Chapter 10 - The Anniversary-Cheer-Up-Plan!

"Wake up!" A voice called out to Shinichi. He stirred a bit, but didn't want to comply. "Wake up already!" The voice called again and Shinichi felt a small nudge in his side. He threw his eyes open and sat his body up. Shinichi was still lying on the couch in Agasa's living room, but he now suddenly had a blanket on him. He looked to the side, to see who woke him up, but he already knew who it was since he recognized the voice, it was Haibara of course. What he didn't immediately know, until he looked at he looked at her, was the fact that she was rather small.

"That's right, I'm not tiny at the moment..." Shinichi mumbled and rubbed his eyes.

"Still half-asleep, I see..." Haibara said and handed him a mug. "Here, some coffee should get your brain going again."

"Ah, thank you," Shinichi said and took a large sip. "Mhhh, that's good stuff. Anyway, sorry for falling asleep, the events on that island were rather exhausting. Guess I didn't make a good test subject today."

"It's fine. To be honest, I wasn't awake until roughly half an hour ago either," Haibara said. "When you called me from that boat, I was only in bed since about two hours at most, so I fell asleep during the first test already; so it's not like I was a good tester today either."

"Oh, I see. By the way, what time is it?" Shinichi asked.

"Noon," Haibara replied. "I'll continue the test later in the day, so why don't you go over to your house, get a shower and some fresh clothes in the meantime?"

"Sure, sounds like a plan," Shinichi and finished the mug of coffee. He threw back the blanket that Professor Agasa probably put over him and went over to the Kudo mansion, opening it with the keys he had deposited at the Professor's place. Once he closed the front door behind him, Shinichi stretched himself and took a deep breath. Home sweet home. Ran and Conan had cleaned this place up only four days ago, so everything was in a nice shape and Shinichi didn't need to clean anything himself. He went upstairs to the bathroom and undressed himself, putting the clothes and underwear of Heiji into a laundry basket. 'Guess washing and ironing these before Hattori takes them back is the least I can do...' Shinichi thought and stepped into the shower.

Twenty minutes later, Shinichi was standing in his room with a towel tied around his hips, looking at his own clothes; the ones that were appropriate for his real age. After a little bit of consideration, he chose a polo shirt with short sleeves, as it was quite warm today. It was mostly dark blue, with the collar, the small button row, the end of the sleeves and two vertical stripes (one on each shoulder) being purple. For pants, he chose a jeans, colored with a lighter blue. Once he was fully dressed, Shinichi stretched his body again and threw himself on his own bed. Back in his house, wearing his own clothes, lying on his own bed ... the last time he was able to do that was around the time of the Teitan Summer Festival. Such a nice time, really ... if only it had lasted a bit longer...

Shinichi stood up and went downstairs. There, he retrieved his Shinichi phone and put it into his pocket as well. He still also took the Conan phone with him, for emergencies. Turned off, of course. His stomach reminded him that the last time he had something to eat was a already a little while ago. Seeing as there was currently no food in the mansion (having anything stored here simply wouldn't make any sense), he went back over to Agasa's house; before leaving the mansion however, he put on one of his Tokyo Spirits caps and some shades. A simple, yet effective disguise. If you can't make proper masks like his mother or Vermouth, anything more than shades and a hat (poorly applied make-up for example) would probably just attract more attention instead of less.

"Ah, Shinichi, just in time!" Agasa called out to him once Shinichi closed the door behind him. "I prepared a little late-breakfast/lunch combination. I'm sure you must be quite hungry!"

Shinichi smiled. "Ah, thank you, Professor," he said and sat down at the counter with Agasa and Haibara.

"Oh, another thing," Agasa said before they started to eat and handed Shinichi some of the bugs that he usually kept in the glasses of Conan and a pair of in-ear headphones. "Here, I fitted them to test out this new app that I put on your smartphone, which makes tracking and listening of the bugs a bit more convenient for when you can't turn on the radar screen of the glasses. Well, since you currently don't use the glasses anyway, it's your only way of using them at all. And the headphones are so you don't have to listen to the bugs over speak, that would be quite bothersome."

"Right, I'll keep it in mind," Shinichi and put the bugs and headphones into his pocket, before they all started to eat.

Meanwhile, Ran was going down the street towards the Kudo mansion. She was carrying a bouquet of orange roses with her. Those weren't for Shinichi though, even if Sonoko suggested otherwise while they were talking over the phone. No, those were for somebody else. And the call with Sonoko was about something else too: Ran wasn't quite sure what she should wear today, so she did some troubleshooting in that regard. Considering the temperature of today, she was appropriately dressed, sure. White cargo shorts and a green jacket with short sleeves; those were fine, but Ran wasn't sure about the black belly top that she was wearing at the suggestion of her friend. Well, she was right in front of his house now, going back now would be too bothersome.

