Hurt, Christina Aguilera
"Seems like it was yesterday,
When I saw your face."
Soft soles scraped against the ground. She would have turned around, but her hands were busy. Her fingers were getting wrinkled already, but her father had left such a huge mountain of dishes on the sink, all ready and waiting for her when she came home from the resort with Sonoko. To even think of it made her sigh.
"Ran," she hummed in acknowledgement, lips parting when she realized- she hadn't yet greeted- "I need to tell you something."
The voice was quiet, an unusual hollow note entwined with the rasp of a child. Carefully, she placed a small bowl on the counter, ready to turn around.
"I'm- Shinichi."
"You told me how proud you were,
But I walked away."
"I'm..." The tips of her fingers cold, suds of soap clinging to her skin. She should dry them. It was winter anyway- "So… glad... you waited this long." She should dry them. "I thought-" If she tilted her head, she'd see the top of his head, the endearing cowlick, the edge of his thick-rimmed glasses- "You would have given up half way, and…" her breath was clogged in her throat. "...Ran?"
Why was he saying these things?
"Ran?"
"If only I knew,
What I know today."
The cold glare of the computer screen illuminated the outline of the child sitting by it. Pale, red hair cast shadows over that petite face, but the empty gleam of glass irises glowed in all its intensity. "With the poison, he wouldn't have lasted long anyway."
"I would hold you in my arms
I would take the pain away."
"He had a plan."
Heat curled the ends of her hair, set her cheeks aflamed and blotchy. Her head was buzzing but she had to leave. She had run the whole way. She could only imagine what she looked like, a figure along the busy streets garbed in black, marks of crescents dug into the side of her arms, dragged up her wrist.
"Uh, it was a bit of a stupid plan- but then again, you know Shinichi- he had stupid plans. He called himself Edogawa Conan, for godsake-"
The drizzling of the water sprinklers became white noise when a wet gasp of despair spilled from wavering lips. Eyes hidden behind a dirty white lab coat.
"I don't know- he wanted to win you back- he kept saying he'd-"
"Thank you for all you've done,
Forgive all your mistakes."
"Thing 'bout that Kudo- he's stubborn as heck- he is. What he told you then," empty, pretty consolations from strangers, from people that didn't know. Dark, tanned fingers curled around her wrist. The world was so gray now, blurred around the edges like a film at the end of its line. "Was probably so you'd know, you know- before- fuck- before-"
"There's nothing I wouldn't do,
To hear your voice again."
"This is Shinichi," there was laughter in the background, hidden beneath crackling fuzz. "Sorry, but i'm busy right now." So serious. He was always so serious. His voice softened. "If this is Ran, I'm on a case and I'll be back soon. Just wait a little longer."
Click.
Redial.
"This is Shinichi," it was her laughter in the background, melding with his voice. "Sorry, but I'm busy right now." In the blank abyss of a message, a voicemail, they were together. "If this is Ran, I'm on a case and I'll be back soon. Just wait a little longer."
Click.
"Sometimes I wanna call you,
But I know you won't be there."
"Put down the phone, Ran, come eat with us."
"I'm sorry for blaming you,
For everything I just couldn't do."
Gentle hands paused around her shoulders- and why were they here? Why were they here and why were they talking to her? The unrelenting pressure at the back of her neck was unforgiving. The flinch that ripped through her when that voice started to speak, dry and clipped and too old for the face it belonged to; "You should've told him then."
"OI, brat!"
"She should've told Kudo-kun." Barely restrained fury in a monotone rasp. "Should've told him."
"And i've hurt myself,
By hurting you."
"She didn't mean it, Ran nii-chan." Fluttering hands. Always fluttering. Pressing against her skin, then jumping away, like they didn't know how to handle her at all, when they used to tug and pull at her at all directions. Quiet words just out of her reach, beyond the doors of the next room. Quick, punishing words.
There was no silent presence with too large glasses and a private smile. "T-that's right, Ai-chan's just grumpy."
"Some days I feel broke inside,
But I won't admit."
A blanket was draped over her shoulders; he didn't try to get her down this time. "You don't have to smile, you know." The sharp clink of half-full bottles. His voice was slurred again. "You don't have to keep pretending."
"Sometimes I just wanna hide,
Cause it's you I miss."
The walls were so thin, nearly paper. "I don't think she's going to school today, Eri."
The ache she felt in her bones, hollow and insistence. She thought she saw a shadow at her feet, with a wide smile and bright blue eyes- but that was ridiculous, because Shinichi was Conan and Conan was Shinichi, and she missed them both now. That bastard made her miss them both. "But-"
Shifting glass plates, the shriek of metal against metal. Get up, she heard him say. "You have to understand."
"Get up." She saw him say, looming above her with an affectionate smile. His lips were curled around the ends of a lollipop, the ones he'd always loved. His shirt was crumpled, his hair wind-swept. There were glasses in front pocket, they shone when they caught the light. His hands were stained with blood.
"... Alright." The walls said.
"And it's hard to say goodbye, when it comes to this."
"I don't know how to fix this- I don't know- dammit!"
The floorboards cried beneath heavy, pacing feet. Her pen dangled between her fingers. There was a flash of a ring out of the corner of her eyes. The frustrated huff of a weary friend. Her essay was over-due. It had been supposed to be handed in last week.
"I can't just throw money at it- but Ran, Ran, if I could, if I could give up all my money for you to see that damned bastard's face again-"
She couldn't write if her pen wouldn't stop moving, could she?
