First Silvera helped me stumble upon an old Livejournal post from September 2007 that contained a short piece of ficcage I hadn't shared here.
For context: Had just read file 620 and heard spoilers for what happened in following files.
Word count: around 650
Notes: Haibara will probably regret not going to the karaoké.
Title:
Damn it, Hondou.
Haibara had been sitting quietly in the lounge area of professor Agasa's open plan home at the time. She was reading a magazine she had bought at the book shop earlier. It wasn't a terribly good one, but it wasn't that bad either. She quite liked some of the photos in the later section of it, and one of the interviews had proved quite interesting. Yet it wasn't with any regret that she dropped it onto the table mid page. She'd heard a noise. The noise of a door opening and closing. She stood up. Normally she would have just ignored it, assumed it was the professor... But the professor was having a shower. And she could still hear the water running. It couldn't have been him, so who...?
She found out fairly quickly though. A few steps towards the entrance of the house afforded her the sight of the only fellow victim of her apotoxin known. He looked grim. But what could have brought him here? The only possibilities that crossed her mind was either Ran suspecting his true identity once more or...
No, he couldn't have another lead on them. He'd usually act all cheery until he was sure she wasn't around. Unless... Unless it had to do with that man. Unless it was too serious for him to jump through circles about it.
"Kudo, what are you-"
"DAMN!"
She jumped at his expletive, and then watched as he proceeded to stamp on the floor with all his might.
"Damn it! That jerk... He had the cheek to ask... To ask me!"
"Kudo! What happened?" She tried to grab his attention as he vented his frustration. He most certainly wasn't making sense. "Who? Asked you what?"
"Th-That jerk asked me if he could take Ran with him! I- RAH!"
Okay. The individual known to the world as Edogawa Conan was most certainly not at his most cool. Silently, she grabbed his sleeve, glared at him when he attempted to pull himself away, and dragged him to the settee. There she left him, free to fume as she went to the kitchen unit, poured some of the remaining coffee, and brought a mug back to him.
"Here," she said. "Now tell me in detail what happened at the karaoke."
"Right... thanks." Grumbled Conan. He took a sip, grimaced at it's lukewarm temperature, and began to tell her the events of the evening.
He told her of Hondou's suspicious behaviour during the evening, of the death of the man they had noticed following Ran, Hondou
and Sonoko on the way to the Karaoke. He told her about the incident involving the body builders, the true nature of the victim's occupation, and the identity of the culprit... And then he told her of the talk with Hondou.
Haibara had been mostly amused by his account so far, and continued to be so until he mentioned something frighteningly vital.
Hondou Eisuke had found out that Edogawa Conan was Kudo Shinichi.
Let alone how amusing it was that Hondou felt the need to have Kudo's permission to ask Ran whether she wanted to go to the states with him or not, he knew one of their biggest secrets; and he was wanting to join the CIA.
"That's not all," Conan added, in what could have been an attempt to distract her from the just reprimands she could have thrown at him. "He also told me that one of the FBI agents was reported MIA."
"MIA? Missing in Action?" She asked. "It can't be...?"
"I tried calling miss Jodie tonight. No answer." He saw the fright on his companion's face. "It might not mean anything... But..."
"I know..." Haibara answered tersely. "But we are going to find out." There was no question.
Yes, he thought. But he couldn't help worrying, remembering Jodie's strange attitude the last time he had seen her. He knew that MIA most often stood for dead. Was it miss Jodie, one of his most precious allies within the FBI or...
He hoped it wasn't Akai. He didn't want to explain to Haibara about Akai. How could he tell her about Akai and her sister, about Akai's deal with Kir?
"Eeh, Shinichi? What are you doing here?"
The professor could only grimace at the silence with which the not-children greeted him.
Fin
