Disclaimer:
Let's just skip the giant disclaimer you can find in Chapter 1!
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FS
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x. ENCOUNTER in VENICE x.
(new version)
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Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
("Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)", by Don McLean)
x.
Three years and…
(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)
x.
Three years and eleven months ago, Tenoh Haruka was suffering from a severe migraine…
It wasn't the sort of migraine caused by a terrorist she had failed to take out before they could detonate a bomb in front of innocent children. Over the years, Haruka had learned to cope with that sort of headache by taking her anger out on other criminals who deserved the grapes of her wrath just as much. There was so much human trash in the world! Even if she focused solely on terrorists, there were so many categories to choose from (ex-terrorists, terrorists-to-be, terrorists in the making, wannabe terrorists, fanatics who supported terrorists etcetera etcetera) that Haruka was sure she would never run out of painkillers, at least not for that sort of headache.
This sort of headache, on the other hand, was eerily reminiscent of the migraine attack Haruka suffered when she noticed that her lovely Odango atama—the cutest of all kittens—spent all her free time with a certain idol and also blushed whenever that idol's name was brought up. The same troublesome guy was now practising "The Phantom of the Opera" in two voices, acting out the duet between the Phantom and Christine, while another koneko-chan was leaning against the closed door of the music room with flushed cheeks, starry eyes, and a faraway smile—so completely lost in her own fantasies that she neither saw nor heard Haruka, who had just returned from her early morning drive with her favourite red Suzuki Hayabusa.
Under normal circumstances, Haruka would have laughed at the realization that Haibara-san—Gin's cool and collected Sherry—had succumbed to Seiya's alluring aura just like any other straight woman she knew. Even when he didn't utter a word with that Echo's voice of his, which a musical person like Haruka, lesbian or no lesbian, had to fight hard to resist, Seiya had a certain effect on the pitiable part of female population that was oblivious to all the advantages of being unreservedly gay. As things were, however, Haruka instantly, inelegantly, broke out in a cold sweat and cursed her unsuspecting, dupable self for not anticipating the horror scenario that her two guests, who were whiling away their convalescences at her place, could find solace in each other.
After what she had done to Seiya's parents, it would be a blessing if koneko-chan's infatuation with their youngest son was one-sided like most infatuations were. But now that Haruka's senses had been sharpened by the awareness of a possible romance between them, she could see to her utter dismay that Seiya, defying common sense as usual, was falling in love with the shrunk girl. In retrospect, Haruka should have seen it coming—opposites like these two invariably fell into each other's orbit the moment they met, especially when both of them were lonely, injured, and grieving. Preoccupied with the Pandora's Box affair, Haruka had failed to spot all the alarming signs of their unfortunate attraction, which had been so glaring that even Setsuna-san, perpetually immersed in her studies and philosophies, would have noticed if she were here and not in New York with Michiru and their little princess.
At least Haruka had valid excuses for her ignorance. Seiya had always been indifferent to all women but his foster sister, Odango atama, and Michiru (Haruka would never forgive Seiya for helping Michiru with her zipper in her dressing room—an image which had been haunting Haruka for years)… Koneko-chan still looked like a prepubescent kid. And the way it started was so harmless that Haruka could have sworn on both Michiru's head and the life of their little princess that there was nothing between them but an innocent friendship.
Koneko-chan was suitably depressed after Hattori Heiji's death, blamed herself and—even though she didn't say it explicitly—resented Haruka for the Pandora's Box catastrophe despite conceding that Haruka's actions had saved her. Seiya, mourning his parents' death, was hiding his fresh injury from his agent, who was continually badgering her most recalcitrant protégé to revive Three Lights. Since Haruka couldn't let "the kids" roam the isle and draw the attention of the villagers, she had to run errands for them, which she didn't mind because she always enjoyed a drive and because she knew Seiya and his brothers would protect koneko-chan if anyone attacked them while she was away. In any case, Seiya and Haibara-san didn't need Haruka as their guardian—and how should Haruka have guessed that she should have played the chaperone for two people accustomed to fleeing from romance?