There was gentle pressure at the back of her head, lithe fingers curling around hers. They wrapped around her damp pen, pulled it from her limp grasp. "If I knew how to help you." she pursed her lips to stop it from trembling again, when she heard the wavering whisper.
Would you tell me I was wrong?
Would you help me understand?
"I'm sorry." There, she said it. She said it.
She forced the name from her frozen lips, the wind whipping into her back and making her body wrack with cold. Cold. "Shinichi." Her chest cracked. "I'm sorry."
Are you looking down upon me?
Are you proud of who I am?
Her cheeks hurt with the plastic smile, cracked and worn, on her chapped lips. Small fingers twisted and turned, around the pastry table cloth. How those children knew to conjure a meeting, how they knew to deceive. She saw them now, peering at them over the far end table, eyes like laser beams. There was a pause, before a soft, reluctant voice murmured in return; "And I need to apologize too. I was out of line."
Courtesy moved her lips on impulse, but that wasn't all. She remembered the fond, exasperated smiles, the knowing smirks. "It's alright, Haibara." She remembered when they could've been considered friends as well- "After all, you knew him too."
The doors opened and a bustling crowd of students filled into the café, their laughter shrill and loud, but even that did not muffle the next words that came from the silent strawberry blonde. "He would be happy. To know you're moving on."
Her cheeks ached.
There's nothing I wouldn't do,
To have just one more chance.
"I don't think Ran nii-chan has moved on."
She looked away, eyes caressing the veins of the great oak tree. Their hands were too tight around her arms, her shoulders; she hadn't thought of them as chains and weights in such a long time. "I know." Gently, she unclasped their iron fingers, turned around to peer into their earnest, sorrowful eyes.
They had loved Kudo.
"But I thought I could help out Conan-kun, after all he's done for me."
"To look into your eyes,
And see you looking back."
The doors didn't open. "It's not healthy." She heard, like the murmuring of a forgotten river.
There was the sharp bite of anger, beneath it ran a deluge of worry. She knew it to be there even beyond the chattered words of the friend before her, beyond the walls. Her room had grown small, with only one visitor day after day.
"He wouldn't take my homework, che, that bastard! It was in perfectly good condition, ne, Ran?"
Her eyes snapped to the mirage, a hum leaving her throat. "Yes."
There was that flash of worry again, the minute crease of her forehead. She noticed things like these now – when one wasn't talking, there wasn't much to do but notice. She noticed the diamonds behind storm blue eyes, how dull they seemed now, how little they shined. The faded, chipped polish of usually carefully manicured nails. The uptick of carefully glossed lips, strained and tight, where they had been- well, she'd been sure they had been wider.
"He doesn't like me! Just cause dad makes so much more money than he does! Hmph!"
The heavy pout, cheeky and exasperated, made her chest swell with a crushing, overwhelming sense of fear and fondness. It was a smile that crept up upon her, distant, slight, but the mirage caught it.
As if against her will, Sonoko's forehead smoothed. Her crossed arms, tensed against her chest, loosened where sharp nails had been tapping against her soft arms. Their gazes locked for a quiet minute, and there could have been a secret there, a plea there, before sharp blue eyes tore away to huff again.
But she noticed things like these now.
"I'm sorry for blaming you,
For everything I just couldn't do."
"You knew didn't you?" it felt simple this way, speaking to them. Who better who knew how she felt than they? The voice in her ears was her own; she couldn't remember if it had ever been so raspy, so plaintive and small.
She saw their red-rimmed eyes, but here she didn't want to fight. They were leaving so soon, the last of- of him, gone into the wind, until he was nothing but a faded memory turned to dust, for her alone to remember.
"You didn't tell me." She said, hushed, and dead, tired eyes stared into her own.
"He wanted to keep you safe."
"And i've hurt myself…"
"It's not something you can cure easily, Mouri-san. I think you'd better seek out this man of yours and talk to him about it."
". . . . I can't."
"If I had just one more day,
I would tell you how much that i've missed you since you've been away."
To shift anything in the room would be to disrupt the quiet stillness that had settled throughout its abandoned years. A flashlight seemed so… impersonal, a bright beam of light encircling the books, the bed, the desk, like she hadn't known him at all, like she had been part of a small period of his life, to be dismissed when he became something more than she could handle.
There were rats.
The Kudo's wouldn't be coming back to this house.
"It's dangerous,
It's so out of line.
To try and turn back time."
The grip on her arm had not loosened an inch throughout the night. She felt that unwavering, laser attention alternate between herself, and the show, the act, the robbery. She'd been hoping she could've- slipped away, when her attention was elsewhere, and she knew she was doing her best to cheer her up but-
"Today, Ladies and Gentlemen," A thousand roars erupted to the skies; for a single, blazing moment, she was in disbelief. They were so happy. They were all so excited. None of them knew at all, that someone had given their life for the earth to keep spinning, to keep turning and going- None of them knew.
"I will not be stealing something. Rather, giving something."
She stilled at the deep, shuddering breath that seemed to have swept across the city, amplified a thousand by some cheap microphone. The hush of the crowd.
"I want to thank a certain critic of mine. This," she saw the gleam of the gem as a gloved-hand tossed it in the air. "Is for helping me out when I need it."
"I'm sorry for blaming you.
For everything I just couldn't do."
Her fingers brushed over the polished stone.
Her breath rattled in her chest, a deep exhale that carried wordless confessions, things she had always wanted to say, but never did.
It was spring.
"And i've hurt myself...
By hurting you."