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Miyano is staring at him again.
Shinichi tries to ignore it, until the tingling between his shoulders of being watched from behind builds to an unbearable itch. He's fairly certain that he can't actually get a stress headache, but it's not a theory he's really bothered to test.
He returns the documents on the table back to the file Toyama gave him, but doesn't turn around. "Either come in and say your piece, Miyano, or go stare at someone else."
Miracles of miracles, she actually does as he asks – or halfway, at least, since she doesn't budge from the doorway. "You're actually doing it, aren't you."
"If by 'it' you mean looking for Ran, then yes. I am." Shinichi still doesn't look over at her. It's petty of him, probably, but given where he's fairly certain this conversation is going Miyano can afford to take a walk if she'd prefer not talking to his back. "Got a problem with that?"
Miyano's voice is sharp enough to cut even as she stalks over to the table in quick strides. "Would you like the itemised list?"
"Not particularly. As far as I'm concerned, me looking for my friend is none of your business."
"None of my busin– don't you understand?" He thinks Miyano would've been shouting by this point, if she was the kind to do that. "The Winter Soldier is everyone's business, Kudo-kun, outside of whatever idealist utopia you're apparently living in. She's had – "
"At least three dozen confirmed hits over the past seventy years, yes." Shinichi feels a further spike of irritation at the quick flash of surprise across Miyano's face – he's perfectly capable of reading the files Widow put online, contrary to what everyone seems to think, even if it'd taken him a while to find the right ones. "And like I said, I'm looking for Ran. Not the Soldier."
Miyano crosses her arms, lips a thin line. "What makes you think that she's even there to be found?"
"The fact that I'm sitting here alive right now," Shinichi answers shortly, not bothering to elaborate. "And either way, last I checked, there's one person in this room who can fight her on even ground and it's not you. So again, none of your business."
They glare at each other for a long moment.
"You really think it's that simple," Miyano says finally, her words gone oddly flat. "I didn't take you for a fool, Kudo-kun. Guess I was wrong."
"If it was Momiji-san out there, wouldn't you be looking too?" Shinichi shoves his chair back, the file clenched tightly in one hand. "Or do you just not care about anyone enough, Miyano?"
Then Shinichi strides out of the room before either of them can say anything worse. They're probably going to regret their words later – at least, he certainly is – and usually he'd never walk out on an argument halfway through but this is Ran, and, well.
That says it all, really, doesn't it?
He wakes up the next morning to find a new app installed on his handphone, and the voice password now changed to I solemnly swear I am up to no good for reasons Shinichi hasn't quite managed to ascertain yet.
The app opens to a bunch of maps with red and blue and green pins: reported sightings of the Winter Soldier and remaining known or suspected hubs of Org activity.
Of course, the interface is over-exaggeratedly simple, and the font big enough to read from an arm's length away (or twice that, with his eyesight), because Miyano either doesn't know how not to be an asshole even while trying not to be, or is doing a damn good job of pretending so anyway.
(In either case, he's not so stubborn as to deny the olive branch for what it is, so he sends quick texts to Momiji and Aoko asking if they have any sorry-we-quarrelled-over-my-childhood-friend gift ideas.
Shinichi briefly considers making something, except that culinary skills have always been more Ran's forte than his, he doesn't want to burn down modern Japan by trying anything too ambitious, and he's not quite sure what he can get that the supreme leader of Miyano Industries can't already afford on her own yen.
Two text alerts arrive in close succession. They're probably having breakfast together, he guesses, as he scrolls through the replies.
Shinichi boots up his laptop to google "cat cafe tokyo", and –
...huh, okay. Not what he was expecting.
He scrolls through the results to find the most offensively cute cafe, because two can play at this game, and makes a note of the blueberry jam brand Momiji specifies in her text.
Cat cafe gift vouchers, plus peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Apparently Miyano might actually be human somewhere deep inside, after all.)
Later, after AGASA – or the Professor, as Shinichi still calls it (him?) out of habit – helps him to find the toggle creatively labelled "Captain Grandpa" buried deep in the app's display settings, he finds that it also comes with a function to superimpose percentages on the map, figures that increase and decrease with the appearance of more data and pins.
Estimated probability of the Winter Soldier's next appearance at each location based on past history, Shinichi-kun, the AI explains helpfully when he asks.
Shinichi barely considers that for a moment before turning it back off. He already has all the history he needs, thank you, he can make his own damn deductions.
And anyway, he's fairly sure Miyano's only accounted for the Soldier, because she has a ridiculous case of tunnel vision for someone who built a flying robot suit out of a box of scraps.
Shinichi, though? He hadn't been lying last night. He's willing to bet his newly-returned fresh-out-of-museum Holmes collection that whoever's out there is more Ran than the Soldier, and no one knows Mouri Ran better than he does.
Certainly no one alive in this century, anyway, his brain supplies – and wow, the thought is so depressing that Shinichi is almost tempted to dump his morning coffee over his own head.
Except then Hattori bounds into the kitchen with loud cheers of "Field trip! Field trip!" while Toyama trails in behind him looking just a hair less than runway-ready for once.
They share a deeply commiserating look, and Shinichi wordlessly fills a fresh mug of coffee and pushes it across the table before she can ask.
Because say what you like about the future, but at least it's got loads more vehemently not-morning people in it. Not that he's ever really out of it, thanks to the serum's effects, but there's a big difference between being able to function before oh-nine-hundred hours and actually wanting to. The flesh is willing but the spirit is weak and so on.
Maybe after they find Ran, Hattori can go race the sun with her and leave him and Toyama to sleep in peace.
("Kazuha," mumbles Toyama as she inhales the coffee black, so either she's reading his mind or he accidentally said that out loud. "If I'm getting stuck on a indefinitely long roadtrip with Heiji, it's not gonna be with someone who still addresses me by my last name. Especially considering that you're apparently on first-name basis with the Winter Soldier, of all people."
Shinichi opens his mouth to reply, but T- Kazuha bulldozes through before he can even speak.
"Besides, I did kiss ya that once, so I think we're quite acquainted enough already, don'tcha think?"
The resulting outburst from Hattori is loud enough to wake the dead, even as Kazuha flutters her eyelashes and says something that's probably more insulting if you're from Osaka, judging from the subsequent increase in volume.
Shinichi sighs into his coffee and thinks, wistfully, about how things were more peaceful during the war.)