The rest of the day was subtle torturer for Kaito; he couldn't face his mom as he was. He didn't think his poker face would hold out much longer so he skillfully imitated a bored and slightly whiny child and 'innocently' annoyed Kogoro until he seemed about to explode. Ran defused the situation by announcing she would take the boys out for some fresh air. Aoko surprisingly decided to tag along and suggested they go to a park down the street. Once at the park Conan, in a reversal of their usual roles, encouraged Arthur to relax and act like an eight year old and almost without realizing it they became involved in a game of tag with several other kids. Ran and Aoko sat under a tree and watched the boys.
"I don't know how you tell them apart." Said Aoko.
"Mostly by personality and hair style."
"Hair?"
"Arthur always looks like he needs a comb. He also smiles and laughs more and likes to be the center of attention while Conan is usually quieter and more serious. Also if something explodes, dissolves, or changes color you can usually blame Arthur. But when it comes to getting into weird and dangerous situations Conan's worse."
Aoko chuckled "Explodes, dissolves, or changes color? That sounds a little like Kaito."
"That's funny, Conan is like a miniature Shinichi sometimes, and I'm not sure I want to see the two of them together. They each get in enough trouble on their own."
"Imagine all four of them together!" The girls looked at each other and laughed.
Across the park Conan noticed the girls laughing, 'It's nice to see Ran laughing,' he thought, 'she's seemed so lonely lately' this train of thought was interrupted by Arthur slapping his back with a 'Tag you're it!' and quickly scrambling away over the jungle gym.
The next few days followed this same pattern. While Kogoro investigated Kaito's disappearance, the girls met at a park or mall, (the boys preferred the park). Ran brought the boys with her and once she brought all of the Detective Boys, including Ai. That was an interesting day. It all started when the kids decided to play hide and seek and Ayumi was it, seeing something in the bushes she quietly snuck up to the bushes planning to jump in and surprise whoever was hiding in there. Instead her screams brought everybody running.
"What's wrong?"
"Ayumi, are you ok?"
"There's a dead person in there!" said Ayumi, her eyes wide.
"What?"
"Aoko, you call the police I'll get the kids out of here!" said Ran.
"She's not dead." Came Conan's voice from behind the bushes, "She's only unconscious."
This comment brought a brief moment of silence before Ran dove into the bushes. It wasn't clear whether she was going after Conan or to help the unconscious woman, either way it didn't really matter because the woman opened her eyes just as Ran burst through the bushes. Understandably scared and apparently thinking she was about to be attacked the woman began screaming. This startled Ran who also screamed, Conan, who was leaning over the woman, yelped and fell back, and the rest of their group came running. After everyone had calmed down (stopped screaming) Ran used her handkerchief to help the woman wipe the blood off the side of her face while Aoko called the police and an ambulance.
While waiting for the ambulance to arrive Conan asked the woman what happened.
"I was mugged and, and he took my ring! My engagement ring." With that she burst into tears. Moments later a young man came running up
"My god!" he shouted "Kita, what happened! Are you alright?"
She all but threw herself into his arms repeating 'Seiichi' over and over again as he held her close stroking her hair much like a parent might do to calm a child awakened from a nightmare. An odd look of guilt and sorrow washed over his face as he murmured, "It's all my fault."
"Why?" chirped Arthur.
Everyone looked at him in confusion.
"He just said it's all his fault and I wanted to know why."
The man seemed startled, as if he hadn't meant to say that out loud but he explained, "It was my idea to meet here and I was late. If we had met somewhere else, or if I had just been here..."
"It's not your fault." Murmured Kita. "How could it be your fault?"
Calmer now, Kita explained how she had given the mugger her purse but when he tried to take her ring she struggled with him resulting in his pushing her away after grabbing her ring. When she fell backwards into the bushes she hit her head on a rock and was stunned.
The police and the ambulance arrived about the same time, Kita left in the ambulance to be examined just incase the blow to her head caused a concussion or other dangerous condition, while an officer questioned Ran, Aoko, and Seiichi. Just as the officer finished questioning the three teenagers (With many helpful and not so helpful interruptions) It was reported that someone had been arrested for the mugging, it seems a man was found holding her purse and despite his claim of finding it on the ground nothing was missing.
Once the police were done Seiichi was going to the hospital to wait and Ran and Aoko decided it wasn't a good day to spend at the park, and began to round up the kids. While the girls were distracted Arthur walked up to Seiichi and handed him a ring.
"Here, you dropped this." He said.
"What? How?" stammered Seiichi.
"No," said Conan, "The question is why did you attack your girlfriend for the ring you gave her, and are you going to let an innocent man be arrested for your crime."
As Seiichi stared into the too wise eyes of the two boys he found himself saying,
"I had to, her father was going to have the ring appraised. I couldn't let her find out it was fake."
"Why did you give her a fake ring?"
"Her family is wealthy, I couldn't give her a tiny ring and I couldn't afford a better one"
"You IDIOT! How could you think the ring you gave her would matter to her!"?
Three boys turned to see a fuming Aoko.
"Uh oh" muttered Arthur "I think she heard us."
"It's obvious she loves you!" continued Aoko "How could you insult her by thinking she is so shallow? Or is it that you think you need to protect her? Either way your pretending to be something you're not and trying to cover it up did nothing but cause more pain than either of you would ever had to deal with if you had just been honest in the first place!"
With that she grabbed Arthur and Conan's hands and marched away almost dragging the boys behind her. When Ran heard the story she shared Aoko's opinion of the whole mess. By the time they dropped the kids off at Agasa's house and went to the police station to explain what really happened they found Seiichi had already confessed and the innocent bystander who picked up Kita's purse was released.
A couple of days later Ran, Aoko, Arthur and Conan were sitting at an ice-cream parlor when Kita walked in; to their surprise she thanked them! After Seiichi confessed they had a long talk, and although her parents were very upset, the next day Seiichi's sister arrived with a letter from Seiichi and a beautiful ring!
"What?" sputtered Ran and Aoko.
Kita giggled and said, "It's really very funny, his grandmother marched in and demanded to see him! Then she handed him the ring and told him that if he ever did something so disgraceful again she'd 'make his head ring' and that he should 'give that ring to his girl and beg for forgiveness on his knees' then she marched right back out."
At this point she showed them the ring, even Arthur seemed impressed at the filigree of white and yellow gold accented with three perfect roses of rose gold, the center bloom revealed a tiny pink diamond in it's heart. As Ran and Aoko admired the ring, Kita explained that Seiichi's grandfather had been a jeweler and had made the ring for Seiichi's grandmother many years ago.
Kita finished up her explanation by saying "I always knew he was hiding something from me, I just wish he had been honest earlier. Thank you for helping him to finally make that choice.
Manzanita says; writers block is EVIL evil I say!!! Ahem, now that that's out of my system, deepest apologies to every one for taking so long. I know I said the story is already outlined but that doesn't stop minor mutations. For example Seiichi's grandmother was originally supposed to be a sweet and soft-spoken grey-haired lady. Obviously that changed.
P.S. This is a little off the wall but I'm kind of surprised there aren't more mystery fan-fics here; I first got into this series because of the mysteries.
Tigger is busy attempting to find a cure for writers block but she appreciates all the wonderful reviews.