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.
FS
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Ghost at Twilight
(edited version)
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Only seven hours...
Only seven hours, a voice in my mind mocked as I was climbing the stairs to my apartment. Ironically, you're back at the same point where you started off seven hours ago. In your pathetic attempt to avoid unnecessary heartache, you unknowingly ran right into it when you descended these stairs which you're climbing now, laboriously trudging up stair by stair with the memory of the last seven hours haunting you...
In front of the door I stopped for a moment to behold the flower in my hand, a light lavender rose he had bought me on a whim in the same little flower shop where Kakyuu always bought her flowers eight years ago. "Because you like their petals so much," Seiya (who really shouldn't be called "the stranger" anymore after all the kisses we've exchanged) had smiled, referring to the moment when I appreciatively brushed my palm over the roses on his bedside table.
What were the odds that Kudo was still asleep and would let me suffer in peace for a few hours until I was in the mental condition to face him as if nothing had happened, I wondered and immediately found my hopes crushed by the sound of my electric toothbrush when I entered my apartment. He must have woken up only a few minutes before my arrival and was probably brushing his teeth with the spare toothbrush head he had snuck from my drawer. The first thing he did after waking up was rummaging through my belongings, as expected!
After removing my sandals and my cardigan, I placed the box of gyoza Taiki-san had given me on the table and walked to the bar to fill a glass with water for the rose I hadn't been able to throw away despite considering the option. No need to cry over something which was doomed from the start, I told myself as the urge to slump onto the floor and weep like a lovesick fourteen-year-old threatened to overtake my more sensible side. But no sooner had I decided to wipe out the last hours from my mind than the memory of him pouring espresso into our cups and asking me whether I believed that fate had something against us appeared vividly before my inner eye. And—in my unbalanced state of mind—I ended up doing the one thing I had thought I would never do again… When Kudo appeared at the door, beaming at me with a smile which could brighten Azabu Juuban during starless nights, I clung to his shirt, buried my face into it, and cried.
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Now, after pouring me a glass of water and handing me ten capsules of APAH (because I half-lied to him by claiming I was suffering from a splitting headache), Kudo silently fetches me a few tissues, drags me into my bedroom, and insists that I take a nap.
"It helps every time when the migraines get too bad," he remarks, quickly fishes a nightdress out of my closet without even having to search for it, and throws it at me.
"Don't be silly!" I flee into the bathroom to dispose of the wet tissues. "I'll be all right in less than three minutes."
After combing my tousled hair and washing my face, I enter the living room with renewed composure, poise, and the resolution to treat my temporary nervous breakdown lightly so that Kudo wouldn't have to deal with a drama which has nothing to do with him. The sun (which has been rising at snail's pace for the whole morning) seems now eager to hasten to its zenith—an odd occurrence, which almost convinces me that something is unnatural about today and that I'm going to wake up soon.
"Are you sure you don't need a rest?" Kudo comfortably ensconces himself in his favourite corner of my sofa and looks me up and down with his inquisitive gaze.
Cheerily waving a blood culture bottle I've just taken out of the cupboard in front of his face, I tell him in my most casual voice, "No, I'm perfectly fine now although our APAH addiction is worse than I've thought. Why don't you just roll up your sleeves and give me your blood so that I can analyze the results this afternoon?"
Throwing me another piercing glance before looking away, Kudo doesn't say anything in reply but lets me measure his blood pressure and take his blood in silence. As I need to give my undivided attention to the few simple tasks which, in another situation, would have seemed to me easier than solving a first-grader's homework, I'm grateful for Kudo's consideration. His blood pressure is unusually high, which worries me because he had low blood pressure the last time I checked. But since I don't want to appear paranoid (and because, perceptive as he always is, he must have noticed it himself), I decide not to mention his high blood pressure to him.
"Beautiful flower," Kudo huskily remarks after we're finished and I've removed the blood culture bottles from our sight. "And the colour is extremely rare. As far as I know, there is only one little flower shop in Azabu Juuban where you can find a rose of this size and colour without ordering it beforehand."
"I just bought it there," I lie, as there is no way I can tell him the truth without making it sound like I just came home from a one-night stand.
"How much does it cost?" he inquires without looking at me. As I already feared, he is interested in every little random detail whenever he is not engrossed in a case.
I don't know. I've forgotten. (This time, it wasn't even a lie because, preoccupied with the devastating truth I had learned from Two Lights about Kakyuu and their parents, I didn't pay attention to the price.)
Slouching on the sofa with an expression of deep mistrust on his face (he usually never slouches, and I can't figure out why he is doing it now), Kudo shoots me a rare dark look and gloomily devours about fifteen to twenty new capsules of APAH, downing a whole glass of water in the process. Absorbed in his own train of thought, he has simply poured himself water into my glass instead of taking a new glass out of the cupboard. If my eyes are not playing a trick on me, I can also tell that his hand is shaking slightly as he gingerly puts down the empty water glass. For reasons I cannot guess, he is simmering with anger and suffering from a new migraine attack himself although he looked relaxed and refreshed, almost exuberant, a few minutes ago.
