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I was never quite the same after The Revelation. My various friends all noticed and attempted to pester me about it, until Ran came to my rescue. She was able to convince everyone—with the exception of my mother, unfortunately—that what I needed the most was for the people around me to disregard the dark mood I had fallen into, that the best thing for me was a calm and quiet environment to think in. Bless her heart; Ran has always had an uncanny ability to read me, even now when there's nothing left to read.

Ah, speaking of Ran, it was right after Kazuki's death (I discovered his name several years later, while going through my father's case files) that she decided to take up studying karate. I've always wondered how it was that Ran was able to move on with her life after that moment, and use that experience to become stronger. Perhaps I just lacked some strength of mind or force of character, some special essence of being human. While she decided learn how to defend herself and make sure that no one near her ever ended up like that boy again, I simply sat around moping for months.

Those months were spent contemplating the problem I had discovered in my world. And one day, in a moment of serendipity, I came across an answer.

That day in kindergarten, I had gotten into a little scuffle with another boy. I was walking home with Ran, a report about my misbehavior resting in my bag, waiting to be delivered to my parents.

'Why would you do something so stupid and mean, Shinichi?' Ran asked me.

'You wouldn't understand.'

'How do you know? If you don't tell me then obviously I won't understand!'

'Watanabe was being a jerk. He ate Shunsuke-kun's candy.'

'That's not a really good reason for hitting him.'

'No, it's not just that. He…he ate it, and I saw it and told him he shouldn't have done it, that it wasn't fair, and he just looked at me, and do you know what he said? He said….' My face contorted in anger, and I looked away from Ran, not wanting to show her such an ugly side of myself. 'He said to me, "Life isn't fair." And when he said that…I just couldn't control myself.'

There was a pause in the conversation as Ran thought of what to say. I continued to stare at the ground in front of me. The streets were as busy as ever, but the space around us felt incongruously quiet.

'Well…I can understand you being angry…but why did you get that angry? I was really surprised! Just what he said made you mad?'

When I nodded in response, Ran added, in a tone of voice too solemn and grave to rightfully belong to any four-year-old, 'But it's true what he said. Life isn't fair, Shinichi.'

'I know that!'

I tried to push away the guilt I felt when I saw Ran flinch away from me, and did my best to calm down, to indicate that I wasn't mad at her. Not directly, at least. 'I know life isn't fair, otherwise nothing bad would ever happen to good people and nothing good would ever happen to bad people. But something happens like a nice little girl getting cancer, or a murderer walking in a store and getting a prize for being the millionth customer, that's not something that can really be controlled. What happened today wasn't like that. Watanabe made a decision to do something bad; it had nothing to do with whether or not life was fair.'

'Yeah, but….' Ran hesitated as she searched for a way to phrase her argument. 'I still don't think that you should have hit him. Sensei said that you should treat others the way you want to be treated.'

'Oh really?' I sneered. 'Then why didn't sensei punish Watanabe for what he did?'

'B-Because! What you did was much worse, I guess. Nobu-kun just took some candy, but you actually made him start bleeding! Really now, Shinichi….'

At this point, I became annoyed and lost interest in our conversation. Ran likely sensed my mood, and spoke no more on our walk back. When we reached the front steps of her residence, she turned around after opening the door as if she had something to say to me, but my disinterested expression probably deterred her. I left as soon as she had shut the door, heading towards home.

As the early spring air blew through the trees, scattering the remnants of their blossoms from the branches, I mulled over the words Ran spoke to me.

Honestly, 'treat others the way you want to be treated'? How ridiculous, I thought. It's true that the world would be a better place if everyone followed that philosophy. (…Unless we had a sudden influx of masochists, but I ramble.) However, there were too many people like Watanabe. Too many people like Kazuki's murderer. What did their actions mean? Were they treating others the way they wanted to be treated? In that case, would it not, therefore, be my duty to reciprocate their actions?

And as that thought flitted through my mind, I suddenly understood the solution to my problem. For the first time since Ran and I played together with the other children in that hotel lobby, a grin spread across my features.

With a great weight lifted from my shoulders, I ran home, untroubled by the report lying in my backpack.

