Okay all, before we start, I'd like to give a shout-out to everyone that left comments that helped motivate me to write!

Also, I might do some character POV switching; I'll try to make the switches clear )!

Analysis

It was actually found that the person was not yet dead, but quite close to it. Too much longer in the freezer and he would have been a goner! At least that's a little off my chest. But he was in pretty bad shape. The police (led by Hattori's friend Otaki) identified him as 34-year-old Takana Jun, a chef here at this restaurant. His injuries include a severe hit to the back of the head, and frostbite.

The culprit must work in this restaurant; how else could he put the body in here and not be suspected of something strange?

"Kudou, don't ya find it a bit odd?"

"Yeah, that he wasn't found until now? That's a long time to be in a freezer without being found."

"Then that means..."

"It must be someone that works with frozen foods here at this restaurant!"

Hattori and I are almost always on the same field when it comes to solving cases, and if not, then I'm usually the one who's right. We split up and started looking for clues. I followed one of the officers out to the parking lot where they were conducting some interviews. There were three particular people that had been called out, the rest of the staff had alibis. I then had a sudden suspicion about who it might be. By looking at the three suspects, two men and a woman, I could almost instantly tell. I also had a sneaking suspicion as to how they pulled off the crime as well.

I tugged on an officer's shirt and he turned then crouched to my level. "Otaki-san asked me to tell you to check that man's car trunk." The officer nodded then went to do my bidding. I waited for the results.

Analysis

Satoshi's face immediately waned as he saw the person being carried out on a stretcher. It was a bit of a mess with the tiny cuts and a welt on the back of the head, not to mention the bruised back. I then realized it probably wasn't a good idea to bring someone like him to a crime scene, but I was hoping he could point out any facts he might notice, being a fan of Sherlock Holmes and all. I sighed and placed my hand on his shoulder.

"If you're not very good with this kind of thing..."

"Nah, I'm fine," he assured me with a fake smile.

I shrugged. "He's not dead," I reminded him. Then I began to look around for any hints.

"Hotarou."

"Hmm?"

"Why are you investigating this?"

"Why...you say." I shrugged again. "Well I don't know, I just feel like I'm expected to."

"What about your energy saving?"

"I'm running on a full charge, so I can do something. Would you quit nit-picking and just help me?" I became a little irritated with the whole conversation. I can make my own choice if I want to do something or not. Besides, I guess I'm a little...curious."

"I'll go ask one of the officers for an analysis of the body," Satoshi informed me with a sly grin. "being in here gives me the creeps." I nodded and he bounded off. I looked around in the freezer for a bit and didn't find anything of interest then stood up and began to walk to the back door when I nearly slipped in a puddle. I caught myself, but just barely. I stepped back then crouched and looked at it. It smelled of wine, but only faintly. Chitanda would probably notice it almost instantly, given her refined senses. I then noticed something glint under the island in the center of the kitchen. I reached under to grab it then recollected all the detective shows I had watched before under my kotatsu while experiencing life as a hermit crab, and decided to grab some kitchen gloves. What I pulled out was a shard of green glass, such as one from a wine bottle. I began to put some pieces together to solve this puzzle. But there was still a portion missing.

I pondered over this then heard a door slam in the background. I heard a loud rattling sound above my head and noticed wine bottled hanging from the ceiling in a wooden rack. I jumped back out of the way of the bottles just in case one slipped loose. It then occurred to me the trick to the situation.

At that point Satoshi came back and pulling out his notebook, relayed some information the officers found in the car. "There were trace amounts of blood that were in odd shapes, the identification of the blood is to be determined," he told me. "And a strong smell of alcohol, specifically wine, came form the back of the car. Everything else was normal."

"The body smelled of wine as well," my hand moved to my head.

Satoshi smirked. "You've figured it it our already?"

"More or less. Will you hear me out?"

Deduction

Hattori and I met up again and compared theories and evidence. They matched. We both grinned in victory. We were closing in on this case, and so began to set up for our deduction. Because I still needed to hide my identity from those other people out in the cafe, Hattori would handle most of the deduction.

