Hope you like it! Reviews are greatly appreciated. Warning for brief mention of suicide.
...
She stood alone by the corner of the airport terminal. She, a young woman a little past twenty, insignificant in the masses of people from all walks of life, some arriving, some departing, some saying bittersweet goodbyes. She half-expects someone to appear beside her, but she quickly banishes the thought from her mind.
She hears a young couple with matching suitcases arguing behind her, something about a passport left at home. A few meters away, a middle-aged business man, black suit and balding hair, flustered and angry, inquires rather forcefully about his lost luggage. She counts at least 20 people on their phones. A posh lady in stilettos walks by her, a lingering scent of perfume trailing in the air. A family of four, not very wealthy but very close-knit, is having a lively discussion about their destination. The whir of wheels on the floor can be heard as a voice, pleasant and distinctly female, announces on the PA system that flight 838 is now boarding at gate 5.
She feels her heartbeat quicken ever so slightly as she pulls her suitcase along, knowing that this was the beginning of the end.
…
She sits by the window on the airplane. A teenager, a girl in a pretty white top and dark jeans, hair pulled back in a ponytail, sits beside her.
The girl, she finds out, was going to visit her grandparents. When she is asked about the purpose of her own trip, she hesitates before replying with a vague answer. "There's something I need to do." The teenager accepts this answer without any doubts.
If only she knew the full answer.
The girl has with her a laptop, 5 or so books ("for a variety, you know?"), and earbuds that she offers to share. While k-pop plays from the girl's device into her right ear, she just stares out the window, her expression as unreadable as the whirlwind of her thoughts.
Shortly after take-off, the girl mentions that she gets bad air-sickness. "Here," she says. "This'll help." She holds out a small light green pill in the palm of her hand, which is received eagerly and with a big "Thank you!"
She wonders how one could be so innocent and trusting.
Then she remembers that she was once like that too.
…
The sky is darkening as she steps out of the airport and onto the solid concrete ground. Cars are parked along the road. A man with a huge black backpack is evidently lost, furrowing his brows as he examines a map. Another man is complaining to his wife that she packed too much. An older lady who is running late for her flight rushes past her through the glass airport entrance, her floral-print suitcase rattling behind her. A woman, arms crossed and hair in a neat bun, is standing underneath the light of a street lamp post just a few meters away, its glow casting a shadow on the ground underneath.
"You ready?" The woman asks.
Instead of answering though, she just walks on ahead and swallows a small brown pill -which, she supposes, was answer enough.
There would be no sleep that night.
…
She opens her eyes only to be met with darkness once again. She's indoors somewhere unfamiliar, but then again, lately everything has been unfamiliar. It is raining softly outside, and although the temperature is low, she doesn't feel the cold. She sees a woman just a few feet away, close enough to make out her facial features. And she realizes that recognizes her face. It is utterly silent for who knows how long before she dares to open her mouth.
"Why did you help me?"
Her question is not answered. Or, perhaps, it was. "I could be asking you the same question."
She pauses only for a moment before pressing on. "Who are you? Do you have a name?"
The woman just lets out a half-laugh and says, "I'm someone who has plenty of names. And you?"
She's about to tell the woman her name when she stops, because somehow, for some reason she doesn't know, that answer felt wrong. Out of context. But she did know, didn't she? The reason why. That was the problem all along, wasn't it? And maybe that's why, before she knew it, the words were out and she realizes that it was the truth all along.
"I'm someone who has nothing left to lose."
…
The unlit building is empty and soundless, save for her own presence and soft footsteps. With a small flashlight in hand to guide the way, she walked past glass panel walls and furniture that gave off an air of professionalism. Her steps quicken as she climbs up the stairs, -one, two, one, two- merely out of force of habit; one she developed years ago in high school.
Top floor, second last room on the right.
At the end of the hallway, she pulls out two previously straightened and twisted paper clips from her right shoe. The locked door creaks open in less than a minute.
