Beika General Hospital. A private room on the third floor.
Suddenly, the door was pushed open. Ran cried out in a sorrowful voice, "Dad!"
Instantly, Kogorō Mouri, who was sitting on the hospital bed eating, was startled. The chicken leg he was holding fell into his lunchbox.
Ran's sorrowful cry was cut short. The tears in her eyes disappeared instantly. Her eyes widened as she stared intently at the man on the hospital bed.
Kurosawa Hoshino saw this scene and knew it would be like this. How could anything happen to Kogorō? It was impossible.
Conan breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want anything to happen to Kogorō either.
"Ran, you're here." Kogorō snapped back to reality, picked up the chicken leg that had fallen into the lunchbox, and began to eat it with gusto, his cheeks bulging.
"Dad!" The girl's voice was low as she slowly approached the hospital bed. Her body seemed to be surrounded by black mist, making her look terrifying.
Kogorō finally realized something was wrong. He quickly swallowed the food in his mouth and said anxiously, "What's wrong? Did the nurse say I was in terrible shape when she called?"
"I—you—" Ran couldn't speak, her pretty face turning bright red. When she heard the news of the car accident, she thought it was very serious and hadn't had the mind to analyze the nurse's words. Now that she thought about it, the nurse really hadn't said that—she had just assumed the worst.
"Alright, it's good that Uncle Mouri is alright." Kurosawa stepped forward, hugged Ran, and comforted her, helping the girl calm down.
Seeing his daughter being hugged by a pig, Kogorō didn't dare say anything more. He only hoped that his daughter wouldn't get angry—or she'd punch him, which would be a real pain.
After a while, Ran finally recovered. Blushing, she stepped out of Kurosawa's embrace. Looking at her seemingly unharmed father, she frowned and asked, "Dad, you look perfectly fine. So why are you in the hospital?"
"I didn't want to either." Kogorō said helplessly. "Just before dark, I saved someone from being hit by a car. Although the car braked, I was still bumped. The gentleman was worried and insisted I come to the hospital for a checkup—even if nothing's wrong, just to stay overnight."
Hearing this, the three of them suddenly understood.
Ran said nervously, "So you were still hit? Then stay a day to be on the safe side."
"You brat, go buy a deck of cards. We're playing cards tonight. I can't sleep in this hospital bed at all." Kogorō ordered.
"I'll go." Ran quickly turned and left the room.
Kurosawa pulled up a chair and sat down beside the hospital bed. "Uncle Mouri," he said, "Ran cried when she got the call about your car accident at home."
Kogorō's eyes flashed with heartache. He sighed, "It's all my fault. I should have called myself instead of letting the nurse do it for me."
Conan really wanted to complain to Kogorō—that Kurosawa had been clinging to Ran the whole way—but he didn't dare say it, afraid of being beaten. He was already under someone else's roof; he had to bow his head. If he dared to say anything, he'd be in for trouble later. Suddenly, he remembered washing Kurosawa's socks. His stomach churned, his throat felt very uncomfortable, and he wanted to vomit.
Twenty minutes later, the three people in the ward were getting restless, glancing at the door every now and then.
Kogorō frowned. "There's a shop right across the street downstairs. Does Ran really need to go that long?"
"I'll go look for her." Kurosawa was well aware of the various tropes in anime from his past life. Sometimes, the crisis the female protagonist faced could be resolved if the male protagonist just showed up quickly. So he couldn't stay in the hospital room any longer. The time it had taken indicated something was wrong. He had to go out and check.
Just as he got up from his chair, the hospital room door opened. Two figures walked in one after the other.
"Eh, Officer Sato," Kogorō and Conan said in surprise.
"Officer Sato, what brings you here?" Kurosawa was quite surprised to see Sato Miwako next to Ran.
"I met Officer Sato downstairs. Officer Sato knew you were upstairs, and she insisted on coming up to see you." Ran explained with a smile.
Sato Miwako said, "Mr. Mouri, how are you hurt? Ran told me you were in a car accident."
"I'm fine." Reluctantly, Kogorō recounted his situation again.
Sato nodded in understanding. Then her gaze involuntarily turned to Kurosawa. Clearly, her claim of coming to see Kogorō was a lie—her real purpose was to see Kurosawa.
Kogorō naturally saw through this and decisively asked, "Officer Sato, are you here at the hospital to investigate some case?"
"I wouldn't say a case." Just as Ran was wondering why she gave such an answer, Sato's next sentence almost made her faint. "You could say it's a paranormal event."
Instantly, Ran's face turned pale. A hospital, a paranormal event—the two combined made her think of something extremely terrifying.
Kurosawa glanced at Ran and walked over to her. Ran instinctively reached out and grabbed Kurosawa's arm, steadying herself and preventing herself from collapsing to the ground.
"What paranormal event?" Conan's eyes lit up. He didn't believe in paranormal events—he only believed that someone was playing tricks.
Sato slowly said, "Two nights ago, also on the third floor, a patient in one of the wards saw a shadowy figure holding a long object, stabbing violently into another shadowy figure through the window of the opposite room. It looked like a murder. Of course, they called the police. But when we arrived, the room was completely empty—not even a drop of blood, let alone a body. We initially thought it was just the patient hallucinating, so we went back. But that night, the patient saw the same scene four times in a row and called the police four times. Each time we came, we didn't find anything. So we determined it was the patient's problem and transferred him to another hospital."
"But last night, another patient encountered the same thing. However, this patient only saw it once and never saw it again. I find it very strange, so I decided to come to the hospital tonight to keep watch and see if that murder scene will appear again."
As Ran listened to Sato's story, her face grew paler and paler. She held Kurosawa's arm tighter and tighter—giving him a wonderfully soft feeling.