Author's note: This is a story you should not have read this quickly. I intended the four first oneshots of this series to have their titles related to the seasons (you know, Winter storm, Summer draft, things like that.) But there was this one peculiar story who was just banging on the door and yelling, I wanna be read! NOW! and finally I said yes. I never was able to resist them too long. So here is this for the present – but you should meet Spring blossoms or Autumn's green wind (such crappy titles…) somewhere along the way…

I still don't own anything – well, I do, but merely the idea.

-

Alternative choices of love and mind

-

Kudo Shinichi contemplated with profound discouragement the heaps of papers, files, bills, forms needing to be signed, all piled up on his desk in ceiling-scraping columns. They seemed to be growing larger and higher every day, although he tried to get rid of at least a third of it every time he settled to the task.

Like every morning, he had a not-so fond thought for his dear parents, who'd started up into yet another world tour some six months before, leaving to their twenty-two-years-old on the managing of the whole family affairs. He was fairly sure they'd done it on purpose. One past the first shock of 'I'm a six years old' acting, Yukiko Kudo was known as an intelligent woman, and Yusaku Kudo was too well-used to intricate plots of crime scenes, alibis, motives and culprits not to be able to handle all this business with his littlest finger. So either they wanted to test him, or they were simply having fun.

Shinichi glanced at the window and grunted. It was a radiant mid-spring day, and he was stuck in this narrow office – at least it would be larger if there weren't tons of random papers packing the whole place up. The shining, streaming sunlight from outside slid inside through the half-shaded awning, in thin rays glittering with dust between thin rays of greyish darkness. It felt despairingly like jail.

He noticed a heap of papers swaying on top of a collection of clippings and caught them in mid-fly, just before they fell over and slipped and scattered from the desk to the floor. They were envelopes. This morning's mail… without much enthusiasm, he began to sort them out.

Eight were for his parents – two urgent, he would send them after the fugitives – the rest would have to wait at the bottom of a drawer, where they joined a few dozen others. Twelve were addressed to himself, and he flipped through them with a sigh: fangirls, fangirls, fangirls… his fame was growing along with his reputation as a detective. One year before, he would've slid them in his pocket and displayed them to his friends; now, their rightful place was the trash. He could almost hear his father's voice in his ears, 'You see, Shinichi, responsibilities built character. They teach you to discern what's important and what's not…"

"Yeah, yeah, right," Shinichi said out loud, exasperated, and reached out with both hands to catch another pile threatening to turn over. He gave a last longing look at the great familial sakura tree blossoming in the yard, its floating branches swaying in the lukewarm wind, mink-shading the whole atmosphere – and set back to work.

-

Two hours later, he was dishevelled, reasonably wild-haired and on the very brink of nervous exhaustion. He ran his fingers through the jet-black bangs that fell, lopsided, on his face, and was considering delightedly the perspective of a nice mystery book and a great glass of milk when the door was knocked upon and opened without waiting for the answer.

"Shinichi-botchama (A/N: 'little master')," his father's secretary took a hesitant step forward, "there's a person called Mouri asking to see you."

At the name of Mouri, Shinichi's head had shot up. For a moment, he was speechless, exceeded by the events. Then he asked, "Is it a man or a woman?"

"A woman," she answered gloomily, and Shinichi grunted.

"Tell her I'm coming."

The secretary departed, and Shinichi rested his chin on his hand, sighing. This was the last thing he needed; a hysterical magistrate his parents had called some time before when he'd complained about the amount of paperwork he had to deal with, and who had promised to send someone to help. Obviously she'd come herself, not, in all likelihood, to do the job herself, but rather to hold him a sermon and developed reasoning about what a novice he was (he was all too ready to believe that), how much help should be her assistant and consequently, how large should be their fee. He definitely did not need that.

He rearranged his clothes while passing in front of a mirror – at least not to be ill-considered because he arrived in rags – rubbed a chalk-like spot on his collar and took a deep breath before entering the living-room where she was waiting.

As soon as his eyes laid on her, he felt a sharp blow at the back of the head, exactly as if someone had sneaked up from behind him and swatted him. Breath came to lack. For a moment, there was an extreme familiarity in the sight of this young woman, as though he'd met somewhere and hiss body remembered it even if his mind didn't.

That, of course, was impossible, Rational Thinking reminded him; he would know it if he'd met her long enough to feel such a shock at seeing her again. He pushed the nagging sensation away and asked her to sit down.

She certainly wasn't the middle-aged magistrate he'd been expecting. She wasn't older than he was – and very probably a tad younger. She had blue eyes and long raven-black hair that tumbled in the shoulders of her coat; her hands were thin but her handshake firm and decisive, instead of the vague pressure of two limp fingers like most young people's were.

