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
g.
Ghost at Twilight
(edited version)
g.
In one aspect, Kudo is...
In one aspect, Kudo is right: Infatuation must be annoying to watch even when it's still in the exhilarating stage during which the beaming faces of the lovestruck victims illuminate their surroundings like the 400-candela Super Bright LED lamps the Professor once installed in our cellar. It goes without saying that detached observers who haven't been infected with the love virus usually wish that the sick ones would finally recover and carry on with their daily lives instead of oscillating perpetually between ecstasy and distress. There are only few things which are more humiliating for me than crying into Kudo's shirt. And now that I've realized that, once aroused, Kudo's curiosity can't be stopped until it has been satisfied, I bitterly regret not having denied all allegations when Kudo used his deduction skills on me.
"... The main tenet of his life philosophy is to live happily and creatively," I blabber on in the silliest fashion I can muster, hoping that Kudo will be so revolted by my unusual chatty mood that he won't probe into me further. "It will be a real challenge to keep him for long, though, because he told me he won't marry me for fear of tying up our love with tiresome obligations and paperwork."
"He doesn't sound like the marrying type to me," Kudo remarks. Giving me a pitying look, he grimly deduces, "So he left you after only one night?"
Don't be silly! I scowl at him, my fragile ego wounded by his conviction that I must have been used and thrown away by a womanizer who got tired of me after a few hours. Everything is fine between us, I obstinately lie, as I can't tell him I've already broken it off in the worst way possible without divulging an episode of my past which I'm hiding from him as well. "He worships the ground I'm walking on without smothering me. It's a pity he can't cook, but no one is perfect, after all. The only snag of this is that Shortie and Stick hate me almost as much as I hate them. But since we're going to elope, anyway, I won't have to suffer their bullying for long."
Hearing myself talk about the ambitious plan so casually, I can almost make myself believe that it could have worked if I'd had the guts to try it out. I could have persuaded Seiya to hide our relationship from all his friends for years in the hope that my murky past would never catch up with me. Given time, the lie would have been forgotten and even the gravity of the offence would have expired. And for a moment I get lost in the world my own words have conjured up—that alternative universe in that other space-time dimension in which I was tough and unscrupulous enough to lie to the man I live with for a lifetime...
As I'm staring into space in an attempt to imagine a life with someone who would eat tiramisu at the crack of dawn and dance at three a.m. until hordes of reporters, paparazzi, and fans force him to flee via car/boat/bike, Kudo bends forward and gingerly touches my forehead with the back of his hand as if to check my temperature.
Something is seriously wrong with me today, he asserts, and it wouldn't surprise him if my painkillers had a few very nasty side effects we both aren't aware of.
If that's the case, he must be more affected by them than I am considering how much he gobbles every day, I retort. And if he dares to belittle my painkillers again, I'll take back the formula I've given him so that he can try to fight his next migraine attack with regular painkillers and find out how long it will take until he begs on his knees for either APAH or a loaded pistol or morphine.
The threat seems to have worked, as he only dares to utter a few unintelligible mumbled phrases among which I can make out "your hard work" and "not intended to". Generously accepting it as an apology, I silently pour him water into his glass, which is the nicest gesture he can expect from me in my present mood.
In response, his face instantly lights up. And as he rapidly morphs from "repentant boyish Kudo Shinichi" to "smug unapologetic consulting detective," I suddenly perceive a certain similarity between him and Seiya or—to take this thought a step further — all the previous men in my life. I always fall in love with the unruly type that would destroy my hard-earned peace as if I were secretly seeking a counterpoint to my sense of order. Regrettably, one of the things my upbringing in the Organization didn't prepare me for was the fact that one needs a hobby to escape the traps of solitude.
"You didn't cry when you were shot multiple times or when you took the antidote." Kudo begins to swing his full water glass from one hand to the other, fidgeting as he always does whenever he begins to tackle a mystery. "Hence I can't buy the story that you've cried because of a migraine no matter how severe." He turns to me with narrowed eyes while I—unimpressed by his strict demeanour—quickly snatch the glass out of his hand for fear that he will get the idea to use it as replacement for a soccer ball. "No one cries when everything is perfect." His frown deepens. "And I don't think you're so unhappy just because you've been bullied by Taiki and Yaten. I really can't make head or tail of this! What has the jerk done to you?"
Nothing I didn't want him to, I think, feeling my face heating up at the memory, and hasten to assure my overprotective detective friend once again that no one has even tried to do anything to me. Look, my life is in a glorious mess right now, I admit, but since there's nothing you can do to help me, you should keep out of it...
"If the mess has a ponytail and sings, just stop seeing him and your headaches will stop immediately," Kudo suggests with a smirk while handing me ten APAH capsules for "the next migraine".
Why are you so spiteful to him, I sigh, putting the APAH capsules into the pocket of my dress, where they slip out of the hole and fall on the floor. One could almost get the impression that you're nurturing a personal grudge against him.
