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.
FS
g.
Ghost at Twilight
(edited version)
g.
Death, so commonplace...
Death, so commonplace and inevitable, was at the same time so surreal and inconceivable that fifteen-year-old Sherry had no real interest in pondering the matter. Naturally, the thought often occurred to her that her sister and Gin were most likely to pass away before her and that she would sooner or later have to mourn their deaths. But thinking of death as an abstract entity differs significantly from seeing it with one's own eyes—and Sherry only associated death with carcasses of lab rats, fading photos of strangers she called parents, anonymous faces on the Organization's annual reports of collateral damage, and a dark ghost story about a secret love until she witnessed the "death" of the red-haired woman.
Before Gin told her that the young woman had survived, Sherry automatically assumed that she had died. In the two months following the stranger's death, unprecedented emotions began to stir inside Sherry—sentiments whose profound impact on her she never fully grasped because she considered them too irrational and unsettling to dwell on. Unwelcome and unacknowledged, they were soon forgotten after she learned that the girl was still alive. Nevertheless, when two years later she was given the task to investigate Kudo Shinichi's disappearance and discovered that the detective had been shrunk by her drug, Sherry found herself facing a dilemma she might never have had if she had never met the red-haired girl.
In fact, choosing her own safety over Kudo Shinichi's life should have been easy enough. Being familiar with the ways of the Organization, she knew perfectly well that the penalty for treason was either torture or/and death depending on the gravity of the offence. Moreover, Kudo Shinichi was a stranger she had only seen on the news and never met, a law-abiding and unduly zealous private investigator who would have no qualms about escorting her in handcuffs to the police station if he knew whom she was working for. On top of that, saving a famous sleuth like him also meant taking responsibility for the difficulties which would undoubtedly arise if he continued to snoop around. In short, there was no reason why she out of all people should risk her life to save his, she concluded and inwardly groaned at her own idiocy when five seconds afterwards she did exactly the opposite from what she considered sensible by declaring him dead in her report.
g.
Your fatal tendency to rebel against common sense from time to time (an innate antipathy against a sheltered life?) becomes apparent in situations like the one you're trying to assess now. If Kudo were here, he would warn you that your growing attachment to this stranger spells trouble because a serious relationship with such a person is doomed to failure right from the start. Instead of a reliable man who can give you a feeling of security and peace—the only halfway viable alternative to a perfectly independent life devoid of the emotional turmoil love always brings—you had to crush on a rebellious idol with a disturbing sister complex, the reputation for being disgracefully promiscuous, and the ability to lie fluently, without batting an eyelid...
"We should really put them aside for now," the accomplished liar yawns, leaning against the wall behind him with a pained expression. "Why do you want to read all of them to me?"
"Don't be such a snob! This one is really good, I think. She even wrote you a poem:
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
She wants to love you until she dies—you should really accept her love."
"I'm touched! But she has copied everything from Shakespeare. I'm sure it's from one of his love sonnets. Taiki could even tell you from which one."
"At least her letter meets a certain intellectual standard unlike most of your other fan letters. And I remember you quoted Shakespeare as well when you asked me out tonight." Undisturbed by his impatience, you proceed to the postscript on the other side of the card. "I see it's not addressed to you but to Taiki-san: 'Taiki-sama, please give me a chance. I love you more than I can say. Eternally yours, Misa...'"
"Taiki must have got the letters mixed up when he brought them here. I should have known it! My fans seldom write poems for me."
"Maybe they don't expect a guy like you to understand love sonnets?"
"Now I know what you really think about my mental capacity!"
Oddly enough, you feel perfectly at ease with him as you're growing accustomed to his presence, secretly enjoying his nearness and revelling in the sense of beauty and even in the conflicting emotions the last hours have stirred inside you. Trying to dispel the treacherous sense of belonging, which has caught you unawares, you mentally compile a list of good reasons why this will never work out in the long run: First, two freedom-loving people with a deep-rooted fear of long-time commitment like he and you are most likely to part after the first exhilarating spell of infatuation wears off. Second, a serious relationship or a marriage is quite impracticable, as you're thoroughly sick of the downward spiral which always manifests itself whenever love turns sour while he has told you in no uncertain terms that he is not at all interested in being tied down by "tiresome obligations and paperwork". Apart from that, you can't read his real intentions at all due to his evasiveness and his casual flirting, not to mention the fact that you two don't have much in common and are drawn to each other for obscure reasons.
