A/N Dear chibi, my hand slipped on the angst too much. I half-finished an angst-filled Christmas fic then I scrapped it because… it's Christmas… I'll gift it to you sometime next year that isn't Christmas, haha!
Now, for your Christmas gift! Hope you enjoy!
The moment Shinichi Kudo rounded the corner and approached the professor's house, he knew tonight is different. Call it detective instinct, but there is something about the light seeping through the drawn curtains of the windows in the living room. Something warm, on a cold winter night this Christmas.
His heartbeat speeds up a bit, thinking of a certain someone he hasn't seen in awhile (for exactly two months, he counted). He takes a deep breath and exhales a frosty mist. And another. He calms down enough to continue walking at a regular pace towards the gate. Switching his hold on the cake and bucket of chicken, he opens the gate and walks the short pathway to the door. His hands, numb from the cold, fumble a bit for the keys but he manages to open the door in a short while.
The first thing he (looks for and) sees is a familiar pair of brown loafers, tidily kept on the shoe rack by the entryway. The fluffy lavender house slippers which was always kept on the side is missing. His heart acts up again. In his mind, he goes through all the people he knows who own or might own a pair like those loafers, who among those have feet who fit those missing slippers, and who among those would go to this house on Christmas eve.
He stops.
Screw it, even without all this thinking, he already knows who (he hopes) it is.
He takes off his shoes and places it beside those loafers (which is its usual spot) and wears his slippers. He doesn't notice how quick he moved then, but he blinks and he's reached the living room and—
Their eyes meet.
Shiho Miyano, in her staple red turtleneck dress, is comfortably sitting on the yellow couch angled to face the entrance. She stares at him as he stares at her. Her hands are curled on a raised mug of coffee, her manicured nails glossy in the warm light. Her hair, still in its usual perm and style of an organized mess, has grown to almost reach her shoulders. She has her legs crossed, one fluffy purple slipper dangling from a socked foot. The steam from the still-hot coffee creates some sort of haze on his view of her lips, but her eyes are clear, clear as they've always been and he stares, stares, stares—
She throws a box at his face. It doesn't hit; he catches the box.
"Merry Christmas," she says.
"I didn't get you anything," he automatically replies.
She raises her eyebrow.
He continues, "I didn't know you'd be home in time for Christmas."
"Then, give it back." She extends an open palm at him, making a sign to throw the box back.
He ignores her outstretched palm and instead goes to her. "Two months in some place doing whatever—I almost believed you'd forgotten about Beika."
"Stop being so melodramatic, you know what I've been doing anyway." She puts her hands back on the mug.
"Right, 'research'."
"Yup, 'research'."
"And snorkeling, rafting, hiking, diving, caving, trekking…" His every step towards her punctuates her (their) activities one by one, and he sits on the far end of the couch, beside her (which is his usual spot). He places the food he brought on the table in front of them.
"While you're here 'stalking'."
"And a lot of other things, but how would you know? You weren't here."
"'Attracting corpses' isn't something I'd have to see to know you'd do, you know?"
He closes his eyes and leans on the soft cushion of the couch.
Shiho looks at him, almost disbelievingly, and thinks, what the hell? Shinichi Kudo being petty is not really surprising, but acting like an abandoned passive-aggressive child? What the hell is this?
It's barely two months? It's not like we do research 24/7 so, of course, we'd go around the tour spots?! What's this attitude now when you didn't even bat an eyelash when I told you I was going? You didn't even offer to send me to the airport, you asshole of a 'partner'! This is almost… acting like a jilted lover!
After a small sigh, he opens his eyes and declares to the ceiling, "Next time, I'll go with you."
Really, what the hell?!
She presses her palm to his forehead to check for fever—he doesn't have one.
He looks at her from his periphery and says, "Now you're the one being melodramatic."
"It's a valid concern—I think the winter cold froze your brain stupid."
She passes him her mug. In the process their fingers brush—hers hot, and his cold. Before she can think, she'd already covered his freezing hands with hers, the heat of her palms raising his temperature. In a few seconds, the feel of his hands go from a frightening cold to comforting warmth, and she smiles in content—then… then… then… her brain short-circuits. When she recovers enough to realize what she has been doing, her head snaps up to look at him and—
He's as dumbfounded as her, both of them sporting matching red cheeks and ears, eyes wide open, hands still stuck together, hearts beating too loudly.
Time freezes.
And then, the click of the door and muffled sounds shock them into action: Shiho lets go, Shinichi lets go, the mug falls and both try to catch it, resulting in the tangle of fingers encircling a mug again—
She frantically whispers, "Y-you hold it!"
He doesn't know if she noticed she's gripping his hands even tighter now, but he definitely does and it's definitely not helping him as he chokes out, "Y-yeah!"
Then her hands are gone from his, but his brain has yet to restart functioning.
She stands up and greets the professor who has showed up in the room with a hug. And he thinks, nice, I get a box thrown at my face the moment I see you after two long months while the professor gets a hug.
Except he doesn't just think the words, he actually spoke them, and both the professor and Haibara look at him—one amusingly, and the other, red (again) with brows creased and left eyebrow raised.
Her blush dissipates in a beat, but her chuckles are still shaky then she says, "I didn't know the great detective is a cuddler."
"If you knew, would you have..?" (Hugged me?)
Her eyes open wider at this, and the blush she had just willed away comes back with an even deeper color. Shiho internally screams, honestly, what the hell is this?!
The professor couldn't hold it in and starts laughing, Shiho facepalms in embarrassment and Shinichi… just finished restarting his brain and wishes he hadn't because he really, really wishes he did not just say that.
The color of his face quickly matches Shiho's (again).
The professor offers, in between laughs, "What about a group hug for Shinichi, then?"
Shiho flatly says, "He's a nut case today, professor, let's just eat…"
Shinichi can't even think of anything to say to that.
Later that evening, a conversation overheard by a certain person:
"S-so, uhh… How was Bali?"
"F-fine, I guess…"
"…"
"Hey…"
"What?"
"Are you really going with me?"
"Yeah. Got a problem?"
"Yup, lots."
"That sucks."
"You're the problem."
"Well, I'm 'your' problem—"
"Uhh…"
"I-I mean, that's your problem, not mine!"
"O-okay…"