DETECTIVE CONAN
PARENTAL ADVICE
By
Sgamer82

Ai hesitated outside the door, her right knuckle raised to knock. She was unsure how long she had stood there. She was only certain it was long enough her legs were starting to tire from standing.

Stop dithering already! she berated herself. In her moment of angry frustration Ai wrapped on the door as hard as she could.

"Come in," a voice called from the other side.

Ai's right hand was sore from how hard she knocked. While she waved off the pain in her right she turned the door handle with her left. The paper in that hand crumpled a bit with the act. The door opened and Ai walked in to find the man she had come to speak to sitting behind his desk typing on his laptop. The man who, along with his wife, had adopted Ai Haibara into his household and become her father.

No, not "father"... she reminded herself. Atsushi Miyano was her father. That acknowledgement had perhaps motivated the single biggest concession to her second childhood.

"Papa?" she said.

Yusaku Kudo looked up from his computer.

"What can I do for you, Ai?" he asked. Then he grinned. "I imagine it must be important for you to take so long to knock."

Ai winced. It was very hard to put one past Yusaku. He was even worse than Shinichi in that respect. Or more smug than Shinichi, at any rate.

"Um... I need some help." Ai held up the paper in her left hand. "It's for school."

"Homework?" Yusaku asked. Ai nodded.

"That's unusual," Yusaku noted. "A writing assignment?"

"Kind of." Ai nodded.

Ai was not at all surprised Yusaku worked that out so easily. His own deductive skill aside, no second grade homework assignment would pose a real obstacle to someone who, in a past life, had been a college graduate at thirteen. She had sought help when the homework was art or music based rather than academic, since her past experience didn't give her nearly as much advantage there, but not from Yusaku. Those subjects were Yukiko Kudo's forte. That meant if she needed Yusaku's help for school, it was most likely the best-selling author would be helping with something centered on writing.

"What's the assignment, then?" Yusaku asked, smiling at her.

"Um..."

Words suddenly failed Ai. She never had been good at simply saying what troubled her. Rather than do so, she walked up to the front of Yusaku's desk and handed him her paper. He looked at it for a few moments before answering.

The paper itself was nothing special. A worksheet with a topic and space below for the student to write her answer. The first column of kanji space had clearly been written in and erased multiple times, showing that Ai had started writing only to change her mind several times. The paper's subject read "When I Grow Up."

"I confess, my first thought is you're probably putting more thought into this than any elementary school teacher would likely expect you to."

That got an involuntary chuckle out of Ai. Yusaku spoke again, more seriously.

"It isn't the assignment itself that is troubling you, is it?"

Ai's mood sank immediately and she shook her head.

"For the assignment itself, all I would really need to do is write some acceptable piece of fluff and be done with it. It's... well, it's..."

Were she speaking to Shinichi about this, Ai knew this would be the point he would try and guess where her issues lie. He knew her better than nearly anyone and usually had as good a read her as she did him.

Were it Yukiko, she would gradually wheedle the answers out Ai through questions and statements designed to provoke her into answering or acting without thinking out of sheer frustration. She had gotten very good at making Ai reveal her thoughts and feelings whether Ai wanted to or not.

Yusaku did neither. He remained silent and waited. Waited for Ai to speak for herself rather than guess right and let her confirm or wind her up so she let it slip out.

Which is probably why I don't come to him with problems... Ai reflected. She didn't have a choice, this time. The question preying on her mind now was something she felt only he could help her with. Nobody else she had spoken to seemed to really grasp what bothered her.

"It's..." Ai struggled to find the right words. "I went and did this," she gestured at her own body, destined now to grow alongside her peers instead all at once like Conan had, "without really having a real idea of what I'd do with it. Or, for that matter, what I should do."

Yusaku nodded.

"When you say 'what you should do'..." he prompted.

"I mean... I mean..." Ai fidgeted. "Because of what I did. What I made."

