Chapter Nine
Lilies
"I'm worried about Conan-kun," Ran said, tapping her pen absentmindedly on the paper. Taptaptaptap. Taptaptaptap. Taptaptaptap.
"Something up with the kid?" Sonoko asked. Ran tipped her head a little.
"I think so… I don't know…" she frowned at her notebook. Most people had tidied off and wandered off when the interval bell rang, but Ran had remained at her desk, lost in thought. "He's been happy enough, but he just seems a little… distant…"
"Have you talked to Kudo-kun yet?" Eisuke couldn't help asking. The girls stared at him. Well, to them it was a kind of random query. He sought for a link. "I mean, you said he and Kudo-kun are friends or something, right?"
"Cousins, I think," Ran said with a nod. "No… I called Shinichi and left a voicemail asking him to come back so we could talk. But that was a few days ago, and he hasn't called or visited…"
"He sometimes gets that kid to spy on you," Sonoko said thoughtfully. "Maybe he already knows you're dumping him and doesn't want to face you!"
"Don't put it that way, Sonoko," Ran groaned. "It sounds so mean. He's still my best friend. He's still one of the most important people in my life. It's just that… he'll never get more important, you know? I've accepted that now. I just want to tell him…"
Eisuke remained silent as Sonoko comforted her friend. He couldn't help feeling guilty. "Don't be stupid. Her feelings fell apart on their own. You just helped her face that as a friend, right?"
He still couldn't help the desire to help her face it as a little more, though. Ran was the kindest person he'd ever met. He hated seeing her so sad. She'd never cheer up until she got closure with Kudo.
"Why's he taking so long to get back to her?" he wondered, frustrated. "If somehow, he knows… he's got to know that he can't keep avoiding it. He sees her every day. He has to see how much this is hurting her. For her sake… why doesn't he just talk to her?"
"Why don't you just talk to her?"
"Shut up, Kuroba," Kudo demanded. To his frustration, Kaito did. He shot his father a glance. Toichi rolled his eyes but tried anyway.
"Kaito's right, you can't keep dragging this out," he said. "It's been a week already. You have to know that putting it off won't do any good."
"I know!" Kudo snapped, before clamming up as Takagi appeared, calling for him. He was being questioned about the murder he'd run across yesterday in the bookstore. He was still frustrated about that one. He'd been so distracted by thinking about Ran that he'd almost missed some vital evidence- thank goodness the rest of the Shonen Tantei-Dan had been there. Toichi and Kaito followed him in quietly-Akai had been so annoyed with Kudo's distraction and silence that the sullen spirit hadn't been stalking the Reikai-tantei as much as he used to. It was just luck that there'd been no Syndicate activity.
The phantom thieves continued floating around Kudo during the questioning, arguing inaudibly to Takagi. Kudo kept up an impressive Poker Face, chatting chirpily to Takagi while arguing furiously with Kaito.
"Don't keep doing this to the both of you. You don't deserve it, and neither does she."
"Oh, what do you know?" Kudo snapped back. "You've only been haunting me for a week. You don't know what I'm into with Ran."
"You pushed your best friend away because you were scared that she'd find out that you were lying to her and leading a double life," Kaito retorted. "I know exactly how that feels, only on top of that my mask is the one person Aoko hates more than anyone else. Tell Ran-san the story. Don't tell her. But whatever you do, just stop stringing her along already. At least whatever happens she's unlikely to take your head off, which is more than can be said for me if I did miraculously come to life just now."
"I appreciate that your situations are not identical," Toichi said calmly as Kudo opened his mental mouth to retort, "but Kaito does have a point. Stop distancing yourself from us, because we're not going anywhere until this gets resolved and we can get back to work. At least, given that you're still alive, if you talk to her you can try to make things right. Appreciate that, for the sake of those of us who have no more second chances."
Kudo fell into a sullen silence, outwardly still talking to Takagi. He remained silent as they left the Police Department. Kaito wondered if he was thinking about what his father had said, or if he just had something that he wanted to say to them in private.
It was sort of both.
He'd kept walking silently, all the way into Beika park, before detouring off of the path. At his diminutive height, he was almost hidden by the bushes around the edge of the path standing, and when he suddenly collapsed into a sitting position next to a tree trunk, he was completely hidden. Kaito and Toichi exchanged glances as the boy buried his head into his knees, going rock still. It would have been understandable if his shoulders were shaking. Just freezing was worrying.
