Act 2 Scene 2 家族 [Kazoku] 'Family'
When they got back, they were greeted by the girls and Kogorou, who was slightly red in the face, arms crossed. He swatted Conan on the head and scolded, "Always tell us where you're going! It gives us a heart attack every time we realize you've vanished. We thought you'd found the one opium-den in town and had gotten snatched by drug-crazed killers again."
"Yessir," Conan mumbled holding his head.
By the door, the girls were hovering, talking quietly. Conan hobbled closer to hear them. "Are you ready for lunch?" Sonoko asked Ran.
Ran nodded, and wrung her hands. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess. I've got butterflies."
"I'll do most of the talking," Sonoko said. She gave Ran a quick peck on the cheek and grabbed her hand. "Let's go in."
"I'm cheering for you," said Sera, following them only a pace behind.
"Huh," muttered Kogorou. "I wonder what those two are up to this time?" They followed the girls into the restaurant.
Once everyone (sans Areku, as usual) was seated, and drinks were being served, Ran and Sonoko stood up. "If I can have everyone's attention please!" Ran shouted. She grabbed Sonoko's hand and squeezed tightly. "Sonoko and I have something to tell you."
Sonoko took a deep breath. "We've realized something after talking with Grampa and Gramma. We talked it over with our boyfriends, and we've decided to make it official. Grampa and Gramma are right; Ran and I are dating."
Sonoko's grandmother stood up, snarling. "Girl, do you want to be released from your fate so much that you'd shame your family so?"
"No! You're wrong!" Sonoko said, looking her straight in the eye. "These are unrelated issues."
"We're trying to be honest about our feelings, so that other people don't get hurt," Ran interjected. "It wasn't fair to our boyfriends to continue the way that we had. We don't want to lie to our families either."
"Right!" Sonoko exclaimed. "This is about honesty."
Kogorou raised his hand. "So, are you two still dating your boyfriends?"
"No," Ran said quickly. "We broke up with them last night." Her eyes flickered over to Conan. He looked down, and couldn't look up again.
Sonoko's grandmother looked like she was about to squish a cockroach with her bare foot. "Word of this had better not get out," she hissed, looking around the table. "I will not have our family publicly ridiculed for one pig-headed delinquent girl! And you!" she hissed at Sonoko, resembling a coiled snake. "Until I hear of the end of this nonsense, you will get no financial assistance from the Suzuki Financial Group!"
"Mother!" Sonoko's father said, aghast. "You don't need to go that far!"
"If that's how you want it," Sonoko said before her grandmother could answer. "Then so be it. I'm not going to lie to make you feel better, and I'm never going to lie about loving someone."
"Your place with your family will be waiting for you when you come to your senses," her Gramma said. Then she muttered a Buddhist mantra under her breath.
"Well," said Kogorou, "I'm just glad you're done with that arrogant brat Shinichi. Good job bagging a rich girlfriend, honey!"
Conan sighed to himself. At least Kogorou was happy about this. Ran too. Even helping Sonoko face down her grandparents, she seemed to be getting the strength to continue standing through holding Sonoko's hand. Their fingers were interlaced. He had no choice but to be happy that Ran was happy, even though seeing her getting that happiness from someone else hurt worse than transforming through flu-Baigar reaction.
"I'm happy for you," said Sonoko's sister, softly. "We should order our dinners now. Everyone is tired and anxious from low blood sugar. Let's continue this when we've gotten some food in us."
"Right right," said Mr. Suzuki. He signaled the waiters. The rest of the meal passed with very little talk.
After the meal, Kogorou led the girls to the Mouri cabin, before Sonoko's grandmother had the chance to attack. Once inside, he closed the doors and the windows, then shooed Conan out of the room to give them a bit of privacy. Then he sat them down on the bed, while he leaned against Conan's cot.
The girls watched him a little nervously as he took a deep breath and looked them in the eyes.
"I meant what I said. I fine with you two dating. You can get married too, and I won't mind." He nervously let out the extra air he'd been holding in his lungs, and started again. "Listen, don't let anyone tell you that you must be like a traditional family. As you know, Eri and I…" he looked down, frowning. "Eri and I tried the traditional way at first. We lived together, had lots of fun, but when Eri got pregnant, and there were staff-cuts at the prosecutor's office, they laid her off. So we thought that she'd be a stay at home mom for our little blossom, and I'd be the bread-winner. It was a disaster."
Ran bit her lip. She'd never heard about any of this before.
"We fought constantly. Eri was miserable; I was miserable because she was miserable; we both did a lot of stuff we aren't proud of."
"But," Ran interjected, "I don't remember you fighting! I just remember Mom suddenly moving out one day."
Kogorou half smiled, half sighed. "That was one thing we did right. We never fought in front of you." He looked into his daughter's eyes. "We didn't want you to think it was all your fault. Mostly, I'd say it was because Eri felt trapped. When she was fired and all of her hard work taken away, and the chance to continue doing what she loved was gone…" He shook his head, eyes closing to some old memory. "We realized that we had to change things. She moved out, got a job as a defense attorney, and I quit my job as a policeman so I could work from home as a private eye to take care of you. Since then, that's worked for us."