"The drug that shrank yourself and Shinichi?"

"And killed nearly everyone else it was given to." Ai nodded. "I created that drug. I didn't want it used as a poison, but that doesn't change the fact it was. My work was used to kill people and... I... and..."

Tears began forming in her eyes.

"And I didn't do anything about it! Not at the time. I objected, but I didn't actually try to change things. Not until onee-chan died. Not until it affected me personally."

Ai turned her face away from Yusaku, eyes downcast.

"Worse, this was never wholly my work. It was a continuation of my parents' research, my mother and father," Ai added, as if she had to clarify. "I can't imagine they wanted their work used that way either. I want to do something about that. Make up for it somehow. But... but..."

Ai looked Yusaku in the eyes now.

"But there's only one thing I know I can do, one thing I know I'm good at, and that's what started it all in the first place."

"Your work as a scientist?" Yusaku asked. Ai nodded. "Do you want to resume that kind of work?"

"No," Ai said immediately. She had decided on that early. She had no desire to essentially repeat history. "But-"

"Then we'll figure out something else," he said, interrupting her.

"It isn't that easy," Ai told him, her temper sparked by his flippancy.

"Of course not," Yusaku agreed. "Yet the solution to your problem, while not easy, is quite simple."

Ai looked at Yusaku with obvious skepticism. Yusaku responded with a grin.

"Do you know what the biggest point of contention between Shinichi and myself is?"

"Clashing personalities?"

"Partly. However, we are more alike than different, so it's not that."

"His wanting to prove himself to you?"

"Getting closer."

"The fact that you're a better detective than he is but won't use your abilities the way he would prefer?"

"That's the one." Yusaku grin turned into a smile. "Shinichi and I share a very analytical mindset. You, as well, though I think Yukiko's influence is changing how much that's true compared to us."

Ai shrugged while Yusaku continued.

"Where Shinichi and I differ and, as a result, argue is how we've chosen to apply our particular gifts. I've been willing to lend my help to the police as a detective, but I'm not nearly as driven towards it as Shinichi. For me, it's a combination of helping out and discovering material for what does drive me."

Yusaku nodded to his laptop.

"For Shinichi, helping the police and solving crimes is an end in itself. Getting to test his skills against the various tricks of criminals is a benefit, not the goal. He's often said I should dedicate more of my time to assisting the police. That my gifts could be put to more beneficial use. What I believe he has not yet understood, and what I'm going to teach you now, is that if you so desire you can make the world a better place no matter how you choose to use the talents you have."

"What do you mean?" Ai asked. In reply, Yusaku beckoned her closer. Ai stepped around the desk. As soon as Ai was close enough, Yusaku picked her up and sat her on his knee. She watched as he took a key from a pocket and unlocked one of the drawers. Inside were envelopes of varying age that were addressed in multiple languages, Japanese and English most prominent among them.

"Fan mail?" she asked.

"Fan mail," Yusaku confirmed. "You're welcome to read as much as you like later. There's one in particular I wish to show you now."

After searching through the envelopes, he found the one he wanted and handed the letter inside it to Ai. She read the letter slowly, but wasn't sure what she was supposed to see.

"It sounds like this woman is updating you on her reconciliation with her mother and the mother's condition," Ai said. Yusaku nodded.

"The woman who wrote this ran away from home when she was a teenager. Her mother was left grief stricken to the point of contemplating suicide. In desperation, her husband concocted a plot to kidnap a child from the preschool he taught at to replace their wayward daughter."

Ai looked up in shock.

"Working with the police, we prevented the plan before any damage was done. More importantly, however, because I was an author, I happened to be in a position to meet that runaway daughter at a book signing. A little encouragement went a long way. She sought out her parents, started the process of reconciliation, and began healing the wounds that very nearly resulted in tragedy.