On another day, you would have listened to the voice of conventional wisdom and immediately retreated. But the sunset last night seems to have awoken a hidden side of yours which has lain dormant since Pandora's Box—a willful personality bent on throwing caution to the winds to get whatever she has set her heart on.
"Which ex-boyfriend of yours are you thinking of at the moment?" The stranger contemplates you with a quizzical look.
"Why don't you use your mind-reading skills and try to guess it?"
"My mind-reading skills only tell me that it's an ex-boyfriend again, a particularly pleasant one, according to your smile."
"I haven't been thinking of any ex-boyfriend. I've been trying to lay down the quality standards I want my future house husband to meet, wondering whether there is a man on earth who can satisfy the basic requirements because I'm tired of doing all my housework alone."
"I can meet any requirements," he promptly asserts, "and the few things I can't do I can always learn."
"You mean you're applying for the job?" You shoot him an intentionally calculating glance. Unfortunately, your solemn tone of voice sounds not exaggerated enough even in your own ears. And in a sudden bout of self-consciousness, you worry that he might miss the subtlety and mistake your joke for a rash proposal.
He laughs (as he has apparently taken notice of the nuance), carelessly opening another letter with his long graceful fingers while keeping his eyes fixed on you.
"Well, I have been applying for it for quite a while by now, haven't I?"
Conscious of taking pleasure in watching his hands ripping up the envelope and handling the paper with practiced gentleness, you turn away from him in a flash of unprovoked anger.
"You were only so bold because you expected me to pass up your offer. And your offer was a fake marriage, if I remember correctly."
He eagerly leans towards you with a shade of amazement in his eyes.
"Would you have considered marrying me for real if I had seriously proposed?"
"You will never know it because you won't ever dare to."
"I hereby apply in all seriousness for the position of your future husband," he declares. Despite his humorous choice of words, the expression on his face is perfectly sincere.
"Unfortunately, you lack the requisite qualifications," you gravely reply, illustrating your decision with a dismissive wave.
"And what exactly do I lack?" He looks almost disappointed.
"Housekeeping skills! Apart from that, I don't want to be assassinated by your crazy fans on the day of our wedding." To demonstrate your point, you pick a card at random and read aloud, "'Thank you so much for the awesome night! What about staying in Venice for a whole season? Love you to bits! Mina—" You abruptly stop and hand him the card in embarrassment. "Sorry, I thought it was only a fan letter like the others."
"Minako-chan is one of Odango's best friends," he explains as if spending a night with the friend of his unrequited love was common courtesy.
"So the rumours about you and Aino Minako are true?" you gloomily ask.
"No, 'the awesome night' in Venice was harmless," he quickly denies. "I only gave Minako-chan a private singing lesson she liked so much that she insisted I stay in Venice until she didn't need me anymore."
"And? Why didn't you stay? She seems to like you a lot."
"Oh, she likes everyone!" He grins before continuing on a more serious note, "There has never been anything between us, but I found Venice very beautiful. I liked it so much that I considered buying an apartment from Michiru-sama to spend my free weekends there."
However, Venice turned out not to be as enjoyable as he thought, he admitted, especially when one is single and stumbles over couples kissing in public all the time, continually reminding one of what one misses out in one's own life.
"And?" You narrow your eyes to scrutinize his infuriatingly innocent face. "Is it the truth this time? Or is it just one of your lies?" Meanwhile, the suspicion that he might be not only a fan but also a close friend of "Michiru-sama" and, in consequence, might know Tenoh-san personally begins to gnaw at the back of your mind.
"Why are you always so mistrustful?" he asks, accidentally throwing Aino Minako's card into the trash bag.
"Because prudence is a virtue and because I absolutely can't make you out." For a moment, you consider leaving the card in the trash bag before you grudgingly fish it out for him and put it on the table.
"I'm flattered! But I think you're making a virtue of cowardice."
"Cowardice is actually a virtue in the face of challenges too daunting to deal with. But now that you've told me about your first girlfriend, you can tell me about all the others as well. Was Odango one of your affairs, or was it really only a platonic friendship?"
"I already told you I've never had a girlfriend—"
"—And you've been lying! Now that I know you've been lying to me about your childhood girlfriend, I wonder what else you've been lying about."
"I told you Kakyuu wasn't my girlfriend in the traditional sense of the word," he emphatically asserts. "She was my foster sister!"
"Did she consider you her boyfriend?"
"I don't think so. She always introduced me as her foster brother. I know it sounds absurd to you but it was perfectly normal to us."
