Chapter Twenty-Four
Wake
"No. He's not here any more than you are, huh, Toichi-ojisan?"
Toichi stiffened in surprise, and then turned to look at the door. Shinichi followed his gaze, and realized that the other side of the painting showed a lifesize portrait of Kuroba Toichi. It was very good, doves and all. Even in the dark room, it looked more alive than the white spectre glowing beside Shinichi.
Aoko sat down on a beanbag, staring at the painting. Then she sighed heavily and began to talk.
"I could probably go to the hospital to say all this," she said softly, "but I still can't really stand to see him like that, and anyway I don't think he can hear me there. If either of you could hear me, I feel like it would be here. And I need to get this out."
Shinichi heard Kaito almost inaudibly hitch in a breath through the wall. He could hear her, all right.
"I want to say goodbye, Kaito," she continued softly. "Even if you wake up tomorrow… you're not my best friend anymore. And I'm sure you won't. Once obasan has dealt with her grief… well, there's a lot of pressure to turn you off, a lot of proof that you won't ever wake up. And I want to help her through her grief. It's hurting her so much to have to let you go, you baka. How could you leave her like that?" she sighed again, tears glimmering in her eyes. "How could you leave me like that? But then…" she smiled ruefully. "It doesn't hurt as much for me. Even though… I fell in love with you, once, I guess. No, that's not true. I fell in love, yes, but the man I loved was at best only a fragment of who you really are, at worst nothing more than a mask. Was that all you ever were? An illusion to hide everything you are, everything you feel?"
Shinichi had to peek through at Kaito at this point. His eyes were wide, a hand over his mouth to stifle sound, the Poker Face that he'd been training Shinichi's facial muscles into dropped entirely. Toichi's face was blank, hiding emotion. And tears were pouring down Aoko's face, looking like streaks of silver in the moonlight.
"I shared everything with you, Kaito!" she sobbed. "You were my best friend. I told you everything. I gave you my heart and my life. But you never gave me a thing. Never your feelings, never the truth, never your trust. Why did you even bother with me at all? Was it entertaining to prank me and run from me and pop back up to cheer me up? Was that all I was, Kaito? Just another game to you…" she sniffled and rubbed her face on her sleeve. "Well, I'm not a game. I'm a person. I'm a person with a broken heart, and now I've got to put it back together, and that's not just a simple puzzle. There's no riddle or game to it, nothing you're familiar with. I don't know who you were, or where you are now… but for the boy who was my friend, the man I loved… In your next life, or whatever, I hope you can find a person. In a world of games and puzzles for you, I hope you can find a person. I hope you can be more than an illusion. I hope you can be real, some day. If you're reborn, if you get a second chance, don't waste it acting. Spend it living."
She sniffled again, then yawned. "Wow, I'm deep when I'm sleep-deprived. Or insane. Look at me, talking to a portrait. I need to stop nagging obachan to get some rest when I'm not getting any myself… but… I said what I needed to say, I guess. I just… goodbye, Kaito. Goodbye." She shuffled to her feet, and left the room without a backwards glance.
His body wasn't getting any sleep tonight, Shinichi knew, but that was the least of his worries. On automatic, Kaito had wandered back to the Kudo mansion, and was now lying on Shinichi's bed, but he was still dressed and his eyes were wide open. It was getting on for three in the morning, two hours after hearing Aoko's one-sided conversation.
Shinichi was almost angry at the girl. Admittedly, she hadn't known he really could hear her… but… dammit, did she have any idea what she'd just done to him? He'd been trying to make himself forget about her, but Shinichi knew from experience that it wouldn't be a quick process, even if Kaito had the advantage of having kept her at arm's length to begin with. And now…
He recognized the expression on Kaito's face when he'd heard Aoko's words. He could see the raw pain, the feelings that had hit him when he overheard Ran's confession to Hondo. Just like him, Kaito had had to lie to and hurt the one he cared about most, and she had had enough. He knew that, he knew that he couldn't expect Ran or Aoko to understand what they never told them, but, dammit… Kaito was in very real pain here! He wouldn't even speak to his father, lost in whatever pool of self-loathing he was in…
Shinichi remembered that he'd had to be alone when he realized Ran's feelings, however, and was drifting at a discreet distance from Kaito (he couldn't bring himself to leave him entirely; if the thief took it into his head to do anything stupid, Shinichi's body would pay the price) and talking quietly to Toichi, who was also deeply worried about his son's condition.
