Chapter 14: Deal

When Conan came back from his search in the girl's room, Ran has expected him to gather everyone and reveal the truth of the chocolate theft. Instead he marched straight, without saying a word or even raising his head, to the forest at the back of the house, so Ran assumed that his investigations weren't finished quite yet. Suddenly, she stood up and left Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Ai sitting in the grass, shouting back that she would keep an eye on Conan, so he wouldn't get lost, in fact she never even considered the option of Conan losing his orientation, but it seemed that this was the most appropriate excuse for the moment. After all, it wouldn't be very assuring if they knew that she just wanted to observe Conan for her comparison between him and Shinichi, because even though she has seen both of them enough while solving a case, she didn't want to rely solely on her memories.

Hurrying up to not lose him when he entered the entangled brushwood, she reached his sides only meters before he vanished between the bushes and trees.

Turning his head when he heard the running steps of somebody behind him, Conan quickly focused his attention on Ran, who came to a hold just besides him, and tilted his head slightly to one side while widening his eyes. Ran understood the gesture as the intended question and answered, slightly panting from her sprint, "I can't let you wander out into the forest alone, what if you got lost or a bear attacked you?" Conan rolled his eyes at the answer and spoke in played annoyance, "There are no bears here, Ran-neechan", and before Ran could interject anything he continued with a smirky grin, "at least not since Sonoko-neechan came for the first time." Ran only scoffed at the remark and Conan took it as a sign that this conversation topic wouldn't get further discussed, so he turned around and focused his mind back on his initial task: finding evidence. Sadly, it hadn't rained in the past few days, so the ground was hard as stone and would not show any prints, even if the whole Kid task force would trample over it. Realizing that the ground wouldn't tell him anything, the young detective turned his attention to the very dry looking plants, observing them for any signs of somebody coming through here. To his big disappointment there wasn't anything to find either in the immediate area of the house, so he decided that he would search in a wider area for any evidence. For a long time, there was nothing unusual until he carefully shoved a beautifully-blooming wild rose out of his way, and caught the sight of something shining faintly, hidden by a lair of mud. Eagerly he dug up the possible sign of the culprit, only to discover that he found a crushed plastic bottle.

Ran had to hide a chuckle upon seeing the look of disappointment on Conan's face, which reminded her strongly of grumpy pet, pressed by their owners to wear some despicable dress and suddenly a picture of Conan in a white dress with red polka dots and a little ribbon in his hair plopped up in her mind. It looked so utterly ridiculous and cute at the same time that the "aww" that first left her lips was quickly followed by a fit of laughter. Holding her stomach, she had to lean against a huge pine tree for support, getting her shirt all sticky with resin, while trying to regain her composure, but failing spectacularly.

Of course, it irritated Conan to no extent when Ran just started to laugh, with no apparent reason to do so and even though he loved the sound of her clear and cheerful laughter, he felt like he was the cause of it, what made him somehow embarrassed.

"Care to explain?" he asked, after the laughter has ceased and Ran was only left with a smilie, but rivalling Kaito Kid's ones in doing so.

"Sorry Conan-kun" she managed to breath out between her gasp for air, " I just thought of something funny."

"Ehh?" Conan asked slipping his childish mask over his face, "It must be really funny. I want to hear it to!" he chirped, determined to resolve this mystery too.

"You see," Ran started "it's kinda hard to show it to you here, but I could when are back at home."

Not sensing the great danger that approach Conan happily replied, "Is this a promise?" and buried his own grave by mouthing that question.

"OF COUSRE IT IS!" Ran immediately returned, now realising the unique chance Conan had unconsciously offered here with his idea, "but you have to promise me to play along or else it won't be funny", she pressed, only millimetres away from grasping her chance

Still not sensing the horrible future that awaited him, Conan only replied with a cheerful, "Yes", which sealed his own fate. The moment after the words left his mouth Ran jumped up and urged Conan to finish the case quickly and while he started to search once more, the only thing she could think of was whether blue or red dots would suit the boy better.


As always all right go to Gosho Aoyama, the original creator of the Detective Conan Universe.

Questions and review are highly requested and if you want to know how the story continues leave a follow.

I hope you liked it so far and are thrilled for more.

Farewell