This story takes place right after: "The safest place" and is Manu's birthday story 2006. Again, a lot of things are going to happen. Lots of Shinichi/Heiji fun (those two are too much fun together) sweet Shinichi/Ran scenes, erotic Heiji/Kazuha parts, a surprising ending and a whole lot more! It's worth following. Pictures made to this story by Cherry-chan you can view on my homepage, check them out! And now, have fun with this fluffy chapter! Thanks for your support, love you all. Jojo
"Nothing I've ever known"
by Jojo
When one looks up the words "illness" and "sickness", all the dictionary will say is:
Illness: a general word for a period of not being in good health.
Sickness: 1) illness, bad health; 2) a particular type of illness or disease.
Either way, it's clear that neither is something pleasant. Moreover, everybody has their own memories linked to an illness, be it from the furthest past or just a few weeks ago, pleasant, or unpleasant and disturbing. The average person would naturally tend to associate negative memories with any kind of illness but, as always, there were exceptions.
Mouri Ran, for example, was one of those exceptions, although she was not necessarily aware of it at the moment that this said exception took place. She has had a normal life, normal record of mostly common illnesses with the normal pain that took a few days to get well.
But, as she awoke in the morning of a chilly but sunny day after some painful days of a cold, she felt reborn. Like she hadn't even been sick in the first place.
Only slowly the memories of the previous day returned that brought light to the miracle. There were some flickers of Shinichi feeling her forehead, of Shinichi making soup for her, of Shinichi taking care of her in a gentle and sweet way that made her insides twitch immediately, of Shinichi making her rest and of him cuddling together with her in a warm, cosy bed until she fell asleep.
Shinichi…
Everything was about him. He could even make a cold a good memory, who else had this power? She couldn't think of anybody but him.
Where was he? For the split of a second, she was afraid that had already disappeared again, almost so much that she would not dare open her eyes and look for him. Her heartbeat increased in speed. Could he have done just that? Leave her behind again?
Chapter seven - HealingShinichi was sleeping peacefully next to her.
After calming down, happy to the utmost about the fact that he was simply still here, she began to notice more things around her and especially around him. Like how he seemed to pant slightly, to sweat, his eyes were racing left and right underneath his lids and his whole face had an expression of worry that in turn started to concern Ran. She scooted a little closer, leaning over him as she looked down at him intently.
With a slight, silly grin in her heart, she leaned the last inches down, pressing her forehead against his and while secretly adoring the feeling of his skin against hers and the closeness, she drew back alarmed.
Shinichi was burning up! She had infected him with her cold after all, just as she had feared!
"Oh you dummy, I've told you not to come too close to me or you'd catch a cold and now look here!" she murmured, trying to sound angry while brushing the wet bangs out of his face and then stick to simply touching his arm and staring down at him in great concern that nagged at her heart. Shinichi didn't seem to be able to response or even hear her. He simply lay there, panting slightly and occasionally tossing a bit.
Then she turned and left the bed. Walking over to her closet, she took out her white bathrobe with the pink butterflies, put it on along with her pink, fluffy bunny-slippers and quickly exited the room. She came back as fast as she could with a small bucket filled with cold water and a cloth and started cleaning his forehead of the sweat. She evened his hair and stroked his head lovingly in the progress for a little longer than absolutely necessary. Okay, who was she kidding? For some time longer than necessary…
She felt something tingle inside as Shinichi leaned into her touch ever so slightly, soon moving his whole head towards her hand. He began murmuring something but no matter how much she wished she could understand one of the words he was whispering in his dream, she could not. But Ran had other things in her mind at the moment.
Her maternal instincts kicked in to high gear and before she knew it she was checking if his button-down shirt was sweat-stained. Unfortunately for her, it was. Her fear for his health won out over her embarrassment and with, red-faced, she decided on what she had to do, on the inevitable.
With red cheeks and a determined expression she walked out of her room and into her father's, directly to his drawer where she took out a fresh shirt and quickly walked back to the sick Shinichi, knowing that if she wanted him to get well soon she had to get the wet clothes off him as soon as possible.
