her hair any other way but in a ponytail. She told me to be honest, and I said she looked like a drowned cat with her hair down an' flowing all around her shoulders. As her friend, I couldn't let her go walkin' around like that. Especially because a few of the guys on the team seemed to think she looked good.

Whatever. Anyway, dreams. I get funny dreams sometimes. Like one night when I was mebbe nine, I dreamed about takoyaki, and the next day my mom made takoyaki for dinner.

I'm getting on with my story now before y'all think I'm a nut or pullin' your leg or something (which I'm not!).

So I got home and fell right asleep in my clothes, and I kept hearing in my head Kudo's little-kid voice, saying over and over again, "A detective who corners a criminal with logic, but then lets them commit suicide is no different from a murderer."

That sort of situation had never happened to me before. But what if it did? What if Kudou hadn't been there? Would I have let that lady die?

I want to say of course not. Now, the answer'd be "of course not."

But still, at that time I couldn't get Kudou's voice out of my head. And then (in the dream) there he was, big again, normal Kudou Shinichi. We were chasin' a criminal together, a criminal whose face I couldn't see, but I had that nagging feeling like I knew the guy. The criminal was then joined by another; when this second guy came into the dream, I unconsciously clutched at my chest to where my omamori—the good luck charm Kazuha mademe— always hangs—and realized with a sickenin' little jolt that for some reason it was missin'.

Kudou and I, we were just about to catch up to them both when the two criminals suddenly split up. Kudou followed the newcomer, and I kept on the guy I recognized.

Then, bang—as I was just about to capture him, the criminal whirls on me in a flash of fire, brandishing a knife. Or a gun. Or a really pointy chopstick—hell, I couldn't tell, but suddenly I was yelling and everythin' around me was burnin'.

More yelling—I looked up—and there was Shinichi, standing beyond the flames, his criminal crouched at his feet. But he didn't have that Kudou-smirk on. His face was shocked, twisted in pain, and his hands were clutchin' his chest—and then I saw it.

Knife hilt sticking from Kudou's chest. His hands shakin' like hell. His face pale, disbelieving. Blood drenching his white shirt. Knife in Kudou's chest.

That's around the time I woke up, fell out of bed, and cursed so loudly that Kazuha, who'd snuck in to put itchin' powder in my baseball hat (that girl seriously holds a grudge), screeched and backed up against the door.

"What the hell are you doing?" we both screamed. Well, I yelled it. Only girls scream. Do not let Kazuha tell the story otherwise.

But I was so mad that night that I shouted my head off at her (together we probably woke the whole island up), then got so tired that I fell fast asleep right on the floor and didn't dream.

Well, a few weeks passed. I solved a few cases. I got revenge on Kazuha (dye in her shampoo—so even with her hair down I don't have to worry), was revenged upon by Kazuha (replaced my favorite katana with a cheap fake), went to the hospital because the fake katana shattered in Kendo practice just as I was parryin' a head blow from Okita (concussions are a bitch), was reassured that, as the hospital's "best customer" the doctors were tryin' very hard to get me my own personal room (Kazuha found this extremely amusin'), went out to the movies with Kazuha (and if you think I paid, you're dumber than Mouri-han). All in all, not all that exciting of a three weeks.

But this dream, it didn't stop comin'. All the rest of it; the chasin' two criminals and the fire—that faded away. The part that kept wakin' me in the middle of the night was the bang of my criminal pulling out a weapon—and then Kudou being the one who died.

I tell ya, I'm a pretty tough guy, but every time I saw Kudou's face like that, in this horrible expression like 'this can't be happening,' I woke up shaking. I mean, sure I wasn't overly fond of the guy then, but there was somethin' about him, you know? He was the first guy I ever met who was really on my level. An' I sort of felt that he needed me, in a way. Not that he'd ever admit it, stubborn bastard. But it's gotta be rough, livin' like that. I guess the thought of him dyin' like that just really galled me.

Anyway, I tried to tell myself that it was just a dream, but Kazuha's a bad influence on me. She's more superstitious than a witch-doctor. I didn't tell her about the dreams 'cause she'd freak out and make me do something to prevent Kudou's murder. Tch.

Not that her foolishness has rubbed off on me or anything. It's just that one day, about two weeks after this dream started comin', I was walkin' in town with Kazuha and saw that some high-schooler from Tokyo (who looked unbelievably like Kudou, by the way) had spilled ketchup on his white shirt—right where his heart'd be—and I decided enough was enough. I could not keep leaping at every Shinichi look-alike with ketchup stains on his shirt, shoutin' "Don't die, Kudou!"

Bad enough that the poor guy jumped about a meter backwards, landed in a window display full of fish, and screamed like a girl. Even worse that his girlfriend started screaming at me and trying to bludgeon me with a mop. Not to mention that Kazuha, once again, found this whole mess so unbearably funny that she couldn't do nuthin' but watch and laugh.

No damage to my pride if I called Kudou to Osaka, just to hang out for a bit, is there? Or at least, a negligible amount of damage, considering the debacle with the Tokyo couple.

So I walked away from that fish-littered street corner with a mission—Or at least, I tried damn hard to walk away. Scratch that, I tried damn hard to run away, seein' as that girl was still beatin' every exposed inch of my skin with her mop, the boy who looked like Kudou was cursin' a blue streak at me and the vendor and at fish in general, and the vendor was threatenin' to call my parents and the police. I thought that was funny until I remembered that having your parents and the police be the same person isn't really funny at all. And Kazuha's still laughin' so hard I finally had to toss her over my shoulder and carry her to my motorbike. That only made her complain about how ungentlemanly I am all the way home—I finally got her to shut up by sayin' somethin' about how she can't get a boyfriend 'cause she's too busy taggin' along after me all day.

She didn't open her mouth again the whole ride home, I'm proud to say. Though it didn't much help my mood that evening. In fact, becausa her, I sorta felt even more embarrassed than I had because of that stupid ketchup-dripping Tokyo kid. Don'cha hate that naggin' feeling, like you're missin' something really important? Like, if you just sat down and thought about it really long and hard and clear-headedly, it'd be totally obvious?

Well, unfortunately, outside of murder cases, my attention span's about as good as the next teenage boy's. Back to the story!

Actually, how 'bout a snack break, and then back to the story. 'Till later!

…

…