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
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Ghost at Twilight
(edited version)
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A few hours ago…
A few hours ago, life was perfect…
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The dream, a jumbled mess of scents, sounds, and images, has faded away. Sunlight is filtering through the patterns of the translucent curtains, warming your closed eyelids. The moment you return to consciousness, the anxiety dissipates, an air of sublime contentment spreads over the whole apartment; and you begin to stir, languorously enjoying the heat of stranger-san's lean, long-limbed body, which—in any position—is perfectly fitted to every of your nooks and curves like a long-searched-for puzzle piece.
In response to your slight change in position, he instantly shifts, automatically closing the small gap between you two as if he were unwilling to let go of you even if it's only for a moment. While the fragrance of kinmokusei and orange blossoms is still lingering in his hair and on his skin, his natural scent is now more distinct. Your sophisticated nose, which has been smitten with it at first sniff, once again verifies that its effect on you is anything but short-lived. Inviting and tantalizingly intangible, it arouses your suspicion that the desire to kiss is the nicer sibling of the primitive animal urge to devour the beloved—to nibble at them like one lazily nibbles at a delicious dessert or to swallow them whole like a ravenous snake swallows its prey.
This is the reason why people claim that love is blind, you think in amusement, drinking in his scent, which has slightly changed as it mingled with yours, as though it were a mysterious substance you've grown addicted to. You are confident you could recognize him in a crowd even if you were blindfolded. Unlike the vague sense of defeat after your first time with Gin, the escapades of the last hours felt so right that you would charm the man next to you into repeating them again if your body didn't tell you to stop. Your lips have begun to hurt, not to mention all the other sensitive places which aren't accustomed to all the attention they got from him.
"Well slept?"
He has just opened his eyes to gaze at you, blinking with unfocused eyes into the slanting sunlight before giving you a perfectly blissful smile, which leaves no doubt that he has enjoyed the last hours as well.
"Not really," you admit, reaching behind him for your watch. "We've only nodded off for a few minutes, I think. I've had a dream…"
"A bad one?" He pushes himself into a sitting position, startling you with his sudden nudity as the blanket slips from his shoulders. Now would be the right time to get dressed and leave if this were a one-night stand. Since it isn't, you only behold him with the same unabashed interest with which he is now looking at you. As much as you love seeing him in his clothes, you infinitely prefer seeing him without. Dressed, he appears playful and flamboyant, displaying a mischievous predilection for rebellion against the tyrannies of common sense and the current fashion. Stripped, he has a rare serene, statuesque look, a timeless appeal of the type that inspire great artists to create masterworks.
"I can't really remember. But don't worry," you tease him. "You weren't in it. I've been searching for you while something was beeping in the distance. Is it your tumble dryer?"
All you can remember of the dream is the futile search—the deep sense of failure and loss during your hopeless fight against time. You've been combing Ueno-koen for him in vain while the Queen of Spades was smiling, amused by your plight. Since the memory of the peculiar scene still makes your flesh creep, you suppress the impulse to recount it to him.
"Now I know why you thought it was unpleasant," he chuckles with his eyes closed, tenderly brushing his fingertips from your right breast down to your waist, over your belly, and along the contours of your left hip bone. "I'll make it up to you for my absence in an instant. Just give me a second to stop this racket and get us coffee."
You see you will have to deflate his ego before it lifts off with him like a hot air balloon, you observe as he nimbly leaps to his feet and—exhibiting a total lack of decency—strides to the door without putting anything on. The persistent beep of the tumble dryer, barely audible through the closed door, assaults your ears when he opens the door of the bedroom and sidesteps the vases—and you remember with a stab of guilt that it's time to leave, as Kudo must have woken up and will investigate your disappearance if you let him wait for too long.
Damaging his ego is an impossible task, "stranger-san"—the endearment has received an ironic quality now that you know him so intimately—claims when he returns with a coffee cup, grinning at you when he notices that you find the sight of his bare body extremely distracting. So many people have tried—none has ever succeeded. He only warns you in advance to spare you the humiliation of defeat.
