Just have to mention: Love you guys!! THANKS loads for the incredibly cute feedback! (hugs all)
2006
"Affection"
Do I have to?
"What?" Ran asked him, obviously not seeing his problem.
Shinichi, from his point on the couch with his arms crossed in front of his chest, tried to look stubbornly at her as he sighed out.
"Ran…" he decided to try it the calm way. "We only returned from our trip on Sunday. That was two days ago. Haven't we had enough adventures?"
"Hmm…let me think…" she put a finger under her chin, sticking her nose up in the air as she pretended to be thinking hard about this. A second later, she returned her gaze to him. "No."
"But, why don't we use our school-free school differently? It's not every year that our teachers go on an excursion."
"Isn't it the best to use a week off from school doing something useful? Like go to a museum?"
Shinichi whined out. "Raaann…why do you want to go and look at this bunch of old galloons and gold and diamonds and what do I know? It's the same every time and…"
He did not go on as he saw her move around the table and sit down on the couch beside him. She put on the best puppy face that she had, complete with the huge, teary eyes, scrunched eyebrows, lips pursed in a full-blown pout, head lowered a little, hands folded in her lap.
"Shinichiii…" she drew out his name in what sounded like a long whine, pleading none the less, almost accusing him of an evil deed such as not pleasing her by giving her what she wanted, and at the same time giving the impression that she would start crying within the next five seconds if he didn't do anything about it.
Shinichi gulped, head drawn back, eyes wide. He hated it when she did that. How was he supposed to deny her anything when she was looking at him like that?
'How am I supposed to deny her anything, when she's looking at me like this? Cursed weapons of a woman,' he thought grumpily, renewing the position of his arms in front of his chest.
"That's not fair!" Was all that he told her before he turned his head away.
Ran's face immediately lighted up as her poker face dropped, knowing she had already won. She giggled in childish delight and almost jumped at him and into his arms.
Although he was still making grumpy noises, as if he wasn't enjoying it at all, he brought his arms up and around her with mechanic moves. She was chuckling and cuddling deeper in his arms, her cheek against his.
"Thank you!" And the tantei smiled goofily as she decorated her words with a big kiss on his cheek.
"So, will you take me there?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Nope." She giggled, giving his other cheek a kiss as well.
He sighed dramatically. "Well, seems like I have to give in and accept my fate."
"Aww, you are the best!"
"Hehe, I know. But I do think that for this big sacrifice I deserve more than a kiss on the cheek."
"Two kisses." She corrected him, acting as if she had no idea what he was playing at.
"Still!" he tried to pout, which made him look irresistible to her.
"Oh, my poor, poor tantei-kun has to make such sacrifices to keep his fiancée happy. Poor boy." She stroked with one hand over his cheek.
"I am glad that, at least, we agree in this point." He chose to ignore her sarcasm.
"Well, if you think that you're so badly off with me, then I am sure Kei-kun will be happy to go with me." She teased him with serious voice with their classmate of whom they knew was after her for a long time now. Making a move to stand up, she smiled inwardly as she felt his arms around her waist hold her back and sit her on his lap.
"As if you could go anywhere with him and have fun." Shinichi was totally serious. He had not liked her joke, at all and all of his instincts urged him to fulfil his duty as a good fiancé.
He held her closely to his chest, pressing his face between her shoulder-blades while she was stroking his arms on her front. "You know I'd do everything for you. Of course I'll take you there, if that's your wish."
Ran smiled warmly, turned around on his lap and hugged him around his neck, facing the young man she was so deeply in love with. She rested her forehead against his and smiled warmly at him. "I know, sweetheart. I was only teasing." She gave him a quick kiss. This made Shinichi smile.
"And I didn't say you had to do it for free. Of course, you'll get rewarded."
"Oh really?" Suddenly, he was all excited, knowing he'd like any present of her.
"Of course."
"What do I get, if I might ask?"
She grinned at him and bent to whisper something in his ear. Very quickly, gradually more and more, his gaze lit up immeasurable and as she was done and pulled back to grin at him naughtily, he stared at her openly, perhaps hungrily.
"Are you serious?" His voice was not quite as stable as he had wished it would be. He gulped.
Ran only nodded, her grin still on her lips as she observed his every reaction with satisfaction.
Without thinking or wasting another second, he stood up with her in his arms and quickly ran in direction of the door, suddenly pretty eager to get to this museum and especially back home.
"Shinichi!" Ran laughed as he tried to reach the handle to open the door while still having her on his arms which was a harder task to do then it appeared.
"What?" He looked innocently at her, still trying to fumble the door open.
"We can't go right now."
"Huh? Why?" He looked at her with a gaze that made clear that he really couldn't understand her right now.
She only pointed down her body. Shinichi had to blink and it took him a few seconds to gather his brain enough to understand what she was playing at after staring at her sock-covered feet.
"I have no shoes on. Unless you plan on carrying me the whole day, go ahead. And I still need my purse and coat."
"Jeez, always the delays. Women." He grumbled as he put her down, against his will of course.
Ran found that he looked incredibly adorable and she couldn't resist the smile on her face before she took his cheeks in between her hands and pulled him down to kiss him sweetly.
Shinichi immediately forgot everything except her as he wound his arms around her body and deepened the kiss a little.