Ran hesitated for a moment, but then she pushed the doorbell button on the intercom at the iron gate of the Kudo mansion. For what felt like a minute, she stared back at the intercom, but nothing happened. Ran frowned; it couldn't be that he wasn't awake yet? Sure, he said he would call her and that she was here now was a spontaneous thing, but it wasn't that long until the time he promised he would call her. Ran pushed the button again. And again. The last time she did something like this he angrily came out of the mansion and yelled at her, but not this time. Ran gasped. 'Or ... could it be ... he is already gone out of town again...? He wouldn't just do that without at least telling me a bit in advance, right? Right?' Ran thought. She pushed the button again. Nothing. Ran somberly sighed and looked to the ground. It would've been too good to be true, wouldn't it? Without looking, she pushed the button one more time and waited for a few seconds, same result as before. Still looking to the ground, she walked away.

"Thank you, that was really tasty!" Shinichi thanked the Professor and stood up. "If you have no objections, I'll go and read something next door, alright? Maybe I'll take another short nap too..."

Haibara and Agasa nodded, so Shinichi left Agasa's house. What he was really about to do was to call Ran like he promised her at the harbor, but those two didn't need to know that. Haibara would just endlessly object and call him a love-struck idiot again and Agasa would go into the tease-gossip mode again, which was appropriate for schoolgirls like Sonoko, but not for an 52 year old man! Shinichi sighed and pulled out his phone. He was dialing her number, while absentmindedly walking through Agasa's front yard and subsequently the front gate on to the street. Just as he was about to push the call button, Shinichi bumped into someone the street. No wonder, considering he was intensely staring on the display of his phone. Instinctively, he grabbed the arms of that person, preventing that the two of them from falling to the ground. "Ah, sorry, I wasn't looking..." Shinichi apologized.

"No, no, this was my fault, I wasn't looking either..." Ran apologized.

A few milliseconds of realization later:
"Ran?!"
"Shinichi?!"

The two childhood friends looked at each other for a moment, before the noticed that Shinichi was still holding her arms from preventing that both of them lost their balance. They hastily put some distance between them.

"Sorry, Ran ... I-I wasn't expecting you here..." Shinichi stuttered, because two things irritated him. First: the bouquet of orange roses. Second: the top she was wearing, which was exposing her belly. Not that this was a bad thing, quite the opposite actually, but ... when was the last time he had seen her wearing one of these? It couldn't be ... because of their trip to that cafe today, could it?!

"Yeah, me neither..." Ran mumbled. "I ... was actually just at your house ... I know you said you would call me, but there is something else I wanted to do with you before that..."

"Huh, I see..." Shinichi said. "Well, I was just at the Professor's house to eat something, since I don't have anything edible in my house at the moment."

"Oh! Of course!" Ran exclaimed and her face lit up. 'Of course, how silly of me! Why didn't I consider that he would have to get food somewhere, either from Professor Agasa's home or from a trip to the nearby grocery store...' Ran thought, while smiling.

"Umm," Shinichi tilted his head. "What are those flowers for?"

Ran looked at him with a confused stare for a second, when she realized that she still had that bouquet in her arms. "Oh, these! They are for my mother!"

"For ... your mother?"

"Yeah, you see, today is the anniversary of her first date with Dad!" Ran fumbled around with her phone and then showed Shinichi a picture she took with it. "See? I accidentally knocked over one of the photo albums at home after I returned from police questioning and stumbled upon this page. Here, their first date, the first meal she cooked for him, their first fight as a married couple, the first time Dad solved a case." True enough, there were four photos with respective hand-written descriptions. Judging from the rather beautiful handwriting, these comments were written by Ran's mother Eri rather than her father. On the First Fight picture, Eri was pouting and looked away from the camera; the First Case picture showed Kogoro grinning from ear to ear, showing a peace sign for the camera, with Eri happily cuddling against his shoulder. On the First Date picture, Kogoro and Eri were both smiling into the camera wearing rather fancy clothes: a light blue tuxedo for Kogoro and a black dress for Eri, which showed quite a bit of cleavage. The First Meal picture showed Eri feeding Kogoro a bit of her cooking from behind the camera with chopsticks. It was taken right before it actually entered his mouth.