He took Ran's and Sonoko's hand in his. "You're young. Don't rush things the way we did. Don't let anyone pressure you into a lifestyle that you don't want."
He turned to Sonoko. "And if you break my daughter's heart, don't think that being female will make you any safer!"
Ran and Sonoko giggled and hugged Kogorou.
Leaning against the wall in the hallway, Shinichi Kudou cried quietly, his jealousy of Sonoko raging but his heart glad that Kogorou was so supportive of Ran. The old man could be wise, he realized. Didn't change the fact that this sucked. He mopped his face with his handkerchief, hiding the evidence of his heartbreak, and he went off to find a quiet place.
After hobbling for a few minutes, he found himself back in Areku's "room". He nestled himself between two large roots. Completely hidden from view, he pulled out his cellphone, and called him mom.
It took a while for her to answer, and when she did, her voice was drowsy. "Shin-dear, it's 4AM. Is anything wrong?"
Whoops. He did some quick math. 15 hours of time difference meant they were in Europe, probably London. "Sorry, I forgot about the timezones. It's not an emergency; I'll call back later."
"Well, now I'm up. Might as well tell me."
He took a long, shaking breath, hoping he could make it to the end of this sentence. "Ran and I..." -another breath to hold him through- "…broke up."
His mother let him blubber incoherently into his cellphone for a few minutes before interrupting him.
"Shinichi, she's not the only girl in the entire world."
He paused to wipe off his eyes again. "I know that. She's just the only girl I've ever liked."
His mom sighed. "Well, I know from personal experience, that you can like someone again. Goodness, before your father, I had five or six boyfriends. Some of them I was sure were The One. Turns out that it didn't turn out. By the way, Shin, you inherited the crying from me. After my first break-up I could barely go fifteen minutes without becoming a red-eyed, swollen-faced zombie." She laughed softly. "Truth is, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner."
"How could you possible predict this, Mom? I think that being poisoned by an international crime syndicate and turning into a first-grader isn't something that you can predict."
She sighed. "Well, that was certainly not a twist I was expecting, but highschool relationships don't usually last beyond highschool. Sometimes people get lucky and their highschool-love is the love of their life, but that's pretty rare. It's normal to go through a few trials and errors before getting it right. Even then, sometimes it doesn't last."
Shinichi blew his nose, and his mother waited for him to pick up the phone again.
"So, do you need me to go rant at Ran for daring to break my little pumpkin's heart?"
"No, that won't be necessary. I still love her, and I don't want to see her hurt."
"That's very mature of you, Shinichi."
He sighed, thinking back to the dinner. "She's got enough to deal with. Turns out she was falling in love with Sonoko while I was away, and Sonoko's grandparents found out, and they're determined to make life difficult for them."
His mom giggled.
"It's not funny, Mom."
"No, no no… I was just remembering how enthusiastically Sonoko cheers at Ran's karate tournaments. I hadn't considered the possibility, but it makes sense. Or, would you rather have me rage at Sonoko, because I can do that too."
"No, I don't want to hurt her either. But, when we go back to Tokyo, I'll have to live with Ran again."
"Would you like to stay at home for a few days, get some space between you two?"
He fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "Yeah."
"Alright. Your father and I will get on the next plane to Tokyo and you can cry and eat as much curry as you want. Mr. Akai has a talent for making curry, and I'm sure he'd be happy to help you there."
"Thanks Mom." He meant it too. He was feeling a lot better already. Letting the soft sand caress his toes, he read his parents in on the latest developments in the case, and his grand scheme to catch them once and for all.
Author's Note
To make this story have a Japanese feel, there is a set of phrases that I avoided, even if they make sense in English – ones that are Christian themed. Phrases like, "dear god!" "for god's sake" "oh god!" "Jesus Christ!" "I pray that-"… you get the idea. Christianity is a weird, exotic religion in Japan, one which has a pretty marriage ceremony and apparently uses crosses as Omamori (protective talismans)… and that's about all most Japanese people know about Christianity. So, I made the decision to make the Japanese characters not use references to Christianity, even in passing. (And it pisses me off when people just replace English idioms with "god" in them with "kami" as though they mean the same thing… but that's a rant for another day.)
There is something that I included. In Japan, when something bad happens or if someone needs to calm themselves down, it's pretty common for someone to say a Buddhist Mantra. Though, there is a slight twist – most people aren't very serious Buddhists, and haven't actually learned any mantras. There's a few sounds that are common in them though: "namu" and "on." Then there are a few Buddha names that people remember, like Amida, the supposed founder of Pure Land Buddhism. According to Pure Land Buddhism, if you say Amida's name before you die, you'll go to a pure land after death, where you can be a perfect Buddhist and from there, go into Nervana. So, with all of these fragments, you might end up with "On Amida namu on!" or "Namu namu on!" or "Onnnnn…" (if you noticed the similarity between "on" and "om," give yourself a gold star!)
Therefore, I had Sonoko's pissed off gramma repeating a Buddhist mantra to calm herself in the chapter. But Shinichi, who is a stanch Skeptic, firmly non-religious, and tactless enough that he mocks people who are, wouldn't be using one of these.
Let me know if you want to know more about Japanese religions. I studied them in college.
また来週！ (See you next week!)
dreamingfifi