Disclaimer: "Detective Conan" belongs to Gosho Aoyama, and "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon" belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.
This is an alternative story to my other fanfic "Encounter in Venice" and one of the possibilities of what could have happened if Ai had taken the antidote before Shinichi brought down the Organization.
Thanks a lot to my friends and betas Rae (Astarael00) and SN1987a and the Aicoholics on LiveJournal, without whom I would never have started this fic.
This chapter has been betaed by aritzen (SN1987a), who hasn't only kept me motivated for years but is even betaing the long fic now that it has ended. I can't thank her enough!
FS
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Ghost at Twilight
(edited version)
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"I suppose we've just..."
"I suppose we've just watched the sunset together," I remark, thinking with some amusement that, if my story were to end at this point, the readers would consider its conclusion a happy ending. "What about having dinner now?"
Now that the last reddish tints have completely disappeared from the sky, I notice that Kudo has become paler since the last time I saw him, sporting deep shadows under his eyes, which are still as attentive as ever. Now those eyes are scanning me for a moment, giving my left arm a short wondering glance before they return to my face.
"I know only two restaurants on the way to your apartment where we can have dinner at this hour." He pulls slightly at my elbow to make me follow him. "I'd like to give Two Lights' a try although it's probably still crammed with people. If you don't mind, we can have our late-night dinner there." Throwing a suspiciously innocent glance at me, he adds, "Unless you prefer going to Furuhata's instead."
I scrutinize his face for a moment, wondering whether he has mentioned Furuhata's bar for the second time without intending to imply anything until the almost imperceptible but definitely mocking expression in his eyes gives him away. For lack of a witty retort, however, I decide to pretend that I haven't noticed his insinuation at all.
"No, thank you. On second thought, I think I'd rather call it a day and go home."
While I'm actually wide awake and would have loved to go to the new restaurant which seems so popular, going to Two Lights' at this hour with Kudo would inevitably entail running into Kaito again. After my conversation with Kaito and the discovery that Kudo has known about Furuhata's all along, sitting with Kaito (with or without his wife) and Kudo in the same bar is the last thing I want.
"All right," Kudo says curtly, and lets go of my elbow.
For an awkward moment, we stare at each other in silence.
"Well, then I'm going home now," I say slowly, feeling extremely exhausted all of a sudden. "Good night!"
Turning on my heels, I wonder once again why I had agreed to see Kudo tonight and why he had bothered to ask me to spend the evening with him. We hardly ever meet, and whenever we meet, we fail to communicate. Things have become uncomfortable between us ever since we returned to our original bodies, but I'm not sure whether it was because of what happened at Pandora's Box or whether it was just the usual moving on.
"I'm going to call us a taxi," he says, falling into step beside me, and pulls out his mobile phone.
"I don't mind walking."
"Oh great, my battery is dead again," he sighs at his battered phone, completely ignoring my remark. "It's time I get a new one."
"I don't need a taxi, anyway," I repeat in case he hasn't paid attention to me. "It's only a thirty-minute walk to Juuban."
"We can take the bus," he suggests as he casts a meaningful glance at my new sandals.
"No, thanks. A little walk will do me good."
I don't know why I'm trying to hide the fact from him that I've lost my handbag and, as a result, don't have any cash on me. Perhaps I'm afraid that Kudo would immediately run off to hunt for it.
Now we're walking next to each other in strained silence, as if neither of us can think of anything appropriate to say. We've known each other for too long to chat about our health and the weather, but, on the other hand, we are not so close that we can easily banter or walk in complete silence with each other as Edogawa and Haibara could have done.
"Are you busy tomorrow?" he asks at last.
"No, this weekend I'm completely free."
"I'm going to fetch Ran from the train station tomorrow night," he says in a confidential tone. "Until then I'm free, too."
