AN: 3rd update

Ran looked behind her, the jacket was there hanging on the doorknob. She couldn't believe her eyes among all the things they hurried to hide in the room they forgot his jacket, a thousand times she had told him to leave it in the hall but men never listen and that entire race was in a total vain. Ran was caught and couldn't help but blush heavily. She felt her temperature rise, her pulse accelerate but more importantly, she had that unreasonable feeling of guilt. Ran had done nothing wrong, sure she had hidden a man from her daughter but she didn't cheat on anyone. She was the responsible adult and Emiko was the little teenage punk.

"It's not your business! Didn't your mother tell you to not stick your nose in other people's private life?" she managed to answer finding back some sort of control on her nerves.

Emiko felt like being sparked, for once she was beaten with her own trick as her mother proved to be able to be a sarcasm master too. Still she was a bit disappointed that her mother didn't sense the humour in her question. Emiko was obviously a bit curious about the identity of the jacket's owner but she never expected an answer or neither intended to provoke the jacketgate.

"Mom I didn't mean to..." There was a long pause, a lot of embarrassment. Despite all that Emiko had to say something and trying to be nice she added "I guess that's only good news-"

But she was cut off by her mother "As I said it's none of your business. You really were not supposed to see that." At that moment Emiko could hear through the Skype call the noise of the front door being slammed. Ran heard it too and hurried to close the conversation "I have to go, I don't want to arrive last at my own restaurant. Bye sweetheart!" Ran blew a kiss to her daughter and instantly closed her laptop.

"Wait!" Emiko let both of her hands fall violently on the desk."Damn it!" she swore throwing herself on the bed, she closed her eyes and laid there for a short while before getting up again. The picture question will live to die another day, Emiko had better things to do anyway. Well that was if you could call homework "better things", she didn't exactly know what the teachers would be expecting from her so she'd better at least pay attention to her home exercises.

She moved on and tried as hard as she could, for more than an hour she tried to decode a History lesson and its exercise, but when she finally managed to understand one question she had no idea about the answer. Just like the Japanese language it seemed that her mother forgot to share her acknowledge. Therefore the British girl tried other subjects, nothing worked and there was less than an hour to go before diner. Emiko teared off a page from her notepad and rolled it into the shape of a ball before sending it directly into the wastebasket at the other end of the room. Exhausted and running out of time she resigned herself to ask for help, Eri was busy cooking so Emiko went downstairs to look for her grandfather. He had left the door of his study opened, Kogoro who was pretending to read the news while listening to the horserace didn't notice his granddaughter, Emiko had to knock on his desk to finally get his attention.

"Homework... Yes, of course." In his life Kogoro had received many request such as protecting someone's life, finding someone's first love and of course the classic "Does my husband/wife has an affair?" But help for homework, it had been more than two decades since he last did something like that. How touching was the scene, the old detective and his granddaughter sitting cross-legged on the floor, both holding dictionaries and trying to answer various kind of questions. Unfortunately they were interrupted by the diner, and they both literally gulped their whole plate, much to the cooker disapprobation. They ran back to the teenager's room, tried to solve a few equations, Emiko could handle these much better than Kogoro but still she needed him to read the instructions. After English, the mathematics were probably the subject she understood the best, it was sort of reassuring to see all those familiar formula although she had never liked mathematics that much.Emiko had always done okay in scientific subjects, still it took her a few tries before cracking the formulas since maths are much harder in Japan.

They were joined by Eri just when Emiko was solving the very last part of the math exercise. The former lawyer said something to her husband which made him get up and leave the room mumbling something else. Emiko tried her best to pay attention to each word they pronounced in order to at least snatch the meaning of one, but it wasn't going to happen just yet.

"It will come eventually" Eri interrupted Emiko who was deep in her thoughts trying to repeat each sound they had just pronounced. Eri sat on the bed and invited her granddaughter to do the same by a simple tap on the mattress, and commented "I am too old to sit on the floor".

"Sure"Emiko grabbed most of her stuff, put them at the end of the bed before joining her grandmother.

"May I take a look?" Eri asked lending both of her hands towards her granddaughter's copybook. After a nod approbation she started to go through all the exercises she did in collaboration with Kogoro, a good 10 minutes later she was ready to give her verdict. "Well you sure did good but..."

"No not but!" begged Emiko joining her hands together as if she was praying which made Eri laugh.

"I think you should write all that in kanji, I mean besides the English and the math teacher no one is going to understand your answers and your effort would go to waste."

Emiko sighed before admitting "I guess you're right but I don't know any it will take ages to write it."

Eri kissed her on her forehead "Come on, we can do it! Get me some paper, I'll write the kanjis and you'll recopy them."

Kanji by kanji they slowly rewrote everything late in the night, another kiss on the forehead and Emiko was gone to Dreamland. Her exhaustion state was pretty advanced and she had no idea if the upcoming 6 hours of sleep would be enough to recover. Probably not...

