The shards of glass splintered, their crystalline edges reflecting distorted orange light and bright green, and fell into the light smoke by the window, hitting the unburned carpet with an imperceptible dull thud.
Ichijō Mirai tumbled into the room, his eyes lowered and swept over the shards of glass on the floor, and when he raised them again, his red eyes reflected the dull firelight and the reflections of shattered glass.
Humans were different, of all types, and most of them he had plenty of experience with.
It's simple, persecution is the end of the story, a trick that has been used all over the world, by colleagues and students who have been victimized.
But there were a few, very rare types of people he couldn't deal with.
Roughly speaking, there was a certain naiveté, but also a great deal of passion, almost a bit of a burner when it came to dealing with others.
Ichijō Mirai's mother is this kind of person, Ichijō Mirai's FBI enemy is this kind of person, and Suzuki Sonoko is this kind of person.
In fact, Morofushi Hiromitsu and Matsuda Jinpei are also this type of person, but before knowing their personalities, Ichijō Mirai had already happily victimized them, and after learning about it, he could barely cope with the persecution methods he had been using.
In the case of the former, Ichijō Mirai had gotten to know them first, and when she touched the flickering orange candles, she was a little rusty and unable to cope with them.
It was also a bit...
He collected his thoughts and walked towards the door.
Suzuki Sonoko subconsciously skimmed her legs over the remains of the chair on the floor to make way for the doorway, moved the towel up to cover her eyes, and only moved it down a few seconds later, trying to pretend she was calm even though she was obviously crying, "You, Mr. Mirai..."
"What do you want me to do?" Ichijō Mirai swept past and undid the cuffs.
The situation was so dire that Suzuki Sonoko coughed muffledly, and instead of thinking about why Ichijō Mirai was asking another question, she hurriedly suppressed the sobbing tremor in her voice and said, "Ran,"
She put down the soggy towel and folded her arms, pleading as if she were wishing to a god, pitifully, "Can you help save Ran, Mr. Mirai?"
He choked on the smoke and coughed again, but instead of covering his face with a wet towel, he kept his hands together, holding the towel in his palms, and his cheeks, which had been covered by the towel for a few moments, were wet and red.
With the red cheeks of a man who had spent a lot of time in the theater, he looked as if he had just barely climbed back from the brink of death, his face was still flushed with the flashes of death that had briefly come to pass, and there was also a light glow from the fire, like a flickering candle that was about to be extinguished.
Ichijō Mirai lowered his eyes, "OK."
He scanned Suzuki Sonoko's position to make sure she wouldn't be affected, and then kicked in the door.
The first kick didn't open the door, and it only made a loud, dull vibration, breaking the door near the lock, and immediately sending thick smoke pouring in at every turn.
On the second stroke, the door was overwhelmed and finally opened a crack, and the smoke and flames from the corridor poured in even more aggressively.
Amidst the smoke, Ichijō Mirai frowned, not reacting to the choking, only glancing at Suzuki Sonoko with a brief reminder, "Cover your mouth and nose with a wet towel."
Then he looked at the door to Mouri Ran's room.
Through a door, he heard the sound of breaking glass coming from Mouri Ran's room, a small sound that, through the thick smoke and a closed door, eventually came through as an imperceptible sound, almost drowned out by the crackling of the flames as they burned the rest of the room.
He raised his eyebrows and kicked the door again.
This time, he kicked it twice to open it.
The first time he kicked, Mouri Ran's voice came from inside the door, "So..."
Subconsciously and without thinking, she called out the name of the person most likely to come to her at a time like this instead of running for her life, and before she could finish, she coughed and paused, reacted for a few seconds, and then spoke again after the second kick: "Sonoko, Mr. Mirai?!"
As she reacted to who the kicker was, the door to the room swung open with a loud bang, and Ichijō Mirai maintained his standing position in place, gently retracting his sweeping leg across the room, his eyes briefly scanning the room.
The glass window of Mouri Ran's room had been shattered, and the curtains had been lowered, and were slowly moving down, taut in her hands, and it looked like there was something heavy tied up underneath the curtains, probably Conan.
In order to escape, Mouri Ran only needed to go down with Conan, or use the curtains to tie Conan's waist, slowly lower him to the first floor, and then retrieve the curtains and tie him to his waist and then go down again, and there was no need for any other additional actions that would only hinder the probability of her escape.
But while Mouri Ran was slowly lowering Conan down, the bathroom door opened.
At first glance, Ichijō Mirai saw a washbasin under the faucet, with a wet towel soaking in it.
It looked like he was not going to go downstairs with Conan to escape, but was going to stay in the fire with a wet towel covering his mouth and nose.
The reason for staying is easy to guess, just like Suzuki Sonoko's reason for staying.