He claimed the only time he kissed someone in a romantic context was when he gave up Odango, you remind him. Naturally, you came to the inescapable conclusion that he had lied to you when you learned that he had kissed Kakyuu as well.
Those kisses weren't in the least romantic, he protests. He casually pecked Kakyuu as a greeting just like he used to kiss his foster mother. Before he met Odango, he was blissfully clueless and never even dreamed of romantically kissing anyone.
"That's not kissing for me!"
"All right," he sighs. "Then, according to your definition of kissing, I didn't kiss her at all."
"You also said puppy loves were boring. But your sister-complex was infinitely worse." You throw him a perplexed look. "Why did you think you were in love with Kakyuu if you didn't even want to kiss her?"
Because he wanted to spend his life with her and protect her forever. To him, she was the personification of kindness itself. He casts a fleeting glance at your lips. "Kissing her would have seemed like sacrilege. If I had wanted to kiss her, sharing her with Yaten and Taiki would have been torture."
"In that case, I don't think what you felt for her was love in the traditional sense of the word. It must have been idolatry, admiration, whatever. Love is completely different."
But what is love, you suddenly wonder. Is love an intense attraction, which leads to an enduring attachment, or it is the wish to protect the person you care about from harm? You can talk condescendingly about all the manifestations of love that don't seem right in your perception of the world, but who are you to assume that you know the right ingredients for the elusive thing called 'love' everyone talks about with the general consensus that the thing which means 'love' for one person also means 'love' for another?
"Everybody has their own idea of love," he reflects as if he has read your thoughts. "It's hard to avoid misunderstandings, which is why it always amazes me how well people in love get along—"
"—But they usually don't get along well. They sometimes even kill each other over the pettiest quarrels! That's why I don't believe in long-time relationships."
"You mean you don't only oppose to marriage in general... You don't even want a long-time relationship?" He looks at you aghast.
"That doesn't have anything to do with what I want," you sigh. "I'm only trying to listen to common sense and not to expect too much from life, that's all."
"Leaving common sense aside, what do you really want?" he asks, his smile and his low voice unmistakably seductive.
"Someone who does my housework without bailing at the first opportunity." You wisely omit to mention the tantalizing prospect of kissing him, knowing it would only complicate matters.
"What about moving in with me?" he suggests. In answer to your inquiring gaze, he continues persuasively, "I really don't mind doing all our housework."
You turn to him in bewilderment. In a situation like this one, language proves to be maddeningly ambiguous. What exactly does he want the two of you to be? Is he only joking or does he really mean to move in with you although you two have just met? Just like you, he seems to have difficulty saying the famous words and to initiate the one gesture which would have clearly defined your relationship. Unable to guess the reason behind his odd shyness, which doesn't match his intrepid manner, you contemplate him in silence, wondering who is hiding behind that arresting mask which has inspired so many love letters without being moved by any.
"Just take your time to think about it." Propped on his elbows behind his back, he turns his face towards the window and wistfully observes, "Have you noticed the sun has been behaving strangely since we met? It didn't want to set last night. And now it doesn't want to rise at all."
"It's very much like you and doesn't know what it wants."
His eyes light up with a humorous glint.
"I know exactly what I want. The one who can't make up her mind is you."
"Say, when you told me you've already broken a promise tonight, what did you actually mean?" you venture, fearing that—unconventional as he is—his definition of love is to hold hands and hug and dance together while sharing an apartment, which isn't quite what you have imagined but would still be pleasant enough for the time being.
He doesn't answer but only stares at you in speechless incredulity as if you had asked him whether he had twenty arms and twenty legs.
"You are the slowest woman I've ever met," he groans at last, shaking his head. "Kudo and you are a match made in heaven!"
g.
All in all, the fan letters were at best boring ("We love you so much please return to the stage at once!") and at worst outright abusive and threatening ("If you don't come back I swear I'll sabotage your brothers' concerts!")... There were a few explicit proposals ("I'll be waiting for you at seven p.m. at ..."—the place of the rendezvous is always a restaurant, a love hotel, or even a private address) just as rather weird gifts like used lip balms, hair, full-body photos, and laced lingerie. Among all the atrocities the stranger and you have also found beautiful little tokens of love: homemade pralines and chocolate cakes, teddy keychains and lucky charms, surprisingly candid sounding love declarations and rare flower seeds, exquisite watercolour drawings and love jewellery.
