There aren't many feminine elements in Yoko Okino's residence.
From the decoration to the furnishings, it looks like a very standard high-end apartment of this era, with nothing special about it.
The body in the living room had been moved out.
A white outline and a pool of blood that had just begun to oxidize and turn black were left at the scene, and in order to protect the scene, the messy furnishings in the living room were kept as they were.
"But it's really hot in this room. Do you always keep the temperature this high at home?"
Inspector Megure pulled at his collar to breathe.
He had only been in the room for two minutes and he was already sweating slightly under his hat.
Yoko Okino shook her head and said, "No, I usually don't set it this high, and I remember I should have turned off the air conditioner when I went out today."
"That's strange. It's impossible that the deceased turned up the air conditioner so high himself."
"Inspector Megure, these are photos of the traces collected at the scene."
A police officer handed a freshly printed photo to Megure, who took it and took a quick look at it. He then turned to Hayashi Yoshiki and said, "Brother Yoshiki, do you want to come over and take a look?"
"OK."
Hayashi Yoshiki took the photo.
Kogoro Mouri also came over, pinching his chin while observing and thinking.
As for Conan, he sneaked around the living room like a dog, trying to find any missing clues.
He had already observed all the traces taken by the police before they arrived, so it didn't matter if he didn't look at them.
This time, I really took the lead...
As he was thinking about it, he lay down in front of the sofa and unexpectedly found a pair of women's earrings under the gap of the sofa!
Got it!
Conan quickly got up and was about to alert the police of his new discovery, when he heard Hayashi Yoshiki holding a photo and asking the police:
"Excuse me, there were traces of water in this place before, right?"
"Yes, probably around this location." The policeman recording the scene squatted down near the outline of the body and pointed to a location nearby.
Hayashi Yoshiki walked over, observed the location carefully, and nodded after finding an obvious dent on the wooden floor next to it.
"Okay, so the stool next to the body has never been moved, right?"
"Yes, we only removed the body from the scene. Nothing else has changed."
"I see. The cause of death may be suicide."
"Ah?"
The sudden conclusion stunned everyone present, and they wondered if they had heard it wrong.
The person who reacted immediately was Kogoro Mouri: "No, the cause of death was a knife wound in the back. How could it be suicide in this case?"
Kogoro's words and tone were very calm, without any sense of pride in them, as if he was simply giving advice to Hayashi Yoshiki... After all, in his eyes, this was Eri Kisaki's nephew, and he had taken the initiative to recommend himself to Yoko Okino, so he was completely one of his own!
"Just tell me what I thought."
"First, let's start with the puddle of water near the body of the deceased in the photo."
Hayashi Yoshiki took out the photo. From the photo, he could see that the water stains were quite large when the photo was taken, and they were also very conspicuous.
"Combined with the fact that the room's temperature was set too high, if we work backwards, the earlier form of the evaporated water marks could have been ice."
"Ice cubes?!"
"Yes, and let's talk about this dent in the floor around the water stain."
Hayashi Yoshiki took out the next photo, pointed at the dent on it and said, "Let's consider it as a knock made by the handle of a kitchen knife... The deceased used this dent and ice to fix the kitchen knife before his death, with the tip of the knife facing upwards—"
The moment Hayashi Yoshiki said this, it was like a streak of lightning suddenly flashed through Conan's mind, making him immediately realize the method of this suicide case.
But why is the speed so fast!?
Conan looked at Hayashi Yoshiki and opened his mouth subconsciously.
"And there's the stool next to the body. In this messy space, this is the only stool that's placed so neatly. The reason is that the deceased wanted to commit suicide. After placing the ice and the knife, he stood on the stool and violently dropped his back onto the tip of the knife."
"You definitely won't die on the spot after being stabbed by a knife."
"So he still had enough energy to struggle and turn over so that his back was facing upwards, in order to make it look like a homicide."
After Hayashi Yoshiki's inference, the people present were dumbfounded.
Except for Conan, most people thought it was a bit ridiculous, but looking at the traces at the scene, they couldn't bring themselves to refute it.