Like a loving parent, Haruka always prepared breakfast for her two wounded guests after her morning workout and her morning drive. Taiki and Yaten bought all of them lunch, which they ate together after Haruka's morning practice session. In the afternoons, Taiki and Yaten would practice in the music room while Seiya and the shrunk scientist would be watching them or chat with each other in the adjoining living room. Afterwards, Yaten and Haibara-san would nap (the former because he was vain and needed his beauty sleep, the latter because she was tired from staying up all night), Haruka would clean the house with Seiya's help, and Taiki would voluntarily cook dinner. Much to Haruka's relief, Three Lights (out of consideration for koneko-chan and Haruka?) didn't allude to the Kinmoku tragedy, stoically ignoring their parents' gruesome deaths.
On the phone, Michiru would pretend to be jealous and tease Haruka for "cohabiting" with the three Kou brothers—her sworn enemies turned allies—and an underage girl.
Since Yaten and Taiki were accustomed to tailing Seiya and all the three brothers decided to stay away from the ruins of their parents' estate—letting Shizuka-san, their agent, deal with the paperwork so that the reporters wouldn't connect their names to The Kinmoku Tragedy and deduce that Three Lights' parents were the "mad multimillionaire couple that committed suicide by incinerating the whole isle"—they ended up spending the two weeks before their Chicago trip at Haruka's house. At night, after Taiki and Yaten had returned to the hotel, Seiya often sneaked into Hotaru-chan's children's room to visit "Milady de Winter" (as he called Haibara-san), who usually tried to distract herself from her sorrows by reading Hotaru-chan's mystery novels. Whenever she passed the room on the way to her own bedroom, Haruka would hear Seiya reading passages out loud and acting out the characters in different voices for the shrunk scientist just as he did for Odango atama's three-year-old cousin "Chibi Chibi" years ago. Haruka, who was relieved that her two guests got along despite the flesh wound koneko-chan gave the singer when she tried to shoot his oldest brother, only chuckled at the thought that Seiya Kou, heartbreaker extraordinaire, was surprisingly nice and approachable towards the shrunk scientist although he was nonchalant, almost distant, towards other women.
One day, after a successful piano practice session, Haruka opened the panoramic window of her studio and gazed out at the beach. In the gathering dusk of the late winter afternoon, koneko-chan was walking beside Seiya at her usual unhurried pace while he—ignoring his fresh injury—swiftly strode along the water, stopping every other second to throw pebbles, collect sea shells, draw patterns into the sand, or gesture in the air as if he were debating with himself or explaining a role to her. Distracted and exhausted by her punishing daily schedule, which she had forced upon herself in order to stay in shape, Haruka was only happy that Seiya had finally managed to drag koneko-chan out of the house for a walk during sunset, koneko-chan's favourite time of the day. As long as they were in disguise (a wig and a hat would suffice) and stayed on Haruka's private beach, it was fine to Haruka although she did wonder for a moment why Seiya was on the beach with koneko-chan while Taiki and Yaten were in the music room.
The following weekend, Yaten, the dandy of the group, had to leave for a photo shoot in Osaka; and Taiki, who was worried that his older brother's singularly rude attitude could get him into trouble, naturally went with Yaten to play the diplomat. Seiya, whose vampire-like recuperative powers induced him to feel restless and penned up in the house and who had set out to plague Haruka with his wacky ideas again, successfully coaxed Haruka into accompanying him on the piano while he sang the whole The Phantom of the Opera using the voices of his "friends and acquaintances". At first, Haruka thought it was harmless fun and grinned to herself when she noticed that he used his agent's voice for Carlotta (the prima donna), Mamoru-san's voice for Raoul (the knight in shining armour), Minako-chan's voice for Meg (the show girl), his own voice for Erik (the hapless musical genius), and Odango atama's voice for Christine (the love interest). It was a game Haruka couldn't deny him after the scandal she had caused to snuff out the ill-starred emotional affair, which would have ruined her favourite koneko-chan's life. Although Seiya was only collateral damage back then, it still saddened Haruka that the break-up had broken his heart so completely that he needed years to recover.
When they arrived at "The Point of No Return", Seiya remarked that Odango's voice didn't fit the dark, passionate character of the song—an observation Haruka wholeheartedly agreed with. "The moment you dare to use Michiru's voice for this song, you're deader than dead!" Haruka threatened, whereupon he only sighed and asked her to stop obsessing about the dressing room incident years ago.
