Disclaimer: Detective Conan is not mine. This fanfic is a translation.
Enjoy Reading!
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Watching them sit neatly on the sofa, the first thought that came to Ritsu's mind was The Three Little Pigs. His second thought was what the sofa had done wrong to deserve bearing so much weight.
He walked slowly to the dining table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. His eyes remained fixed on the Honjo family, who were nervously exchanging glances with one another.
Perhaps the prolonged silence made them uncomfortable. Ichiro nudged his wife with his elbow. Receiving the hint, Naomi forced a smile and said,
"Ritsu, calling us here so seriously like this… what did you want to talk about?"
"I'm moving out. From now on, I'll have nothing to do with any of you."
Ritsu had never liked beating around the bush. He spoke directly and plainly, saying exactly what he meant.
"W-what? You're moving out? And you want to cut ties with us? Ritsu, how can you say that? We've raised you for ten whole years! You—you—!"
Naomi clapped her hands and jumped up from the sofa in agitation. The three layers of fat on her belly jiggled as she pointed a finger at Ritsu and shouted like a shrew.
"Do you even have a conscience?! We raised you for ten years, and now you want to cut ties with us!"
"A conscience?"
Ritsu seemed to hear something amusing. He covered his mouth and chuckled softly. Frost filled his pale blue eyes, as though they could freeze everything in sight.
"You want to talk to me about conscience? Ask yourselves first, do you even have a heart?"
His voice carried no emotion at all, hollow like that of a machine.
Ritsu stood up. His slippers made dull sounds against the floor as he stopped in front of Ichiro, who sat on the far left of the sofa. Even though Ritsu's late growth spurt left him only a little over 160 centimeters tall, it was still enough for him to look down at the three people sitting there.
His cold gaze settled on Ichiro's large, fleshy face.
"In these ten years, the cigarettes you smoked and the alcohol you drank, whose money paid for them? Not long after I arrived, you stopped working. So where did the household expenses come from, hm? Why don't you answer?"
Ichiro lowered his head, not daring to say a word. His fingers kept twisting together and then separating again, over and over, a clear sign of his guilty conscience.
Seeing him remain silent, Ritsu shifted his gaze to Naomi. She avoided eye contact, her eyes flickering nervously. Just moments ago she had been loud and domineering; now she looked like a sickly chicken, curling her massive body inward as if hoping he wouldn't notice her.
"Naomi… Every day you hang out with those gossiping women in the neighborhood who talk about me behind my back. When I'm not around, do you join them? You spend the money my parents left for me eating good food outside, yet the lunchboxes you prepare for me are always just your leftovers. Am I wrong?"
Ritsu didn't stop walking. Finally, his eyes landed on Aoko, whose hair looked like it hadn't been washed in days, greasy strands clumped together. An adult with working limbs who, after graduating high school, simply stayed home doing nothing; complaining about life without ever reflecting on herself.
"You can buy as much makeup as you want and pile on as much foundation as you like, but it won't hide that ugly face of yours. You're the kind of trash people hesitate over when sorting garbage, whether to throw you in kitchen waste or non-recyclables."
Ritsu still remembered clearly the day he first arrived at the Honjo household.
He tried his best to act like a well-behaved child so he wouldn't cause trouble. When he was bullied, he chose to endure it. He studied hard and ranked first in class, hoping that maybe he would finally receive some attention.
But in the end, all he received was false kindness.
One night when he was eight years old, he had been so hungry that he went to the refrigerator to look for food. Instead, he overheard the Honjo family discussing how to divide the large amount of support money his parents had deposited into their account.
—
"His parents don't even care about him anyway. Several tens of millions of yen is enough for us to buy a nice house. Honey, I've always wanted to live in a detached house. Then we could have a little yard where you could plant trees!"
"Mom, Dad, I want my own room too! I'm not sharing with him! And there's a limited-edition Christmas makeup set I really want, buy it for me!"
"Let's buy a house first. We'll save part of the money in the bank to earn interest, and use the rest to enjoy ourselves… The Sasajimas are busy working overseas, and we can't even reach them by phone. As long as we keep up appearances, even if someone checks in, they won't find anything wrong!"
—
It was close to Christmas that year, and Saitama was especially cold. The house had no floor heating.
Barefoot, he quietly slipped back to his room and curled up on the wooden bed. That night he understood something.
The cold felt by the body could never compare to the chill felt in the heart.
Disappointment spread like sickness from the inside out. Even his emotions felt numb.
And that year, Sasajima Ritsu was only eight years old, a second grader in elementary school.
An age that should have been filled with childhood joy.
Instead, he had already seen the cruelty and malice of the world.
Ritsu paced back and forth in the living room. Every step seemed to strike directly at the Honjo family's hearts. When his footsteps suddenly stopped, they cautiously looked up and saw him staring at them.
"The first transfer was fifty million yen. The second was sixty million. After ten years, that money should be almost completely squandered."
Ritsu slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked toward the entrance. With his back turned to them, he said,
"Consider that money as pig feed. I'm too lazy to try and get it back. To be honest, I'm actually a little curious…"
After putting on his shoes, he turned back to look at the three stunned figures and smiled.
"I'm curious how people who've done nothing for ten years will live once all that money is gone."
"Goodbye. And if you try to interfere with my new life, I won't hesitate to take legal action."
Bang!
The door slammed shut.
From that moment on, he had nothing more to do with the Honjo family.
Ritsu felt surprisingly good after regaining his freedom.
He connected his noise-canceling headphones to his phone and checked the itinerary written in his memo app. This would be his first time going to Tokyo.
He would board at Hon-Kawagoe Station on the Tobu Tojo Line, transfer at Ikebukuro Station to the Fukutoshin Line, and get off at Shibuya Station. The hotel he had booked was located at 2-36 Udagawacho, Shibuya Ward.
After buying a ticket and entering the station, he walked to a less crowded train car and casually took an empty seat, pretending to listen to music.
With his head lowered, he said nothing. Years of being subjected to verbal attacks and school bullying had made him unaccustomed to speaking. After talking so much today, his throat even felt a little sore.
About an hour later, the train arrived in Shibuya, Tokyo.
As the birthplace of countless fashion and cultural trends, he could feel it the moment he stepped out of the station.
There were girls with exaggerated long blonde curls, dark sun-tanned skin paired with silver-white eye shadow and glossy lips.
One girl wore a brown school uniform jacket clearly a size larger than usual. The longer hem covered most of her plaid miniskirt, leaving only two or three centimeters visible; at first glance it almost looked like she wasn't wearing a skirt at all.
The finishing touch was the dazzling highlight across the bridge of her nose. It reminded Ritsu oddly of tribal makeup from a tropical rainforest.
For a moment, he wondered if maybe… Tokyo wasn't the right place for him.
No. That was just a very small group of people.
Relaxing a little, Ritsu walked toward Udagawacho 2-chome. On the way, he stopped by a convenience store and bought a bottle of Calpis. Taking it straight from the refrigerated case, he drank a mouthful.
The faint yogurt-like tang was refreshing and thirst-quenching.
By the time the bottle was half empty, Ritsu had found his hotel.
After completing the check-in procedures, the first thing he did was take a shower. Then he changed into the only spare set of clothes in his backpack.
He jumped backward onto the bed.
The soft mattress sank beneath him. Half-closing his eyes, he gazed at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
Exhale.
Freedom felt wonderful.