Of all the useful items Agasa made for him, Conan liked the bowtie the least.
Oh, sure, it was his livelihood. Shinichi was kept alive through that bowtie. Mysteries were solved through it. His life was saved because of it.
But really, Conan didn't like it.
It was a reminder of everything. A reminder that when he opened his mouth to speak, it wasn't his real voice that came out. When he looked in the mirror, it wasn't his real face that stared back. They were his voice and face, true, but not the voice and face he should have.
It was a sign of his weakness. Of his tiny form that no one took seriously. That didn't have the power to stop criminals like it should. That couldn't comfort one lost and hurt girl as she waited desperately for her best friend to return.
He also hated it because he was so indebted to it. It kept Kudo Shinichi alive, the desperate link both Conan and Ran clung to while holding a phone receiver in one hand. It was his only link to his true self.
He had begun to despise wearing it, only putting it on when he had to dress formally. During the beginning months, he'd had to wear it constantly to match the uniforms he wore, until Ran had started shopping for him as well, bringing home casual outfits he wore only too gladly. Whenever he put it on, it always felt like it was tightening around his neck, choking him, like that one nightmare he'd had where it had tightened and he had been suffocating, but he couldn't call out because it was on and if he did, he'd call out in his real voice and then his secret would be exposed, so he'd quietly suffocated to death in his dream, waking just before he exhaled his last breath.
Conan sometimes wondered if he was going a little crazy.
But it sometimes did feel suffocating. The grade school, the sweet "big sister" smile on Ran's face, Kogorou's grumping at him, his ever-present crowd of detective hopefuls...sometimes it felt like he was being choked to death by this life, that SHinichi was slowly being strangled out of existence by one Edogawa Conan. He could only breathe over the phone to Ran, but that held it's own suffocation, of frustration and tears and lost chances.
Conan decided he didn't need to wonder about being crazy anymore, he obviously was.
So, he sighed, muttered a quick goodbye to Ran through the bowtie and clicked off her desperate voice as he hung up the phone, and shoved the bowtie back into his pocket. He couldn't stand to wear it anymore, but neither could he ever leave it behind.
Neither Kudo Shinichi or Edogawa Conan could live without it. It dangled both of their lives in front of them, so tantalizingly close, but in the end just an unreachable voice.
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