Anyone would definitely prefer to be someone who was loved and accepted. Yet, as cruel as God can be, everyone's lives had been decided as early as before they were born, and that includes what their roles would be in life. Just like how Ayumi got the role of the princess for the up coming high school drama, and so Haibara got the role of the witch who poisoned the princess. It was all decided by a lottery. Would it be a coincidence or intentional, no one could say. But surely, Haibara knew well enough how to act her witch role in this drama. It might be because she had the talent of an actress running in her blood. However, little did everyone knew, how well befitted the life of a witch was to her real one. Alone, outcasted, left in the cold as if she had no rights to feel the warmth of the sun at all. She was just like the witch who ran away from her fate into the deep dark forest.

Until one day, a prince on his white horse came into the forest where the witch lived. He was on a journey to save the princess, by himself. As darkness engulfed the sky and drops of rain fell to the ground, the prince decided to call the journey for the night. That was when he found a small house, which turned out, it belonged to the witch. It wasn't a pleasant meeting at first, yet the situations pushed for the prince to lower his ego and asked the witch for a shelter from the rain. Never did they knew, this somewhat looked like insignificant meeting would change their lives and hearts.

It would be nice if it happened for real, was what Haibara thought. She recalled the way Conan stared at her somewhile ago during the rehearsal at class. It was the look of a teenage boy who was longing to be together with someone he liked; the look that he had on his face whenever he was with a certain someone long time ago. No, the one that she saw this afternoon was far more intense than that. It was loving. Luckily, she was able to get out of the awkward situation by making some remark jokes about it in front of the class.

"Impossible," she said to herself, almost inaudible, trying to stop her imagination from going wild.

"Of course, it's possible." Conan said to Haibara while holding his bag with one hand and the drama script on the other hand. He was rehearsing his lines on their way home from school side by side. "Isn't it?"

It was just the two of them left since their homes were beside each other now.

"Huh?" Haibara astounded from the sudden question that the detective uttered. It was as if he knew what she was thinking and he was purposely continuing the train.

"For the prince to fell in love with the witch." remarked Conan, "There were many possibilities for it to happen, right?"

"Then, how about the princess?" Haibara asked, while trying to keep herself cool so Conan wouldn't know that she was also having the same question inside her head for awhile now. Oh, and her imagination too.

"Well, not sure about what come with the princess or the Kings and the Queens," answered Conan, "The love that the prince felt for the princess might only be a childish or brotherly love since they met at a very young age and grew up almost together."

"Then he learned what real love was and started to figure out his real feelings when he met the witch." Haibara picked up from where he left off. "If that's what you were going to say."

Conan was astonished by what Haibara said. Surely, she never got wrong when it came to reading his reasoning. And that was one of the many things that he loved about her. Wait, did it said loved? The boy himself was also wondering when the feeling started, yet it happened so unexpectedly– just like how a killer did the crime in the middle of the day while he was leisurely walking nearby, then he heard the scream. And when he came to his senses one day, he realized that his heart had started to move on, beating once again. But this time, it was for a certain strawberry blonde haired girl who was always be there by his side.

It was also the reason that was on his heart seven years ago, on the day when he had to choose between his old and new life. He knew it was her hard work, days and nights just to fulfill his selfish wish. Yet that day Conan made up his mind not to take the permanent antidote, just like how the prince resolved not to give the princess the waking up kiss. Because the prince had decided to stay by the witch's side.

"Yes." He chuckled. "It was just an opinion though."

An honest opinion he came up with based on his own life experience, Conan thought.

"But, I have no doubt that the prince fell for the witch," he continued, "Because I did fell in love with her."

Haibara stopped walking at hearing what Conan said and looked up at him. He was already a few steps ahead of her. He turned around when he realized he had left his companion behind. Then she saw a grin, to her surprise, a very big one but warm, was plastered on his face while his eyes were searching for their place in hers. He walked closer to where she stood, and as he got closer he reached out both of his hands to cup her cheeks– the script and his bag were left forgotten on the ground. It was autumn, but the weather was warm. As the wind blew gently and the leaves were rustling, she felt his forehead touching hers slowly. Then she heard the three words and her name leaving his mouth. The unmistakably three words that seemed to be forbidden in her life for all these long, yet she yearned to hear it, especially from him.

At that very moment, the dam in her heart was crumbled into pieces and water flooded out like a river. She sent her hands to touch his, a bit shaking, as she heard her heart beat faster than how it normally would, and she could feel her blood rushed out, warming up her whole body and her face. Slowly, her vision was becoming blurry because of the welled up damp in her eyes. Ah, could her life be so more euphoric than this?

The dark clouds inside the witch's heart was cleared as the rain stopped and morning came. As fresh as the morning dew on the grass, she felt enlightened for the heavy load inside her was lifted. The prince too, was ready to continue his journey, but this time he was accompanied by the witch. The witch braced herself up to take a step out into the sun, leaving the dark cold forest behind. At last, she was able to feel the warmth that she had been longing for all these years. She closed her eyes, and for the first time in her life, the witch shed a tear of joy. Definitely, there would be many more times in the future for her to feel happiness from now on, she believed.

Author's note: I know that the story was supposed to be a single chapter, yet I couldn't stop myself from writing it. The idea kept coming to my head, so here's the sequel chapter! It was cheesy, unlike the previous chapter, but who cares as long as these two are together. This was also a challenge to myself for writing something that is not my style, and turned out I'm liking it.

By the way, someone from other platform W*ttp*d under the username IamCc19 came across this fanfic and asked permission to translate it to Vietnamese. Thank you so much for liking my story! Hope your readers like it too.

Thanks also for the reviews on the previous chapter. They were such an encouragement to me to continue writing (and one of the reasons why I could come up with this sequel). As always, please read and reviews once again.

Disclaimer: All characters of Detective Conan are belong to Aoyama Gosho. I don't own any single of them.