Disclaimer:
Let's just skip the giant disclaimer you can find in Chapter 1!
x.
FS
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x. ENCOUNTER in VENICE x.
(new version)
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Fate seemed to pull the strings
I turned and you were gone
While from the darkened wings
The music box played on
("Charade", lyrics by Johnny Mercer)
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Time always…
(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)
r.
Time always seems to pass unbearably slowly when one has to wait. After sending a few messages to his informants and strolling to Seiya's place at the slowest pace he can muster, Shinichi still arrives twenty minutes too early. Frustrated, he indulges in what-if's and should-have's in front of the iron gate. He should have called Ayumi before coming here. Now she is going to wonder why "Ai-chan" has called Mitsuhiko but not her. Outspoken as Ayumi is, she is likely to discuss it with Mitsuhiko, which will strengthen the poor boy's illusion that his love is not entirely one-sided. Perhaps Shinichi should call Ayumi this afternoon or ask the real Ai to give Ayumi a call after Seiya has left for La Fenice so that Shinichi can finally stop this tiresome game…
Studying the historic (fifteenth-century?) palazzo in front of him, Shinichi estimates that it must have been restored about five or six years ago. Recently, a modern elevator has been added. There is a private boat parking space in front of the gate, where Shinichi can see Seiya's boat moored between two other boats, both of which are covered in blue tarpaulins. A private stairway leads from the internal courtyard directly to the apartment on the top floor, to which the large panoramic roof terrace overlooking the centre of the city belongs. As Shinichi can see on the name plate of the mailbox, which cheekily shows "Michiru Kaioh & Haruka Tenoh" with a small printed "S. Miyano & S. Kou" added underneath, Seiya and Ai are living on the top floor. Tenoh Haruka couldn't have hated Seiya Kou very much (and she must have genuinely liked Ai) if she had let her girlfriend sell this apartment to Seiya. Or was the wild card Kaioh Michiru, who had greater autonomy from her life partner than Shinichi has credited her with?
On the way from the public phone box to Seiya's place, Shinichi has absently observed the sinister transformation of fluffy white cumulus clouds into fast-moving rain clouds without caring much about the fickle weather. But now that it is starting to rain—a light drizzle which, true to the Venetian weather, can turn into a heavy shower in an instant—Shinichi decides that dropping in on Seiya and Ai twenty minutes too early won't make a difference while appearing dripping wet would pose an inconvenience to his hosts. The last thing Shinichi needs now is being forced into Seiya's gaudy clothes.
Opening the gate, which is closed but not locked, Shinichi passes the internal courtyard and climbs the four flights of stairs to the roof. No one answers the door when he rings although he can hear the faint sound of the bell and muted piano and violin music through the closed door. After waiting for a few seconds in front of the heavy wooden door, Shinichi rings again. Then, for fear that Seiya and Ai haven't heard the sound of the unobtrusive bell in the rising cacophony of jazzy chords in the background, he leaves his thumb on the button, causing the bell to ring repetitively in a fast, cheerful rhythm syncopated to the music.
A few seconds pass until Seiya's voice asks Shinichi to wait for a minute. Irked by the long wait while the rain is now pelting down on him, Shinichi checks the time on his watch. It is exactly eighteen to two o'clock. They have over two hours of interrogation before Seiya has to leave for La Fenice and Shinichi can finally talk to Ai alone.
As if he had set a timer, Seiya Kou opens the door exactly one minute later. This time, the singer and actor—who is, unexpectedly, dressed in perfectly normal clothes (white cardigan, blue jeans, indigo shirt, his long ponytail hidden beneath the wide cardigan)—has assumed the role of the charming host. Flashing Shinichi a smile which could make flowers bloom in winter nights, Seiya invites Shinichi in, leads Shinichi down the winding stairs into the spacious entry, and hangs Shinichi's coat on the coatstand before he disappears into the nearby bedroom and returns a few seconds later with a fresh towel for Shinichi's damp hair.