"Ms. Suzuki said that you were not feeling well and probably had a cold, and that you might not be able to react in time to the fire," Ichijō Mirai explains, "and she asked me to come and save you."
He looked directly at Mouri Ran's sweaty cheeks, sullenly red and smothered in hot sweat from the fever and smoke and flames, without turning his eyes sideways or looking at Suzuki Sonoko, who had walked in holding onto the doorframe.
The first second she entered, Suzuki Sonoko stumbled towards Mouri Ran, "Ran!"
She coughed a few times and hugged him, letting out a sobbing, muffled voice from her towel, "Oooh, I'm glad you're okay!"
Mouri Ran had just realized Conan had reached the first floor and loosened the curtains, so he subconsciously caught Suzuki Sonoko, listening to her muffled sobs and feeling the strength of her tight hold, somewhat helplessly, "I'm fine, Sonoko, did you forget that I know karate? I'm pretty good at it."
"Next time," she patted Suzuki Sonoko along the back, ignoring the wet towel in the bathroom and her own intentions not to mention, "protect yourself first in case of danger, okay?"
"The fire's too big, it's dangerous here."
Ichijō Mirai doesn't need to elaborate, after trying the window, Mouri Ran can immediately react to why Suzuki Sonoko is still on the third floor. She taps again, and her eyes turn to Ichijō Mirai, somewhat hesitantly, "Mr. Mirai, uh,"
"Thank, thank you?"
She looked at Ichijō Mirai and saw a calm expression that was a bit colder than her usual gentle smile, and then at Suzuki Sonoko and saw her friend's teary eyes.
Then he hesitated even more, "Uh, that..."
That, the atmosphere seems to be a little... not really obvious, but...
'Why does Mr. Mirai have a constant feeling of being watched even though he's already averted his eyes from the bathroom, the hallway, the door, the carpet, the window, and the ceiling?'
Mouri Ran wanted to say that, but she looked down at Suzuki Sonoko, who was quietly wiping her tears after crying, pretending that she hadn't cried out just now, and adamantly refusing to turn her head to look at Ichijō Mirai, and hesitated for a moment, but didn't say anything.
She let go of Suzuki Sonoko and pulled back the curtains, "The fire is getting bigger, let's go down."
Ichijō Mirai was also asked, "Did Mr. Mirai get a good look at the arsonist?"
"I also had a slight fever, and the fire was already very big when I woke up," she explained to the two men as she tied the curtains around Suzuki Sonoko's waist, "Someone had already climbed down with the curtains, I didn't look closely, but it was very crowded, so probably most of the people escaped the fire."
Suzuki Sonoko knew better: one of them knew karate, one of them wasn't human, and she was the weakest person in the room, so she really should have been the first to evacuate.
She opened her arms and let Mouri Ran tie the curtains for her, and then looked to Ichijō Mirai, "Yes, the fire is so big, someone must have set it."
"Mr. Mirai, do you know who set the fire?"
and realized the reason why Mouri Ran asked that question: Ichijō Mirai didn't seem to be paying much attention to the room, but was still standing in the doorway, looking sideways at the floor that connected the hallway and the door to the room, with his brows stretched out, but inexplicably frowning, as if he was seriously pondering over some important clue in the case.
It was only when he heard Suzuki Sonoko's question that he raised his eyes and swept them over, "Uh, yeah, Tanaka Kikue."
"Wh, what?!" X2
Suzuki Sonoko dropped the wet towel, revealing a flowery cat-like face with eyes so round they were almost like cat pupils, staring at Ichijō Mirai in surprise, looking like she was about to explode, "You mean 'The Fake Child'?!"
"How could..."
Ichijō Mirai could do no wrong.
So after her instinctive shocked words, without waiting for Ichijō Mirai to explain why the arsonist was Tanaka Kikue, her next words came out, "Why..."
She was still gray and dirty, and she let Mouri Ran handle her obediently, and then she dropped her eyes and wrinkled her brow in frustration, like a downtrodden gray cat with long hair, which was quite adorable.
Surprised, Mouri Ran's hand paused in tying the curtains, then moved again, tied the last one, and patted Suzuki Sonoko's waist, "It's done."
and silently predicted that Ichijō Mirai would answer.
Although 'how could' and 'why' were just exclamations from Suzuki Sonoko's round eyes in surprise, there was no real intention to ask.
However, Mouri Ran guessed that Ichijō Mirai would answer.
On the third silent tap, she heard Ichijō Mirai's voice, "For killing."
Ichijō Mirai briefly recalls his own cursory glances at the other windows as he tumbles to the third floor, and then their rooms as he sends the children home one by one, "She's going to kill Hamano Toshiya."
Suzuki Sonoko: "!"
