Disclaimer: "Detective Conan" belongs to Gosho Aoyama, and "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon" belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.
This is an alternative story to my other fanfic "Encounter in Venice" and one of the possibilities of what could have happened if Ai had taken the antidote before Shinichi brought down the Organization.
Thanks a lot to my friends and betas Rae (Astarael00) and SN1987a and the Aicoholics on LiveJournal, without whom I would never have started this fic.
This chapter has been betaed by aritzen (SN1987a), who hasn't only kept me motivated for years but is even betaing the long fic now that it has ended. I can't thank her enough!
FS
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Ghost at Twilight
(edited version)
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When we return...
When we return to our bench, I notice in surprise and slight amusement that the sky still looks the same as before, as if a magician (Kaitou Kid?) had placed an enormous photorealistic painting of the eight-o'clock sky behind the buildings on the other side of the pond, tricking us into believing that the sun has stopped setting and is now hanging—in a desperate attempt not to disappear before Kudo's arrival—precariously over the surface of the water. A few moths are gathering around the light of the street lamps, which is throwing long shadows on the quiet, deserted pavement. As far as my eyes can see, the stranger and I are the only people left at Shinobazu-no-ike.
The stranger has been silent since Talkative Woman & Co. departed to gape at the scene of the accident. Although I think I know exactly what is bothering him, I decide to appear ignorant so that he can choose to tell me or to keep it to himself.
"Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing. I was only thinking that she has never let me wait for so long. She knows my number by heart. I'm sure that, if she had really stayed home tonight, she would have given me a call."
The talk about the accident has made him anxious about her safety, as people in love often link everything they hear to the object of their affection. Telling him about the probability of her being involved in that accident is less than one percent and therefore almost nil would be as helpful as explaining to him that those tragic accidents happen every day without making an impact on our lives. Knowing that, I ask him why he doesn't give her a call instead of waiting for her to call him.
"I can't. She doesn't have a mobile phone," he explains, growing more desperate with every passing second. "If she had, I'd have called her hours ago."
I settle on the bench while he stays at the railing in front of the water, his hands hidden in his pockets, gazing intensely at the lavender light in the distance with a mixed expression of desperate hope and fear.
"This sky is driving me insane," he murmurs.
"Why don't you call her at home?" I suggest. "Then you will know for sure whether she has left or not."
"I don't want to talk to him," he gloomily remarks. "But you're right. I'm getting rather childish! I'd better call her now."
Watching him fidget with his mobile phone, I picture Kudo crouching at the scene of the crash at the moment, inspecting the car wrecks and the sketchy outlines indicating where the bodies of the victims had lain. There might have been irregularities in certain details of the accident (defective traffic lights or defective car brakes) so that Kudo has been called to solve the mystery—or, more probably, he has stumbled over the scene of the crime on the way to Ueno-koen and naturally stayed there without thinking of contacting me.
"It's me," the stranger says into his mobile phone, pacing up and down in front of the bench. "Sorry to disturb you at home, but can I talk to Odango for a moment?" Undoubtedly, he likes food or at least dumplings, as he refers to his love interest as "Odango" even in the presence of a complete stranger.
The person on the other end of the line seems to say something he has already feared (probably "I thought she is with you at the moment!"), as he pales and stammers, "But no, it's impossible...," "She is not here..." and "No, I've been waiting for her since five p.m. ..."
The other person, however, keeps their cool in spite of the stranger's panic. From the bits and pieces I can hear from the conversation, I surmise he is a rational, calm man, who is telling the stranger in a reassuring voice that "it wouldn't be the ... (first?) time she's got lost" and that the stranger shall "call again if she doesn't show up during the next ... (I couldn't hear the number) minutes" so that they both can go and look for her.
"How can he stay so cool?" The stranger frowns after ending the conversation. "His wife is missing and he doesn't give a damn!"
"No, she is not missing," I correct him. "You obviously think she is missing. But, in his view, she has just gone out for three hours without contacting either you or him. I only wonder why she decided to go out even though he was home. Didn't you say that—"
"He is home, but he is probably studying, as always. I think she was bored to death watching him reading his books, which is why she decided to meet up with me instead."
Or she has begun to miss your regular rendezvous, I think, but don't say it aloud, as I don't want to give him ideas. On the other hand, his nervousness is rubbing off on me as I begin to comprehend his anxiety. There is no reason why she should leave home without heading to Ueno-koen immediately since she knew that he would be waiting for her here unless...
"Is it possible that she has met a friend on the way?"
"Oh, she has an army of friends. But she wouldn't let me sit on some bench to wait for her while she is enjoying ice cream with another friend—if that's what you mean. She is the type who would take her friend with her to Ueno-koen so that all of us could go to the ice cream parlour together afterwards."
"And if she got lost on the way?"
