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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I knew you would...
"I knew you would insist on trusting your own judgment, no matter how inaccurate it is. So let's change the topic now!" You flash him a demonstratively indulgent smile. "How's your health?"
"It has never been better," he replies without batting an eyelid. "Better than yours, actually! You're thoroughly dishevelled and pale."
At least he is flexible and doesn't insist on continuing a senseless fight.
"Thanks for the compliment. But you would look the same after sitting here for—" you glance at the watch, "—over four hours, staring at that sky."
"Except that I wouldn't. I'd have left after half an hour at the latest. That leads us to the question of why you've been sitting here, watching the sky for such a long time."
You briefly consider telling him the truth and then decide that you would rather not, especially not after the previous topic of your conversation.
"I was pondering my pathetic life before you came," you tell him instead, knowing that it would sound more convincing if you told him a part of the truth instead of a real lie. You've always liked telling the incomplete truth, perhaps because even the whole truth loses its authenticity the moment you say it aloud. At your age, you've learned that saying the naked truth is a simple but unreliable way to exchange information. Everyone lives in their own limited world, makes their observations from their own special angle, and uses their own vocabulary in their own way. Most of the time, misunderstandings will arise no matter whether you tell the truth or a white lie.
"So you've been sitting alone on a bench for over four hours just to ponder your life? That sounds like you're having a serious problem with it."
"Not as serious as it would have been if I had been pondering it in the rain!" For a moment, you consider changing the topic, but then you decide you aren't in the mood for small talk. "I'm so sick of living my life the way I've been living it for the last two years! And it's odd that the feeling came so suddenly today—practically emerging out of nowhere. Maybe I should take up a time-consuming hobby, like collecting mystery novels—or even writing some."
"Now I get why you told me I'm happy," he comments thoughtfully, resembling Kudo more than ever with his brows drawn together. "You obviously aren't!"
"I can't say I'm unhappy either," you admit. "Life is actually good these days. It sounds ungrateful, I know, but I'm simply bored to death. Nothing really happens to me."
"Are you bored because, without Kudo, you don't come across any murder cases any more? Or do you miss the thrill of being hunted down by the Black Organization?"
You shoot him a warning glare.
"It's the feeling that life will always be the same no matter what I do... It's like a game of cards with people you know too well while having guessed all the cards they're holding. You know exactly how the game will continue after the first round."
"So that's your view on life? A card game with rather transparent rules and always the same cards on the table?"
"More or less... Maybe I'm just bored with myself. After living for so many years by oneself, things are getting extremely predictable. I've discovered that everything in life follows a certain pattern, and once you've grown accustomed to that pattern, things are getting incredibly tedious! I have the theory that Kudo can solve his mysteries so quickly because murderers, too, always follow a set pattern. After knowing so many of them, he must have learned to recognize them at first glance. Even their methods can't vary that much. There are only so many ways to kill a person."
You've talked about Kudo despite trying not to. As always, whenever you're desperately trying to avoid doing something, you're certainly going to do it in the immediate future! At least Kaito doesn't use your slip against you but only smiles and leaves the bench to rest his foot on the low railing in front of the pond, reminding you vividly of the stranger you met this evening.
"You sound very much like Poirot," he unexpectedly says, turning round in a swift movement. "Since you mentioned mystery novels, I guess you've been reading a few featuring Poirot recently."
There is a victorious look in his eyes which resembles the expression in Kudo's whenever Kudo points his index finger at the murderer and declares, "The culprit is you!" When it comes to theatricality, Kudo differs from his idol Sherlock Holmes, who is dramatic in an entirely different way.
"Not recently but months ago. Well, perhaps you're right, and this is only a delayed reaction to them!" You chuckle at the thought. "I suppose I begin to sound like Poirot with the complaint that the patterns of human behaviour bore me although, on closer inspection, I think I bear a slight resemblance to Miss Marple as well. Just wait until I'm older! I might even take up gardening as a hobby."
He laughs and extends an impertinent hand to ruffle your hair.
"I've read a few Marple novels, too, and you don't resemble Miss Marple at all. But you're right: people are usually predictable! That's why the normal course of events is so easy to guess after knowing the situation where everything starts. I don't mind. I'd never have succeeded as Kid if I hadn't known how other people's minds work. It's easy to pull the wool over the eyes of your audience if you know the rules and can use them to your advantage."
"I know you belong to the few who can always use their knowledge to their advantage. Most people don't notice the rules at all. But I belong to the type that knows all the rules and is thoroughly sick of them. It's like watching a conjurer perform a trick and knowing exactly how it works! Smarter people than me get great satisfaction from that, but I'd rather keep the illusion. I often get frustrated when I can't preserve the mystery no matter how hard I try."
"You forget that, sometimes, luck—or fate, if you prefer that—throws the dice anew, changing the course of all things. That's the moment when the thrill starts. If you're always aware of it, you'll never be able to feel bored anymore, because you can never be sure that things will always continue as you think!"