While Haruka, preferring "real" classical music to musicals, didn't like The Phantom of the Opera, she loved Seiya's rendition of the song. Endearingly gentle and yet dangerously persuasive—as though the seduction was an unstoppable natural force—it distinguished itself from all the melodramatic, lewd interpretations she had heard before; and the longing in his voice was so pure and so palpably sincere that Haruka, despite her devotion to Michiru, would have let Seiya seduce her at the end of the song for real if only he didn't have the wrong sex. The only thing which nagged at her was the fact that she couldn't guess whose voice he had chosen for Christine although it sounded strangely familiar—a soft lyric mezzo-soprano, which lacked the dramatic edge for Christine's part.
When Haruka asked Seiya directly about his odd choice, he only flashed her an enigmatic smile and shrugged, claiming that he had chosen it on the spur of the moment and that it didn't matter whose voice he had borrowed. As luck would have it, Haruka stumbled over the truth in the same evening when she heard koneko-chan hum the song in the shower. Instead of realizing that they were in deep trouble, however, Haruka only taunted Seiya for "robbing the cradle" by flirting with a ten-year-old child.
"She is not a child, and she doesn't behave like one," he retorted, in a defensive tone, as Haruka noted. Since the sight of an embarrassed Seiya Kou was a treat, Haruka made a mental note to tease the kid more often.
Their friendship, though unexpected, had seemed perfectly natural to Haruka. Koneko-chan was, after all, less tough than she looked, and Seiya, who had a protective streak, liked children. In a few days, he was going to Chicago to clean up the mess his parents had left behind and then to New York, where his brothers had already found an apartment and a studio for the three of them. Three Lights would be so immersed in the task of staying alive for the first year after the downfall of the Organization that Seiya wouldn't have the time to miss anyone. Haruka was going to smuggle Haibara-san to Venice as soon as the shrunk scientist was strong enough for the flight. There Haruka and Michiru were going to give the girl the second childhood she deserved, far away from the Pandora's Box tragedy and its immediate aftermath.
Even though koneko-chan didn't know anything about Seiya's family, which not only Three Lights but also Haruka—after seeing koneko-chan's fondness for her knight, whose colour koneko-chan had mistaken for white—tried to hide from her, she knew with certainty that he wasn't available. Hence Haruka only expected the two of them to exchange postcards or emails and flirt with each other a bit whenever Seiya came to Venice for a holiday.
An incident on Sunday night, minor and trivial, opened Haruka's eyes.
The sun was already setting when Haruka returned from her daily drive in her trusted yellow Ferrari. Taiki and Yaten—who had returned from the photo shoot and decided to stay in their hotel for once instead of coming over because Yaten was in one of his moods—had dumped a few giant bouquets of scarlet roses on Haruka. The roses were all from Seiya's fans, who had just learned about Yaten's upcoming photo series and sent the flowers to Itabashi Saki's photo studio in Osaka in the hope that she would pass them to their reclusive ex-idol Seiya-sama. Yaten, unsentimental as always and also peevish in his exhaustion, had tossed most of the flowers into the trash; but Taiki, who couldn't bear to watch his brother throw away the four most beautiful bouquets, had talked Haruka into "adopting" them.
Despite their injuries, Seiya and koneko-chan had already cooked dinner and set the table. Pleasantly surprised, Haruka let them pamper her with the excellent five-course meal they had cooked. Afterwards, when the three of them were listening to Michiru's Beethoven recordings and watching the ending sunset together in the living room, Seiya, who noticed that koneko-chan was cold, got up from the sofa to fetch a blanket for her.
"Don't take it too personally," Haruka warned the miniature-scientist, who was gazing after the ex-idol with a rare smile on her face. Illuminated by the warm light of the sunset, Haibara-san's face had regained a healthy glow. Since all the girls she knew had become infatuated with Seiya sooner or later, Haruka might as well protect her future adopted daughter from the notorious heartthrob, who would forget about her as soon as he left the country. "He would fetch a blanket for me if I were wounded and freezing. And he is never going to commit to anyone." Not if he could be sniped by an agent or a hired assassin at any time after leaving Japan, Haruka mentally added.
"Don't worry," Haibara-san coolly assured her. "Roses always have thorns—I won't ever forget that. The more attractive a person is, the more I'll be on my guard. One should never fall in love with a man so disturbingly beautiful."