Sweeping her flashlight throughout the office space, she sees black chairs circling a small glass table. A potted plant sits in the corner of the room. The garbage bin is near empty, but beside it, the recycling bin is vomiting discarded papers. A window overlooks the city, and from outside, fireworks go off not too far in the distance, and an off-season rain soaks anyone and everyone not under cover. A large mahogany desk occupies the bulk of the room, and on top of its polished wooden surface there sat various office supplies; some individually wrapped candies, a mug full of pens, a bottle of fine wine, and a file of information on a latest case. An enormous case.
A case that she's been working on for years.
She flips through the file, reading through its pages under the small white light of her flashlight and taking pictures of the black ink on white paper every so often.
She almost doesn't notice the footsteps outside the hall, but she does. She had learned to notice everything years ago.
A man, dressed in a black suit, wet umbrella and briefcase in his hands, steps into his own office, freezing for an instant when he notices the figure, almost indiscernible in the dark, walking from his desk towards him.
"Who are you?! Show me your-"
He isn't even finished his sentence when she forces a small blue pill into his half-open mouth. Meanwhile, outside the window, a whistling noise can be heard as sparks fly, climbing ever higher before it popping as the last of the fireworks go off, exploding in vibrant colours before fading into the night.
…
In the daylight, the building is bustling with activity. As soon as she steps into the main foyer, the air conditioning hits her with a welcome cool breeze, and on the right, the lady behind the reception desk is on the phone, scribbling something down on a sheet of paper. Across the room, numbers flash on the elevator dial as it climbs down from the top floor to the first, and people flow in as others flow out. One of them, a middle aged man with a stubble, bumps into her roughly, no apology uttered or help offered even when her bag is flung open, scattering all her possessions on the cold marble floor.
She curses under her breath (her father never was the greatest influence) as she hastily gathers her things together, but when she reaches for a small box, another hand that is not her own is already there.
"Here," a young man says, holding the box out to her, but as her thanks is on her tongue, she looks up and freezes.
She smells the acrid scent of gunpowder and the raw rooftop air.
She tastes the metallic taste of blood on her lip.
She feels the rough ground beneath her and the cool nighttime breeze. She feels tears running down her face. She feels his blood on her hands, feels his skin cold to the touch, feels his heartbeat rapidly fading.
She sees flashing red and blue lights five-stories below and the glow of the full moon up in the dark, cloudless, starless sky. She sees the fading luster of the shards of a shattered red jewel. She sees scarlet stains on white, and his face -how long has she known that face?- behind the monocle and top hat, a faint smile gracing his lips.
She hears the wind whistling through the night. She hears the police sirens, so close yet so far away. She hears his words –his last words- soft on his lips. She hears a cry of despair, and she realizes that it was her own.
"-iss? Miss?" His mouth is moving. Her brain processes the words, and she realizes that he wasn't the one talking.
It's not him.
"Are you okay?" he asks, and the words "I'm fine" come out automatically, even though she isn't fine. Hasn't been for a long time now.
The young man –who looks so much like him- looks skeptical as he holds out the rest of the items she hasn't yet gathered. A pen, a spiral-bound notebook, an empty plastic water bottle, a pair of scissors, and a fish-patterned handkerchief.
It's not him.
As she stuffs everything into her bag, she hears a voice behind her, someone with a Kansai dialect, calling for the young man in front of her. He tells her to "Take care" as he follows his friend out the door, but after a few strides, he takes one last glance behind him. Their eyes meet for a split second before he disappears out of sight.
It's not him.
…
She's at the rendezvous point five minutes early. The moment she steps into the café, there is the aroma of coffee and the sound of various conversations all going on at the same time. Customers line up in a moderately long line. A group of university students take up a few tables, with their laptops and textbooks and cups of coffee, making full use of the free Wi-Fi. On her left, a young couple exchanges funny stories about the people in their lives. A man in a blue suit passes by her with a dozen small coffees and a huge bag of muffins. An older man is reading the newspaper by the window, a half-eaten sandwich in hand.
