Hey Everybody!! Instead of the usual posting of Questions Anyone or Shades of Black and White, I decided to put this little drabble in instead. It came to me while I was on the way to a Graduation Ceremony (we were playing the music for it- I wouldn't suggest it). Enjoy!

Broken Roses

"Mom! MOM!" The panicked cry of Kudou Yukiko's little son rang throughout the house, forcing her to drop her laundry and hurry outside to her precious Shin-chan.

"What is it?!" she asked, the mother bear inside of her rising. If anyone had hurt her five-year-old son-

But no one was there. Shinichi stood by a broken rosebush, mangled beyond repair. But it was his expression that snagged her attention. His small face was tear-stained, scrunched up as a river flowed down his cheeks. In his small, pudgy hands, he held a dead rose, his hands shaking as he cried. Yukiko's heart melted.

"Shin-chan, what's wrong?" she asked, kneeling down in front of him, worry on her face as he sniffed, rubbing his eyes.

"Okaasan…" he swallowed, looking up at her, distraught. "I'm a murderer!"

Yukiko raised an eyebrow. "Huh? What do you mean?"

He held the broken rose out to her. It was one of her favorites, the white and pink tinged petals bent and ripped. She looked over at the rosebush- yes, it would have to be uprooted and replaced. There was no way it could be trimmed or fixed. She frowned. "Why are you a murderer?"

A fresh wave of tears came pouring out. "O-okaasan, I k-killed your r-roseb-bush! Otou-Otousan t-told me that if-if you kill something, y-you're a murder!"

Yukiko smiled in a motherly way, giggling a little on the inside at her son's misuse of speech, but hey, any child would mix up murderer and murder. She gently placed the dead rose to the side as she gathered her son into his arms. "Shin-chan, just because you killed a rosebush doesn't mean you're a murderer," she corrected gently. Shinichi buried his head into her shoulder, hiccupping.

"B-but Otousan-"

"Shin-chan, it's when you kill people or take lives makes you a murderer," Yukiko said brightly. Little Shinichi sniffed.

"So-so I'm not a murder?" he asked, anxious. Yukiko nodded.

"No, you're not a murderer. And don't worry about my rosebush- I'll get your Otousan to buy me another one. Now, how about some cookies? You must be hungry from playing outside all day."

All traces of sadness vanished, and he wiped away the remaining tears, smiling and nodding happily as he grabbed his mother's hand, small fingers intertwining with long, slender ones as they walked back into the house.

20 years later…

"Otousan! Otousan! Conan killed a bee! He's a murderer, Dad!"

"Am not!" bawled a young boy, trailing after his six-year-old sister, Nariko.

"Am too!" she retorted, pointing a finger dramatically at her crying four-year-old brother, a mini version of her mother while the sobbing boy was a mini version of his father. "Otousan said that when you kill something, you're a murderer, right Otousan?" she asked eagerly, and their father, Kudou Shinichi, smiled as he set his papers aside. He was working on a tough case, and both kids could see the pictures taken at the crime scene.

"Conan, let me tell you a little story…"