"Sorry for letting you wait," Seiya apologizes without explaining why it has taken him so long to open the door. "Just leave your shoes here, I'm going to take care of them later."
Apart from the door to Seiya's bedroom, which Seiya has pulled shut, there are two closed wooden doors in the entry. One leads to the second bedroom—Ai's bedroom—while the other leads to the internal staircase of the house, according to Shinichi's deduction. The living room with a small adjoining kitchen is conveniently situated behind the winding staircase to the roof terrace and is also directly connected to the entry by a doorless passage. To all appearances, Seiya has expected Shinichi to ring at the gate and come through the internal staircase of the palazzo, which is why Seiya has answered the door upstairs so late.
The violin and piano jazz music from the speakers next to the fire place has faded out, and Shinichi can hear the sound of a hairdryer from behind the door next to the living room. Ai—who has always been a night owl and late riser (and who used to waste the whole morning yawning or sulking whenever she had to get up before seven a.m. on weekends) must have taken a shower after lunch.
On one of the vintage hooks on the wall, there is a long, extremely worn leather jacket similar to the newer one Seiya wore at La Fenice last night—the same jacket Shinichi has seen on the accordionist he met at the Piazza di San Marco. Intrigued, Shinichi compares the barely visible cut on Seiya's perfectly shaved chin to the wound he has seen on the accordionist's face. If Seiya has really disguised himself as a street musician and played the accordion at the Piazza di San Marco this morning just to hone his acting skills although he came home late last night and also has to sing The Phantom of the Opera tonight, he must be crazier and more obsessed with his job than Shinichi thought.
Still, Seiya's acting and disguising skills are most impressive, and even under Shinichi's scrutinizing gaze, there was absolutely nothing which had given him away. In retrospect, the only detail which struck Shinichi as peculiar about the street musician was the pleasant scent underneath the smell of alcohol, which didn't match the disguise and which Shinichi instantly recognized because he found it strangely enthralling when he detected it in Ai's hair during the hug in front of La Fenice: a complex fragrance reminiscent of warm nights in early autumn, when the aroma of kinmokusei begins to waft through the streets of Kyoto, charming the inhabitant of the city with its dark, rich sweetness. There is a luminous note of orange blossoms in the perfume as well, as Shinichi can verify once more when Seiya, who has just filled water into the water cooker, returns.
The eccentric singer, who has stuffed his ponytail into his cardigan for some inexplicable reason, takes the towel from Shinichi and hangs it on the clothes rack, which he must have carried from the balcony into the bedroom when it started raining before he opened the door for his guest—and Shinichi rolls his eyes at the thought that Ai and Seiya are sharing Seiya's shampoo or perfume as though they were two adolescent girls who have just struck up an unlikely but close friendship.
A few quick glances into the bedroom tells Shinichi that the pampered ex-idol sleeps in a queen-sized bed with a giant duvet and two wool blankets. In this respect, too, Seiya resembles Ai, who loves to steal the blanket just as she loves to hog the bathroom—another cause of irritation between Shinichi and her whenever they were on a trip with the Detective Boys before Shinichi surrendered, dragged himself out of bed earlier than her to use the bathroom, and cocooned himself into his blanket before he went to sleep so that she couldn't steal it.
Scanning the entry and the living room, Shinichi acknowledges that Seiya's apartment is flawlessly tidy and tastefully, albeit not luxuriously, furnished. A colourful assortment of large potted flowers—dahlias in various shades of pink and purple; wild roses in orange, pink, and red; and a single red orchid—sit in front of the large mirror in the entry between the door to Seiya's bedroom and the passage to the living room. The rain is drumming and splashing cheerfully on the glass ceiling above before it runs in trickles to the sides. The round skylights must have been added by Seiya or Tenoh, as it's uncommon (and most probably illegal) to make such radical changes to such an old palazzo even when the changes aren't visible from the outside unless one is standing on the roof terrace and gazing down into the apartment.