"I don't understand," he confessed once the usual presentations were done with. "I was expecting a woman called Mouri, but–"

"My mother," she interrupted. "She's a friend of your parents…" Remarking his puzzled gaze, she laughed, then explained, "I'm studying to become a magistrate, like her. Since you insisted to get an assistant to help you with your paperwork, she sent me, thinking it would be good practice."

I never insisted for an assistant, Shinichi thought indignantly at his parents, but he didn't disclaim. Instead, he discussed the terms of the contract, agreed for a fee, arranged the hours and the first expectations at the end of the week. Mouri Ran was intelligent, concise and conscious of what she was worth, but her smile was soft and warm, and there still was, deep in Shinichi's heart, that weird impression of familiarity and longing…

It had grown so deep and powerful at the end of their hour's conversation that he felt kind of empty when she had to go. He was already anticipating on the moment when he should expect to see her the next morning when a casual remark about the time she should spend on her way back to Tokyo startled him out of his reverie.

"You mean you're living in Tokyo?"

"Yes, of course," she repeated, looking stricken. Her beautiful blue eyes fixed on his with a puzzled frown.

"But that's over a hour and a half's trip from here," he protested – he'd expected her to have found a hotel or a chamber in the neighbourhood. Obviously she hadn't. "You can't make that journey every morning and every night."

She laughed again; she had a very clear laugh, like water springing. "Well, I will have to, won't I?"

"You can't," he repeated. "I can't ask this from you." He spoke automatically, as if the thought had always been in his mind – and, maybe, it had. "But there're a lot of available rooms in this house – we could place you without any trouble…"

"I don't want to bother you," she said immediately.

"You wouldn't. I assure there's plenty of place."

"But the food – the–"

"Ran-san," Shinichi cut in, amused, "if you're going to work for our family, I think it would be time for you to understand that we don't really have much money trouble." A short silence followed this, while he waited eagerly for her answer.

Her eyes were withdrawn. "Well, if it really would mean no problem for you," she murmured, and then smiled up at him so happily that Shinichi's heart suddenly skipped into a sprint.

Well, he thought when he watched her out, waved goodbye as she got in her car, then turned back inside the house, he couldn't say he'd done it out of pure innocence and helpfulness, but at least he was certain to have her at hand's reach until he could solve her mystery.

-

Mouri Ran dropped her pack on the nearest armchair and looked around her. This was a large, comfortable bedroom, directed southward, with neat furniture and a very nice-looking bed. It was an excellent room. She wondered if they were all that hotel-like or if Kudo Shinichi had just wished to impress her, by providing her with one of the best suites.

She was giving a look in the neighbouring office when the only voice she was yet likely to know in this place echoed through the yard, outside the window. She had barely looked up at it that the owner of the voice himself appeared through the wooden, rectangular frame, conversing animatedly with an old, balding man. They stopped right in her sight and kept talking, surrounded with pale, air-floating cherry blossoms. Ran contemplated them. The elder man was probably the house's intendant or something – they seemed to be discussing linen supplies. As for Kudo Shinichi… but for a short moment Ran saw a boy of ten or so, laughing and holding a book, and she almost found herself transported back to that day again, in another reverie…

Then he was twenty again, turning his head toward the person who'd just shouted his name, and Ran stood at the wooden window, one hand on the frame, the file she'd been flipping through now useless in the other.

The woman of some fifty-years-old who'd welcomed her today as yesterday – the secretary, if she'd made out things well – was running towards the two men and began talking as soon as she had reached them. Ran was too far off to as much as guess what she announced them, but she did hear Shinichi-san's exclamation ("She did?") before he rushed away. After a last glance at the bald man and elder woman, whose gloomy look spoke enough for her words, Ran went out of the office and into her room, waiting for him to meet her there.

He arrived in record time, breathless from running. Ran felt the same pang to the heart she'd sensed when meeting him the day before (she would have to get used to it…), as his eyes immediately searched for hers and his warm voice greeted her. He looked in better form, she noticed, and his hair was smoother, but that was probably because he hadn't spent the whole morning buried under paperwork.

"There seems to be a lot of people working in this house," she observed as they walked down a corridor to his office.

"Oh, yes," he frowned, "I don't know how much exactly. A dozen are there permanently, but some others turn in rounds. It's a large estate, so it needs to be attended to," he added as an apologize.

"I suppose," Ran nodded thoughtfully, "that it means intendancy, and yet more paperwork. Do you happen to have a list of the staff somewhere?"