"The point I'm coming to is that using your talents to make the world better, or to atone for whatever sins you feel you're carrying, does not obligate you to any one path. Nor are you required to make yourself miserable worrying about it. As long as you are passionate about what you choose to do, I guarantee you will touch more lives than you may ever realize."

Perhaps sensing what Ai would say next, Yusaku went on before she could reply.

"Of course, understanding that is the simple part," he conceded. "The hard part is going to be discovering just what can so enflame you. Fortunately, one advantage of your condition is that, like all children your age, you have plenty of opportunity to try whatever comes to mind while having enough hindsight from your old life to know what you don't want."

Yusaku turned his chair around and Ai found herself looking at a framed photograph. It was a family photo, one of the first taken after Ai's adoption into the Kudo family. The way to tell was by the embarrassed, still-not-quite-used-to-this-kind-of-thing look on hers and Shinichi's faces as they smiled for the picture.

"You won't be alone in figuring things out, either." He rested his hands on top of Ai's head. "Obviously, you already know that since you came to me in the first place, but also consider just who you have around you."

He pointed to the figures in the photo in turn.

"An author, an actress, a detective. A fairly wide range, I think you'll agree." Ai nodded. "You could find yourself following in one of our footsteps. You might learn you enjoy making things or inventing like Professor Agasa. You could discover a passion for design or modeling, given your interest in fashion. You might even rediscover a love for the science you currently abhor."

Ai shot Yusaku a glare. Yusaku used the hand he already had on her head to ruffle her hair. In the process he further ruffled her feathers even as he continued to speak.

"You're always allowed to change your mind on that matter," he told her. "No one will stop you if you do nor force you if you don't."

Ai sat quietly, smoothing her hair and digesting Yusaku's words. For all she had decided to take hold of this "second chance", she had never fully grasped the implications until just now. She really could do anything she chose to. Academic, athletic, artistic, the choice was all hers. She had the time to cultivate any skills she lacked or her prior education had not covered. She could quite seriously plan her life around whatever choice she made more easily than any of her peers.

"I suppose," Ai said after a while, "that I have some more thinking to do. Seriously," Ai grinned, "I come to you for advice and you only make things more complicated." She leaned back into Yusaku. "Still, this seems like a much more profitable line of thought than self-loathing and worrying about atonement."

"I'm glad to hear that." Yusaku turned his chair back toward his desk. "As a starting point, how about I help you write an 'acceptable piece of fluff' for your assignment?"

"Before we do, there's one more thing I'd like to ask," Ai said.

"All right."

"Well... you aren't the first person I've spoken to about this," Ai admitted. "But... you are the first to not even try to tell me that I shouldn't feel guilty about something I didn't really have a choice about, since the Organization controlled Shiho Miyano's life."

Leaning back against Yusaku as she was, Ai felt him shrug.

"Seeing as you clearly don't believe that yourself, I hardly saw the point. Whether or not I agree with the sentiment hardly matters if you feel strongly enough that it's wrong."

Ai did not answer immediately. Finally, she breathed a sigh.

"Thank you." She leaned forward and grabbed a pencil from Yusaku's desk.

"Any thoughts on what you should be when you grow up?"

"Well... it's a school assignment..." Ai shrugged. "Teacher?"

"How linear," Yusaku chuckled.

"We can't all be creative geniuses," Ai groused. Yusaku ruffled her hair again, causing her to grumble.

"If you're going to say teacher, you should probably say your teacher is the one who inspired you," Yusaku offered.

"Eh. I'm not all that impressed by Sensei. If I were to say a teacher inspired me, it would be my teacher last year, Kobayashi-sensei."

"I remember hearing Ayumi-kun say your current teacher didn't get along with Kobayashi-sensei," Yusaku said. "Would referring to her cost you any points off your grade?"

"Hm... I don't know," Ai answered. Then she grinned. "Let's find out."

While Ai wrote, Yusaku let out something between a sigh and a chuckle.

"You are definitely becoming Yukiko's child..."

THE END