Talking with the dead

Part 1

Hey, there.

......

Look, I know you want to laugh at me, but it's just hard to open a conversation with the dead, you know? I bet you haven't tried it to know how hard it is.

... or maybe, you have, with Hagiwara.

Anyway, how are you? I know it's a stupid question, but I sincerely hope that wherever you are now, you are okay.

I'm sorry that it takes me this long to visit you. I guess I was afraid. Like, I know you are dead, I saw your death, but... it's just ever since that time, I always have picture of you in my mind you know.

Whenever I did a thing, I often couldn't help but imagining how you would react to it.

Made me feel as if you were still alive, you know?

I guess I was afraid that if I saw your thombstone, you would really die. I know, I did attend your funeral - funeral of whatever left of you - but it had all passed like a dream.

I haven't visited you again since then.

Just so you'll keep on living.

That's also why, I have never erased your last text message.

Until yesterday, that was.

For three years, your death haunts me. I've lost so many people I loved, and your death was a final blow. I became scared of getting too close with other people.

Many people have tried to win me over. The presents, the flowers, tickets to amusements park, dinners invitations... and I know most of them didn't have any ill intention. That they genuinely cared.

But I always pushed them away. I was afraid that I'd lose again. That death would take someone important from me again.

You have no idea how much your death has affected me.

But he. he slipped under my guards. His smiles and his boyish charm got my attention. I find myself partnered with him more and more often, and though at first I wasn't so keen about the idea - you know that I prefer partnered with senior officers than a junior detective who's two years younger than I am - he was a fast-learner and pretty quick thinker. He did his job really well, which was why I had no reason to ask for another partner.

I still have no reason up until now.

In fact... don't laugh, Matsuda-kun, but I start to enjoy his presence immensely.

Oh stop it, you know who I am talking about~!

.........

Yeah, that's right. It's Takagi Wataru.

So... to make things short, let's just say that I feel so much affection towards him. I still don't know whether it's really love or not, but I care so much about him.

...I nearly lost him yesterday.

Yes, the bombing had taken place again yesterday. It's the same person who had killed you, Matsuda-kun. He nearly killed Shiratori-san when he first appeared again...

I was so mad you know? So mad at my inability to arrest this person who had taken you away, this person who had severely injured Shiratori-san.

I was so mad my hands shook and I practically saw red.

But all those emotions didn't compare to what I felt when I heard Takagi- kun was trapped with Conan - a little boy - in an elevator planted with the very same bomb that had killed you three years ago.

It was like experiencing your death all over again.

I can't even begin to descibe it. the hollowness that in my heart, the weight in the pit of my stomach and it felt as if my heart had been squeezed up. I felt like crying, but I couldn't. If it weren't for my level- headedness - which really often comes in handy in difficult situation like this - I might have gone up to the elevator myself.

So that if he had to die, he'd take me away too.

I didn't mean to sound so corny... but at least that'd spare me the pain of losing yet another important person.

And you know, it was that very moment, that I realized just how important he had become to me.

I used to think of him like he was my younger brother that I adored -- and I do adore him, he *is* kinda cute - or a slightly clumsy junior officer whose back I needed to cover.

But that moment, everything changed.

That moment, I realized that what I felt for him ran deeper than just a brotherly feeling or partnership feeling. It even ran deeper than my feeling to you, which kinda shocked me at first.

And the emotion was so intense, that it made me cry when the last officers pushed me out of the ground zero.

I'd lose him, I thought. I'd lose him.

But it turned up that he didn't die, nor did the wunder kid, Conan. Do you know that Conan was the one that disamble the bomb? He's a genius boy.

Conan got an idea after he saw the clue and it led us to find the other place where the other bomb was planted.

......

...I caught your killer, you know? I caught him. I hope you are proud of me now.

I was so close to kill him, I had pulled the safety lock and all I needed to do was pull the trigger, but Takagi prevented me from doing so. He brought back the officer's sense that I'd lost in my moment of fury and he told me something that reminded me of you.

He said that I shouldn't forget you if it was an important memory for me. Especially because when a person dies, they can only live through the memory of others.

That what brought me to erase your message yesterday.

Because even without that symbolism, you will still live through my memories. I won't be able to forget you, so rest assured that you'll live until I die.

......

The bomber have been caught, Matsuda-kun. Now you can rest without any worry.

About Takagi-kun. I still am not sure what it is that I feel for him. I hope it is love. I want to love someone.

In time, Matsuda-kun, I'll sort that one out.

I'll be around from now on. I'll visit you . well, maybe not frequently, but I'll visit you. And we'll talk. You and I.

And until then, please say hi to my father, will you? Tell him that mom and I still think of him and that I still treasure his handcuffs.

I'll bring Takagi-kun along on my next visit.

For now.

Bai bai, Matsuda-kun.

End of part 1