A walk in winter is more than fair
He was walking slowly, the snow falling around him, small ice particles dancing long forgotten dances. Cold, so very cold, and yet he couldn´t think of anything better than the crisp night air. How the world had changed. How he had changed. Once, he would have walked on this very same street, and he would have had a goal, he would have gone to...her.
There no longer was a her. He had lost her, forever. It was no wonder really, after all he had done it was only fair that she move on. Only fair...who invented that phrase? Who was so stupid as to consider fairness something close to a principle? If it weren´t for that, or for the fact that he actually had some principles, she would have still been his. Only his.
´Times change, Kudo. No one controls time, you just have a small chance to control what you do with that time.´
To imagine that the one saying this was no other than Ai, was just...He had never thought that she might actually have more emotional wisdom than him, after all, he had...To make a long story short, he had underestimated her. Even that wasn´t fair, but as she said, she would not spend time getting mad at him for that, after all, she had underestimated him as well, like the time they had gone against Pisco, or the time they took that trip in the woods and she sprained her ankle.
She had thought he would not notice. The kids, the professor, even he...they were growing on her, and she was growing on him. Of course he usually expected witty sarcastic remarks, but he never expected her to be there for him, to tell him, that if he din´t let Ran go now, she would get hurt, not by some organization, but by him, and it wans´t fair for either of them.
He had let Ran go. Fair. She should´t wait for Shinichi, and if she should, he should at least be able to give her some kind of guarantee that this kind of thing would not happen again. That was the main problem, he could never do that. He could not change that, could not change who he was, but he would hurt her by who he was. He could never do that to her, it would not be fair.
That´s when he saw her. Sitting down on that bench. Now normally one would see only a 8 year old, with very beautiful middle back-long blond hair, but he saw...one of his best friends, his confident.
Striding over to her, he noticed she seemed lost in her thoughts, so lost, that she did not even notice him. Strange, usually she was alert to her surroundings. Very alert. Sitting down next to her, he stretched out his legs, and noticed she had something on her knees. A small, red box.
´You know Shiho, it´s not Christmas yet, you really din´t have to get me a present.´
He smirked as she turned around, but his smirk soon faded as he saw the endless sadness in her eyes. She smiled, he had always thought that her smiles had something mocking in them, but this one was just resigned, a smile resigned to fate.
´You love her. I can not compete with that.´ She turned her head, refusing to look him in the eye anymore, blue eyes, she cared for so deeply.
´I found the cure. I want you to be happy. Perhaps the decision you took was too quick. Perhaps in time, you could let your crusade go. Perhaps, you could change a little bit, love does that to people, it changes them, makes them happy.´ She slowly stood.
´Take the antidote Shinichi, be happy, make her happy.´ She left the box in his hands, not caring about his bewildered expression. She walked away, but not fast enough, not fast enough for him not to notice her tears, not to hear her faint whisper, and yet, every cell in his body was paralyzed, everything in him roared, but nothing moved.
He kept staring at that box, he din´t know for how long, he just knew that neither the cold, nor the snow had any effect on him, everything was just numb in him, and around him. It wans´t like he thought of anything, it was more the shock, the shock, that he instinctively knew what to do.
He found her easily enough. Shiho Myano, a passenger of flight 171A to Cambridge. He saw her blond hair easily enough and proceeded to sit down next to her. She turned towards him, her eyes cold and furious as to why he dared sit down next to her, when she recognized him. The last time he had seen her amazed was last winter, in that restaurant, when he put his glasses on her nose. This time it was also in winter, but now, he had at least a shrewd idea why this sight moved him so.
´I want to try. I want to try and be happy. With you. I want to know that I tried, Shiho. I want to try and fall in love with you.´
´People don´t try to...´ She interrupted him.
´People don´t fight a mafia organization and win. People don´t invent poisons capable of giving back someones youth. People are not like us. Let me try. Let us try. Give us a walk in winter, it´s more than fair.´
She smiled. A bittersweet smile, but a smile nonetheless. A nod was all the answer he needed, before leaning down, catching the delightful look f surprise in her eyes, and gluing his lips to hers, painfully slow, breathtakingly sweet.