The two detectives eyes widened, both having a horrible suspicion.
"Kudo-kun, don't tell me..." Sera started without looking at Shinichi, but the boy had already set himself in motion, going over to the tub.
"Hey, Sera, help me with this!" He shouted. Sera followed him and helped opening the lids covering most of the bathtub. Shinichi reached through the tomatoes into the green water and stirred around the tub with his arm. Then, he felt something at the bottom, so he grabbed it and pulled it to the surface. Moments later, the group was staring into the lifeless eyes of Masaie Hakuya.

Sera and Shinichi stared at the body in shock, while Sonoko and Ran just screamed.

Chapter 5 - The Epistaxis

What Shinichi felt right now was quite nasty. Not that he wasn't used to corpses of various kinds by now; quite the opposite actually. But holding a drowned person up by its hair, not too long after that person died; that was a new one, even for Shinichi. He felt the urge to let go of Masaie's wet hair and wipe his hand with a towel, but he resisted that urge just for a little while longer.

Shinichi put his free hand to Masaie's throat, to check for any pulse, just as a confirmation of what everyone in the room already knew. As expected, he didn't find one.

Sera, who helped him open the lids of the bathtub, stood behind his crouching figure and looked over his shoulder. Shinichi turned his head around and saw her questioning eyes upon his inspection of the victims pulse. He shook his head, which told her everything she needed to know.

It wasn't until now that he noticed the screaming of his friends and the panicky murmurs of Tamami, Sumika and Jinsuke.
"Alright, everybody calm down!" He shouted, gaining everbody's attention. "Masaie is dead. We should call the police and wait for their arrival together in the dining room. This way we can be sure that the murderer is caught."
Sonoko and Ran nodded, but the adults weren't so compliant yet. "We're detectives." Sera said, in response to their doubting looks. "We've dealt with murder cases before and this is the best way to ensure the police can do their work properly. You can ask them about that when they arrive. Now we should all leave the crime scene, without altering anything!" Her tone was harsh and brief; the best way to get panicking people to do something, was still strict and short orders. If you could give off an aura of authority, even though you didn't have any, most people will still follow your orders in that situation; although they should technically know that Sera didn't have the capacity to order them around, they still left the bathroom and headed for the dining room.

"Sera?" Shinichi whispered.
"Yeah?"
"Can you watch them and call the police? I want to get a good look at the crime scene before forensics arrive."
"Sure. Should I start to interrogate them a bit?"
"Maybe a little bit, but let it come naturally. And don't push them yet, we should leave that part for when the police has arrived."
"Got it." Sera said and crouched down to the ground beside him. Before Shinichi could get a look at what she was doing, she had one hand burrowed in her pocket and stood up again. "Come on, Sonoko-chan."

Shinichi didn't turn around as he heard Sera leave the room, he still looked at the body of Masaie. Now it was finally time to let go of him; Shinichi gently rested the body against the side of the bathtub, making sure he didn't slide back into the green water.

"Shinichi, was he really murdered?" He heard Ran ask.
"Yeah." Shinichi answered. He didn't want to use any towels from this bathroom, preserving the crime scene and all that, so he absentmindedly swiped his hand over his pants a few times until it was dry. "I see blood coming from his head. It seems like there is some kind of wound there."
"Couldn't he have fallen, injured his head that way and drowned afterwards?" Ran inquired.

"No. The lids were closed when we came in here. There was only a small slit of water visible before Sera and I opened them; he couldn't have fallen through and still be completely underwater." Shinichi stood up and looked around the room. "Besides, he should've floated, but didn't. I also felt some sort of resistance when I pulled him up, so his body must've been weighted down by something."
"I see." Ran said.

Suddenly, something dawned on Shinichi's mind. 'Wait a minute...Ran?!'
He jolted around and sure enough, there was Ran. Clad only in a bathing towel. Why didn't he notice she was still here? Was he so deep in thought? Shinichi looked to the side and saw some women's underwear lying in a basket near the bathtub. 'That's right, Tamami said that Sonoko and Ran wanted to take a bath with Sumika...' He thought before looking back at Ran, who seemed to be thinking herself, probably about what happened here. Shinichi gulped; the blush on his face wasn't the result of the steaming hot water behind him.

