CROSSROADS
Author's note: Hello! I come back again with my third story, after the previous 'Truth or Dare' and 'The Vacation'! Still about Haibara, now I'm not going to pair her up with Shinchi. But instead, I will make two points of view of them. So, how's the story look like? Find out yourself! :D
Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan, I just own the plot and additional characters.
Rating: 15+
Characters: Miyano Shiho/Haibara Ai, Kudou Shinichi, Gin, Mouri Ran, Suzuki Sonoko, Masumi Sera, Professor Agasa, Jodie Starling, Andrea Camel
Additional Characters: Kanagawa Misugi, Misaki Ryouhei, and Kotaro Ando.
Genre: Friendship, romance, suspense
Summary: Black Organization has been swept away. Conan and Haibara back to their original body. But something happens unexpectedly. Gin, who supposed to be under-arrested at FBI's HQ, suddenly roams in Beika City and after Haibara's life! How does she manage to escape from him? Why Gin is so eager on chasing her? What kind of relationship do they have in the past? Find out and enjoy your reading! ^_^
CHAPTER 1
Haibara's POV
Nightmares
Powdered white snows fell down from the dim black sky as if coloring the darkness with pure white color. The coldness was more than enough to chill everyone to the bones. The road had been emptied from the usual hubbub since the hour hand pointed to two o'clock in the morning.
This asphalt road was all covered by a-fifteen-inch ice layer. A quite something snowstorm hit the city having the lowest temperature compared to other region of the country. Footsteps left their obvious marks on that snowy road and turned it into red – blood red color. A reddish-brown-haired woman in her late teen painstakingly hobbled, holding her wounded left arm.
"You can never runaway from me... Sherry..." a cold emotionless voice suddenly be heard. A man in his thirty stood up right behind her, wearing a dense black cloak, pointing out his riffle towards her. It was only about ten meters they were separated in the heavy snowfall.
The woman called Sherry quivered in abnormal fear. Her lips turned pale as well as her white cheeks. She had no option left but to die in this coldness. Breathing hardly with her utmost strength wishing she could vanish somewhere in the world where she belonged.
"I will make our farewell very beautifully. You have my words," he said again, smirking wickedly. Those two cold eyes looked like could kill anybody just by staring at it. Riffle ready, he eagerly pulled the trigger. "Goodbye, my dearest... wait for me in the afterlife,"
Bullet slid from the barrel of the riffle, went straight to that woman's heart from the back along with the desperately painful roar of her.
"AAAAARRRGGGHHHH..."
===()()()===
"Ai-kun, Ai-kun..."
That cold voice suddenly turned into a gentle one, shaking her slowly to wake her up. She tentatively opened eyes and tried to accustom them with a sudden light.
"Hakase?" she goggled in disbelief. What she saw before her eyes was an old-white-bearded man wearing a white lab coat. It was completely different with the man in black before.
"Are you alright? It looks like you're having a nightmare," he said worriedly unsure.
"Guess so..." Haibara sighed. She put her hand on the chest and still felt that her heart's beating. Her breath was still panting as if a hundred coils of rope twisted on it. Yeah, dream... that was just a dream. She was alive now without any wound in her right arm nor bullet nested on her heart. There was no snow, no coldness, no riffle, no blood, and... no Gin.
She suddenly gasped. The Black Organization actually had fallen six months ago and some of its members including Gin had been arrested by FBI and stayed in the dungeon while some died in battlefield, including Vermouth and their boss. Gin should have been arrested by the FBI, but why she abruptly had a bad feeling of that.
"Gin escapes..." she murmured unclear with a very low tone, even professor could not hear her clearly.
"What's wrong Ai-kun? Are you not feeling well?" Professor Agasa still glared at her perplexedly anxious. "You look so pale. Let's see the doctor, I'll tell Shinichi-kun to convey your absent to your homeroom."
"No, I'm fine, Hakase. Perfectly. I've just had a very dreadful nightmare."
She woke from the bed and stepped into the bathroom. Looking at the mirror, she found a pale-reddish-brown hair woman with thin-face glared her back. Until this time she did not even believe that she was actually had come back to her original body, an-eighteen-year-old lady.
===()()()===
Six months ago...
FBI successfully defeated their most wanted foe which no other than the Black Organization. Even some of them died in duty, but they did not die in vain because the boss of the organization was also defeated and died in misery. Vermouth died as well while protecting Shinichi without no one knowing the reason. James Black died and left a very deep condolence in the other FBI member's heart.
Haibara eventually found the formulation of toxin she made from the data stored in organization's computer. Not until a month, she succeed in making the antidote. Immediately giving it to Shinichi, she initially refused to drink it as well because she intended to stay as a child forever, leaving all burden she bore.
