Detective Conan Fanfiction
Kiss of Death
"Choice"
A/N: I'm on a mid-term break. So I thought I could squeeze one update in this fiction. Okay, let me have a few pointers.
1. Remember Vermouth's visit at around Chapter 16 where she tells Ai to test Conan with the antidote?
2. Remember when Ai gave him an antidote when they danced?
Those two occurrences are important in this chapter. I foreshadowed them, but I did not expect it to be this long.
It has been a while, so here's a quick summary of past events:
After the destruction of the organisation and Ran's marriage to Araide, Conan decided to stay as he is and attempted to move on. Yet, a seemingly locked-room murder case with a peculiar chessboard held connections with the Black Organisation than they could have predicted. In order to rat out the Black Organisation member, Conan and the FBI teamed up with Kaito Kid. It was revealed that the Black Organisation was indeed reforming, with a terrifying new Boss. Known for cruelly experimenting on children in an established school, the new mysterious Boss retaliated with a series of traps, causing deaths, including Genta's. As the rest attempted to survive the battle and games that the syndicate pulls on them, Conan spiralled into despair for his failures. Not knowing that the Boss was after him in the first place, revealing his identity that left Conan stunned. The Kiss of Death, the cold betrayal... Conan could only comply, being led to the heart of the syndicate's hideout, where he met face-to-face with Gin and discovered the truth about Ai's terrifying past.
To make matters complicated, his emotions and situation with Ai were like the rhythm of an anxiety-filled heartbeat. Conan, being confused, had difficulties decyphering his real feelings towards Ai. Was it due to the fear of rejection or unwillingness to accept what his second life offered him? As for Ai, being stubborn and pessimistic, had not been entirely honest with him and pushes him away.
On top of all this, there were still so many mysteries left to unfold: Why did the Boss want him captured? What were his origins? How would Jodie cope with her ordeal, after the assault from Gin? How would Conan cope with himself being imprisoned?
"Geez," Williamine sighed, "Gin's taking his own sweet time. If he wanted to get rid of her, he could have been done with it by now. What's taking him so long?"
"Go and get him," Vermouth instructed, and the boy left.
"What's up with that kid? He doesn't seem to like Gin or any of us even though Gin was the one who picked him up," Chianti pouted, clearly annoyed.
Vermouth chuckled and teased, "except for me of course."
"Disgusting-"
"No, you just need to treat him in a more motherly way," Vermouth explained, "if you didn't know, that boy was the son of a very violent and deranged man who was a criminal. Gin was tasked to gun down the boy's dad. But when he came to the apartment, the boy had already murdered his own father."
"For what?"
"Apparently, the boy's father had been abusing his mother, who used to be a prostitute. He had also been known to hit the boy whenever it was convenient. He ended up manslaughtering her one day and still ruined her corpse. Williamine witnessed the whole thing. And in revenge and defence, he immediately killed him. Gin stumbled upon the scene just moments after it had transpired and he took a liking to the silver-haired boy that could kill," Vermouth added.
"Come to think of it... Gin has silver hair too," Chianti mumbled.
"Probably he was biased. But the main point is... Williamine, whatever his name was before that, he may already know how to kill, but deep down, he's still a child who misses his mother. So if you want to handle a child, be a mother," Vermouth teased, "or maybe it's too difficult for you since you've lost yours."
"Shut up-"
"Isn't that right? You took revenge by becoming a sniper for a mafia that opposes your loved ones' killers-"
"They killed my fiance and my baby! Don't talk about my child when you had lost yours as well! Mine might be dead, but yours is still breathing but despises you. So don't think we're the same," she retorted, like a cobra spewing out venom. Chianti hated talking about her past. The only reminder of her son was the butterfly tattoo on her eye - for her son had always liked chasing butterflies. Like butterflies, he was sweet, elegant and all too fragile. Chianti was not always the ill-tempered and murderous woman people had known her to be.
Chianti snorted and left.
"Oi Gin, what is taking you so long just to interrogate one wo-"
Williamine halted, horrified at the scene before him. He saw the prisoner, Jodie, lying on the floor, bruised legs and arms still bound. Her lipstick was smeared, and her hair was dishevelled. Within reach, lay all her clothes.
Her skirt and undergarments were torn.
A flash of memory struck Williamine. It was eerily similar to what he had witnessed years ago. The only difference is that the body that lay there, instead of his mother, was another woman.
He eyed the one who was responsible for this mess, only to find him grinning satisfyingly. "You... nobody told you to do this," the boy told Gin, accusing him with his pointer.
"Nobody said I couldn't either," Gin replied.
"That doesn't mean you should-"
"Why? Having dejá vü?" Gin taunted.
"Shut up and get out-"
The man could only laugh. He wanted to retort something back coyly but decided against it. He simply exited the room, leaving a confused boy.
"Hey... lady... are you okay?" Williamine whispered, for once shaking. He had never been so uncertain or afraid.
"Mom..." he whispered, then biting his lips when he realised that he just had addressed Jodie as his own kin.
She's not his mom.
No response from Jodie, yet Williamine could tell that she was still breathing.
"No..."
"You seem cleaned up already," Williamine said in a low voice, clearly distraught. Conan only nodded, equally disturbed.
