Author's Ramble: Why am I in such a mood for sad these days? This is the first fic of the three-part series about the theme, "Unrequited", after this, "Ironic". Fic lineups help me prioritize what to write, though I may not be able to deliver everything within this year, to those who actually care for my writing, seeing as how I am swamped with homework, flooded with schoolwork and drowning in housework.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. See my profile for the formal disclaimer, but I own nothing but the plot. Not the show, not the characters and not the song.
I.
Ooh, no
Yeah, yeah
She's got green eyes and she's 5'5"
Long brown hair all down her back
Cadillac truck, so the hell what
What's so special about that
The first thought on Aoko's mind when she meets Kudou Shinichi, is that she's beautiful.
A real pretty girl, Kudou made blue jeans and checkered blouses the epitome of high-end fashion, and no model on any catwalk could appear more elegant or sophisticated sashaying along a lane of bright, neon lights than Kudou leaning against Ekoda High's gate, sweat glistening on her brow, raven hair clinging to her pale skin.
Aoko pays the very pretty young lady so casually hanging out at their school gate no mind, must be some random schoolmate's sister or girlfriend or just some stranger passing time.
She turns to her bestfriend-and-not-so-secret-crush-for-ten-years, about to ask him if he wanted to go to this ultra-adorable new shop a few blocks away that sells real cute clothes and stuff animals-
-but finds herself about to have a conversation with the atmosphere.
Aoko's puzzled at first and though she expects Keiko-chan to reciprocate her confusion, Aoko is even more bemused at how far away Keiko is looking.
She follows her friend's eyes and finds the very same mischievous magician she was looking for…
… at the school gate, talking quite animatedly with the pretty brunette in the red-and-black-checkered button-up shirt.
She watches Kaito's hands disappear in a small explosion of pink glitter for a white flower to appear in his fingers, stares as he pins the flower behind the girl's ear, and gawks as he proceeds to drag her by the hand back towards them, trying to ignore the uncomfortable tightening around her chest area.
"Yo, Aoko, Keiko! I want you guys to meet someone!" Kaito beams sunshine and stars at them and Aoko forces an equally bright, warm smile as he pulls the woman to his side, his hand leaving hers for just a moment so he can place his arm around her waist.
Something clenches in a way that can almost be painful beneath Aoko's school ribbon and she briefly wonders if she should see a cardiologist this weekend before her brain shifts into automatic and she extends a hand to Kaito's visitor.
"Hi! I'm Nakamori Aoko!"
The girl, who previously appeared cool and mysterious, then flailing and resistant, now smiles small and softly before taking Aoko's hand in her own, the stranger's smile much more pleasant and natural than hers, Aoko noted mechanically.
"Kudou."
Kudou… Aoko makes a mental recording of the name in her mind as they shake hands, and though Kaito is most obviously pleased at the sight of "his two favorite girls finally meeting", because even if the girl was a knockout with a sweet, shy smile and bright blue eyes and just everything any teenage boy could ever want, Aoko has ten years' worth of memories and experiences with Kaito and some random highschool beauty was not about to trump such a long-standing relationship.
II.
She used to model, she's done some acting
So she weighs a buck o' 5
And I guess she's all right
If perfection is what you like
The corpse was unexpected to say the least.
Kaito had somehow convinced (whined, begged and pleaded) Kudou to come to Ekoda High after classes and asked Aoko, (dragged) Akako-chan and (threatened and humiliated) Hakuba-kun to the mall for "a fun bonding experiences between friends" though the glitter in Kaito's eyes when he lays sight on Kudou stationed at their classroom door asking for him in the middle of his emphatic speech on friendship obviously conveyed an emotion beyond platonic.
Aoko sits in the middle of Kudou and Hakuba-kun around a small circular table in a corner of a tiny café which serves "awesome hot chocolate and the best lemon tarts ever", that Kaito and Kudou found some time ago.
In the middle of polite chitchat and an enthusiastic discussion on Sherlock Holmes led by Kudou and Hakuba-kun, someone screams.
A woman lies face down on the cherry-wood floor, her expensive yellow sundress from the boutique across the shop splayed and sloshed with cake and cappuccino.
