Chapter 3: Soul-searching

Disclaimer: I don't own any Detective Conan or Case Closed characters.

"Shinichi, where are you? You are not home…" It is a gentle but concerned voice.

"Ran!" Shinichi cursed himself when he received Ran's call, sitting on the Shinkansen train to Kyoto with Kazuha. Sure, Kazuha told him not tell Ran about her whereabout, but he should have remembered to tell Ran that he was out today. Now, his gentle girlfriend must be really worried about him.

"Ran, the fact is …" Shinichi was debating really hard if he should tell Ran. He looked at Kazuha, hoping Kazuha could give him a shake or a nod and he would just do whatever she wanted him to say.

However, Kazuha didn't even pay attention to him. Obviously she didn't notice that Shinichi was talking to Ran over the phone. She was staring outside of the window, obviously still thinking about her dark-skinned childhood friend.

A bit disappointed by Kazuha's absentmindedness, Shinichi sighed.

"Ran, the fact is … I need to go to Kyoto today."

"Kyoto?" Ran was surprised, "You never mentioned that you are going to Kyoto today. Is it a case?"

"No …" Shinichi didn't want to lie to Ran again. He felt really guilty to have lied to Ran so many times while being Conan. He didn't want to make "cases" his excuses again.

"No, Ran. It just a last-minute thing. I will be back soon." He quickly hung up the phone before Ran could ask another follow up question. He really didn't know what to tell Ran if she probed further.

I am sorry Ran … I am really worried about Kazuha-chan now … So please understand …

"Shinichi?" Ran felt dejected that Shinichi hung up so quickly. She was actually about to tell him that Heiji called her last night about Kazuha. She worried about Kazuha and wanted to discuss with Shinichi want they could do to find her. But …

Ran sighed, and then text Heiji asking him to tell her as soon as he found Kazuha.

"Kazuha-chan, where is your ribbon?" After staring at Kazuha for a while, Shinichi suddenly realized why she looked a little bit different today.

"Ah?" Kazuha looked at her reflection in the window, and saw the absence of her signature ribbon on her ponytail. "I probably left it somewhere in your house …"

"It is ok," Shinichi smiled at her, "Let's buy you a new one in Kyoto."

So the first thing they did in Kyoto was to go into a shopping mall and pick up a hair ribbon for Kazuha. Shinichi picked a bright red ribbon that matched his mom's kawaii, bright red dress that Kazuha was currently wearing. Without further thought, he tied it on Kazuha's ponytail and made a bow, which looked much like the bowtie he used to wear when he was Conan.

Kazuha looked at the new hair ribbon on her ponytail in the mirror, the bright color suddenly cheered her up.

"How does it look on me?" Kazuha looked up at Shinichi with a bright, beaming smile.

Shinichi was amazed at her smile. This girl was amazing. He thought. It's amazing that she could be so high-spirited now while a few hours ago she was still love-sick and beaten. He still remembered how tender she looked last night with her tears. Now she was all cheered up again.

"You look beautiful, Kazuha-chan." Shinichi smiled gently at her.

Kazuha suddenly blushed while hearing Shinichi's compliment. She had never heard anything like that from Heiji. If it was Heiji, he would probably say "ahou, what's the difference," or "as ugly as ever." Although she knew Heiji said those things mostly to tease her, she still felt somewhat sad whenever she heard it. Today was indeed the first time that she received a sincere compliment from a man of her age.

The sales girl chuckled at the sight, "Ojou-sama, you are so lucky. You are boyfriend is so handsome and sweet."

"What? He is not my boyfriend!" Kazuha couldn't believe what she heard and shook her head terribly.

"Ok, ok…" The sales girl chuckled, definitely not convinced by Kazuha's denial. After all, she had heard such denials like that from many other shy couples.

Meanwhile, when Shinichi and Kazuha were having this brief shopping excursion in the mall, none of them noticed a camera flash not too far away from them.

"Where shall we go next?" Shinichi asked Kazuha after they stepped out of the mall, still admiring the brightened up Kazuha with her new hair ribbon.

