I'm probably going to cry due to finals in a couple hours, but hey, at least procrastinating produced a story for you dear readers.
She was drunk and it was late. Late, was not to be identified by the time (2:14 AM was hardly late anymore). Not to be identified as the end of their time together (it had already passed). Late meant she had been waiting and it was late. Time had passed since he should have made an appearance.
She was never terribly impatient. It would have been too mentally taxing and horribly inconvenient for the life of Nakamori Aoko to be one who succumbed to the weight of the reality considered late. She was always waiting. Whether it was for her father to come back after a Kid's heist, or her mother to come back from the murky depression that eventually drowned her, for a while, she even waited Kaito to come back from wherever the hell he ran off to. He was late, and she was tired of waiting.
As for the time, he should've come back. He should've been back where her arms were open for him and she was ready to accept an apology, if he'd only show up and give her one. He's late and never coming back. She had grown to be sick of waiting for him to return. That was that.
As for the time, he should've come back. He should've been back where her arms would open the door to him and she was ready to accept the stories from work, even if she prefered not to hear them. He's late and he should be coming back soon. She's growing to be tired of waiting.
So she poured another glass of the fine wine to accommodate the specialty platter of various stages of grief and tapped it against her lips. Her lips painted a deep red, almost matching in hue to the wine, pressed its presence with an imprint of her bottom lip. She had come to ignore it, as the glass's rim was tainted with the color.
Within the hour, she heard a car pull into the driveway and park with a low rumble. She placed her glass of wine on the counter after taking an extended sip and walked over to the door to let whomever in. She opened before he knocked and he walked in without a second thought.
"Sorry, I've been busy with a particularly complex case. You didn't need to wait for me, you know," he said in a casual tone. He's tired and yawned as she peeled his coat off of him. "I can't sleep without you," she answered quietly. "You're late."
He didn't speak for a moment, only assessed the past event before he proceeded. "You're drunk." Though anyone could have decided that. The smell of the wine stained her lips, yet he didn't think twice to kiss her. It was quick, expected. He kissed her whenever he returned from work, it was an absolute. "Yeah, I am, aren't I?" was all she said.
She took his hand and he noticed again, perhaps for the hundredth time, how small her hands were, how soft and gently she held his hand, as though he was the child about to shatter with the pressure of reality.
She was drunk and it was late, but that didn't stop her from pouring him a glass of wine with precision that should not have been possible in her drunken state. He didn't refuse, because it wasn't the first time she was drunk, and he learned it was easier to accept the stupid glass of alcohol. He brought the red liquid between his lips and it went down, down, down, much to her content. She watched and nodded approvingly. The ring that rested where his fourth finger met his knuckle made a gentle clink' against the glass. Upon the noise, he noticed she wasn't wearing her own ring. He figured, she hid it underneath the pillow on her side of the bed, as she did when her past threatens to steal away her marriage. Hides it where no one but he would know where it was.
It hurt him, to see her hurt. She rarely spoke of it, but he knew, she thought of the past often. It hid and submerged her in odd places and times. She associated trinkets of subjects with him and grew to have spasms of depression until he pushed her forward. She could never eat ice cream because of him. Never go skiing. Never wait for a clock tower to chime. Never catch sight of a rose. Too many things hurt and he vowed to numb her pain by avoiding the seemingly random things after bringing a bouquet of roses home after work and seeing her refuse to eat until they died.
There were songs she couldn't listen to that she once loved to sing along to. There were movies with her favorite actors that she'd sob horrifyingly in the comedic parts to. There were names she couldn't muster to say aloud sober because she doesn't want to feel the things that come with it anymore. People changed, she understood, but she also knew that people changed her.
"Kaito," she called him, and that was the moment he realized how drunk she was. The impending tragedy occurred and he sighed. "Kaito," she said aloud again. She pushed her body against his, closing in the gap that once stood between them. "I missed you," she whispered in a broken voice and she sobbed into his shirt.
He never knew what to say. He wasn't Kaito, and he'd never met him to his knowledge. Kuroba Kaito, as far as he could deduce, was the asshole that built a garden in the cracks of her broken heart and had forgotten that flowers die without someone to water them. Once dead, the flowers never come back to life, and he experienced firsthand, how difficult it was to plant new flowers amongst the corpses of the old.
She talked to him, or rather to Kaito, as her face was buried into his shirt. He was late, she kept repeating. He promised he'd come back from the Kid's heist because he wanted to see one first hand while Aoko was tired and stayed home. She never came to understand why he never came back.