The statement was so typical of koneko-chan that Haruka didn't give it a second thought. Even when Seiya (whose owl-like ears had overheard their talk) returned, draped the blanket over the shrunk scientist, and stroked Haibara-san's cheek with the head of a thornless scarlet rose, murmuring in his most seductive voice that a few roses didn't have thorns at all, Haruka dismissed it as a harmless joke in character of Seiya Kou. It wasn't until she saw how the little girl's lips trembled and how her cheeks began to glow in the same shade as the flower in Seiya's hand that it dawned on Haruka that Haibara-san—who had only acknowledged Haruka's unearthly (unequaled!) handsomeness with a distracted admiring glance when they passed each other in the halls of Infinity and whose gaze had never lingered for too long on Yaten Kou's exquisite, too-pretty-to-be-touched face—had just described Seiya as "disturbingly beautiful".
x.
"This could be interesting," Michiru only laughed when Haruka—instead of washing her tousled hair like she usually did after her morning drive—ranted about her quandary on the phone. "Since they're polar opposites, it makes sense that they're gravitating towards each other. It will be a tempestuous relationship—for better or worse."
"This isn't interesting, this is insane! She still doesn't know who he is." Haruka paced the room in distress, trying to keep the talk vague enough to protect all of them in case the line was bugged. "And they both look so happy at the moment that I can't tell her!"
"You mustn't delay this!" Michiru urged. "You must tell her about his parents now before she makes a serious mistake and confesses everything. People in love are always talkative."
"You mean she should deceive him?" Although they had been with each other for years, Michiru never ceased to surprise her.
"Why not?" Michiru asked, unaware of the moral implication of what she was suggesting. "He is happy at the moment. She is happy at the moment. If she can live with the truth, he doesn't need to know anything."
"Can you imagine what he will do if he learns the truth after decades of cohabitation or marriage?" Haruka gravely asked. "It looks extremely serious at the moment. At this rate, they're going to elope before she is old enough, for all I know."
"I can't imagine it," Michiru admitted. "But since you two are alike in many ways—"
"I can't even tell you what I would do!" Haruka pressed her aching forehead against the cold window glass, wondering whether Seiya would murder her, leave koneko-chan, shoot Kudo Shinichi, commit suicide, or fade away. Or do all these things at the same time, which would be in character for him. "I don't know if he can handle it now—before he commits to her. But if he finds out too late, there will be hell to pay. I have to stop this before it escalates. He is already staring at the bracelet he wanted to dump on me as if he would like to give it to her." Frustrated, Haruka slammed her fist on the window frame. "You know me. I'm not cut out to deal alone with this! I really wish that you were here…"
x.
For an eternity…
(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)
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For an eternity, they only sit with each other in ominous silence, listening to the sound of the hairdryer from the bathroom. Shinichi is still so mortified by his recent discoveries that he can't utter a word while Ai is still too offended by his reaction to her liaison with her infamous womanizer, who she had tamed, to say anything. Regrettably, Shinichi hasn't prepared any questions for their reunion, expecting that the words will come to him naturally like they always do. But now that his brain feels like a dusty ancient vault which has just been ransacked by a horde of tomb raiders, the only thoughts which emerge with disturbing clarity before Shinichi's inner eye are the zillions of ways in which he can murder Seiya Kou.
Now that he knows about Ai's involvement with the singer, Shinichi begins to see the apartment with different eyes: the mauve curtains, which Ai must have chosen; the two blankets, which Seiya must have bought because she couldn't make do with only one duvet; her small handbag on the hook—in the same shade of blue as Seiya's eyes; the way she is accustomed to leaning towards the right side—the side where her singer has been sitting…
Either this is a most elaborate, devilish charade, or Shinichi, for obscure reasons, cannot face the facts, which are lying openly on the table.
"Within days, you said?" he finally asks, taken aback by the sound of his rough, husky voice. He hasn't meant to snap at her, much less insult her—but to his own ears, his tone sounds resentful, even contemptuous. Although his anger may seem irrational in the eyes of a casual observer, she did betray him in more than one way when she disappeared from his life, erased every trace of him from her thoughts, and barged into his life again years afterwards with her crackpot celebrity boyfriend in tow.
"Within two weeks, to be precise." She thoughtfully interlaces her fingers, bends her head, and gazes through the autumnal bouquet of roses on the table into the distance, mentally roaming a past that has nothing to do with him. At least she has the decency to look abashed at a courtship which must have been just as imprudent and rash as Seiya's famed impulsiveness. True to his reputation, the Casanova of the twenty-first century didn't miss out on anything, and Shinichi can't forgive Ai for giving herself away so easily when she must have known that he had been combing every inch of the coast and the sea for her.