Finally, it was Ran Mouri who raised the biggest question in her mind: "But why use suicide as a way to frame Miss Yoko?"
"That I don't know."
Hayashi Yoshiki responded softly.
His unusually exquisite beauty showed a smile, but it seemed that the smile was just out of habit: "I am more accustomed to shooting arrows first and then drawing the target. It's the same when solving a case. First find out the method of committing the crime, and then slowly explore the motive and so on... Besides, I don't even know the name of the deceased now."
"…"
The people around looked at each other.
After a moment of silence, Yoko Okino finally couldn't help but speak: "Actually, his name is Akira Asanuma."
"Miss Yoko!?"
Sakae Yamagishi's face turned panicky.
Megure immediately frowned: "Didn't you say at the beginning that you didn't know this person?"
"…"
Yoko Okino lowered her head.
However, she soon chose to confess: the deceased, Akira Asanuma, was her boyfriend when she was a student, and Yoko Okino had actually recognized him the moment she saw his body.
In response to her statement, Hayashi Yoshiki had only one thought: She is indeed an actress, and there was really no flaw when she pretended not to recognize him at the beginning.
"So after Asanuma Akira asked Miss Yoko to reconcile and was rejected, he chose to commit suicide in anger and put the blame on her?"
Kogoro Mouri made an inference.
But surprisingly, Yoko Okino shook her head:"No, he didn't try to get back together with me. This was the first time I met him since we broke up."
"Eh...?"
"Hey, Uncle Kogoro, I just saw a strange earring under the sofa."
At this time, Conan took out the earring he found earlier. When Yoko Okino saw it, she immediately recognized it as belonging to Yuko Ikezawa, another idol who debuted at the same time as her.
So, the police quickly summoned Yuko Ikezawa to the scene.
When the somewhat arrogant and reluctant Ikezawa Yuko arrived, the context of the matter became clear all at once.
——The spare key belonging to manager Yamagishi Sakae had actually been stolen by Ikezawa Yuko. She had been envious of Yoko Okino's rising popularity, and in an attempt to find dirt on her rival, she had repeatedly snuck into her apartment using the stolen key.
Earlier today, Asanuma Akira, Yoko's ex-boyfriend, came to her apartment hoping to reconcile. When he entered, he mistook Ikezawa Yuko's back for Yoko Okino's and hugged her from behind. Yuko, startled and terrified, pushed him off and fled the apartment.
As a result, Asanuma, who had still not recovered from the heartbreak, misinterpreted the rejection yet again. In his emotional despair, love turned into hate — and he chose to stage an elaborate suicide in Yoko Okino's apartment, making it look like murder in order to ruin her.
Then, with a heavy expression, Yamagishi Sakae also confessed:
"Actually... the reason why Asanuma broke up with you, Yoko, was because I asked him to."
"What...?"Yoko Okino looked shocked.
"Your idol career was just taking off back then, and if word got out that you were dating, it would've been devastating to your reputation. So I went to his place and begged him to leave you — telling him it was for your future."
"…"
Yoko stared silently at her manager, her expression unreadable.
"Why... would you do something like that...?"
The ever-emotional Ran Mouri felt her chest tighten. She couldn't help but sympathize — this whole tragedy had been born out of misunderstanding, lies, and bad timing.
But Kogoro Mouri snorted coldly:
"Hmph, that sounds noble, but if he truly left for Miss Yoko's future, why would he come crawling back now — at the height of her career — and even go to such extremes when turned away?"
Whether it was a relationship scandal or being caught up in a criminal case, either would be fatal to a rising idol.
"Dad...!"
Ran frowned at her father's harsh tone, but she didn't know how to refute it.
At that moment, Conan turned to look at Hayashi Yoshiki.
"Brother Yoshiki, what do you think?"
"Me?"
Hayashi Yoshiki, who was scribbling something into his notebook, looked up, slightly surprised by the question. He gave a small smile and replied:
"I personally believe there's no need to either glorify or condemn the dead."
He paused briefly, his voice calm and clear.
"The dead... don't need our judgment. And I, for one—"He gently closed the notebook.
"—don't seek aesthetics in death."