"Can you tell me... what happened to Jodie-sensei?" he asked, leaving the other boy off-guard. He shook his head.
"I don't know," he muttered.
"You're lying," the detective concluded, eyes sharp. The boy shook his head again. He did not wish to deliver the news to him.
"You...don't need to know," he croaked weakly, "don't test me."
"I demand to know the truth," Conan pressed on, "I've already known one bloody blow. One more disgusting truth would not kill me."
"You really want to know?" Williamine defended, wailing, "I went to her room, found her in a mess. Gin did something! She- she was... Her eyes! Eyes! They were not sane. They were like my mom's! It was not supposed to be that way!"
The boy started to shiver.
The detective almost forgot how to breathe. How he wanted to swallow back his words. This...was horrible. It could have been better if Williamine had announced that Jodie was murdered.
"Right...I'm here to convey a message from Vermouth," the boy snapped out of his devastation, "here. She wanted to return you this in secret."
Williamine handed over the casing that contained the antidote that Ai had given him earlier and that photo of Shiho Miyano. He explained, "days ago, Vermouth was the one who prompted Sherry to give you the antidote when she visited her. Perhaps Vermouth wanted you to escape, but with a price."
Both of them eyed on the ventilation above. The room was clean.
"Would you mean...us escaping?" Conan questioned.
"I can't-"
"But you'd like that, right?"
"Look, detective," Williamine hissed, "don't waste your sympathy on me. I was ordered to kill your friend's parents. Surely, you would not want to help a criminal like me. Hurry, before the patrols are on a roll again in half an hour."
The boy hurriedly left, slamming the door behind him. Conan looked around. There was nothing else in the room. He attempted to jump to open the vent, but he was too short. He glanced at the antidote.
"I see-"
The only way for him to reach it is to turn into Shinichi Kudo once more, permanently. Didn't he want this? But he hesitated. Did he truly want to become Shinichi again? He thought he had already decided to let go of his old life years ago.
"What are you waiting for? Consume it, and we'll become us," a voice, cold and hollow, sneaked up on Conan. There stood Shinichi again - the same one in his fragment of imagination.
Fuck, Conan really was going insane.
Despite being aware that it was just his hallucination, he decided to converse with his imagination. "But...Haibara...I can't leave her alone," Conan reasoned with his alter ego.
"Her job here is done," it answered, "she put us in this mess, she ought to clean it. She gave you the antidote. There was no such other relationship beyond that. That was why we had tried so hard to keep her alive, didn't we? This was what we were supposed to accomplish. Now transform back to me, and we can escape this whole ordeal."
"You're missing the point!" Conan yelled angrily. Geez, was he always this self-centred as Shinichi?
"Haibara can't change to her old form because she did not consume the poison with water, unlike us. Changing back would mean that I would return to my old life, which didn't have her in it. Don't you understand? I want her in my life," Conan rambled, unaware how much he had been confessing.
"So? You can still get to see her," his hallucination glared back, whispering to him like an evil serpent.
"It wouldn't be the same. I don't want to return to my old life. There's nothing there," he said, with much sadness and realisation.
"Are you fucking around?"
"No! Shut up and listen," Conan growled, getting riled up now. "Go back to what? Us being an ignorant and narcissistic bastard that had no real friends? And that one friend of ours, Ran, who was sweet and innocent, we kept lying and hurting her. And our parents, they were not often with us. We treated our mother like crap, even. I don't want that. I have better friends here. I have Ran like an older sister, Hattori as a friend and the Detective Boys as my childhood friends. I want to start over; I want Haibara with me."
Conan crushed the antidote with his foot, pressing onto it for a good measure while glaring at the figure. The figure stiffened. Conan was clearly rejecting his other self.
"I know that choosing to be you, as Shinichi Kudo again, meant that I'm not choosing Haibara. So no, I am not choosing to take the antidote," he answered, with complete certainty.
"Suit yourself, fool-"
The "Shinichi Kudo" imagination of his faded into the background. Conan slumped to the ground. Not taking the antidote would mean that he had wasted an opportunity to escape. Strangely, he felt satisfied. He would find another way to escape. He would never resort to that choice. Being free as Shinichi Kudo without the presence of his friends and Ai was not the freedom he desired. It was either all or nothing.
It's either being damned in this hellhole or be free with Ai.
A/N: Keeping this below 3000 words as promised! FINALLY. Conan had concluded that he does not need his old life, he just needs Ai and being Conan. I had wanted this outcome since the first chapter. Did not think it'll take a long time.
Unfortunately, my mid-term break is only this week. So next update will be in April. Conan's finally accepting his feelings! Next will be Ai's!
Next Chapter: After Conan had come to a conclusion with his decision to stay us Conan and accepting that he needed Ai, Conan had been called by the new Boss's for his presence and play chess with him, as they had promised. Meanwhile, Ai and the rest of the remaining able-bodied police force restlessly cracked the mystery behind the new Boss and their hideout, swearing that they will retrieve Conan and Jodie.
Also, I have recently been attracted to HieixBotan pairing. It's a non-canon pairing from Yu Yu Hakusho, but that community has a handful of talented writers with amazing stories. They could pull off that whole "opposites attract" story and I would like to explore that. Do not kill me if I had some updates regarding that pairing. I WILL FINISH THIS STORY, FEAR NOT.