"Shinichi?" Ran's soothing voice echoed throughout his mind, going in through one ear and out the other. He sat there on the couch in their living room, hands folded as he stared down into his lap.
Ran's eyes narrowed as she took a seat next to her boyfriend of four years, reaching up and running a hand through his hair ever-so-gently, like she'd seen his mother do to his father. He'd liked it the first time she'd done it, and it seemed as though it might run in the family. She reached up and used her other hand to caress his cheek lovingly, trying to get him to look at her.
She had no idea what was going on. She wanted to know why he was acting like this. She wanted to know why he was sitting like this. She had never seen him this way before.
Ran inhaled at the abrupt contact with her hand, seeing Shinichi lightly tug her hand from his cheek and stroke it.
She frowned.
He still wasn't looking at her.
"Shinichi…"
"Ran, we need to talk."
Uh oh.
Ran shifted in her seat, nodding through her worry and apprehension.
"If you're going the talk to me, you should face me." The emotion in his eyes when she finally got what she had asked for nearly made her grasp her heart in pain. He looked as though he was about to cry.
That was something, in the fourteen plus years she'd known him, she has never been able to say. "Shinichi?"
"This isn't working."
"What?"
Oh no… no, no, no. Those were the same exact words her mother had said to her father before she moved out. "Ran, we're not working."
"What do you MEAN we're not working? Shinichi I waited eight years!"
"I know you did, but… this isn't right."
"Ayumi!" Shinichi gripped 19-year-old Ayumi's arms, turning her to face him. "Why did you say that?!"
The girl glanced up at him then looked away, her eyes clouding over in what appeared to be a mix of resentment and… dejection?
Ayumi had moved away about three or so years ago, a year after he had returned to being Shinichi.
So in total, he had been with Ran for four years.
She whined silently for him to loosen his grip- which he obliged to and decided he wouldn't want to leave bruises on his friend. He was no criminal. He tossed men and women like that in jail. Ayumi and her friends had come down to Beika in pursuit of a summer case to take to occupy themselves until vacation ended. He had always presumed Ayumi would be drawn to detectives once she reached high-school.
A friend of Ayumi's- Max, he was a transfer student from Michigan- had informed him of the failed relationship he had attempted to start with the excitable leader.
"She told me she never would fall in love again, and that she was sorry for wasting my time."
This shook Shinichi to his core, and he knew why.
She told Max she would never fall in love again, meaning there had been somebody before who had taken that huge heart of hers and broken it.
Being the great Detective of the East, he knew who it was.
No, this criminal didn't belong in jail. All he had done was choose a wonderful girlfriend and a career in his dream-job.
But in the process this man had committed the criminality of shattering Ayumi's core.
"It's your fault." She outright said the words that made him shiver and grit his teeth.
It was his fault.
"You could have warned me. It never occurred to you that you just could have told me you weren't interested?"
"If I had said that it would have upset you and Genta and Mitsuhiko."
"But I wouldn't have been broken."
Oooh that one got him.
"Do you realize what it really IS that you did? Shinichi-niisan females under, and sometimes over, 18 really lack confidence. They'll be fine one minute but if you were to tell them somebody was better than them they'd be touched by it and be hurt."
He said nothing.
"You told me you weren't interested at the worst, possible, time." She paused and shook her head, reaching a hand up to run it through her hair, trying to clear her mind and figure out exactly what it was she was going to say. "You told me you weren't interested when you left us to return to her. Do you know how scarring that is? Do you know how BAD that makes a teenage girl feel? Niisan since that day I have been constantly comparing myself to women ten years older than me." He froze.
What?
"Her breasts are big and round- I wonder if mine will be that way. She has a nice tiny waist. I wonder if mine is tinier than that? Maybe it's too tiny? What if it's too big? She has a nice butt; I don't think mine could look that way even WITH my exercises." Ayumi continued to list things, knowing EXACTLY what kind of affect it was having on her 'mentor'.
"Those are the kind of things I think about when I see older women- naturally. I don't even THINK to do it. I just do." Her hands brawled up into fists, and she could feel the anger she had held back for so long starting to rise into her voice. "And it's because you let your fear control you! The people you tried to protect were HURT by your fear of hurting them! You had already chosen her and you didn't tell me until the last minute, and while you ARE my friend, I will never forgive you for that."
Shinichi looked up as Ran quickly stood up from her seat and started pacing, holding her head with one had as her elbow was supported by the other arm that crossed around her chest. "What do you MEAN this isn't right? Shinichi, we're MADE for each-other! We're meant to be together! I love you!"
