Act 1 Scene 7 - 蜂と欄と [Hachi-to Ran-to] 'A Bee and an Orchid'
Conan was still awake. His vision had blacked out, or browned out? All he could see was a mottled brown color. His ears were ringing too, but he could still hear what was happening around him. Even as his limbs lost sensation, he wearily refused to fall unconscious. Suddenly shouting cut through the noise in his ears, and he was picked up. He was being carried like a baby. One arm cradling his upper back and supporting his head, to keep it from lolling and straining his neck. The other held him up, encircling the back of his knees and the hand clutching his lower back. The soft mound his head was resting on meant female. It felt familiar. Ran?
She started to jog with him in her arms, snapping commands at someone he couldn't quite hear. He instantly felt ashamed. He tried to squirm, but his limbs weren't listening to him. They were limp, useless lumps of flesh. "Let go," he tried to say, but his tongue felt thick and stiff as a plank of wood. His vocal chords seemed to be made of wire, and pushing any air through them was extremely difficult. He tried opening his eyes. At least they obeyed him, but the brown haze was all he could see. He closed his eyes again.
"How much farther?" Ran's voice came from above.
"See the fence? That's where we're going." Areku's voice? The fence… they were taking him to the doctor's through the woods, and not bothering to go through the front. What happened to him?
Ran broke out into a sprint. He could hear Areku struggling to keep up, a few paces behind.
"Where's the gate?"
"We're going through the fence. You won't fit carrying him; I'll go first." His voice was breathy, and his breathing audible. The inhaler from before, Asthma? An immortal with Asthma. He would have laughed if he could. The loose board rattled. Ran crouched, and supported Conan's body with her thighs. "Alright, head first."
"Got him?" A lot of hands were on him, gently passing him through the fence. His own hands dragged on the ground.
Then he was back in Ran's arms. She was clutching too tight; it was getting harder to breathe.
Areku was shouting the doctor's name, knocking on the windows.
Ran was rocking Conan, whispering, "Hang in there. Your big sister will miss you if you're gone. The doctor will fix you up, and you can go back to sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."
"Areku, I'm in the middle of dinner, and I have guests!" Dr. Nishiyama's voice was high pitched and loud.
Ran moved again. "Pardon the intrusion, it's an emergency!" Ran yelled. Her voice was shaking. "Conan's all swollen, and we can't wake him!"
Swollen? What was going on?
The doctor's tone of voice changed immediately. "Examination room. Now."
They were running again, doors rattled and then, he was on an examination table. The sink was running, and the doctor was questioning them.
"How long has he been like this?"
"He was missing for 10 minutes, maybe 15."
"Where did you find him?"
"We found him in the garden. We went searching because…"
"Not important. Was he unconscious when you found him?"
"Yes."
"What position was he in?"
"Curled up like a baby, on his side. His hands and feet were weird."
"Weird like how?" The sound of a paper towel dispenser rattling.
"All scrunched up, like this…" Plastic gloves applied with a sharp rubbery snap.
The doctor's hand were cool through the plastic. They gently held his wrist a short while, then prodded his left ankle, opened his mouth as wide as it would go. She opened his eye, pointed her flashlight into it, making him see spots.
"Is he allergic to bee stings?"
"I don't know, he's never said." Come to think about it, he'd never been stung by a bee before. A few nasty hornet stings, yes, a few spider bites, some ants, but never a bee.
"This is anaphylaxis, likely." The hands left him, and her voice was echoed against a wall. "I need to inject him with something. It's going to make his body shake. Young lady, you hold his hand; he might be scared."
Ran grabbed his hand. Too tight. Ouch.
He didn't notice the injection. But after it, that he felt. His heart raced, and his body trembled uncontrollably. He tried to call Ran's name, but his voice still wasn't working. They must have seen his mouth move though, because some unknown voice cheered. Were there more people in the room? He tried opening his eyes. The brown haze was gone. Ran was to his side, holding his hand tightly. There was sweat running down her brow. Areku was sitting in a chair in the corner, his face in his hands. The doctor's dinner guests had come downstairs, and were poking their heads through the door. The doctor was setting up an IV, working very fast.