"Sannon Temple!" Kazuha bounced happily on the street in Kyoto, "Heiji and I used to go there when we were little."

While she was bouncing too merrily, she didn't take notice of her surroundings and tripped over a passing pedestrian. She lost her balance and fell to her left side. But Shinichi's reflex was good enough to catch her waist before she really embarrassed herself in the public.

"Kazuha-chan!" Shinichi got a bit angry, with both his hands holding tight around her waist to keep her balance, worried that she might fall again. "Why are you behaving like a grade school girl? You should look around!"

"Sorry, Kudo-kun." Kazuha naughtily pouted and quickly bounced off again, as if nothing had happened and obviously no lesson learned.

Shinichi sighed and walked faster to catch up with her before she fell again.

Of course, no one noticed a camera flash not too far away from them.

"This is beautiful!" Standing in the yard of the Sannon Temple in Kyoto, Kazuha beamed and swirled in the rain of petals from the big cherry tree.

She was singing the Kyoto Road Song, her favorite nursery rhyme:

Maru dake ebisu ni oshi oike

Yome san rokkaku tako nishiki

Shinichi looked at her with a content smile, feeling quite relaxed. He had never heard the song before, but Kazuha's clear, girly voice singing the song just made everything perfect. The scene was really beautiful: amidst the rain of cherry blossom in the yard of this old temple, the shinning girl in red dress and red hair ribbon, smiling, swirling, and singing a hundreds-year-old rhyme.

He suddenly remembered that Hattori said he met his first love in this temple when he was ten, also under this cherry tree. And then Hattori told him that girl was the 19-year old maiko Chika Suzu, whom they met in the Sakura-ya Teahouse in Kyoto. Of course, he had no intention to tell Kazuha about this maiko to make her feel any more sad and unworthy.

He sighed and cursed Hattori one more time, "Hattori you idiot … Why do you care so much about your first love? You already have Kazuha … You really break her heart …"

"Kudo-kun?"

Shinichi snapped back to reality with Kazuha's beautiful emerald eyes staring at him. He blushed a little bit, "Yes, Kazuha-chan?"

Kazuha bit her lips, and finally uttered her question, "Has Heiji ever told you about his first love in Kyoto?"

"Ah…" Shinichi blushed even more as he felt Kazuha was reading his mind, "Yes … Oh No! I know nothing about it …"

It couldn't be more obvious that he was lying. Kazuha sighed, "… It is ok, you are also lying to me … Don't worry about it, I understand." She looked up and her smiled still bright, "I know you need to keep the secrete for that ahou … he is your best friend, after all …"

"Etto …" Shinichi scratched his head and felt even more embarrassed.

How much has she already known about the maiko?

"Let's go," Kazuha smiled at him again while walking outside, "I want to go to the Gyokuryu Temple next."

Gyokuryu Temple, of course …

Gyokuryu Temple, unlike Sannon Temple, was a quite deserted place. Not many people, or, almost nobody, came here to visit.

But this place meant a lot to Heiji, Kazuha, and Kudo Shinichi.

Of course, this place.

Shinichi remembered very well. This was the place when he, Kudo Shinichi, risked his life to save Kazuha, because she was his best buddy Hattori Heiji's woman. He was still Conan at that time, and in order to disguise as Hattori, he took the extreme pain and risk to turn back to his 17-year old body temporarily. Heaven knew how much pain he endured while transforming back and forth within a few hours. But seeing Kazuha being saved and the case closed in the end, he felt everything was worthwhile.

Shinichi felt some tightness in his heart. Yes, he risked his life to come here, just to save Kazuha. He didn't know Kendo like Heiji, and his body was suffering like hell. But seeing his best friend lying in the hospital, unconscious and unable to rescue his woman, Shinichi couldn't sit quietly. He had to do something to save Kazuha, on behalf Heiji. He would not hesitate to sacrifice his own life when it comes to help his best friend.

And that was the second time he met Kazuha as Kudo Shinichi instead of Edogawa Conan.

He remembered that night.

This girl was sharp. He could fool others, but he could not fool this girl that he was not Heiji. She saw through him very quickly.

