It was only later that she realized she still had the man's jacket draped around her shoulders. She blushed and removed it, hanging it on her coat hanger and thinking that she would have to find some way to get it back to him.
The days continued on diligently after that incident, as they always do, but it would not allow itself to be pushed from her mind. Like an annoying nat on a hot summer's day, it refused to be brushed off. It kept coming back, the feeling of his presence beside her, the worn texture of his jacket (which she hadn't worn nor touched since that night), the enveloping pressure of his lips on hers. That was the sensation she recalled most often, the way his arms had wrapped around her, the way his lips were rough and chapped and tasting slightly of nicotine gum, the desire to kiss him back, damn it that she had almost acted upon before he pulled away. She wished she had stopped him from leaving. She was glad she had let him leave.
She tried to forget. But it just wasn't in the cards.
Nearly a month after that night, a knock sounded on her unit's door and she opened it to find a well dressed young man there, one that she recognized from reading the paper every morning before she realized she was late and ran out the door, sometimes even forgetting to lock it behind her.
"Kudo Shinichi?" she gasped out and he grinned, obviously proud that his reputation had proceeded him.
"Yes ma'am. Are you a Toyama Kazuha-san?" he questioned politely and she nodded stepping aside.
"Would you like to come in, Kudo-san?" she asked and he nodded, stepping over the threshold and exchanging his shoes for slippers when she offered them to him.
As he was slipping out of his shoes, he noticed the blue jacket still hanging on the coat rack. "Ah, Toyama-san, whose jacket might that be over there? The blue one?"
Kazuha blushed. "No one's, Kudo-san, please, come into the living room and I'll prepare some tea."
"I'll pass on the tea, if you don't mind. I have some questions for you regarding a case I've been working on for quite some time now. Would it bother you to answer them for me?" Shinichi asked, his tone ever polite as he sat on the large sofa in her living room. She sat adjacent to him in a small loveseat and raised her eyebrows.
"A case? I haven't been involved in any cases for years, Kudo-san; not since I moved out of my father's house. And all of them that I know of were closed nearly as soon as they were opened." She said and Shinichi shook his head, a grin dancing across his face for a moment.
"Actually, I want to ask you about any encounters you might have had with a man by the name of Hattori Heiji. I've been tracking him for years, but I can never get a pin on the guy. And now he's got my fiancé. So, you see, while I doubt Hattori would ever hurt Ran, he feels some kind of sisterly affection for her, I would really like to have her back as soon as possible. So any information you have would be extremely useful." Shinichi said, still smiling at Kazuha as she gasped.
"He just saved me from some street punks one day and walked me home. I haven't seen him since, but he did forget his jacket here." She said, waving a hand towards the aforementioned article of clothing.
"So he gave you that jacket?" Shinichi asked and Kazuha detected a note of something in his voice and a strange kind of glimmer in his eyes.
"Yes, he saw me shivering and dropped it on me while berating me for lying about whether I was cold or not." Kazuha said and the glimmering intensified.
"That's strange. Hattori's not exactly known for his kindness to strangers, per se. Are you sure he only walked you home, Toyama-san? He didn't come in or anything?" Shinichi asked and Kazuha blushed violently.
"I invited him in, but he refused and left..." Kazuha said, trailing off and Shinichi noticed.
"He just left you there and walked away? Is that it?" he questioned, leaning forward and Kazuha's eyes darted back and forth before settling on his and sighing.
"He kissed me, out of nowhere and then he left, looking confused or something of the like. That's it, I swear." Kazuha said at length and Shinichi looked almost as though he was glowing in his triumph.
"Ne, Toyama-san, would you mind doing me a favor? Nothing too bad, I promise. The thing is, I really would like to get Ran back soon and I have the feeling, if you're in the right place at the right time, you might just be able to return that jacket to Hattori. What do you say?" Shinichi said, his eyes glimmering and Kazuha thought he looked something like a child being offered something sweet and sugary and overall, very bad for their health; absolutely delighted.
But, she could not deny that she wanted to see her strange savior from that night once again. "Okay, Kudo-san, I'm in. What do you need me to do?"