"Can you speak?" the doctor asked gently.
Conan shook his head. It was more difficult that it should have been. His muscles didn't want to cooperate.
"That must have been very scary, not being able to move like that."
Conan nodded.
"Wait, he was awake?" Ran interjected.
Conan nodded again.
"Yes, he just was too weak to move, and his throat is too swollen for him to speak. The hands and feet curling, that's a symptom that he wasn't getting enough oxygen. It happens as the body shuts down blood supply to unneeded limbs too keep one alive longer. Good job bringing him in as fast as you could, any longer and he could have died."
Ran and Areku's faces were grim and frightened.
She turned back to Conan. "Did a bee sting you?"
Yes, that was a reasonable deduction. He nodded.
She wiped his arm down with rubbing alcohol. The fumes stung his eyes. "I need to poke you again, are you ready?"
Nod.
She inserted the IV, and taped it so it wouldn't wiggle. "Is it comfortable there?"
Nod.
"Are you still having trouble breathing?"
Conan attempted to take a deep breath, but it didn't come easily, and made a frightening hissing noise.
The doctor inspected his lips and tongue. "Would you like some oxygen? We have a tank full of it, just for times like this."
Nod.
"Stay here and rest while I go get it, okay? Young lady, please contact his parents and have them come here." She looked at Ran.
Ran shook her head. "We don't know where they are, but my dad and I are looking after him, so I can call my dad."
"Very well, do that then." The doctor hurried off, shooing her guests out and closing the door behind her.
With her spare hand, she pulled out her cell phone, fumbled with the keys. Ran took a deep breath, and punched the 'dial' button. As she waited for her father to pick up, she looked at Areku and said, "Thank you for helping rescue this accident prone little brat."
"You're welcome. I'm glad I could help." He pulled his inhaler out of his pocket and sucked in a dose.
Finally Kogorou answered. Conan couldn't hear what he said, but listened to Ran.
"Hi Dad… yes, Areku and I found him. He'd fallen behind a bench in the garden. … We're at the clinic Conan went to the first morning. … He's alright, didn't get shot or stabbed this time. Doctor says it was a bee sting. He's all swollen. … Doctor thinks he might be allergic. … I'll ask her. She wants you to come here. … I don't know. … No, he can't talk yet. … Yeah, he can listen. … Okay, I will." She punched another key, and Kogorou's voice echoed about the room.
"Do you have a death wish, you shitty brat?"
Sonoko's voice called from the background, "You tell 'im Mr. Mouri!"
"From now on, you aren't going anywhere without an adult present, got that?"
Conan nodded, and Ran punched the key again. "He gets it. … Right. … Seen you in a few minutes, Dad. Bye."
The trembling in his limbs kept going. It was embarrassing to watch his feet vibrate on the table. One of them was swollen up, like someone had pumped it full of air. Maybe he could try to speak again. Maybe he should just never speak again. He closed his eyes. He was too tired to think about all of this.
"Hey, no going to sleep," Ran said. He could feel her breath on his ear. "You'll scare us again."
"Sor…" he'd responded without thinking. At least he knew now that his voice could still function. Not very well, but at least something could come out.
Ran gasped and hugged him. "I couldn't hear you; try again!"
"Sorry. I'm sorry." He really was. And now he was crying again. "I have something… to tell you."
The doctor came back in, and he clamped his mouth shut.
She set down the tank, and connected a breathing mask to it, and opened the valve. "Just breathe normally," she said as she strapped the mask on.
"Thank you very much," Ran said, bowing politely. "My name is Ran Mouri, by the way."
"Nice to meet you Miss Mouri." She returned the bow, stripping off her gloves. "Areku, you can stay the night here. You look tired. Did you take your medication?"
"I did," he mumbled. "They invited me to stay with them the last time I brought Conan here, so I've been sleeping in the resort. If this turns into an overnight stay, I'll help out here."
"You can stay in my spare room."
He nodded, eyes down.
She smiled broadly. "Good, that's settled. Now," she turned to Conan. "Is your breathing getting better?"
"Yes ma'am," he answered quietly. Breathing and talking had gotten a lot easier. His leg was starting to itch, and he lifted his trembling hand to scratch. He could move his arms.