I was still smiling when I walked through the door of my house. Professor Agasa had been completely baffled by my cheerful greeting moments earlier, and I was vaguely interested in seeing how my parents would react to my sudden change in mood.

As soon as the door slammed shut behind me, my mother suddenly materialized, appearing from nowhere in the few seconds I had spared to take off my shoes.

'Welcome home Shin-chan!' she called in a sing-song voice that contradicted the red around her eyes. 'How was school today?'

I made no effort to hide my smile as I told her, 'I got in trouble for fighting with Nobu-kun.'

The interplay of emotions across my mother's face was most amusing. Surprise and happiness from seeing a genuine smile; dismay and anger from the news of my troublemaking; confusion from the combination of these two disparate facts. For once, she was speechless.

I took advantage of her temporary quietude to escape to the library, whereto my father, as I correctly guessed, had retreated.

At my entrance he looked up from some folders that he was perusing, likely containing cases sent to him from the police department for his assessment. 'Welcome home,' he said. Upon further examination of my bearing he added, 'You seem to be quite cheerful today. That's good. Did something happen?'

I gave a little laugh. The best possible thing for me had happened; I had just solved a mystery that had been tormenting me for months. When I told him as much, he smiled.

'That's wonderful news,' he said, putting away the case files. 'Well? Are you going to tell me about your solution to this mystery?'

I was going to do exactly that when mother stepped in, apparently awakened from her momentary muteness, and not very happy.

'Shinichi!' she snapped. 'What did you mean by what you said earlier?'

Still smiling, I calmly rummaged through my bag; the tension in the air was thick, but I was too buoyed up by my enlightenment to notice or care.

For a moment, it seemed as though my mother would tear the paper from my hands. Instead, she removed it from my grasp with surprising tenderness, perhaps to make up for her harsh tone of voice earlier. She moved over to the desk where my father sat, and together they read the report of misbehavior. As their eyes moved down the page, mother seemed to grow more and more worked up, while everything about my father's demeanor seemed to draw inward.

'Explain yourself.' My mother glared at me, arms crossed.

Truthfully, I didn't really feel like explaining, as I had already done so several times that day. First to the teacher, as I tried to justify my actions, then to Watanabe as I gave the most unapologetic apology I could craft at that age, and then once again to Ran on the way home. Frankly, I was getting tired; but then again, odds were that the teacher hadn't mentioned anything about Watanabe's transgression on my misbehavior report, so I thought that perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on my mother for not understanding the situation.

'Today in class it was Aya-chan's birthday, and she and some friends brought treats for everyone to share. Watanabe ate all of his share, but Shunsuke-kun was saving some of his for later and left it on the table, and then Watanabe came and ate it all.'

After hearing this, my mother's expression softened slightly, which I took to be a good sign. However, it seemed she still wasn't satisfied. 'So you thought that meant you could just beat up your classmate?'

'Maybe I was a bit harsh,' I admitted.

My parents waited expectantly for me to say something else, but I remained silent.

'That's…all you have to say for yourself?' Mother looked like she was going to explode again.

'Well, Watanabe didn't have any candy left for me to eat, so…'

The apparent non sequitur completely derailed the conversation for a moment before my mother shook herself out of her stupor. "W-What does that have to do with…?"

My small smile widened into a grin. 'That's what I was going to tell you about, tou-san! I finally figured out what I should do about people like that man who killed Kazuki!'

At the sound of that name, my parents suddenly drooped. As they exchanged conspiring glances, the levity that had recently taken up residence in my heart once more began to sink like a lead balloon. Already, they were beginning to write off everything I had yet to say.

'I-I'm being serious! When we were walking home from school Ran was asking me about why I fought Watanabe and I said that I was only doing what was fair because Watanabe stole what belonged to Shunsuke-kun, and then Ran said that I went too far, and that you should treat people the way you want to be treated! And I was angry with her at first, but then I started thinking and then all of a sudden what she said made sense, because then that would mean that people who killed other people wanted to be killed themselves! And then I thought that it would solve the problem if I just—'

'Shin-chan, that's enough.'

The interjection made me halt in my verbal tracks, tears of frustration welling up but not overflowing as I gritted my teeth in anger.

