Fandom: Detective Conan

Title: The Girlfriend

Author: Eeveebeth Fejvu

Theme: #10 – Together itsumo (Together always)

Pairing/Characters: Kudo Shinichi and Miyano Shiho

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan. I asked Haibara to make me a pill that would somehow turn me into the creator of the shrunken detective, but my order is in line behind the antidote to Apoptoxin-4869. So, for now, I write fan fiction. (Also, I do not own any characters from any other various fandoms that readers may believe have snuck into this particular tale.)

Summary: Always being with one's boyfriend was part of what girlfriends did.

Nervously prodding the fancy marinated chicken on her plate with a silver fork, Ran listened desperately for some snippet of conversation that she could understand in hopes that she might have something to contribute. Already feeling out of place, the stupefied silence she had been forced into by the surrounding dialogue was making her uneasy. She had lost her appetite because of it, despite how delicious the extravagant Western cuisine smelled. Her shoulders slumped, causing the poufy red sleeves of her dress to slide a few more centimeters down her arms. She longed to have the chance to say something, no matter how ordinary or mundane, but so far the chance to do so had not yet presented itself.

Ran had always been rather proud of herself when it came to attending these extravagant social functions. Despite her middle class upbringing, she rarely felt inferior to the famous and wealthy people who hosted and attended these galas. After all, she was usually escorted by her famous detective father or her wealthy best friend, and often enough these events were sponsored by one of her father's clients or the Suzuki family itself. With all of her experience aboard private yachts and in luxury hotel ballrooms, she also felt secure in her ability to use the correct manners, speak at the politest level, and to wear the most appropriate attire.

Right now, however, she was seriously wondering if her confidence was unfounded.

The prominent people at this particular get-together were not quite the same sort of diamond-and-pearl-appareled group of movie stars, business leaders, and socialites that Ran was used to mingling with. This international gathering (apparently the first held in Japan by a sponsor that Ran couldn't pronounce) was attended only by the world's intellectual elite, the very finest and brightest in their fields of science and logic. There were experts in biology and chemistry, specialists in physics, and gifted mathematicians, as well as up-and-coming engineers, geniuses in the latest technology, and – of course – famous great detectives.

Having no great interest in (or, she would awkwardly admit, aptitude in) these academic fields, Ran was at the gathering as the date – the honest-to-goodness romantic date! – of Japan's modern-day Sherlock Holmes, Kudo Shinichi. His formal invitation had specified that he was allowed to bring one guest, and he had asked her on the spot. Naturally, she had said yes, for she was – officially – his girlfriend, and always being with one's boyfriend was part of what girlfriends did. (Her father had begged to differ on this point, of course, seeing as the party was expected to last well into the night. In the end, however, she had not been forbidden from going, as her disheveled father was spending most of his time trying to figure out why he, the illustrious "Sleeping Kogoro," hadn't received his own invitation. )

Ran lifted her eyes from her full plate to consider her sharply-dressed date, who was halfway through his own dinner despite the long, animated discussion – in fluent English! – that he was having with a short, blond German man sitting across the table from them. Ran sighed, but Shinichi didn't seem to notice, inadvertently ignoring her in his eager communion with his fellow academics.

Her boyfriend was not the only person she knew that had been invited, but knowing this only made Ran feel even more left out. After all, Heiji had also been invited, but at the last minute was forced to decline after walking into an intriguing murder case in Osaka. (If only he had come, Kazuha surely would have been his guest, and Ran would have had someone to talk to!)

Agasa-hakase had obtained an invite as well, for some scientific discoveries made during the creation of his more successful inventions. He was currently sitting across the convention room with a group of Chinese technology buffs fascinated by his homing glasses.

And for her "groundbreaking work in biochemistry," Miyano Shiho had been invited as well. Earlier that evening, Ran had suddenly wondered just how much this gala's hosts really knew about Shiho's discoveries, especially the anomalistic effects of her apoptoxin and the illegality of the poison's commissioners. Ran had considered that, perhaps, the ethics were not as important as the final product to them, or maybe they had invited her for some less controversial achievement that Ran wasn't aware of. Even if she wanted to, though, she couldn't discreetly ask the other woman now, for Ran was sitting to Shinichi's immediate right while Shiho had seated herself on his left, thus making casual conversation impossible.

