A/N: As always, thank you Enji86, purebloodragdoll, YELLOW JACKET PRIDE, Anime Lady PIMP, I ' Ryuzaki, cahyaputra and those who enjoyed my story!

Enji86: Hmm…I don't know if Conan should be possessive about Ai, but maybe you have a point there. Anyway, glad you liked it :)

purebloodragdoll, I ' Ryuzaki: Thanks for enjoying the story :)

YELLOW JACKET PRIDE, Anime Lady PIMP: I'm afraid to say…well, just read. :/

Cahyaputra, and everyone: I'm a bit late again, and I'm sorry. :(

Disclaimer: Gosho Aoyama owns Detective Conan.

Chapter Fourteen

Sour Romance I

A drop of syrup falls on my lap. When I walk over to the kitchen and clean the syrup that's already dribbled down my leg, I wonder.

Can the one I dream get the tissues for me instead one day?

-0-

(Ai's POV)

Startled, I woke up.

Again, I heard them.

Voices.

That did not belong here. And it was 3 a.m. in the morning.

Slowly, I opened my door without making a noise. My foot was at the doorstep when I stopped.

I remembered the last time this happened.

Must be him.

I closed the door again and walked 3 steps towards my bed. Then again, I was curious.

Without bothering to be quiet, I opened the door and got to the room where the TV was. Of course, it was on, and he was sitting on the sofa, watching.

He didn't seem to notice me. I smirked and sneaked up on him. Right when I was behind the sofa, I pushed his shoulders gently with my hands.

"Boo."

But what the hell. He didn't even flinch. Instead, his upper body fell down on the sofa.

I watched, a bit startled, as his body slowly tilted towards the floor and crashed on it.

I chuckled as he moaned and rubbed his head.

"What happened?" He asked as I turned the TV off and sat on the edge of the sofa.

"You fell asleep, genius."

"Why'd you wake me up, then? It's only-" He checked his watch. "3:10 in the morning now."

"Yeah, and I could really sleep well with you spending my electricity throughout the whole night."

"Jeez…" He yawned hugely. "I never get enough sleep around you."

"Then why stay? You've got your own house."

"Am I a nuisance?"

"You are bothersome."

He smirked. "Good enough." And he lied down on the sofa again, his feet reaching my laps. "Now I'll get some sleep, if you don't mind."

"What have you been doing?"

"Watching TV."

"I assumed as much." Then, I wondered what he'd been watching. I was too focused on scaring the butt out of him than on the TV program. "What was on?"

"Do you need to know?" He put a pillow on top of his face, neglecting to look at me.

"Well, I hope you hadn't been watching any kind of, you know, adult-"

"Shut up." I imagined his pink face under the pillow.

I smirked, satisfied enough for pestering him.

"Good night, big boy."

"Whatever. If anything wakes you up, that'll be me."

"Yeah, I won't be surprised if you turn on the TV again." I said it low, not really wanting to push him to the end.

-0-

That night was very odd.

Followed up by a very odd dream.

"Find the right timing."

I found myself at school. It was break time, and everybody was chatting. Then, all out of sudden, Edogawa-kun was in front of me with an annoyed look. And he…

"You know it already."

"What?"

"I already confessed to you, you know how I feel."

"Jesus, speak lower! You're getting attention." I quickly tried to calm him down when the class started to look at us.

"Why do you do that?"

"What are you saying?"

"Why do you still keep the distance between us? I know you don't want it that way."

"Wha-?"

Then, suddenly, Kazuha appeared in front of the class instead of the teacher.

"I told you that you needed to find the right timing! Now what are you going to do?"

I noticed everyone looking at me. I could only stand there like an idiot.

Goddamnit. I couldn't understand anything.

I woke up, irritated. Thanks, Edogawa-kun. I looked at the clock. It was 6:30.

You really did wake me up.

I sluggishly moved to the bathroom and washed my hair. The hot water helped me to melt everything I saw last night.

After all, it was only a very odd dream indeed.

But why had I been so worried in that dream?

-0-

I needed coffee.

Some caffeine.

Or anything that could cool my irritated mind.

I sighed quietly as I opened the door and expectedly saw him in the kitchen. I laid down my wet towel on a chair and watched him. His movements were slow and his head was drooping down on his shoulder as he poured a mug of coffee like an elephant. Looks like he didn't get much sleep either.