"Seriously? You won't drink this antidote?" Shinichi – still in Conan form – reassured and tried to change her insane decision.
"You still have a very vast future, you have someone who waits for your return, and you have family to care for, while I'm not. So there's no excuse for me taking that antidote." she said cynically cold. "Besides... living as Haibara Ai will be more convenient to me..."
"Stupid! When will you stop running away from your fate?" he increased the tone a bit, feeling so irritated with her words.
She was silent. Turning her face away from the intense eyes glaring at her. "It is my life, it's mine to choose and it has nothing to do with you."
He took a long sigh and put his two hands onto her shoulder. "Look at me, Haibara."
She neglected his command at the first seconds but then obeyed it. "What? Trying to change my decision? You'll just waste your time, Kudou-kun."
"How old are you?"
"W-what?" his odd question made her frowned in mystify. "I thought you have known already..."
"Eighteen, isn't? That was not too old to be a last year high-schooler."
"W-w-what?" she was in a big surprise. "Beats me! I have graduated from my college then I should become a high-schooler? What a hilarious joke!"
"Anona... you never felt the excitement of being a Japanese high schooler, did you? Why not give it a try? That way, you won't be alone anymore and don't need to pretend as a first grader all over again."
Soon as she wanted to speak a word, he interrupted. "School begins this fall. We will be in the same grader and even in the same class!"
"Why should I listen to your very 'sane' suggestion?" she mocked in sarcastic voice while getting rid of his hands from hers.
"We don't have to tell to everyone about your identity. I don't intend to tell Ran nor anybody either about Conan who is actually the shrunken version of me."
"W-wait..." she tried to speak, but again he cut her out.
"You will be a daughter of my mom's acquaintance at New York. I think that won't be a problem since you're actually a half."
"Mou ii, Kudou-kun!" she said sharply. "Done with your imagination?"
"I'm not babbling nor imagining. I'm just giving you the best resolve."
"Best resolve? Thank you very much but I think I will go on my my decision. I don't see any good thing of returning to my original body, so..."
She woke from her seat and took a bottle of cold water from the fridge then poured it on the glass and drank it till run out.
"What's the good thing of staying as a-seven-year-old child?" he pressed the TV's power on and watched any random channel without turning his face away to her.
"When you were younger, you didn't have to worry about anything. Everything goes very easily without fear of something."
"Yes, only if you were really a child. But you're ten years away from being a child. What should you worry? Organization has been swept away and you can live normally from now on,"
She knew he was trying to make an attempt to convince her even it was not a simple thing to do considering the fact that she was one of the type of those stubborn persons. But somehow he could always work it out.
She said nothing, deep in thought. Trying to deny all possibilities that forced her to come back to the original body.
"Don't runaway, Haibara... you have a life to live it well. You have no reason of living in fear, no more," a gently voice of him was enough to make her flabbergasted, but she kept her face emotionless.
"Just drink the pill. Come to her immediately and tell the whole story," she handed the pill to him. He received it in no time with such happy-but-hesitate face.
"I won't."
"Eh?" now it was her who's in perplexity.
"I won't tell her what was going on. I will come back as if nothing happens."
"Then, what happens with the sudden missing of Edogawa Conan?"
"Conan's grandpa is suffered from the illness. He has to come back to LA and continue to study there. My mom picks him up in hurry so there's even no farewell. I think I'm gonna make up the story as natural as it sounds."
"Like she would believe you."
"You will come along with me to her in Miyano Shiho form. You will be a daughter of my mom's best friend. In other word, you are an exchange of Edogawa Conan. How's?"
"You said as if I would drink the antidote."
"Yeah, you of course will." He nonchalantly said and ready to go to the bathroom to drink the pill but Haibara stopped him.
"Kudou-kun?"
He looked toward her apathetically. "What?"
"Does it even matter to you whether I return to my original body or not?" her question made him gaped a little. He then smirked slightly.
"You're a great chemist. You should not waste your precious life by staying as a first grader. You can do many things for people's sake in good way, like creating such a sure cure or stuff. You want to be useful for others, don't you?" he smiled convincingly.
She was silent, shutting her mouth tightly. He was right, totally right. But was that all? Was that all of the reason? Truth be told, she wanted him to say something more, something that could make her changed her stubborn will. But it was not even possible.
"I will consider." She sighed unpleasantly. She knew perfectly that he would never stop until he got what he wanted.
His face was brighter indicating that he finally won the game. Haibara was so exasperated and upset to herself of her inability of refusing his every request.
===()()()===
So it was a fifth month Haibara lived her life as a last-year high schooler. Even she came back to her original body, she still should keep her identity as a best graduate student of chemical study of her college. It sounded odd but she strangely enjoyed her new life.