"Coffee or tea? I've tried to get tiramisu since it's your favourite Italian dessert, but I only got zabaglione because a group of urban sketchers was faster than me." Seiya, who has breezed out of the bedroom and put Shinichi's shoes on the shoe rack, ushers Shinichi into the living room and—after washing and drying his hands at lightning speed—opens the fridge to produce a large cardboard box, which contains six colourful glass bowls of zabaglione, a large plate of flower-shaped miniature chocolate cakes, and a bowl of strawberry halves, which Seiya uses to garnish the zabaglione.
"Tea, please." Any more coffee than the tiramisu Shinichi ate at Sonoko's place and the one cup of espresso Shinichi drank at Al Timon and APAH will no longer work. "And I like zabaglione just as much as tiramisu, thank you."
"Jasmine scented green tea?"
"Perfect, thanks."
Obviously, Ai has informed Seiya about Shinichi's preferences, and Shinichi has been welcomed by the singer into his apartment as Ai's friend and not as a sleuth, which will make the interrogation easier. Although Shinichi is apprehensive about Seiya's surprisingly amiable manners towards him, he decides to forgive the singer for his ridiculous behaviour during the interrogation, at least for now. It was midnight when Seiya was questioned, Carrara publicly insulted Ai, and Seiya must have been frustrated about being kept at La Fenice on the night before the opening night of The Phantom of the Opera out of all nights. Despite his conviction that Seiya must have been involved in Tenoh's death according to the clues he has found and the facts he has gathered until now, Shinichi is professional enough to admit that his main suspect should be treated as an innocent witness until proven guilty. Moreover, Seiya-Kou-at-home is considerably more pleasant than Seiya-Kou-at-La-Fenice—and even for a tone-deaf person like Shinichi, it's hard to fight against the charm of the singer's uniquely expressive and silkily smooth voice, which he has begun to use on Shinichi as though he were courting him after making fun of him at La Fenice.
"Please make yourself at home." Seiya smiles again, indicating the small sofa and the two armchairs at the high coffee table. "She will join us soon after applying her body lotion."
As if on cue, the sound of the hairdryer stops. If Ai is really applying her body lotion at the moment, Seiya must have observed her attentively during the past years and know her better than Shinichi thought.
Moving away from the large window, which is completely covered by translucent mauve curtains and wooden Venetian blinds (Seiya is either paranoid about the paparazzi and reporters or has a valid reason to assume that he is being stalked), Shinichi proceeds to the tiny sofa, whose aged blue leather cover shows the same wrinkles and scruffs—the same signs of use (or misuse) as Sonoko's sofa.
"Did the sofa belong to Kaioh Michiru?" Shinichi asks, settling himself into an armchair. These wrinkles on one side of the sofa always develop when a very heavy person or two slim people sit on the same spot for too long and change the position too often—which usually happens when one person is sitting on another person's lap. Kaioh must have spent many a night on Tenoh's lap while watching TV or listening to music in their living room.
"Yes, she has left it to us because Haruka-san doesn't want to have it in her apartment." Seiya carries the tray of tea and zabaglione to the coffee table, places it next to the vase of half-blossomed roses in various shades of orange, and flops down onto the sofa—directly into the corner near the staircase, the one with the many wrinkles. "I bet she had to spend the night on this sofa whenever Michiru-sama was fed up with her flirts. Haruka-san, on the other hand, has left the piano behind because Michiru-sama hates it." Seiya gestures towards the baby grand in a corner of the room, on which the scores of The Phantom of the Opera are lying. "Such small grands always lose to concert uprights when it comes to the sound. Haruka-san won it in a competition once and played it for a while to feed her ego until she herself couldn't bear it anymore."
"Do you play the piano, too?" Shinichi asks, accepting the cup of tea Seiya has just poured him with a smile. The singer is much more talkative than he was during the last interrogation, and Shinichi can tell that Seiya is making an honest attempt at placating him. Ai must have hauled her fake employer over the coals for his behaviour last night.
"Yes, but not regularly." Seiya pours tea into Ai's cup and into his own cup. "I'm too busy these days, but Shiho plays it from time to time."