'Good thing it was taken at that moment,' Shinichi thought. 'One moment later and his face would've probably been full of disgust, if Kisaki-san's cooking was already so bad back then. Probably was...' He looked from the picture on Ran's cell phone back to Ran and said: "Happier times, I see."

"Yeah..." Ran sighed, but then she almost immediately smiled again. "But I'm going to bring these times back! And I wanted to start by celebrating this very important anniversary and by giving my mother these flowers! She'll love them, flowers always cheer people up!"

Shinichi smiled as well. Ten years of separation, but Ran was still optimistic and cheerful about bringing her parents back together. It wasn't easy for growing up in the past years under these circumstances, Shinichi knew that, but despite all that, Ran remained a happy and upbeat person; another thing that he really liked about her.

"So," Ran continued, "I know you wanted to call me, but I thought that maybe we could bring my mother these flowers first and then go to the cafe afterwards."

"We? Do you think your mother will be happy to see me along with those flowers?"

"Oh, come on! I'm sure it will be fine..." Ran looked a bit nervous.

"Raaan..." Shinichi said. "Don't tell me you weren't sure about her reaction and didn't want to go to her office alone?"

"Well, I mean, it would be a bit bothersome to drive to her office with the bus and then back here to go to a cafe with you and ... you know," Ran was fidgeting around slightly, "sometimes, when it comes to things with Dad, she can be a bit ... moody."

"I think the word you were looking for was scary..." Shinichi replied.

"Shinichi!" Ran exclaimed, but then clapped her hands together (as much as she could with a bouquet of flowers in her hands) for a pleading gesture. "Pleeeeease?"

He groaned. "Alright, fine. We go to her office, give her these flowers, brighten her day and then we're out of there!" Shinichi added in his thoughts: 'Hopefully that dragon doesn't eat me when she sees me as myself...'

Ran put on a smile that expressed satisfaction and nodded. "Good, I knew that wouldn't a problem for you! Oh, another thing, I wanted to quickly visit Conan-kun at the Professor's house before we go."

"Conan-kun?!" Shinichi exclaimed, before he hastily nodded. "Ahhh, right, that glasses kid wasn't with you when you came to the island with the boat ... he stayed at Agasa's place?"

"Yeah, he left us when he wasn't allowed to go with Hattori-kun on to that island," Ran explained. "We didn't come home because we found out that the whole thing was stage after checking with the hotel and the network, so I assume he stayed with Professor Agasa, since he wasn't home. Didn't you see him when you were over there just a moment ago?"

"No, at least he wasn't eating with Agasa, that little evil girl and me," Shinichi said.

"Oh..." Ran seemed to become worried now.

"Well, well," Shinichi quickly said as he noticed that, "maybe he is still sleeping or is already out playing with his other little friends, it is a holiday after all!"

"Mh, I guess you are right, but let's ask the Professor about that real quick, yeah?"

"Sure, he probably knows..." Shinichi replied and the two went back to enter Agasa's house. 'Hopefully the Professor remembers the cover story...'

They entered the house and already heard Professor Agasa coming to the door. "Did you forget something, Shinichi?" Agasa asked, before he saw Shinichi wasn't alone. "Oh, Ran-kun! I didn't expect you here."

"Yeah, it was rather spontaneous. I just wanted to check with Conan-kun. He came here yesterday, yes?" Ran asked.

"Y-yeah, he spent the day here, but Conan-kun isn't here anymore. You see, yesterday evening his mother came here..." Agasa explained.

"H-his mother?!"

"That's right," Agasa continued. "Since today and the next two days are holidays, his mother thought it would be nice to spend some time with him again. She wanted to call you, but Conan-kun's cell phone had no battery anymore, we didn't know your cell phone number by heart and nobody picked up the phone at your home..."

"I see, because we were out at the harbor the whole time..."

"Tsk," Shinichi clicked his tongue. "His mother could've at least left a message on the answering machine..."

"She was probably too excited to see her son again and forgot about that..." Agasa said and then looked back to Ran. "I'm sure Conan-kun will call you soon, Ran-kun."

"Hmm, I guess..." Ran muttered.

"In any case, should we go to your mother's office now?" Shinichi said to divert Ran's attention. "If we wait much longer, we risk accidentally coming during court times, when she might be away from her office, handling a case."

Ran turned around her arm and looked on her watch. "Ahh, you're right! We'll be going now, Professor, goodbye."

"Bye, Ran-kun!" Agasa responded and watched the two teenagers leave the house. 'Phew, glad that's over,' he thought.