Ran was now standing again, leaning over Shinichi, and looked at him for a very long moment. Determined to get through with this, she took a deep breath and carefully, as if not knowing what was waiting for her underneath, started peeling the cover off his body. Then she opened his top button before she could talk herself out of it and waited for a reaction of him, any reaction, but he didn't stir. She exhaled a deep breath, never noticing when she had taken it in the first place. Slowly but with a little more confidence, she worked her way down his shirt, opening one button after the other.
With another gulp, she pulled the two parts of the shirt apart, revealing the upper body of her childhood friend. Ran couldn't keep the blush away from her cheeks as she tried to get the sleeves down his arms while noticing that she had forgotten how well-formed his body really was.
It had been some time since she had last seen him without a shirt on, but she remembered it most vividly. It had been one of those last times that Shinichi had played soccer on the school team. To be exact, it had been Shinichi's second-to-last game, against another school from Tokyo. Certainly it was good that Teitan High had won, thanks to Shinichi's two goals, but as she secretly had to agree with Sonoko (though she would never tell her so openly); the best thing had been the exchange of the players' shirts AFTER the game. How terrible that Shinichi had been sweating so much he had decided to spend the rest of the after-game party on that warm afternoon in nothing but his soccer shorts.
'Oh my!' Ran thought confused and shook her head. 'Looks like I have let myself get distracted! I am staring at him!' she blushed thinking about it and quickly took his shirt off completely, going back to her task of cleaning him with the wet cloth. But the image in her head just wouldn't vanish for a very-long-time.
As she had successfully cleaned the sweaty guy off, she tried seating him up a bit and pulled her father's shirt over his arms. Well, after eight minutes of struggling she had managed to complete her task and covered the now dry-clothed Shinichi up again.
His expression had changed over the past hour and somehow seemed more at peace. She found his face adorable. Maybe it was because she hadn't had the opportunity to look at it thoroughly for such a long time. Maybe it was because of something else… Whatever it was, at this moment, Ran simply didn't care. All that mattered was that Shinichi got well again.
She leaned down and kissed his forehead slowly, the warmth in her belly floating around without pausing once. Stroking his forehead, she gave him a last warm look before disappearing again, this time to the kitchen to prepare tea and soup for him. It was a habit, actually; every time she had been sick, her mom did this for her and she, in turn, always did it for her father and for some time for the little Conan as well. Now, with a sweet smirk on her lips, she realized that this could be considered just as much as returning a favour, since Shinichi had done the same for her the previous night, when she had needed it most.
She was certain that it as only thanks to him that she was already feeling so much better and she knew the honorable thing to do would be to look after his health in turn, even if there did not exist anything on this world that she would rather love doing at the moment.
---
Shinichi opened his eyes for the first time since the sun has risen and the first thing he felt was a painful knot in his throat. He tried to groan and the pain intensified, forcing him to hold his throat in a hand. Only slowly, his other symptoms attracted his attention. He felt like he somebody had forgotten to turn the heater off, in summer. He was still sweating and because of the heat he was feeling, panting as well.
What was going on? This had never happened before; he had never felt this weak after turning back to Conan, what was wrong?
He coughed, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth, when he suddenly saw it. His hand. It was a lot bigger than anticipated… Shinichi slowly looked down at himself. He felt like screaming out but even if his throat would have played along, his mouth didn't. He was struck speechless.
His initial plan had been to sleep with Ran, ('No need to blush, you hentai.' His mind railed. 'Sleep NEXT to Ran is what you meant!' 'I know!' he argued back. ) wake up due to the immense pain that he had to go through every time he transformed and then quickly leave to come back in the morning as Conan. And now, look at him. Here he was, late morning as it seemed, still in Ran's bed but in a terribly condition. And most importantly, he was still himself. Still Shinichi.
What had gone wrong?
Thinking with a cold is kind of difficult, even for detectives, but after some time he eventually came up with an answer that seemed to satisfy him. He suddenly remembered.
"Ran?" a quiet voice uttered her name.
