Disclaimer: Nope.
Warning(s): AU -andallthetingswiththat,IshouldreallystopdoingAUs-, think that's all...?
Pairing(s): KaiShin, HeiKazu, HakuAo, EiRan, among other minor and past pairings (maybe)
Summary: Because the future would be the mystery – but only if you can mend what you have broken. KaiShin, HeiKazu, HakuAo, EiRan
A/N: I was suddenly inspired to write this – most of the outline for the story is done –gasp!-.
.:::.
Mending the Past
Meetings and Reunions Arc
Chapter 01: The First Meeting
Cameras flashed. Cheers shook the building. In a way, it was loud. Cheerful. Amusing. Happy. Ecstatic. A once-in-a-lifetime experience. A time to get autographs and take pictures you would keep for the rest of your life. Ah, yes, the good times, and afterwards, you would show them off to your friends.
But in a way, it was quiet. Depressing. Moody. Sad. A long-since-gotten-used-to experience. A time when hands grew numb from signing autographs. Smiles became plastic and more and more forced, sore from posing, the masks they had to keep up in front o the audience. That they were the people they were made out to be.
That there was nothing saddening behind them, nothing to grieve over, nothing worth being a good memory. Nothing. It really was a long-since-gotten-used-to experience.
Because, of course, the night's host had to drop dead.
But this time, this time, it would be different.
It would be a time for meetings.
And reunions.
.:::.
Their detective group consisted of three people: Mouri Ran, Toyama Kazuha, and Nakamori Aoko. They had met by chance, one day in a small coffee shop – Ran and Kazuha already close friends, despite having only met days before, Aoko attracted by the likeness of her and Ran's features. Their first meeting sent a flutter through their hearts, reignited the feeling of warmth and love in them.
But maybe that wasn't all there was to it.
They still weren't sure what had attracted them to each other, after all.
To Ran, it was a time to get away from her troubles. Her boyfriend had recently just broken up with her, for unknown reasons she couldn't deduct even with her skill. To top it off, her best friend had just mysteriously fallen off of the face of the earth, all contact lost.
To Kazuha, it was something similar. She hadn't been dating, no, but her best friend had just upped and left, leaving her with only his last phone call to puzzle over. It had been three months since she'd heard his voice.
To Aoko, it was a soothing time. In one day, she had lost both a boyfriend and a best friend. They had been together for over a year already, and that day, he had just broken it off, leaving her with only a wilted reminder.
They never told each other about their past. Perhaps it was that that had drawn them to each other – because they understood each other. Understood what it felt like, and never pressed. And since they already spent so much time with each other, they decided a club wouldn't be so bad. A mutual, unsaid understanding.
And that was how they came to be.
They hadn't planned on becoming infamous and international detectives – had started with only the intention to do what they could, to bring justice. Aoko because she didn't care for the fame, Kazuha because she didn't want to be pestered after. Ran, because it reminded her too much of a certain best friend who had had similar dreams.
A certain best friend that was aforementioned – had disappeared off the face of the Earth after he had taken the karate champion to an amusement park called Tropical Land. Apparently, by her words, he had gone after a couple of men in black. She hadn't seen him since. He was the friend who wanted the fame.
Wanted from the very core to solve those world-class mysteries they were being presented with now.
But when people do not plan on doing something or something happening, it has an uncanny ability of happening.
And that's how they came to be.
But in the end, their goals were the same, yet different.
And that was what mattered.
.:::.
They knew something was wrong. Not with the crime scene itself, but the officers that were present. They didn't need a thing explained to them.
That was it: they were too smart.
It wasn't really an insult anymore – though most of the police still took it as one –. They just didn't know the right facts to solve a case. Unless it had something to do with their past, they always needed a big push in the right direction.
And there they were now, sporting random information that had nothing to do with childhood experiences, facts and statistics – some even unknown to members of themselves. And that was saying something. Really.
It wasn't that these were knew policemen – it was the same old people: Megure, Takagi, Shiratori, and the like. Officers they had known for quite a while since they had started their detective group.
Yeah, they gave them credit that once in a while they were clever, yes – but they were making correct deduction after correct deduction – faster than the group themselves, almost. The only thing curious about the whole ordeal was that these were always made after said officer disappeared for some time – as an excuse to get an item.