While I'm still wondering what I'm to do with this piece of information (did he mean that we should go out and have breakfast or lunch together tomorrow because he has overslept our dinner?), he begins to bombard me with information about our mutual acquaintances as if I had been away for years: Kobayashi-sensei—perhaps it's time we call her Shiratori-sensei now that she is married—has caught a nasty flu (news I've already heard from Ayumi-chan); Hondou-kun is holidaying in Rome, recovering from a fresh wound (which, knowing him, I believe he inflicted upon himself during another spell of bad luck or clumsiness); Jodie-san has broken her right arm during an attempt to stop two fleeing bank robbers at the same time (I've already learned about the whole unfortunate affair from Jodie-san herself, who has been keeping in touch with me since she moved to Chicago)... It seems Kudo, like most optimistic people, likes to start with the bad news before moving on to the good ones.
"Hattori and Toyama announced their engagement last Sunday," Kudo proceeds as expected.
"I know," I interject. Ran has already informed me about this. "Those two are so slow it almost hurts to watch them. They should have married years ago—just like Ran and you."
I don't know why I said that. Perhaps I only wanted to see him blush again. But Kudo Shinichi at twenty-two certainly doesn't get as easily embarrassed as Kudo Shinichi at seventeen. He doesn't blush at all but only shoots me an inquiring look and asks, "So you think that, too?"
"You already wanted to propose to her years ago. I don't know what you're waiting for."
Marvelous! First we didn't know what to say to each other and now we're already discussing his marriage prospects. Next, we might even get the idea to discuss mine.
"My mother keeps nagging me about it these days," he sighs. "She doesn't let even one phone call pass without asking me when Ran and I are finally going to marry. I think it's too early for both of us because Ran still wants to win the next national karate championships and I still want to focus on my cases. I haven't even set up my own detective agency yet." He kicks at a pebble, which amuses me for no clear reason. "My mother suggests that we get married as soon as possible, have one kid or two, and work on our careers again when they're old enough to go to kindergarten—but that's exactly what I don't want to do."
"Isn't it normal that you don't want to do what your mother wants you to? If she had suggested the opposite, you would probably have run off to get married in an instant."
He winces.
"Maybe... But that's because she has no common sense at all and keeps saying confusing things I can't understand... things like I wouldn't know what I want and should learn to stick to my decisions for once. She once said really odd things about you, too..." He knits his brows and frowns at an invisible person in front of him while kicking nervously at a pebble on the street.
"What things?"
He sighs, hesitating as if he weren't sure whether he should tell me or not. Then he smiles and says almost apologetically, "It was years ago, so it doesn't really matter anymore... But she said you were always looking at me because you thought there was something on my face."
"I can't remember staring at you at all," I protest, puzzled by his mother's assertion. "I usually look directly at people when I talk to them. It doesn't have anything to do with you."
"I already told you I can't understand what's going on in her head either."
We're walking in silence again. This time, however, it feels slightly less oppressive than before.
"Has Sonoko told you she is going to Venice to study art history?" he proceeds.
"Yes, she even told me she has already rented a villa there."
"It's another silly idea of hers! She has never been interested in either art or history."
"I think it's an excuse to move away from her mother and spend more time with Kyogoku."
He knows Sonoko's mother likes to pick on Kyogoku. But he can't quite understand why it absolutely had to be Venice. Why should anyone want to pay an exorbitant price for a villa in an expensive, impractical, tiny city to study something they aren't even interested in?
Venice has a certain romantic charm if you can tolerate all the inconveniences, I point out. Tenoh Haruka and Kaioh Michiru have been living there for years, just like Aino Minako—and rumour has it that Seiya Kou is going to move there, too. If four of Sonoko's favourite stars don't mind the inconveniences, why should she? Sonoko, who has never concerned herself with money matters, would have moved to Honolulu if she had known that Seiya Kou would be there. Of course it absolutely had to be Venice!
"Seiya Kou... I see Sonoko has already infected you with her Three Lights obsession," he says in a humorous tone, not really meaning it.
"Luckily, she hasn't. I don't even know what he looks like although she insists that I must have seen his face on TV or on a poster somewhere. But isn't it supposed to be 'Two Lights', like the restaurant?"
No, it was 'Three Lights' before the band dissolved, Kudo explains. Two of them—the background vocalist and the keyboardist—are staging a comeback in July as 'Two Lights' while Seiya, their previous lead vocalist and Sonoko's favourite, seems to have retired.