""Probably," he grinned, "in a drawer somewhere. Here's the door." He shouldered it open, and Ran let out a soft whistle; the room was packed. Way up, to the ceiling.

"I see," she murmured, her fingers brushing against a pile of papers which defied Newton's laws of gravity. "There is work to be done." She made her way to the desk, pushing away the files and letters that attacked her.

"I don't know," Shinichi said thoughtfully. "It keeps growing every day, I suspect. I could open that door larger yesterday…" He forced it wider. There was an awful CRACK! and he hurriedly let go of it.

"There are month-old documents in here!" Ran exclaimed, from the desk. "And those are fresh. This morning's mail?" She handed them to him over the desklamp, smiling. "You sure have a lot of fangirls, Shinichi-san." Most of the envelopes were bright pink.

Shinichi looked sheepish. He dropped the letters in the trash, thinking it was the last thing he wanted her to notice straightaway; at the same moment, it was the first time she ever called him by his name – and he felt strangely moved by the way the syllables rolled on her tongue, like meeting an old friend.

"First thing to do," she said from behind a jumble of random folders, "is to classify all this. Most of these are probably useless by now. The real problem is, things are piling up, so the oldest keep deeper and deeper." She emerged, though not where he'd expected her to be.

"Can you take care of it?" he asked anxiously. If she said she wasn't qualified enough, that somebody else could handle it better than she… well, he could still ask her to dinner.

"I suppose so," she replied absently, scowling at a pile of books. "My mother wouldn't have sent me if she hadn't thought I could manage it."

Shinichi was about to say that her mother couldn't have expected such a mess, then remembered that she was a friend of his parents, and shut it. Ran, who was presently going through some kind of bookcase, suddenly held up two fingers, making him back against an unbalanced wall of the labyrinth.

"Two things."

"Yes?"

"First, I'm going to need your help with those – at least, at the beginning. For the financial part, among other things."

"Sure," Shinichi said; the prospect of having to stay again in this (…) room was largely counterbalanced by her presence along with him.

"Second." She dropped the book on the desk and pointed. "You've got a computer."

"I do?" Taken aback, Shinichi looked over. All he could see was a heap of papers and files and forms and things. Somewhere underneath, however, he caught a glimpse of blue-grey – the screen? Ran was beginning to dig it up.

"I'll manage for now," she said, wincing to spot the mouse. "If I need any help…"

"I'll keep near," Shinichi complied. "I'll tell Tamara-san to bring you lunch."

"Hm-mm," she nodded without looking up, her head bent down towards the keys. She seemed to be trying to plug in the computer – after all that time spent under a ton of folders and dust, Shinichi rather doubted it'd work that easily.

He considered her for another short moment, then got out and closed the door. Ran looked up from the recalcitrant machine as he did so, and watched him disappear through the narrowing slit between the pane and the frame.

She wondered how he would feel if she told him they'd already met ten years before.

-

As days went by, Ran became more acquainted with the house's ways, the hours, the staff. The secretary, Tamara-san, appeared to dislike her for some reason; she answered grudgingly to her salutations and wouldn't talk to her if she could avoid it – but the family's intendant rapidly proved out to be of very agreeable help and company.

He was an old who'd apparently known not only Shinichi-san when he was a child but also Yusaku-san when he was a child. He "remembered Eri-san very well, when Shinichi-botchama was barely born, she often came to visit. A very amiable woman, she was, always a sympathetic word and comprehensive smile. And," he added with a grin and a wink that made him look much younger than he actually was, "I do recall a certain little girl with black hair who came with her one afternoon…"

Ran blushed, and looked away with a vague smile.

"Does Shinichi-botchama know?" the old man asked softly.

"No," she said. "It all happened so long ago; and he doesn't remember anything. He does seem a good master – doesn't he?

"A very good one, Ran-san," the intendant replied with an all-knowing look. "He's very strict, but he's always just – when he's angry, he is because of a good reason. He talks to us with politeness and respect – believe me, I know him since he was born, I have been the witness of his first steps, I was even there when he solved his first case – I know him very well."

The office was unrecognisable at the end of the week. There was still a lot of work to do, but at least most of the floor was visible and apt to be walked upon; and one could open the door without breaking something. Ran was working at the computer, on Saturday morning, when Shinichi came in.

He gaped at the room in utter wonder, and was speechless for a moment. Ran smiled at him over the computer's screen.

"Well," he said at last. "You did great work."

"It's not over yet," Ran shrugged. "I managed to clear the place up a little, but there's still much more sorting to be done. Come and looked at this." She showed him the screen, where a good hundred windows were filing up. "I've drawn a plan of the room, with every drawer and case and folder, and everything that'll be in it once it's classified. I'm entering data as it goes. That way, after I'm gone, you'll be able to find everything thanks to the map – at least, if you put things back up in their rightful place."

