Disclaimer: Do I look like some detective genius? No? Then Detective Conan doesn't belong to me!

Yah… I kind of have an excuse this time… my old Chinese school teacher just passed away recently… so I just haven't had it in me to write a lot… I tried though, so I hope you won't be disappointed with this chapter.

I decided to give you all a bit more of a sense of a growing… relationship between our two love birds. XD Not so much a serious chapter this time…

Enjoy! By the way, thanks for all the reviews!

Silent Life

Chapter Five

"K-Kudou?" She whispered.

He smiled before nodding, "Yah… it's me."

Haibara hurriedly whipped her face with her arm, erasing all signs of tears. "Don't kid yourself, what do you mean I like to cry? Just this… just this once doesn't prove anything. How did you find me anyway?" She turned to look at him, the redness in her eyes had vanished, "You're all sweaty… what were you doing?"

Conan resisted the urge to laugh… not only would it seem completely out of place, but also, the mysterious scientist would have been offended by it, "You're trying to change the subject." He pointed out, "I was looking for you. Um… are…?"

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. Great detective or not, Shinichi was horrible when it came to expressing himself with words… especially with women, "Are you okay now? Would it be ok if I asked what was wrong?"

She rolled her eyes and laid back on the warm sand, toes digging into the beach ground. "You already did. Why were you looking for me? I thought you said something about never speaking to me again earlier… remember? When you were screaming about how great Ran-san is and how I'm… well, not."

He noticed that she had grown even more depressed as she said the last few words. That scared him. Normally, he shouldn't have been able to understand what Haibara was feeling at all. She was always so… cool. It was impossible to decipher whether she was sad or happy… but… now… she seemed so… so… open and… vulnerable.

"To tell you the truth, I came to apologize." She looked over at him, surprised.

"Yah… I kind of lost my temper earlier… and honestly, I didn't half the things I said. I'm… sorry?" he cursed himself inside his head as he realized exactly how stupid he sounded while saying that. But a tiny, nearly invisible smile appeared on her face before quickly vanishing.

Crossing her arms, she smirked and taunted, "Oh… the Great Kudou Shinichi finally admitting defeat? I thought I'd never see the day. You… wrong?" If it had been any other day, Conan would have winced from the sarcasm and coldness of her words, but today, he was just happy that she seemed like she was acting more like herself.

"Yes, yes… and to further prove how sorry I am… how about we go for ice cream?" he got up, brushing his pants off. "Well?" He offered a hand to her.

"Your treat," she took his hand.

As Conan went to buy the ice cream, Haibara turned her face away from him, so that if he turned around, he wouldn't be able to see the pink stain that had spread across her cheeks. Him buying her a treat… while they were at the beach almost seemed like… a date.

He handed her the cone of vanilla ice cream and the two of them set off, walking along the coastline.

"I didn't know you liked vanilla," he said, breaking the silence. "I don't know… vanilla just doesn't seem like the kind of flavor that would suit you…"

"It's because it's white."

Conan stared at her, confused.

Her blue eyes were fixed on the ground. "It doesn't seem to match me, since it's so white… so pure… and sweet. Ran-san would be more of a vanilla. I would seem more like a… but it doesn't matter. Ice cream in general probably just doesn't seem like something I would enjoy eating, does it? I'm much more of a -"

"A wine. More particularly, Sherry… right?" Conan stuck his hands into his pockets. "Is it that hard for you to let go? Has it-"

"Don't talk as if you know everything." She hissed. "You know nothing of the organization… nothing of what goes on in there. You have no idea." Haibara stared at him icily, "You really shouldn't pry into things like that. Little boys should stay out of it."

He merely shrugged her off. It wasn't as if it was the first time she had tried to warn him away from the Black Organization. He knew they were dangerous… he didn't need her to remind him.

Haibara looked out towards the ocean and sighed. Walking forward, her foot got caught by a rock, sending her toppling towards the ground.

As she prepared for the wet and muddy impact of the beach floor, she gasped as she realized that what she had fallen on was anything but the sand. "K-Kudou!"

In his attempt to catch her and break her fall, he had accidentally gotten pulled down as well. Her breath tickled his face, and the two of them were painfully aware of the incredibly small space separating the two of them.

"W-What are you…" She put her hands below her, trying to push up off of him, but fell back down, since he had forgotten to remove his arms, which were so carefully wrapped around her tiny waist. "Kudou!"

"S-Sorry!" he tried to untangle his arms, but the button on the sleeve of his shirt had caught on the collar of her shirt. Conan leaned forward, trying to see his sleeve, but only succeeded in pulling her even closer and burying her face into his chest. "Hold on a sec, Haibara! I think I've almost got it…"

"Ow! You idiot! You're tugging my hair!" her words were muffled as she shouted into his shirt. "I can't breathe! Get down you-"

It was the first time in all her life that Haibara was glad she made the pill. If she'd been in her normal body… it would have been… she didn't even want to imagine it.