She immediately put down the knife that she had been using to cut the vegetables with and cleaned her hands on her apron as she walked to the room where her name had come from. There she went over to the bed where Shinichi lay staring at her from underneath the covers.
"Shinichi, you are awake??" she smiled motherishly and placed a hand on his forehead.
"Yeah… what happened?" he tried to sit up but Ran firmly but gently pushed him back down.
'Oh, the poor boy. He just returned for a visit, had to nurse me and now he is sick himself. That's so unfair, why has he to be so unlucky?'
Ran smiled guiltily and compassionately at him. Still, her maternal instincts won over every other emotion.
"No, stay in bed! You've caught my cold and you need rest to get well!"
"But Ran-!" he tried again but had no chance for she immediately pushed him back down.
"No, Shinichi, I am serious! Stay in bed! You are still hot. I'll be back with your soup in a minute, so listen to me!" she told him sternly as she saw that he was about to stand up again. He was about to open his mouth again as: "You know this look!" she pointed at her stern face.
"I am dead serious, so lay back down!" she looked firmly and seriously at him, still pointing with her index finger at her face, her eyebrows drawn strict towards each other.
Shinichi could only stare at her, his body tense as he was still leaning on his elbows in order to sit up. Soon, he realized that he really had no way of getting out of here when Ran was looking at him like that. He knew her better than that, and in his current position, too… Besides…he really was not feeling any good. The only reason he wanted to stand up and probably leave was because he was afraid of suddenly turning back into the hated body.
Yesterday, as 1 a.m. had passed, and he still hadn't turned back, our great detective had been able to fall asleep for real. This had meant that the pill had shown some progress and that it didn't last only 24 but 36 hours, which meant for him another 12 hours of being Shinichi. Ai had mentioned this kind of side-effects once but she had never been certain enough of them to actually rely on it for any kind of antidote. But he didn't care right now. Another 12 hours of staying at her side and that was truly something he wanted from the depths of his heart.
After so much luck, wasn't it ironic that he had to get sick right away? Honestly, he really should go and have a long talk with fate about irony and things being fair and unfair.
Sighing, Shinichi laid back down in the bed. This earned him a beautiful and thoroughly satisfied smile from Ran that made him swallow unconsciously, only to have the knot in his throat protest.
"Good boy!" she chuckled and Shinichi wanted to respond, almost offended, but she placed a hand over his mouth. "Don't! You have to save your strength. You still have fever and therefore a cold. I want you to get well as soon as possible, so stay right here and let me nurse you."
They shared a deep look with each other. The emotions passing between those two at that moment can't properly be described or written down, for their complexity was simply too high.
"How are YOU feeling?" he asked with low voice that still clearly showed his concern about her. She smiled back tenderly.
"I am fine, really. I woke up and felt all better. After all, I've had a really good nurse. Don't worry about me and try to rest here as much as you can, ok? Who knows when you really have to go back? And there you'll probably don't have any time to rest and get well."
Shinichi only looked at her, with such a deep affection in his eyes that she found it hard to breathe for a moment. She took his hand and squeezed it, as if trying to ask him to listen to her; she was really worried about his well being.
His whole body un-tensed and he lay back down full way, making clear he'd be a good boy and listen to her. Smiling with satisfaction again, she brushed the back of her hand over his cheek.
"I'll be right back with the tea and the soup!"
He nodded and closed his eyes, the slightly content expression now clearly visible on his face. Smiling to herself, Ran quickly made her way back to the kitchen, after making sure the wet cloth was once again on his forehead.
---
The last time somebody had done anything similar for Shinichi was…a long time ago. His parents had still lived in the Kudo mansion with him, then. Back then, it had been his mother who would look after him when he was sick.
And now, seeing her like this was, to him, like a little miracle.
Ran sat down on the edge of the bed, placing the teacup on the night-stand. Then she helped him sit up gently, taking the cloth away from his forehead. Then she placed the cup with soup on his lap, looking at him expectantly.
Shinichi had to chuckle -even though it hurt he couldn't help it-as he looked at the soup. "This looks a lot better than my try from yesterday."