"What do you think of Tenoh's opera?" Shinichi nonchalantly asks although, inwardly, he is seething with anger at the realization that the disrespectful brat dares to call Ai by her first name without an honorific. They've known each other for almost four years—Shinichi tries to console himself—slightly longer than the time she spent with the Professor and the Detective Boys in Beika. Maybe Ai doesn't even insist on formalities anymore, and Shinichi should try to address her without a suffix as well.
"It's a travesty of a piece, ruins the singer's voice, bores the pianist to death, kills your attention span in the long run, and pleases the audience only for one act—I'm sure the critics all love it. At least Haruka-san herself didn't think highly of it. She only wrote it to spite me."
"It's odd that she would ruin her reputation just to spite you," Shinichi points out.
"She didn't ruin her reputation—the critics and her fans always managed to ignore her good works and praise her mediocre pieces, which frustrated her. And Haruka-san's great passion was always racing, not music. She only agreed to play the piano professionally because Michiru-sama loved playing duets with her and because she was so driven that it would have killed her to do nothing for just one day."
"Why did she give up racing if she loved it so much?"
"I don't know. Maybe she quit racing because she would have killed herself on the track someday, as unbelievably fast as she was. Even on the streets, she always pushed the vehicle to its limit whether it was a bike or a car."
"Well, it seems she was killed in her dressing room instead," Shinichi innocently comments.
"She might as well have continued racing then," Seiya returns, unfazed by Shinichi's remark. Meeting the singer's unreadable eyes, Shinichi is struck by the realization that they're of the same blue as Chiba Mamoru's in this light, standing in stark contrast to his jet-black hair. Tsukino Usagi must have been confused by the similarity when she saw Seiya for the first time.
"She quit racing because racing put a strain on her relationship with Kaioh-san, who was always touring around as well. So Kaioh-san gave up the violin for Tenoh-san and Tenoh-san gave up racing for her. Two great sacrifices for a great relationship," interjects Ai, who has just entered the living room. Even though she is wearing a knee-length cashmere dress in a grey shade of lavender, which Shinichi believes to be her favourite colour apart from red and mauve, she doesn't walk around the table and Shinichi's armchair or settle on the second armchair as expected but simply steps over Seiya's knees while supporting herself on Seiya's shoulder to flop down on the sofa. Unaware of her tomboyish action, which jars with her feminine dress, she takes her cup of tea into her left hand and the spoon into her right hand before flashing Shinichi a faintly mischievous, curious smile.
"I'm sorry to disturb your little flirt," she winks at Seiya, giving his chin a slight knock with her spoon before sipping her tea. "But we should really eat the zabaglione before the cakes drown in it." She darts Seiya an unmistakably flirtatious glance.
"We didn't want to start without you." The singer gives her hair an appreciative look, bending towards her to remove a bit of wool fluff from her neck. They're sitting so outrageously close to each other that she might as well have climbed on his lap, but Seiya doesn't seem to find anything odd about it. If they aren't flirting with each other but are only playing a charade, the charade is perfect this time. Their gestures are synchronized as if they had studied and practiced them again after misunderstanding each other last night.
"We were talking about Tenoh's death at La Fenice," Shinichi says in a sharp voice, pokes at his cake, and carelessly drowns it in the zabaglione. Thoroughly sick of their silly game, he wonders why they have to keep up the pretence in front of him. She has even taken off the chain he gave her although it would match this dress perfectly if only she wore it with the pendant. Curiously enough, she is no longer wearing her love bracelet either, which strengthens Shinichi's theory that the bracelet didn't carry a romantic connotation.
"You're charming as always, Kudo," Ai gives Shinichi a friendly smirk. "Kino-san's zabaglione is the best we can get in Venice. I'd rather not spoil it with a mystery."
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Instead, she bombards him with questions about their friends and acquaintances during tea.
How is the Professor?
Fine, considering that poor Agasa-hakase had a car accident a few months ago because he had played online games all night, fallen asleep at the wheel, and crashed against a tree. But he is getting better although he is missing her very much, just like the Detective Boys.