"Tantei-kun…?" Kaito said carefully.
"All right, so I'm scared," Kudo muttered harshly. "All I've been doing, all this time, was to get back to her. One thing was really anchoring me to my old life, to my future, to the world after the Syndicate. Without her, I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing. I just don't…"
"Speaking as one who has no future," Kaito said, "I know that's kinda freaky. But come on, what happened to the Tantei-kun who chased me across the rooftops just because I'd stolen something? What happened to the Tantei-kun who was always so obsessed with the pursuit of justice? Though if it's any comfort, for the moment I can guarantee one constant to your future." Kudo looked up at him with an unconvinced expression, which changed to shock when Kaito popped into his face, rotating his head and making little balls of spirit fire appear all around (one of the child spirits had taught him how to do this, a mischievous little guy whom Kaito privately thought that, had he the chance to grow older, would probably have caused as much trouble as- well, him). "I am going to continue causing as much havoc as I possibly can, I'll just focus it all on you. The fun we'll have!" Toichi burst out laughing.
Kudo stared silently at the extroverted display, but Kaito caught the flicker of a smile across both his spirit and child faces. Kaito grinned triumphantly. Toichi watched the teens with a little smile.
"Fine," Kudo grumbled. "I know… I have an obligation to you guys, if only to get rid of you. I just… she's the one person I've never been able to maintain a logical mind towards. I still don't know if I can do it."
"Well then, can I ask you a favour?" Kaito asked.
"Where now?"
"Left. No, down the footpath, don't go into the alley!"
"Calm down! I don't know where I'm going. It's not like I've ever stalked you home, not that it wouldn't just be returning the favour…"
"Stalker is such a nasty word."
"A fish by any other name would smell as rotten." The irritating spirit clammed up at the mention of fish, to Shinichi's inner triumph.
He was currently trying to find his way to Ekoda High under Kuroba's direction. Only Kuroba was around, since they were dealing with a personal matter for him. Shinichi crept along the back ways that Kuroba indicated, since he didn't particularly want to be caught playing hooky again, wondering what Kuroba actually wanted to do. They'd probably only be able to get a look at Nakamori Aoko at break or lunch, and wouldn't be able to get very close without being spotted. Still, he could understand Kuroba's desire to get even a glimpse of how his friend was handling things.
Not very well, he found.
Due to an embankment around the back of the school, Shinichi was able to creep close enough to see in through the windows. He used his glasses to zoom in the rest of the way, peering out from behind the bushes. Aoko was bent over her work but didn't seem to be seeing it properly. She was pale, with dark circles under her eyes. Shinichi could feel Kuroba's worry as he watched the girl, too intent to annoy Shinichi.
"Hey," he murmured, watching the girl surreptitiously rub her eyes, "we're pretty close, you could switch your anchor to her if you want to watch her on you own…"
"Thanks, but it's all right," Kuroba replied distantly. Shinichi nodded, inwardly a little touched that Kuroba wanted him to stay even though they were there, as far as he could tell, for the express purpose of watching Aoko come out with a similar confession to Ran's, especially after he had cast the ghost aside when it had happened to him. However, something else was wrong. Kuroba's frown was steadily growing more pronounced, something like panic edging onto his expression.
"Kuro-?"
The bell suddenly rang, causing the students to leap to their feet, stuffing things into their bags and leaving to have lunch. Shinichi shrank back into the bushes, praying that he wouldn't be spotted. "Where does she go for lunch?" he asked Kuroba.
"Still willing to stalk?" the thief said in surprise.
"I've got nothing better to do, do I?" Shinichi grumbled, carefully climbing down the slope and trying not to be noticed.
"Thanks," Kuroba said quietly. He sounded unsettled, and Shinichi couldn't blame him. "She might be around the side of the building…"
She was. Shinichi flattened himself against the low wall running around the perimeter of the school, straining his ears to hear the girl. Kuroba just drifted through the brickwork, still with a slightly confused expression.
"You're not eating a lot, Nakamori-san." Shinichi frowned. The clipped, formal voice sounded familiar.
"I don't feel up to it."
"Still a little confused?" He heard a sharp intake of breath, and then a little laugh.