"Ran dear, don't let him scratch," the doctor said.
Ran pressed Conan's hands down on his stomach. It was a pleasant, warm weight.
He had to tell Ran the truth. He had to, or else he'd lose her. Or maybe he'd already lost her. It was too murky, but Sonoko had been right. He wasn't being fair to her. Ran had been right. He should be able to trust her, if not with all of the truth, his identity at least. Then let happen what will.
But Bourbon was so close. If her behavior changed, if she let something slip, it'd be out of his hands, he wouldn't have control.
But she'd had a pretty good idea who he was for a long time. She wasn't dumb; that was one of the reasons he liked her. Smart, strong, caring, honest… telling her meant he'd have to ask her to lie.
"What do you have to tell me?" Ran asked.
But she deserved to know. Perhaps lying constantly was skewing his perception, changing his personality. It'd become too easy to lie to her. He beckoned, and she leaned in. He whispered in her ear, "Alone. Later." His voice was muffled by the mask.
Areku frowned and chewed on his lips. He probably wasn't going to approve. Haibara definitely wouldn't. Then again, if the men in black found him, they'd kill everyone around him whether they knew anything or not. He had to try telling her. It was his last shot at staying with her.
"Okay, after dinner then." Ran smiled and pinched his cheek. He wondered if she would ever treat him like this again.
From the front of the clinic, the sound of someone knocking on the door came to them. "Oh good, they're here. I'll go bring them back here." She scurried off.
Conan squeezed Ran's hand. "Sorry," he said again.
"You already apologized to me; apologize to them. They're worried too."
"Sorry."
The doctor greeted Mr. Mouri at the door, and from the sounds of it, Sonoko and Masumi had come along too. Sonoko. Another pang of guilt. They came through the exam room door, and Mr. Mouri stepped forward. He was still in his obnoxiously bright Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks. For once, he didn't yell or curse. He stood over Conan and stared for a sec, then placed his hand on Conan's shoulder. "Damn. Kid, you look like something out of a cheap horror flick. You scared the living daylights out of us. What happened to you?"
Conan closed his eyes. His memory of it was foggy, he'd been so upset. "I was in the garden and a bee stung me." The words sounded all jumbled and murky, coming through the mask. They clearly couldn't understand much of it.
The doctor smiled, and cleared her throat. "If I may?"
"Ah yes," Kogorou said quickly, stepping back so they all could see her. "Please."
The doctor gave her best reassuring smile and started explaining. "Well, we've learned something important today. Young Conan here is allergic to bee stings. From what I gather, he was running around in the garden, and was stung by a bee on his ankle. Lucky for him, Miss Mouri and Mr. Kusanagi here found him and brought him here before something worse happened."
"What do you mean by 'worse'?" Sonoko interrupted.
"Don't be alarmed please," she paused a moment, looking at them. "He was in Anaphylactic shock, and could have suffocated."
The warning didn't help much, judging by Sonoko's face.
She continued on. "Now, I've given him a shot of epinephrine, and that's reduced the swelling and eased his breathing. The IV has basic hydration fluids in it, and he only needs the oxygen as long as he's having difficulty breathing. I may administer an antihistamine later tonight, if he needs it. He should stay here under supervision, or be transferred to a hospital on the mainland. I wouldn't expect longer than a night's stay, as long as there are no complications. You'll want to keep him away from bees, and keep an EpiPen with you in case he gets stung again. Allergic reactions like this are extremely dangerous for small children, so don't hesitate to treat him." She pulled out a pamphlet on allergies and allergic reactions that she'd been holding while talking to them, and handed it to Kogorou. "This has some more information on it, and it has a link to a website that explains it in even more detail, if you need it. Any questions?"
They all quietly shook their heads, still trying to take it all in.
She gave another broad, comforting smile. "I'll leave him alone with you for a little while. Call my name when you've decided what you want to do."
"I have his insurance card," Kogorou said, pulling it out of his wallet. "Do you need it yet?"
"That'll be handy, yes. Anything else?" Hearing no response, she said, "If you'll excuse me then," and slipped between them back out the door and closed it behind her.