She pushed him down with her arms, but fell on top of him yet again. "Remind me… never to eat ice cream with you again."

A small murmur of "Agreed" came from down below her.

"Really, I never knew were so attracted to me, Kudou-kun. You really just couldn't let go of me," Haibara smirked. "But tell me, exactly why did you eat all the chocolates that you were supposedly going to give me as an apology?" She glared at him menacingly. "And why exactly where you eating them on my table?"

Conan gulped. He couldn't really tell her that he'd been reading her diary. "Um… well you see… I thought I'd wait for you a while… and I was hungry but… uh… I got you flowers!"

He pulled a bouquet roses from behind him, smiling nervously. "Um… sorry…?"

She rolled her eyes and went over to her bed, sitting down on it. "You really are tactless… but thank you." She held the flowers in her hands for a while, staring at them before looking back up at him. "What? You're still here?"

"Uh…" Conan shook himself out of a daze. What's wrong with me? I seem so out of it today… probably just tired from running all over the city.

Haibara looked at him out of the corner of her eye, quietly observing. She got up, "Do you want something to eat? Come on."

He followed her out of her room, and entering the kitchen. "Do you feel like eating some watermelon? I cut some yesterday…" she bent over, looking through the refrigerator, unaware that a certain high school detective had his eyes fixed only on her.

Conan pinched his arm, wincing at first but then calming down. Why was it that he was feeling so nervous and jittery… around Haibara?

"Kudou!" she waved a hand in front of his face. "Ran-san isn't here anymore, so why don't you take this to that Mouri. I know you two will be eating ramen otherwise." He looked over to the plate of fried rice in her hands. "I hope its enough… does that Kogoro eat a lot?"

He gave her a lopsided grin, "Yah, but if you fill him up with lots of sake first, he'll pass out before to long, leaving me the rest!" Conan took the plate. "Thanks."

She only nodded at him curtly before reaching back into the fridge and pulling out two slices of watermelon, handing him one of them. "If you two ever run out of food, tell Mouri to drop by or something. Ran-san will kill you two if she finds that all you've been eating is take out and such. Now, wouldn't want to be dead on her first visit home, now would you, Kudou-kun?"

He turned white at the thought of an angry Ran throwing kicks and punches at them for not eating healthily. "Got it. Come over whenever we need normal food."

"Also, make it a point to learn how to cook. I don't know what you did when you were living by yourself before. Did she bring you food everyday?"

Biting into his watermelon, Conan thought about how their conversations always seemed to include Ran in it. Did she really have something against his childhood friend? Or was it…

He looked at her for a moment before smiling and shaking his head. Nah… couldn't be.

"Tadaima!"

"Ah! Okaeri nasai, Agasa-hakase. Where were you?" Haibara finished eating, throwing the watermelon skin into the trashcan and walked over to her adoptive father. "Hakase?" She went over to the entrance, ready to scold him for leaving the house without telling her why, but he wasn't there. "Hm?"

"Kudou-kun, have you seen the professor?" she walked back over to the vertically-challenged little boy and crossed her arms. When he answered "no", she raised an eyebrow and said sarcastically, "A bit old to be playing hide-and-seek, isn't he?"

"Hehe. We play hide-and-seek… well, we're forced to. You should humor him a bit more," Conan grinned.

She sighed and went over to the living room, plopping down on a sofa and reading a fashion magazine, "Do you think I'm the type to do humor? You can leave once you finish that watermelon."

"Yeesh. Cold."

"Just hurry and eat."

He frowned, but began chewing quickly, nevertheless.

"Oh… I just remembered, maybe he took the car out… I'll go check the garage…" an explosion shook the house. It came from the basement.

Haibara tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear, "He probably went straight into the lab… He better not have-"

The lights suddenly turned off, causing Conan to give a little shout. Haibara, however, remained silent, saying nothing.

"Oi… Haibara, you ok? Stay there… I'm going to come over…" he felt his way to the sofa, trying to find her, but instead bumped into something hard – probably the table – and fell over to his left… landing on (guess who?) Haibara, pushing her back into the couch.

He could feel her tense. "KUDOU!"

"Ehehehe… We always seem to be getting into strange positi- ah!"

The lights turned back on, and at the door was the professor, with his hand on the light switch. "Suman, I accidenlty blew the-" He stopped, seeing Conan on top of Haibara.

"Ah! Sorry! I'll just leave…" he began walking very quickly out of the room, his face beet red. "J-Just call me if you need me… um… and… yah… I'll just be going…"

The victims of the APTX 4869 didn't move for a few moments, both wondering why it was that they were having such incredibly bad luck that day.

Conan sighed, "Let me guess, never let you eat watermelon with me again."

"Yah."

To be continued…

Yup. There it is… sorry it's kinda short, and don't forget to review! I hoping to update faster now, since my crazy English teacher seems to be giving us a break now…

REVIEW!

tadaima – I'm home

okaeri nasai – welcome home

(just in case you forgot) hakase – professor

suman – short for sumimasen… means like sorry or excuse me