That's worrisome! Shinichi should find a way to lock the Professor's computer at night or give him her sleeping pills about one to two hours before midnight. "They work like a charm, as Seiya can assure you. He has already had a taste of them." She flashes the man beside her an alarmingly sweet smile.
To Shinichi's irritation, Ai doesn't use a suffix for Seiya. And since Kou Seiya is "Seiya Kou" onstage after his agent reversed his name for Three Lights, Shinichi can't tell whether Ai addresses the former idol by the first name or by the last name of his stage name. Consoling himself with the thought that he doesn't use a suffix for Seiya either, Shinichi decides to ignore his worst suspicions.
"Why didn't your childhood friend—or girlfriend?—come with you?" Seiya asks. "Shiho has told me a lot about her."
Ran must be shopping with Sonoko, her best friend, at the moment. Knowing them, the shopping trip will last until dinner. "And she is not my girlfriend anymore," Shinichi adds, parenthetically. "We broke up years ago although we're still good friends."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Seiya murmurs.
"Why did you two split up? I thought you must be engaged to her by now…" In an attempt to comfort Shinichi and to relieve the tension, Ai fleetingly touches Shinichi's wrist on the table. "I've been looking forward to seeing your karate- and mystery-obsessed prodigy babies."
For unknown reason, it cuts Shinichi to the quick that she has obviously not cared enough about him to read the news last winter, in which a journalist speculated after a catastrophic interview with Sonoko that "the most handsome Japanese detective of his generation" was "either gay or asexual", as he had "left his pretty long-distance girlfriend and never dated anyone again after his—nudge nudge wink wink—'best friend' drowned". Ai couldn't have been so busy that she didn't even have the time to keep herself up to date on Shinichi in the Internet age. She must have deliberately cut the ties to him after leaving for Venice.
"We just… grew apart," Shinichi evasively says, turning his attention back to his zabaglione, which is just as delicious as Ai has said.
"How is Ayumi-chan doing?" Ai asks. At least a few things haven't changed, and she is still calling Ayumi "Ayumi-chan".
Ayumi is slowly turning into a real beauty and has many friends—most of them boys hoping to go to the cinema with her someday—although Ayumi doesn't have a boyfriend yet. She has also learned to bake quite well and often feeds the Professor with cakes on weekends, causing the Professor to gain so much weight that he has to diet again.
And the rest of the Detective Boys? Tsuburaya-kun, Kojima-kun?
"Genta is, well, still Genta," Shinichi sighs. "You know him. He eats nonstop and always gets into trouble. But Mitsuhiko has changed very much!" Sipping his tea, Shinichi carefully watches Seiya's reaction in his peripheral vision while keeping his eyes fixed on Ai. "He has set himself the goal of marrying you in the future and is working hard to become a good match for you. I'm just warning you so that you don't accidentally encourage him or hurt his feelings when you two meet."
"It seems I have more than one rival in Beika." Seiya throws Ai an amused glance. "Just like here…" He pours Shinichi and Ai a second cup of tea. "Almost every man hates me after meeting her."
"I wish that was true," Ai sighs, flashing Seiya a wry smile. Turning to Shinichi again, she waves away the implication of her last sentence with a smooth flick of her wrist, and sips at her tea. "They all can't stand him, that's true, but for a completely different reason: I've stopped counting the women waiting in line to get his number and to grope him after a performance. The same happens when we go out for a drink even when he is incognito and I'm hanging on his arm. I found it funny and almost flattering at first. But after four years, I've begun to wish that I had an invisible machine gun."
"So that's your job as his 'secretary'? Keeping the women away from him? That's why you two have to play this silly game and pretend that you're his girlfriend?" Shinichi asks her, deciding to be straightforward because he can't take this feeling of uncertainty any longer.
Meanwhile, Ai has suddenly jerked at the curls at the nape of Seiya's neck with the strange exclamation, "This is so childish! Why are you trying to hide it? You'll catch a cold if you stay like this!" while the singer furiously blushes and darts both Shinichi and her panicked glances. In response to Shinichi's questions, both of them freeze and then turn their heads towards him in alarm.
