Kanjuro didn't immediately take Ayumi away. Instead, with almost abnormal patience, he let the terrified Ayumi and the always vigilant Haibara Ai stay in the living room, signaling Akemi Miyano and Sumiko Kobayashi to prepare some simple food in the kitchen. He himself sat leisurely on the sofa like a master, as if waiting for something.
Time passed in an eerie, tense silence, with only the faint sounds of cooking from the kitchen. Ayumi clung tightly to Haibara Ai, her small hands cold. Haibara Ai focused entirely, thinking of any possible escape methods, but Kanjuro's presence was like an invisible mountain, suffocating her.
Until late at night, the sound of a key turning in the lock finally came from the entrance.
The door opened, and a young woman in professional attire, her face tired but still beautiful, walked in. She was Ayumi Yoshida's mother, Yoshida Reimi. As she bent down to change her shoes, she habitually called softly, "Ayumi, Mom's back, are you asleep?"
However, when she looked up and her gaze fell on the figure lounging on the living room sofa, her entire body froze instantly!
Her briefcase fell to the floor with a dull thud. Her eyes widened sharply, pupils contracting from extreme shock, her face turning as pale as paper in an instant. She stared fixedly at Kanjuro's face, unchanged for ten years, still heart-stoppingly handsome. Her lips trembled violently, as if she had seen the most unbelievable ghost in the world.
"Ye... Kanjuro...?" she almost groaned out the name, her voice broken, trembling with disbelief.
Tears, without warning, welled up in her eyes, instantly blurring her vision. They weren't tears of joy but a mix of too many complex emotions—shock, pain, grievance, and a trace of bitter emotion buried by time but never truly extinguished.
"You... how could you... be here?" she choked, almost unable to form complete sentences, her body swaying, barely steadying herself against the doorframe.
Ayumi, hiding behind Haibara Ai, was also stunned to see her mother so distraught and crying. She had never seen her mother like this. She asked softly, tearfully, "Mom... do you know this... big brother?"
Yoshida Reimi, hearing her daughter's voice, snapped back to reality. She wiped the tears from her face forcefully, her gaze shifting with difficulty from Kanjuro to her daughter, her eyes filled with indescribable pain and pity. She opened her mouth but didn't know how to explain this man's identity to her young daughter, or their entangled past.
Kanjuro calmly watched Yoshida Reimi's breakdown and tears, his face showing no ripple, as if watching a drama unrelated to him. Only when she had calmed down slightly did he slowly speak, his voice still emotionless:
"Reimi, long time no see."
"It seems you've given me... an unexpected surprise." His gaze meaningfully swept over Ayumi, who was clinging tightly to Haibara Ai.
Yoshida Reimi followed his gaze to her daughter, her heart feeling as if squeezed by an invisible hand. She understood—Kanjuro knew! He knew about Ayumi's origins!
Immense panic and a sense of settled despair swept over her. She looked at Kanjuro, the man she had loved madly in her youth but who had also brought her endless pain and waiting. Now, he had re-entered her life in such a strong and terrifying manner, and... discovered the secret she had hidden for ten years.
Tears streaming down her face, her voice filled with endless exhaustion and a hint of accusation:
"Kanjuro... why have you come back...?"
"Where have you been these ten years...? Why now... do you appear again?"
Her questions voiced ten years of grievance and confusion, as well as deep fear now. Was Kanjuro's return a blessing or a curse for her and Ayumi? Looking at this man with an unfathomable aura, so different from the lonely boy in her memory, her heart filled with ominous premonitions.
Akemi Miyano and Sumiko Kobayashi stood at the kitchen door, silently watching this scene, not daring to make a sound. Haibara Ai, from Yoshida Reimi's reaction and Kanjuro's words, vaguely guessed some shocking possibility, making her gaze at Kanjuro even colder and more wary.
Facing Yoshida Reimi's tears and accusations, Kanjuro only tilted his head slightly, a mysterious curve forming at the corner of his mouth.
"Why come back?" he repeated the question, then chuckled softly.