Shinichi had heard nothing following 'after I'm gone'. He shook himself and articulated, "I need to thank you."

"No, thank you. You helped me a lot more than it was due. After all," she looked up at him and her hand let go of the mouse, "you aren't paid for this job. You could be going about your own business, instead of helping me out with this mess."

"Well, actually," Shinichi began uncomfortably, "I won't be able to help you much anymore. Very good friends of mine are arriving on Monday, and–"

"–you'll have to attend them, of course," she laughed. "I quite understand. Don't worry. I don't need much help anymore… what I needed were indications about important and useless items. Now I know which is which, it's only a matter of ordering them all." She fumbled a little with the keys, and then, as Shinichi didn't find anything to say, asked politely, "Who are your friends?"

Feeling uncommonly relieved, Shinichi sat on a corner of the desk and answered, "Well, it's that Osakan tantei–"

She looked up from the computer, her brow furrowed. "Hattori Heiji?"

"Do you know him?" Shinichi asked, feeling that rapid beating of the heart he'd learned to associate with jealousy. He unknowingly braced himself against the answer.

"Not personally." Shinichi let out a deep, silent breath. Ran began typing again. "But I know his childhood friend…"

This was so surprising Shinichi forgot about jealousy. "Toyama Kazuha-chan?"

"Hm-mm," her eyes were fixed in the screen. "We were in the same college in Tokyo – although she was from Osaka. We became very good friends. She told me a lot about Hattori-kun and his – er – cluelessness."

Shinichi laughed. "I quite see what you mean. Poor Kazuha-chan. She'll be coming too, you know."

Ran gave him a radiant smile, and his heart broke in the usual dash. "Really? I haven't seen her in months." She brought a lock of hair behind her hair, and he found himself staring at her hand – with every day, he'd learned to discern her smallest gestures as–

"Shinichi-san?" His head shot up as her worried voice startled him from his daze; he'd approached him a little and her concerned face was beautiful. "Are you alright?"

"I – yes. I'm sorry, I was – daydreaming." He excused himself ad made his getaway, leaving her looking puzzled by his sudden exit. He leant against the door as soon as it'd closed and rubbed his face – something – something…

Something was wrong with his feelings…

-

On Monday evening the following week, Kudo Shinichi was standing under the porch of the family house, where he waited for his friends to arrive. Leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, he was trying to think clearly.

He'd taken no decision about Mouri Ran. Although everything, from her gestures to her looks, felt uncommonly familiar and strangely appealing, he couldn't permit himself to fall in love at first sight (well, it had been a week already, his Inner Self reminded him, but he pushed it back in his subconscious) simply because she worked so efficiently on his feelings… no, he couldn't fall in love like that (unless he already was, his Inner Self gloried on, and this time he found nothing to say).

He sighed for himself, all alone in the evening's mist, then a great roar made him jump. Some heart-breaking pounding later, Hattori's bike began to outline itself in the fog, an rapidly Hattori's voice itself thundered, "OI! Kudo!"

They retreated in the house's warmth and golden glow, the mist's chill closed outside. Once the first greetings and laughing salutations were exchanged, Shinichi started to tell Kazuha about Ran, and was then interrupted by Ran herself, who was calling for him from the end of the corridor, a heap of folders in her arms, and who, noticing whom she was with, dropped the whole lot of them and ran to hug her bewildered friend.

"Ran-chan? – Humpf!"

Ran let go of a dumbfounded Kazuha, turned tranquilly to Heiji, and extended a hand with an amiable, "Hattori-kun? Kazuha-chan told me a lot about you."

No less astounded, Heiji shook her hand mechanically, and Shinichi thought it wise to cut in the bewilderment.

"Ran-san is here for professional reasons, Kazuha-chan. She's – er – attempting to clear the mess of my family business. Our parents were friends," he added, since Kazuha still looked puzzled. He grinned a little at Ran and added, "She's supposed to be working, so please don't distract her too much."

"Professional reasons, uh?" Heiji snickered after the two girls had lost themselves in endless chatter.

"Oh, please, Hattori," Shinichi said wearily, "don't start this up."

-

"So," Kazuha wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees and grinned, "tell me the truth."

Ran stopped soothing down her futon and looked up with a smaller smile. "The truth?" she repeated innocently.

"The truth!" Kazuha exclaimed, and her last word echoed loudly in the half-lit bedroom. Outside, a nightbird cried indignantly and flew off – they heard the flutter of its wings as it left its branch. Ran mentioned her friend to slow down.

