Oct. 8th - ShinRan Week Day 4 - Topic/Prompt: Funny Moments / Feelings
On a particular boring schoolday, Sonoko is playing a little, funny game. Ran is sceptic, but whether she realized it or not, it made her think about her feelings towards the special person in her life.
Ran stretched herself and sighed. This school day was dragging already and it was far from over. Thankfully they had a break now, but still, it seemed like it was going to be a very long day. Around Ran, Sonoko and other girls were chit-chatting about something that excited them very much. Ran went over to join their little conversation.
"You seem to have a lot of fun, don't you." Ran said to them.
"Ah, Ran!" Sonoko exclaimed, greeting her friend with a smile. "I was just about to call you over, you have to participate in this."
Ran came closer. "Participate in what?"
"We're playing a fun, little gossiping game!" One of the other girls explained. "We're talking about who likes which boy and then we scribble our names with their surnames, to see how it would like after a wedding. Here, take a look."
Ran took a closer look onto the sheet paper on the desk in the center of the girls. Indeed, there were some names scribbled on it, the first one read:
Sonoko Shiraishi
Ran looked over to the other side of the classroom, where most of the boys had gathered. Shougo Shiraishi was among them, he was on one the sport teams; though Ran didn't know which, the only teams she knew all the members of were her own karate club and the soccer team, although she didn't keep tabs on that ever since Shinichi left the club during the transition from middle school to high school.
She looked back to Sonoko. "Really, Sonoko, you brought up Shiraishi-kun? I didn't ever hear say you like him more than any other guy."
Sonoko gave her another smile. "Well, maybe I haven't talked about him in particular, but you never know, he is athletic and somewhat handsome, can't rule him out just yet."
"But still, gossiping about that kind of thing seems fine, but isn't writing your name like that going a bit far...?" Ran frowned.
"Oh no, it's just a little innocent fun, nothing more than the talks we usually have, really." Sonoko now sported a more teasing grin. "Speaking of what we usually talk about: now that Ran is here, I wonder from which of the boys we should pick a name from, who Ran likes...ideas?" Coming from Sonoko, this was a purely rhetorical question and all of the four other girls knew it, but they were happy to play along.
"Kudo-kun!" - "Kudo-kun!" - "Kudo-kun!" - "Kudo-kun!" The four of them said in almost perfect unison.
Heavily blushing and agitated, Ran tried to shush them. "K-keep it down, you're way too loud!" She said. Looking back to the boys, no one of them had noticed and Shinichi wasn't with them anyway. However, some of the other girls aside from Sonoko's group had notice and sported knowing smiles.
"Four out of four, Ran, the verdict is quite clear it seems. Here, scribble it under the other names." Sonoko said and gave Ran a pen.
However, Ran refused. "W-what, you want me to write my name with Shinichi's surname...? N-no way, that's just stupid..."
"But that's the point!" Sonoko explained. "Just a little, stupidly funny game. Here, if you don't want to do it, I'll do it..."
Sonoko already moved the pen over to the piece of paper, when Ran interrupted her. "Don't you dare!" Ran exclaimed. "I don't want this, okay? Play this game without me, I abstain." With that Ran turned around and went back to her desk.
The other girls looked at her as she walked off. "I hope we didn't offend her or anything...it was supposed to be fun..." One of them said.
"Yeah..." Another girl agreed. "...usually Ran-chan is not that reluctant towards gossip..."
"Don't worry," Sonoko calmed them down, "she's just in denial with her husband and maybe this is really not her kind of game. And you know, she doesn't hold grudges against anyone, tomorrow we will all laugh about this! Let's see, which one to pick next..." With the mood restored to cheerful again, the girls continued to play.
Meanwhile, Ran was already back at her desk. 'Stupid game...' She thought to herself and grabbed one of her pens to write down some notes from class.
'Writing your own name with the surnames of someone you maybe like, someone you can't quite rule out. Silly...' Ran mused while writing her notes. 'But...is it just a maybe with Shinichi? Ever since we returned from New York, he feels different somehow. I don't know why, but for some reason, I'm more nervous around him than usual and sometimes my heart starts to race when we're close. But we're friends, have been for so long, isn't this just friendship what I feel...or is this more? He's always full of himself, a bit too arrogant and so deeply emerged in mystery stuff, but still, he's so brave, cool, athletic, dependable and handsome...' Ran came to a halt because of her own thoughts. '...wait a second, WHAT AM I THINKING?! Calling him handsome and whatnot, I'm starting to sound like one of his fangirls...still can't believe he really has fangirls now. Although, there is a lot to like about him. But he made me cry so often in the past, even when we first met...then again, he always makes me smile too and makes me feel happy...and makes me feel...I don't know what to call it, but there is this unique feeling, that only Shinichi manages to give me. Wait...does that mean...could it be...that I'm really in love with Shinichi?'
While trying to make sense of her thoughts, Ran looked on the notes she wrote down and gasped. During the writing of class notes, she had also absentmindedly scribbled something down on the side of the paper.
Ran Kudo
'W-w-why the hell did I write this?! Gah, Sonoko's stupid game really infiltrated my thoughts more than I imagined...but...maybe...'
"Yo, Ran!" Shinichi said, appearing before her desk.
Caught off guard, Ran was startled and jumped up from her seat, scrambling all of her papers together, hopefully hiding her scribbling before Shinichi saw. "S-s-s-hinichi! Phew, you startled me..."
Poor Shinichi looked like a deer caught in the headlights, he didn't expect that kind of reaction from his friend. "S-sorry, I didn't mean to-..."
"No, no, it's fine, don't worry." Ran assured him. "I was just thinking about...some school stuff, that's all."
"Ah, I see. Well, I know that feeling when you think so hard about something that you kinda forget your surroundings." Shinichi said with a small grin. "Anyway, I just wanted to ask you where we're gonna watch the next episode of Detective Samonji. Watching it at your place was alright last time, but your father didn't seem to like us hanging around and I got the feeling he disturbed us so often on purpose...then again, he also doesn't like it when we watch it at my place..."
Ran remembered that evening. Kogoro was unnecessarily bustling around, maybe Shinichi was right and he did it on purpose. Since they've become teenagers, Ran's father wasn't too fond of Shinichi anymore for some reason, especially ever since his parents left; Ran and him also always got into a small argument when Ran went over to the Kudo mansion nowadays. Ran sighed. "We'll watch it at your place. Dad is just...I don't know, he's weird lately. Maybe it's because he's really missing Mom...we should organize another reunion. What did you propose after the last one failed? A visit at the local aquarium?"
Shinichi nodded. "Right, because your father likes fish so much..." Before he could anything else, the bell rang and their teacher entered the classroom; students around them made their way back to their respective desks. "Okay, so we're gonna watch it at my house. Same time as usual?"
Ran sat down and simply nodded again for confirmation; Shinichi went over to his own desk. While their teacher was beginning talking about the topics of todays lesson, Ran tried to bring back order into the papers she scrambled when he appeared. When she managed that, her gaze fell back on her scribbling.
Ran Kudo
She was already hovering her pen over the letters, ready to cross it out and make it unreadable. But somehow, she didn't want to, so instead she quietly teared the scribbling out of the paper and hid it in her bag. She could always dispose of it later, but it felt like disrespectfully wiping the writing out would bring bad luck somehow. At least that's what she told herself.
Ran looked over to Shinichi, who had boredom written all over his face already. Somehow, that made Ran smile too. Just looking at him and exactly knowing what he was thinking in this very moment, it just made her happy for some reason.
'This feeling...' Ran thought, '...the way it makes my heart race...this is love, isn't it?'