Disclaimer: I do not own the magnificent piece of work that goes under the name, 'Detective Conan'

Bounce, bounce. Ran sighed. The girl had been trying to establish conversation for the past 10 minutes, but the boy by her side had other plans.

'Ah yes, there he goes again, kicking that bloody ball,' the girl sighed in her mind.

Every time she'd turn her head to say something, the ball would spring up and greet her face to face. When she tried to somehow get out of its way, it appeared again, pestering every bit of patience in the girl.

"Ahem, anyway, Shinichi about late-"

The ball sprung up.

Ran closed her eyes and tried her best to hold back every temptation to murder the football. Shinichi however, took no heed to the girl's frustration and continued to kick the ball into the air with his knee.

"Shinichi," she growled, "the darned ball..."

But at this moment he could no longer hear the girl's words. They had arrived at school and the popular teen had immediately been attacked by the ferocious devils everyone except Ran calls 'fangirls'.

Ran, refusing to be caught up in the horrid maelstrom and also frustrated by the morning, stomped off leaving Shinichi alone.

"Ne, ne, Ran!" Sonoko burst in front of an annoyed looking girl and slapped her friend on the back.

"What is it now, Sonoko?" Ran hissed.

Sonoko raised a brow and crossed her arms, trying to find out whatever could be this one's problem.

Bounce, bounce. Ran slammed her fists onto her table, grabbed a carton of juice, opened the window by her side, and threw the object at the group practicing football outside.

"Bug off blockheads!" She screamed.

She collapsed back onto her chair and sighed. Sonoko and the rest of her classmates who witnessed such event blinked in utter shock. No one would expect such outburst from such sweet girl. Especially not to an innocent football team. Sonoko blinked once more and slowly grinned in realization.

"Ah, I know what this is about."

"Do you? Well that's fantastic," Ran deadpanned.

"It's Shinichi-kun, isn't it?"

The mere mention of the name hurled Ran into a worse mood. She snorted and looked away. Sonoko snickered haughtily and shook her head, leaving her friend to calm down.

Ran sat silently on the grass, hugging her knees to her chest. Her bored eyes came onto the young boy practicing football with his club mates. Shinichi had managed to score a goal and was immediately rejoicing with his team. Their coach nodded, checked his watch, then called a water break and Ran stood up, brushing off the grass.

"Hey, Shinichi," she called out in a calmer mood.

"Hm? Oh hey, Ran!" The boy smiled and waved to his best friend.

"Yeh, about late-"

"KUDO!" A boy from the football team dashed to Shinichi and jumped onto the boy. "That goal was amazing!"

Soon, the whole team was on the boy, patting him on the back and ruffling his hair. Ran sighed and shrugged.

"Never mind."

It was after classes that Ran finally promised that no matter what, she'd talk to Shinichi. With or without the damned ball, or the football team, or the swarm of ferocious devils in the way.

"That's right, I'd beat the crap out of that ball if I had to. I gotta talk to Shinichi," she muttered to herself as she took her shoes out of her locker.

"Yo, Ran!"

"Ah, speak of the devil."

Shinichi turned up from the corner, a ball tucked under his arm.

So she had to do it with the damned ball.

"Kudo-chan!"

And the damned devils.

"Oy, Kudo!"

And the damned football team.

"Um Shinchi," the girl grabbed onto his arm, making sure he wouldn't just go. "About, um, later, are yo-"

At that exact moment, a clumsy one of the football team had kicked the ball in an attempt of a playful hit on Shinichi too hard, spinning it out of control towards a ferocious devil, and being the prince Shinichi was, the boy pulled out of Ran's grasp to save the girl. The ferocious devil, absolutely charmed by this, bent over to kiss Shinichi on the cheek as a thank you. Ran felt herself twitch. The teen chuckled to herself and walked over to the damned ball of Shinichi. She inhaled and drew her leg back and Shinichi immediately knew what she was about to do.

"No, no, wait Ran!"

Ran kicked the ball with all the strength in her straight at Shinichi. The boy ducked for his life and the ball instead, hit a wall and spun back towards Ran, smack dab on the head. Ran collapsed onto the floor, the last thought on her head being, 'That damned ball'.

The girl slowly stirred greeted by the smell of something familiar. What was it? Ah yes, the clinic. She slowly opened her eyes and groaned.

"Ran?"

Ran turned her head and was greeted by the worried face of no other than Shinichi. "Thank God you're okay. That was a really hard blow, I thought you'd never wake up."

"Neither did I," she mumbled and chuckled a bit.

Shinichi relaxed slightly after hearing her laugh and let go of her hand Ran had just noticed he was holding. He clumsily dug into his pocket and pulled out two tickets from his pocket.

"Uh, um, these fell out of your jacket when the ball hit you so, um, I'm free later on so, I was thinking if it was fine, could I come with you?"

Ran blinked once, then twice. Her lips curled into a smile and nodded, mumbling to herself, "that damned ball."

TADA! My first fanfiction! Hope it was at least, okay.