Disclaimer: "Detective Conan" belongs to Gosho Aoyama and "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon" belongs to Naoko Takeuchi. This fic is not really a crossover but only a Shinichi/Ai fic with cameo appearances of BSSM characters thrown in.
Summary: Like beads of various materials, colours, and sizes, our impressions and beliefs are strung together by the invisible thread of destiny…
A/N: I didn't want to post anything new before finishing "Ghost at Twilight", but this plunny has been so annoyingly persistent that I finally decided to get rid of it by posting the beginning (and committing myself to continuing it so that it will stop pestering me).
.
…
The Red String of Fate
by FS
dedicated to Ritz/aritzen
…
.
.
…Six…
…Iris…
…
.
It was only natural that he would see redheads everywhere if he looked out for them, Haibara lectured him. "It's like students who see armies of students on their way to university, or pregnant women who begin to see babies and other pregnant women wherever they look. Your game of following fate's string sounds fun but stalking strangers isn't! I'm also shuddering at your staging of a modern 'Red String Romance' because it's not romantic but cheap! It's actually unbearably cheesy—I'm disappointed!"
"You're only jealous because no one is buying expensive flowers for you," Shinichi taunted. "Now be a good friend and help me choose a bouquet and I might thank you with a present of your choice!" Returning the smile of the saleswoman, who had been waiting behind the counter and throwing him wondering glances since Furuhata-san left, Shinichi gestured that he still needed time on the phone and that she could focus on the next customer instead.
"It's wonderful to see you again, Kaolinite-san! Amazing, isn't it, how fast a whole year has passed?" exclaimed the saleswoman, steering her radiant smile thirty centimetres to the right although her guarded gaze implied that her joy of seeing her new customer was of a purely professional and absolutely not personal nature.
"Kaori Night. Night! Not 'Nite'," the tall woman with bright burgundy hair, whose Japanese was flawless and colloquial although her Caucasian features and pale skin betrayed her origin, corrected the saleswoman's pronunciation with an exasperated sigh. "I'm sick of this weird Asian quirk of pretending not to know how to pronounce the simplest English words! It surely can't be so jawbreaking to say 'Night' instead of 'Nite', can it?"
Shaking her lush, long burgundy mane, which was brushed back and kept away from her face by a thin burgundy headband made of braided false hair and which looked like it had been curled on a hot iron and fixed with hairspray and wax, the irate customer reluctantly accepted the saleswoman's effusive apologies and let her steely gaze roam the baskets of hydrangeas and azaleas at the door. "Nothing toxic this time, please!" she ordered. "Only flowers which can be eaten!"
.
…
.
"The redhead who just entered the shop wants flowers which aren't poisonous and which can be eaten," Shinichi whispered into the phone after Haibara had commented that nothing he could buy for her would make her choose a bouquet for him. "Can you imagine that?"
"Seems like a case for a psychiatrist or for an asylum! Either that, or she simply has a plant-eating cat or dog at home. I've seen poodles chewing grass, which makes them look even more like sheep. In any case, she is no case for you to solve since she wants to buy a non-poisonous plant—so please leave the poor woman alone and don't stalk her to wherever she will be going!" Apropos of nothing, Haibara suddenly began to attack his "quaint, silly concept of fate": "The legend of the red thread is actually the most unromantic story I've ever heard! I hope that you still remember it since we've read it at school!"
Granting his wish to hear the story again from her mouth since he did remember it but didn't know what was supposed to be so unromantic about it, Haibara proceeded in a voice dripping with boredom, "Once upon a time, a little boy threw a rock at a little girl and then ran away in his rage because he was told by an elderly man under the moonlight that he—the boy, not the elderly man!—and the little girl were connected by the red string of fate and therefore would become each other's spouses someday. Years later, when the boy had become a man, he agreed to marry the woman who had been chosen for him by his mother. When he lifted the veil of his bride before they went to bed on their wedding night, he realized with smug satisfaction that she was one of the great beauties of his village but was wearing an ornament to hide a scar on her eyebrow. His blushing bride told him she had been hurt by a jerk who threw a rock at her while she was a little kid… So the question is not why I dislike the story because it seems quite natural to me to detest the concept of enduring a destined spouse for life and abide by the arbitrary decision of a tyrannical god. The question is: what do you and all the people who love the story like about it?"
"It's reassuring to know that there is someone in the world whose life will always be connected to yours. It's the same as the soul mate theory, which is so popular in Western cultures, if you prefer that one." After a pause, partly out of defensiveness, partly out of confusion because she had fallen silent, he added in a sharp voice, "Almost everything in life is harder if you have to do it all by yourself—but I suppose a loner like you who voluntarily shuts herself off from other people and locks herself in her cellar for days and weeks can't comprehend that!"
His speech sounded bitter and pathetic even to his own ears. But it was extremely irritating how Haibara had begun to obsess over her quest of finding the permanent cure, disappearing into her lab directly after school and avoiding him as if he couldn't simply take the temporary antidote to go to Paris. In a way, Shinichi had begun to feel abandoned by her because it was different to be with her than with the Detective Boys. It was impossible to have anything resembling a sensible talk with the Professor; and without a fellow adult to chat with without faking childish innocence, even the murder cases had begun to lose their appeal.
.
…
.