Items on the scene had been moved – mere milli-millimeters, yes, but still moved. And they had been keeping track of who had been in contact with it that evening.
It was unsettling.
It reminded them of a large case of theirs – an organization that wore dark shades of navy blue. Said organization was already taken down, of course – with the three of them on a track, nothing was going to stand in their way. But that didn't mean that all the connections of the organization were gone, too.
But the others were good, too good, at hiding.
There were no leads at all.
"See? This dent on the floor shows that there was previously ice here. Although we have the everyone's word on the time of the incident, it would be easy enough for someone to change the time of the clock. No one would look specifically at their phone or watch for the time," a policeman on the side pointed out.
There was something wrong here, Nakamori Aoko thought to herself, although she was sure her companions of the detective group they had formed were having similar thoughts. Policemen is general had never been the brightest light on the tree.
But here they were, pointing out something that they usually would have taken no notice of.
She shrugged it off for the time being. It was more important revealing who caused this act of murder at the moment. Off to the side, she noticed Ran clearing her throat.
Rolling her eyes, she prepared to give an explanation. After all, it would do no good for their reputation if some puny police officers were to get ahead of them. They were famed, and it just wouldn't do to lose to a random person so easily.
She'll figure out a plan to escape from her fans...later.
.:::.
"And that's why the murderer, or should I say murderess, is...you."
Ran pointed a finger coldly at the accused, and she succumbed to the accusation, sobbing out a oh-so-tearful-and-heartbreaking story of how the host had been her boyfriend, but they had broken up after she caught him cheating on her, blah, blah, blah.
It was all the same nowadays.
Criminals really had no style anymore.
She wondered if they would ever know when to give up.
Although the group usually stayed within their three hometowns, which were Beika, Osaka, and Ekoda respectively, they did go out of town, though it was usually on request only, sometimes for vacations as well.
Though they did seem to run into the most murders around Beika – they still weren't sure why, but when asked, Ran would just smile mysteriously, and change the topic. She feigned innocence, but Aoko was sure she knew something, but wasn't sure exactly why she didn't want to tell her and Kazuha.
Thankfully, after the case had been wrapped up, the fans had already been ushered away – not that it had been an easy task, she supposed, judging from the way the policemen returned – beat-up and the like.
It was then that she caught movement within the shadows. It was slight, unnoticeable to the wandering eye, but, after squinting carefully, she could make out lines of a person moving, softly, smoothly, quickly.
Like members of the Organization. Who knew if this wasn't one of their leftover members?
Blurting out a quick excuse that she was going to go to the bathroom to her Ran and Kazuha – who didn't believe her, really, but didn't press anyway –, she made to follow the retreating figure. Stealthily, she took to tracing his every step, but when she turned a corner, he was just gone. Like he had never been there.
Like him.
She sighed.
People always seemed to disappear like that. It made her feel like everyone else had already mastered the art of teleporting, which, in a sense, was not true, everyone but her, that is. She was the one staying in place while everyone else moved on.
It was depressing.
Sighing, she turned a corner – but the mysterious boy was gone.
It was a dead end.
Above, the stars twinkled, as if teasing her.
She sighed again, turning to walk away.
And in the corner, the boy let out a sigh of relief.
.:::.
The stars in the sky twinkled overhead.
Futilely, as a pastime, she counted them. One, two, three, four, five...
"See, there's that constellation, Aoko~!"
"Did you know? The legend attached to that constellation –"
A laugh. "No, the legend attached to that one is actually that of the scorpion –"
Her own laugh. "Well, if you're so knowledgeable, why don't you find this constellation for me?"
"Ahouko! That's not even a real constellation! How am I supposed to find it?"
Her heart ached painfully, feeling the tug of long-since-buried memories trying to pull her under with their calling voices.
And very nearly succeeding too.
She tried not to think about it.
-Because she would not, should not fall to their alluring grasp-
The soft grass swayed between her feet, as her head was tilted back, silently observing the stars. The clouds. The moon.
Him.
She wished that everything would just let her forget him. She could fall, hit her head, get amnesia, and forget about him. She wished that would happen. It was one of the few things she didn't want to remember, would forget for the world.