As soon as the famous London fog faded, Ran knew all along that it would be that kind of drizzling day, she was so melancholic. It was the exact same weather as the first day of her "great escape" in London, back then 16 years ago she was feeling the same. Somehow that rather short conversation with her daughter brought back her memories from that time, how alone she felt, how cold it was. There she was standing in her restaurant's backyard, if she were a smoker she would have surely smoked like two of the waiters were, instead she was resting her back against the wall. Ran was looking at the grey sky, her face was expressionless, she was deep in her thoughts and didn't notice the man approaching.

"You'll catch a cold" he said lending her the coat she had left inside the restaurant, Ran let him put it on her.

She turned to finally face him "You didn't come to ask how many tempura I sold during the service, do you?"

"Not really" admitted Charlie a wide smile on his face. Charlie Flynn was a 34 years old Londoner pastry cook, he was born and raised in the capital and although his mother was German, Charlie was as British as it gets. His hair was dark blond, just as his 3 days beard was and the same went for his thin moustache. The man was tall and athletic especially considering his occupation. He was well dressed, not to mention that he had his blue jacket on, which was exactly what Ran was staring at with a blankly look on her face. "Can I ever wear that jacket again from now on?"

"I am sorry, I don't really feel like laughing." Ran was avoiding his eyes and looked at her shoes instead.

Charlie noticed her attitude. He tried to go easy on her, avoiding her eyes as well, he made a few steps so that he actually was turning his back on her. "You won't be introducing me to your daughter anytime soon, will you?"

"It's not going to happen... If I'm honest I don't think I will..." Ran's attempt of using tact was shortened abruptly when the man finished her sentence.

"Ever move on..." he sighed and turned around to face her again. " I guessed so. That's what I call dedication, at least towards Emiko. I still don't know whether or not you're still somehow waiting for her father." As Ran's facial expression changed he knew she was going to make an objection "But you don't want to talk about it. I know!"

Ran and Charlie had known each others for about three years. Although you could say they were friends, they were seeing one another from time to time. Ran never let it go any further, she was stuck.

"Ran, you know what that means? We can't do this anymore."

"That's probably for the better." She faintly shrugged.

Without warning Charlie brought her in his arms and kissed her on the forehead "Of course you can call me whenever you need a friend. But for now, I have to go."

"Good bye Charlie." Ran didn't know anymore what to do nor what to feel. All these years gone and she was yet to make a decision for herself. Out of frustration she turned to wall and punched it hard enough to bleed.

The next day Emiko was as tired as expected, she even asked her grandmother for some coffee. For her second day at Teitan she told her dear Kogoro that he wouldn't be needed to walk her to the high school. Emiko almost got the wrong way a few times before spotting a group of students with the same uniform as her so she just followed them to the entrance. She had totally forgotten about her little daughter-mother talk, the teenager was way more concerned about surviving her second day at school. To complete that objective successfully the first mission that she had to go through was to find the right classroom for her biology lesson, so more likely a lab. But she had no idea of the location of the school labs, her backup plan consisted in finding Kioshi which was easier said than done. The time limit was 5 minutes and she estimated the class distance to be around 2 minutes. It left her with no other choice than using her mobile phone to call him for rescue.

"What is it Mouri-san? I was about to enter the class" Said a really annoyed Kioshi.

"I'm so sorry, I believe that I can't find the lab..."

"Where are you?" He asked sounding very annoyed

"I'm near the basket ball ground... Matsuo-kun? Matsuo-kun?" The impolite boy had already hung up.

"Mouri-san! Here!" Kioshi called waving his hand.

When Emiko reached the door, Kioshi had already started to run ahead of her making her struggle to catch him up. She was asking him to wait for her while he was asking her to hurry.

"Hurry up or we're going to be in trouble" Kioshi sprinted even faster when he spotted the teacher closing the lab door, who he prevented from doing so by stepping in.

"Sumimasen..." Kioshi excused himself and the rest remained lost in translations for Emiko.

"Sumimasen" she just copied her fellow classmate earning a smirk from him and rushed to her seat.

The coffee effect faded faster than Emiko expected and she started to yawn. Slowly her eyes closed, she fell asleep her head resting on her left hand, all that was perfectly hidden by a large strand of hair. She was only woken up by a push from Kioshi when everyone was leaving and she sat still.

"Did you forget to sleep last night?" He whispered.

"NO!" Emiko shouted and slapped the back of his head. "I spent the night recopying all our exercises in kanji and also I am still fighting against the jet lag."

"Sumimasen" Kioshi said trying to sound girly and making fun of her earlier try.

"Aho!"

Kioshi remained speechless for a little while and he just stood there. He shook his head as if to wake up "Don't you dare calling me idiot in my language!"

"Hey that's my language too"

The fight stopped as soon as they turned around and saw that the others were all gone, only the teacher was still there staring at them. They exchanged a look and ran for it again.