"Stop doing your detective-mind-reading thing, Hakuba-kun," Aoko said. Shinichi nodded. Hakuba Saguru. The half-brit he'd run into at a couple of murders and a dozen Kid cases. Kuroba hadn't mentioned that he was in his class, though that might explain Hakuba's angry obsession with the Kid.
"I just know you, Nakamori-san. Do you want to talk about it yet?"
"I don't know…" there was an unhappy pause. "I just wish I could talk to him about it… I talked to Minami-obasan, but there's so much that she can't really explain, and anyway she's in a bad way just now… the doctors are on the verge of declaring him brain-dead…" Shinichi gulped. Kuroba was as good as dead anyway, his soul already separated from his body, but hearing about the slow breakdown of the thief's body was still tough, and it had to be even harder for those around him, who might still have been holding onto hope…
"What do you want him to say to you?" Hakuba said softly.
"I…" Aoko sounded on the verge of tears. "I can understand… in my head… why he felt he had to be Kid… ojisan was the world to him, he really was, if you'd ever seen them together when ojisan was alive… I know it had to be tearing him apart… but… why… why did he lie? To me?!" her voice was beginning to turn to anger. "I thought we were best friends! Even though I hate Kid, did he really trust me so little to think that I wouldn't listen to him? Him, of all people?! He was my best friend and he was so important to me, but he never… he never trusted me, he never cared… always so cold…" Shinichi could hear her crying now, causing him to grit his teeth. It was a familiar sound, and since he knew how much Nakamori Aoko looked like Ran, he could very well imagine her face…
Kuroba shot out of the wall, an expression on his face that Shinichi knew too well.
"She's got Hakuba to comfort her," he said harshly. "Let's get out of here." Shinichi nodded tersely and started hurrying away, only glancing over his shoulder once as they went. He'd figured that Kuroba wanted to get away from Aoko, unable to watch her cry, but something also gave him the impression that it had something to do with the tall girl with odd, deep purple hair and piercing eyes, who was crossing the yard towards Aoko, even though those piercing eyes- and her dark aura- were focused on him.
He nearly ran.
Kuroba suddenly gave a slightly mad chuckle. "Man, I have a worse imagination than I thought," he said ruefully. "I mean… when you listened to Ran-san pouring her heart out to another guy, I thought I could imagine how badly that hurt… it wasn't half as bad as this." His spectral hand clutched at his transparent chest, as if his heart hurt. His physical heart was miles away, pumping blood through an inert body. It was his soul that was in pain.
"I… know," Shinichi said, feeling his throat tighten as if the pain of first hearing the words coming out of Ran's mouth was returning. "It's like falling…" looking away from Kuroba, instead focusing on the cold concrete passing under his feet as he told himself that he wasn't fleeing, he tentatively asked, "do you want to be on your own?"
"…no," Kuroba said quietly. "I… don't want to see the other ghosts, though. I know you of all people will know what I'm going through…" he gave Shinichi what was a shadow of his devilish grin in more ways than one. "Feels like I just filled my half of a suicide pact."
"Baro. You're already dead."
The smile didn't dim, but his eyes grew darker, filling with an emotion that Shinichi couldn't quite reach. "I know."
More sadness, Phantom-Akiko…
I hate getting dragged away mid-chapter, Marie Ravenclaw DX Yeah, they both need a friend right now…
You mean Star War, Pretztailfan95? I actually LOLed when I read that one, because there's a visual gag with Kaito and Aoko putting up Christmas decorations that gets reused by Heiji and Kazuha when they get kidnapped… XDXD
She only appears for about a quarter of the first chapter, llamaglamasama… I wanna know more about her. KaiShin… slowly… growing…
Sounds like fun, SetoJouFan XDXD Yeah, this fic is not exactly designed to be smiles and light…
Just about everyone's got reasons to be sad at the moment, Sailor Silver Rose…
It's enough to know that it's a good chapter, HaibaraDaiFan XD ^_-
I'm not changing my storyline, FHP2208… death is not exactly a subject that is dealt with happily. I liked putting in Ai's parents, but we know so little about who they really were… Kaito and Shinichi are gonna be there for each other, don't you worry ^_- And trust me, there will be a happy ending…
I do not own or claim to own Meitantei Conan/Case Closed. If I did, I would be luxuriating in my royalties, not writing fanfic in the back of old maths jotters instead of doing homework. -_-