And then she sees him. The one who helped pick up her stuff. The one who looks so much like him. He's searching something up on his phone, and on the table in front of him sits a huge cup of coffee, its lid taken off to help the drink cool.
She fingers the folder in her bag and realizes almost instantly that she can't do it. At least, not in front of him.
She takes a deep breath, and her hand fiddles with something inside her bag before coming out with something between her fingers. If one looked closely, they would see that it was a small white pill.
…
In time, a series of court cases comes to an end. And all on trial are judged guilty.
All except one.
And during that one trial, as the judge announces the verdict, her voice echoing of the walls of courtroom, no one notices the presence of a young woman standing by the corner in its shadow, nor do they see the expression that crosses her face as she turns around and slips out of the room.
…
The lights were dim. Around her, people were engrossed in their chatter. She looks up to see the bartender doing some crazy trick with a bottle and a stainless steel cocktail shaker, entertaining a growing crowd of customers, but she wasn't really paying attention. On the other side of the bar, a woman with bleached hair is already drunk and shouting some gibberish to no one in particular. An older man a few meters away from her erupts into laughter at something his friend says. She is sitting beside the wall on the last bar stool, her elbows on the counter in front of her. She twirls the drink in her hand and watches as the dull amber liquid swishes around, creating a tornado of sorts before gradually settling down. Her glass is half-empty.
Or maybe it was half-full?
It didn't really matter anymore.
A bell jingles as the door opens. And then she sees him.
The man who ruined her life.
The man they let walk free.
The man they call Snake.
She watches as he plops down a mere two seats away from her. She watches as he barks at the bartender to get him a drink. She watches as he downs several, even as her's remains untouched. She watches as he behaves as a drunk man.
No, not a man.
A monster.
She clutches her drink tightly in her hand as she throws her head back, closes her eyes, and gulps down the rest. The liquid burns as it travels down her throat. Her glass is now completely empty. Then, in one smooth motion, she puts down her glass, reaches into her bag, opens a small box, and pulls out a pill. The last pill.
This is for everyone you've ever hurt.
She doesn't even need to glance at it to know that it was red. Red like his drink. Red like blood.
This is for myself.
She digs her fingernails into the pill, feeling its encasing break open. It is no longer safe to handle. But then again, was it ever really?
This is for Dad.
No one notices her drop something in his glass as she walks past, nor do they notice the small splash and faint fizzing in the red liquid. Least of all him.
This is for Kaito.
By the time he hits the floor and the onlookers scream, she is already gone.
…
The crystal clear water shimmers in the glow of the late summer sunset. A bridge joins the two banks of the river, a cityscape not too far away. She sits on the grass by the riverside, arms crossed and resting on her bent knees.
She doesn't really know how long she stays like that for, staring absent-mindedly at the water, before someone walks down the grassy sloping ground and sits down beside her, leaning back on the palms of his hands. She doesn't take her eyes off his face –a face that looks so much like his- as she speaks.
"So. Kudo Shinichi. Famous detective. Aided law enforcement in the take down of a massive crime syndicate. A key witness in the recent series of court cases. You've been virtually non-existent these days."
"I could say the same of you, Nakamori Aoko. Daughter of the late Inspector Nakamori. Aided law enforcement in the arrest and prosecution of members of said crime syndicate. What did it take to gather the amount of intel that you did?"
She pauses and turns her head back to the water. Her answer is barely audible, indefinite yet exceedingly fitting. "A lot." She lets out a breath. "So you know then. Although, I suppose it would be pretty disappointing if you of all people couldn't figure it out."
He hesitates for a moment before speaking again. "I could say I understand what you did and why you did it, but I suppose that would be incredibly ignorant and presumptuous of me, wouldn't it?"
She responds with a laugh. One that is joyless. Hollow. Haunted. Almost desperate. "Tell me. Tell me what I did. Tell me why I did it. Let me see a great detective catch a murderer."
