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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After receiving…
After receiving his prize, Seiya turns to meet your gaze when you approach him—steering his faint smile from the blonde girl directly towards you as if he had been secretly observing you without you noticing. As a general rule, chance encounters between ex-lovers don't happen without a healthy dose of awkwardness. But in your case, the separation has been so abrupt and the absence has been so brief that this feels more like a second date than an accidental reunion.
Since he has taken a large step towards you just when you stopped in front of him, you end up standing so close to him that your cheek brushes against a button of his jacket when you raise your head. You can hear him chuckle and automatically smile in response, but your smile instantly fades from your lips at the sight of his cautious, watchful expression. Even though you can't discern any trace of resentment or anger on his face, Seiya feels now more like a stranger than when you two first met.
"Have you found the card?" he asks, flashing you one of his ready smiles, which he generously distributes to the blonde girl as well.
You nod without managing a word, knowing that he will no longer trust you although his question implies that he has indeed come to Ueno-koen in the hope of seeing you again. He may be more friendly and hospitable towards strangers than his brothers—which can be attributed to his general good humour—but when he withdraws into himself, Seiya is hardly approachable in his liberal pleasantness. At the moment, he is politely dividing his attention equally between you and the blonde woman, which is almost insulting considering the intimate history between him and you.
"I've come because I didn't want to let you wait for hours on that bench like I had to wait for Kudo," you remark at last—before you realize that mentioning Kudo's name after your breakup is not the smartest way to begin a conversation.
"I see," he says calmly, civilly, stepping back to scrutinize you with his observant eyes. The temperature between you two gradually drops to the freezing point. And you've begun to expect him to tell you that you can go home now that you've come since he no longer has to wait for you when his eyes suddenly light up with a mischievous smile and he spontaneously presses the soft bear against your cheek.
"Do you like it?" he asks in a low, seductive voice, tenderly stroking your cheek and your chin with the nose of the bear. You've always had a weakness for plush animals in general and soft fluffy bears in particular whether they're koalas, pandas, teddy bears, or even polar bears; and keeping a huggable reminder of this relationship is a temptation you can't resist despite your resolution not to accept sentimental presents from an ex-lover.
"I love it." You gingerly take the small polar bear into your hand to stroke its ears and nose. "You surely have an eye for beautiful things," you tell Seiya. "I've never seen a polar bear this cute!"
He smiles and gently traces your cheekbone with the back of his thumb—a familiar, affectionate gesture, which feels oddly foreign and thrilling after the separation. Your heart leaps with anticipation when he slowly bends down, and you rest your free hand on his shoulder to return his kiss. But you've barely felt his hot breath brushing against your lips when he abruptly draws away.
"Great!" he beams. "If you find it cute, she's going to like it as well!"
With a sudden flick of the wrist, he callously snatches the bear out of your hand and gives it the blonde girl, who is just as flabbergasted at his gesture as you are.
"Thanks a lot for watching me shoot!" His voice—courteous and refined a few seconds ago—has taken on the sweetness of ambrosia. "Since you've brought me luck, it's yours!"
"But I thought…" The young woman—who is the same cute, nice girl-next-door type as Odango—shoots you an apprehensive glance before she turns to him with glowing cheeks. "It belongs your girlfriend, doesn't it?"
"Oh, my friend—" he gives a dismissive wave in your direction, "—is a minimalist who doesn't like keeping material presents. And now that she has touched it once, she doesn't need it anymore. If I gave it to her, she'd only throw it out after one night." He flashes her an irresistible smile. "Hence I'd rather give it to someone who will appreciate it more."
"Don't worry. I prefer dogs and cats to wild animals, anyway," you coolly declare. "Also, that shade of white is much too bright and too high-maintenance for my taste. I bet it will turn grey and ugly after one day!"
Since the girl is obviously dying to talk to him alone, you leave them at the shooting gallery and storm back to the bench to inform the elderly couple that you've found the arrogant jerk so that they no longer need to pass on your message. There is no way you'll let Seiya know that you've been waiting for him like all his other clingy girlfriends and ex-girlfriends—even asked two complete strangers for help in your despair.