"So you went with him to Venice after knowing him for two weeks?" he coolly asks.
"You can put it that way." She grins. "But since I was going to Venice with Tenoh-san, anyway, and Seiya initially planned to go to New York, I'd say it was him who went to Venice with me!"
"Did you plan to go to Venice before we went to Paris?" Shinichi's voice has finally regained its sharpness.
She did, she admits. Knowing he could have talked her out of her decision, she decided to tell him after she had left. For the first time since they met again, she looks apologetic. "But I didn't simply disappear. I've really written two letters, one to you and one to the Professor."
"They never arrived. Why didn't you write more when neither of us responded?" The questions Shinichi wanted to ask are returning to him now although their order is jumbled and he can't get his mind to work properly.
She looks flustered and irritated for a second before she gives him her usual serene smile.
"I've written to both of you that you shouldn't contact me for four years until I return to Beika or contact you. I thought it would be safer this way."
Shinichi can tell that she is lying although her last sentence sounds truthful. Ai doesn't look like a person on the run, and yet she didn't feel safe when she left. When he darts a brief sidelong glance in the direction of the bathroom, she gives an almost imperceptible nod of reassurance. Evidently, Seiya knows more about Pandora's Box than Shinichi thought.
"I've told him all about Pandora's Box and the Organization." Ai pours Shinichi and herself tea before she walks into the kitchen to boil water again. "He knows all about the people in my life as well—Gin, Akemi-nee-san, the Professor, the Detective Boys." She turns to wink at Shinichi before she begins to rummage in the wooden compartment box where she keeps her selection of teas. "He even knows about you."
"What happened at Pandora's Box?" Shinichi has initially planned to wait until they were alone to grill Ai about the night of Hattori's death. But since she has already told her boyfriend all her secrets, Shinichi might as well ask her now.
She pauses for a moment to turn her sorrowful gaze on him, which makes her look almost exactly like the ten-year-old Haibara Ai he knew.
"I don't know… I was sleeping in one of the crates where the Organization kept the paper copies of their files when Tenoh-san rescued me." She returns to the table to fetch the empty bowls of zabaglione, brushing against him with the hem of her soft dress. "I asked her for help before we went to Paris… Tenoh-san knew about my situation because we ran into each other in Ichinohashi Park. She immediately guessed everything. She was a very smart cookie. It was impossible to hide anything from her."
Although Shinichi is pleasantly surprised by Ai's frankness, he is also suspicious of it.
"Mitsuhiko has already told me," he says, ignoring his teacup to watch her choose a new flavour after washing and drying the teapot. Peach, he thinks, enjoying the delicious taste of victory for once when his guess proves to be right.
Her eyes darken as she rips open the paper bag and empties its contents into the teapot.
"I could have sworn that I could trust him. But it seems he is more of a chatterbox than I thought."
Since telling her that Mitsuhiko has never betrayed her secret entails admitting not only to her but also to Seiya, who might be overhearing their conversation, that Shinichi has been impersonating her for years, Shinichi decides to postpone his confession until later.
"Why did you want to stay in Venice for four years?" he asks instead. "Why not two or three?" Her affair with the singer can't be as serious as she claims if they had set an expiration date for it in advance.
"Meioh-san, a good friend of Kaioh-san's, used to take care of the paperwork in Kaioh-san's academy. Since she decided to finish her studies before going to Venice and it was a pain to do the work via phone and email, Meioh-san asked me to take over her job for four years. I also thought it was long enough for the blackmailed people to forget about the files in Pandora's Box and short enough for my friends not to die of heartbreak—or, in the Professor's case, of obesity. The job also pays well enough for me not to depend on Seiya completely." If Ai is lying, she is lying very fluently now, and Shinichi discovers to his annoyance that he is in danger of believing any yarn she spins. "But as you can see," she casts a reproachful glance in the direction of the bathroom, "my reputation is ruined since people think I'm Seiya's secretary."
"You can't blame them when you've done your best to make them believe that story," Shinichi gloomily points out. "Even I believed it because this—" he waves his arm in another all-encompassing motion, which prompts her to eye her vase of roses with trepidation, "—is absolutely unbelievable!"