I bounded happily back to the table to see the situation there. My mom and Ran sat patiently waiting and having a polite conversation with the Chitanda girl and the other girl sat quietly and listened, but I noticed the lack of Oreki and the other guy. I shrugged, they probably just got bored or something.

Hattori then re-entered the cafe area followed by Otaki, the other policemen, and the three suspects, signaling the start of our deduction.

"So, all the pieces fit and we've figured out the criminal behind the attempted murder-a Takana-san." Hattori began.

"Great," sighed one of the suspects. "High schoolers giving deductions! Is this even legal?"

Okati shushed him then turned back to Hattori to encourage him to continue. "Well, what we know," Hattori proceeded, "is that this was a per-meditated event. Takana-san was called up ta our suspects house fer a glass-a wine ta discuss some topics-a interest. But while he thought this was a normal meeting, he thought wrong.

"While there, our suspect attacked Takana-san with a bottle-a wine, hittin' him o'er the back-a the head in hopes ta kill him. He was then packed in the back-a the car and driven down here so that he could be hidden until a better place ta hide the body could be found. However, Takana-san had only passed out from the hit and woke up as he was bein' moved. Therefore he was hit on the back with another bottle-a wine, making him pass out again. He was then put in the freezer as originally planned.

"As fer identifying who the actual culprit is, is simple. The person with the blood in the back-a their car is the culprit, also, this person would have crushed glass in the bottom-a their shoes, mainly work in the section with the freezer and would have cuts on their hands from the broken glass... therefore the culprit is..."

"No one." A voice called out and fell heavily in the dramatic silence.

Deduction

I swallowed before I spoke and licked my lips. "There is no culprit." I repeated.

Everyone turned and stared at me, making me a bit nervous.

"What do ya mean by that?" Hattori asked, shifting into a ' how dare you challenge my authority' pose. I glanced over at Kudou, his face beheld a strange mixture of amusement and confusion.

"I mean what I said." I retorted right back. Don't look at me as if I just blew up Tokyo! The whole room began to feel very awkward so I continued, "This whole case is an accident. The person you mark as a murderer is only a victim of circumstance."

"Oreki-san..." I heard Chitanda say quietly from the corner. I dared not look over there.

"With all respect, you have the correct facts, but you are being too idealistic. The victim is...Fukayama Akira-san. Right?" the man who complained about teenage detectives started.

"R-right, but he planned this murder," Hattori refuted. "Ya don't know how ta..."

"Heiji-niichan, I want to hear what Oreki-niisan has to say!" I heard Kudou's squeakiest cute voice. I cringed on the inside. But I saw his face really held genuine curiosity (as did the faces of Chitanda and Ibara, but I ignored them).

I heard Hattori snort in irritation and saw him cross his arms. Let's see, "The events are simple. You over-complicated this whole event. Takana-san happened to be in the kitchen standing under the wine rack grabbing some spices to make a strawberry parfait. But someone, that being Fukayama-san, accidentally let the door slam in the other room, quite easy to do, in fact. When that happens the wine rack rattles.

"So Takana-san stood and heard the door slam, then one of the especially loose wine bottles fell and..."

I heard Chitanda let out a gasp.

"Fukayama-san heard the sound and rushed to see what happened and found Takana-san unconscious. Fearing the worst, he put the body into the freezer, because normal people don't call an ambulance when a person is injured. Anyway, he cleaned up the mess and tried to mop it, but didn't do a very good job." I glanced at Fukayama; he was blushing and looking at the ground.

"Then how do ya explain the blood in the car? And his cut hand?" Hattori added irritably.

"The blood in the car is none other than Fukayama's. What probably happened is that he was carrying a crate of wine to give to a friend, possibly our victim who might be a wine connoisseur, but it slipped out of his hand just as he was putting in into the car and one of the bottles cracked. Picking up the pieces he cut himself and dripped the blood on shards of glass. You should find this to be true from the blood tests. Satoshi?" I had him come in with the officer on cue to make the whole occasion more 'dramatic'. He handed me the papers and I glanced through them. "The blood belong to Fukayama, as stated here." I handed them to Hattori who scrutinized them then relented, handing them back to the officer.