I've barely finished my sentence when I remember the case on my birthday two years ago, the mystery surrounding Kakyuu's death, which Kudo couldn't solve because Seiya flatly refused to cooperate.
Misa professes her love for you through Shakespeare sonnets, Seiya handed his middle brother the impassioned love letter, which—unbeknown to him—would later become the first clue to make me suspect that he was innocent.
Misa... That Misa? Yaten-san—"Shortie"—lifted his pretty head to peer over Stick's shoulder at the pale pink card, which the sophisticated recipient was reading with a frown. "How many letters has she already sent you since you gave her that private performance?"
Hundreds—over two thousand, was the muted reply. Despite Taiki-san's rejection, "Misa" writes him once or sometimes twice a day.
So she is really Misa-chan, the little girl who was so sick she couldn't watch our concerts? Turning to me, Seiya explained with a hint of sibling pride that Odango had told Taiki about the sickly girl and asked Taiki to visit Misa in hospital because Misa had expressed the wish to see her beloved idol once before she died. Long story short: Taiki secretly skipped a rehearsal to give the girl on the deathbed a private performance. And nobody would have learned about it if Odango hadn't blurted it out to all her friends on the following day...
But it seems "Misa-chan's" sickness wasn't as serious as she claimed since she obviously didn't die afterwards, interjected Yaten-san. And here I thought girls only take advantage of Seiya because he always has too much sympathy for strangers. Pleased with himself for the jibe, he flipped his well-groomed silver ponytail and shot me a malicious grin showing off his pearly white fangs without knowing that, in my eyes, he closely resembled an aggressive, jealous kitten.
No, she was really sick, Taiki-san uneasily protested. She didn't feign it at all.
Ah, just accept her already so that she finally stops spamming, Shortie rolled his beautiful opal-green eyes. The silly girls. I trash all their letters in front of them and they'll tell me I'm adorable, just imagine!
"'Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come," I recite from memory.
"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.'"
Smiling at Kudo (who is now fully convinced that I've taken complete leave of my senses), I curiously ask, "What would you think of a woman who sends you such a poem?" I carefully omit the additional information that she also sends those love letters once to twice a day for eight years, as I'm not sure whether I want Kudo to reopen the old case or not.
That she's utterly besotted, Kudo says through gritted teeth, darting me an exasperated look. That she needs time and professional help to come to her senses and realize what a fool she's been!
"Don't tell me you're going to write him love poetry," he murmurs in disbelief.
"I'm flattered that you think so highly of my literary skills." I chuckle. "But those lines are actually Shakespeare's."
I think you need a rest! He eyes me warily. You're reciting Shakespeare now? This is unbelievable!
He doesn't even try to conceal that he is positive I've been brainwashed. To Kudo's credit, however, he also doesn't have the heart to tell me that he believes my gentle smiling boyfriend is a murderer and thus belongs to the category of people he considers the lowest of the low. Instead, he picks up the APAH capsules for me, throws the gyoza box at the bar a look conveying his love-hate relationship with it, and exclaims with an expression of mild reproach, I'm absolutely ravenous, let's go out and grab something for lunch.
"But the gyoza—"
My half-hearted protest is cut off in mid-sentence as he leaps to his feet and reaches the bar in one stride to dump the gyoza box into the trash with a look of tremendous satisfaction.
"Since you said that Seiya can't cook, the gyoza must be from Taiki." Kudo stoically wipes his hands at a paper towel. "One should never eat the food prepared by people one can't stand."
He is really jealous, it hits me all of a sudden, although the whole concept of him feeling possessive of me is so preposterous that I would dismiss it at once if it weren't staring me in the face as I replay the scenes since my return from my overnight rendezvous. In response to my Medusa-like stare, Kudo only smiles and hands me my cardigan, which he has just taken from the hook with the air of the husband who has just learned that his wife has finally found a nice babysitter for their three-year-old twin devils.
"Let's go to Furuhata's," he says. "My treat since I overslept our dinner." In a softer voice, he adds on the way to the corridor, "If everything is really fine between you two, you'll get to see him as often as you want from now on. Hence you might as well spend a few hours with me." He flashes me his most persuasive smile. "Come on!"
It has always been impossible for me to resist Kudo whenever he activates his suave, smooth-talking side. Hence I wordlessly accept the cardigan—all the while trying in vain to push away the memory of the other man who helped me into it less than three hours ago—and open the door for Kudo.
"I hope you'd have eaten the gyoza if they had been from him," I remark in a sharp voice as my nightly visitor passes me at the door.
"Why?" Kudo nervously rummages through the bottomless pockets of his leather jacket for his wallet and breathes a sigh of relief when he finds it. "I don't think he'd have given a hoot about whether I'd eaten them or not."
"But I do bloody well care," I insist, let the door fall shut, and descend the stairs without looking at him so that he won't be able to read my thoughts. "After all, I always had to eat the food your Ran-nee-chan prepared for me as well."
g.