Detective Conan
A Confidence Boost
By
Sgamer82
"In the name of the Detective Boys, I will capture you, Kaito Kid!"
The girl stood in front of her mirror, theatrically pointing her finger. She held that pose for a few seconds more before the cocky grin on her face deflated into a frown. She tried another pose, right hand in hip, left hand pumping into a fist.
"I'm Ayumi Yoshida, detective!"
She abandoned that one immediately.
"That's just Conan-kun's line..."
Ayumi sat on her bed and sighed. She needed something before Conan arrived to pick her up. The Kaito Kid had announced a new heist in Beika, and Conan had asked Ayumi if she wanted to come along. She had, of course, agreed immediately. Among her preparations for tonight was devising a cool catch phrase or line like Conan would use.
Everything she had tried had come off feeling ridiculous or childish. A couple of years ago, or even just last year, she would have considered everything she'd tried to be utterly awesome. Was there really such a huge difference between age eight and age nine?
There shouldn't be. Mitsuhiko, Genta, and Ai would have definitely liked her ideas. On the other hand, one of those three has spent the past two and a half years trying to actively embrace a second childhood, and the other two were boys.
Ayumi sighed again.
When did I become the mature one?
It wasn't the first time Ayumi had asked herself that question. She didn't ask it out loud anymore. Not after it resulted in all three of her school friends answering with some variation of "when you started wearing glasses."
"Not like I wanted to wear these things." Ayumi pouted.
She took her glasses off and stared at them through the haze of nearsightedness. She didn't really mind them. They hadn't affected her popularity in class like she initially feared, and Ai had helped her pick cute frames. She pondered her dilemma as the turned the pink wire frames over in her hand.
Nerves. That's what it is, Ayumi realized. While this wasn't the first time she'd been involved in a case with Conan, it was the first time it would be her alone. Mitsuhiko was helping Genta get in some last second studying before a test on Monday while Ai was busy nursing a sick pet and refused to leave it for anything less than life or death, which Kid was not.
That made her nervous because the Detective Boys were a team. With or without Conan, when they worked together they were the equal of any Great Detective worth the name. On their own, they were clever but not brilliant. The last thing Ayumi wanted was to make herself, the Detective Boys, and, by extension, Conan look bad because she got in too far over her head or missed something one of her friends would've spotted.
That's what she was really rehearsing. Bravado. She needed to feel more confident than she really was, and she didn't know how to do that. When Ayumi pictured confidence, she thought of Conan Edogawa. Not the Conan she knew now, the adult detective Shinichi Kudo, but the Conan she knew in first grade. The boy who knew everything. The pretend first-grader in his bowtie and glasses.
"Ohh..." Ayumi's eyes went wide. Then she grinned. "Night hasn't even started and I'm already missing the obvious. Good thing I know what to do now."
Ayumi hopped off her bed went out to her the apartment's living room.
"Mom, did that package I ordered ever arrive?"
"You have everything you need, Ayumi-chan?" A young woman's voice asked from the car's driver seat.
"I'm all set, Ran-neechan," Ayumi replied as she stepped out to join Conan as he got out of the passenger side.
"All right, then," Ran said. She turned to Conan. "Give me a call when guys are done. And Shinichi?"
"Yeah?" Shinichi Kudo replied.
"Take care of Ayumi-chan," she instructed.
"Of course I will," he told her.
As Ran drove away, Conan pointed Ayumi in the direction they had to go. Using the pass given to him by Inspector Megure, he and Ayumi passed without incident. Conan stopped and looked down at Ayumi before they joined the main group on police and private detectives.
"Well, Ayumi-chan, are you ready to face off against Kid?"
"I am, Conan-ku-er... Shinichi-oniichan." Ayumi blushed. It was sometimes hard to remember to call Conan "Shinichi" when they were in public. She'd been scolded more than once by people who didn't know Conan's secret for forgetting to address him with the courtesy due an elder. "I just have to do one thing."
She opened her bag and brought out a small case. Turning away from Conan, she took off her glasses and swapped them with the contents of the case. When she turned to face Conan again, in place of the thin pink glasses she normally wore were thick black frames set around much larger lenses.
Ayumi had asked her parents to special order them. She hadn't completely known why herself at the time, but now she understood. Bravery, intelligence, confidence. That was what these glasses represented in the mind of Ayumi Yoshida.
As Ayumi looked into Conan's surprised face, she immediately tensed and a bright blush covered her face. In that moment Ayumi became aware of the fact that she hadn't thought far enough ahead to realize she was going to wear what her friends would inevitably dub something like "Conan Specs" in front of Conan himself.
"I- I thought they might help," she said sheepishly.
"They suit you," Conan told her with a smile.
The blush didn't completely leave Ayumi's face, but her shoulders sagged with relief. She looked at Conan, grinned smugly, put one of her hands on her hips and adjusted her glasses with the other.
"Let's go catch Kaito Kid, Shinichi-oniichan!"
Conan's grin was equally smug.
Rehearsal was over. It was time to take to the stage.
Author's Note: My one regret is that I couldn't find a way to refer to Ayumi as "meganekkonan" and stay within the word count requirement
In response to feedback, I've done a bit of tweaking and hopefully made the fact that Conan is supposed to be Shinichi again (and Ayumi just calls him Conan anyway) clearer.