Chapter 5: Life Is Actually Quite Boring

The culprit had already been taken away, leaving only the paperwork to be handled tomorrow during office hours. Unlike Megure, who was familiar with the Mori family, Kiichi had little interest in continuing communication after realizing Conan was nothing special. However, he would always remember that Conan’s interference had accelerated the world’s progress into the intelligent electrical era and indirectly granted everyone eternal youth. It was best if everyone just left each other alone. If the Grim Reaper was willing to deliver more results, all the better.

With that, Kiichi greeted Megure briefly and drove home by himself. Though the Metropolitan Police Department actually provided housing for young officers like him, Kiichi had always been somewhat socially anxious and disliked complicated social interactions. In fact, he found dealing with criminals simpler than mingling with colleagues, so he rented a typical one-bedroom apartment commonly inhabited by singles.

Opening the door, he saw a fluffy, large white triangular-shaped rice ball crouching at the entrance. “Good evening, Cowboy,” Kiichi bent down to stroke the cat’s head. This was a ragdoll he had adopted two years ago from a classmate who ran a cattery. Cowboy purred a few times before running over to the cat tree to sharpen his claws.

Kiichi fed Cowboy some cat food, then put the teriyaki chicken bento he had picked up at the convenience store earlier into the microwave to heat. He wasn’t exactly a meticulous person; living alone sometimes meant neglecting certain things—like the clear traces of ragdoll fur scattered on the living room floor and the chopsticks from last night’s dinner still resting in the kitchen sink. Of course, he wasn’t messy enough to cause any odor; he simply didn’t want to tidy up every day, preferring to clean thoroughly every two or three days to maintain basic order.

Taking the heated bento out, he noticed Cowboy had already finished his meal at lightning speed and was jumping onto the table, sniffing around the food. Kiichi took the opportunity to pet the cat’s head again, then gently pushed him off the table and went to the stereo. He rummaged through the shelves and found a CD titled “Violin Lyrical Pieces by Sawako Kawabe,” which he inserted.

Entertainment in this era held little appeal for him, but having been raised in a traditional family and forced to learn violin from first grade in his previous life, he had unconsciously developed a fondness for classical and operatic music, far removed from contemporary trends. He had to admit, the world of Conan did have some merits—outside of the police, professionals across various fields worked at an incredibly high level, especially in the arts.

Despite the high mortality rate and frequent rivalries that sometimes ended in murder, their professional skills remained impressively robust. Occasionally, Kiichi wondered if the frequent assassinations among actors and idols were because the industry was so fiercely competitive that they resorted to physical elimination when they couldn’t outdo each other professionally.

He sincerely hoped that his favorite talented violinist, Miss Sawako Kawabe, would never become just another statistic.

After quickly finishing his dinner, tidying up the trash, and handling the chores accumulated since yesterday, Kiichi looked around.

Actually, it was still early. This was one disadvantage of living alone: boredom quickly set in when staying home, and during the quiet late hours, boredom often spiraled into melancholy.

He wanted to play on the computer.

Unfortunately, Kiichi was never one for nostalgic gaming. Even though “Battle City” on the old Famicom had brought him much joy during childhood New Year holidays, he had no interest in trying similar games in this world. The threshold for entertainment had simply been raised too high.

Watching TV might be okay, but the current way of following shows—waiting each night for new episodes—was too restrictive. If he had to work overtime and missed an episode, it was truly lost. Even recording with the era’s characteristic videotapes felt cumbersome.

He preferred the Netflix model: preparing snacks on a weekend and binge-watching an entire season in one go. Pure bliss.

Perhaps for this reason, even living in a typical cramped Tokyo pigeon-hole apartment, his place felt somewhat empty. Aside from necessary furniture like a dining table, chairs, and cupboards, the only other furnishing was the stereo. He didn’t even have a bed; sleeping on the floor was no big deal. Counting carefully, the cat probably had more furniture than he did.

In short, his lifestyle suited the upcoming long-term low-desire society perfectly.

He was the quickest to adapt to the new version of life.

Realizing that dawdling any longer would plunge him into a spiral of online gloom, Kiichi decided to break the cycle. He picked a novel from the bookshelf.

Perhaps to fit the times, or perhaps due to the will of the original creator, detective novels in this world were wildly popular. Countless writers competed fiercely, resulting in astonishingly high-quality works.

In Kiichi’s view, the cases in these top-notch detective novels alone could outdo tonight’s grim statistics.

The skill of Yusaku Kudo was truly impressive, as was that of the author of the nationally beloved detective Ippei Zomonji, Jintaro Shinmei.

Kiichi had loved detective novels even before crossing over, swapping Agatha Christie collections with classmates during high school with enthusiasm rivaling any covert reading of “Battle Through the Heavens” updates on the only classmate’s phone before evening study sessions.

Unfortunately, Yusaku Kudo was a notorious slow updater, and Shinmei, now advanced in age, had almost retired.

It had been a long time since he’d seen a satisfying novel.

So he resorted to old books.

But detective stories lost all their charm once the culprit was known. Anyone who flipped straight to the last page to see the ending was a heretic!

After casually flipping through, it was almost time for bed.

Sometimes he wondered if he should actively find a girlfriend, so at least he’d have someone to talk to and not feel so lonely when coming home.

But then he reminded himself: this was Beika City.

Everyone knew that in Beika, there was no such thing as a breakup—only widows and widowers. You either married your childhood sweetheart or ended up in a perfect relationship.

“You’re perhaps a bit extreme,” he thought.

Everyone knew the creator’s XP was childhood sweethearts; Kiichi had tried to adapt, but it was hard to expect a normal adult to have genuine interest in elementary or middle school students.

As for high schoolers…

The University of Tokyo wasn’t that easy to get into, and Kiichi had mostly exhausted his old knowledge before crossing over.

Besides, high school relationships hardly counted as childhood sweethearts anymore.

Now that he was working, he thought he should find someone he knew well from the original story…

Besides, he had a bit of a predilection for mature women.

Although many fellow crossovers were devoted to Ran and Sonoko and the great cause of changing their surnames to Suzuki to save centuries of struggle, Kiichi only saw a bunch of immature kids.

The same went for Shiho Miyano—he liked Ai Haibara, but it wasn’t the kind of love between a man and a woman. He absolutely did not want his girlfriend to be so gloomy and melancholic. Even the grown-up version was just a little kid lacking affection.

Among adult women, there was Sato, but he thought she was better suited as a buddy.

Especially after discovering that Sato could outperform several guys in bottle blowing and was incredibly skilled at street racing, any chance at friendship turned impossible...

In the end, although it seemed there were many options, none were truly viable.