"Ah, have you been anxious and lonely lately because your Osakan friend has been too busy romancing his girlfriend to pay you attention? The destined lovers end up with each other except when the red string only connects their lives but doesn't lead to a marriage—which is, admittedly, not what the original version of the story meant."
"The deity in charge of the red string in the original Chinese legend is the matchmaking god!" Shinichi smirked into the phone. "Of course they're always going to marry in the end! Like soul mates, if you prefer that variant of the story."
She was sorry for shattering his romantic illusions—she gleefully chuckled—but contrary to popular belief, the red string of fate wasn't the same as the concept of soul mates. Soul mates were the two parts of the same human being that had been forcefully separated by Zeus, who was irked by their cheekiness and arrogance. Hence the two parts of the whole, which were destined to spend their lives in search of each other, were truly perfect for each other but only seldom if ever met since the chance of them appearing at the same time and place and finding each other in life was so rare that it was almost non-existent! Even if their paths accidentally crossed against all odds, the gods would probably object to their marriage instead of trying to match them up with each other.
"So, if the two legends were in the same universe, the person tied to you by the red string would be the imperfect lover you will always end up with while the soul mate would be your ideal of a lover whom you can never be with?" Shinichi must admit that her conclusion sounds logical although he had never seen it from this angle.
"Considering that most marriages aren't ideal even in the few cases in which the couple are moderately happy with each other and stay together for life, my theory makes sense," she wickedly remarked. "So, according to the two legends you like so much, you'll usually end up with someone who will aggravate you most of the time while your ideal lover will walk into a bar just when you've left or will accept a party invitation which you've just declined."
"That doesn't sound like compatibility to me!"
"It depends on what your definition of 'compatibility' is! Biologically, the ideal chemistry is the chemistry between 'opposites attract' and not the chemistry between 'birds of the same feather.' Hence the ideal lover is the person with whom the physical chemistry is perfect—the mysterious lover whose kiss makes you swoon and whose love makes you lose your head and do the most grandiose and idiotic things—not the one whose thoughts you can guess and who will obediently watch all the movies you like with you."
"Are you trying to say that Ran and I don't have any chemistry?" Much to his surprise, his tone sounded more challenging than intended.
There was a brief silence before she replied, in a voice which betrayed her utter exhaustion.
"That's what you seem to think—it's not what I'm implying. You two are certainly different enough not to be 'birds of a feather'. Sadly, you two also look like fraternal twins and won't qualify for the "opposites attract" label either even though you do everything possible to show me the brain-shrinking power of your ideal love. But that was mean of me, I didn't mean to diminish your angel's beauty—which I admire—by comparing her to you…"
It was bewildering how easily she regained her composure by mocking Shinichi's love life, but Shinichi was even more surprised by the ease with which he forgave her this uncharacteristic fit of cruelty. "Whatever, I don't like your legends because they both predict a life ruined by love, especially if you combine them with each other! You will either end up with someone you've never wanted to be with and miss the soul mate who would have been the perfect match for you just because fate has pulled the strings—or you do manage to find and marry your soul mate but will spend a life in misery and heartache with them just because the asshole of a deity who is sitting on Olympus or the asshole of a deity who is in charge of the red string, which connects you to someone else, will do everything possible to break up you two!"
"What did you have for breakfast and lunch?" Shinichi inquired in disbelief. Even by her own standards, today's Haibara Ai (the first redhead Shinichi had met, whom Shinichi had forgotten to count because he had grown so accustomed to her face) was unbearable.
.
…
.
"Irises aren't edible, alas," said the saleswoman to the tall redhead in the long red dress and elegant black coat, who was eyeing the bouquets of purple irises the saleswoman presented to her. "They're perfect since they're the symbol of royalty and wisdom and hope. We even have 'Sapphire Beauty' in a wonderful shade of violet! The colour of fate, as his wife always used to say—"
"Well, she has been dead for ten years by now, and there's the saying that one should let the dead rest," the handsome redhead coldly stated. "But I'm taking these lilacs since they can't do any harm."
The lilacs were in the same cool shade of violet as "Sapphire Beauty" and had a most annoyingly sweet scent. "Pancakes and coffee," Haibara said on the phone, answering Shinichi's question as Redhead Number Four (whom Shinichi couldn't follow because he had yet to buy flowers for Ran) left the shop. The saleswoman was smiling expectantly at Shinichi but Haibara absolutely refused to choose a bouquet. "It's not me who will marry her," she declared. "Just get her an edible flower in your colour of fate! If it doesn't only look great but also tastes great, I'm sure that she will appreciate it!"
"What about a bouquet of irises?" the saleswoman suggested with an amused smile, which made Shinichi suspect that she had been eavesdropping on him for longer than he thought. "Do you know that the Goddess of Rainbow in Greek Mythology was called 'Iris'? For the girl you're talking to, they will be most fitting!"
.
…
…To be continued…
…
.
A/N: Since my word processor counts the Japanese honourifics as words and I'm too lazy to count the words myself, I've edited out the word count of each chapter. Maybe I will add them later after finishing the fic. It was just a tongue-in-cheek play on how gems are measured by carats since the scenes are supposed to be beads or gems strung on the same chain.
Ritz: It's great that you've checked since the plot will (hopefully) make more sense to the readers who remember the details in the previous chapters.