"Then it's time that someone finally beats it." You take a sip of the fragrant espresso, which he has scented with lemon peel, and sigh. "Apropos time…" You cast him a regretful glance. "I must go home now since I've locked Kudo up in my apartment. I'll come back to you this evening."
He pauses momentarily, a startled expression on his face, as if he has completely forgotten about Kudo's existence. Then he smiles and resignedly nods, taking the cup from you to bring it to his lips without saying anything.
"Seiya?" You raise yourself up on one elbow and pull his blanket over your breasts, as you've begun to feel the cold the moment he withdrew.
He settles beside you, tugs at a corner of the blanket, and smiles at you over the rim of the cup. "Yes, Shiho?"
You like how your name sounds when it comes from his mouth. The sibilant "sh" followed by the two vocals sound like a murmured musical motif preceded by a hushed whisper.
"Are you jealous?"
If the situation were reversed and he would return to "Odango" to spend a day with her before she leaves for another city, you certainly would have been jealous. The fact that Kudo—despite being in a steady relationship—is not married yet and has actually invited you to watch cherry blossoms at Ueno-koen with him doesn't make the situation sound better. If Seiya is only half as possessive as Gin was, he must be suspecting you of keeping all your options open until Kudo leaves. Troubled by the possible misunderstanding, you move closer to share the blanket with him, tucking your cold feet under his warm legs. Even though you've been cocooned in the blanket and he has been walking around in the nude, he is still warmer than you.
He looks genuinely surprised as if he hasn't anticipated your question at all.
"No, I'm not." He places the empty cup on the bedside table, next to the roses, and leans in to kiss you with the pleasant bittersweet taste of espresso on his lips. "But I don't think you should tell Kudo about this. At least not today."
"It will be hard to hide it from him since he is so observant," you remark, "but of course I'll try". Relieved that he hasn't suggested that you three sit at the breakfast table together in awkward silence (a situation you want to avoid at any cost!), you're nevertheless curious about why he wants to hide your relationship all of a sudden.
"I don't want to hide our relationship. I only meant that you shouldn't hurt Kudo by telling him that you've spent the night at my place while he was there. He proposed to you a few years ago—maybe he still has some feelings for you now. I don't want this to turn into a drama since the things between you and him really don't have anything to do with us."
After being caught in a love triangle for years, he seems petrified of slipping into another love triangle—a feeling you know well since the last thing you want is watching how "Odango" turns into another rival, whom you have to share your lover's affection with. Neither do you want her to suffer because you've stolen him away. As odd as it sounds, Seiya is right that the past between Kudo and you shouldn't have anything to do with your relationship. Kudo was clearly not available when Seiya asked you out for a date. And you both know that you would never have gone out with him if Kudo and you had been a couple—just as he wouldn't have been interested in a rendezvous with you at all if he had had the merest chance with his Odango.
If you both had been unavailable, Seiya and you might have been intrigued by each other after that chance encounter in the park but would have kept a safe distance to each other, realizing the danger the other person poses. But now that you are ("irrevocably!" you would claim if it wouldn't sound so clichéd) in love with the stranger who has fascinated you right from the start, you can't imagine anyone or anything to come between you and your soon-to-be life partner. Kudo's departure will still be unbearable—a separation whose finality you're struggling to accept. But he has ceased to be a viable option for so long that you've grown accustomed to his perpetual absence.
As much as you once tried to make yourself believe it… Once upon a time when you were desperate enough to stalk Kudo and Ran, staring at Kudo through the window of your café and the window of their restaurant, past your reflection on the window glass and the busy street in the evening rush hour… A love that is doomed to stay within the realm of fantasy can never compare with a love that can be lived. On the other hand, a passion that has been consummated probably won't be able to smoulder as long as a passion that has never been awoken. Not receiving a kiss one craved can freeze an unattainable love in time and space, making it forever desirable in the absence of tangible faults. But receiving the caresses one desired—and having one's expectations not only satisfied but far surpassed—is an experience that turns the whole world upside down.