Ran reluctantly returned her attention to her full plate. Not for the first time since their arrival, she rather forlornly wished that this party was more along the familiar lines of famous-and-wealthy rather than intelligent-and-accomplished. In some ways, however, it still was. While the majority did appear considerably well-off, affluence seemed a minor point in comparison to recognition and reputation – among one's peers, that is. Earlier, before everyone had sat down to the elaborate multicultural dinner that Ran was currently poking with her fork, she had observed a lot of obvious pointing and wide-eyed expressions as the attendees spotted their favorite academic idols, whose pictures they had only seen in research journals or on the back of foreign-language books. She had almost laughed at the ridiculous and blatant hero-worship until Shinichi had eagerly pointed out an American professor he was eager to meet, as the man – according to Jodie-sensei – helped solve criminal cases for the FBI with his mathematic expertise. Ran had swallowed her ridicule, though she hadn't been able to keep a small grin off of her face at his geeky enthusiasm.

She was suddenly roused out of her reverie as Shinichi abruptly switched back to his native tongue. "So you are interested in detective work as well, Gordon-san?" Ran looked up to find that the German had turned away, and that Shinichi was now addressing the chubby, bespectacled, brown-haired man across the table. From appearances, Ran guessed he was probably half-Japanese.

"Ah, yes, well," Gordon replied with a wide smile, wiping some stray crumbs off his argyle sweater vest, "though, it's really only a hobby for me. A minor one, really. As a chemist, I am most interested in the forensics part of it all. I'd rather work with the minute evidence already set on the slides, you know; I don't know if I could even think logically, if I had to examine the whole picture, the crime scene and… and the dead bodies and all. My stomach probably couldn't handle it!"

Gordon's cheery grin seemed to encompass both Shinichi and herself, so Ran hesitantly smiled back. Her silent response seemed to make his smile grow even broader, if that was possible.

"Chemistry?" Shinichi questioned, and Gordon nodded happily. "That's interesting. Shiho– excuse me, Miyano-san is a biochemist, and she has assisted me immensely in solving a lot of cases with her special knowledge." Shinichi gestured towards the woman to his left, who raised a thin eyebrow questioningly at her sudden inclusion in the conversation, soup spoon poised halfway to her mouth.

"Really?" Gordon leaned in with excitement. "Biochemistry and criminal cases? How wonderful! Well, isn't this just great, meeting others like ourselves?"

"Thrilling," Shiho replied dryly, then returned to her dinner. Ran thought she saw Shinichi's mouth twitch.

Gordon, however, was not so easily put off. "I say, what is your favorite field of study, then? Nucleic acids? Enzymes? I myself fancy working with triglycerides. Ha!" He slapped his stomach heartily for emphasis. "You see?"

Ran, confused, looked to her boyfriend for understanding. Shinichi's expression was of vaguely amused exasperation, a carbon copy of Shiho's. After a moment, however, the woman resumed her normal somber air.

"Apoptosis." Shiho dabbed at her mouth with a white linen napkin, then stared Gordon straight in the eye. "My dissertation was on apoptosis, and I have been working primarily in that field ever since."

Gordon now leaned back dramatically. "Apoptosis? What a potentially dismal subject that could be! But I'm quite impressed that– wait, dissertation?" He adjusted his glasses. "You've already pursued your doctorate? And achieved it? …How old – I mean to say – you don't seem old enough to – well, I suppose, we're all here at this gathering for a reason, right? We're all too smart for our own good. But I just finished my master's two months ago!"

As the eager man was not exactly the quietest person at the table, Ran noticed that quite a few of the academics seated nearby had ceased their own conversations and had turned to watch the exchange with interest. While most returned to their dinners and companions after a moment, Ran observed that several young men, rather handsome and nicely dressed, had continued to stare in their direction with obvious interest. Ran felt her face grow hot.