This girl was as brave, as brave as Ran. Although he was there to save her, his body was in too much pain to be of much help and it was Kazuha who used her Aikido to take down some enemies.

This girl was loyal, she stood by the side of Heiji from the beginning to the end. He didn't know what happened to them exactly when they were trapped inside the temple. But Heiji briefly mentioned that she helped him figuring out the drawer that contained the legendary sword, Muramasa no Youtou, which became Heiji's weapon to strike the final, decisive blow on the gang leader.

En … there was also a moment of friendship between Kazuha and him at that time. He remembered that when he, in the form of Conan, fell from the roof, she caught him right in time before he landed on the ground.

Kazuha …

Standing at this familiar place, and staring at this girl, Shinichi noticed there were something uneasy going on inside himself.

"Kudo-kun?"

Kazuha's voice brought the zoned-out Shinichi back to reality.

"Kazuha-chan …"

She looked him, naughtily, "Kudo-kun, do you know that at that night I already knew you and Conan are the same person?"

Shinichi gasped.

Seeing his utter surprise, Kazuha chuckled. "Well, Conan appeared right after Kudo Shinichi disappeared, and when I caught Conan in my arms, I noticed the 7-year-old's face had the same shade of dark foundation that the just-disappeared-17-yearl-old detective were wearing."

"Do you remember? The first time when I met Kudo Shinichi at Ran's drama performance, I also noticed it was Heiji pretending to be you right away." She winked at him, feeling a little bit uppish, "Both Heiji and you are really bad at using foundation to change your skin tone. You don't even know how to apply it evenly and smoothly! Your poor makeup cannot fool a girl."

Shinichi was speechless.

"You know, I didn't follow Heiji to all the cases for nothing." Kazuha obviously felt quite proud of herself, "I have actually learned a little bit about the art of deduction from Heiji in all these years."

"And after that, I finally understood why Heiji calls Conan 'Kudo' all the time, and everything else fell into places once I realized that you and Conan are the same person."

"Your deduction is not bad …" Shinichi murmured. He realized that Ran, although being present at most cases he was involved while he was Conan, did not show as much interest in learning about the deduction, even though her own father was a detective himself. Ran always worried about the safety of him, whether him being Conan or Shinichi, and was always ready to use her own life to protect him.

But Kazuha, like she just proved herself, was really interested in detective works and she had always been helpful to Heiji in smart ways.

Without knowing what was going on in Shinichi's mind, Kazuha continued talking: "Well, I didn't tell Heiji that I knew. Nor did I tell Ran-chan, even though it also breaks my heart to see Ran-chan feeling sad."

"… Why is that …" Shinichi dared not to even look at her. The sudden realization that she was also a good detective made him worried. What if she saw through him?

But wait … what was he afraid of being seen through?

"Because I know how much you love Ran." Kazuha's eyes met Shinichi's, even though his were evading hers, "So I believe if you are hiding it from her, there must be a good reason. And I guessed that reason must be you were protecting her from something really dangerous, so dangerous that you could be shrunk into a 7-year old."

"So I trusted you, and decided to keep your secret." She gave Shinichi another beam, "But you know it was hard for me as well … as in many occasions I almost blurted it out to Ran when I saw her missing you so much …"

The last words hit Shinichi really hard. He felt like crying. He had no idea that she had been empathetic with him for such a long time, without himself even noticing it. His heart felt warm, but somehow also hollow, because …

He suddenly felt envious of Hattori.

Thinking about it, Kazuha to Heiji was almost like Watson to Holmes. She followed him to every single case and paid attention to his work and always assisted him.

And that made Shinichi envious of his best friend, because him, Kudo Shinichi, despite being known as the Holmes of the Heisei Era, did not have a Watson following him wherever he went and helped him whenever he needed help.

Well, to be fair, he did have a line of helpers: his parents, Dr. Agasa, Haibara and the Young Detective League, Chief Meguri and all the police detectives, Akai-san and other FBI investigators, Amuro-san and his team, and many other helpers around him. But Heiji had always had Kazuha. Just her is enough.