A moment of perfect, tomb-like silence is preserved before glasses and plates crash and cutlery clink to the wooden floorboards as customers follow the initial screams with outrages of their own, stampeding towards the oak door the led to the outside and Kudou is on her feet and at the only exit before anyone ever makes it out of their seats.
"Nobody move! Anyone who leaves will be reported to the police and will be put under immediate suspicion!" She bellows, even and cool yet charged with an emotion Aoko cannot identify and fears to experience, ever.
A man with a thick neck and forearms the size of Christmas hams stands defiantly, thick mouth posed for a crude retort but one look from Kudou's blazing blue eyes cuts him down faster than a kick to the balls would have.
Satisfied that no one would dare leave, Kudou locks the door and moves towards the cadaver covered in confectionery.
She turns to a waitress petrified by the counter.
"Please call the police." She whispers as she kneels beside the body.
She looks at the other employees frozen across the floor.
"Watch me carefully, please, and report all my actions to the police when they arrive to attest that I have not tampered with nor planted anything. Miss, may I borrow your notepad? Yes, please pass it around. Everyone, write your names and contact information to be surrendered to the police later on."
Hakuba-kun stands beside Kudou and they discuss briefly before he takes out his phone, snapping photos of the body and the people and the location whilst Kudou pulls on a pair of latex gloves she had requested from the kitchen and proceeds to search the body.
Aoko watches all of this with a feeling of the surreal, both reluctantly in awe of the two detectives and too much in shock to react to the fact that someone had just died in the middle of their quiet after-school hanging out.
"I've heard rumors about Kudou-san's tendency to run into bodies at the most inopportune of times… But this…" Aoko hears Akako say.
Kaito simply nods, worlds away.
The police arrive and, of course, Kudou is familiar with them.
Kudou pulls Hakuba-kun by the wrist and it would appear introductions were being made.
Aoko does not fail to notice Kaito's knuckles go white, his grip causing his teaspoon to groan with pain.
They discuss briefly among themselves and Aoko marvels at the professionalism the girl converses with the seasoned investigators and the ease with which they appraise and accept her input.
Blazing blue gas-flame eyes flicker quickly to the crowd and two officers separate four customers from the others, whilst they let the rest go with apologies and assurances they will be contacted if they were needed.
"It would seem Kudou-san has her suspects." Akako mutters.
"Yes, it would seem so." Kaito mumbles in return, uncharacteristically quiet, blue-violet eyes enraptured by the detective striding towards the marked, akin to an avenging angel of judgment.
Aoko determinedly fixes her eyes on the tiled floor, but she cannot tune out Kudou's voice, cool and calm and cleansing like fresh spring water, as she unveils the truth of the unlucky woman's untimely demise.
Like an avenging angel of judgment.
III.
Ooh, ooh, and I'm not jealous, no I'm not
Ooh, ooh, I just want everything she's got
Ooh, ooh, you look at her so amazed
I remember way back when you used to look at me that way
"The Heisei Holmes Gone?"
"A Two Year Disappearance! Explained!"
"The Return of the Great Detective Of The East"
"Secret Syndicate Exposed by Anonymous Tipster"
"The Black Organization Falls!"
"Kudou is back! Fantasia Killings Solved!"
"Kudou Shinichi Does It Again, Baby Girl Trafficking Ring exposed"
"The Blonde In The Pond Killer Found"
"Posie Serial Killings Stopped"
"Kudou grills crooked solon for mass murder cover-up"
"Wow. That girl of yours sure isn't wasting anytime rebuilding her name, huh, Kaito?" Chikage places her Earl Grey tea on the cherry wood coffee table to read one of the numerous articles stacked in her living room.
"And you're going to have to get a storage unit or something for all these newspapers." The mother took in the visual assault of all the papers piled all over the room.
And plastered on the walls. And strewn on the floor
"And all these magazines and printouts and photos and… Kaito, should I be concerned?" Chikage calls to her busy boy, making beelines from one of the spare rooms to the living room and back.