"I'm surprised Sonoko didn't show you all of her Seiya Kou collection," he chuckles quietly to himself. "Ran has told me that Sonoko collects anything remotely related to him, from DVDs, CDs, posters, photos, ads, and autographs to the random merchandise—you know, the usual stuff: mascots, key chains, T-shirts, stickers, mugs... No sooner had she discovered him than he retired from the stage and disappeared into thin air—so she tries to make up for it by collecting junk. It looks like a mania to me. The poor guy is lucky she hasn't broken into his apartment to steal his clothes... yet."
"She once told me she didn't know where he lived. His jealous agent is hiding his whereabouts well. Besides, she is not the type who would—"
"His agent probably had to hide his address for his own safety. Some fans can turn violent when they feel abandoned by their idol, and I remember many of his fans felt betrayed when he left the stage without giving them a good excuse. Still, I didn't expect Sonoko to let such small obstacles hinder her."
Kudo seldom talks sardonically about any other person but Sonoko, and I'm not sure whether he only dislikes her because of her influence on Ran or whether he really can't stand her personally. With her capricious and whimsical nature, she must seem to him like the polar opposite of his modest girlfriend. In any case, I realize I have to lead the conversation in a different direction if I don't want to end up ridiculing Sonoko behind her back.
"Since she never mentioned his band to me, I always thought Seiya was a soloist."
"As far as I know, he has never been a soloist. He never appeared onstage without the other two."
"And how come you know so much about him? Are you a secret fan?"
"Nonsense. I'm only well-informed about him because it's important for my job. Apart from that, it's you who really lack knowledge when it comes to the people the public is interested in."
"That's going to change soon. Sonoko has invited me to her place to have a look at her idol collections, and I'm running out of excuses why I absolutely can't go."
"You don't want to go?"
"Not as long as I can still find an excuse!"
"I'd have accepted her invitation just to have a look at that monstrous collection of hers. But of course she wouldn't invite me! Why don't you want to go?"
"It doesn't have anything to do with her. The older I get, the more I prefer meeting people in public to visiting them at home. I like keeping a certain distance... It makes life simple."
"I prefer visiting people in their homes," he says thoughtfully. "You can learn a lot about other people by looking at their apartments and studying the contents of their cupboards and drawers."
"You know, that's actually something I can imagine you doing... looking into other people's cupboards without their permission."
He laughs. And the past three years seem to have been erased all of a sudden, as if we had only taken the antidote a few days ago.
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A cool breeze makes me shiver, and Kudo takes off his jacket to throw it over my shoulders before I can protest.
"I'm still warm," he says. "But you've been sitting in the park for hours. You're going to catch a cold."
"Aren't you the one who always caught a cold?" I ask, throwing the jacket back at him. "Spare your gallantries for Ran when you fetch her from the train tomorrow. And you should really stop carrying all your belongings with you. Your jacket is even heavier than Kojima-kun's bento."
I'm shooting myself in the foot again because I'm freezing and would gladly have snuggled into that warm jacket if it had not belonged to Kudo. However, there is something about the way he treats me which irks me to no end.
"I remember catching most of my colds from you," he says, handing me his jacket again with a smile.
"That's not true!" I protest, shoving his jacket away. Busy fighting off his unwanted chivalries, I was about to run into a wall on my left and barely manage to jump to the right at the last moment, knocking against Kudo during the process.
"Speak of the devil!" Kudo smiles, indicating the poster on the wall where two young men in suits, the tall one in yellow and the short one in blueish-grey, are gazing down at the audience with piercing eyes. Framing their figures in a very picturesque and hardly natural way, their flying ponytails are easily the longest I've ever seen.
"So that's Two Lights?" I ask, letting my gaze wander from their beautiful androgynous faces to their much-too-glossy hair (apparently a result of hairspray and Photoshop overuse) to the roses on their suits. "Are they the owners of the restaurant in Juuban?"
"Yes, their fans probably hope that they're going make a surprise appearance there in the near future, especially since there is a small stage for live music on the first floor. As far as I know, the house is always bursting with fans and reporters. Two Lights haven't shown themselves until now, but I suspect they're saving the performance for the week before their comeback."