"Hattori … you lucky idiot …"

"Nani?" Kazuha could not hear Shinichi's murmur very well. She gave him an inquiring look.

Shinichi's chest tightened a bit.

He realized that Heiji and Kazuha, like Holmes and Watson, were inseparable.

How ironic. Heiji's favorite detective was not even Holmes. He liked Ellery Queen. But Ellery didn't even have a Watson-like sidekick.

But Heiji, the lucky idiot, had Kazuha.

He decided to say something on behalf of his idiot friend.

"Kazuha-chan … I think you should really give Hattori some more time before he confesses to you …" He scratched his head, searching for words. "You see, Ran waited me for a long time, so you can also …"

"We are different, Kudo-kun!" Kazuha felt a bit annoyed at what Shinichi jus said. Did he want to suggest that she was not as patient and kind as Ran?

"You and Ran have confessed to each other and she knows it is worth waiting for you. But what about me and Heiji? I confessed to him but he ran away. He never confessed to me and I have already been waiting for him to say something to me for … Gosh I don't even know how long … ten years? I don't want to be an idiot anymore! Don't you think it is really pathetic of me to blindly wait for someone who doesn't really love me?"

"You are not blindly! Hattori really loves you! Don't you remember how many times he had risked his life to save you? You know Hattori is really bad with words, but you should know from what he did for you. He really …" Shinichi was determined. Defending Hattori was the only right thing that he, as Hattori's best friend, should do right now. No matter how envious he was of his best friend, it was Hattori's woman that was at stake now and he couldn't let go off this girl.

No other man could own her, except for Hattori.

But his speech was cut off by Kazuha.

"Enough Kudo-kun... Enough …" Kazuha's eyes darkened.

Shinichi felt so many different emotions got stirred up inside himself. Didn't what he just said make sense to her? Why she could not see how much Hattori loved her? Why would he risk his life to protect her if he didn't love her?

After a minute or two of silence, Kazuha broke the silence. She looked up at Shinichi into his eyes, "Kudo-kun, you also risked your life to save me, right here at this temple, right?"

Shinichi gasped and was completely out of speech. What does she want to say? His body felt more and more stiff.

Kazuha sighed, "Do you see? Saving one's life is different from loving that person … You and Heiji, you are both nice people, you are both responsible and compassionate detectives who value lives! No matter it is my life, or other people's life, you and Heiji would both risk your own to save others, isn't that right?"

Shinichi became completely silent. He couldn't deny a word of what Kazuha just said.

Kazuha blinked her beautiful eyes, and continued to stare at Shinichi into his eyes. He felt he was totally trapped by her gaze.

"Don't you see, Kudo-kun?" Kazuha continued, "Heiji saved me many times, which I owe him dearly, but that doesn't mean he loves me! But I love him for god's sake!" Her voice was clearly trembling and so was her body.

"I know I am important to him, as a childhood friend. I am confident that he would always do everything he could to save me. But that is not love, Kudo-kun. It is not …" The tears she had been holding back for a while finally went out of control and rolled down her porcelain face.

"You risked your life to save me right here, Kudo-kun. And you also saved many, many other people's life, in many occasions risking your own." Kazuha's voice softened, thinking about how lucky her best friend was, "But out of all the people you are willing to trade your own life to save, you only love Ran-chan, right? Don't you see my point? Risking one's life to save another doesn't necessarily mean love, especially for nice, humanitarian people like you and Heiji. You two would just save anybody's life without further thinking."

Her gaze, now looking away from Shinichi, also softened, "And … that's partly why I love Heiji so much …"

To be continued ...

Again, please review. This is a hard chapter as I try to comb through Shinichi and Kazuha's thoughts without making them too much out of character. Well, I have to say it can be really hard for a man and a woman, who had been trying so hard to hide their feelings from each other, to guess the other person's true heart. Although Heiji had done so many for Kazuha, and we know he did everything out of love, in the beginning he didn't realize it himself, and Kazuha, who was not a confident girl to begin with, couldn't convince herself it was love.

Please review and let me know where do you think the story would go!