Ran had to smile. "Well, I only have more experience. That doesn't mean it necessarily has to taste better than yours."
Shinichi raised an eye-brow, showing her his doubts about her words clearly.
Ran had to chuckle at this and waved with one hand. "Oh be quiet and eat your soup before it gets cold," she chided him gently, with merriment in her eyes.
Shinichi couldn't help but smile at her. How he loved her smile.
He started eating after blowing on the small amount on the spoon a little. Then he looked at her again with a bigger grin. "I knew it, this is so much better!"
Ran blushed at the praise, feeling the heat from her cheeks soaring through her whole body and coming to rest as warm ball of emotions in her stomach. With satisfaction and a happy song in her heart, she watched him eat her soup with pleasure. That was the greatest compliment that he could make her.
Too soon, he was finished and looked with a content expression at the pretty cook.
"Thanks a lot, this really was great!"
Against her will, she blushed again and looked at the cup that she took a hold of, using it as convenient distraction so that she didn't have to look at him at the moment.
"You are welcome."
Almost out of reflex (she definitely did not act consciously) she put the empty cup aside and took a new cloth that she had brought with her. With it, she patted his forehead and face, making sure no sweat was left. Happily, she observed that he didn't seem to be burning as much as he had before.
"Great, the fever is going down already!" she murmured and looked at his eyes for the first time again.
He only looked back, pulling her inside in some kind of trance until at some point it became too much for her and she blushed badly.
"Now that you are full and warm from the inside and the outside, you have some more sleep and you'll feel like new when you wake up, I promise!" she told him that sternly but gently at the same time that he knew there was no way he could do anything but obey her.
He lay back down, covering himself to the chest. Ran took the blanket, pulling it the rest of the way up to his chin, and tucked him in securely. She smiled sweetly at him and he responded to the smile with one of his own.
She bent a little so that she was hovering above him, their faces only a few inches apart.
"Rest tight and get well soon." She whispered tenderly and pressed an endless sweet and gentle kiss against his temple.
A huge contented smile spread all over Shinichi's face. No matter how bad he had been feeling just a few moments ago, suddenly it was all gone.
More than anything, he wanted to tell her how he felt about her. Tell her how much he loved her. But he knew he couldn't do so just yet; he might be gone the next moment. But he knew that there were other ways to let her know how he felt, even without having to voice those special, all-important little words.
Without another word passing between them, he reached for her hand and intertwined his finger with hers. The eye contact never broke. Shinichi scooted a little to make space in the bed and through their linked hands he gently pulled Ran to lie down next to him. Then he covered their linked hands with his free one.
Their hands in between them, their faces only a few inches apart and looking at each other, they held eye contact for some time, simply looking at the eyes of the other, nothing more. Then he let out a sigh, smiled at her and closed his eyes, pulling her hands a little tighter towards his chest before he slowly drifted off into a peaceful, healing sleep.
---
It was late afternoon when Shinichi stirred and eventually woke up from his deathlike slumber. He laid still and only slowly opened his eyes, the first thing he saw being the ceiling of Ran's room. He needed a few seconds to understand where he was and what the situation he was in implied exactly and suddenly a cold arrow shoot in his heart. Immediately, he rose to his elbows and lifted a hand to look at it and plopped back down in pure relief.
He did not change back at some point. He was still his teenager self and that fact surprised him. He had slept from the time he had eaten the soup until now and 1 p.m. was way past the change-back time. What had happened?
"Hey." Ran greeted him quietly as he opened his eyes. He turned his head to the left, only now noticing the girl in the bed next to him although he was still holding her hand.
He looked a moment at her, needing the time to make his brain work before he started smiling at her. "Hey."
"Are you feeling any better?" the concerned girl asked without really thinking about it.
Shinichi took some time to listen to his body, seeing if he felt any pain. For a moment he was more relieved than any words could tell to still be in his own, grown-up body. He exhaled a breath of pure relief which caused Ran to look at him with concern shining in her eyes. He grinned a lopsided grin and turned his head a bit to look at her.