"You'd have thrown away all these things?" you ask, beholding a locket pendant. Kudo once accidentally gave you a love necklace without knowing what it was, and you can still recall the agony when it slipped out of your hand and was instantly swallowed by the waves below.
"Why, none of them were in red or black wrapping papers with obnoxious hearts on them, weren't they?" the stranger points out as he returns to your side after depositing the trash bag on the kitchen floor. Holding out his hand towards you, he smiles. "Now we have enough space."
"Wait, I'd like to have a look at all the things you're going to keep!" You turn away from him, careful not to show your mild but rising panic.
He chuckles.
"Just admit that you're stalling for time because you're afraid of our dance."
"All right! I admit I'm not looking forward to making a fool of myself since I don't remember anything from my dance classes anymore—" You pause in surprise when you notice his eyes wander down to your legs with unconcealed interest.
"Your bullet wounds, how did you get them?" He indicates the small round scar directly underneath the hem of your bathrobe.
Not in the least disturbed by his tendency to awake your memories of both Kudo and Gin—the two romantic disasters of your life—you shrug away the stab of pain you still feel at the memory.
"Just a display of affection from my first boyfriend and then from his imbecile subordinate during our 'reunions'. They were only flesh wounds, though, nothing serious. I told you he had a macabre sense of humour."
"Since you always talk about him in the past tense, I gather he is dead?"
"Yes, and I doubt that anyone grieved over his death because he wasn't a particularly pleasant person."
"And how did he die?" He leads you by your arm to the sofa. "Slowly and painfully, I hope."
Taken aback by his question, you hesitate for a moment, choosing your words with caution. No, you don't think your first ex-boyfriend had to suffer very much because he always had an incredibly high tolerance to pain, you tell the stranger as you two settle on the sofa and he places a cushion behind your back in a quaint gesture of chivalrousness. The heartless jerk bled to death because the idiot who shot him managed to miss all the vital organs. But for all that, you're sure your first ex didn't feel much but a sense of frustration at the prospect of leaving this world without being able to take all his enemies with him...
"Say, Haibara, back at Infinity... Were you one of Stinger's guinea-pig prodigies?" Kudo had asked, trying to distract you from feelings he believed to be shock and guilt... Three years after the incident, it strikes you as ironic how Kudo told you over and over again that it was self-defense, emphasizing that your "well-aimed" bullets weren't the only reason for your ex-boyfriend's inglorious ending. All the while, you couldn't help wishing that you could turn back time and fire the two bullets again because there wouldn't have been a reason to cry if your hand hadn't shaken and you hadn't missed! If you hadn't only wounded Gin but killed him at once, things would have ended differently back at Pandora's Box, and last night you would have been sleeping peacefully in Kudo's arms.
It's useless to dwell on bygone days of the dim and distant past, you chide yourself, pushing away the time-worn thoughts, which have adopted the characteristics of troublesome old acquaintances one has grown heartily tired of seeing. The thought of spending a night in Kudo's arms has completely lost its appeal to you after three years of complete stalemate and continuous divergence. But every so often, you would be assailed by unwanted memories of Edogawa and Haibara walking together and the kiss you had been craving but didn't get. And with a pang of regret, you would linger over theories of what might have happened if Gin hadn't activated Pandora's Box or if Tenoh-san had managed to come to your assistance, indulging in fantasies about all the unattainable things which might have been...
"And you met Kudo like that?" the stranger steers the conversation from your first ex-boyfriend to the second as he fills your coffee cup. "During a case in which you were the victim?"
Skipping all the details of your escape—a feat which you can't explain without touching on APTX4869 and which always sounds more impressive in narration than it was in real life—you answer in the affirmative, reluctantly leaving him with the assumption that your encounter with Kudo has induced you to walk out on your abusive first love and to betray the Organization.
From the expression in his eyes, you can tell he is pondering questions as to how you escaped the Organization's clutches. But in view of your obvious reticence, he holds them back after a moment of careful consideration.
"I met Kudo during one of his cases as well," he tells you with audible detachment in his voice. "But I wasn't the victim—I was one of his suspects."
"Really?" you cautiously respond, waiting for him to expand on the subject.
"And? Are you afraid of me now?" Intrigued by your nonchalant reaction, he gives you a faintly mischievous smile, studying your face with his probing eyes.
Not in the least, you truthfully reply, dithering over the question whether you should pretend to know nothing about the case or admit to him that you've already learned about it from Kudo. Even if he had been the culprit, you elaborate, you wouldn't feel the slightest fear of him because you're sure Kudo would have put him behind bars if Kudo had considered him dangerous.
