Shinichi has always been a man of reason, where behind every impossible story was a rational explanation and where fairy tales were nothing more than whims of imagination, inspired by exaggerated motivations of reality.
And Shinichi never fancied fairytales as anything more than unimportant.
But in a twist of fate (because fate is often cruel yet full of wonder) the moment Shinichi started to believe, he had been on the last vestiges of his life.
The last thing he saw had been a menace of a man sneering down his frail and bleeding form, with wisps of silver and eyes red as the blood on his hand. Shinichi was unable to get away after the menace broke both his legs with one hand, and then tearing through his stomach like Shinichi was made of paper.
Shinichi groveled almost when he asked the nature of his menace, pain searing everywhere while his life ebbed away every passing second.
"Do you really want to know?"
Vampires, the menace said.
Shinichi died shortly after.
—
Shinichi wakes up cold and fighting for breath, hands grasping at the base of his neck where a sharp pain poured and pierced there. He remembers red eyes, but they're unlike the ones he knows, which are more sinister and cruel.
And then he remembers the menace.
It takes no more than half a second for Shinichi to bolt from where he lay unconscious. Panic lacing through his gut as he tensed for a fight. He is cornered, in an alleyway where the menace had chased him into with an ungodly speed Shinichi thought impossible.
"–ichi!"
Shinichi stills when he senses—senses—someone coming up towards him. His heartbeat is unusually silent as he turns to meet his killer only to find Agasa instead of the menace. "Agasa…hakase?" Shinichi realises, relief cutting through his knees as he knocks back into the couch where he previously lay.
"Shinichi-kun," Agasa voices his concern, "how are you feeling?"
Relieved and confused, Shinichi wants to say.
He died. At least, he dreamed he did. Gutted by a man in a dark alleyway after Shinichi thought to do an impromptu investigation on what could have been a drug trade. It had felt all too real.
"I think I'll be fine," Shinichi coughs. His throat hurts, unbearably dry. "Hakase, could I—"
"I'll get you some water."
Shinichi looks up to where Agasa is standing and catches the worried look the elderly man throws at him.
"I'll be fine, hakase."
Agasa's smile is tight around the corners, never reaching his eyes.
—
Agasa's house is just as Shinichi remembers from his last visit, white-walled, clean and modern. Save for the brand new television and the change of curtains, nothing else appears to be out of order.
Shinichi busies himself with the house's interior, ignoring the strange way the hunger is setting into his bones. There's an unusual haze pervading his sense of thought, dulling his wit.
He still hasn't figured out how he ended up in Agasa's house, has no recollection of it whatsoever. All he has is a dream.
Agasa returns with a tray of water and a sliced sandwich, setting it down on top of the coffee table.
"This is?" Shinichi asks, taking a sizeable red gel he found beside the plate of sandwich.
"A supplement. You should take it before eating," Agasa says with a pride so soft as if it was meant for someone else.
Shinichi shrugs and does as he is told, tossing the pill into his mouth and chugging the glass of water to swallow. There is a sweetness when the water runs down his throat like a balm.
A few minutes pass and the haze clears from his head. He feels significantly better.
"Do you remember anything?" Shinichi perks up when Agasa asks, who takes the couch adjacent to him.
"I was hoping you could tell me, hakase," Shinichi says in good humour, hoping to undo the dour air surrounding the living room.
Agasa remains grim.
The colour drains from Shinichi's face. He knows.
Agasa won't look at Shinichi, clasping his hands together. "You were dead, Shinichi-kun."
In an all too sudden fashion, the panic sets in again for a second time since Shinichi had woken up—had been revived. The memory—not a dream, Shinichi assumes with great difficulty—haunts him, of a man with red eyes and inhuman strength, who sneered at him as he laid by his feet, completely and utterly at the mercy of a monster in human skin.
"I'm a—I'm a—" Shinichi rushes to stand, startling Agasa in the process as he paced. He runs his hands through his face and hair, fiddling and fidgeting until he reminds himself to calm down.
"Agasa-hakase," Shinichi starts, eyes him with a look sharp enough to cut, "you don't seem at all surprised by this development."
"You're not the first I met, Shinichi-kun, and you certainly won't be the last."
Shinichi stares at him. Agasa weathers it.
"Who?"
"A friend." Agasa looks at his watch. "She was the one who found you."
"When did I—" Shinichi stills.
"Last night."
Shinichi nods. "Then she's here."
Agasa's eyes flickers to the door leading to the basement.
—
Shinichi doesn't know what to expect the moment he descended into the basement. He's not familiar with the lore and stories, uninterested as he was.
Ran used to tell him about it while it had been popular a while back, but Shinichi more or less tuned her out in favour of reading. The closest he's had anything to do with the idea, and Shinichi loses his life for it.
"I see you're just as ill-mannered as Agasa-kun said you were," a woman says to him when he makes it past the door without so much a knock. She had brown hair, cropped just past her chin, and dressed in a white button down blouse and dark slacks.
Shinichi's breath catches in his throat when her eyes meet his. Her red is a much deeper colour, noble and ancient. There is a compulsion then, in his blood, deep and foreign, to look away and kneel until he is forgiven for his trespasses.
But he fights the deep-rooted fear he doesn't ever remember having reason for, steels his legs from giving out under the weight of the woman's stare.
"Be at ease," the woman says, voice crinkling in amusement and suddenly Shinichi is weightless and he breathes.
He looks at her again, unable to deny the pull she has on him, like a moth to her flame.
"Sensei."
Shinichi turns behind him, and finds Agasa right at the entrance. Shinichi eyes him funnily. Agasa, balding and greying from age with two doctorates to his name, regarding a woman who seems no older than twenty-five with respect and childlike fondness.
"Agasa-kun," the woman smiles kindly, "we'll come up once I answer the questions Kudo-kun has for me."
"Of course, sensei." Agasa bows. "Is there anything you'd like to eat?"
"Anything is fine."
—
Once Agasa leaves the two of them alone, Shinichi considers the woman before him. She was undeniably powerful, Shinichi could tell that much, but how powerful he couldn't say.
"I suspect you have questions for me?"
"Who are you?"
"Miyano Shiho," she answers. Her voice is calm and soothing, taking Shinichi's scrutiny in stride.
"That doesn't explain—!" Shinichi stops short of the bile forming in his throat.
Shiho smiles, insincere, as though she knew the reason for his pause.
Shinichi tries again, mustering more respect in his voice this time. It comes naturally to him and the words flow and the bile disappears.
"Did you save me?"
"I suppose you could call it that."
"Why?"
"Do you not want to find the man who killed you?"
"Of course I do!"
"Isn't that reason enough?"
Shinichi looks at her for a second longer. There was no reason for her to choose him out of the countless other victims.
Unless, "You need my help."
"I do," Shiho admits easily. "Who better else than the great detective of Tokyo? Though I didn't think I had to employ your services in this manner."
"You know the man who killed me."
Shiho doesn't say anything this time, though her eyes harden when she looks away from him.
"He's not unlike you," she whispers but Shinichi's hearing is better than when he had been alive that he hears her anyway, regret and sadness gnashing into something vile. "I made him, like I made you."
Silence fills the room for a full minute or two before she resumes, pursing her lips into a grim line of determination and a touch of rage colouring her voice. "And I swore to unmake him."