All troubles gone, with the antidote to all sorrows within reach, you're so generous in your happiness that you could embrace the whole universe. It's like looking at the distant spheres in the sky and suddenly seeing their luminescent glow for the first time, or admiring the fascinating pattern of the spider's web under the bed, wondering why you've never taken notice of it. Knowing the danger that this consuming infatuation between your stranger-san and you may burn out within a few years, you're not in the least afraid, trusting his and your ability to save it in time.
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The "last kiss" before you two get up (meanwhile, you've already moved to the bed and put on your bathrobe) leads to a second "last kiss" and a third—each lasting longer than the previous one. Similarly, the caresses, which have started out innocent, are now threatening to keep you for another hour at his place. It's impossible for you to resist—you admit between two lingering kisses that torture your swollen lips—for kissing him has become a compulsion. And when he insists that he is not trying to seduce you into staying but is in fact just as helpless as you when it comes to fighting these bothersome urges, the bathrobe once again slips from your shoulder and ultimately lands on the heap of damp clothes in the corner of the room.
Oscillating between pleasure and pain, you two have just got lost in a world of your own when the commotion from the corridor—clattering noises of broken porcelain and shattered glass followed by a string of colourful profanities in a high, crystal-clear male voice—shocks you two out of your half-conscious state. While you're still blinking at the door of the bedroom, horrified, Seiya has the presence of mind to bolt to the door and block it with his back while motioning you to put on the bathrobe again.
"Taiki has the spare key to my apartment," he says apologetically, laughing at the comical situation as you hurriedly grope for the bathrobe, cursing your bad luck, which sent you his foster brothers at a time when their presence is absolutely not welcome.
"What blithering idiot would leave the damned vases directly in front of the door so that anyone who tries to come in will bleed to death? Yaten has just cut his foot because of you, moron!" cries a dramatic male voice, which is slightly deeper than the other one.
"That's Taiki," Seiya dryly remarks, introducing his "perfect flower-loving brother" to you.
Yaten Kou, to whom the other voice obviously belongs, is still screaming obscenities of the most creative sort and has apparently also kicked at another vase in his rage, as you can once again hear the sound of glass shattering.
"Stop it, Yaten!" the deeper voice orders. "Just hold this for me while I'm getting you a bandage."
"We've brought you breakfast, jackass," yells Yaten-san, his clear, sophisticated pronunciation jarring with his uncouth manner. "Come here and bring a rag if you don't want me to stuff the gyoza down your throat until you gag!" The rhyme must be a coincidence, you decide, unless the poor guy is suffering from a mental illness which causes him to rhyme obsessively.
"I've left the light in the bathroom on," your stranger-san chuckles in amusement, enjoying himself at the expense of everyone else in his apartment. "They must think I'm still in there."
"And what's the point of that?" you hiss, crouching down next to him. "Why don't you simply tell them to leave us alone?" In situations like these, his relaxed attitude is impossible to tolerate.
"Stop talking to yourself! I can hear you, creep!" Yaten-san exclaims, enraged by what he believes to be a prank. To your relief, he hasn't rhymed again.
"It's hard to believe that he's actually the oldest of us three," Seiya calmly remarks, takes you on his lap, yawns, and closes his eyes as if he were preparing to stay in this impossible position for the whole morning.
"Tell him you're with a woman right now and want to be left alone!" you command, jerking at his earring to stress the importance of his cooperation.
"I'm with a woman right now who will rip off my earlobes if you two don't get out of my apartment and leave us alone," your stranger-san shouts, his voice resonating through the small bedroom. Nevertheless, his voice lacks conviction that this approach will succeed. To your dismay, it seems Seiya was truthful with you when he claimed to have been single and running from lovestruck women all his life. No one will believe him that he has brought a woman home.
"Haha, that was a good one!" Taiki-san, who must have returned to the corridor in the meantime, testily comments. "If you don't come out of your bedroom in an instant and help us clean up this mess, I'm going to break the door down!"
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