I let out a sigh of relief, then realized my sudden thirst. I didn't want to take the energy to walk back over to the table only to be asked to stand up again and go somewhere else so I remained where I was. The room slowly began to move again and the rest of the Classics Club moved my way. I could only imagine their upcoming comments.

"Oreki! You could be a detective!"

"That was a amazing Oreki-san! It's incredible how you put that together!"

"As expected of Hotarou, the 'Classics Club's Detective'!"

This was all compiled with pats on the back and 'personal space destroyer' moves.

"Don't make such a big deal about it, it was just..." luck? No. "...I just knew something the detectives didn't."

"That was still amazing...!" Chintanda persisted.

I blocked out her comments and noticed Kudou standing a little way away looking my direction. We made eye contact and he seemed to give me a 'not bad' look. I raised my eyebrows in response, not quite sure what I even meant by it. I noticed Hattori walked over and crouch down next to Kudou and start whispering. I turned my attention back to my friends and continued to associate with them.

In the end, we stayed a little longer than planned due to the police needing our side of the story. It was pretty inconvenient, I just wanted to go home and go to sleep in my own bed. I realized I spent way to much useless energy on that incident that Satoshi dubbed the 'Bottle Incident'. He said it would be the shinning gem amongst all other achievements before and after because it was my first criminal case. There was no point in arguing with him that it wasn't a criminal case, it would just be another waste of energy.

As for Takana, he's fine and is recovering in the hospital. There might be charges against Fukayama for his actions, but we'll see. Hattori promised to keep us updated on that.

So the day finally came for us to go home. I was exhausted and was planning on sleeping on the train on the way back. Hattori, Kudou, Mori-san, and Kudou-san (which I decided over 'neechan') all waved goodbye to us and gave us parting words.

Hattori and Kudou pulled me over to the side and gave me 'good work's; thank you's; 'hope to see you soon'; and other such formalities. Then also gave me a harsh warning not to reveal anything about this occurrence beyond the case that I solved.

"I don't want to have to explain that again," I told them truthfully. "Not a word from me."

They nodded and smiled. I then boarded the train with the others and set off down the merry trail home. The gentle swaying of the train lulled me to sleep very quickly, but I was shaken awake by Satoshi who pointed to the girls; Ibara had her head slouched on Chitanda's shoulder and Chitanda had her cheek resting on Ibara's head. They looked utterly peaceful, which was what I wanted to be.

"Okay, so do you want to draw on their faces or something?" I said with an intentional bit of snark.

"No, but now that they can't hear you, can you tell me the resolution to Kudou case?"

"I'm not actually supposed to tell you," I replied.

"Hmm? Why not?"

"I was requested not to."

"By?"

"Hattori and Kudou."

"You mean to say you met him?"

I nodded. So did you.

"Can I take a guess?"

Sure, I gestured. "But I'll only tell you if you're wrong, no details."

As Satoshi explained his theories I shook my head according to his guesses, Then, desperate, he said jokingly, "Okay, how about, some villain poisoned him and turned him into a little kid or an animal?" I knew Satoshi was being ridiculous, but I didn't give him an answer. His eyes widened. "Are you serious? That seems like something from an anime!"

I shrugged. "Can I go to sleep now?" Satoshi sat in bewildered silence. "I'm going to sleep. Oh, you can't tell anyone you know this, okay?" Not waiting for a response, I turned in my seat and faced the window, letting the monotone scenery pass by and soothe me to sleep.

There we go! There might be an epilogue...maybe? I don't know. I hope you enjoyed reading this. I really appreciate your reviews and such!

P.S. If you have read the novels, you might see a little bit of a difference in Oreki's personality, but it's only a little. I want to finish the books soon, but translation is slow (sad day). (Also please forgive mistakes in grammar/spelling I checked it, but I'm not perfect especially late at night!)