"I watched those two grow up," he said softly, staring at his silent son. "Aoko's always been… so important…" he looked down with a sigh. "Damnit. This is my fault. I taught him Poker Face before I taught him to feel…"
"You would've had time for that," Shinichi said sharply, not wanting to deal with two depressed magicians, "You should've had time for that, if it wasn't for the Black Organization. Don't blame yourself. Blame them." Toichi just nodded, but he still looked downcast, and resumed watching over his son.
Kaito suddenly croaked out, "Am I real?"
"What?" Shinichi said in confusion. Toichi drifted closer to his son, visibly worried.
"What she said," Kaito continued, eyes unmoving from their dazed inspection of the ceiling. "She was right, you know. When I was a kid, when Tou-san died…" his eyes finally moved, flicking over to his father's spirit for the briefest second, "when I saw how sad Kaa-san was, I acted like I was fine, trying to be strong for her… I was always pretending… and I've never really stopped. Even if I was ever hurt or upset, I pretended everything was fine… pretended to be an idiot to entertain those around me… pretended that I didn't feel anything for Aoko to protect her… pretended to be Kid to catch Snake… always, always, pretending. Masks and masks and masks… and now, pretending to be you all the time. I barely know how to drop my Poker Face any more, and really, I'm scared to. I don't know how to be myself. I don't know if there's a myself anymore to be…"
Shinichi opened his mouth, wanting to say something, to comfort the thief, but stopped. That was the question, wasn't it? The one that had tormented him so often? If you act for too long, is anything left? He could remember the first time he came back to himself, how he'd called Ran "Ran-neechan" and tried to join in the Shonen Tantei-Dan's conversation. He'd thought it would be natural to return to himself, but "himself" had tried to be Edogawa Conan…
"I don't know," he found himself admitting, losing focus as his eyes glazed into a thousand-mile stare to match Kaito's- precisely, given how it was his body and all. "I wish I could say something comforting, Kaito, but I really don't know. I've spent so long acting as Conan that it's barely an act any more. The few times I've been back to myself, being myself has taken more concentration than being Conan, like "Kudo Shinichi" is the act now… maybe that's why you're doing so well as me. It's easy to act an act…"
"There's always something under the mask, even if you've just forgotten what it is," Toichi interjected softly, causing both to glance at him with identical disoriented expressions as they refocused on the here and now. "In the past couple of weeks both of you have been reduced to your most vulnerable, the time when your emotions are raw and real and even a master of Poker Face just can't keep it up... Neither of you are pretending right now, are you? When the masks have been stripped… there's always something underneath, even if it's only sadness and regret. But," he added, smiling kindly at them, an expression that reminded Shinichi forcibly of his own father, "You've also, both of you, let others see. Despite your attempts to the contrary, Kudo-kun, your soul is always exposed to us and we saw you as clearly as you see Kaito now. Both of you have shown someone else that you're real, even if it's only a ghost…"
"Y-yeah…" Kaito finally sat up, frowning slightly. "Hey… Shinichi… you'll remind me, won't you? That I'm real. That there's a me under here somewhere. I just… this whole now-I'm-a-ghost-now-I'm-not thing is throwing my emotions for a loop. I think I might need reminding sometimes. So will you…?"
"Tell me about it," Shinichi snorted, but grinned. "Sure. So long as you do the same for me. That's what friends are for, right?"
"Well, yeah," Kaito said, now grinning a grin that warmed Toichi's heart. It reminded him of how Kaito had smiled as a child, whether in pride at learning a new trick or in the joy of watching his father perform. It filled him with guilt to think that it may well have been the first genuine smile of its kind since his death. "After all, for better or worse, it looks like you're stuck with me."
"Kami help me," Shinichi said, rolling his eyes but grinning himself. Kaito gave a jawcracking yawn, causing Shinichi to begin berating him about wearing his body out. Toichi just drifted back with a smile, watching the boys banter.