"Yeah, 'Kaa-san! I'm on it!" The only child carries another compilation to the spare room.
"I'm rearranging them." Kaito plops in between his mother and childhood friend, wiping sweat off his brow.
"Aoko-chan, would you like a refill?"Chikage offers Aoko and she responds a second or two too late.
"Hai, arigatou." She extends her cup, painted with delicate pink flowers.
"So, Kaito, does Shinichi-chan know of your… archive?" Chikage begins.
Kaito chokes down his milk tea and manages not to do a spit take all over a magazine that did a section on "Kudou Shinichi's Beauty Tips! How To Get That Perfect Cowlick".
"Which is a complete hoax. The cowlick is natural." Kaito mumbles and Chikage continues to rub her son's back soothingly.
"What was that, Dear?"
"Uhhhh… No?"
"So she also isn't aware that you had to buy a new phone because your old one lagged due to low internal memory storage and you just wouldn't- absolutely refused to- erase any of the 379 articles and over a hundred or so photos you had saved there from the Internet?" Chikage patted Kaito's back when he started coughing and hacking.
"Breath, Honey."
Kaito proceeds to sputter indignantly and that no, he wasn't "obsessed" with Kudou and it wasn't at all "cute" or "sweet" that he so obviously "adored" her and swats away his mother's loving pats on the head when she says "she has you wrapped around her little finger" and leaps to escape the woman's insisting that he's "all grown up now, falling in love and such a wonderful choice, she'll make a wonderful daughter-in-law and such adorable grandchildren" and Aoko just couldn't take it anymore.
Aoko slips away easily in the middle of the ensuing mother-son chaos.
And despite Kaito's (no matter how much he denies it) obsessive organization of his various piles of information and facts on Kudou, he fails to notice the girl's disappearance.
Or that the framed photograph of the Aoko's first place win in their elementary school cook-off was gone.
Tell me what makes her so much better than me
What makes her just everything I can never be
What makes her your every dream and fantasy
Because I can remember when it was me
IV.
And now you don't feel the same
I remember you would shiver every time I said your name
You said nothing felt as good as when you gaze into my eyes
Now you don't care I'm alive how did we let the fire die
"Hey, uhmmm, Kaito?" Aoko shuffles towards the magician actively stuffing books and decks of cards inside his school bag.
"Yeah, Aoko?" Kaito whirls to face her, blue rose in hand-
"Isn't life grand? Isn't today beautiful? Isn't it just wonderful to be alive and enjoy such a singularly spectacular day?"
-and no one could mistake that he was positively ecstatic.
"What's with Kuroba-kun?" One of their classmates inquires.
"Yeah, he's even more hyperactive than usual." Another agrees.
"Maybe he's in love?"
"Oh! So, he and Aoko-chan are finally together?" The whispering grows more fevered, more frenzied.
"Kuroba and Nakamori finally got it on?"
"Jeez, it took ten years for those two?"
"No surprises there."
"Hey, Emy-chan, maybe now you and I should-"
"SMACK!"
"Oi, Emy! You didn't have to knock the guy out!"
"Well, he deserved it! We should be celebrating Kaito-kun and Aoko-chan!"
The class moves to congratulate "the happy couple".
Aoko takes a deep, calming breath and lets it out in a shuddering exhale.
"Aoko was just wondering if you-"
"Oh, sorry, Aoko but I gotta run!" Kaito catches a glance at his wristwatch and his eyes widens perceptively.
The magician ruffles Aoko's hair and tumbles over the heads of his classmates, completely unaware of what caused their mobbing, much too engrossed in his afterschool plans.
"She's waiting for me~! Tell me tomorrow!" Kaito calls out and he's gone.
Aoko is left smack in the middle of her classmates, who offer their apologies before moving in stiff, awkward movements to collect their things, head out and mull over the fact that Kuroba Kaito was in love with someone- and it sure wasn't Nakamori Aoko.
"Aoko, just wanted to ask if you wanted come over for dinner." Aoko speaks but no one is left to hear.
V.
