Forget Me Not
Conan's fingers twiddled with the petals of a small, blue flower, his expression blank, as it bounced along with his touch.
"My, my. What's got you so interested in that flower, little boy?" a voice called out. He whirled around, only to come face-to-face with a middle-aged woman – bending down significantly so she could meet him at eye level. There was an amused smile lighting up her face, and he realized that it probably came from rash assumptions.
"Do you want to give it to your mother? Or is it, perhaps, for a girl?"
He was far too drained, mentally, to even blush at the thought of Ran. In fact, he was too drained to even answer the playful question meant for a child. So instead, he turned away and settled back to tugging gently at the small petals of the delicate flower.
The middle-aged florist, taken aback by the child's lack of vigor, decided to change tactics. She knelt down right next to him, eyes following the flower's bobbing head.
"It's called a forget-me-not," she told him, and the little boy made a soft sound of agreement.
Of course he knew that, just like he knew that it was otherwise know as the vergissmeinnicht – a German word that directly translated to its English name. The meaning of it…maybe that's why he was so guiltily and drunkenly drawn to it – like a mosquito to a light trap, and a real little girl to a butterfly.
But the florist didn't know that.
"They say that it got its name from a sad legend," she went on. "When a medieval knight was trying to pick a blossom for his lady-love, he fell into the river and drowned. His last words as he threw the flower to the bank, where his lady was, were 'forget me not.' Hence the name. Romantic, isn't it?"
Conan's fingers froze, and then he shook his head. "The knight seems selfish to me."
The florist turned to him, surprised.
"He's never coming back, right? He'll be dead. Why would he want her to keep thinking about him if it could only bring her pain? It's selfish."
By then, the florist was speechless, not really sure about how she should approach the little boy whose mental capacity was far higher than she could ever imagine. Conan sighed and saved her the trouble by shuffling over to other flower displays.
He lingered around the cyclamen – the flower of goodbye – because it really was the most fitting one for the occasion, wasn't it? And then he saw a couple of nuts, and realized that he should also consider getting that. After all, nuts represented stupidity, and this whole wretched fiasco was the result of his stupidity, wasn't it?
He strolled past the lilacs – a symbolism of early love, of first love – because it was too fitting and far too painful to even consider.
He didn't even stop to look at the dark crimson rose, even if it was the appropriate flower. It went too well with black, and it reminded him too much of them.
The yellow carnations, though…well…
His thoughts were interrupted when someone nudged him gently on the cheek. "Are you ready, Conan-kun?"
He turned around, staring down at him own feet. "Um…yeah."
Ran raised her brow at the cluster of flowers – and nuts – held across his chest. Yellow was the most prominent color there, and wasn't yellow a bright, festive color? Weren't Conan's flowers a tad bit too cheerful, considering the occasion? Well, Conan was a kid. He probably just got whatever he thought was nice, the sweet little thing.
But of course, Ran didn't know so much about flowers and their meanings. She didn't know that the yellow flowers were carnations, and that yellow carnations screamed 'you have disappointed me.' She also didn't know that the little boy knew exactly what they meant. So, she tilted her head to the side and smiled – a crooked, forced uplift of the lips, much too heavy to be genuine and real.
"They're beautiful," she whispered, running her thumb across his cheek. Conan nodded, murmured a soft 'thank you,' and held her hand as she went to the counter. He insisted on paying, and to his surprise, she let him.
They left the flower shop after that, and walked down the sidewalk in silence – an elementary kid and his neechan taking a morning walk at the break of spring. They rounded a corner and continued down the streets, coming to an emptier part of the city.
It eventually came into view – the Beika cemetery, which was bright, tranquil, and maybe even beautiful that springtime morning. The blooming Cherry Blossoms filled it up to the top like a rosy, pink roof, and on another day, Conan might've admired it. But other days seemed like a long stretch of time, and he could feel Ran's hands shaking against his own. He looked down, and said nothing.
They eventually stopped at a grave placed beside one of the thicker trunks of Cherry Blossom trees.
Conan bent down and placed the nuts, yellow carnations and cyclamen on the grass right in front of the stone, his expression grim.
You're so stupid. You have disappointed me…goodbye.
But before he could really allow his own message to sink in, Ran reached into her bag and pulled something out. Conan's eyes widened as she placed the pink carnation on top of everything, her own lips quivering in the way they always did whenever she sat there.
"I'll never forget you, Shinichi…"
Conan whirled around, opening his mouth to say something, but stopped when he saw her. Ran's right hand was digging into the base of the grave, her left hand covering her mouth. They didn't hide the tears that fell from her eyes in thick, bitter drops.
He swallowed painfully, sitting by her side, because that's all Conan could ever do. He did what he did because he wanted her to move on. Kudo Shinichi wasn't coming back, no matter how much he wanted him to.
His small hands dug into the dirt as he listened to her sobs, at heart knowing that she was going to get through this. Ran was strong. She was going to move on one day, and that was good. He wanted her to be happy.
He just didn't expect it to make him so miserable.
