Hey everyone! It feels good to be back :D Slowly, but surely I'm getting used to being an uni student, which can mean only one thing: I might return to my schedule~ I'm still not sure how it'll happen, but I'll try to do my best~
Until then, here's the new chapter!
Please enjoy!
Some people say that if you die in a dream, you'll die in real life too. Shinichi wondered about that after he woke up from his nightmare with a soft gasp. He was clearly still alive, his heart was beating, and he was breathing, yet he couldn't stop thinking about it… Maybe there was some hidden meaning, something he didn't notice, a clue.
He no longer felt worry, fear, or even fury at the nightmare, not with that last shift. There was only surprise and curiosity. What did it mean? Was that dream a warning, telling him that no matter what happens, one of them will have to die? It definitely sounded harsh. Or maybe Shinichi was to stop it before it actually happened? Maybe it really was just a meaningless phantasm, created by a part of his mind that was just painfully attached to Kid at this point?
Attached, huh… Funny word. It almost made it seem like the two of them were connected, when reality couldn't be more different. It was just Shinichi, reaching out, grasping at nothing, while Kid was intent on severing… well, whatever they had between each other. Shinichi knew that what he felt was more than just gratitude, yet it wasn't love, just some warm, uncertain feeling sprawling across his chest and pressing down on him.
He groaned quietly as he pulled up the blanket up to his chin. Emotions weren't his domain, they really weren't.
The day just went on in a blur. Morning, going to school, enduring the boredom the lessons brought, the excited chirping of Shounen Tantei… It all faded into one hazy picture, while Shinichi sunk into his thoughts. His mind kept wondering back to the nightmare, and the most recent shift of it. It was odd how much his death didn't bother him… All that seemed to matter were Kid and the sniper. He repeated the same questions over and over again, but there was no one who would give him answers.
Before he noticed it, he was heading home from school. His head hung low, his eyes directed at the concrete under his feet, unseeing. How he didn't get hit by a car, he didn't know, he didn't care.
But then he did bump into something. He looked up, and pair of ruby red eyes gazed back at him. He heard someone gasping, but it took him a few moments to realize that it was him. The witch…
"Oh, it's you…" she breathed out softly. Shinichi couldn't read anything from her expression. "So even you couldn't hold him back, huh?"
"W-what…" Though he didn't feel that sudden rush of infatuation like last time, it was still difficult to speak coherently.
"And here I was, believing that he cared about you… Maybe I was wrong?" The smile she showed was supposed to be happy, but the witch looked too tired to make it seem genuine. But what she said… it didn't make sense, or at least, not to Shinichi. She was talking about Kid, yes, that much was clear, but other than that…
"What are you talking about?" he asked after a few moments, when he couldn't determine her motives and the meaning behind her words just from looking.
"Oh my, didn't you see them?" The smile stayed, but it was like a cheap, useless copy of Kid's poker face. It didn't hide anything, neither the surprise, nor the weariness.
"See what?" He asked impatiently.
"The visions." She huffed, and traded her smile for a "why do I even bother with you" expression. "My spell was perfect, so you were supposed to see Lucifer's predictions as well." Shinichi had some pretty obvious doubts about these predictions, but he could understand what she meant.
"The nightmares?" he asked, just to make sure. "You… you were behind those?"
"Well, you could say that." She shrugged, while still keeping her elegance.
"But why?" It wasn't like he could expect her to answer. He couldn't expect anything from the witch, she was too unpredictable for that. Yet Shinichi couldn't hold back the question that was just begging to be asked. And it appeared that the witch was kind enough to reply.
"That fool doesn't listen to my warnings anymore." Melancholy flickered in her eyes as she spoke. She shook her head with the smallest movements, and let the first genuine emotion show on her face. Sadness. But it lasted for barely a second, before annoyance took over, as she added: "Not that he ever did. So I tried to do something different, and let someone else do the warning. To see if he would listen."
"So you put those weird dreams in my head and hoped that I would hold him back?" Shinichi asked incredulously. It was one of the weirdest ideas he ever heard, and he didn't like it one bit. This witch was messing with his head, and who knows what else she had changed without him noticing? She didn't seem to mind his odd phrasing, his disbelieving tone, or the hints of anger on his face, though.
"As much as I hate it, he's in love with you. I assumed that if you asked him to stay, he would." She said it so naturally, as if she's been talking about the weather. As if the magician loving him was "just another rainy day, nothing new". He stood there for a while, in silence, staring at her. It was just a trick, an attempt to mess with his head even more, right? It had to be… He knew that he wasn't just some plaything for Kid, not anymore, not when he turned back into Conan… No, even before that, there were hints. But love? Actual… romantic feelings? For him?
He was so confused by this that he almost let something important slip. Almost.
"Wait, wait a second. What do you mean, "stay"? And me, holding him back? From what?"
"You haven't heard yet?" And again. The "why do I even bother with you" look. Her poker face might have been utterly useless, but she had mastered this one.
After looking down at Conan for a while, she quite simply threw a newspaper at his face. He quickly understood what she meant – a grainy picture of Kid grinned back at him from the front cover. Shinichi already felt several swearwords and less than dignified shouts bubbling up inside him, before he settled with slightly crumpling the unsuspecting newspaper in his hands.
"This can't be." he hissed.
"My exact words from this morning." she huffed again and crossed her arms. "But it apparently can be, and he will run straight into his death if he does it."
"We have to-"
""We?" she raised an eyebrow, looking at Shinichi as if he's just told a really bad joke. "Did you achieve anything with him? Your warnings didn't work either, so…" She paused for a moment, before realization flashed in her eyes. The look she gave him was murderous. "You didn't tell him."
"I…" He quickly wanted to come up with an excuse – how he didn't know that his nightmares were predictions, how he just didn't want to worry Kaito… One look from the witch shut him up. When she spoke again, her tone was light, but it had an edge – the annoyance, the anger she felt was still there.
"Well, it doesn't matter." She turned her back to Shinichi, ready to leave him, as she murmured under her breath: "I'll drag him down from the sky myself, even if I have to break his wings."
