They arrived at the door of the adjacent room, and Mouri Kogoro stepped forward to press the doorbell.
After waiting for a long time, there was no response from inside; it seemed no one was home.
Astra Yao curiously peered through the peephole on the door but couldn't see anything clearly. She then moved to the nearby window, straining to look inside.
"It... seems empty?" Astra Yao said, a little uncertainly. "It looks like there's not much furniture, not like someone lives here permanently."
Conan also stood on tiptoe to look through the window glass.
The window was a bit dirty, but he could vaguely see that it was indeed very empty inside.
Suddenly, his gaze was drawn to a mark on the windowpane.
It seemed someone had written a few words in the dust with their finger and then wiped them away.
Four words could be faintly discerned.
[ Takagi Miwa ]
The handwriting was somewhat scrawled, but Conan found it remarkably familiar.
He often saw Officer Takagi taking notes and was very familiar with his handwriting.
Conan immediately took out his phone, walked to the side, and directly called Officer Takagi.
"Moshi moshi, is this Officer Takagi? I'm Conan... I wanted to ask, did you rent a room at Shimamura Apartments, Room 666[1]?"
"Oh, so it was for a surveillance mission, you specifically rented a room in the building opposite the suspect... I saw 'Takagi Miwa' written on the window... Ah, those words were something you wrote out of boredom during your mission? Uh-huh, I'll keep it a secret."
"It's nothing, thank you, Officer Takagi!"
After hanging up the phone, Conan returned with a twitching mouth.
Officer Takagi, that idiot... he must have originally written 'Takagi Miwako,' right?
He actually fantasized about Officer Sato's surname becoming his own; those words were probably written while fantasizing about marrying Officer Sato, weren't they?
He's truly quite a dark horse... Conan turned back and explained to everyone, concealing what Officer Takagi had written, only saying that he learned from Officer Takagi that this room was a temporary safe house rented by the police to monitor a suspect in the opposite building.
This ruled out the possibility of the next-door neighbor being the culprit.
With the only clue gone, Mouri Kogoro was also a bit stumped.
He finally decided to use the most direct method. "Since that's the case, we'll just wait here tonight! We'll play cat and mouse! I refuse to believe we can't catch that prankster!"
...As night deepened, the city lights outside the window gradually thinned.
Astra Yao, having an important rehearsal tomorrow, left early.
Only Mouri Kogoro, Conan, and Mizunashi Rena remained in the apartment.
Mizunashi Rena made tea, while Mouri Kogoro tried to find topics to show off his prowess as a famous detective, but no matter what he talked about, he could only repeatedly recount the few cases he had solved while awake.
Whenever Mizunashi Rena asked about other cases, Mouri Kogoro could only laugh it off, saying he had solved too many cases to remember them all.
Conan, standing nearby, rolled his eyes, thinking that Uncle Mouri had only solved a few cases while awake, so of course, he couldn't remember other cases.
Time passed minute by minute, reaching 4 AM.
Just as Mouri Kogoro was about to be overcome by sleepiness.
Conan suddenly sat up straight, his small hand pressed firmly against the receiver on his ear, and he leaned towards the door.
At the same time, he gestured to Mouri Kogoro. "Uncle, there are footsteps! Very light, approaching!"
Mouri Kogoro jolted, instantly wide awake, and immediately held his breath, tiptoed to the door, carefully pressed his eye to the peephole, and looked out.
The hallway lights were dim, but within his field of vision—it was empty.
"You little brat! Where is anyone? Did you mishear?"
Mouri Kogoro lowered his voice, somewhat displeased, and glared back at Conan, thinking Conan was making trouble for no reason.
However, just as he finished speaking—
Ding-dong—Ding-dong—
The crisp sound of the doorbell suddenly rang out.
"They're here!" Mouri Kogoro roared, reacting extremely quickly, and violently pulled open the door.
Outside the door, the hallway lights were on.
But it was still empty, not even a ghost's shadow.
"Again... again!" Mizunashi Rena's face was slightly pale, this kind of invisible, intangible harassment was the most unsettling.
"Damn it! They ran so fast?"
Mouri Kogoro poked his head out and looked left and right; no one was visible at either end of the hallway.
But Conan, using the eavesdropping device, identified the direction by sound, roughly pinpointing where the prankster was.
The prankster hadn't gone far.
He didn't look towards the ends of the hallway but instead focused his gaze near the door.
There were several stacks of old newspapers and magazines that Mizunashi Rena had organized, preparing to discard them later, piled almost half his height.
Conan quickly walked over, leaned his head to look behind the stack of newspapers—
Sure enough!
A small figure was crouching, hidden there.
It was a little boy who looked only six or seven years old, half a head shorter than Conan.
"Found you!" Conan said.
Mouri Kogoro and Mizunashi Rena also came closer and were stunned when they saw the little boy behind the stack of newspapers.
"Li-little one? How is it you?" Mizunashi Rena asked in surprise.
She had seen him before, he was also a resident of this building.
Mouri Kogoro was a bit annoyed. "Hey, kid! Not sleeping in the middle of the night, running around pressing people's doorbells? Where are your parents? Playing pranks at such a young age, what will become of you in the future?"
The little boy stood up timidly, head down, twisting the corner of his clothes with his small hands, and whispered, "So-sorry... I... I wasn't playing pranks..."
Under Mizunashi Rena's gentle questioning, the little boy gradually and intermittently explained the reason.
It turned out that Mizunashi Rena's appearance was very similar to his mother, who had passed away from illness not long ago.
He had accidentally seen Mizunashi Rena hosting the morning news on TV and knew that she had to go to work very early every day.
He was worried that this aunt, who resembled his mother, would oversleep and be late, so he specifically ran over early to ring the doorbell, wanting to remind her to wake up.
"I... I was afraid Auntie wouldn't hear if I pressed it once... so sometimes I pressed it twice..."
The little boy's voice grew smaller and smaller, tinged with a sob,
"I'm sorry, Auntie, I just... just didn't want you to be late..."
Upon hearing this reason, Mizunashi Rena was stunned, then tears of emotion streamed down her face.
She knelt down and gently stroked the little boy's head.
"So that's it, thank you, little one. You also look a lot like my younger brother. Auntie doesn't blame you; you're a kind and good child."
She gently comforted the little boy for a few moments, telling him that he didn't need to come so early to remind her anymore, that sleeping well and studying well were the most important things, and she promised him that she wouldn't pursue the matter.
Only then did the little boy's tears turn into a smile, and he nodded vigorously.
With the matter resolved satisfactorily, Mouri Kogoro also breathed a sigh of relief, although the commission process had been a bit of a misunderstanding, the outcome was good.
He took Conan and said goodbye, with Mizunashi Rena repeatedly expressing her gratitude.
On the way back, sitting in the taxi, Conan's expression suddenly changed.
He had remembered something very important.
[1] why do it has to use this number bro... I know in chinese they like to use 666 as cool or something like that