Ooh, ooh, and I'm not jealous, no I'm not
Ooh, ooh, I just want everything she's got
Ooh, ooh, you look at her so amazed
I remember way back when you used to look at me that way
What makes her so much better than me
What makes her just everything I can never be
What makes her your every dream and fantasy
Because I can remember when it was me
Aoko almost squeals when Hakuba-kun pulls her unceremoniously into the backseat of the SUV.
She rights herself and barely makes out Kudou (with much more poised and grace) getting into the driver's seat. Kaito rides shotgun.
"Should you really be driving, Shinichi?" Kudou's hand pauses on the key in ignition and it amuses Aoko slightly as she had never imagined the detective to ever "pause". She always seemed to move with certainty and confidence and it is a bittersweet comfort to see the detective have second thoughts as any other human being.
The comfort is short-lived when the uncertainty in Kudou's blazing blue eyes flicker and die and the old all-consuming fire of her determination renews her vitality and drive.
"Well, unless someone else here has a driver's license, I guess I'll have to do." Shinichi thrusts the key forward and the engine roars in agreement.
Kaito hesitates and it is Kaito's hesitation that worries Aoko for Kaito never thinks twice about anything and has the impulsive, no-consequences attitude of a six-year old child.
But Kaito's hesitance is understandable under these circumstances because a serial rapist on his way to his next victim, fresh from the first kill of his three-month career, is on the loose and any mistake on the part of the four teenagers would result in devastation.
"Fasten your seatbelts." Kaito acquiesces and proceeds to follow his own advice.
Aoko and Hakuba-kun do the same.
They have the irrational fear they have broken the sound barrier at the speed Kudou races at, leaving the two-storey bungalow and the disseminated body of the most recently (but not for long if they don't catch the fucking bastard in time) horrifyingly violated woman.
"I can't believe the fucker got away!" Hakuba-kun swears in a most unsettling way, shaking with anger.
Aoko shuts her eyes but she cannot unsee the terrifying testament to the depths mankind has sunken to.
The blood.
The torn clothes.
The shattered body.
The blood.
The meat cleaver.
The broken things.
The broken woman.
The blood.
The scent of semen.
The stale of sweat.
The blood.
The fear.
The anguish.
The horror.
The blood.
The blood.
The blood.
"This street curves to the right, we'll be able to cut him off if we go this way." Kaito has whipped out a map from somewhere, looking up from the piece of paper only to compare it to their blurring surroundings.
"There he is."
The cherry-red Dodger appears like a blinking dot on radar and Kudou applies pressure on the accelerator, weaving around and through traffic, approaching 85 km/h. The engine creaks in protest but obeys its mistress.
A shot shatters the windshield and gummy safety glass is sprinkled over the navigator and driver.
"Shit." Kudou curses softly and the crude word sounds more like the most poignant of poetry decrying the injustice of humanity's cruelty.
With glass in her black hair like glitter in silk, Kudou presses forward, the cars previously hindering their ascent now scattered to the side and out of their immediate way.
"Kaito, I have an idea. But you aren't going to like it." Kudou maneuvers and manages to avoid four more bullets.
Aoko screams as the back window falls to pieces.
They all see it.
Blonde hair, wavy and shiny. Tangled in the highway wind.
Green eyes made for bright smiles. Wide and dilated. Sharply grinning and obscenely toothy.
Pinkish, porcelain skin, blemish-free and clear save for dark streaks and heavy splotches of reds and browns.
"We'll have to anyway."
A curt nod and Kudou pushes herself from the wheel.
"Hakuba-kun, your gun!"
Hakuba hands over his Smith and Wesson to his colleague.
Aoko watches bue-violet eyes widen and Kaito understands, and replaces himself at the driver's seat.
Kudou places one rubber-soled foot onto the SUV's steaming hood and crouches with one knee on the heated white chrome.
"Keep her steady, Kaito!" Kudou levels the barrel of the gun to her right eye, a boiling, burning blaze, scans the environment in a quick flash, trajectories, calculations, memories and experiences slowing down time in her mind to conclude a variety of actions and reactions available to them and which would attain the highest probability of success and arrest.