'Shin-chan, come here.' My mother knelt down and embraced me. I refused to reciprocate her contrived schmaltz, not even deigning to meet either her or my father's gaze. 'I know that…what happened that day was very difficult for you, and that you're still grieving. But you shouldn't let this affect the way you treat your friends at school. I'm sorry for getting so angry earlier. I thought that you had already moved past all of this.'

'Tou-san…' I mumbled. In the edge of my blurred vision, I noticed mother flinch. 'You….Do you think that I said what I did just because I'm grieving? That I'm imp-impale…impaired?'

My father and I locked gazes as he considered me. He finally answered, '…Frankly, Shinichi, I'm not sure what to think. Are you implying that you want to have all murderers killed?'

A shadow of my former smile returned. 'Yep!' I chirped, so pleased at the belief that my father at least took me seriously enough to have listened to me.

Ha, how mistaken I was. As I've learned time and time again, adults rarely if ever take children seriously. In fact, it would take several years for my parents to realize just how devoted to my solution I truly was.

A stern look overcame my father's features. 'Shinichi, I truly wish you were only suggesting that out of grief. Regardless of the reasoning behind your suggestion, however, I must say that such a…"plan"…would be considered excessively cruel by the general public, me included. I would suggest that you go up to your room and cool your head for a while.'

At the time, I really wanted to say something along the lines of no, why don't we all stay here, and why don't you actually listen to me this time instead of automatically discounting everything that comes out of my mouth, because we're inevitably going to have many clashes relating to this issue in the future unless we resolve this now.

Unfortunately, I was not nearly so eloquent at that age. The only thing I could come up with to convey my discontent was to stomp up to my room and slam the door as loudly as possible.

As I lay on my bed, face down where I had thrown myself after locking the door, I briefly considered where my parents' disapproval left me. Was it really important?

I smiled into the sheets. No. Not at all. While their agreement would certainly make things easier for me in the long run, it was by no means a necessity.

I skipped dinner and went to sleep early that night, contemplating how I would go about putting my plans into action.

Description
I was never quite the same after The Revelation. My various friends all noticed and attempted to pester me about it, until Ran came to my rescue. She was able to convince everyone—with the exception of my mother, unfortunately—that what I needed the most was for the people around me to disregard the dark mood I had fallen into, that the best thing for me was a calm and quiet environment to think in. Bless her heart; Ran has always had an uncanny ability to read me, even now when there's nothing left to read.

Ah, speaking of Ran, it was right after Kazuki's death (I discovered his name several years later, while going through my father's case files) that she decided to take up studying karate. I've always wondered how it was that Ran was able to move on with her life after that moment, and use that experience to become stronger. Perhaps I just lacked some strength of mind or force of character, some special essence of being human. While she decided learn how to defend herself and make sure that no one near her ever ended up like that boy again, I simply sat around moping for months.

Those months were spent contemplating the problem I had discovered in my world. And one day, in a moment of serendipity, I came across an answer.

That day in kindergarten, I had gotten into a little scuffle with another boy. I was walking home with Ran, a report about my misbehavior resting in my bag, waiting to be delivered to my parents.

'Why would you do something so stupid and mean, Shinichi?' Ran asked me.

'You wouldn't understand.'

'How do you know? If you don't tell me then obviously I won't understand!'

'Watanabe was being a jerk. He ate Shunsuke-kun's candy.'

'That's not a really good reason for hitting him.'

'No, it's not just that. He…he ate it, and I saw it and told him he shouldn't have done it, that it wasn't fair, and he just looked at me, and do you know what he said? He said….' My face contorted in anger, and I looked away from Ran, not wanting to show her such an ugly side of myself. 'He said to me, "Life isn't fair." And when he said that…I just couldn't control myself.'

There was a pause in the conversation as Ran thought of what to say. I continued to stare at the ground in front of me. The streets were as busy as ever, but the space around us felt incongruously quiet.

'Well…I can understand you being angry…but why did you get that angry? I was really surprised! Just what he said made you mad?'

When I nodded in response, Ran added, in a tone of voice too solemn and grave to rightfully belong to any four-year-old, 'But it's true what he said. Life isn't fair, Shinichi.'