"What's wrong?" She was slightly startled by Shinichi's warm breath on her skin as he whispered in her ear. She turned to him quickly, registered his sincere expression of concern, and, red-faced, stared down at her plate.

"It's… it's nothing… Nothing at all. …Really." She paused for a long moment, swirling some whipped potatoes around with her fork. She was nervous, but glad; her boyfriend had finally realized that he was, well, neglecting her. She then sighed, setting the fork aside. "...It's just –"

But when she looked up to tell him her honest feelings – of apprehension, of inadequacy – she found that he had turned back to the continuing conversation between the two chemists. She froze in place, watching as both Shinichi and Shiho reached for their glasses, took a sip of the contents, and replaced them on the table in complete synchronization.

"Well, isn't apoptosis just fascinating?" Gordon jabbed an elbow into the German's side. The man looked surprised, but, sensing that he was being asked for a response in a language he didn't understand, nodded hesitantly. Gordon grinned. "Of course it is! Now, Miyano-san… you wouldn't happen to be a member of Mensa, would you?"

"Yes," she answered coolly, "since I was four."

"Really?" Shinichi suddenly asked, or rather – in Ran's opinion – blurted out.

"What?" was the woman's abruptly haughty reply. "You think it improbable?"

"Wha-? No! I didn't say that…" Shinichi assured her a little too quickly, obviously startled by the narrow-eyed glare he received.

"Do you need some evidence, tantei-kun?" She continued scathingly. "A membership card, perhaps, or a certificate of induction? Because I do not have either of those on my person at the moment."

"No, no! I believe you! …Really!" He scratched at the back of his head with a nervous laugh.

After a long pause, in which the miffed Shiho must have been assessing his sincerity, she returned to her soup. Ran heard Shinichi give a small sigh of relief before he started at Shiho's serene inquiry: "And is the Great Detective of the East a member of Mensa himself?"

"Oi!"

The rest of the mealtime conversation continued in much the same vein, though Ran did not remember the majority of it. She found herself understanding less and less of what Shinichi, Shiho, and the incorrigible Gordon-san were discussing, and consequently found her attention drifting further and further away from them. She gave up on contributing to any of the dialogue going on around her. Instead, she gazed listlessly around the room, vaguely wondering if she could somehow spot that American mathematician for Shinichi, and actually spent several muddled minutes just watching a young, messy-haired Japanese man savoring a piece of strawberry cheesecake. Dolefully, she envied his unfettered appetite.

An immeasurable amount of time later, Ran was suddenly jolted from her isolated reverie by a scraping of various chairs being pushed away from the table. She blinked in surprise at the abrupt action, lifting her head up before realizing that she had been inelegantly resting the side of her face against her supporting arm. She rubbed her sore cheek and quickly adjusted her slumping poufy sleeves, looking to Shinichi for her next cue. He was already standing in front of his chair, though he had turned away from her towards Shiho and was now discussing some issue in a mixture of both Japanese and English.

Ran spared a glance down at Shinichi's plate. It was completely empty, making her nearly full plate look, next to his, rather ridiculous, as if the sophisticated cuisine had been too much for her relatively unschooled taste. Shiho's soup bowl was empty as well, the spoon resting elegantly on the folded linen napkin tucked against the bowl's saucer. Ran looked to her own plate again; she had pushed around its contents so much that it had really formed one great mushy mass. She bit her lip and, not knowing what else to do, tried to arrange her fork on her unfolded napkin the way that Shiho had.

"Are you ready, Ran?" Wide-eyed, she glanced up at Shinichi, who was giving her a peculiar look. And Ran's eyes went, unbidden, past her boyfriend and locked with Shiho's. The chemist's expression was solemnly neutral, though Ran felt a bit of a chill go up her spine at the piercing gaze.

"…Yes. I'm… ready." She quickly stood up, and her scraping chair made a loud, startling noise. For a moment, Shinichi seemed about to offer her his arm, but Ran must have imagined it in her desperation, for instead he turned and walked casually away from the table, joining the throng of guests, with Shiho a pace or two from his side. Ran hastened to catch up, and nearly tripped in the red high heels that she had borrowed from Sonoko. For once, she was glad that her boyfriend had not been looking at her to see that near disaster.

