Warnings: EXTREMELY OOC, attempted humor that has the opposite effect, etc... It's ShinRan (kind of)... Oh, and features the return of my OC Yamamoto Arisa (from Baby Talk). Only... she's not a daycare worker anymore. And Shinichi doesn't know her.

Oh, and I have no idea regarding the actual policies of tele-surveying in Japan. So this is probably unrealistic. Not to mention I don't really know that much about tele-surveying in general. And is "tele-surveyor" even a term?

Yamamoto Arisa leaned back in her chair, yawning widely as she glanced at the digital clock positioned on her cubicle wall. 5:44 p.m. She had roughly fifteen minutes until her (somewhat insane) boss would let her go for the day.

Honestly, Arisa sighed to herself as she ran her finger down the list of numbers and names displayed on her computer screen. I always believed Kaa-san (1) whenever she said I'd go far. And yet here I am, working as a tele-surveyor for Murakami Juugo, some crackpot who apparently thinks that people will actually care to answer questions about how many cats they think exist in the world and the number of pineapples a fish can eat in three hours.

Let's see... Ah, it's this number.

Arisa checked her headset and dialed the number. Ring... ring... ring...

"HELLO?! HELLO?! HELLO?!"

"GAH!" Arisa screeched (extremely unprofessionally) at the sound of a frantic male voice on the other end.

"WHO IS THIS?!" the same voice yelled. "JODIE-SENSEI? DO YOU HAVE NEWS ON THEM? WHAT ABOUT VERMOUTH? HAS SHE BEEN CAUGHT YET?"

Do we really have asylums on our calling list? Or is this a wrong number?

"A-Ah, is this... uh..." Arisa consulted the list. "...the residence of Kudou Shin'ichi-sama?"

"Kudou Shin - Oh." The voice calmed down, sounding pleasant and controlled. "Yeah, this is he. Who is this?"

Hesistation regarding "his own" name. That just fills me with confidence that he's actually Kudou Shin'ichi.

"Hi, Kudou-sama. My name is Yamamoto Arisa, and I'm a -"

"Are you a fangirl?"

"I'm - I'm sorry?"

"I said, are you a fangirl?"

"Of who?"

"Of me."

"Of you?"

"Yes, of me."

"...Um, no?" God this guy is irritating. Who the hell does he think he is? Some famous high school detective or something? As if.

"Oh. Sorry, the 'sama' threw me off. Well, then, who are you?"

"As as I saying, my name is Yamamoto Arisa and I'm a representative of Murakami Juugo. Murakami-sama has a few questions he would like me to ask you regarding -"

"Are you freaking kidding me? The first call I get when my body's restored, Conan's no more, I've been living in my house for two weeks, and almost all of the Black Organization has been caught is from a tele-surveyor."

"...Kudou-sama?"

"No, I don't really want to answer your questi - Ran, what are you doing here?!"

Huh? Arisa's eyebrows wove together. "Kudou-sa -"

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, KUDOU SHIN'ICHI?!" a loud female voice wailed in the background, effectively cutting off Arisa.

"Ran, listen -"

"It's been ages since I saw you! I was so worried, Shin'ichi, I really was!"

"I wanted to come back, Ran, but there was a - er - big case -"

"Don't give me that!"

The sound of a slap made Arisa wince and recall her place. "Ku - Kudou-sama, maybe you should hang up the pho -" she stammered, but was interrupted once more.

"Shin'ichi... I... I really missed you... and I've been waiting for so long to see you in person because I wanted to return your confession face-to-face..." And just like that, the mood had swapped from angry and murderous to sad and close to tears.

Arisa sucked in a breath, her hand hovering over the "terminate call" button, but she held back for a moment, slightly curious.

"Ran... I've missed you too, but there's something I have to tell you about C -"

"No, just... just wait a little, I want to return your confession before I miss my chance. Shin'ichi... I - I really like you a-as well!"

Feeling her face glow neon red, Arisa coughed. Well this is certainly awkward for a single twenty-two year old female who uses "boku" (2) and hates romance novels so much she bonfired all of the ones she could find last summer at Izu Beach.

"Ran, you know I like you too, but you need to hear the truth. The truth about Conan and me. I - We're the same person."

Silence.

Now, I have no idea who this "Conan" guy is, but this apparently is extremely serious. Arisa took her hand away from the "terminate call" button and laced her fingers together, resting her face atop them. This is seriously like a real-life drama.

The girl, apparently named Ran, let out a shaky laugh. "Ha, ha, Shin'ichi, that's... that's really funny..."

"I'm dead serious, Ran. I was poisoned by the men in black from the Mystery Coaster at Tropical Land that time and my body shrunk. I took on the alias of Edogawa Conan to protect everybody. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to be killed for having knowledge of my survival."

Silence.

"Oh yeah, that makes total sense, genius Kudou-meitantei (3). Because obviously Ran isn't smart enough to keep her mouth shut so nobody knows she 'has knowledge of your amazing and necessary survival.' No, Ran's too much of a loud mouth. She can't keep secrets. No chance anyone could ever even considering trusting her to keep one so important and life-threatening," Ran growled.

"I didn't mean it like th -" Kudou stuttered, but was suddenly silenced as Ran did apparently did something. "Ran, Ran, I know that you're a karate champion, you don't need to show me - lower your foot, Ran, it's in front of my face, Ran, didn't you just say that you like me?"

"WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL ME, KUDOU SHIN'ICHI!" Ran screamed, followed by a loud thwacking sound that made Arisa cringe, along with a cracking sound signifying that the phone had just gone flying, possibly into a wall.

She quickly disconnected the call and leaned back into her chair. It's two past six, she noted. I'm technically done for the day

Well, even so...

Arisa clicked around on her computer for a few moments, then smiled slightly as she erased Kudou Shinichi's phone number from the database.

Stretching, she pulled off the headset and shut down her computer, humming as she left the office building. Might as well save someone else a bit of grief, right?

(1) "Kaa-san" means "Mom" in Japanese

(2) "Boku" means "I" in Japanese, but it's usually only used by males. According to my Japanese textbook, if a woman/girl uses "boku" she is considered very boyish.

(3) "Meitantei" means "great/famous detective," so calling Shin'ichi "Kudou-meitantei" would be kind of like calling him "Super Awesome and Cool Detective Shin'ichi."

"Sama" is an extremely polite honorific that would maybe be used by a tele-surveyor or a fangirl when regarding a customer or the object of affection.

There's a possibility that this will be continued as a series of one-shots where Arisa witnesses other DCMK couples during serious moments over the phone, but the chance is slim.

Hope you liked it (even though I don't)! Thanks for reading! ~V. Tsai