My excuse?
High school.
I mean, being a junior is hard...all that thinking and whatnot. And learning to drive (something I've neglected to do for a while).
Bah. Distance ed. courses being really annoying as well (I mean, multivariable calc?! Why'd I ever sign up for that?!).
ANYWAYS: oneshot.
Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan, though Gosho Aoyama can rightly claim the honor of that distinction.
Now, let's see if I still got it.
A soft layer of snow drifted down to the earth, slowly accumulating, snowflake by snowflake, until the world became covered in white.
Children rejoice at this opportune day; some spend the time outside, throwing the white powdery substance at each other, building snowmen, sledding, making snow angels.
Angels.
They say that fate has a way of toying with you. That it has a terrible sense of irony; that it is a cruel beast.
They know.
She knows.
There was a cemetery in the city- a small cemetery, unadorned, unembellished. A small, unnoticeable cemetery.
But today...
A lone figure stood a ways in that cemetery, surrounded by memories of the deceased; her hair covered her face, reflecting the sun in a brilliant flash, the scarf covering her face speckled by white snowflakes. She had in her hands, a single flower. Wordlessly, she bent down, and laid it at the base of that special grave- the grave that was made three years ago, because-
The figure stood up; struggling with something, as if attempting to express herself, she looked away from the grave.
"You were always there for me, weren't you? Whenever I thought you were gone, or had done something stupid- you were right beside me. I thought you had gone away back then, to chase after some stupid girl, leaving clumsy me behind. I was really worried, you know?
"Imagine how I felt when you came back, when you promised you would stay that time. For good. That you wouldn't run away again...imagine how glad I was... I really thought we could be happy- together.
"Ever since we were little, I...I don't know when it started, really; I just knew that, as we grew up, I had this feeling that we...
"It seems so sad now, for me to be saying this. After all, what can I do? In the end, I couldn't even-"
Her voice broke.
"And then you had to get yourself killed! How could you?! How could you just leave me here?! How could you leave me? Why?"
She had a scrap of paper in her hand, fluttering gently in the breeze- it was slightly torn at one edge, the little piece of paper clinging stubbornly to the whole, refusing to let go. If one had eyes sharp enough he could just barely make out several lines of writing, hurriedly written by some trembling hand- it looked like the writer had difficulty making up his mind, for there were many revisions, many words crossed out and erased.
But one word stood out, for its clarity, for its boldness, for its ability to convey absolute conviction in its meaning-
"...love..."
A single tear splashed onto the ground; the owner looked towards the grave again.
"And then imagine how I felt when I realized the person I had hoped for, who I had thought was gone all this time- imagine how I felt, after you died, I realized you were always right there. That you were right beside me all this time- how could you not tell me?! I just made a fool of myself time and time again...and you let me...
"What am I suppose to do now? You... Me... You left me..."
That day stood terribly clear in her memory: how he had come back to her, finally, after waiting for so long. How they had decided to go on a date, after all these years. And how...
They were walking back from their date, thoroughly caught up in that day. They...were happy. The happiest they've been for a long time.
And then, that gunman they never saw. The bullet they could never stop.
He never knew what happened.
He was already dead.
It was a quiet funeral- his parents showed up. Her parent showed up.
His friends.
His schoolmates.
It was...awkward; no one knew what to say- all had something in mind, but none felt it worthy to say it out loud.
And then there came the stunning revelation that the other one would never come home, either.
She received the note from that strange, strange not-quite child. That child with the eyes that knew exactly what she was thinking.
She received the note that confessed the two were one and the same- and that he...
He loved her. With all of his heart.
And that he knew he would die before he would be able to tell her.
"...I don't know what else I can say- whatever I haven't thought of today, I probably have told you already before. If not before... Then sometime in the three years after.
"It was three years to the day that you came back. Three years to the day that you left me..."
She murmured a final word of parting, and, as of overcome by guilt or embarrassment, as if she could no longer face the sad memorial of that young man, she turned, and made her way up to the path leading to the cemetery gates.
Her word drifted in the wind, a whisper, a promise that was never meant to be- so incredibly sad that only emotions can describe the true extent of such terrible loneliness.
"Shinichi..."
So something I've written around 3 a.m. isn't exactly...humorous. I was actually struck by how entirely too morbid this became. And disappointed that certain stylistic elements and word choices aren't what they could be.
But gimme some credit- I was working past midnight.
When I should be studying for my test tomorrow... Which I ought to get to right now.
-Minke, 02.19.2008