Emiko was starting to wonder if that was going to be her new lifestyle in Japan. During another class Kioshi had to wake her up by throwing his eraser at her. Again he had to rescue her, when the History teacher asked her to answer a question. Emiko just turned to him and literally sent him an SOS, after a sigh he devoted himself and asked for the permission to read her answer for her. But this was not the most surprising little event of the day, what really shocked the class was when the British girl raised her hand and actually gave the solution of an equation. Everyone was breathless and Emiko had a huge grin on her face as if saying "I do know the numbers".

The last class of the day was a more relaxing one, at least this was true for the grey cells. It was Emiko's first gym class in Japan. She opened the plastic bag which contained her brand new Teitan gym outfit and wore it right away. By the time she made it to basketball court, boys and girls had been divided in two groups which meant that Emiko would have to try to interact with the other girls from her class.

Also it didn't take her more than two seconds to guess that they were all going to play basketball, if the room itself wasn't clear enough then the fact that they were soon all asked to warm a up with one basketball each.

Emiko had always loved sports, especially the fun ones such as basketball, pointless running on the other hand were not really for her. She visibly was at ease and if anyone had been paying attention to her they would have seen it. However people only noticed her as she unsuccessfully tried to spin the ball on her finger.

The teacher formed 4 teams, 2 of each gender, much to Emiko's disappointment she wouldn't be able to kick any boy's ass. Her teammates took a few seconds to discuss their positions but none of them gave indications to the British girl. Still she kept on running back and forth with them, as she never received a pass she realized that she would have to create her own chance.

The girl took a moment to observe everybody around her, quickly taking a glance at the boys she noticed that they seemed to be competing quite hard, male hormones really were something. In all honesty Emiko would have rather struggled against them than not really playing with the girls. If they didn't want to give her the ball it meant that she had to take it by herself. None of the girls seemed to be especially more athletic or taller than her so it definitely was doable. She focused and made a nice jump pushing on her legs. She got just about enough on the ball to counter it, as a result the ball bounced away and she was the only one quick enough to react.

They all stopped playing and watched her. Without any further run up, she shot it from there in a rather unorthodox fashion. A nice, slow high ball, all eyes followed as the ball landed in a perfect swish. Emiko could probably consider herself as lucky. Still was it because she knew that she wouldn't be able to reach for the basket or was it because she actually wanted to show off? No one would ever know.

At the end of the day, she went back home alone as Kioshi went with his teamates, Emiko went directly in her room and threw herself on the bed. The teenager fell asleep with her headphones on. She thought that 5 minutes wouldn't hurt...

"Emiko, someone is there for you, at the agency!" Kogoro suddenly opened the door.

"Coming!" She answered raising her hand while her face was buried in her pillow.

The girl didn't know many people around there so it could only really be... "Kioshi"

"I told you to not call me by my first name, it's rude."

"Fine, what do you want Matsuo-kun?"

"I was coming to offer my help with your homework but I can also go home..." He said fainting to walk away.

"Okay okay fine, follow me." She led him to her room, closed the door behind him just to make sure Kogoro wouldn't try to listen.

As soon as he walked in he started to look around, however it looked as if he was stuck right beside the door. "Feeling homesick already?" Kioshi asked pointing at the London poster.

"Haha funny, well actually this was my mother's room, I only brought my clothes here." She grabbed a paper ball and threw it in the wastebasket which was at the other end of the room. The shot was a nice blind shot, so nice that it bounced twice against the wall before reaching its destination.

"You're good at this, aren't you?"

Emiko shrugged "I am just good at hitting the target. It's an old habit of mine."

"Have you ever thought of a sniper career?" Kioshi asked teasingly.

"Very funny but I don't think that's how it works."

"Well more seriously the softball team is looking for a pitcher."

"Isn't that sport like a cheap version of baseball?"

Turning on himself a few times, he looked like as if he was searching hard for something she did bring with her. He went through the entire room, he finally found it on the desk. He took the picture with his right hand and brought it to Emiko.

"Who are they? Is it your parents?"

Emiko's expression changed in a split second, she clearly was troubled, looking elsewhere she asked "Do I look like him?"

The Japanese boy didn't understand the question at first, Emiko had to repeat twice. The funny British girl was dead serious, Kioshi tried to recognize her features in the boy's face but couldn't find any. "Well... That's hard to say. You really look like your mother though."

The girl let out a very long and very desperate sigh clearly showing how disappointed the answer made her. She straightened and turned towards the boy "I don't know this man, I don't know my father either... In fact it's the first time that I see my mother close to someone. Guess I got a bit ahead of myself..."

Kioshi was bit stunned but he didn't say a word. He cautiously opened the frame and before Emiko could make an objection he said "Just checking something." He put the frame next to Emiko and looked at the precious picture holding it cautiously. "Me and Shinichi at Tropical land"

"What did you say?"

"My mother did that also on her pictures, when people still printed them out, she wrote names and places. Shinichi is the guy's name, she might have taken it on their date or something."