"Ah, so you trust Kudo and not me." His voice is playfully sad.
"Of course, why should I trust you?" You give him a teasing smirk. "If anyone can be called a modern Sherlock Holmes, that person would be him. I don't believe in many things, but I trust his judgment and his deduction skills implicitly."
For an instant, you can discern in his eyes the wish to turn back time to the moment before he impetuously decided to mention the case. But then his gaze softens again and he leans back, regarding you with a resigned smile.
"Well, it seems even your Sherlock can fail because he didn't solve that case, as far as I can tell."
"Now you've made me curious."
"Maybe someday I'll tell you if you don't pester me about it tonight," he mimics you with an air of finality. Evidently, you've just squandered your chance of hearing the whole story from his point of view by telling him about your unshakable trust in Kudo, and now he might never confide to you why he ushered Kudo out of his apartment without as much as an attempt to justify his actions.
But was he really the culprit, you wonder, or has he just tried to tell you that Kudo's deduction was wrong? Once again you've jumped to conclusions when you automatically assumed that he was Kudo's culprit only because he matched the description given by Kudo even though you've never met Yaten and Taiki, who are living in the same house. Additionally, it seems odd to you that the stranger had refused to admit a crime like the one Kudo described if he had really been the culprit, as it would have been more in-character for him to come clean about it so that he could finally let go.
If the stranger is really the man Kudo told you about, you can't come up with a plausible reason why he hadn't denied the charge if he had been innocent. On the other hand, you doubt Kudo was talking about Yaten or Taiki, who are sharing an apartment, as Kudo's narration has given you the impression that the culprit was living alone. Didn't Kudo himself tell you that something about his deduction wasn't right and that he had only given up the case for lack of time and conclusive evidence? Kudo would certainly appreciate it if you present him the answer to the little mystery as a goodbye gift.
However, no sooner did you decide to play detective than you realize you had better leave it, as digging too deeply into Kakyuu's death and spilling all the details to the same investigator whom he (or one of his foster brothers?) had denied an explanation would also mean to betray the stranger. To know or not to know, is it really important? You two have resolved to distract each other from unhappy memories by making pleasant ones, not to open old wounds out of idle curiosity.
"It seems you have much more to hide than I thought," you can't help saying.
He visibly reddens, looking guilty all of a sudden.
"I admit I've held back one or two things." He laughs. "But I'd dare say the one who has much more to hide is you."
"Well, unlike you, I've never claimed to be an open book. If I were a book, I'd be a personal diary, locked."
He smiles at you across your coffee cups.
"Is there a key to the lock? If there isn't, I will refine my mind-reading skills and try to guess all your thoughts on my own."
"Well then, good luck with that," you gaily consent.
"I'm actually getting better at guessing." He fastidiously places his cup on the table before turning to you with an air of determination. "Do you mind if I show you?"
"No, go ahead!" You smile at him in amusement.
"The car crash in slow motion you talked about... Was it your relationship with Gin?"
Taken by surprise, you wonder for a moment whether you should answer his question in the affirmative or not before the realization hits you that his knowledge about your "car crash in slow motion" can't only have been a wild guess since you haven't even once mentioned Gin's code name to him. Most probably, he has already known about Sherry and Gin before last night (he said Stinger had "talked about cocktails as if they had a life") and put two and two together at some point of your conversation.
"Professor Tomoe has told you about me," you state soberly. The lunatic apparently knew more about Gin and you than you suspected.
"After we met, I asked Tomoe why you were the only student who didn't wear Infinity's uniform. He told me that you were a scientist and 'Gin's protégé' and that I'd be asking for trouble if I didn't leave you alone... But he didn't tell me how you were called. I actually guessed it on my own." He pauses for effect.
"Sherry was your cocktail code name, right?" He flashes you a victorious smile. "That's why you reacted to it when I told you about my favourite wine on the way to Two Lights'."
"Don't be so smug about it! You needed hours to figure it out while Kudo would have deduced it in an instant. Moriarty doesn't match you in the least! Akane-san should have cast you as Watson."
"It's not fair of you to compare my deduction skills to Kudo's. I bet I win when it comes to singing or acting skills... But why are you laughing?"
"I'd rather not elaborate. I only remembered I actually like Kudo's singing, as bad as it is."
You've almost forgotten how much you liked Kudo's voice, its huskiness and even its sharp edge, which, set against its subdued warmth, always faintly intrigued you.