"You've… thought that I'm Seiya's secretary?" Ai asks in disbelief—visibly insulted, almost disgusted by Shinichi's words—leaving her fingers entangled in the singer's hair.
Taken aback by her inexplicable anger, Shinichi gives her a blank look, trying to make sense of her odd behaviour. Next to her, Seiya is staring at Shinichi as well while a broad mix of conflicting emotions—amazement, exasperation, even compassion?—are flitting across his face.
"Please excuse me for a few minutes," the singer sighs at last, helping Ai pull the rest of his ponytail out of his cardigan with an air of determination and resignation. "I'll go and finish drying my hair while you two can continue the catching up."
Watching Seiya's long hair spill over his shoulder and his back, gleaming in its wet state on the white cardigan like black onyx on newly fallen snow, Shinichi's mind begins to absorb the meaning of Ai's and Seiya's words and actions in slow motion, fitting all the puzzle pieces together. First: Seiya's ponytail, which is still wet and hasn't even been combed. Second: the fact that this apartment, which is smaller than Shinichi thought, would lack a bathroom if Ai had come out of her bedroom. Third: the time Seiya would have needed to dry himself and storm out of the bathroom to tell Shinichi to wait for a minute. Fourth: the one minute an experienced actor would need to throw on the first pieces of clothing he could find and to blow-dry his bangs and the short top layers of his hair while the rest of his hair is much too long to be combed and dried in such a short time…
"You should also change into a dry shirt," Ai suggests with a worried glance at Seiya, who has walked straight into the room Shinichi has mistaken for Ai's bedroom at first. "The water must have seeped through it already."
"As you wish," the singer affectionately mocks her—mimicking the posture, gestures, facial expression, and the voice of the pirate in The Princess Bride—before shutting the door behind him.
The regular weekend baths Shinichi used to share with Ran when he was still shrunk come to mind, succeeded by a migraine attack, for which Shinichi will need more than the two capsules of APAH Ai has prescribed him. Bossy as she is, Ai must have pushed Seiya out of the shower or bath they were sharing when Shinichi rang, asking the singer to dry himself perfunctorily and get dressed in a hurry to open the door for Shinichi so that she can rinse herself, blow-dry her hair, and apply her body lotion at a leisurely pace.
"I'd never have expected you to have a boyfriend," Shinichi blurts out after Seiya has left, trying to suppress the tremendous, overwhelming sense of betrayal. While he has been searching for her and waiting for her like a faithful, loyal wife, torturing himself with his regrets for years and dreaming of what might have been and what never happened, she has happily flung herself into a romantic dalliance with another man and even had the audacity to invite him into their love nest! Beside himself with fury, Shinichi makes an abrupt gesture encompassing the whole apartment, maybe even the whole damned isle, and almost knocks the roses off the table, which she hurriedly catches and moves away from him. "You can't be serious about this!"
She looks deeply offended now, although the colour that has suffused her cheeks and the steely glint that has stolen into her ambiguously coloured eyes only heighten her beauty, which he has, until now, never acknowledged on an emotional level.
"I know you think I'm one of the boys, Kudo," she coolly says, demonstratively leans back into the sofa, folds her arms, and crosses her legs. "But he—" she indicates the bathroom with a movement of her head, "—actually fell in love with me only days after we met. It doesn't look like a fling either because it has lasted for four years despite all the stress we've had. This is damn serious, in my opinion!"
There it is, the horror scenario, Shinichi realizes when the La Fenice case, which has been wiped out of his mind after this shattering blow, once again materializes before his inner eye. Ai isn't only nursing a harmless celebrity crush—she is entangled in a long-time love affair with his prime suspect… And from the look of things, she would immediately prescribe Shinichi one of her nasty undetectable drugs without batting an eyelid if he dared to suggest that she help him convict Seiya before returning with him to Beika.
r.
End of Part Three
A/N: Only one part left to edit before I can continue the fic.