"No, don't tell me you're sorry. You told me you were sorry that day. Sorry can't make up for it, though. The only thing you could POSSIBLY do to fix this is something that will make you unhappy- and while I am seriously PISSED at you for making me hurt like this…" Ayumi paused, calming down and looking away, upset with herself for letting such horrible things slip out of her mouth. It was true, it was his fault for this scar that still beats, but he didn't deserve this. "I will NEVER ask you to do it."
"I love you too… but not enough."
"WHAT?!"
"You've done something wrong for once, detective. Deal with it."
Ran whipped around to look at him, eyes wide as her body shook. This wasn't Shinichi… it couldn't be. This was some horrible nightmare she was bound to wake up from.
"Ran, think about it."
What? What was there to think about?! They were great together! They were an old married couple! Everybody always said it!
"We may have grown up together, but the point of the fact is that we have nothing in common."
Ran took a breather, just staring blankly at him as her arms fell to her sides. Nothing in common? How could he say that?! They had… they had…
"You can't think of anything that's similar between us, can you?"
"Our morals!"
"Okay… what else?"
Ran remained silent.
"I like soccer. You like karate. I love detective work. You love romance movies and novels. We can't even use the argument that opposites attract! Those aren't even opposites of each-other." Ran shook her head. "But… but we're meant to be. I waited for you. We're… we're meant to be, Shinichi."
She didn't know when he had gotten up from his seat. All she knew was that he was now in front of her, petting her head as he hung his own.
"You… you said you love me. If I love you and you love me that's all we need, right?"
Shinichi shook his head. "If I really loved you, then why did I make you wait for me?"
Ran gasped, looking up at him. "I care about what happens to you… I want you to be safe… but if I truly loved you like I thought I did… then I wouldn't have told you to continue waiting for me- regardless of what you really would have done afterwards. I would have told you to try and move on. I would have worried more about what you were feeling than what I was feeling."
Ran fell to her knees, sharp intakes of breath arising from her chest, trembling.
"If I really loved you then I would have told Ayumi to stop chasing after me ahead of time." He bent down, now, on one knee before her. "If I really loved you then I wouldn't have loved her chasing me so much… I would have told her to stop because you would have been upset to have another girl all over me like that- but she didn't know and you didn't, either. It felt… right to hold her and it felt right to keep you waiting."
He stopped.
No, no she needed to know.
"It felt right when I kissed her this morning before she left." Ran's racked sobs were hard to hear and even more difficult to not do anything about.
"It's time to go, then." Max threw his bag over his shoulder as he boarded the train back to Matsumoto, her friends Yuki and Kana following right after him.
"So…" Ayumi started, holding her own leather duffle bag. Her grip tightened on the leather and made her hiss with the hot sting she felt.
'Well THAT'S the last time I leave this damn bag in the sunlight during SUMMER!'
"I guess this is goodbye?" She finally asked, looking up at him from her bangs. "Goodbye for NOW." He answered, hands in his pockets as usual. It was awkward, to say the least, to talk to him after the ordeal she had with him just the night before. How it was that they were having any conversations at all both baffled and concerned her. They were just going to act like it never happened? Well, there was nothing either of them could do. Of course that was what was going to happen. She nodded. "So… until the end of goodbye?"
He smirked and Ayumi felt her legs shake under her. That smirk got her into SO much trouble before. It broke her heart, it got her kidnapped, it got her involved with bombs, it got her in buildings that were on fire, it got her on crime scenes… "Until the end of goodbye…"
Ayumi fired her own smile his way before turning around to jump on the train.
People rushed to board it around her and it seemed like forever until she reached the middle step of the stairs.
"Ayumi!"
She twisted around; worried that she had dropped something.
Shinichi's hand reached out to her shoulder, yanking her down roughly- yet with caution so as to not hurt her, and before she knew it his lips were pressed tightly against hers in a loving kiss, his hands caressing her shoulders.
She had no idea what was happening, the people continued to rush by her and hurry on with their possible vacations or meetings in foreign places.
She stood still, her eyes wide as she stared down at their crashed lips the best she could, shocked and confused by the sudden act.
Shinichi deepened the kiss, his tongue finding its way into her open mouth, seeing as she was far too busy trying to figure out what was going on to close the entrance. One hand reached behind her head and pulled her closer as the other fell to her hand that rested on the bar that assisted those getting on.
It was all over before she knew it, and he was pulling away just as the doors shut.
Her jaw remained dropped at his figure as it disappeared in the distance, her eyes wide and pupils as small as fleas.
Had that really just happened?
Deciding she would muse about it later, when her heart was at a different pace, she turned and tightened her grip on her bag, walking to where she knew her friends had set up camp.