"So… what are we doing now?" she asked when she had finally caught up, and was a little surprised that her voice cracked. Shinichi didn't notice this, or at least, paid it no mind.

"Oh! Well, we are waiting for the staff to clear the tables, and then they are going to start the music, for those who want to dance." His explanation was momentarily interrupt by a small snort of derision from the chemist. Ran suddenly wondered if Shiho was good at ballroom dancing, too. "And, uh… everyone else will just, you know, talk and hang out for a while, until the next event."

More socializing. Wonderful, Ran thought, her heart rather sinking. But as the tables were stripped by the uniformed waiters, and most tables were pulled to one side, she found herself unconsciously reaching for Shinichi's unoffered right arm. She glanced at him uncertainly, then, to gauge his reaction, and suddenly found herself giddy in happiness. He smiled at her warmly, with a tinge of a blush on his face. She smiled back and as she leaned lightly against him, she found herself wondering why she had been so flustered about the dinner and the elevated conversation. Kudo Shinichi, her childhood friend, was now her boyfriend, and they would most certainly be together always; that much was crystal clear.

The lights were dimmed and the music began, first playing an exotic middle-paced tune with stirring female vocals in some ancient European language. Most of the guests seemed rather uncertain at first, as if their academic pursuits had kept them indoors so much that even a simple box step was beyond their comprehension, but then a small cluster across the room broke out in loud guffaws of laughter at an internal joke and two of their number nervously made their way out onto the rim of the cleared space. A few more couples slowly joined them, and before the end of the song, the floor was reasonably populated with swaying, twirling pairs, some much more skilled than others. Ran's spirits increased even more and she laughed, not unkindly, as one poor fellow nearly tripped over his partner's long skirt, for he reminded her strongly of dear Hondou Eisuke. Ran whispered as much in Shinichi's ear, and he smirked and agreed with her assessment.

As the third song played on, Ran noticed that many of the attendees were now chatting among themselves, but Shinichi made no move to join them, seeming to be rather content to stand on the sidelines and watch the dancers. Overwhelmed with cheer, she glanced past her boyfriend at Shiho. The woman was casually posed, with her delicate bare arms crossed, surveying the dancers with a similar content expression. Ran couldn't help but notice that Shiho seemed very natural in her silky, dark blue dress, which was decidedly un-poufy in any way and showed off very feminine curves.

Shiho suddenly broke the trio's silence, still staring out at the dance floor. "I am going to get a glass of oloroso from the refreshment table. Would you like some yourself?"

"Ah, not right now," Shinichi replied.

"Are you sure?"

Ran watched his eyes suddenly become as round as saucers as his head turned sharply to face Shiho. The woman finally spared the apparently shocked detective a glance; her eyes immediately narrowed.

"No, that question was not what your mind just made it, Kudo-kun." His open mouth quickly snapped shut. Rolling her eyes, Shiho uncrossed her arms and strode gracefully off to the left, where the waiters had set up a table with drinks and various desserts. "Pervert."

"…Am not," Ran heard Shinichi mutter sulkily under his breath, as he stared back out at the dance floor. Ran squeezed his arm gently, and he shot her a blushing grin that made her heart flutter.

Several more songs went by, but her boyfriend made no move to ask her to dance. Ran was, honestly, rather relieved, as her knees felt a little weak from being so close to Shinichi in a fairly romantic setting… or perhaps it was because she was feeling a little weak from not eating very much at dinner. Regardless, she found that her mood remained very high. She couldn't wait to call Sonoko and Kazuha and tell them all about this evening. Kazuha would perhaps be a little jealous, as she had not been able to come with Heiji, but she knew that Sonoko would be ecstatic and would probably burst her eardrums by squealing too loudly into the phone.

