Another chapter haha. This time I used a first person on Ran since it'll 'say more' ^^ Hope you like it!
XXXI wiped down the dinner table, focusing more on my thoughts than the task on hand. The events of the afternoon swirled in my head, and I concentrated on the person closely. He seemed so much like Shinichi, but something was missing from him that completed Shinichi. What was it? But disregarding that missing puzzle piece, I knew that the person held the key to finding Shinichi… and that Shinichi was the key to knowing what happened to Conan-kun.
"Ran…" the voice of Otou-san pulled me back to reality. "You're wiping in a circle." Realizing, I hastily went to wipe down the dry spots while concerned eyes watched me.
"Ran, is something bothering you?" Otou-san inquired, newspaper in hand.
"Ah…um…" Should I tell him? I thought. If I'm actually wrong about the whole thing, I'll seem like a fool. A hallucinating fool. But understanding that bottling it up would cause me stress, I opened my mouth and starting talking.
"Well…today on the way home from school with Sonoko, someone passed us on the streets…"
"Who was it?"
"It…" I blinked hard. "It…was….Shinichi…" I added 'I think' in a whisper. There was a moment of silence, and after, he closed his eyes and said one word: "Stop."
"Eh…S-stop?" I stammered.
"You," he stated, "just thought it was him. It wasn't him at all. You think about him too much, that's why that person seemed like him."
"But!" I insisted, trembling. "He talked to me!"
"Well then he was talking on the phone." He said it like it was the end of the conversation, but I refused to let it stop like that.
"It was him!" I clutched tightly the cloth in my hand "I'm sure!"
"I'm telling you, it wasn't him!" a silent fire of rage burned in his eyes, and it sent a shiver down my back. "If he didn't contact you for six months, what makes you think he'll suddenly show up? He must have dumped you and moved on. He's gone, Ran." In disbelief and determination I stood up.
"No he isn't! That was Shinichi and I kno—"
"THAT WASN"T HIM!" he shouted furiously. "If he had the damn time to casually pass you by and talk to you, then he would've actually STAYED. He would've cared enough to actually tell you, amidst the six months that passed by, how he was doing and all that other crap. But he DIDN'T. He FORGOT about you. And even if he does come by one day, I'll break his neck the moment he steps foot into this detective agency!"
I felt like I couldn't breathe. He was right on some. I knew it but I also knew that Shinichi is better than everything he said.
"He must've had a reason! He wouldn't not contact me for no rea—"
"OH, a reason? Well the reason is because he's GONE. He went and left. Or, like Conan, he DIED." There was a look of pain on his face as he spat out Conan. How he said his name, and how he mentioned him, broke something inside me.
"…" I fell silent, and my vision blurred as I stared down at the table, and wet spots on the table appeared. But the emotion on my face wasn't sadness—or sorrow, nor was it despair. It was determination, and the knowledge that I was right. Of truth. The truth that Shinichi was always chasing after, the truth that he always revealed.
The one, sole truth.
"Otou-san." I whispered. "You can think all that, and you can think of me a fool. But I know." I raised my head, and stared him in the eye. "I know what I experienced, and I know what I discovered from it. And I will stay with this knowledge. I will keep it and I will build on it. I will shape out the truth of everything."
"The truth." He sighed, after a pause "is sometimes best to be kept hidden."
"But the truth." I continued, now strong. "Is something that cannot be altered no matter how much you keep it hidden." He silently stared at me, and shook his head. I just smiled softly and then took the cloth to the kitchen, hope and determination now rooted deep inside me.
The tear-filled eyes I once had were now bright and strong, and when I closed them, I could see a little flame of hope lit up inside me, warm and gentle.