'I was so lucky! If my deductions are correct, then it's thanks to my current state of health that I could stay as myself for longer than I thought. It's a miracle. Bacteria can be so useful sometimes.'
"I feel a lot better!"
Only as she was convinced that what he was saying resembled the truth, she smiled back, a bright and beautiful smile that had him staring at her in awe.
"I'm so glad!" she murmured with an expression that clearly showed satisfaction. She held his gaze, staring deeply into his eyes before breaking the eye contact. She lay her head back down on the pillow.
"So, you are feeling completely healthy again?" Ran asked him with caution.
He touched his chest and his face, taking his time, then looked at her with a smile. "Yep, I am all right again! Thanks to you!"
"Naahhh." Ran blushed, waving her hand in front of her and looking in the other direction at the same time.
Silence fell upon them (and lasted for at least a minute); both sat still, trying to look anywhere but the other while figuring out what to say. It lasted until Ran quietly spoke up again.
"I am happy that you are feeling better!"
Shinichi only smiled at her. It was a soft, warm smile that would have some girls catching her breath. Of course, our sweet Ran was no exception.
When he didn't say anything, she gathered her courage and went on, posing the question that was nagging at her stomach ever since she had woken up.
"Shi-Shinichi…do you…have to go anytime soon?"
That, as Shinichi found, was a very good question, indeed. How was he to answer her when he himself had no idea what his body was planning for him? He hated this uncertainty and the fact that he had no satisfactory answer for her.
"I don't know…" 'Well, that's the truth, what can I do about it?'
"I guess that I still have some time. No idea how long, though!" There was regret in his voice, although he knew it was the complete truth. All of the complete truth that he could to tell her at this point without putting her in any danger.
To his surprise, Ran seemed satisfied enough with his answer. She smiled broadly at him, trying inwardly to stay calm and to keep her courage up to ask the other question she'd meant to ask him.
"You see…today, there is this little festival in the park of Tropical Land. It's like a small amusement park and they have a fireworks show an hour before midnight. What do you think? I'd l-like to spend some… time with you and…um…W-would you like to go…there…with me?" she asked him shyly, trying to cover the blush on her cheeks with her hair as she hung her head a bit.
Inwardly she was cursing herself for her forwardness. Did she really think there'd be the slightest chance for him to go to this festival with her? He hadn't been here for the past months, and now why would he just like that go with her to that park? He probably had a ton other things that he'd rather attend to while being here and he was sick this morning and…had she always been that naïve?
'Stupid Ran, stupid! God, you are so silly! Hopelessly silly, my girl!'
"You don't have to come, I mean if you are feeling too beaten I can understand that, really, and you have to know that-" she kept ranting, not really looking at him but trying her best to cover her embarrassment.
"Of course I want to go!" Shinichi cut her off suddenly.
Her head shot up. "What? Really?"
In the few seconds that she had been waiting for a reply, she had inwardly prepared for any possible answer from Shinichi, except for this.
Shinichi on the other hand felt really bad. She shouldn't be afraid to ask him things like that, and it was completely his fault that she held this fear in her heart because he hadn't been there the way he should have been for her the past months. And, as he watched her quivering voice ask him this simple question, her fingers balled to fists in her lap, her proud head hanging down, he knew he could not turn her down, no matter that he had no idea when he might turn back. Or if he would turn back.
Okay, so this uncertain situation really was getting to him, but right now he felt good. Why should he run from the love of his life, again, and hide in the dark corners, waiting for his body to turn back to Conan?
'No, thank you!'
He may not have known when or of he might turn back, but one thing he did know, and that was that he couldn't bear to disappoint the young woman in front of him. Not to mention that his heard picked up speed at the thought of spending the whole day with her, doing other things than hunting murderers and examining corpses.
'Oh my god, please don't let us run into some cases!' He sweated a little at the horrible thought but tried to cover it with a nervous chuckle.
"But first I need to change into my own clothes!" he gestured down at himself with a funny expression that she shared.
"I would hope so! I wouldn't take you with me in this, anyway!" she teased him playfully, and both chuckled.