"They could look fabulous with those pretty faces, especially the short one." I eye the poster critically. "But standing next to each other like that, they look a bit ridiculous, don't you think? I feel like calling them Shortie and Stick. And the roses they wear on their jackets really add insult to injury."
"When they were Three Lights, their lead singer was standing between them. I think they looked better then, when their ponytails and the lighting made them look like three shooting stars."
"So why did they split up? Was Seiya's voice so unbearably bad that they had to stop?"
He laughs.
"You've never heard anything by Three Lights, haven't you? His voice was almost unbearably good. There was a real hype about him before he retired from the stage."
"Really? Well, I suppose not everyone wants to be a lead singer of a former boy group forever. It must have been suffocating."
"Probably," he says slowly, thoughtfully, as if I had reminded him of something.
"One extra capsule of APAH for your thoughts!" I give his arm a little nudge since he seems suddenly very far away.
"How generous! But I'm sure you'll be disappointed," he says dismissively. "I was suddenly reminded of an old case of mine. The one on your birthday two years ago… Do you remember? I didn't make it in time because I was investigating a case."
"I've almost forgotten about that," I lie. "Most probably I didn't even expect you to come. You know, it wouldn't have been the first time that you had stumbled over a case."
"I was late, but I did come immediately after solving the case," he says, matter-of-factly. "It's you who wasn't home! And you didn't even take your mobile phone or your Detective badge with you, as usual." There is a trace of bitterness in his voice, which throws me. "You never carry it around anymore ever since you took the antidote! Anyway... Since I didn't want to sit there doing nothing, I decided to visit the culprit first and come back later.
"But you didn't return, did you? Or was it so late that you didn't dare to ring again when you were finished with your case?" I ask, fearing that he must have seen me with Kaito through the huge windows of Furuhata's. Is it really futile to hide my past with Kaito from him, or could I still pretend that Kaito and I had only gone out for dinner that night and never met again? Thanks to Kaito's disguise, I could even have pretended that I had never known it was Kaito in the first place if I hadn't been taken by surprise by Kudo's question.
He only gives me an enigmatic smile, which seems fainter and lasts slightly longer than usual, before his eyes leave mine. Following his gaze, I realize we're now standing in front of my landlady's garden, where the azaleas are already in full bloom. In the darkness of the night, only dimly lit by an old lantern next to the entrance door, the colours of the flowers have changed from pink and red to a greyish mauve and midnight-blue. And once again I'm reminded of Kaito, who had been standing here with me two years ago, kissing me goodbye for the first time.
"Well," Kudo says quietly, meaningfully, somehow conveying the impression that he knows exactly what I've been thinking of.
"Well," I echo, stepping back so that I will not confuse him with Kaito in my distraction and accidentally kiss him out of habit. "It's goodbye again, isn't it? Thanks for bringing me home."
"Are you very tired?" he asks.
"Not really! But you definitely look as if you need to catch up on sleep."
Now that I'm studying his face more closely, I notice that he doesn't only look extremely sleep-deprived but also exhausted and despondent. Since I'm not under the illusion that he would have dragged himself to our odd tête-à-tête in such a condition, waited for hours in front of my apartment, and searched for me at Furuhata's and Ueno-koen simply to tell me that he had overslept when an e-mail or a phone call the next day could have cleared up the situation, I conclude that he might have wanted to meet me tonight for a much more solid reason. When I open my mouth to tell him that we don't have time to stand here staring at each other forever and that he should tell me at once whether anything is wrong with him, he takes a wide step towards me, closing the distance between us, and places a hand on my shoulder.
"Since you're not too tired, may I ask you a favour?" he asks gently, in his sweetest voice. I still know that voice well because he always used it in the past whenever he was begging me for the temporary antidote.
"You can always try," I reply just as sweetly, ironically, thinking that I'm most probably going to offer him advice on choosing a present for Ran. What else could he want from me so badly at such an hour?