"Her husband already suggested that." He sighs. "But it's not the first time that we've met here, you see. I can't understand how she could have got lost since—"
He is interrupted by the ringing of his mobile phone—a familiar melody I've heard before. Frowning, he clicks to answer the call and immediately smiles in tremendous relief.
"You idiot!" he says, affectionately. "Where are you? I've been waiting for you for hours."
The "idiot" has a high and ringing voice and a clear articulation but a haphazard way of narrating and can obviously talk at a speed which would make it impossible for a foreigner to comprehend the meaning of her words. Being a native speaker, however, I can make out that she had fallen asleep on the way, got lost during her attempt to walk back, and is now waiting for him to fetch her from some street where she is staying at the moment, as she cannot figure out how to come to Ueno-koen. And she is—she stresses this fact by repeating it for at least ten times—"extremely hungry".
"No problem," her knight in shining armour says, "I'll fetch you immediately! Just stay where you are! I'll find you something to eat."
"She is impossible," he tells me afterwards, laughing. "She fell asleep on the bus and then got lost because she misjudged the distance between the bus station where she got out and Ueno-koen. She is waiting for me at a public phone box now. I'll go and fetch her."
"I told you that there's no reason to worry." I smile, thinking that, when I was younger, I didn't have a sense of direction either. "You should hurry now since she sounded really hungry on the phone."
I've expected him to laugh, to put away his mobile phone, to say goodbye and then run like the wind to his friend as Kudo after receiving a call from Ran would certainly have done. Hence I'm surprised to see him offering me his mobile phone, which I don't take.
"You can give him a call, too, if you like," he says with an encouraging smile.
"No, thank you."
"Just give him a call! You'll feel better afterwards."
"No!" I refuse curtly, slightly piqued by his persistence. "I'm not that anxious!"
"Why not? He has let you wait for—" he glances at his mobile phone "—almost three hours."
"It doesn't matter. He is probably working on a... on something important at the moment. I don't want to interrupt him."
"Working on Friday night, huh? What's he doing for a living? Is he a barkeeper or a manager?"
"He is neither."
"What is he doing then? If he is probably robbing a bank at the moment, you can invent something else to tell me, of course. Just tell me he is a doctor or surgeon who might have been called to—"
"As far as I know, he is not planning to rob any bank. Perhaps he is preventing people from robbing a bank at the moment, though."
"Oh, a policeman," he takes a wild guess.
"No, a detective." My old irrational mistrust and antipathy against the police force has prevented me from letting him believe that Kudo is a policeman. It seems the education of the Black Organization did leave some lasting impression on me after all.
"A detective," he murmurs, suddenly looking distant. "I once met a detective... a very famous one. I think we might have got along pretty well if we had only met by accident like you and I." His eyes darken. "But the circumstances were not so favourable then."
I neither ask him whether that detective's name was Mori or Kudo, nor what the "circumstances" were. In exchange—and much to my relief—he doesn't ask me to tell him Kudo's name.
"What's your name, by the way?" he asks instead, reminding me that we haven't introduced ourselves to each other despite having talked with each other for almost three hours.
"Miyano," I reluctantly tell him. It would have seemed ridiculous to me to hide my name even after the downfall of the Black Organization even though I'm not sure whether I want us to meet again.
"Miyano, and?"
"Miyano Shiho."
"Where do you live?"
"In Juuban," I automatically say before it suddenly occurs to me that, in reality, this sympathetic stranger might be a dangerous stalker and that I should never, ever, give my address to a man I don't know.
"Juuban," he murmurs, shaking his head with a smile while keeping his eyes on his mobile phone. "Such a coincidence!"
Luckily, he doesn't ask for my address but for my number instead. "Ueno-koen is pretty big," he remarks, fidgeting with his mobile phone. "We might not meet the next time when our love interests are late again."
Noticing that I hesitate—I've been wondering whether I should give this impertinent stranger my number or not because I've already told him too much about my private life—he gives me another bright smile (the final one, judging from his expression) and shrugs, slipping his mobile phone back into his pocket.
"I often forget my own number as well," he claims. "If we had something to write, I would give you mine. But you can easily look it up in the phone directory. I think it won't be difficult for me to get your number either, but I don't want to be a bother. If you're looking for good company the next time you're in Ueno-koen and your Kudo Shinichi is busy solving a case again, just give me a call!"
He turns and walks swiftly away before I can recover from my astonishment and ask him how he has guessed that I'm waiting for Kudo. Even if Kudo had been the famous detective he told me about, he couldn't have known that Kudo is the detective I'm waiting for. Perhaps he has taken a wild guess again to observe my reaction to his words. Surely he is grinning now, pleased with himself for successfully playing that prank on me, I think, shaking my head at so much cheekiness, and finally realize that—even if I wanted to call him—I wouldn't be able to find his number in the phone directory, as he hasn't told me his name.
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A/N: The book with the Maxwell quote is Dancer: A Novel by Column McCann.