A/N: Written for the Non-Flash Bingo at the AMF, #140 – spoon.
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After everything that's happened, it seems like such a silly thing to fear, but Satomi noticed. Satomi was always the first to notice something strange. Or maybe the second back when his mother had still been alive. She wasn't, now. And he had Migi to thank a thousand times over that he hadn't lost Satomi as well. So many near calls, so many times where death had just been a hair's breath away from separating them, so many times where people so painfully close had died – but Satomi was still alive and Satomi was the one who saw him, who noticed those odd things. Who saw him 100% - or 100% of what was available to see, because some things were tucked too far out of sight.
She thought it was some sort of PTSD and recommended he see the college counsellor but he didn't. He couldn't. That would involve revealing Migi and, at this point, that was honestly just stirring the Hornet's nest. Or would be, if he did speak of it. He didn't. Migi was fast asleep now except for that one incident on the roof and that was enough. Enough to try and do what Migi had asked. Enough to try and pretend that none of that last year had happened, that there was nothing abnormal about the world, nothing inherently cruel, inherently terrifying. Pretend his mother hadn't been slaughtered by some terrible monster. Pretend he hadn't lost twenty or so classmates to monsters. Pretend he couldn't even think of them as monsters anymore because he sympathised, sympathised and understood.
And pretend he wasn't part monster himself, for having killed, for having led others to their deaths, for having done that final inexcusable act of crushing something that could in no way defend itself.
Maybe that was why he decided to be a detective. Because he remembered that man. That detective who'd found out the truth and balked. Who'd lost his family anyway, because he'd already gone in too deep. And then he'd taken Reiko's baby. No-one really understood why. Whether he was trying to prove himself the better species or a monster too. Whether he was trying to prove to her. He did, in the end. Prove to her. And she died because of that. Maybe that was what he'd been going for. Maybe he'd gotten his wish there.
But that wasn't what drove Shinichi to that job. It was the fact that he'd taken the baby. The fact that the other officers had fired at the baby, without being sure Reiko would protect him. Probably they hadn't expected her to. He hadn't. He who'd known her from before: how strange she'd been compared to other parasites. How strange he'd been too. How strange he still was, even after all of it was over.
He remembered Reiko, then Ryoko, biting down on that spoon. She remembered how one bite had changed it completely. How he'd been more frightened of her than of the human-looking parasite-infected bodies morphing right in front of him. How he'd been more afraid of her than Kana's dead body hitting the floor – but not of his mother. Nothing matched that fear. Nothing matched what had almost killed him in more ways than one.
But his mother wasn't there anymore, and her sweet face, her sweet smile, was no trigger. Spoons were though, spoons in mouths, especially Satomi's – and she noticed. She switched to a fork. She accommodated him. She didn't ask him anymore. She'd learnt not to. He'd forced the change, in that year that had twisted them both so much. He'd done that – but she'd smile at him and say it didn't matter. That they'd both become stronger. Gone somewhere. And to be unnerved by spoons was fine, because there were forks and chopsticks and knives – and who needed spoons? And to want to be a detective for the wrong reasons was fine too because he was Shinichi and there were good reasons as well, even if he put blinders on and couldn't see him.
But that was Satomi. She saw way more than he did about himself. And not all of it the truth.
After all, she still hadn't seen Migi yet.
(Except she had, though that didn't mean what she saw was 100% the truth).