Returning to the table with the full teapot, she breathes a heavy sigh. It started as one of Seiya's jokes and took on a life of its own at La Fenice, she explains, shooting withering glances in the direction of the bathroom. "Last night I told Seiya to lie to the commissario because I didn't want the police to misinterpret the situation and believe that he has murdered Tenoh-san because of me. But after you spilled the water on me, I thought you've already guessed that we're in a relationship." Even before finishing her sentence, she has bent towards him, revealing more cleavage than necessary in her low-cut dress, and—in a hasty attempt to readjust her décolleté—knocked over his cup of warm jasmine scented tea, spilling the tea all over his jeans.
"I'm so sorry." She gives him an angelic smile, for which he could strangle her. "But at least I didn't accidentally spill the scalding hot tea I just brewed on you," she adds in her sweetest voice. "You've been lucky!"
Swallowing his pride because he needs to keep her in a good mood, Shinichi grudgingly accepts the napkin she hands him with an icy glare.
"Why did Tenoh object to this?" he asks, omitting the word "relationship", as their long-time dalliance doesn't deserve the title. "Was it because of your reputation?"
"I don't think so." She leans back and throws a wistful glance in the direction of the bathroom. "She said that I'm wrecking his career by limiting his job opportunities while he is too freedom-loving to be a suitable partner for a woman like me."
The more Shinichi learns about Tenoh Haruka, the more he likes her. Unless she was responsible for Hattori's death, a theory which hasn't been proven yet, she almost begins to look like his ally now.
"Why didn't she save Hattori?" No sooner did he ask Ai the question than Shinichi realizes that she could return his question with the question why he didn't save Hattori and her as promised.
"Because she came too late," she says instead, her words unambiguous and not in the least intended to hurt him. "It took me long to forgive her for that."
"I came late, too," he admits, feeling all the more miserable in view of her unexpected gentleness and generosity. "I didn't come at all, to be honest, because I met Ran, whose watch was late. She also knocked me out to protect me from the storm."
"I see," Ai calmly says, betraying no strong emotion as if it doesn't matter in the least to her why he didn't rescue Hattori and her. "I'm glad you couldn't come." Scrutinizing him with her at times green, at times blue gaze, she hesitates, apparently debating with herself whether she should elaborate on her stance any further. Then, as though she had seen the tremendous guilt in his eyes, she slowly shakes her head. "I don't think you would have survived if you had been present, Kudo… About half an hour before the scheduled explosion, Gin came in a motorboat and surprised us while Hattori was reading the files."
x.
Due to her wound, she was hallucinating and can't remember much, Ai admits. All she can tell is that Hattori had time to place her into an empty crate—which he had prepared for the situation that Shinichi couldn't fetch them in time—and send her overboard with the help of a few ropes before Gin discovered him. "Gin was Anokata's most loyal crow, who would never have given up the files. I don't know what happened. But since the ship exploded as planned and Hattori drowned, I think Hattori jumped into the sea or was hurled overboard. Gin must have stayed with the files until the bombs went off. The Organization had already fallen apart. The FBI was on the way to the isle… After the Boss and the other crows committed suicide, there was nothing left for Gin to hold on."
"Gin could have taken the files to protect himself and escaped in the same motorboat in which he had come." Shinichi frowns at the mental image, and the suspicion that Gin, whose body has never been found, has murdered Hattori and got away with it is killing him. "He would have found buyers anywhere he went if the things Jean Black told us about Pandora's Box was true."
"Pandora's Box"—the explosive storage of the Organization's files—contained not only the history of the Black Organization, its most ambitious projects, and the particulars of its most important codename members but also a welter of confidential, sensitive, invaluable information on the most powerful people, organizations, and governments in the world—M Jean Black once claimed. Political leaders, terrorist groups, intelligence agencies—anyone who exerted a powerful influence on the political world—would be trying to protect their own secrets and exploit the weaknesses of their enemies after the Organization went down. Pandora's Box, hiding the truth of thousands of cases, could change the future of all the scapegoats that had been wrongly imprisoned because the Organization had bribed or blackmailed the judges and faked the evidence.
When Shinichi returned to the isle to call the FBI, Hattori and Ai had to remain on the ship to backup the files. Their initial plan was to steal the files and escape in a motorboat, letting the ship explode before the FBI, whose secrets were also stored in Pandora's Box, could arrive—a plan which would have worked if it hadn't been for Ai's wound, which forced Shinichi to return to the isle to ask the FBI for an ambulance, the storm, Ran's slow watch, and Ran's karate…
After contemplating Shinichi's words for a moment, Ai shakes her head again and leisurely rises from the sofa.
