Whew! Finished this right on Chinese New Year. Yay, Chinese New Year!!!

PS. If you have trouble imagining Natsume, just imagine him as Sasuke from Naruto or as another Natsume from Gakuen Alice or any other cool/emo black-haired anime guys...

Chapter 4

"Uhh… Ueki, can I ask you something?" Sano whispered.

"Sure, as long as it has nothing to do with me and Ai!" Ueki whispered back.

"All right. First question, why are we wearing makeup and your sister's frilly dresses?!" He asked, while looking down at his blue and white striped dress and Ueki's green floral one.

"So that Ai doesn't recognize us. And besides, the face powder hid your scar." He said as he straightened the bow in his hair.

"Then why does my Rinko-chan wear hip-hop clothes?!"

"Oh, you!" Rinko slapped him on the shoulder playfully while covering her mouth with her other hand, blushing. "It's 'cause she will spot me pretty easily!"

"OK, Rinko-chan!" He turned back to Ueki. "Then why'd your sister here cosplaying as that girl from that 'Kingdom Hearts' game?"

"Her name's Kairi," Shoko replied, haughtily. "And I always wanted to cosplay as a character from my favourite PS2 game!"

"OK…" He spoke to Ueki again. "Last question. Why does Hideyoshi dressed like my grandma?!?!"

" 'Cause I also lost a bet to Rinko!" Hideyoshi said, trying out his best 'grandma' voice, which sounded like a cross between the Hulk with a sore throat and a dying goat's bleating.

The three guys and the two girls were at the zoo, spying on Ai and her 'Natsume-chan'. Both of them were at the giraffe's enclosure, looking at the pretty long-necked quadrupeds while Ueki, his friends and his sister hid behind a large tree.

Ueki sighed. He remembered that the night before, he and everybody else (including his volunteering sister), had been planning on Ai and her boyfriend. Rinko, who was at Ai's house, had been discussing with them through a series of text messages in her mobile phone while pretending to text 'I love you' notes to Sano in front of Ai.

As they watched Ai and Natsume, two guys in their late teens, from the crowd surrounding the enclosure turned and approached Ueki and Sano. The fair-skinned guy leaned against the tree and spoke to them. "Hi. What's up?"

"We're fine, thank you very much.' Sano answered in his so-called 'best girl's voice', which sounded pretty much like an owl high on alcohol. He was a bit nervous and worried about him and Ueki (especially Ueki) blowing their cover, but the two handsome guys didn't seem notice.

"Shinichi," his dark friend said to the fair-skinned guy. "Why don't you take that 'greenie' over there while I take this 'blackie' over here?"

"OK, Heiji!" Somehow, Shinichi and Heiji didn't notice that Rinko, Shoko and Hideyoshi (?!) had begun to giggle behind them.

"Hey there, baby," Heiji said to Sano. "I'm Heiji Hattori and my friend over there," he pointed to Shinichi who was blabbering on about himself to Ueki, "is Shinichi Kudo. What's your and your friend's names?"

"M-my name's um…Ami! Ami…er…Okami!" Sano said nervously. "His, I mean, her name's uh…Midori! Midori…Chidori!"

"Ami Okami? Midori Chidori? What are you talking about, Sano?" Ueki interrupted Shinichi by talking to Sano, not bothering to disguise his voice. He turned towards Heiji and Shinichi while Sano looked at him in shock. "Sorry, fellas. Me and Sano here are dudes."

If you thought that Sano was the only one shocked there, then you're wrong. It's extremely hard to put into words about how shocked Heiji and Shinichi were, but I can tell you that both of their expressions on their faces were stuck for hours looking like this: Oo, and the fact that they both suffered from insomnia for two and a half months after that…

Back at the zoo, Ueki and the others scanned the crowds again to look for the two lovers whom they had been spying on for three hours, but it seemed that they weren't there anymore.

"Oh no!" Ueki said. "Oh no! Oh no! We lost sight of them! How can we 'protect' Ai if we can't find her??!" He began pulling his hair in panic.

"There," Rinko calmly pointed at the zoo's café just beside the aviary. "But, I still don't get it why she wanted to go to three places in only seven hours?"

"She's easily bored and anyway, they only had one more place to go, right?"

"First zoo, then café, after that…" Shoko said, trying to retrace her memory, "…the park!"

"Oh yeah… Now I remember!" Hideyoshi said. "Why don't we have lunch now? I'm hungry…"

"OK, I'm hungry too…" Ueki replied, rubbing his stomach.

"Fine, we'll have lunch there," Rinko said. "Try to pick a table that's far away from them, but make sure that we can see them."

The five of them had lunch at the café while spying on the blue-haired girl and the black-haired but somewhat cool boy with no trouble at all, except that a five years old boy named Shin-chan mistaken Hideyoshi as an escaped chimpanzee disguising as an old lady and alerted the zoo officials.

Despite the commotion, Ai and Natsume never took their eyes off each other…

Wow, sounds like a filler episode doesn't it? XP

Note to Detective Conan fans:

DON'T KILL ME!!!