Shinichi didn't show his face for the entire day. Ran sat in class, the tickets in her pocket weighing like lead, never getting the chance to give them to him.
That evening, Ran left school looking utterly dejected. She didn't even respond to her best friend Sonoko's teasing, heading straight home.
Time skipped forward. The city-wide karate tournament came to a close, and Ran successfully secured the championship. High-spirited once more, she immediately went to find Shinichi. Before the tournament had started, the two had made a deal: if she won, he had to take her on a date to the amusement park.
At the time, Shinichi had been distracted by a mystery. To get Ran to stop pestering him, he had absent-mindedly agreed just to get a moment of peace.
"Tropical Land, huh?" Ren looked at Sonoko beside him and smiled. "Let's go too! It's been a while since we visited an amusement park."
"Great! We can get a front-row seat to watch Ran and Shinichi's progress!" Sonoko giggled mischievously.
"Alright, then tomorrow after lunch, we head out!"
Ren remembered that in the original story, Shinichi shrunk in the evening, so he figured they had plenty of time. Plus, he recalled a certain "decapitation incident" on the roller coaster. To avoid traumatizing Sonoko, he decided they would arrive late enough to miss the gore.
The Next Day.
After having lunch at home, the two leisurely made their way toward the park. However, while on the road, Sonoko's phone suddenly rang. It was Ran.
"Waaaaah~~ That jerk Shinichi actually ditched me and ran off again! I'm never forgiving him this time! Never!"
Ran's heartbroken sobbing through the phone made Sonoko furious. She started cursing Shinichi out as a heartless scumbag on the spot.
Ren, however, froze.
What's going on? Wasn't Shinichi supposed to be ambushed in the evening? It's only 12:00 PM—why has he vanished already?
Confused as he was, the plans had changed. Sonoko no longer wanted to go to the amusement park; she needed to go to Ran's side to comfort her broken heart.
Poor Ren could only watch as his "wife" abandoned him. Left with no choice, he headed to Tropical Land alone to search for the elusive Kudo Shinichi.
I remember clearly, that kid gets blindsided at night. Why is it happening during the day?
Ren pondered this as he entered the park. He scoured every patch of grass and secluded corner. Finally, in a very remote, shaded area, he found the shrunken Shinichi.
The boy was still unconscious. Ren immediately walked over and gave him a few firm shakes. A few seconds later, Shinichi blearily opened his eyes. Seeing Ren, he blinked in confusion. "Ren? Why are you here?"
"Looking for you," Ren shrugged, feigning a sigh. "Ran called Sonoko crying, saying you ditched her. I had nothing better to do, so I came to see if you were still alive. Seeing that you're doing terribly, I can finally rest easy."
"Hey, hey! What do you mean 'rest easy' because I'm doing terribly? Is that what a best friend says?" Shinichi rubbed the back of his head, which was still throbbing with pain. When he looked at Ren again, his brow furrowed. "Ren... were you always this tall?"
"Yeah. Why don't you guess what's going on, 'Great Detective'?" Ren sat down on the grass, a mocking grin on his face as he looked at the pint-sized version of his friend. This version of Shinichi looked exactly like he did when they first met as children.
Shinichi looked at Ren, then at the towering trees around them, and finally down at himself.
"This... what on earth is happening?!!" Shinichi let out a tragic yelp, frantically inspecting his body. "I shrunk! I really shrunk! How is this possible? Did time flow backward or something?!"
Ren watched him. Even though he knew the story, seeing the real-life transformation was still a shock. One day his friend is a teenager his own age, the next he's a first-grader. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it was real.
"Looks like you're officially out of the running with Ran~" Ren teased.
"Is this really the time for that!" Shinichi looked at Ren with tearful eyes. He had finally grown into a handsome, athletic teenager, and before he could even enjoy his youth, he was back in elementary school?
Ren pulled a small mirror from his pocket and handed it over. "Here, take a look at the damage."
Taking the mirror, Shinichi couldn't help but complain: "Why do you even carry something like this in your pocket?!"
"A guy like you who's perpetually single wouldn't understand. By the way, since you weren't at school for the last two days, I took care of all the love letters in your desk for you."
"Whatever, I wasn't interested anyway."
Opening the mirror, Shinichi stared at his reflection and sighed. "I look exactly like I did as a kid. I don't know what those guys made me swallow, or if I can even change back."
With his best friend by his side, the panic of shrinking started to subside, replaced by a detective's curiosity.
"If you can shrink, you can grow. By the way, you haven't told me how this happened yet." Ren realized he should ask so as not to seem suspicious.
"Right! It was..."
Shinichi recounted the entire experience. Ren nodded sagely. "I've always told you not to meddle in other people's business. See? You went and got yourself 'poisoned'."
"Those two men in black were no ordinary thugs. They had that drug, and I heard them mention an 'Organization.' This must be a terrifying shadow group with a horrifying conspiracy!" Shinichi said with deadly seriousness.
"True, true. But for now, I suggest you think about what you're going to do. You don't exactly look like Kudo Shinichi right now."
That reality hit Shinichi like a ton of bricks. He looked at Ren with a miserable face. "Yeah... how did I end up like this?"
Ultimately, Shinichi decided to seek help from Professor Agasa to see if the all-knowing inventor had a way to restore him. Since Shinichi's clothes were now comically oversized, Ren took him to buy a new set of children's clothes—paid for by Shinichi, of course.
When they arrived at the Professor's house, Agasa was in the yard testing a new invention—some kind of automatic sprinkler—and was completely soaked.
"Professor Agasa!" Ren called out.
"Oh? It's Ren! What brings you by today?" Agasa smiled and walked to the gate. Opening it, he noticed the child beside Ren. "Whose kid is this?"
"This? I just picked him up off the side of the road," Ren joked.
"Hey, hey! Stop joking at a time like this!" Shinichi snapped, exasperated. "Professor, it's me! Shinichi!"
"Shinichi?" Agasa squinted at the child, then burst out laughing. "Hahaha! You do look a bit like him, but Shinichi is a high school student, not a little boy!"
"It really is me, Professor! If you don't believe me, I can prove it! You're Professor Agasa, fifty-two years old, an inventor and a lifelong bachelor. Oh! And you have a mole on your butt with a single long hair growing out of it!"
"Wha—! The hair on the mole... only Shinichi knows about that! Could it be!"
"Exactly!"
"That jerk Shinichi, actually telling people my secrets!!"
"Ouch~!!"