He just looks at her for a moment, as if trying to read her and her entire messed up being. "Then allow me to make a preemptive apology if and when I sound like an overly-righteous, insensitive jerk.
"You made a deal with one of the CIA agents on the case, didn't you? I worked with her too just a little while back. She's the one that contributed to the case no small amount of solid evidence -evidence that she acquired from you. That box that you had – It's a pill kit. I thought it looked familiar back then, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It's the same one they give to operatives when they first enter the field in the clandestine service. Most likely, she's the one who gave it to you. When I picked it up back at the law firm, I heard the rattling of two of the original five, color coded pills."
She stays silent, keeping her eyes on the sunset in the distance and its reflection in the water. He too fixes his gaze straight ahead before continuing with his deduction.
"The A-pill works wonders in preventing air sickness, but may cause slight drowsiness. For various reasons, I doubt you'd gotten one of the better seats on the flight here, even if you had booked it months in advance. I'm assuming you either used it yourself or gave it to someone else to use if you don't get air-sick easily."
Unconsciously, he starts counting with one of his hands, while his other one hand starts plucking at the grass. "The B-pill is a stimulant. It contains a high dose of benzedrine to help one stay awake for long periods of time. In the series of books by Ian Fleming, the character James Bond repeatedly makes use of benzedrine in times of peak stress and typically during the climax of the books.
"The K-pill is a sleeping pill. Knocks a full-grown man out for several hours, leaving him with a hangover upon awakening. Four days ago, during the fireworks, you sneaked into the defense's lawyer's office to collect some information. It was supposed to be a clean operation, but the man had come back, perhaps to collect something he had left behind, and you got caught. You forced him to ingest the pill and subsequently moved some things around, rubbed some alcohol on his face, poured out the wine in the bottle he had on his table, and leaned him out the window. When someone came in the morning after, it would look as if he'd just been watching the fireworks the night before and had a little too much wine."
She releases a long exhale and a soft hmph. "Really, you're as good as they say you are. How'd you know?"
"There were marks on the floor," he explains. "Faint, but still there, and I could at least tell that it wasn't just from the office chair. Also, the man was left handed, but you put the empty bottle in his right. Mostly though, I knew because of the rain."
"The rain?"
"It was raining that day during the fireworks, and his umbrella still had a bit of moisture on it when I came in his office the next morning. If he really had been watching the fireworks that night from his office window, then common sense says that he wouldn't have been outside with his umbrella in the rain."
"And the last two pills?" She turns her head briefly at him, then back to the water again. It was easier not look at him.
"The one you put in my coffee back at the café was the E-pill. It's an anesthetic. Knocks a full-grown man out for half an hour within half a minute. Most likely, you were meeting that CIA agent there to give her some information you obtained from the law firm, and I suppose I was in your way."
He pauses for a moment before continuing. "The last pill is the L-pill. The lethal pill. The suicide pill. It's used as a last resort. It's safe to handle because of it's rubber coating, but once the seal is broken, it will release cyanide and result in cardiac arrest within 15 seconds when ingested. It… It wasn't your original plan to kill him with it, was it?"
She shakes her head as she fiddles with a stone, running her hands over and over it's smooth surface, all the while feeling utterly exposed by the intellect of a young man beside her. "That pill -15 seconds and it's all over." She sighs. "…All I wanted was for everything to be over. Total coincidence that he walks in. Drinks himself silly as some kind of post-trial celebration. That man…
"All I wanted was for everything to be over! But, of course, of all the Organization's members, of all the ones on trial, he was the one deemed innocent! Like hell there wasn't enough evidence! I saw to it personally that there would be enough to charge specifically him with three consecutive life sentences, but no. The surveillance footage wasn't clear enough, the fingerprints weren't conclusive, the voice audio could've been faked, even though I know bloody damn well that it was as real as the defense's lawyer's stupid bald head!" The stone that she had been fiddling with was thrown into the river. Hard. The water splashed high.