"You know, your headaches can't be blamed on my antidote alone," I observe. "They also stem from your lack of sleep and your general abuse of your body. I know you think you have superpowers but the truth is that you're seriously overworked. At this rate you will die before you're forty. You should really try to take things easy once in a while."
Much to my surprise, Kudo ignores me, takes the rose between his thumb and index finger, and begins to inspect it with a grim expression on his face as if it were a venomous insect a murderer has misused as a weapon.
"I didn't know you're that interested in flowers," I remark, stupefied by his action.
"I'm very much interested in this one." He calmly turns the flower in his hand to inspect it from any possible angle. "A half-bloomed thornless lavender rose with a very pleasant scent. Does it mean something in the language of flowers? What's its name?"
Contrary to his neutral words, his voice is conspicuously cool, with a razor-sharp edge, as if he were interrogating me and I were the number-one suspect of his latest case.
"I don't know," I truthfully reply. "I chose it because I liked the colour." The last statement was a lie because it wasn't me who chose it but Seiya who spotted it when we passed the flower shop. Fidgeting with the key in my pocket, which is continually poking at my leg as if it was trying to remind me of its existence, I wonder whether calling him by his scandal-ridden name will make it easier for me to forget the way his thumbs brushed against my cheeks when he told me to wait for him outside because he had—so he claimed—just found the perfect flower for me...
"Do you know the sad thing about lavender roses?" Kudo continues in a matter-of-fact voice. "As stunning as they look, they're not very winter hardy. Growing them is a pain because they're so fragile and susceptible to diseases. Maybe you want to buy one for your vase once in a while because you like their scent or their looks." He scowls at the flower with a feverish gleam in his eyes. "But they aren't something you would want to grow in your own garden. In the long run, they're so high maintenance and so expensive that you will discover that they're not really worth it—"
"You know, I think it's you who needs a rest," I impatiently interrupt his lunatic ramblings, convinced that he must have taken too much APAH and has lost it completely. "You're so out of character it's disturbing! Or maybe it's the hunger." With a pang of guilt, I begin to unpack the gyoza. "Look, I've brought us breakfast."
"I've slept about seven hours," he remarks, gently taking my hand from the gyoza box. Looking up at him in surprise, I'm once again struck by the peculiar intensity of his gaze when it hits me that he must have deduced more than I want him to know. "Much longer than you, I bet," he calmly continues without letting go of my hand. "Where have you been? Who have you been with? And what have you done?"
I blink at him, taken aback by the suppressed fury in his voice. He is absolutely livid, and I don't know why, as he has never shown that much interest in my love life before.
"Rubbing shoulders with three celebrities." I free myself from his grasp while wondering at the same time why I actually bother to answer his questions. "Since you were asleep and I was bored, I decided to go out for a while to have a look at Two Lights'."
"Are you sure that it was three?" he coolly asks, removing a black hair from my dress. "I would recognize this scent everywhere! Since it's a personalized perfume, it's unlikely that my guess is wrong. If I had time, I could write a dissertation on how you usually iron your dress because you're very particular about it. I can tell at first glance that it was someone else who did it this time because it looks conspicuously different, much more amateurish, I must say. It has also shrunk a bit after he washed and dried it, hasn't it? Or have you gained weight so fast that it seems smaller to me than it was yesterday?"
"A few centuries ago, you would have been burned," I nonchalantly comment in answer to his challenging gaze.
For a moment, his face falls, and he looks vulnerable, almost broken, before he victoriously adds with his usual smugness, "Although you've tried to comb it, your hair is completely tousled and slightly curly, making me wonder whether it was really you who blow-dried it. I think that, while you might have met three celebrities, you spent last night in the immediate vicinity of only one of them. And the fact that you ended up taking a shower at his place and letting him dry your hair really throws me. You've never been the type to seek out one-night stands..." His voice trails off, and he turns away from me to stroll to the balcony door before he quietly continues, "Hence I deduce this has been going on for quite a while although I can't tell why you lied to me yesterday and pretended not to know him when we talked. As usual, I couldn't tell that you were lying because your acting skills are disturbingly good. You should really make a living out of them after finishing your studies."
"It's not like that!" I lean back into my armchair with a sigh. "Since parts of your deductions are completely wrong, I'm afraid you've really lost your touch."
At times like this, his uncanny deduction skills are less of a blessing and more of a curse, and I can feel my headaches returning with a vengeance because I seriously don't know how to explain the events of last night and this morning to him. But then I feel anger surging inside me because there is no logical reason why I should justify myself to him and why I should even care about his opinion on this. It's me who is suffering at the moment! Kudo should give me a break instead of showing off his deduction skills and interrogating me as if I were a wayward kid and he were my guardian.