They stood quietly for a little while, staring at Conan breathing.
At last, Masumi spoke. "I still don't get why he ran away like that."
Ran and Sonoko blushed. "He may have overheard," Sonoko started, covering her mouth. "We were talking about his family… didn't know he was there."
Ran interrupted, "He was really upset, and ran off. It's our fault. We should have followed him right away, but we thought he'd come right back."
"His family? Those no good irresponsible-" Kogorou started, but was silenced by Ran and Sonoko making wild, "SHUT UP" gestures.
Masumi frowned, deep in thought, she probably didn't buy it, but held her tongue. Conan wondered if she'd known about them all along.
Conan closed his eyes. He was tired. He hadn't eaten dinner. His muscles felt like a handful of writhing worms. They couldn't hear him through the mask. Maybe he could sleep a while…
A jolt of pain from the soft underside of his foot roused him again. "No going to sleep yet!" Sonoko said.
He groaned.
"So," Sonoko continued, "One of us can take the first shift while everyone else brings back dinner. Then we eat, and then we take turns watching him overnight."
Ran raised her hand. "I'll take the first shift."
"Then I guess we'll go get food, and whatever else we need for the night. Shall we?" Sonoko sounded like a general, getting everything moving.
"Let's go!" said Masumi, helping Sonoko push everyone out the door.
Conan heard Kogorou explaining the plan to the doctor, and then, finally, silence. Ran and he were all alone.
Ran closed the door, and pulled the chair to the side of the exam table. "So, what did you have to tell me?"
Shinichi hesitantly pulled off the oxygen mask. As though a cork on an agitated bottle of Champaign had been loosed, everything he'd wanted to say as Shinichi after eavesdropping on her and Sonoko came out. In his high-pitched, child's voice, to him, his confession sounded like a bad joke. "I'm really, really sorry I hurt you. I've acted like a fool from the day this happened. For so long, I thought that protecting you was the most important thing. I thought that me hurting you and lying to you would keep you safe, but I wanted to keep you at the same time, because I'm in love with you. I can't do both. I should have trusted you, and I shouldn't have let everyone convince me that I was doing the right thing. So, I'm ending the lies now, because I love you, and I really need you to help me through this. I'm too weak on my own, and not just because my body is like this. There were two attempts on my life that day. There was nothing I could do to stop them. I was completely helpless, and now I'm vulnerable too. It terrifies me. You're different from me – you're strong. You have so much responsibility, you carry so many people's burdens alongside your own, and you still stand tall. I wish I had that kind of strength. Sonoko was wrong; I do see what she sees. I've just been an idiot and not acted on it. I'm acting on it now. I love you; I need you; please stay with me."
Ran didn't answer. Her expressions kept changing – eyebrows furrowed and then relaxed, eyes blinking back tears, jaw clenched, then forced open to take slow breaths, hissing between her teeth. There were too many mixed signals. As usual, he couldn't deduce what she was thinking.
"Maybe I should have just died at Tropical Land, and spared you all this grief." He put his mask back on, closed his eyes, and waited for the blows to come.
They didn't. Instead, Ran slipped Shinichi's small, trembling hand into her own.
"Idiot," she whispered. "Don't ever say you wish you were dead." He could feel her pulse hammering through her palm. "I've been waiting so long for you to say those words. Somewhere along the line, loving you got twisted, an exercise in how much loneliness I could take."
"I'm sorry," he said again. "I didn't think you would want to be with me…" his tongue felt like it might choke him again. "…like this."
"Apologies are nice, but they don't change what's happened." Ran sighed. "I need to confess something too. I was in love with you for a long time, and I thought that I was supposed to hold out for my one true love. But love, and falling in love isn't so simple. Sonoko and I, we've been close for a very long time. Somewhere along the line, we became closer than being best friends. Our first kisses, I don't think we realized what they meant right away. We called them 'practice for our absent boyfriends' at first. We were both lonely, and we needed to be close with someone, and we couldn't stop. It just… got out of our hands then."