"I know you are probably pretty eager to…get home again…" She whispered against their lips that were only a few inches apart. 'Especially after what I promised that you'd get then…' "I'll only need a minute to get ready, okay?"
How could he resist her sweet smile? He must be a heartless jerk to do so. Or maybe blind.
'No, blind wouldn't work either since I could still hear her sweet voice which is comparable to her smile. Oh god, I am so…' Shinichi debated with himself, deep in thoughts while he answered almost absentmindedly. "Sure".
Ran smiled, thoroughly satisfied, gifted him with another, far too quick, kiss and then quickly went to gather her things.
---
At the same time, in a totally different part of Tokyo, some students did not have that much luck as the students of the Teitan-high. Those students still had school and weren't very happy about it.
However, as always, there were exceptions. They existed, in this particular case, in the form of two girls who were certainly happy at the moment and amusing themselves pricelessly. No matter that this amusement was at the cost of another person.
"So, why won't you tell us?"
"Because it's none of your business."
"I am on Keiko's side. You really should finally get it over with and tell us."
"I said no!" The girl blushed and turned away from her two friends.
Those giggled but didn't even think of stopping. This was way too much fun.
"Aww, come on, Aoko-chan. If you spent a romantic weekend with your husband, you really should tell us all about it." Keiko, 18, a girl with blonde hair that she was wearing in plaits and glasses, cornered her friend from one side.
"We are your best friends, after all. You can really trust us." Reika, almost 19, short, dark hair and with a wicked smile at the moment, cornered the poor girl in the middle from the other side.
Nakamori Aoko, dark brown, long hair that were a little messy by nature, 18 years old, hot tempered girl and only daughter of Inspector Nakamori, blushed and started sweatdroping as she realized that she had nowhere to go and no chance of escaping.
"I-I told you already. I went to help my Dad with his investigations."
"But you weren't at home the whole weekend."
"It was out of town."
Both girls looked at her in a way that clearly showed how much they did not believe her.
"Don't look at me that doubtfully. It's not my fault that cursed Kid announced another of his robberies."
"But the announcement is for Wednesday, which is tomorrow."
"W-well, my Dad liked to start early with the preparations." Aoko tried to talk herself out of this, slightly sweating by now.
"Aoko-chan…" Reika started, grinning at her which drove Aoko almost insane.
"What?" She almost barked.
"Kid's announcement received the police only yesterday, on Monday. AFTER the weekend. It was on the television."
"Uhh…" Aoko blushed and gulped as inconspicuously as she could. Both girls were approaching her with silly grins on their faces, only waiting for Aoko to let something slip or to simply confess to them. It all became too much for her pretty soon and she started screaming so loudly that the whole class could hear her, fumbling wildly around with her arms.
"Oh, quit it you guys. As if I'd voluntarily spend my week-end with that jerk!!"
"Well, that's a feeling I definitely share." A masculine voice made the heads of the three girls turn. Kuroba Kaito, 18, magician and childhood friend of Aoko, approached the girls in his usual cool fashion, hands in his pockets and a grin to melt. Many a girl had lost herself in this grin.
Keiko and Reika grinned, smelling their chance and turned to the young man.
"Come on, admit that you've spend a romantic weekend together."
"Yeah, come on. Aoko is simply too shy to let anything slip."
"Me, spending a romantic weekend with her? Are you nuts? Just look at her, she's got the cuteness and sex-appeal of a mule. She got no curves and is half male, in looks AND behaviour. Hahaha, why would I do such a stupid thing as…"
That's how far he got. Loud smashing sounds rang through the classroom and all that remained were whimpering noises from a poor victim.
Aoko's fist was red while she was fuming. It had been a long while since she had been this angry at somebody, but Kaito always hit her weak spots. She turned away and left the classroom without another word. Most of her classmates had at least expected some sort of insult-marathon between those two, like they usually tend to spend their time, but they were disappointed this time.
Kaito lay on the reminders of the furniture, feeling like his bones were as broken as the desk was. As he watched Aoko turn away, her body shaking with anger, he felt his heart break along with the rest.
Again. He had done it again. Insulted her without thinking. He was such an idiot. But he couldn't do anything about it. He felt horrible, knowing Aoko was somewhere, hiding herself and crying her eyes out. And he hated himself for it.
Kaito peeled himself off the ground, brushed the dust away from his uniform, although more out of habit than need to be clean. Sitting down on the window-sill, he sighed while looking out at the trees in front of the school.
Why was he always such a jerk? For the bystanders, it seemed like nothing had changed between him and Aoko, but that was not true and he knew it as well as she did. And he hated it. But it's typical that not one of those who were laughing at their endless quarrels noticed the change.
They weren't even able to look in each others eyes lately. To be exact, the past two days. And the teasing had reduced drastically to the point where they weren't even talking unless it was to fend off some bugging people, like it had been now.
'Well, it's not completely true…' he had to admit to himself. Aoko had tried twice to have a proper conversation with him in the last two days but that had only enraged him and lead to him insulting her and thus her hitting him and to yet another broken desk.
Why he had fended her off so cruelly? Well, Kaito had his own reasons, that's for sure, no matter how disarranged and odd they may seem to other people.
It all had started out last Friday. He could remember that day clearly, as if it had been only yesterday instead of four days ago.