"What do you want to know?" Ran whispered. "My mother was friends with the Kudo family. When she heard they needed help, she sent me. I mean, help was necessary. If you'd only seen that office before I took care of it–"

"Don't misdirect me, Ran!" Kazuha warned, waving a threat-like finger. "I'm talking about Kudo-kun and you know it very well!"

Ran's smile grew, if possible, yet more innocent. "Shinichi-san–?"

"Don't 'Shinichi-san' me! I saw the very way you looked at him this evening – you are in love with Kudo Shinichi!" she accused triumphantly.

"Oh, yes, you sure do know a lot about love looks, don't you?" Ran mocked with her 'I'm The Great Mean Wolf Hidden Under The Red Riding Hood' look. Kazuha immediately blushed, tightened her grip around her knees, and glowered.

"You're stalling," she stated.

"All right," Ran laughed, "I'll tell you." She tucked herself under her covers, propping her elbows on her pillow and her chin on his hands. "I came here once when I was ten. My mother was coming to visit and she'd brought me along… I remember getting rather bored fro the first part, but then Shinichi-san (well, he was 'Shin-san' at the time) came up, and we had rather fun. We kept together all afternoon – I didn't want to go away, and he wanted me to stay for the night–"

Kazuha chuckled.

"We were just ten!" Ran exclaimed, her cheeks crimson. "Well, anyway," she went on with a cough, "before I left, he made me promise I'd come back. But–" her eyes saddened a little, "–my parents divorced then, and at first I – I was too wretched to think about having fun. Then… when it got better… well, I had grown a bit too old to ask my kaa-chan 'mom, take me there so that I can play again with Shin-chan!' Nah."

She rolled on back and sighed at the dark ceiling. Kazuha wrapped the covers of the other futon around her and crossed her arms beneath her cheek. "And? what happened next?"

"Well, I had more or less forgotten all about it – but when my mom asked me if I thought I could handle – alone – the whole management of a momentum like the Kudo Mansion, it all came back to me – that afternoon back to ten years ago, my promise, Shinichi-san…" She sighed again, yet more ruefully. "It is strange, you know, because I half expected him still to be that little boy I had fun with. I was nearly taken aback when he came in and he was twenty."

"But Kudo keeps appearing in the papers," Kazuha protested, "because he's becoming so popular as a tantei. That's how Heiji met him, you know – well, at first he wanted to check which of them was the smartest, but that's just too Heiji-like…"

She pouted with her famous Half-Moon Eyes expression, but Ran grinned; Kazuha, she knew, was very much in love with her childhood friend.

"He's still clueless, then?" she asked softly.

Kazuha shrugged. "Difficult to say. Sometimes he's just as blank as ever and sometimes he takes my hand and is so much more – tender than before. See, it's like we're dating but we never told each other anything about feelings, love, stuff…" she sighed as well. It was a sighing evening. "I wonder how his mind works. I'm not even sure he knows what 'girlfriend' means. He'd probably get out his katana, thinking it's some kind of bug-eyed alien, if someone dared tell him about it." She rubbed her forehead against her knees. Ran reached for her hand and squeezed it.

"Don't worry. He'll understand one day."

"Maybe…" Kazuha smiled at her. "And maybe Kudo-kun will remember about your first meeting if you give him clues."

"Oh, come on." Ran withdrew her hand under the warmth of her covers. "I'm not going to do that."

"He's really popular, you know," Kazuha frowned and bent double to get inside her futon at last. "He's got loads of fangirls."

"I know," Ran mouthed mournfully. The pink letters kept arriving regularly, in packs of six or eight a day. At first she would shove them aside for Shinichi-san to inspect them, until he'd told her she could throw them in the bin straightaway, once she'd checked they were only fan letters. They appeared to exasperate him, so she had no scruple in following his orders. "You know, I've barely known him for a week."

"Most of those girls would kill to be as close to him as you are, if only for a day," Kazuha observed, truthfully. "And you're still here for a month at least, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Ran said, unconvinced. She turned on her side and tucked her arms under her arms, gazing thoughtfully at her friend. "I don't know… I guess I'm just happy I could keep my promise from ten years ago, even if he remembers nothing about it."

Kazuha answered nothing. It'd have been difficult not to seem unbelieving when the dreamy look on Ran's face showed enough of her life-long memories from that past afternoon of May.

-

Aaand… that's the end!

At least, for now… it's a multishot, yes. I don't know how many of them there'll be. Three, probably. I know, the title's meaning keeps in the dark – so far, it's an ordinary AU… – but you'll understand when you'll read the sequel. It's fun anyway to deal with Ran and Shinichi in a completely different context – since it's my first AU ever…