As a new beautiful student and a half, she became a very interesting object. She was popular in no time regarding her beauty, cleverness, intelligent, coolness, and her harsh-but-astute style of talking. She was not really good at making friend, but Ran always helped her even Haibara sometimes avoided to get along with her too much. She did not hate her at all indeed, but she was just not used to have such a best friend, except Ayumi whom she considered as her first best female friend.
"Shiho-chan! I heard you rejecting someone again. Why did you do that? No boy interests you? Mattaku... many girls envy you, you know?" Sonoko sit on the chair, bringing her dish on a tray. It was a class break, so they she had lunch together with Ran, Haibara – which was now Shiho, and Sera.
"Is that really, Shiho-chan?"
Ran asked, trying to confirm but Haibara only slurped her strawberry smoothie, giving a gesture that she did not interest to the topic at all.
"Then... there are two possibilities why Shiho did not interest to them." Sera said in detective-like style, holding up her thumb and index finger forming V-shape. "First, none of them is her type. Second... she doesn't interest in men!"
"HAA-?" Ran and Sonoko gawked in disbelief.
"But my second deduction seems incorrect. Then the last possibility is... someone who is in your type haven't after you yet. Am I right, Miss Miyano?" she turned her face to the emotionless Haibara which was still showing apathetic expression while Ran and Sonoko were pretty curious of that.
"Possibly." Haibara answered shortly, spooning her green tea pudding.
"Eh, then what kind of boy do you like?" Sonoko insisted impatiently curios.
"Any boys interest you in our class?" Ran added.
Haibara lifted her face then gave a quick smile. "Likely."
"Likely? Then who is it?" Sonoko, in high curiosity, was very eager to know.
Haibara did not immediately answer. She glanced at the face of those three one by one, then smiled meaningfully. "Probably... Kudou-kun."
"W-W-WHAAAAAT?" Sonoko was shocked, she even stood up from their seat while Sera only smiled without saying any single word. Ran was also quite a bit surprised but she just did not overdo it.
"Kidding." Haibara denied it eventually.
"HA-?" those two were gasped bewilderingly.
"Don't worry, Mouri-san. I don't have any interest toward that mystery freak." she clarified it in order to avoid more misunderstandings.
"Geez... it's quite much shocking me." Sonoko said, still in bit surprise. "By the way, your parent and Shinichi's are close to each other right?"
"Yeah. Pretty much." she answered.
"Honestly... the first time Shinichi introduced you to me, I was bit taken aback. I never heard about you before, also not from Shinichi's mom..."
"Ah... you're jealous, Ran-san?" Sera teased her, laughing.
"No, no... I was just astonished." Her cheeks turned to red a little.
"So, your mom is an actress too?" Sera asked.
"Nope. She was a housewife while my dad was a scientist."
"Was?" Sonoko and Ran asked concurrently with forehead frowned.
"Yes. They have died two years ago due to car accident as well as my older sister."
"Oh I'm sorry..."
"It's okay. Soon after they passed away, I had nowhere to go. A very kind Yukiko-san and Yusaku-san asked me to stay with them because their only son was in Japan. I was highly appreciated their kindness but I refused it because I did not want to leave the house which full of mementos about my parent and sister." she tried to make up the story. Not all of them was a lie, some of them were true.
"Kudou-kun sometimes came a visit to his parent's house when he was in a school break and we met several times, so we've known each other much less. However, there's nothing between us. I think I should emphasize it in order to clarify misunderstanding." she continued.
Ran laughed after hearing Haibara's explanation. "Shinichi once told me about it. I believe him and I believe you, too, Shiho-chan."
"Oh thanks. Then I'm relieved." Haibara sighed. She felt bit discomfort of explaining about her relationship with Shinichi. Of course there was nothing between them except the relationship between a drug maker and the victim.
"Oooh... it seems you and Shinichi-kun are dating now..." Sonoko teased Ran that made she blushed.
"Chigau wa yo, Sonoko... we're still friends..."
"Oh come on, Ran-chan... no need to be ashamed..." Sera implied, she giggled.
"Didn't Shinichi-kun already confess to you?" Sonoko assured.
"Yeah, but..." Ran was at wit's end. She wished someone would change the conversation topic.
Haibara actualy did not interest to this kind of topic. She glanced at her watch and suddenly stood from her seat. "Ah, the lesson is about to start. Let's go to the class!"
"You're right." Sera looked at her watch as well and walked out of the cafe. Ran and the unsatisfied Sonoko followed them.
They walked hastily downed the corridor towards the classroom along with other students then stepped inside with the teacher had been coming in.
How's about the first chapter? Is it worth reading enough or not? Lol. Anyways, if you're kind of curious about the continuation of the story, feel free to go to the second chapter! ^_^