As she gazed around the hall, she caught sight of Agasa-hakase, and when he waved at her from across the room, she smiled and waved happily back, nudging Shinichi to do the same. She tried once more to identify that mathematician in the crowd, as Shinichi had apparently not seen the man yet either, and found herself instead spotting the ainoko Gordon. He was now engaged in animated discussion with the young, handsome men that Ran had spotted staring at them earlier during dinner. And to her surprise, she saw Gordon motion at she and Shinichi, and saw the men glance curiously in their direction. A moment later, one of them began to casually make his way towards them, his fellows smirking and gesturing him on with their wine glasses.

Suddenly nervous, Ran clutched her boyfriend's arm a little tighter. "Um, Shinichi…"

"What is it?"

"It's that… that guy coming this way. He…" Ran found that she could say no more, for the man had now approached them. He was Japanese, with a tailored suit and a stylish, cosmopolitan hair cut.

"Nice gathering, isn't it?" he asked directly of Shinichi.

"Oh, yes," Shinichi replied amiably enough.

"You're that detective, right? Kudo Shinichi. I've read all about you in the papers, of course, and seen you on the news." The man smiled, and it wasn't the stalker-like smile that Ran had imagined it would be. She felt a little bit of her anxiety fade. The man held out his hand, and Shinichi shook it. "Your skills in deduction and logic are quite impressive."

"Thank you," Shinichi replied, pleased, and though the response was still not quite humble, Ran was glad that her boyfriend was not as arrogant as he once had been, before the whole Conan mess. The man asked Shinichi a few more questions about some of his more recent public cases, and he answered them quite happily; Ran was just as pleased at this sort of conversation, for she had been present at most of those cases, and knew all of Shinichi's reasoning behind the deductions.

Ran couldn't shake the feeling that this was only necessary small talk, however, and that the man was leading up to something else. She found that she was quickly proven correct.

"…You know," the man said, a slightly different tone to his voice, "I don't mean to pry, but you and your girlfriend seem pretty close. That's nice."

Shinichi seemed just as startled as Ran was at this change in subject. "Oh! Uh, thanks."

"It's great to have someone like that, who you can talk with on the same level, isn't it?" The man went on, stirring the wine in his glass with a twitch of his hand. "I had a girlfriend once, who was pleasant and pretty and all that, but just couldn't fathom quantum mechanics. All our dates were rather awkward." He laughed. "I would start talking about the EPR paradox, and she would want to talk about Prada… and, well, you can guess how that went."

He took a sip of the wine. Shinichi smiled, though he seemed a little confused. Ran was extraordinarily confused. Sure, she could understand Shinichi's cases, once he had laid out all the evidence and explained the connections, but…

"Anyway, you two look really good together, and you seem very much in sync, you know?" The man smiled again, a little wistfully. "I noticed at dinner that you two have a lot of the same mannerisms. And your facial expressions, they were exactly alike! You two must have been together for a long time now."

"Well, we've known each other since we were kids," Shinichi explained, grinning slightly as Ran unobtrusively squeezed his arm, "and we've been friends for a long time, but we've only been a, uh, couple for a little while."

"You must have been together always, then." He was still smiling, but the man's expression was rather nervous now. "Well, I was just wondering if, maybe… don't think I'm trying to encroach on your territory or anything, but, uh… I was wondering if maybe I could ask your girlfriend for a dance?"

That was quite the last thing that Ran was expecting. Her eyes grew wide. She had been standing at Shinichi's side this whole time, but the man hadn't even spared her one glance.

"What?!"

"Wait! I just mean, I wanted to talk to her about a few things involving her work! That guy over there–" the man, clearly alarmed at Shinichi's expression, jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Gordon, who was blissfully talking to someone else, "–said that your girlfriend is a genius, and that she could probably help me with the project I am stuck on! I swear, I just wanted one dance to make that proposition, but see, I wanted to ask you first if that was okay."

"…Wait, what?" Shinichi stared at the man, completely baffled. The man looked baffled now as well. "I don't–"

"Isn't that your girlfriend over there?" He looked around and pointed across the room at a woman next to the refreshment table.

It was Shiho.

There was a long, stunned silence.

"…No," Shinichi finally choked out.