"Perhaps... fate thinks it's time to reclaim some... things that have been lost outside."
Yoshida Reimi listened to Kanjuro's possessive and ambiguous words, looking into his bottomless eyes, the last trace of hope in her heart completely shattered. She knew that before a being like Kanjuro, hiding and resisting were futile, even possibly leading to more terrible consequences. For Ayumi's sake... perhaps acknowledging him was the only way to secure a bit of 'gentle' treatment now.
She took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing her surging emotions, walked over to Ayumi, who was still fearfully hiding behind Haibara Ai, knelt down, and gently cupped her daughter's small face with trembling hands.
"Ayumi..." Reimi's voice choked, but she tried to maintain calmness, "look at Mom."
Ayumi raised her tear-filled eyes, looking at her mother in confusion.
Reimi took another deep breath, as if using all her strength, pointed at Kanjuro sitting leisurely on the sofa, watching them, and said clearly, word by word:
"Ayumi, he... he's not some scary big brother..."
"He's your dad... your biological father, Kanjuro."
"Boom——!"
These words were like a bolt from the blue, exploding not only in Ayumi's young mind but also causing Akemi Miyano and Sumiko Kobayashi to show expressions of shock. Ai Haibara's pupils shrank violently; although she had guessed as much moments ago, the moment it was confirmed, she still felt a surge of heart palpitations—Ayumi was actually the daughter of this demon?!
Ayumi was completely stunned. She widened her eyes, looking at her tearful mother, and then at the handsome man on the sofa who had always terrified her. Papa? This terrifying... devil... was her father?
Conflicting information bombarded her young soul. Conan and Brother Shinichi's warnings, Haibara's fear, Teacher Kobayashi's later strange attitude, her mother's tears now... and this man before her, his eyes currently fixed on her... For some reason, as she looked closely, a strange, faint sense of kinship actually rose from the depths of her heart... Was that the call of blood?
"Ma... Mama?" Ayumi murmured blankly, seeking confirmation.
Reimi nodded vigorously, her tears flowing even more fiercely: "It's true, Ayumi... I'm sorry, Mama never told you..."
Kanjuro watched quietly from beginning to end, without hurrying or denying, as if waiting for an inevitable result.
Ayumi stood rooted to the spot, digesting this earth-shattering fact. Fear, confusion, grievance, and a trace of instinctive longing for the word "father" that even she couldn't understand... all sorts of emotions intertwined. She remembered Kanjuro's unusual tenderness toward her by the chimney just now, and remembered him saying "I won't hurt you" while holding her... Could it be... those weren't lies? Because he is my papa?
Once this thought emerged, it quickly wrapped around her heart like vines. Her long-held latent desire for fatherly love overwhelmed her fear and the warnings she'd heard from others at this moment. She needed an explanation, she needed someone to lean on.
Slowly, step by step, she walked toward Kanjuro. Every step was filled with hesitation and unease.
Finally, she reached Kanjuro and looked up, her small face covered in large, rolling teardrops. Her voice carried immense grievance and a tentative call:
"Are... are you really... my papa?"
Kanjuro looked at her and slowly reached out his hand. This time, his movement was gentler than ever before. He didn't answer directly, but instead used his fingertips to gently wipe away the tears on her cheek.
This action became the final straw that broke Ayumi's mental defenses.
All the fear and misunderstanding seemed to find an outlet for release at this moment. With a loud wail, she threw herself into Kanjuro's embrace, her small arms tightly hugging his neck, burying her tear-stained face in the crook of his neck as she cried out loud:
"Papa! Papa! I'm sorry... I misunderstood you! I didn't know... I didn't know you were Papa! Wuwuwu... Conan and Haibara Ai both said you were a bad person... I was so scared... I'm sorry, Papa!"
She sobbed incoherently, as if trying to cry out all her grievances and fears.
Kanjuro felt the soft body of the little girl in his arms and her hot tears, hearing those cries of "Papa" filled with dependence and repentance. His cold heart seemed to ripple with an extremely faint wave, one he had never experienced before. He stiffened for a moment, then slowly raised his hand, somewhat awkwardly and gently patting Ayumi's back.