Ran looked down, her free hand fiddled with the hem of her shirt. "Then Sonoko's grandparents found out somehow, hired someone to surveil her, and they caught us together. That conversation you overheard – it was right after her grandparents and parents had confronted her about it. They're pretty mad, because their heirs are supposed to have children and continue the family line. I don't know what we're going to do about that." She bit her lip, biting back tears, then took a deep breath to steady herself.
"There is a good thing that's come from all of this. It's made us reexamine our relationship, and it's not friendship anymore. The things I want to do with her aren't things that friends do, they're things that lovers do, and it's mutual. We're in love."
She turned back to Shinichi, squeezing his hand again. "But with you, even when you were back to normal those few times, I hadn't felt that yet. Maybe it's because we've never done anything like kissing together. Maybe it's because we never got a chance to make our relationship something more, but it still feels like friendship-love to me. I'm sorry, I can't return your feelings right now. Things are too complicated."
As though something else had control over his limbs, he yanked off the breathing mask, sat up, and grasping her neck with his tiny arm and pulled her into a kiss. Her eyes were wide for a moment, and she didn't move. "Please Ran-" He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence. She gently pushed his little body back down onto the table and put his breathing mask on securely over his nose and mouth. The hand that had been gently holding his was now restraining him.
She choked suddenly, and left him to go to the sink and swallow a gulp of water from a small paper cup. She turned back to him, looking nauseous. "I can't do that with the face… the body of eight year old Conan, my little brother. I feel like I kissed a child."
The body of a child. Of course she couldn't feel attracted to it. She was interested in people her own age, and she probably didn't even want to consider being with a child, even if it was an 18 year old at heart. That plus the nature of the temporary cures – there was no way he could stay an adult long enough for a physical relationship to form. She'd end up having to wait until his body grew up again, and that wasn't fair to her.
"I've seen you in your grown up self since then," she went on. "Why can't you try when you're an age I can kiss?"
He looked away from her. His own stomach was twisting into knots, realizing that he'd just ruined any chance of her trusting him enough to let him date her. Why'd he do that? He recalled a fleeting thought that they just needed to kiss and it'd all be better and she'd come back to him; but now it seemed like the stupidest thing he'd ever done. Another fleeting thought came to him: Maybe if he kissed her when he was his adult self… but that wasn't going to happen now, not with the way the cures worked.
He nudged the mask partly off, just enough to speak. "I've been waiting for, searching for a permanent cure. All I've got are temporary cures that risk my life every time I use them, and they work for shorter periods each time."
Dammit, he was going to start crying again. That made him feel even more like a child. "It feels all wrong, just looking at my own reflection. Sometimes my body doesn't really feel like my own. My voice… I hate it. If I could use the voice changer all the time I would. If I'm creeped out by my own body, I can't expect someone else to want it."
"Voice changer - Dr. Agasa, I presume?" She finally cracked a smile.
He mentally thanked her for changing the subject. "Yeah. I can't ever make fun of his inventions ever again."
She rubbed her forehead, thinking back. "That ridiculous lie he told me, he definitely knows what happened. Is he working on the cures? Oh, and the little girl living with him, Ai! She came out of nowhere, and she's weirdly mature. Is she like you?"
It felt like a betrayal of Haibara's trust to tell Ran. "I can't say," he said finally. "If there are any other people that are in the same situation that I am in, it's up to them whether or not you know. I didn't even tell my parents; Dr. Agasa did that behind my back, and even though I'm glad they know now, I wished he had let me tell them myself. They scared the hell out of me when they picked me up in disguise."
Ran nodded, still deep in thought. "I still want to be your friend," she blurted out. "I can't be your girlfriend, but I can still help you fight them!" She paused, chewing her lower lip again. "There is a them, right? I presume that you're trying to fight whoever did this to you, and that's why you're always turning up injured. You need a capable bodyguard, and I happen to be the Kantou regional karate champion!"
He shook his head. "That's the exact opposite of keeping you safe, Ran."
"Shinichi, don't you think that's a decision that I should get to make? You said it: you need to be less vulnerable, and that's something I can help you with. And now that I know, I can help cover it up for you."
"I do alright with Dr. Agasa's inventions." It was nice to hear his name from her again.