"Well, I know more about you than I thought," he continues, giving you the same enigmatic smile you saw on his face when he ushered you into his dining room. "Or at least I know a lot about Sherry and Haibara Ai..."
"Haibara Ai," you echo in disbelief. You've always suspected that Stinger knew more about APTX4869 than he should, but you would never have guessed that he was also well-informed about Haibara Ai. The only person at Infinity who knew was Tenoh-san, who would never have spilled it to the mad professor because she knew that he suffered from random laughing fits during which he was dangerously talkative.
"Haruka-san told me," the stranger explains. "I needed a while to make the connection because I didn't expect a girl like you to do such kind of research. Haruka-san's use of suffixes is at times misleading, and I automatically assumed that Sherry was at least ten years older than us. But when you said you had given Kudo a good reason to take back his proposal, I remembered Pandora's Box and thought maybe you were Sherry, the scientist who was shrunk by her own drug and who tricked both Haruka-san and him."
"I'm as old as the hills when it comes to my mental age," you quip in an attempt to recover from your shock. Small details aside (for example you already took the antidote before visiting Pandora's Box and didn't plan to trick either Kudo or Tenoh-san but only improvised), he knows too much about the story to be only one of Tenoh-san's casual acquaintances. Tenoh-san doesn't belong to the loquacious type of people who would tell a friend about dangerous projects which don't concern them. Also, she has a deeply ingrained mistrust against men.
"That's a great asset in life, isn't it? Luckily, your drug didn't affect your mental age at all." He grins. "You were the one who continued Hell Angel's research and developed APTX4869, right?" The question is purely rhetorical. "Haruka-san always called it 'the Silver Bullet'."
"You're one of Tenoh-san's 'close friends'?" you ask, trying to see him with pre-infatuated eyes.
"Friendship" isn't the right term for that, he replies, as "Haruka-san" hates him for unknown reasons. But since they share the same group of friends, they are desperately trying to get along. They also like each other's music and sometimes manage to work together without either of them being killed, which is no mean feat for both of them owing to Haruka-san's bad temper.
"It makes sense for Tenoh-san to hate you if you really flirted with her precious girlfriend. When it came to Kaioh-san, she was always extremely jealous." You draw a deep breath and empty your espresso in one gulp before placing the cup on the table.
"So it was Tenoh-san, who told you about me?" You give a mirthless laugh. "What did she say? Nothing pleasant, I suppose."
"Nothing disturbing, actually. She said Sherry was one of the nicest girls she had ever met although she usually didn't like bad-tempered redheads."
"You're taking me for a ride!"
He chuckles, beaming at you with visible enjoyment.
"You seemed nervous."
As you feared, he knows all about your role in the Black Organization just as he knows about your connection to "Haruka-san's" radical group. And yet he doesn't show the slightest sign of horror, disgust, or loathing. He will not shrink away from your hand or call you a traitor or a murderess. To him, you're only a normal, nice reddish-haired woman...
With a lingering glow of pleasure in his eyes, he readjusts his position on the sofa and then draws you into his arms, places your head on his lap, and supports your back with a cushion. "If you think Haruka-san is mad at you, you're dead wrong. When we talked, I had the impression she admired you for having the guts to ruin all her plans."
"If she really thought that, she never told me." You comfortably settle into his embrace, stretch out your legs, and bury your face into his soft cardigan. Even through the thick fabric of the bathrobe, you are acutely aware of his fingers caressing your arm in hypnotically slow movements, hesitantly brushing against the back of your hand like an unspoken question.
For an eternity, you two lie there together in complete silence, watching the fine mist of rain outside as it comes down soundlessly. In the deep stillness of dawn, the air is throbbing with warmth, enveloping the two of you like an invisible blanket of universal affection...
You and I, we can be partners, Kudo had sleepily said, pulling the blanket over both of you. We can solve cases and live together for a whole lifetime. When this is over, I want to live without regrets and do whatever I think is right... I've been thinking a lot about us in the past three weeks... I want you to stay with me for life.
All at once, a pang of sorrow shoots through you at the thought that this is disturbingly reminiscent of Pandora's Box, added to the certainty that something is surreal about yesterday's sunset, about the sudden intimacy between strangers and the irregular flow of time. Logically, you can't explain why you fear that this won't last for longer than a night, or why you can't forget the story of the apparition which appears at sunset and wanders on earth for only twenty-four hours, disappearing forever as the second dusk falls.
g.