"Do you mean many coincidences culminating in an unexpected event? But those things, too, happen because they fit the pattern. For example, an alert person with quick reactions is less likely to get run over by a car than an inattentive klutz. Even when the most improbable thing happens, people will always behave according to their nature, and after a while, life will continue in its same downward spiral as before."
"Not always. I think it's natural that you'll get bored of life if you believe it to be a card game with all the cards lying on the table. First, you don't know the faces of all the cards, just as you don't know all aspects of the people around you. You can only guess them. And second, rare coincidences, which aren't supposed to happen, do happen once in a while. There is always someone winning the lottery, no matter how improbable it is."
"Of course the most improbable thing can happen to one out of a billion people once in a while as long as the chance that it happens isn't exactly nil. But you must admit that, when it comes to the average person as an individual, such a thing is so rare that it might as well be nonexistent."
"That's true. But the sheer awareness of the possibility can break your own destructive pattern of thinking, which—in my opinion—is what you're really so sick off. Someday, it might be your turn to pick a card, and you'll suddenly pick a wild one, changing the whole game." With a graceful flip of his hand, Kaito bends forward and slowly, gingerly, pulls a card out of your hair.
"The Queen of Spades," you exclaim, beholding the elaborately drawn card in his palm. "An excellent choice for someone like me. Very flattering indeed!"
The Queen of Spades on his card is an elegant woman whose auburn hair is cascading down her waist in loose waves, hugging her body like an antique frame. Her smart black dress and the proud carriage of her head give her a faint aura of tragedy without lacking a certain romantic charm.
"That's strange," murmurs Kaito in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "I wanted to pick a wild card, not the Queen of Spades!"
"A card to demonstrate that life can hold unexpected things? Like the Joker?"
"Yes, I've done this since I was eight. And I've never picked a wrong card before!"
He looks so disturbed that you almost feel sorry for him.
"Which is why this—" you indicate the Queen of Spades in his hand, "—actually serves the purpose of demonstrating that one does pick the wrong card from time to time. The most improbable thing has just happened. Thank you!"
"But 'wrong' sounds so negative. Perhaps it is the right card for you. And since you didn't accept my flower, I must insist that you keep this card!" Before you can reply, he slips the Queen of Spades into the right pocket of your dress and throws a glance at his watch.
"I'd love to stay longer, but I must leave now. Aoko—she has been at her father's place because she can't resist visiting him once a week to mop up the whole apartment—is now waiting for me at Two Lights', the new club that opened last month near the Juuban amusement park. Have you ever been there?"
You shake your head in response.
"The food is magnificent! The owners have asked me to give a midnight performance to attract more customers—or at least that was their excuse for inviting me. I have the impression that they're only trying to support my career without telling me. That place is always packed with all kinds of customers. You seldom get a table without booking days in advance."
"How nice of them. Well, then... Break a leg!"
"But aren't you leaving, too? What about walking to the next bus stop together?" He gives you a sly wink. "Hakuba has told me you're still living in your Juuban apartment."
You shake your head, smiling.
"I'm still living there; but I think I'd rather stay here until the sun has gone down. Don't let your wife wait!"
"I won't, but do take care of yourself—and don't mind the ghost if it bothers you!"
"Ghost?" It's peculiar that he of all people would talk about ghosts.
"A friend of mine—the same woman who told me that twilight would be dangerous tonight—told me that such an unnaturally long twilight only occurs when a spirit doesn't die with its body but decides to wander earth for one day to find a person who can bring them back to life. She said the ghost would try to steal a heart. Hence my previous warning that this twilight is dangerous!"
"Your friend must be a real romantic," you remark, wondering whether his friend has met Gin, too, as her story sounds like a rather loose version of his bedtime story.
"She isn't the type of woman you'd call a romantic, but she is a real witch, probably the last one in the world. She has read about the legend in her magic book even though she doesn't know the truth about it. No one knows."
He smiles and gestures in the air, waving away an unwanted thought.
"She also said the ghost wasn't a malevolent apparition and wouldn't try to harm anybody. Probably you wouldn't even notice that they're different from a normal person if you came across them."
For a moment, you're tempted to tell him your version of the ghost story and then decide against it. He must go now, and you don't want to steal his time.
"Well, I'm glad there won't be any danger for me if I happen to meet the ghost here. But you're going to be late!"
"No, I'm never late!" he asserts with a self-assured smile and bends down to kiss you. "I'm always on time."
With that, he disappears in a puff of fragrant white smoke.
It takes you a while to notice that you've been staring rather idiotically at the place where he has stood. Pulling yourself together, you reason that he must have come to Ueno-koen to rehearse a new trick before he ran into you. Perhaps you've just witnessed the dress rehearsal for his performance tonight. He is a professional magician, after all.
How dramatic—and still an incorrigible flirt! His poor wife must be having a hard time with him.
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A/N: There will be weekly updates for this fic from now on since SN has decided to beta it every Monday night. :D
In other news, I'm still writing "Encounter in Venice" although I've spent too much time on random scenes instead of the next chapter because I didn't know which scene to bring in the next update. It's always difficult for me to choose when many different things are happening at the same time.