Extract: His grip on the hanger slacks and he slides to the floor. Shoulders are shaking, fingers are trembling, lips are quivering, teeth are shattering – his body is crumbling.
Summary: Shinichi is back, painful as it is, painful as it is going to be, he has decided to return.
Warning: Angsty...
Shinichi walks down the memory filled street, looking at the houses bringing back moments from his childhood, in through the dark windows where people are already sleeping, up at the sky where the same stars that have mockingly been glaring at him this entire time is still flaunting their endless fire.
His steps are slow, no energy to put a bounce behind his legs' working. No, he is pulling his feet behind him, barely finding the will to put one in front of the other. In fact, he might be slowing down. Was he losing his determination now? Well, it wouldn't be the first time he collapsed only paces away from his destination.
Then he finally catches sight of the grand mansion. His eyes are itching, was he crying? He feels no wet on his cheeks and when he blinks his eyes feels dry. Well, it wasn't his style to be nostalgic anyway.
He puts a hand on the iron gate, just taking a moment to appreciate the coolness of the metal, the heaviness of the construction being held up by clasps connecting to the high fence, only contributing to the spooky aura the house was radiating. Really, what were his parents thinking, buying such a dark place?
Finally he gathers strength in his arm and pushes the heavy gate open, closing his eyes at the creaking sound it lets out in its reluctant movement after such a long rest being left undisturbed. Ran hadn't bothered to out oil on the cranky hinges. Just as good, he thinks miserably. She spent too much time there as it was.
For a girl as strong as Ran, you would expect her to know when to give up, to move on. But she had stubbornly held on, for two years. Two years and two months since that fateful day at Tropical Land. She had even held on when he stopped calling, answering her phone calls, mails and requests to solve a case. He could have been dead for all she knew, and yet…
A heavy sigh escapes his lips, resounding from deep down his chest where his heart constricts. There was so much pain involved with Ran. The guilt eating away at his soul. The beautiful memories of their growing up together. The new sides he had seen when living with her. The tears he had watched her shed, for him. And most painful of all was the panic that had crept up his throat when he realized he didn't love her anymore.
A light drizzle reminds him to close the gate and continue up the lane to the growing mass of bricks hovering over him in an ominous manner. He casts a glance up at the starlit night, noticing how the strong winds have carried heavy clouds in from the east. It's even darker now, he can barely see the wooden door some paces ahead, if it wasn't because of the copper handle glinting in the weak light carrying from the streetlights.
Out of habit he would have thought would be forgotten by now he pats his pocket in search of his house key. Nope, long gone. Reluctantly he fishes out a small metal wire, forms it into something suitable and methodically starts to pick the lock to his own home.
Home? He hadn't slept a single night in this nightmarish building for over two years.
His fingers go numb from coldness before he gets the door open. Bangs hang down obscuring his vision, dripping from the water accumulated under the persistent drizzling, turning heavier by the minute. He rests his forehead against the door in frustration, close to giving up, just breathing in the musky scent of old wood. He suspects he could fall asleep standing, not bothered by the uncomfortable position, the cold seeping into his jacket, the burning feet, the ice cubicles that were his toes or the aching back. The issue was if someone were to see him…
Slowly he presses a hand against the door, straighten up, fiddles some more with the unforgiving lock and stares dumbly when it gives in. Hesitantly he opens the door, peeking inside. The height of irony if someone were to wait for him behind the block of wood, he thinks and chuckles inwardly, humorlessly.
Darkness meets his suspicious gaze and he opens the door completely, stepping in. The smell that hits him almost knocks the air out of his lungs. He would have tumbled to the floor had he not have caught hold of the hanger just inside vestibule.
His mother failing to cook him breakfast the first day of school. Dressing up for a date. Reading him Sherlock Holmes as a goodnight story. His father sitting in the study, writing diligently. Smirking at him when he solves a case. Smiles, laughter, warmth – the love this place holds, his parents hold for him, he for them. He's gasping for air. Why was it so painful to feel all this?
His grip on the hanger slacks and he slides to the floor. Shoulders are shaking, fingers are trembling, lips are quivering, teeth are shattering – his body is crumbling. He fights to hold it together, push down his emotional havoc. He mustn't push it. Miyano's warning rings clearly in his memory. He's still weak. He might break at any time. He's at a constant risk every time he moves. She had only very reluctantly let him go. Perhaps she sensed his apathetic behavior and hoped if he returned he would show some vitality. Of course, she hadn't known he wasn't going home, then.
He had spent a month traveling. Just backpacking in places as unhabituated he could find. Areas devoid of human life. He couldn't stand looking at anyone right now. The isolation of being a shadow had cut deep into his chest and ingrained itself. The darkness remained even as he removed the threat. It didn't matter that they couldn't hurt him anymore; he was still living behind a mask.
He had let his people think he had gone down with them. Perhaps caught a bullet to his chest, stuck in the fire at the police station, fallen of the roof of the construction site, strangled by one of the many underlings that got cold feet during the exposure of their hideout. Who knew?