He'd been worried, for a moment. Both of them had hit the ultimate identity crisis at the same moment, and he didn't want to think about the losses that would have been sustained had they failed to make it through. But they had made it, and now they had each other. In the ten years that Toichi had been a ghostly guardian of his son, and the eight that he had watched him grow before that, he couldn't think that his son had ever had a friend that he'd let in so completely as Kudo Shinichi.
Whatever was to come, for better or worse… they'd be all right, he was sure, as long as they stuck together. And with the pair of them now combined instead of enemies, he almost pitied the Syndicate for what was about to befall them…
Almost. There was just the small matter of their mixing up his smokebombs with firebombs.
He blinked, dim light swirling into shapes as his vision cleared. Some kind of steady pounding, almost in rhythm with some kind of beeping, was making it hard to think. Something felt odd, too, but due to aforementioned difficulties in thinking he couldn't define what.
There was a problem. He tried to force his way through the fog in his head as he tried to remember. As his vision cleared, he could see that he was in a hospital room, but he had a feeling he shouldn't be there. That it was dangerous to be there. He tried to remember why. Normally hospitals looked after you, right?
Someone was talking, by the door. He glanced over, and recognized a face. An… FBI agent, that's who he was.
That was when he remembered. The FBI were his enemies. He was caught. He didn't dare say a thing to them about the Syndicate, no matter what, and in any case They'd probably kill him anyway, just to be sure.
A memory flashed through his head, from right before the crash. A child. Not just any child. The child who lived with Mori Kogoro. The child who had been chasing Bourbon. It couldn't be… but…
Could it? When Gin had suspected Mori Kogoro… had he been suspecting the wrong one? Could it be that…?
He quickly closed his eyes again as he woke up fully, smoothing his face out into unconsciousness. No. As long as they thought he was still unconscious, they wouldn't be able to interrogate him. He just had to bluff until the Syndicate located him, and either retrieved or silenced him.
They found Kir. They'd find him too. It was only a matter of time.
By the time the FBI agents returned, Vodka was once more sleeping like the dead.
Shinichi drifted boredly, occasionally chatting idly with Toichi, while Kaito slept. The man was very entertaining to converse with, light-heartedly chatting in endless Kid-like riddles, but he spoke more bluntly and clearly when talking about something serious- like the topic of the night, Kaito.
"Wait. What?" Shinichi asked, almost gaping.
"Well, he was such an inquisitive child, you see," Toichi said with a shrug. "Got into everything and if he couldn't pull it apart to see what made it tick he'd poke it with a stick to see the reactions. I only turned my back on him for a moment- I was wanting to see when the dolphin shows were, there was a flier on the wall- and he somehow pulled himself up onto the edge of the viewing tank and tipped over… It didn't have anything dangerous in it, just a few small fish for kids to view, I think they used it as a sort of aquatic petting zoo for school groups, but he was only three and the fall gave him such a fright…"
"Ah," Shinichi said, trying not to snigger. "You got him out?"
"Of course," Toichi sighed, "but it took a moment because I panicked and tried to call for an attendant in Japanese, which being in Florida didn't cut a lot of ice… we got him dried off and wrapped up in towels, I got my ears burned off by an angry Minami-" Shinichi was getting good at reading the minimal expression changes of the magicians Kuroba; now he could always catch that bare flicker in Toichi's eyes whenever he spoke of his widow, that scratch of regret- "but the whole thing scared the life out of the poor boy. I couldn't take him to an aquarium again without him screaming bloody murder, though by his teen years I noticed that he tended to avoid such things in school or the like by simply vanishing."
"I'm sure his teachers were just grateful that he wasn't around to cause havoc," Shinichi commented, which made Toichi laugh aloud.
"I'm sure they were," he chuckled as he wound down, glancing down fondly at his son. Shinichi followed his glance, hoping that the soft snoring was somehow a product of Kaito rather than his body.
It was odd. It was his body, but somehow, even know, he could see Kaito in it, even now while he was asleep and not even acting like his normal idiotic self. Maybe it was the moonlight washing over him from the parted curtains- like Shinichi, light didn't really bother him as he slept, and the magician probably preferred the moonlight. He looked oddly innocent when he was asleep, like he wasn't capable of twelve thousand brands of personal mayhem up to and including breaking the nature of reality.
Of course, next time he tried it, Shinichi now had some ammo against him…
Shinichi began to grow curious as Kaito twitched and turned in his sleep. He didn't seem too happy. What was the thief dreaming about?