He held the girl and asked her to go to bed. It's late, but she shook her head. "I don't want to wake up," she admitted in a whisper, still grasping onto his shirt, he could feel her nose against his chest. He understood the magnitude of her pain. Related to it, even. So patiently, he waited for her crying to subside as she mumbled her childhood.
"Remember when we went to Tropical Land and you bought me ice cream…"
"Remember when we went skiing…"
"Remember our clock tower…"
"Remember the roses…"
Remember when you loved me?"
"Remember?"
And he didn't remember any of it, because was never there, but he goes along anyway because he remembered something else. He remembered his own grief with the girl he used to love. Her. She hurts him too. He remembered seeing her ghost, the traces she left behind. He used to see her all over Beika. He moved, driven mad from seeing the girls in the school uniform that she wore, walking beside him all the while ago. But she was dead, an early death caused by the organization that sculpted his life like molding clay.
He remembered seeing her, walking along the streets of Tokyo and thinking it was her again. Though it couldn't have been. Yet, when he called for her before he could stop himself, she turned with a face of utter shock. Her hair was a wavy mess, she had a more child-like face but she looked like her. She stopped walking, standing out in the mass of the crowd that pushed against her. The two mistakenly saw each other for a lost love. Their story started from broken pasts that they tried to forget.
(They couldn't forget.)
"Where'd you go?" she cried to him quietly. Her voice was raspy. "I'm right here, Love, I'm right here," he answered soothingly. She nodded slowly. "Don't leave." "I've got nowhere else to go."
She removed herself from the sanctuary that was his shirt and looked at him; her eyes were red from actuality. Her hands were shaking, though if anything, it was overly warm on the summer night. She lifted her hand and touched his hair. Scruffed it up a bit. His usual, nicely parted, well maintained hair soon became a mess of tangles, hair spilling over his eyes. He understood what she was doing, so he did the same to her, patting her hair down, making it more manageable.
It was unmistakable, how similar they looked. Of course, he fathomed the tragedy they created themselves. The next morning, without doubt, they would feel the grief of realization strike them like a wave. He didn't know why they did this to themselves. It hurt. Everything about it hurt. But sometimes it felt okay. Sometimes it was okay for Nakamori Aoko to hold onto Kudo Shinichi and whisper childhood secrets that only Kaito would know of. Sometimes it was okay for Kudo Shinichi to hold onto Nakamori Aoko and close his eyes, pretending it was Ran.
They were sad and alone, but it was better to be sad and alone together.
He finished his drink and she had finished hers a long time ago. He guided her into bed. She crawled in and slipped her hand under her pillow to insure herself that something was still there. She faced her husband just as he settled himself beside her.
"I'm sorry," she said to him. He told her there was nothing to apologize for. He was just as guilty as her.
They drifted to sleep in the familiar comfort of their fingers gently intertwined underneath the sheets. It was the last time, she decided in a half awake state. She couldn't drag him through her adhesive past any longer. It was far time to move on. Kaito had been gone but she had him. And she was satisfied with him. He watched over her and loved her. He often prioritized her over himself, something she couldn't remember him doing.
He loved her. He knew it wholeheartedly. Regardless of her ghost, in the present moment, he was utterly, doubtlessly in love with the girl that lay beside him.
They both had tainted pasts. Sometimes it threatened to stain their present. But it was okay. They were okay. Without their pasts, they wouldn't have met each other.
It was late at night and she was tired of waiting. Right there, with his hands clasped against hers, she decided it was time.
Nakamori Aoko stopped waiting for him late, late at night.
And in the same moment, Kudo Shinichi let go of her early, early in the morning.
He/Him in italicizes is Kaito. She/Her in italicizes is Ran from Detective Conan.
I don't know what this is. I might delete it later if I ever go back to rereading this. Could I maybe have some commentary on this?
Okay, so a dear reader (Yannami) asked for a sequel to White Snow, which if you haven't read, I suggest you read it because it's personally my favorite work that I wrote so far. Anyway, I decided to comply with her request. So here I am, agreeing to write something to the request of a reader… but I don't know what it should be about. Maybe a prequel that adds up what happened before? Maybe she searches for Kaito after looking through the package? A standalone that could relate to it? I'm really dry out of ideas and I feel horrible because I agreed to write something (and I still do have the intent on writing it), it's just I really don't know what direction it'll take right now. Any advice?