"Erhm...Ran, what are you doing...?" He stammered.
"Helping you with the crime scene of course!" Ran exclaimed. Surprised by the determination in her own voice, she continued more quietly. "I mean, I wanted to make sure you don't contaminate it in any way."
If the situation was any different, Shinichi would've called her an idiot for not trusting his detective skills, but right now, he could only continue to stammer. "That's...really nice of you, but shouldn't you...you know..." He gestured helplessly at his own chest.
"What?" Ran asked, pouting a bit. Didn't she realize the situation they were in? The two of them, alone in a bathroom - with a corpse no less - and Ran without any clothes on.

"I mean, shouldn't...you...you...put on some clothes...?" He managed to get out.
"Huh?" Ran was oblivious to what he meant. Appartenly Shinichi wasn't the only one who could forget the circumstances when in thought in this room. Ran looked down at her and than back to Shinichi's blushing face. Now she seemed to also get aware of their situation, as she started to blush herself. Both wanted to say something to get out of this awkward moment, but neither was able to get out words at the moment. Unfortunately, being flustered like that, Ran didn't use her hands to hold the towel in place. Thus, she couldn't prevent the towel from unwrapping itself due to gravitational forces.

If life was a movie, this would be a slow motion moment and even though life wasn't, it sure as hell felt like slow motion right now. Her towel started falling, revealing things Shinichi wasn't supposed to see. By the time Ran noticed what was happening, her chest was already revealed. Thankfully, she was fast enough to catch it before it fully went past her bellybutton.

It was like a car accident; you don't want to see it, but at the same you somehow can't look away. It was the same for Shinichi right now; he knew he should be looking elsewhere, but somehow he just couldn't turn his gaze away. Atleast until she caught the towel, because he suddenly felt pressure in his skull. In panic, he quickly turned around when...

KASPLOSH!

Before Shinichi really knew it, his hands, chest and presumably face were covered in blood. He had the biggest nosebleed of his life. Way worse than at the one time Sonoko sent him a special sexy bikini shot of Ran and even worse than in the bath with Ran as Conan, because back then he didn't see too much, as he actively tried not to look. But this time, he got a complete, close up view of her upper body and the intensity of his nosebleed reflected that. If he were Conan right now, that nosebleed might've knocked him out cold.

Shinichi didn't know what to do, so he just stared at blood dripping from his nose to his hands. After what seemed to be an eternity, he heard Ran's voice from behind.
"Shi-Shinichi..." Ran hesitantly said.

"I...I didn't see anything...I swear!" Shinichi stammered.
Which was about the dumbest thing he could say right now. He had the evidence of him seeing way too much in his hands. Ran wasn't dumb, he couldn't talk himself out of that one.

"Uhm...that's good..." Ran stuttered. "I fixed the towel, so...you can turn around again..."
"I...I'd rather not..."
"It's fine...let's try to not make this anymore...uncomfortable, okay?"

Shinichi groaned. Turning around will make it very uncomfortable, but saying anything in that direction would just confuse her, so he hesitantly turned around and faced her. Atleast she really did fix her towel; her face showing embarassment and, once he fully turned around, worry.
"Oh god, Shinichi, where did all this blood come from?!" Ran shrieked.
"It's..." He took a deep breath. "It's just...a nosebleed..."
"A nosebleed...? But why...?" Ran muttered, before she apparently made the connection. Her expression darkened. "So you did see something..." Ran clenched her fists.

Shinchi closed his eyes. 'I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, oh god, I'm so dead!' He thought. He heard Ran coming closer to him. 'This is how I finally face my end. Lord, please, have mercy with me...'

He suddenly felt her grip on his wrist and his whole body winced at her touch. But, for some reason, he didn't feel any pain just yet. Shinichi just heard Ran breathe and...did she just chuckle at his flinching?

Shinichi carefully opened one eye, only to see Ran standing way too close to him. She tugged his arm. "Come on, do you want to strike roots here?"