"Mm," he responded lowly, acknowledging it.
"It's in the past," he added, his tone carrying a faint softness he hadn't even noticed himself.
Akemi Miyano watched this scene with a gratified smile, feeling that this was the fatherly side of Brother Kanjuro. Teacher Kobayashi also breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that the relationship had softened.
Only Ai Haibara looked at the tightly embracing "father and daughter" with a pale face. There was no hint of being touched in her heart, only a bone-chilling coldness. She knew clearly that what Ayumi was throwing herself into was not a warm embrace of fatherly love, but a deeper, unfathomable dark abyss. This cry of "Papa" might become the heaviest shackle binding Ayumi's entire life.
Reimi stood to the side, watching the father and daughter recognize each other. Her tears wouldn't stop, and her heart was complex to the extreme, not knowing whether to be happy or sad.
Late at night, the door to the master bedroom of Ayumi's home was tightly closed.
In the apartment where the soundproofing wasn't very good, suppressed and intertwined female voices could be heard faintly, mixed with indistinguishable sobs and moans, lasting for a long time. Those sounds carried pain, yet seemed mixed with something else, more complex emotions, sounding exceptionally clear and piercing in the silent night.
Ayumi and Haibara were placed in the children's room next door. Ayumi covered her head tightly with the quilt, her small face flushed hot, and even her toes curled in shyness. Even though she was young and only vaguely understood certain things, those strange sounds coming through the wall—belonging to her mother, Teacher Kobayashi, and Sister Akemi—still made her feel incredibly shy and at a loss.
Ai Haibara sat on the other side of the bed, her face looking exceptionally cold in the darkness. Listening to the movements next door, her eyes were filled with disgust and a deep sense of powerlessness. She looked at Ayumi, who had wrapped herself into a ball under the quilt, and said coldly in a low, warning tone:
"Ayumi, don't listen. Cover your ears tightly."
"Remember what I told you. Kanjuro... is a demon at his core. Everything he is doing now is just to toy with and control people's hearts to satisfy his twisted desires."
The squirming under the quilt stopped. Ayumi suddenly threw off the quilt, revealing a small face that was flushed red but carried a clear sense of displeasure and rebuttal. In the darkness, she couldn't see Haibara's expression, but her tone carried the determination of a defender:
"Haibara! I won't let you talk about my papa like that!"
Her voice rose slightly because of her agitation, carrying the sharpness unique to a young girl.
"Papa... he was very gentle to me today! He even admitted I'm his daughter! He's my papa! How can you... how can you keep saying bad things about him!"
Ayumi's heart was already filled by the sudden identity of "father" and the brief "gentleness" Kanjuro had deliberately shown. She had craved fatherly love for so long that she subconsciously filtered out all negative information, only wanting to tightly grasp this seemingly warm piece of driftwood. She couldn't understand or accept Haibara's repeated slandering of the father she had just recognized.
Ai Haibara felt a pang of pain in her heart seeing Ayumi blinded by family affection, but she also knew that any further persuasion at this moment would be futile and might even provoke Ayumi's rebelliousness. She took a deep breath, swallowed the colder words she had prepared, and simply lay back down, turning her back to Ayumi and using silence as her final resistance.
"Hmph!" Seeing that Haibara wouldn't speak, Ayumi also huffily wrapped herself in the quilt again, covering her ears tightly to try and block out the sounds from next door and Haibara's "unpleasant" warnings. But in the depths of her heart, her defense of her "father" and a sliver of faint unease from Haibara's words intertwined into a tangled mess.
In the master bedroom just a wall away, that ritual filled with power, control, and twisted submission continued. In his most direct and cruel way, Kanjuro carved his own indelible mark onto his new "territory." Akemi Miyano, Sumiko Kobayashi, and even Yoshida Reimi were forced to rise and fall under his power and will. Their voices intertwined into a dark song of sacrifice, echoing in the air of Ayumi's home that night and deeply etching themselves into the vastly different memories of the two little girls.
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