"Gin didn't just want to survive, Kudo. Gin really believed in the Organization, in contrast to me. He lived and died for it. Gin would never have sold the files, preferring to stay loyal to Anokata even after their death." In a softer voice, she adds, "You should be grateful that Mori-san saved your life when she knocked you out that night. If you had tried to backup the files, you would been killed as well."
Motioning to Shinichi that he should wait for a minute (Miyano Shiho still raises her hand, cocks her head, and closes her eyes for a second before she turns away like Haibara Ai always did during that gesture), she disappears in the entry and strides into her… their… bedroom while Shinichi automatically, almost involuntarily, follows her. In the bathroom, Seiya is still blow-drying his hair at glacial pace, and Shinichi is almost thankful that the singer has hair of Rapunzel's length, which needs to be dried for hours on a low setting.
From the entry or corridor, into which the watery light of the afternoon sun is streaming, painting rainbow-coloured patterns on the wet skylights and on the floor, Shinichi can see Ai sitting on the bed to hunt for something in the top drawer of the bedside table. As myriads of unwanted images race through his mind, Shinichi consciously censors whatever he sees for fear of discovering too many details of her private life. The last time it happened to him was at Pandora's Box while reading the files on Gin and Sherry in the Organization's computer. They had been living together, which deeply upset Shinichi—not only because of the implications of their love affair but also because of all the inappropriate thoughts he wasn't supposed to have when he looked at her.
It may be only his natural, intellectual, and completely purposeless curiosity… But the moment Shinichi begins to wonder how Ai looks and, more disturbingly, how her skin feels beneath that loosely flowing cashmere dress and how she would react if he (just hypothetically!) held her, kissed her, and tasted every millimetre of her body in that sturdy and much-too-comfortable-looking bed is the moment he—thoroughly ashamed of his fantasies—shakes himself out of his reverie to focus on the mystery.
Perhaps Ai—paranoid as she always is—still believes herself to be in danger, and Seiya and she are only playing a charade, which they've decided to uphold in front of him. Two people easily fit on that queen-sized bed without touching each other, especially when Ai has two wool blankets for herself so that she doesn't need to steal Seiya's duvet. After all, Shinichi and Ai have often shared the same bed on their trips with the Detective Boys as well.
When Ai returns to the corridor with Hattori's lucky charm, she pulls the bedroom door shut with a mistrustful gaze. Shinichi can tell that she is afraid of his deduction skills. But whether that's a proof for or against his charade theory, he can't tell.
"Here," she gingerly places the battered lucky charm into his outstretched palm without touching him. "Hattori gave me this when he put me into the crate. His girlfriend should never learn that he has given it away. I suppose he didn't want to be found with the lucky charm around his neck because it would have destroyed her superstition that her love would always save him." She gives Shinichi a faint smile although he can no longer discover any trace of sadness in her unreadable eyes. "You see, he was much more sensible than I thought although he was an incurable romantic. He… actually asked me to give it to the person I love most."
In his trembling hand, the lucky charm begins to swing like a pendulum, and Shinichi flees into the living room before Ai can make fun of his reaction to her words.
"I've tried to give it to Seiya but he didn't want it," she proceeds after following Shinichi to the coffee table and pouring both of them her favourite peach flavoured green tea, darting fleeting glances in the direction of the bathroom as if she weren't only talking to him but also to her singer. "And since Hattori used to tease me about stealing Mori-san's boyfriend whenever we read Sherlock Holmes together, I thought maybe he had hoped that I'd give it to you."
While Shinichi feels immense relief sweep over him at the thought that Hattori's lucky charm will never be hanging around Seiya Kou's neck, he is also devastated by Ai's confession that she has tried to put it on the singer. If this isn't a charade at all but only the sobering, stark reality—a possibility he can no longer ignore—Shinichi wonders why Tenoh Haruka hadn't put a stop to it when it started at her place. If Tenoh had intervened in time and separated Ai from Seiya before the notorious playboy could whisk her off, Ai would never have fallen in love, Seiya would enjoy all the freedom he wants, and Shinichi wouldn't have to face the dilemma of arresting Ai's live-in boyfriend or abetting a murderer.
x.