"He murdered Kaito! And one day, my dad told me he had found a lead. An discrepancy in the case the higher-ups called cold less than a week after KID's last heist. Told me there was something big going on that the police didn't know about. Guess what? He was killed in a t-bone car collision that very same day. Never came home again. It wasn't an accident like they said it was." She pauses to take a deep breath. She turns her head back to the young man beside her and looks into his eyes as she speaks again, her voice softer."After both of them died, people told me all sorts of things, you know. After someone loses someone, they usually take days off and buy out the time to grieve and do nothing else. You know what's funny though? After Kaito died, after Dad died, that was the last damn thing I wanted to do. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Stand by and twiddle my thumbs? When I knew that there was someone to blame? When I knew that that someone was out there destroying other people's lives? When I knew that I could make that someone pay? That, at least, I'm sure you can relate to, Kudo-kun. And I'm sure you of all people know that They work in the shadows. Nothing ever comes to light. They're top secret. Underground. Untraceable."
"Thereafter, you became untraceable yourself. If they couldn't find you, they couldn't get you. So you went off the grid. Fought them in your own way."
Aoko smiles a small smile. A sad smile. Sad for both of them. "I suppose that makes us quite similar, huh?"
And this time, Shinichi is the one who looks away. "I suppose it does."
It is quiet again for a while. She hears a little boy chasing his ball on the sidewalk above the sloping riverside. She watches the water ripple, its reflection of the sunset breaking for a moment before coming together again. She sees a bird flying, free, and she wishes she could be be like that too.
"So? Are you going to turn me in?" She asks, without a hint of malice.
"No," he replies, without missing a beat.
"Isn't that what you do though, Meitantei-san? Corner criminals? Uphold the law?" She quips, despite herself.
"I'm a detective," he replies. "We detectives are busy bodies who philosophize about 'one truth' and weigh the law against justice. So no, I'm not going to turn you in. Maybe it's because if I do, all the evidence you collected against the other Organization members will no longer stand, and a dozen other murderers will walk free. Maybe it's because if I do, all the less-than-legal things that I've done with the FBI and CIA will come to light."
His voice is softer now. "Maybe it's because I know know what it feels like to love someone. Maybe it's because I know what it feels like to lose someone. Maybe it's because I owe Kuroba a debt that I will never be able to repay."
"Kaito is dead!" Aoko snaps. Shinichi snaps back.
"And you're alive! You really think this is what Kuroba would've wanted?"
"Yeah," she snorts, "like he took what I wanted into account when he became KID! Make no mistake, Kudo-kun, I despise Kaitou KID."
"But you love Kuroba Kaito."
"You- you say that as if you understand everything, don't you, Heisei Sherlock Holmes-san? You have a life to go back to once this is all over! You have your family, you have a home, you have your love, and everything's going to be just fine isn't it! You- you…"
She trails off, and he notices the change in her eyes. He sees the anger and the hurt fade and morph into something more wistful. More vulnerable, but by no means weak. He sees her looking down at his shirt pocket, and he realizes what she's seeing.
"You dropped this. Back at the bar," he said, holding it out to her. There, in his hand, was a fish-patterned handkerchief. "I picked it up before the police noticed it."
She looks back at his face and stares into his blue eyes. She feels her throat clam up and her chest tighten and her eyes burn and the tears come, hot and thick and salty. She runs her hands over and over her eyes and nose, willing herself to regain her composure, but the tears kept coming, as if everything that had been bottled up all this time had finally burst open and overflowed.
Because after everything, she'd made such a stupid mistake. Left something so obvious behind.
Because she remembered seeing that handkerchief when passing by a store window a few months ago, remembered how the memories had come rushing back painfully and far too fast, remembered smiling and crying and embracing the memories and walking in the store and buying the handkerchief anyways.
Because for a split second, she saw messy hair and a bright smile, and he was the one who had found her again.
Because at long last, everything was over now, wasn't it?