He bends forward and rummages around in the pockets of his jacket, which he has successfully thrown over me and which I'm still wearing. After an eternity of searching for it and pulling out sundry objects like a bunch of keys, an address book, a wallet, letters, papers, old tickets, two notebooks, various pens, pocket knives, magnifying glasses, earphones, and tracking glasses, he fishes out an empty brown bottle, which I immediately recognize as the first bottle of APAH I gave him three years ago.
"Can you give me the next batch of APAH? I took my last capsules before leaving my house tonight. I don't have any left."
"You've already used up the latest batch?" I stare at him, aghast. "There were three hundred capsules in it, enough to last until June, or so I thought."
I've got into the habit of sending Kudo the APAH capsules four times a year by throwing a sealed package into his mailbox when no one is watching. Thinking that he—being the workaholic he is—might need three instead of two capsules on particularly stressful days, I always make sure to give him at least three hundred capsules so that he will never run out of painkillers before receiving the next batch. As I expected him to swallow them within limits (how could I, considering it's Kudo I was dealing with?), I thought he must be collecting them by now instead of barely getting by on what I give him.
"I can't help it," he sighs. "I think my headaches only get worse with every passing day—and you said there wouldn't be any side effects. I hope there is nothing wrong with the antidote."
"That's strange! There aren't any complications as far as I'm concerned. I've even reduced my daily dosage to one capsule."
Since he didn't have any health problems during the first year after taking the antidote, it's unlikely that the antidote has anything to do with his current problem, I explain to him. The headaches are most likely a reaction of his body to the shock it experienced when it returned to its original state after the long interruption, like the pain one experiences when one tries to move an arm which has been too long in a plaster cast. They are going to disappear gradually with time depending on his mental health and ability to heal, even though I can't tell him how long it will take.
"... Still, I'd like to examine you again and do a few blood tests on you. I have to find out why you need so much APAH to get rid of your headaches." I study his pupils with scientific interest. "Your body might have grown immune to APAH during the years or really developed an allergy to it, which would be even worse. In any case, I'll have to find an alternative painkiller for you, something that you can mix by yourself. I don't want to spend the rest of my life mixing APAH and spoon-feeding you every day. I'm not very busy this month, so drop in on me whenever I'm home and have yourself checked."
"Thank you. We're going to do that as soon as possible, tomorrow morning if you don't mind. But can't you give me a few of your capsules in advance for tonight?"
"You know what? You begin to sound like a real drug addict, which—now that I'm thinking about it—you actually are, considering how much APAH your body needs." I consult my watch, which says ten to one a.m. "I can give you a few of mine for tonight if you like and make you the next batch before I go to bed. You only need to wait for an hour."
"That would be great!" He sighs in relief, beaming at me with such a happy expression on his face that it pricks my conscience. Nothing I've ever invented has functioned properly—especially not when Kudo was concerned; and the realization that he is still a victim of my drugs and perhaps forever depending on me profoundly disturbs me.
"Would you mind if I came with you at this hour?" he asks. "Or would you prefer me to wait for you at Furuhata's?"
There is that peculiar sense of déjà vu again when he mentions Furuhata's, and the memory of Kaito offering me his arm with a smile... Kaito's smile on Kudo's face...
He is looking at me expectantly, obviously preferring to wait in my peaceful, quiet apartment where he can collapse on the sofa to sitting in a noisy bar with background music and fans while his headaches are killing him.
"That's ridiculous! Of course you can wait upstairs in my apartment!" I tell him in a fit of irrational thinking, ignoring the thought that it might be better if he waited for me in Furuhata's, in the Crown game centre, or in another bar at the end of the street. "I'm going to make us tea."
Fumbling around in my left pocket for the key, I find it stuck in the small hole it has pricked into the thin fabric. Once again, I must admit that the pockets of this dress were not made to be used, at least not in the way I use them, and spontaneously put my right hand into my right pocket to search for something my mind hasn't clearly defined yet. When I realize that I'm looking for the card Kaito has given me, I discover to my bewilderment that it has disappeared. However, there is no hole in my right pocket! And for a moment, I don't really know anymore whether I can still trust my memories and my own perception or whether all the happenings of tonight have only been parts of a long, strangely naturalistic dream.
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