"Okay, so another reason for me to go home, shower and change. I'll come to pick you up in… an hour?"
"Oh… okay!" she agreed and he stood up and started walking to the door, already feeling eager to change and come back, as he felt his hand being held back by hers.
Ran had taken hold of it and was looking at their hands with the most lost expression that he had ever seen in her beautiful eyes.
"Ran?" he questioned carefully.
With miserable voice she answered his unspoken question, not taking her eyes from where she had his hand enveloped in between her two.
"Do you promise me that you'll come back? Really come? That you won't disappear again?"
He looked at her with his big eyes, surprised, finding his voice gone. All the sorrow and fear he saw in her eyes struck him like a spear in the guts. How could he not rot in hell for an eternity for putting this pure being through all of this trouble? For being responsible that she had to experience that much sorrow?
But he could do only one thing. Try his hardest to make it all up to her. And may he be cursed if he failed in his task.
Gathering all his courage, he took a deep breath and leaned down to her eye-level.
"Ran…I am so sorry that I…" He looked down at her hands, his thump stroking over the back of her hand as suddenly he found himself at a loss of words. For the split of a second, he could hear Hattori's ringing laughing was he ever to see him speechless, the 'almighty Kudo'.
What was he sorry for? That he failed her? That he had disappeared and left her back for so long? That… a better question would be, was there anything he was not sorry for?! He knew he had to do his best to make it up to her.
"I promise. I will be back in one hour, all clean and good-smelling and nicely dressed, ok?" he smirked at her in a way that would have lesser girls than Ran sighing and weak in the knees.
'Please my body, don't turn back and force me to disappoint her yet again.'
She saw the truth in his eyes and the way they sparkled with his light laughter, the curve of his lips (only one corner, of course) that curved up so delicately and so…typical her childhood-friend that she could do nothing but join in his chuckling, relief flooding all of her cells and nerve-endings.
"Okay!" she agreed, earning herself another handsome smile from him.
Shinichi sighed out mentally, content with himself for once.
"I'll hurry up then! See you in an hour!"
He steadied himself for something that was not absolutely and completely necessary but that his whole body was crying out for. Plus, he knew that she more than deserved it. Trying to convince himself that he was solely doing this for her, but not quite succeeding, he let actions follow.
"And before I forget it…" he leaned close to the girl whose hands he was still holding and gave her a kiss on her cheek, "… thank you, for everything!"
Before she had the chance to see his bad blush or to respond in any way, he gave her hands a last squeeze, turned and disappeared out of her view. In the distance she heard the front door close quietly. Ran only stared after him, totally perplexed, a hand slowly moving up to caress the spot on her cheek where he had kissed her only seconds ago, the look of awe on her face not leaving it for about eight whole minutes. Because then, she remembered that she had only 52 minutes left to prepare for her date with Shinichi.
"WHAT?" she almost screamed, re-checking her watch and then springing up as if bitten by a turtle. Then she started whirling around the house, almost panicked but still singing softly to herself, picking her clothes up and the things she needed for a shower. She disappeared into the bathroom as quickly as she could.
'Oh my god, only 48 minutes left to prepare!'
Outside of the Mori Detective Agency, a young man was leaning against the front-door, eyes closed and listening with a slight smile dancing on his lips to the distant noises of Ran running around the house to prepare herself in time, her softly singing voice in the background. Some guys might roll their eyes and be pissed at the fact that their girls cared so much about things as rendezvous and spend so much effort on preparing, but to Shinichi it meant so much. Like, the fact that Ran was all right, even happy and that he had succeeded in giving her a small piece of normality the way she deserved it; this fact alone made him happier than anyone could imagine.
Life was, for once, good to him.
'Shut up, Kudo! Better not tempt fate and jinx the whole thing!'
Hands in his pockets, the young detective descended the stairs and started walking home. After all, he had to prepare himself as well. And on the way to his house, following a course he had taken often over the past months, he found that he had never taken this path as light-hearted as he felt now, the fact that he could turn back any time banished to the most secluded corner of his mind.