She wished it would really happen.
So she could finally be happy again.
Sighing, she turned around and prepared to head back. It had been almost half an hour, after all.
But that was before she caught the slightest of movements in the shadows, yet again. If she was a betting man, she would bet it to be the same person.
Determined, she acted as though she were heading back, before doubling back to follow the retreating figure.
She was not going to let him get away again.
.:::.
They had just rounded the same corner that he had disappeared into last time. Except this time, it would be different. She knew he hadn't gotten away.
Her arm reached out –
And came into contact with something that was certainly not the wall.
It was an arm.
The material she felt was slick and smooth, like a jacket, she could tell upon touch. Without thinking the action thoroughly, she gave a tug, only with intentions to make the mysterious person lose his balance.
But what she hadn't expected was for him to stumble right into her.
Upon reflex, she clung, trying to make sure that she wouldn't fall from the impact, along with the weight of the boy himself.
Surprisingly, the weight that fell onto her was light – too light. She opened eyes that had closed on their own accord, without her knowledge, expecting to see a common pair of brown, or even gray orbs.
But, again, she was surprised.
Wide, surprised cerulean orbs locked with her own, and her eyes widened. It couldn't be...
But at the same time it was, had to be – the same, sapphire blue orbs – though she could have sworn that his was a shade darker –, the same way the boy held himself, the same, messy bangs, the same – and the list just went on and on. The boy was so skinny, though, but no matter what he was in the middle of, he had never skipped meals completely before, and always looked healthy, at the very least. But the thing that stood out most to her was the blank look in the boy's eyes.
It was then that she realized what had captivated her so thoroughly from the beginning. She had long since been trained to look out for shapes in the shadows, as he used to surprise her like that. So she took to spoiling his surprises.
Because of what she called her sixth sense, she had been able to spot him.
That blank look looked positively scared, though, just as she opened her mouth, before uttering the name.
The memories rushed back to her in one wave, and she staggered.
"Kaito?"
.:::.
"I'm sorry."
But she couldn't hear him anymore. All she could hear was the pounding in her ears, of her heart – the words that brought them to their end. Because after those words, nothing had meaning anymore.
Nothing.
"I don't think this would work out any longer."
"B-But, w-w-why?"
She futilely tried not to stutter, obviously failing. Why would he – so suddenly – there was absolutely no reason why – The denials that this was happening was prominent in her mind. It just couldn't be happening.
She didn't want it to.
If she thought about it, it wouldn't have seemed so sudden. But she couldn't think about it. Her heart ached now at the thought of thinking about it. It was cruel.
"If you had a reason, can't you tell me – ?"
It was futile. She was hoping it would be like one of those cliché love stories, where the boy left the girl because of some reason or because somebody forced them to – but it seemed like it wasn't the case if.
Even if it was, the boy had never told the girl beforehand, either.
She could hear the thunder of silence as his expression remained blank. And that hurt.
Something was thrust into her hands, and he turned away. She reached out, but he wouldn't accept her hand.
"I'm sorry, Aoko, I'm sorry."
But what would such words do at such a deep stage?
It was tear-jerking as he left, in a flurry of dove wings. A piece of magic that he used to leave, leave a person upon their last encounter.
She didn't want it to be their last.
It wasn't fair.
He was still supposed to be hers.
-The last magic she would see of him for the next several years.-
Years later, she would try to convince herself it was better this way. That it was better by herself.
He gone from her life.
But yet it wasn't fair. He had been both her beloved and her best friend. It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair. Nothing was fair.
It never could be.
She looked down at the rose in her hands, and for the first time that evening, noticed what color it was.
Black. He had usually given her red roses before.
New beginnings.
Rebirth.
Death.
–of their relationship–
And that hurt, because she knew exactly which meaning he meant.
.:::.
A/N: Um...so this was more of a filler chapter. This arc will be, most likely. The next ones will be faster paced, hope you can stick with me until then! Uh...review? Who did Aoko catch? Tell me what you thought!
Question of the Chapter: Why do you think the girls haven't told each other of their pasts?
Bonus: Why did Shinichi fall off the face of the Earth? (Clue: No, he wasn't shrunk, you peoples.)