Four rounds are fired in quick succession and the Dodger spins in circles across the busy highway, it wheels turning uselessly due to their swift deflation, screaming metal and scorching rubber.
"He's still gassing it even though the wheels are flat!" Kaito yanks Kudou off her sniper's position on the victim's SUV and she falls into the passenger seat.
Crimson petals bloom around the small, black, abysmal hole, on the shoulder of Kudou's white shirt.
"Hang on, guys." And Kaito puts the pedal to the metal, going near 90 km/h.
They manage to cross the distance the other vehicle travelled and-
"Hakuba, Aoko, get down!"
-Kaito pulls into a sharp, sudden left turn, smashing the tail end of the van to the swiveling Dodger, and pulls Kudou down beneath the glove compartment.
A loud, eardrum-shattering, ground-shaking crash and then…
… silence.
Deathly, tomb-like silence.
Aoko is the first to look up and she is surprised and relieved they all appear unharmed.
The other car isn't as bad as she initially thought it would be and she is at first relieved but the memory of the mangled mother of two makes her wish he had become man jelly encased in the searing, shattered remains of the Dodger.
The rest lift their own heads and they all quickly scramble out and towards the crushed car.
The body slumped over the steering wheel groans and moves and Kudou points the steaming gun to the man- monster's temple.
"Sumiyami Oruke, you are under arrest."
A bullet to the heart would've been bad, because it would mean Death but Kudou, after the adrenaline and shock wears off and the pain kicks in, says that a bullet near the heart was just as awful.
And now that her own shot of excitement and horror has subsided, the monster now in handcuffs and soon-to-be behind bars, the authorities on sight and her friends alive and breathing, Aoko considers the day's events much more carefully.
Kaito gently places the wounded detective on the ambulance's stretcher and they smile at each other.
He places his hand on hers and she closes her eyes, amethysts and sapphires meet for a moment, and she is carried away.
Aoko answers the officers' (the same ones from the café before) questions and she leaves the station with Kaito and Hakuba-kun.
She makes a comment on how well he and Kudou work together and Kaito shrugs as if catching a wanted rapist was nothing more than buying an ice cream cone.
She is suddenly sensitively aware of the meaning behind Kaito's smiles and the unforeseen depth in his eyes but what is the exact meaning he wishes (or does not wish) to convey and the exact extent (or how such an depth was reached) of his sorrow and knowledge is, she still cannot tell even when they say goodbye to Hakuba-kun at his stop or when he walks her home but the next day she knows he has visited Kudou at the hospital because his eyes and his smile says so.
VI.
That made you smile, that made you laugh
Me that made you happier than you have ever been, oh me
That was your world, your perfect girl
Nothing about me has changed that's why I'm here wondering
Aoko does not know if Kaito still remembers but she is fairly sure he does.
She is six and alone and so very afraid.
This place is wrong and new and she hates it and where is Daddy?
The clock chimes and she counts five. Daddy said he would be here at three.
Did Daddy forget?
No, Daddy never forgets.
Maybe he has a case.
Good, brave Daddy.
But what if a bad guy hurt Daddy? Is that why he isn't here when he promised Aoko he would be?
Daddy hurt and gone makes Aoko sad and Aoko feels like she is going to cry but she won't because she promised Mommy, yes she promised Mommy, that Aoko will be a big girl, a brave girl, a strong girl ad she will take care of the house and Daddy.
Yes, yes, yes.
But you cannot take care of someone who's dead.
Aoko wants to cry again.
Blue.
"Hi, I'm Kaito."
The boy named Kaito smiles and Aoko isn't sad anymore and yes, she likes his smile but she is curious.
"Are you lost?"
Aoko nods and the tears fall when she shakes her head.
"Don't worry! I'll help you out! We can be friends!"
Aoko takes the boy named Kaito's hand and she isn't scared of the new place anymore and now that she thinks about it, the place doesn't feel wrong anymore.
Not with Kaito.
She is eight and alone and so very afraid.
Kaito is quiet and Aoko doesn't like it when Kaito is quiet.
He is sitting on the swings and looking at the ground and it is really bad when Kaito is quiet.