Before really thinking about it, Shinichi reached out. He had had ghosts tread in his dreams before, but never been in another's himself.
His first thought that it was fittingly weird for Kaito. The thief was fleeing from a mop, which was being used to hit him over the head by a yellow rose. Somehow below them, as if Kaito was running along a floor of glass, a white rose could be seen burning.
Coiled around it, snapping at Kaito's heels, was a black serpent with glowing red eyes
Shinichi frowned. He had materialized some distance from Kaito, so the other teen hadn't spotted him yet, meaning that he was still deep into the dream. It was riddles and symbols, Shinichi realized, just like everything else. It was the snake that tipped him off. Snake. Snake of the black organization. So the burning rose…
Toichi hadn't talked much about his death onstage. Shinichi had heard of it, though. Hadn't it been a disappearing act or something gone wrong? Something had exploded. Toichi had burned. White was Toichi's colour, surely, and as Shinichi watched, the burning petals curled into purple, then black; funerary colours.
Then the yellow rose had to be somebody as well. As soon as Shinichi thought of that, it had to be Nakamori Aoko. It was the mop that tipped him off. The colour, however, made him frown. Didn't yellow roses mean platonic love, or friendship? He was sure Sonoko had often rambled about the subject around Valentine's and the like.
As he was musing this, the snake somehow managed to move through the invisible floor and bite Kaito's heel. With a yell, Kaito pitched over and landed in the shadow of a much bigger rose, the leaves of which moved down to hide him. The snake and yellow rose moved past the rose, not seeing Kaito where he hid. The leaves moved again, and Kaito glanced up with a grateful grin. Shinichi looked up too, trying to see what colour it was, but it was curling and dying, the now-brown head dropping at the now-horrified Kaito's feet.
"Kaito," Shinichi called in alarm as the thief's face crumpled at the sight of the dead rose-head. "You don't look like you're having fun. Want to wake up?"
Kaito gave a slightly weak grin. "When did you get a sense of humour? I'm assuming it's really you because you're right; up until now, this dream hasn't been much fun."
"It's weird, is what it is," Shinichi responded, reaching out to pull the thief to his feet and back to reality. "By the way, did you catch what colour this rose was?" he prodded the dead rose with his toe as it faded. "I didn't see."
"Ah… no," Kaito said, but he didn't look at Shinichi when he said it.
More potential KaiShin, Marie Ravenclaw ;) But first, angst and soliloquizing XDXD
Wouldn't you just love to see Ran matchmaking between these two, tanteigirl69? XDXD Well, can't really happen, for obvious reasons…
I'm sure Kudo Shinichi will be able to get into the police station, llamaglamasama. He has plenty of police pals. I wouldn't recommend breaking into a police station XDXD
Vermouth is an eternal mystery, SoftcoreOtaku XD Yeah, the Vashta Nerada WERE really freaky, but I just find the style of the Weeping Angels episodes the scariest in the series. Don't blink…
Unfortunately, he doesn't, AmaryMei. He just yells "ya beauty!" XDXD I soooooo hope they make more MK anime… they called it "episode 1", they've left the door wide open ;) What Aoko and Ran have done is sad and all, but it's all for a greater cause XDXD
Heiji and Kazuha are on the way, katioushinichi ;) I can only do it because I read. All the time. Everything I can get my hands on. Ability by assimilation XDXD
They were extremely angry then, bloddy raptor. Normally, they can't affect the physical world at all. Heiji would have to SERIOUSLY piss them off to see flying furniture.
Glad you like it, Ivan's Kitsune XD
Here ya go, Teldra ;)
It's on YouTube, Myvampirepuppy, but not subbed yet. I'm sure Kaito will think of something- he always does ;)
Even more Aoko here, Phantom-Akiko ;)
*books Dragon's Hitokiri in the head* XDXD Kaito… is extremely freaked out, poor guy…
KaiShin will happen, Cat, no fear ;) Heiji's going to get confused a lot around Kaito and Shinichi :P Yeah, The Osakans are great friends :) I don't think even Kaito would break into a major police station XDXD
We're all curious about Vermouth, topaz-tantei XDXD So many ideas, so little free time to write them… damn school, wasting my writing time… XDXD
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. -_-