Weird, but that made me satisfied. Having the same feeling.

I sighed again, louder this time.

"Morning."

He jerked his head upright and turned, yawning.

"-M-Morning."

"And you call me 'yawny'."

"And who made me like this?"

"Don't forget it was you who watched the TV, not me."

"Well, you interrupted me either way. Besides, every day, I've watched you yawn as if you're about to fall asleep in like three seconds-" He flinched as he took a look at me glaring. He caught my mood and was instantly silenced.

For a second, at least.

He tipped the mug over.

Maybe it was fast, or maybe I was slow. But all I could do was to watch as the hot stuff fell between us, blocking my sight.

I gasped as I felt the hot coffee splatter my chest and my thin white shirt. I barely heard the mug shatter on the floor.

"Ah-"

Even before the liquid could drench my skin, however, his hand came out of nowhere and quickly started to slash my shirt, removing most of the coffee that fell on it.

"You okay?" His voice was panicked as he continued to wipe the coffee off my shirt..

My voice trembled a bit. "Watch where you're touching."

He blinked and looked at his hands, which stopped moving. "Oh." He turned pink and quickly pulled them back from my body.

"S-Sorry."

"Pervert."

I barely moved my legs when he quickly ran out of the kitchen, probably getting the wet towel that I have used before.

I sighed and just stood there. The coffee smell filled the air, and I was even more aggravated by the liquid that was slowly soaking my white shirt.

"Edogawa-kun, I can do it by myself-" I tried to step out of the kitchen.

My mistake.

-0-

The kitchen tile was slippery with the coffee.

"Ah-!"

There was a thud, and my nose hurt like hell. But something was not right.

I was leaning. It was too soft. Too soon. I opened my eyes slowly and wasn't surprised to be inhaling his shirt. He was holding me tightly in his arms, which trembled as they handled my weight. I was a bit embarrassed, so I just stayed there for a bit.

"Um…You okay?" Came the nervous voice, and I jerked upright. But he still held me.

I looked at my feet. "No."

"Your nose is kinda red…" He moved his hands towards my face.

"Hey-"

"Stay still-" He tried to adjust my face into his hands.

"I'm-okay-"

My resistance was almost nothing. "That doesn't really seem okay-"

"Don't-stop-"

Somehow, we ended up staring at each other's face, his hands holding my face so that I couldn't dodge his eyes. I could feel my face hot, but he seemed fine.

For a long minute, it was totally silent as he examined me.

"You look like Rudolph." He finally commented and chuckled. "You're really clumsy lately, you know that?"

"No." The words were flat.

I finally shook out my face out of his hands and took in his look with the towel and something in his hands. I briskly grabbed the towel and tried to wipe away the now-cold bit of coffee that was left in my shirt. It was useless.

I sighed and lied down on the couch, closing my eyes. His footsteps got closer. He sat down at my feet.

Slowly, I felt him put something on my feet.

"…What are you doing?"

"Your feet."

I opened my eyes and sat up. There were some cuts. Probably made by the shattered mug pieces.

I stayed still until he carefully finished putting bandages my feet.

"…I guess I'm supposed to say thanks."

He smirked. "And I guess I'm supposed to clean the kitchen." With that, he ruffled my hair and got up.

I don't know why, but I didn't need that coffee I had been dying for.

Wasn't I supposed be irritated by all this?

Or maybe he became my coffee.

I kinda liked that fact.

-0-

(Conan's POV)

Everything was planned.

Sort of.

Everything had to go all right.

Sort of.

I had been ready.

Sort of.

…Or maybe not.

As I studied the face of the girl in front of me, I couldn't really talk.

…

"Hey, Conan-kun!"

"Mitsuhiko, what's up?" An unexpected call.

"Just saying, you know the social studies homework?"

"We've got homework to do in vacation?"

"Well, we have the same teacher, so you should remember. You know, we've gotta watch this movie this month and write a report about it."

"…" Crap. Teachers are seriously becoming pain-in-the-necks.

"So? Wanna go watch it tomorrow?"

"…Actually, I've done it already."

"What? But you just said-"

"I was kidding before, maybe you can watch it with Ayumi."

"…Okay." His voice was a little doubtful. "See you around!"

"Yeah." I pressed the 'end call' button. "Bye."

I held the phone for a minute.