"Huh?" Was the only thing Shinichi got out.
"You're bleeding. If you keep standing there you'll contaminate the crime scene."
"Huh?"
Ran sighed. "Just come with me."
When he still didn't move, Ran lost her patience and literally dragged him towards the bathroom door. Even if he would thinking quickly enough right now to stem down his feet, he wouldn't have been able to stop her from dragging him along.

Moments later, they were both standing in one of the guest rooms where they had stored their backpacks earlier. Thankfully, nobody went looking for them, so they got from the bathroom to this room unnoticed. Ran handed him a few wet tissues.

"Here. I'm gonna get dressed, so turn around and try to get your hands a bit cleaner."
Still kinda paralyzed by fear, he would probably do anything she ordered right now, so he did exactly what she said.
"Oh and Shinichi?" Ran asked, with a very scary voice. "If you get a look this time, you'll find out how that power pole felt."

"T-that's the captain of the karate team for you..." He heard his past self say, accompanied by Ran's laughter.

"Hahhah, d-don't worry..." Shinichi mumbled like an idiot, an idiot scared to death that is, and concentrated very hard on scrubbing his hands with the tissues.

"You can turn around now." It was the second time today that he heard that sentence from Ran, but that didn't make his turning around any less hesitant. Thank god, Ran was really dressed and didn't set him up. She took a few more tissues and came closer to him.

"Ran...what are you..." Shinichi started, but she cut him off.
"Don't talk. We don't have mirror in here, so you won't be able to clean up your face properly. Let me just quickly do this..." She said and proceeded to gently swipe his face with the tissues.

'Faces...so close...' Shinichi thought. He tried to distract himself with finishing to clean up his hands, but he could still feel himself blushing. When Ran was done with his face, she formed two plugs out of tissues and stopped his nose from bleeding any further with them. For a second, he was afraid Ran would just ram them up his nose, but she was very gentle with that too.

Ran took a few steps away from him; Shinichi noticed that she was also blushing a bit. It looked like she wasn't completely taken over by rage after all.
"So, Shinichi, tell me...what did you see?"
Okay, maybe she wasn't completely taken over by rage, but the look she put on her face now was still scary.

"Erm, well...you see..." He stammered. The fact that he had to concentrate to not slur his words due to the plugs wasn't really helping him to come up with a coherent sentence.

"The truth, Shinichi!" Ran emphasized. "Don't even think about an excuse."
He sighed. Apparently his death was merely delayed. "Pretty much everything what was revealed by the falling towel..."
"So, that means..."

Shinichi proactively cut her off. "I saw everything from your head to your bellybutton, yes." Might as well answer her question as precisely as possible. He felt his head light up in all kinds of red.
"I see..." Her voice was cold, but her expression remained unreadable. If she ever followed her mother's footsteps, Shinichi wanted to make sure to never get cross-examined by her.

She came closer to him again. "Hm, you got blood on your shirt too..." Ran said, her voice sounding very mischievous right now. It was scary how evil she could sound if she wanted to. "I guess you'll have to change clothes too. Here, let me help you with that..." Before Shinichi could even comprehend her words, Ran had already begun to take off his shirt.

"Wait, Ran, hey, Ran! Wa-wa-wait a minute..." He tried to hold her off, but to no avail. In a flash, she held the shirt in her hands and he was left standing topless before her. Shinichi tried to reach for his shirt, but Ran demonstratively stepped a few steps back again. Her eyes told him to stay right where he was. From her position Ran looked up and down on his body, seemingly examining every inch of his torso.

Atleast she was having a blush on her face that matched his. He squirmed under her scrutiny; Shinichi then tried to regain some dignity by burying his hands in the pockets of his pants that Ran had thankfully not taken off as well. After he looked everywhere in the room, except her face of course, he looked down at himself. Surprisingly, he was in a pretty decent shape, better than the last time he was at his right age, if his memory didn't fail him. He was doing a lot more sports as Conan recently, especially with the Detective Boys being very adamant about playing soccer and doing other fun stuff in Beika Park. Did being more fit as Conan translate into being more fit as Shinichi or was he just imagining things?
'I'll have to tell Haibara about that observation, maybe it'll help her research...' Shinichi thought. 'Atleast I look decent in front of Ran...' He then noticed another thing. 'Oh crap, the scar!' He tried to inconspicuously move one arm in front of it, hoping that Ran didn't notice.