Quiet Kaito is a scary Kaito. That Kaito is the one who shows the teachers' panties and makes their classmates hair pink and changes the pattern of their uniform to polka dots.
No one likes to play with Quiet Kaito.
But Aoko will.
Aoko sits on the other swing and pushes off with her feet.
They sit like that while the others play hopscotch and tag and ball and when Sensei calls and the bell rings, Aoko jumps off the seat and Kaito hugs her.
"Otou-san is dead." And Aoko feels something wet on her sleeve where Kaito's face is buried.
Aoko wraps her small arms around Kaito's shoulders and every time Kaito breaths, her small, strong arms pulled him closer.
Kaito pulls away and Aoko lets him go and no one is on the playground anymore.
He takes her hand in his and they walk towards their classroom door where Sensei stands waiting.
"Thank you." Sensei whispers in Aoko's ear as she passes by.
Sensei does not yell at Kaito and Aoko when they break the rules and sit next to each other instead of their proper seats.
VII.
What makes her so much better than me
What makes her just everything I can never be
What makes her your every dream and fantasy
Because I can remember when it was
What makes her so much better than me
What makes her just everything I can never be
What makes her your every dream and fantasy
Because I can remember when it was me
People kept on telling me it was just a phase.
That the girl was just a passing fancy, and in the end it would be me and him like it was supposed to be.
"You know how boys are."
"He just hasn't realized his true feelings yet."
"He'll come around eventually."
"You two were made for each other."
"Destined."
"Fated."
And I believed them.
So I laughed and smiled and played along, because I knew that the day would come he would see.
That I was always here.
That we were supposed to be together.
Together forever.
Not only because everyone else expected it, but because I saw it too.
"He loves me. I saw it. I felt it. I know it."
He loves me.
And when he realizes what we all knew, he'll leave her for me.
He'll run through the pouring rain, scoop me into his embrace that will be my home as it had always been and we'll be happy.
That's right.
I believed.
He would do anything to make me smile.
He protected me from any danger, from any pain.
I was with him through it all.
I was scared of losing him.
Because he loved me.
And I knew he did too, but maybe…
Did he love her more?
Did he love her better?
Or did he love her different?
Because though he would do anything to make me smile…
… he would change the world so it would never hurt her again.
And even if protected me from any and all hurts and pains…
… she fought alongside him, bearing the sorrow and danger.
Yes, I was with him through it all…
… from six to sixteen…
… but she was there when it mattered, when no one else could be.
I was so scared of losing him…
… because he loved me, cared for me, protected me…
… but he's terrified of losing her…
… because he loves her.
And he allowed her to love him.
Care for him.
Protect him.
As he had allowed no one else to.
He may have loved me, maybe in another life we might've been…
And I'd love to imagine, hope and believe.
But watching him slip the silver band on her finger that matched his exactly…
… whisper "I do" as if it were precious and fragile like a promise…
… and see her return the vow…
And it gets hard to believe, that there was a time…
"When it was me."
When it was me
When it was me
When it was me
Author's Ramble: Okay, I believe I have to clarify some things.
Aoko won a cooking contest during her and Kaito's elementary school years (at least here) and though Kaito kept the picture, he was so busy being obsessed (yeah, Kaito, don't deny it) with Shinichi he never noticed it was gone.
Kaito, Shinichi, Hakuba and Aoko used the most recent victim's car to chase after her rapist-killer. I am so sorry for how… unintentionally vivid the descriptions were. I believe the reason four teenagers where on-the-scene instead of actual police officers is maybe they just happened to walk by and hear the screams, they saw the car making a quick getaway, they saw the blood-soaked man getting into the car, you guys decide for yourselves.
Though I don't like Aoko for Kaito (sorry canon shippers), I admit she is still a significant person in Kaito's life.
Also, Aoko referrimg to herself in the third person both in the flashback and in real time is an actual canon quirk of hers. It is a manner of speech commonly used by small children.
EXAMPLE: "Grey-chan loves Kaitou Kid-sama~"
As opposed to, "I like Kaitou Kid."
And Aoko is invited to Kaito and Shinichi's wedding in the end.