It was an almost silent afternoon that was coming to its closure. I glanced downstairs, where there was an auburn haired girl sitting down at the table, a magazine in her hands.

I looked at the sky. I didn't even show any sign of getting darker. I had time. Tomorrow, there just might be Mitsuhiko, so…

"Oi, Haibara."

"…" I barely saw her nod over the magazine.

"Did you know we had a social studies homework over the vacation?"

"…" Another nod.

"Why didn't you tell me, then?"

"…"

"Oi."

"…"

"So…"

"…"

"Wanna do that today?"

"Whatever makes you stop bothering me."

I snorted. "I'll take that as a yes."

When I was about to turn around, she finally put her magazine down.

"What is it?"

"?"

"The homework, genius."

"You told me you knew about it."

"Well, I don't." And you're not even shameful about it. I thought mentally.

"I'll tell you later. Just change that shirt." I looked at the patch of brown that was on her white shirt.

She eyed me suspiciously (for what?) and went inside her room.

.

"I think you should've bought the tickets online."

"Haha…M-Maybe."

Sheesh. I sighed in relief as we reached the ticket selling machine. That was like your hundredth time.

"I know what you're thinking."

I flinched from her glare.

"What could I do? The movie was so unpopular I thought nobody would watch it."

"I didn't even see you look it up on the internet. Do you even know the name of the movie?"

I flinched again.

She sighed. "And remember, I'm here because of you."

"Yeah, sure, sure."

I could easily guess what movie we had to watch. It wasn't like the teacher would let us write a report about horror or romance movies. I groaned mentally. It was about Renaissance.

Jeez. As if I haven't learned this before.

Oh well. I thought as I glanced next to me. It's not like I came here just to study…

-0-

"…"

"…"

We still stood, wordlessly gazing at each other while the gap between us did not budge an inch. The tiny lightbulbs that were encrusted in the ceiling helped maintain the darkness.

Both of us refused to say anything.

…

"…"

Somebody said something and I felt a shake on my shoulder. A bit later, something was shaking my face gently.

"-Hey."

My body denied to respond. "Hey." With a final shake, I barely managed to open my eyes.

It was still dark, and the only light source was the movie screen. Which was covered by a screen of hair.

"Wake up already, sleepyhead."

Somebody was talking to me. I yawned and saw that someone through my blurry sight. The turquoise eyes were mystifying as I stared into them.

Then, I realized who it was and how close we were at the moment. "Oh-" My eyes instantly flew open and I sat up straight.

She snorted. "Do you even know half of the movie we saw until now?"

"-I do." Probably not.

She doubted my answer. "I'm not gonna be surprised if you get an F on the report."

My face could've been still red, but thanks to the darkness, I doubted it would show. "And who made me this tired?"

"Whatever."

And she continued to watch the movie. Now there appeared 3 guys on the screen, debating about some who-gives-a-crap-stuff like the way of painting the reflection of light. I yawned again, and instead turned my attention to something else.

How could she sit through this? The way she watched the movie was as if she thought it was…interesting. Really. I sighed and tried not to imagine how much more I'd have to withstand.

.

Suddenly, she rose up from her seat, which made me startle from almost sleeping.

"What are you doing?"

"Bathroom." And she walked out of the row of seats. I yawned once more. Man. I was seriously tired. What's worse, I had to be watching one of the most boring movies I've ever witnessed. For me, at least.

A few minutes later, I noticed something on the seat next to me. I picked it up.

It was the ticket.

I dimly remembered what the counter lady had said. You must have your ticket in order to get back into the theater.

I sighed, and went out.

.

Bathroom, bathroom…

There it is.

The only door that was open, and was shining with light. While I was walking towards it, I was a bit startled by how much it had passed since she had left her seat.

I went at the side of the open door, hopefully to scare her.

A wrong thing to do.

"They are together…"

I froze instantly when I heard the flat voice. There was a pause.

"Together…" The person barely whispered the words.

Then, another voice made my heart jolt in surprise.

"A-Are you okay?"

"…I was foolish."

"What?..."

"I don't know why I was so obssessed about something so obtuse."

"…"

"But I don't understand."

"What is it?..."

Sometimes, there are things that you know you're not supposed to know. As the voice told the story, I knew this was obviously one of the cases.

-0-

-End of Chapter Fourteen-

A/N: I think I won't be dragging much longer now. Please keep reading and review! They help me a lot to keep it up.