'I know that!'

I tried to push away the guilt I felt when I saw Ran flinch away from me, and did my best to calm down, to indicate that I wasn't mad at her. Not directly, at least. 'I know life isn't fair, otherwise nothing bad would ever happen to good people and nothing good would ever happen to bad people. But something happens like a nice little girl getting cancer, or a murderer walking in a store and getting a prize for being the millionth customer, that's not something that can really be controlled. What happened today wasn't like that. Watanabe made a decision to do something bad; it had nothing to do with whether or not life was fair.'

'Yeah, but….' Ran hesitated as she searched for a way to phrase her argument. 'I still don't think that you should have hit him. Sensei said that you should treat others the way you want to be treated.'

'Oh really?' I sneered. 'Then why didn't sensei punish Watanabe for what he did?'

'B-Because! What you did was much worse, I guess. Nobu-kun just took some candy, but you actually made him start bleeding! Really now, Shinichi….'

At this point, I became annoyed and lost interest in our conversation. Ran likely sensed my mood, and spoke no more on our walk back. When we reached the front steps of her residence, she turned around after opening the door as if she had something to say to me, but my disinterested expression probably deterred her. I left as soon as she had shut the door, heading towards home.

As the early spring air blew through the trees, scattering the remnants of their blossoms from the branches, I mulled over the words Ran spoke to me.

Honestly, 'treat others the way you want to be treated'? How ridiculous, I thought. It's true that the world would be a better place if everyone followed that philosophy. (…Unless we had a sudden influx of masochists, but I ramble.) However, there were too many people like Watanabe. Too many people like Kazuki's murderer. What did their actions mean? Were they treating others the way they wanted to be treated? In that case, would it not, therefore, be my duty to reciprocate their actions?

And as that thought flitted through my mind, I suddenly understood the solution to my problem. For the first time since Ran and I played together with the other children in that hotel lobby, a grin spread across my features.

With a great weight lifted from my shoulders, I ran home, untroubled by the report lying in my backpack.

I was still smiling when I walked through the door of my house. Professor Agasa had been completely baffled by my cheerful greeting moments earlier, and I was vaguely interested in seeing how my parents would react to my sudden change in mood.

As soon as the door slammed shut behind me, my mother suddenly materialized, appearing from nowhere in the few seconds I had spared to take off my shoes.

'Welcome home Shin-chan!' she called in a sing-song voice that contradicted the red around her eyes. 'How was school today?'

I made no effort to hide my smile as I told her, 'I got in trouble for fighting with Nobu-kun.'

The interplay of emotions across my mother's face was most amusing. Surprise and happiness from seeing a genuine smile; dismay and anger from the news of my troublemaking; confusion from the combination of these two disparate facts. For once, she was speechless.

I took advantage of her temporary quietude to escape to the library, whereto my father, as I correctly guessed, had retreated.

At my entrance he looked up from some folders that he was perusing, likely containing cases sent to him from the police department for his assessment. 'Welcome home,' he said. Upon further examination of my bearing he added, 'You seem to be quite cheerful today. That's good. Did something happen?'

I gave a little laugh. The best possible thing for me had happened; I had just solved a mystery that had been tormenting me for months. When I told him as much, he smiled.

'That's wonderful news,' he said, putting away the case files. 'Well? Are you going to tell me about your solution to this mystery?'

I was going to do exactly that when mother stepped in, apparently awakened from her momentary muteness, and not very happy.

'Shinichi!' she snapped. 'What did you mean by what you said earlier?'

Still smiling, I calmly rummaged through my bag; the tension in the air was thick, but I was too buoyed up by my enlightenment to notice or care.

For a moment, it seemed as though my mother would tear the paper from my hands. Instead, she removed it from my grasp with surprising tenderness, perhaps to make up for her harsh tone of voice earlier. She moved over to the desk where my father sat, and together they read the report of misbehavior. As their eyes moved down the page, mother seemed to grow more and more worked up, while everything about my father's demeanor seemed to draw inward.

'Explain yourself.' My mother glared at me, arms crossed.