Ran and Shinichi were walking to the bus stop that would bring to the building the Kisaki Law Office was in. Shinichi was wearing the Tokyo Spirits cap and his shades by now, which was probably why Ran was stealing looks at from time to time, feeling very sneaky. "Do I have something on my face?" Shinichi asked out of the blue, which made Ran wince. Busted.

"Ahh, no, it's just..." Ran said. "You wearing a hat ... it feels weird, especially after seeing Hattori-kun wear one all the time. And these shades..."

"Come on, I think it looks okay! It's so warm today and with no cloud in the sky the sun is mercilessly shining down on us," Shinichi tried to explain his disguise. "Besides, it's not like Hattori patented the Detective with Cap look!"

"Hm, but still..."

"Well, I think you're just jealous of my cap! But that's fine," Shinichi said, took off the cap and put it on Ran's head. "You can have it if you desire it this much!"

"Ahh, Shinichi!" Ran tried to take it off, but Shinichi firmly held it in place. "Take it off!"

"Why? Afraid it'll mess up your hair?" Shinichi grinned.

"No, that's not it," she replied and grinned. "But as a Noir Tokyo fan, I can't be seen with a Tokyo Spirits cap!"

"Noir Tokyo fan?!" Shinichi faked an indignant gasp, feigning to be offended. He snatched the cap of her hat and wiped over the inside with his hand, like if it were dirty. "Great, now I'm going to have to disinfect this..."

"Aww, too bad!" Ran stuck out her tongue. They looked at each for another moment, before they both started to burst out laughing. Shinichi put his cap back while they were walking, still laughing until they came across some other pedestrians, who looked at them weirdly for laughing so much. Both tried to keep it in after that, both failing miserably. When they finally calmed down a bit, Ran said in a serious manner: "Well, but I'll have you know, the only soccer team I ever really followed was the Teitan Middle School Soccer Club."

"Oh, that didn't continue with the Teitan High School team?"

"No," Ran said. "When you left the team, I didn't really have a reason to watch them anymore." She continued to walk, while Shinichi came to a halt for a few seconds, staring after her while his face began to feel a lot warmer. Regaining his composure, he quickly caught up to her again.

After a little bit more walking, they reached the bus stop, about five minutes before the bus that drives in the direction of Eri Kisaki's office would arrive. The two of them were waiting in amicable silence, while Ran was constantly staring at her cell phone; she had taken it out of her pocket shortly after they go to the bus stop. She flipped it open and dialed a number, but then closed the phone before she pressed the call button. Shinichi raised an eyebrow, especially after she repeated that process once. Ran noticed his curious gaze and said: "I can't decide whether I should call him or not ... Conan-kun, I mean."

Shinichi's look became a little somber. 'Ran...'

"It's not like I'm worried or something," Ran continued, "it's just ... something doesn't feel right about this ... maybe I should just call him!" She flipped her phone open again and this time she called Conan's number for real. Straight to voicemail. No surprise for Shinichi, since he had turned that phone off and left it hidden in his mansion. "Hmm, why is it not responding at all...?"

"Eh, there are a couple of probable reasons for that," Shinichi said, trying to sound as unconcerned and uninvolved as possible. "Out of battery for example. Maybe his mother took him along for a trip in the mountains, where they have no service. Or maybe she took him along on a trip that involves a domestic flight and they are either still in the plane that required them to turn their phones off or he simply forget to turn it back on after they landed. Or ... a more terrible reason..." Shinichi said and put on a grim look, making her staring at him with worry in her eyes. "...maybe his mother took the phone away from him and turned it off because she thought he was playing too much with it! What a terrible deed from a parent!"

"Shinichi!" Ran slapped his arm. "Geez, don't joke about these kind of things, I was really worried here for a second," she said with some anger in her voice, but at the same time, her mouth was slightly twitching because she suppressed a smile, so Shinichi knew had kind of achieved to distract her mind. It would be of no good use for her to worry about this kind of thing. A few seconds later, the bus arrived and the two teenagers got on to drive to the office of Ran's mother. The thought of cheering up her mother also cheered Ran up, who seemed like she wasn't thinking about Conan anymore at the moment, which was a relief to Shinichi. During the whole drive, the two of them engaged in chit-chat (mostly about school, travels and this sort of stuff) and friendly banter. It was almost like before their not-date at Tropical Land. Just with the exception of a gigantic sword of Damocles, in form of his entire involvement with the Black Organization, hanging threateningly over Shinichi's head. But apart from that, it felt like his life was back to normal.