Eventually, her sobs diminish into hiccuping and sniffling, and she accepts the handkerchief from the slightly dazed young man beside her. And she finds herself saying "Thank you," and she knows he knows its implications. There is, after all, more than one way to say something.
"What are you going to do now?" He asks as she picks herself up off the ground.
Instead of answering, she just smiles. "You're the detective. You figure it out."
She slings her bag over her shoulder as she steps off the grass and onto the concrete sidewalk, leaving as quietly as she had come. Without a sound. Without a trace.
But a little ways down the road, she looks back just for a moment and raises her hand in something that was not quite a wave, not quite a salute. It was more like she was reaching up to grab a fistful of the sky and its fading sunset, as if to hold it like a memory. And he knows that despite the fact that nothing will ever be the same again, one day, they'll see each other again.
One day, she'll be back again.
One day, she'll be okay again.
…
"Shinichi!" Ran's voice booms from upstairs. "Have you seen my phone?"
He holds a hand to his face as he shouts back "No," to which Ran remarks that she can't find it anywhere and that she can't call it because it's dead and that they're going to be late for the lunch with her parents. "And whose fault is that?" She tells him to shut up as she gives up on searching and hurries down the stairs, two at a time.
He's standing by their dining room table, keys in one hand, a postcard held up in the other, and Ran is about to tell him to "Come on!" when she sees the faint rueful smile on his face.
"What's that?" She asks instead, leaning over take a peek. She sees a stamp from France and no more than a few sentences neatly penned in blue.
"It came in the mail this morning," He explained, putting the postcard down on the table and jangling the keys in his hand. "Come on, we have to go right?" Less than a minute later, the door is opens and shuts and a click can be heard as it is locked.
On the dining table, the postcard lay. On the front was a photograph of the light blue cloudless sky, streaked with warm colours -orange, pink, and yellow- as the sun set over the seemingly endless ocean and the water reflected its glow. In corner of the photo, a single fish jumping out of the shimmering, splashing water is captured in the moment.
…
An old clock tower chimed, backdropped with the orange, pink, and yellow painted sky as the sun set in the horizon. There a girl of six or seven, pink dress and messy dark hair, stood alone by the stone wall.
"Are you waiting for someone?"
She turns her head to see a boy her age, cap worn backwards and hands in his pockets, standing beside her. His eyes are blue like water.
"Yeah. I just moved here today and I'm supposed to meet my dad here, but… He's late. He's always so busy with work." The expression on her face is forlorn.
The boy hesitates, if only for a second, before extending his hand and making a rose appear out of thin air. It would be the first of many.
"I'm Kuroba Kaito. Nice to meet you."
And that- that was the beginning.
...
Now, to give credit to whom credit is due:
The pill kit is the same one from X Company episode 3, "Kiss of Death". What Aoko does in the law firm with the bottle of wine and the fireworks is actually based on what Alfred and Neil did in X Company episode 2, "Trial by Fire".
Loosely based off of teainapot's "Fifty Pills" (Five Pills! Get it? Get it?) and ylvgo's "The Phantom Lady" (you can find this one under the Magic Kaito category on this site). Inspiration also drawn from teainapot's "A Fairy Tale Never Lies", one of the stories in s2lou's compilation "Gem's Entry", and peppymint's "You Reap What You Sow".
The part about James Bond and benzedrine was taken straight off Wikipedia, and the salute wave thing Aoko does near the end is actually taken from the 6th (and last) book in the Gallagher Girls series, "United We Spy", page 154. (Sorry English teacher, I know I'm supposed to, but I don't wanna underline the book title.)
So if it turns out that I stole a sentence or two from a story of yours, please don't sue me. Sometimes when I write, I don't even know if I'm writing something new or just rewriting a story I read 2 years ago. It's usually the former, but I've caught myself unconsciously doing the latter a few times in the past...
So. Disclaimer.
Thanks for reading!
...
Also: I just realized this myself. Ran's phone also fits the 'Untraceable' theme. XD