"—says the boy who just almost died from a bee sting." She smirked and prodded his swollen ankle. It smarted.
"Fine," he mumbled. "It's not as though you weren't already doing that anyway."
She nodded, an eager glimmer in her eye. "Now you have to tell me everything."
The front door banged open, and the slightly winded voices of their friends and family coming in with food and sleeping bags for the long night ahead echoed down the hall.
"Later," he sighed. Then a thought struck him and popped out of his mouth, "Does this mean you're going to stop stripping me naked and dragging me into the bath with you?"
Ran turned a very, very dark red, and her dad came in carrying a load of boxed and plastic-wrapped dishes from the restaurant.
"Glad we had this talk, Conan," she muttered.
Shinichi winced at his alias. Yup, she was still pissed. They really weren't going to get back together, were they?
They dug into dinner and lined up sleeping bags on the floor. Luckily, Conan's condition only improved through the night. By the morning, he had the doctor's approval to go back to the hotel, as long as he took an EpiPen and a prescription for anti-histamines, to keep the swelling down in his foot. Exhausted, they all went back to the hotel and slept late into the morning.
Author's Note
Japanese is a language that is pretty easy to learn by ear, but incredibly difficult to learn how to write in. That is because it has four different writing systems being used, all at once. They are:
Romanji – the Latin Alphabet, what we use to write English in. It's usually reserved for acronyms though. Using the Arabic numerals, instead of the Chinese characters, also falls in this category. You could also consider Latin punctuation marks classified as Romanji.
Hiragana – A phonetic (or close to it) syllabary for writing Japanese words in, and for writing meaningless, grammatical morphemes in. It's also used as Furigana, the pronunciation notations over other forms of writing. It has a fascinating history. It was made from the cursive, shorthand forms of Chinese characters. Long before there was a set syllabary, Japanese writers were using the pronunciations of Chinese characters to sound out Japanese words, and there were thousands of variations. One of the earliest examples is the Man'youshuu, a collection of Japanese poetry. In that collection, there is a poem about birds, written phonetically, entirely with different Chinese characters for birds. This practice actually carries on to today, but only in a handful of set phrases, like "Congratulations!" - 「お目出度う」 (o-eye-depart-degree-u, for the sounds o-me-de-to-u). Another variation of this words is 「御目出糖」 (honorable-eye-depart-sugar for the syllables o-me-de-tou).
Katakana – Notable for its much more angular appearance, Katakana is a mirror of Hiragana, with a slightly different history. Katakana was a phonetic shorthand that was popular amongst Buddhist monks. Buddhism is a foreign religion, which is probably why it became the form of notation favored for writing foreign words and phrases. In modern days, it's often used for people's personal names, when the parents decide to not use Chinese characters in the name. It's also common to put the words for animals and sound effects in Katakana. This syllabary is also used in Furigana – but not as often as Hiragana is.
Kanji – Literally "Han-Chinese Letters/Symbols/Characters". This is what gives Japanese students the world over the most headaches. There are over 2000 standard Chinese characters that students are supposed to learn. Unlike the Chinese, they haven't simplified the forms of the Kanji; just tried to restrict the number of Kanji in use after WW2. In Japanese, they're used for nouns, verbs, adjectives, and occasionally adverbs. Even if grammatical (as opposed to meaningful – things like the past tense suffix and so on) morphemes have a Kanji, they're usually written in Hiragana. Really common words, like "to be" or "to do" or "good" are usually just written in Hiragana as well.
This gives Japanese a strange mosaic like appearance in its writing. It'll have intense, crowded Kanji followed by smooth, flow-y Hiragana, some big, blocky Katakana, and an odd jumble of Romanji in any given sentence. See if you can figure out which is which in the sentences below:
「どうしてコナン君がFBIを信じるんですか。日本人の警察よりFBIのほうがいいですか。インターポールは？」
[Doushite Conan-kun-ga FBI-o shinjirun desu ka? Nihonjin-no keisatsu-yori FBI-no hou-ga ii desu ka? Intaapooru-wa?]
(Why does Conan trust the FBI? Are the FBI better than Japanese policemen? What about Interpol?)
また来週！(See you next week!)
dreamingfifi