She was looking at him for atleast two minutes now, although it felt like way longer than that to him. For a second Shinichi thought about how unfairly low his viewtime was in comparison, but he pushed that thought aside as quickly as it came; some accused him of not getting women sometimes, but the thought that being topless is more embarassing for women than for men occured even to him.

"You are actually enjoying this, aren't you?" Shinichi decided to break the silence.
Ran did something he thought he might never see again. She smiled. It was one of her very sweet, innocent smiles. Funny, considering this was pretty much the least innocent situation the two of them ever were in.
"A little bit, I guess." Ran answered. She went over to his bag and took a fresh shirt out of it, while Shinichi took out the tissue plugs from his nose. Thankfully, it wasn't bleeding anymore. Ran held up the shirt in front of him and Shinichi slipped into the sleeves, wanting to button the shirt up, but Ran started with that before he could.

"Ran, I am able to dress myself, you know?" He said.
She shook her head. "I undressed you, so I'm gonna dress you again as well."
'Fascinating logic!' Shinichi snarked to himself.

Shinichi shivered. Everytime Ran fastened up another button, her warm hands gently brushed against his abdomen and his body reacted to each of her touches. Ran seemed to notice and her pursed lips formed another smile.

"Do you have something to say about his whole situation?" She asked.
"Well..." He considered words carefully. Ran seemed relaxed again, but that could fade quickly. "...I'm really sorry for looking, but it all happened so fast. You know I don't do things like that on purpose. I never went with the my teammates when they decided that it would be cool to sneak into the girls locker room..."

Ran smiled, fondly remembering punching the ever living crap out of his teammates. "Right. Yeah, I know that you aren't like that. Especially considering that there are probably so many fangirls that would willingly show you more than..." The words what I showed you today... died on her lips.

Shinichi decided to push his luck. "Even if, I wouldn't want to see that..." His next words were merely a whisper, but since they were so close it didn't matter for them. "...the only one I have that kind of attraction for is you..."
"Shinichi,...I, uhm..." She whispered. "...me too..."

Ran finished buttoning up his shirt, keeping her hands rested on his collar and now looked him directly in his eyes. Suddenly, he felt her pulling him closer to her.
"Ran..."
Instead of saying anything else, they both leaned in further, until they were as close as they were at their school play. They fluttered their eyes shut and then finally they...

"Ran! Shinichi-kun!" Sonoko screamed in the hallway.

The two of them came to a halt and immediately put some distance between them, as they heard the footsteps of their classmate approaching. Shinichi sighed. "In here, Sonoko."

The rich girl opened the door. "Hey, the...oh my, what are you two doing in here?"
"Shinichi just started to search the rooms for something suspicious and I wanted to make he doesn't make a mess of the place." Came the immediate excuse from Ran.
Shinichi rolled his eyes and pretended to be offended. "This is not the first time I search rooms...anyway, Sonoko, what is the matter?"

"Uhm..." Sonoko was confused. She looked like she wanted to press the issue of what the two were doing, but she decided that there were more important things right now. "...the police has arrived and they want to have you two in the dining room with them right now."

"Ah, good." Shinichi was pleased that the police arrived so fast. On the other hand, this one time he wouldn't have minded a little bit of lateness. "Alright. Let's go."

Sonoko nodded and went back to the dining room. Shinichi and Ran set themselves in motion as well. Standing in the door, Ran put one hand on his shoulder and whispered: "What happened after everyone left the bathroom...stays just between us, alright?"
Shinichi smiled and nodded. "Of course."

A/N: And there is what everybody who knew the manga case wanted to see. To be honest, it was one of the reasons why I wanted to do this story with Shinichi instead of Conan. Did I do a good job at it? Ultimately, that's for you to decide.

Anyway, next chapter won't be completely ShinRan stuff like this one, whether or not that is a good thing is up to you. Remember to tell me what you think of this chapter and the story in general.
~07.06.2015