"Really? Which parts of my deductions are wrong? Tell me... Why didn't you at least wake me up and send me home if you were so attached to him that you couldn't stay away from him for even one night?" Kudo—who is still turning his back on me—continues in a voice which could have frozen Infinity during the fire. "Besides, your landlady mistook me for your boyfriend when she came to borrow your scissors this morning... I fear I've created unnecessary misunderstandings! But I don't get why you couldn't simply wake me up and ask me to go home if you absolutely had to see him..."
Oddly enough, he is behaving like a spoiled little kid who is angry at the realization that his playmates have a secret they won't share with him. And while I don't understand what's wrong with him and why he suddenly jumps to conclusions (as he usually never jumps to conclusions), the fact that my busybody of a landlady has found him in my apartment this morning disturbs me enough to distract me from his petulant behaviour.
"You opened the door for her although I wasn't present?" I look at him aghast. "Couldn't you have stayed inside and waited until she has given up?"
The ringing was so obstinate that he thought it was "something important," he explains, and I must admit that, since Kudo is accustomed to having people drop dead around him on a regular basis, it's only natural that he would expect to encounter a new case at any time. From the things my landlady said, Kudo infers that she already saw him last night in front of the garden although he is surprised he didn't see her. Even though he tried, he couldn't quite convince her that we are only old friends, he apologetically adds.
"But maybe it doesn't matter because she thinks we two are a nice couple." He sounds almost nostalgic, which must be a misinterpretation of my ears.
In the darkness, my landlady must have mistaken Kudo and Seiya for the same person—a realization which immediately calms me down, as absurd as it sounds. Having one male visitor at night is something I can still get away with. Having two would have complicated my life because my landlady doesn't only belong to the nosy but also the conservative type who doesn't tolerate such kind of escapades from her tenants and who is also never too shy or too considerate to voice her opinion.
"So, how long have the two of you been seeing each other?" Kudo nervously taps his fingers on the window glass. "And why did you tell me you didn't know him when we talked about him yesterday?"
Squinting against the bright light from the window to frown at his white figure as he is leaning against the door frame, I'm momentarily distracted by the clear azure sky, which looks as if it belonged on one of Kaioh-san's watercolours while she was in her expressionist phase. Resigned, I come to the obvious conclusion that it's impossible to explain the happenings of last night to Kudo in this weather.
"I really didn't know him yesterday." I decide to tell Kudo the truth nonetheless. "Or at least I didn't know that it was him. He had been hiding his ponytail beneath his jacket so that I couldn't even guess—"
"So the stranger who told you the ghost story was him?" Kudo abruptly turns round to shoot me a disbelieving look. "I should have known it when you mentioned his voice. How many times did you see him since yesterday's twilight?"
"Two, or three times, I'm not sure... It depends on how you count. I was on the balcony when I saw him walking down the street, and since he asked me out for a drink at Two Lights', I—"
"I warned you!" Kudo snaps at me in a sudden outburst. "I told you he was extremely interested in you. I thought it was enough of a warning!"
"For your information, I'm neither your daughter nor your girlfriend!" I snap back, tired of his childish antics. "I don't know why you behave like an overprotective father or a jealous boyfriend all of a sudden."
"I'm only worried about you!" He returns to the sofa to eye me with professional interest. "What has he done to you to make you cry like that? If I had known it was him who told you the ghost story, I'd have informed you about his reputation."
"He hasn't done anything. I told you I had a migraine attack." I hold my head in despair as I'm assailed by the memories of the past hours. Leaving the armchair for the bar where I continue to unwrap the gyoza box, I grope for words in an attempt to clear up the confusion. "I think you've completely misunderstood. It's not a one-night stand gone wrong although it certainly looks like that. You must know I'm not into such things." Smirking at him, I add in jest, "And he is actually a clueless late bloomer. Much more innocent than you, actually." At least until a few hours ago, I mentally add, feeling my stomach drop at the thought.
"So I've misunderstood?" Kudo looks almost hopeful when he throws a glance at my sandals in the corridor. "You were caught in the rain when you went out last night. But why did you shower at his place? Why didn't you just come home when it started raining?"
This—I could hear Taiki-san nagging at his younger brother when I was in the bathroom—is the most clichéd thing which could have happened. As an actor, you should have known that this happens in every movie or novel when the main couple gets drenched and needs to get changed somewhere. If you weren't such a naive idiot, you would have known that she intended to seduce you right from the start. Nobody else could have fallen for her ridiculous claim that she didn't know who you are! Your face is everywhere it's impossible not to know it. It wouldn't surprise me if she turns out to be one of your mad groupies. Come to think of it, Yaten says something is seriously wrong about her although he doesn't know what it is.
"I don't know," I murmur, for once trying to tell the honest truth. Why did I accept a stranger's offer to shower at his apartment? Didn't I know exactly what could happen if two people like us were alone with each other? In retrospect, it seems to me as if the intention has been hiding in a dark corner of my mind since the first time we met. But isn't this how love always starts? When we begin to believe that fate has brought us together and torn us apart and that the seemingly random coincidences were all parts of an invisible chain.
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A/N: Fast update again! I think I've caught up on the missed updates by now.