What, what!
Her eyes rounded up again, and even though she wasn't crying anymore, her face was even redder than before, and because she had wiped away her tears, there were light gray marks across her eyelids, which didn't look ugly, but rather interesting.
Her expression was even more contradictory, a mixture of disgust at the murder and a desire to know more about it, a timid look of wanting to know and being a little afraid.
Ichijō Mirai swept past her, paused, and before she could speak, said, "Go down first."
Suzuki Sonoko nodded.
She carefully rolled over the window, then cautiously loosened the frame and held the curtains in front of her.
Mouri Ran slowly lowered her down.
The soft top of her teal hair moved down, inch by inch, and her green eyes were successively hidden by the edge of the window.
After a few seconds, the teal and green suddenly rise again, and Suzuki Sonoko holds the curtains, pitifully revealing only half of her face, "Mr. Mirai, that..."
"Thank you for granting my request!"
"I, I'll build you another shrine!"
"I'm not an insatiable believer! I don't usually cry, I'm very brave!"
She let go of her hand and slid 'bared' down again, only a muffled voice coming up, "Also, it's not that annoying,"
"...Right?"
Ichijō Mirai: "?"
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
'Shrine', 'build you another', 'believer', what the hell is all this?
What exactly is Suzuki Sonoko's impression of him?
In reality, he's not that bad, is he? Why does he seem to have been 'foxed' again? again?
...Never mind.
He nodded at the window, "Uh-huh."
Mouri Ran silently glanced back, then down at Suzuki Sonoko, who was nervously gripping the curtains below and hadn't even heard the reply, she blinked and continued to slowly lower the curtains.
When Suzuki Sonoko landed on the ground and untied the curtains, she pulled them up with a few tugs, hesitated, and instead of asking Ichijō Mirai the obvious question of who would go down first, she simply said, "Mr. Mirai, there are wet towels in the bathroom, so you can cover your mouth and nose with a wet towel for a while."
Instead of subtly standing not too far from Suzuki Sonoko, he stood in the doorway, in the thickest part of the room where the smoke and fire were, and looked as if he would jump up and run away as soon as the downcast, gray-haired cat fell to the ground and flopped over with its paws splayed out.
Ichijō Mirai didn't really need a wet towel, he rubbed his fingers in the smoke, felt the sticky feeling of the smoke, touched the tip of his nose with his knuckles, and, a bit puzzled, went to the bathroom to get a towel, "Yes, thank you."
Not to cover his nose and mouth from the smoke, but to cover the fact that he wasn't afraid of the smoke.
A person who can move freely without any discomfort in a fire without any defense is obviously a bit abnormal.
In the game, this abnormality was normal, Ichijō Mirai was on drugs.
But in reality, what is the reason for this abnormality?
The answer seems obvious.
As obvious as the fact that Ichijō Mirai is clearly not a normal human being.
...But Suzuki Sonoko looks unfazed, as if it's normal for Ichijō Mirai not to be afraid of the smoke from a fire.
Mouri Ran had the same attitude.
She clutched the curtains in her hand, climbed out of the window when Ichijō Mirai went to the bathroom to get a towel, and jumped downward, section by section, letting go of one curtain at a time.
In the midst of her jumps, she looked down, saw Suzuki Sonoko, and pondered, somewhat lost in thought, that something had happened that only Ichijō Mirai knew about, and that his attitude had changed.
Not from 'dislike' and 'no intention' to 'like' and 'intention'.
Rather, it has changed from 'a hidden, unnoticeable meaning' to 'an obvious, easily noticeable meaning that the person concerned seems to be very bad at dealing with'.
That's right, it's not from nothing to something, it's from something obscure to something obvious, and it was there from the beginning.
Because: Ichijō Mirai hardly ever rejected Suzuki Sonoko.
Whether it's a special Valentine's Day party, a long trip to a remote villa far from Tokyo, or a gathering of magic enthusiasts who really have nothing to do with themselves, Suzuki Sonoko doesn't really ask for much.
That's the big picture, and there are other little things that Suzuki Sonoko doesn't really ask for very often, but almost every time, Ichijō Mirai obliges.
He's always been a gentle, polite, polite gentleman with a sense of detachment, that's all...
He's so distant, but he doesn't say no at all...
This is the reason why Mouri Ran never tried to stop Suzuki Sonoko from falling hopelessly in love with Mr. Mirai every day, Mr. Mirai long and Mr. Mirai short.
That's why.
When her toes hit the ground, Mouri Ran looked up and added in her heart with some surprise: That is, I didn't realize that Mr. Mirai wasn't very good at interacting with the person he was attracted to...
With Ichijō Mirai's gentle, gentlemanly style, she'd expected him to be a socially awkward lover.