"Oh my–" the man suddenly stopped, turning back to them. His wide eyes finally fell on Ran, clutching Shinichi's arm, and he put his hand over his mouth. This action was not enough, however, to muffle his shocked whisper: "I thought she was your sister…!"

His sister. Ran was frozen still.

Not again.

The moment finally passed, and the man was saying apologetically, "Kudo-tantei, I am so sorry! I had no idea…! It's just, that guy over there, told me that you and that woman, were, like…"

"No, uh… No, that is my, er…" Shinichi seemed at a complete loss for words now. "She is, uh, that is… just a friend. Just a friend. …Her name is Miyano Shiho, and she is not, uh… anyone's girlfriend."

"…Really?" The man seemed to recover a little with this new piece of information. "I see… Well, I'm really sorry for that mix-up! Really, I am! I didn't mean to, uh, cause you two," he looked at both Ran and Shinichi, "any stress or anything. …Well, I guess I'll just be going now…" He began to back away. "Um, good luck on your cases, Kudo-tantei, and it was very nice meeting you!" And the man quickly walked away. His friends across the room hurried to catch up with him.

There was silence. Ran stared after them blankly, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Shinichi was not looking at her.

"…Shinichi?" She didn't know quite what she was asking, but she needed him to respond. She needed him to say something, anything! What he had told the man had not been enough. He had said that Shiho was "just a friend," but he had never said aloud that she, Mouri Ran, was Kudo Shinichi's official, honest-to-goodness girlfriend…

"Shinichi? …Shinichi? Answer me!" She tugged on his arm anxiously, trying vainly to get his attention. But he was not looking at her. He was staring off across the room at the refreshment table. Ran finally stared in that direction, too. The man and his followers had formed a sort of cluster around Shiho, who was casually posed with her wine glass in her hand, but Ran could, even this far away, see the dangerously annoyed expression on the woman's face.

"Shinichi!"

"I…" He had opened his mouth to speak, but nothing more than that one word came out. His eyes never left Shiho.

Suddenly, there was chaos. Ran heard a loud crash, the sound of shattering glass, and a loud chorus of screams, but before her mind could process all of that, guests began dashing away from the other side of the room in a panic. Several uniformed staff, who had been lounging in boredom nearby, suddenly leapt to attention and ran instead towards the source of the commotion. Shinichi started violently, his attention redirected from the refreshment table as the people who had not fled began to form a dense cluster around something on the floor.

Exclamations and shrieks in many different languages resounded throughout the hall, and Shinichi looked around, trying to catch someone who spoke one of the languages that he knew as they flew past. As one woman overtook them, Ran heard the lady distinctly cry to herself, in Japanese, "Oh, God, that man's dead!"

"…Shin–"

"Kudo-kun!" Suddenly, through the chaos, Shiho emerged in front of them, her silk dress flowing wildly around her. The wine glass was gone, and, delicate forehead furrowed, she grabbed Shinichi's left wrist as the panicked crowd threatened to knock her out of the way. "The man, they think he's been poisoned. The staff is calling an ambulance, and the police, right now. But if you don't want your suspects to get away, detective, you are going to have to get everyone calmed down, and if you don't want your crime scene disturbed, you better get it secured now, because there are some very fascinated forensic scientists in this crowd!"

"….Alright, I'll…" He paused as Shiho tugged on his wrist, inclining her head towards the mass of people who were observing the crime scene, many with obvious academic interest. Uncertainly but pleadingly, he turned to look at the other woman, the one he had been together always with this night.

"Ran…?"

Ran was silent for a moment. Shinichi had not answered her question yet, her very, very important question. But her eyes rose, and she met the piercing, intelligent gaze of Miyano Shiho once more.

She let go of his arm.

"Go…" Listlessly, her hands dropped to her side, and her red poufy sleeves slid off her shoulders. "Go."

Neither Shinichi nor Shiho gave Ran any more time to elaborate, for the woman pulled him by the wrist into the panicked crowd and over to the crime scene, where the detective and the scientist were sure, with their combined genius and synchronization, to solve the mysterious poisoning of the dead man long before the police could reach the convention hall.