Truthfully, I didn't really feel like explaining, as I had already done so several times that day. First to the teacher, as I tried to justify my actions, then to Watanabe as I gave the most unapologetic apology I could craft at that age, and then once again to Ran on the way home. Frankly, I was getting tired; but then again, odds were that the teacher hadn't mentioned anything about Watanabe's transgression on my misbehavior report, so I thought that perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on my mother for not understanding the situation.

'Today in class it was Aya-chan's birthday, and she and some friends brought treats for everyone to share. Watanabe ate all of his share, but Shunsuke-kun was saving some of his for later and left it on the table, and then Watanabe came and ate it all.'

After hearing this, my mother's expression softened slightly, which I took to be a good sign. However, it seemed she still wasn't satisfied. 'So you thought that meant you could just beat up your classmate?'

'Maybe I was a bit harsh,' I admitted.

My parents waited expectantly for me to say something else, but I remained silent.

'That's…all you have to say for yourself?' Mother looked like she was going to explode again.

'Well, Watanabe didn't have any candy left for me to eat, so…'

The apparent non sequitur completely derailed the conversation for a moment before my mother shook herself out of her stupor. "W-What does that have to do with…?"

My small smile widened into a grin. 'That's what I was going to tell you about, tou-san! I finally figured out what I should do about people like that man who killed Kazuki!'

At the sound of that name, my parents suddenly drooped. As they exchanged conspiring glances, the levity that had recently taken up residence in my heart once more began to sink like a lead balloon. Already, they were beginning to write off everything I had yet to say.

'I-I'm being serious! When we were walking home from school Ran was asking me about why I fought Watanabe and I said that I was only doing what was fair because Watanabe stole what belonged to Shunsuke-kun, and then Ran said that I went too far, and that you should treat people the way you want to be treated! And I was angry with her at first, but then I started thinking and then all of a sudden what she said made sense, because then that would mean that people who killed other people wanted to be killed themselves! And then I thought that it would solve the problem if I just—'

'Shin-chan, that's enough.'

The interjection made me halt in my verbal tracks, tears of frustration welling up but not overflowing as I gritted my teeth in anger.

'Shin-chan, come here.' My mother knelt down and embraced me. I refused to reciprocate her contrived schmaltz, not even deigning to meet either her or my father's gaze. 'I know that…what happened that day was very difficult for you, and that you're still grieving. But you shouldn't let this affect the way you treat your friends at school. I'm sorry for getting so angry earlier. I thought that you had already moved past all of this.'

'Tou-san…' I mumbled. In the edge of my blurred vision, I noticed mother flinch. 'You….Do you think that I said what I did just because I'm grieving? That I'm imp-impale…impaired?'

My father and I locked gazes as he considered me. He finally answered, '…Frankly, Shinichi, I'm not sure what to think. Are you implying that you want to have all murderers killed?'

A shadow of my former smile returned. 'Yep!' I chirped, so pleased at the belief that my father at least took me seriously enough to have listened to me.

Ha, how mistaken I was. As I've learned time and time again, adults rarely if ever take children seriously. In fact, it would take several years for my parents to realize just how devoted to my solution I truly was.

A stern look overcame my father's features. 'Shinichi, I truly wish you were only suggesting that out of grief. Regardless of the reasoning behind your suggestion, however, I must say that such a…"plan"…would be considered excessively cruel by the general public, me included. I would suggest that you go up to your room and cool your head for a while.'

At the time, I really wanted to say something along the lines of no, why don't we all stay here, and why don't you actually listen to me this time instead of automatically discounting everything that comes out of my mouth, because we're inevitably going to have many clashes relating to this issue in the future unless we resolve this now.

Unfortunately, I was not nearly so eloquent at that age. The only thing I could come up with to convey my discontent was to stomp up to my room and slam the door as loudly as possible.

As I lay on my bed, face down where I had thrown myself after locking the door, I briefly considered where my parents' disapproval left me. Was it really important?

I smiled into the sheets. No. Not at all. While their agreement would certainly make things easier for me in the long run, it was by no means a necessity.

I skipped dinner and went to sleep early that night, contemplating how I would go about putting my plans into action.