013. Yellow
The sun was shining brightly every day, bathing the people of his world in a soft warm glow, and everyone in Conan's world was in a great mood because of the uncharacteristic good weather. Everyone except Conan, that is. He may have started living again, caring about the people and events going on around him, but he wasn't happy. No, even though he was learning to deal with the fact that he would never again be Shinichi Kudo, he was still mourning it.
It had been two days since Ayumi's confession, and the people around him were very relieved to note that Conan seemed to be getting better. However, they were all still concerned, wondering what had caused him to become so depressed in the first place, Ran especially. In the last two days, Ran had gone out of her way to be as nice to him as he had tried to be for her after that phone call. She had made at least one of his favorite dishes with every meal. She had told her father to let him poke around the prior day's crime scene undisturbed, reasoning that Conan was a very smart little boy who knew not to touch anything and was often very helpful. And she had taken him anywhere he "wanted" to go with the Shounen Tanteidan.
However, she was still determined to find out exactly what was wrong with Conan, and he knew that the time was fast approaching when she would demand to know exactly what had been going on. So, he was far from surprised when she sat him down after dinner one night, gave him a relatively large piece of lemon pie, and said, "Conan-kun, I'm really glad you've been getting better, and I don't want to see you get so sad again. But I need to know what happened to cause you to be so unhappy."
"Well, Ran-neechan," Conan said, letting some extra sadness to cloud his eyes as eh called up a few unshed tears. "Okaa-san called me a couple weeks ago. She said otou-san is really, really sick and that he might not get better. When I thought I might never see him again, I just felt so alone. It was so scary, like the whole world had gone dark and cold. But when I talked to Ayumi-chan a few days ago, I realized I wasn't alone. I just wish it hadn't taken what it did."
"What do you mean Conan-kun?" Ran asked, her tone both relieved for an explanation and worried about what he meant by that last question. "What did you do?"
"I made Ayumi-chan cry," Conan answered, not able to meet the concerned teenager's eyes. "I'm not proud of it, but when I realized what I'd done, I felt really, really bad. And I think she forgave me."
"Well, make sure you make it up to her," Ran said, and Conan could tell that she wanted to say more but held her tongue. She wanted to ask why he'd made the girl child cry and how exactly that brought him out of his depression. She wanted to tell him it wasn't good to take out your anger or pain on your friends. He knew this because he knew her so well, but she didn't say anything, so neither did he.
"I will, Ran-neechan," Conan tried to smile for her, but he couldn't manage. So, he just continued on, "Can I go to bed now? I'm really tired."
"Of course," Ran answered with a gentle smile as the shrunken teen left the table to go to his room, without having taken a single bite of lemon pie. On the way up to his room, Conan passed by a vase filled with carnations and stopped to stare. They, like the sun and the fruit from which lemon pie was made, were yellow. Of all the colors he could see again, yellow was the one he hated most. Yellow, which represented happiness, joy, and hope for the future, had no place in his life right now. He wanted it gone. He wanted to destroy the innocent flowers, crush them beneath his feet. But then, that would make Ran unhappy, and he'd done enough of that to last a lifetime. Sighing, he gave the innocent yellow carnations one last hateful glare and continued on up to the sanctuary of darkness he could have in his bedroom.