Miyano had kept calling him persistently, having caught the movement of the GPS installed in his cell phone, guessing, knowing, hoping he was alive. A couple of weeks where he tossed the phone in the sea and moved, he had considered starting over somewhere new, but even the thought of trying to make a new life someplace else, even where people didn't know him, made him physically ill.
It wasn't until newspapers, broadcasters and radio alike had starting leaving cryptic messages hinting at 'solution', 'return' and 'discovered' that he suspected Miyano might have been trying to contact him to give him the antidote to the APTX4869.
He swallows, forcing the lump in his throat down. Muscles constrict in his throat in protest to the unshed tears he wasn't holding back but wouldn't come. His forehead rests against his knees, fingers clawing at the doormat that was uncharacteristically clean. Breaths are wretched from his lungs in painful gasps. He coughs when he breathes in the dust that had found its way there between the diligent cleaning sprees of Ran. He throws a fist into the cabinet where his mother kept their scarfs and gloves. The loud boom when bone met wood didn't quite cover his pent up frustration, helplessness and fear, and it didn't quite help in any fathomable way. But he did it again anyway.
Eventually returning to the now, he collects whatever composure he may have saved somewhere, pushes himself off the floor and closes the door. Wouldn't do to have neighbors coming over to ask him curios questions, welcoming him back, saying hi…
He turns around, makes his way over to the staircase and stares miserably at the endless stream of steps meeting his eyes. They seem steeper than he ever remembered them to be.
Every step, every breath, every blinking of his eyes, even the motion of his hand following the railing – it stretched on forever and yet he finds himself on top of the staircase, looking blankly at a door. The door to his room, his room. His room. When was the last time he had had anything that was his own, without question and without it being given to him?
Tentatively, hesitantly, almost afraid of what he might find, he slowly puts his hand on the door knob and twists it around. The dust gathered in this room is heavier than in any other place, he notes. So the timid teenage karate champion had stopped short at the entrance of a crush and teenage boy's room.
He makes an attempt to move swiftly, not to anger the resting dust particles. They flare up in aggravation anyway, and he despondently makes his way over to the bed.
It creaks when he sits down, just as it always did before. He almost smiles. Plummeting down into the still made bed, he coughs when the dust whooshes up in a surprised shot, almost coming to a complete standstill in the air before descending in slow-motion, almost unwillingly.
He closes his eyes. It doesn't smell like him in here. The air is too still, it's obvious no one has been living here for a long time. It's clean, neat like it never was. Papers, files, books of references, half-finished homework and experiments should cover the desk, floor, nightstand and bed. There was none of that. Where had it all gone? Had he cleaned it after returning home that last time? Maybe Akai had stepped into his room after all. Or maybe they had taken it all?
He breathes in deeply, trying to ignore the wave of memories threatening to overwhelm him. He didn't want them, didn't need them. He wonders if it might have been a mistake to return. He hadn't gotten over his anthropophobia, he couldn't possibly hope to integrate into society, his life, again. He was just fumbling around blindly. Without purpose and without actual strings to pull him back, he found himself floating. It scares him to realize he has no idea who he is anymore.
Few people had known him in his second identity, fewer yet he could still fathom himself talking to. He didn't want to bring pain into other people's lives. He knew he had brought nothing but trouble to Hattori. Agasa was old, had a weak heart, wasn't anywhere near as fit as he should be. He had been foolish to pull around the professor on those wild goose chases when he had found a lead on them.
Miyano was in the same boat as him, but she had decided to restart her life. Not as Haibara Ai, god forbid, she hated it as much as he had, but as Miyano Shiho, the name that had never seen an official record before. He couldn't keep bothering her; she had already done so much for him. She brought him back, after all. When he hadn't answered her not-so-subtle calls via the media, she had hacked the government security center, collected his bank records, traced his calls and hunted him down.
The FBI had never known, and wrote off Edogawa Conan as dead, Miyano helped him fake his death more securely. Akai Shuuichi had passed away for real, shot through his left eye, had gone with a confident smirk and gentle eyes that knew he was returning to her, Akemi.
Yes, he is quite alone. Glaring through half-lidded eyes at the ceiling above, he feels his body grow heavy. Unknowingly he sinks into a tired unconsciousness. He doesn't register the flutter of curtains when the window is opened. He never recalls the one name he forgot, the pair of violet eyes that have restlessly been waiting his return.
He doesn't find the white rose on his nightstand until the next morning, and he doesn't remember that he's not quite as alone as he thought he was, until blue eyes fall upon the single token of love left to him by the phantom who's been secretly watching his every step, guarding him, lying in wait for the second he was needed to step in. The second is now.
The Moonlit Magician smiled sadly and stroked the cheek of the lonely detective. He would never feel the pain of being alone again, the thief vowed and listened to the peaceful sounds of the deep breaths entering and leaving the sleeping teenager holding his heart.
So it's really angsty... It'll get better though, I think. Because really, how long can a story be sad with a Kuroba Kaito in it? ;)