Just when you think you've finally freed yourself from him for good, your ex-boyfriend catches up with you at a pink camellia shrub and walks silently beside you although he is keeping his distance so as not to touch your arm.
"Where have you left your latest fangirl? You're even dumber than I thought if you've left her that bear for nothing!"
"It wasn't for nothing," he smirks. "She did give me something in return."
You don't really want to know what he has received—and you'd have loved to kick him like you did this morning if only your present relationship weren't too ambiguous for such an intimate expression of affection. Since you'd rather bite off your tongue than ask him and he only wears a mysterious smile suggestive of overnight dates or at least romantic dinners at fancy restaurants, you two continue to roam the park with each other in silence, both maintaining an arm's distance to the ex-lover. From time to time, impatient passersby will overtake you two by weaving their way through the space between him and you, and you have to suppress the urge to grab his arm for fear of losing him in the crowd.
Unfortunately, he still smells alluringly of hope and impossible dreams and fairy tales; and his smile still evokes painful remembrances of the late-summer sun, whose warmth becomes even more precious in cool autumn nights—the grim, harsh heralds of winter. To your delight, he moves nearer when a horde of tourists threaten to push past you and gently takes your elbow to pull you aside. You automatically raise your head out of habit and lean against his arm—and you two stop under a cherry tree to kiss as if you two had never broken up, passionately and desperately (outrageously, considering that you're in public!) trying to make up for the hours of hopeless longing with ineffectual, hurried caresses until someone whistles and someone else shouts that you two should "get a room".
"But there is no room in the vicinity, isn't it? Unless you count the temples," Seiya quips, holding you close enough to him to get you two reproved for indecent behaviour if the police were here.
"We can't walk to your apartment," you point out, trying to ignore his warm hands resting enticingly on your waist and your hips. "Your nosy brothers will barge in on us again." Although Taiki-san no longer keeps the spare key to Seiya's apartment, you can remember very well his threat to break the door down.
Faintly, as though you were peering through a dense blanket of fog, you remember with difficulty that you wanted to let go of selfish desires which wouldn't only get you but also your loved ones into trouble. This is—as you've feared since you arrived in Ueno-koen—a most troublesome regression. And while you know that it's only natural to relapse into one's old ways after an improvement, you're devastated that you've only been able to look temptation in the eye for a few minutes before it was game over.
"We could take the bus to your place," he suggests. "It's only a few minutes to the bus station… Or we could search for a nice secluded place or a hotel although I fear that our combined bad luck will spoil our rendezvous in no time."
"You can't be serious!" With your luck and his fame, you would find your pictures and videos strewn all over the internet if you were insane enough to accept his proposal.
He smiles in resignation, murmuring that you're now more of a prude than you were this morning, and ignores the passersby to kiss you again. For a moment, time stops, and you allow yourself to go with the flow, to cast all caution to the winds to resume your relationship against impossible odds. But no sooner did the tourist group rush to their hanami party spot, where they are welcomed by a ponderous woman with two giant picnic baskets, and the road is free again, than your fickle seducer releases you and casually steps aside. In answer to your startled gaze, he only tilts his head and looks down at you with his faintly amused, distant smile.
To all appearances, the notorious playboy has simply dropped you like any of his female acquaintances he has become tired of and you've made a fool of yourself when you took his kisses seriously while he was only messing around. Undecided whether you should be hurt by his shabby treatment or angry at yourself for losing this twisted game again, you chance a long, serious look at his face and discover to your indignation that he is shaking with silent laughter.
"I'd never expected you to be such a resentful, petty… childish jerk!" you say at last, ready to explode when you spot a few women in the vicinity who are already making eyes at him. You used to be the one who attracted attention wherever she went. But now you suspect that you've begun to bore Seiya, who must be just as irritated and revolted by your jealousy as you were by Gin's.
"Childish? You can dish it out but you can't take it, Shiho!" He laughs, and you feel the corners of your mouth curve up despite your resolve not to succumb to his charms again. "You should take a look in the mirror just to see how old you are right now."
"Seventeen or eighteen?" You threateningly raise your brow.
"Don't flatter yourself! Whenever you feel insulted, you resemble Odango's favourite cousin 'Chibi Chibi', who used to monopolize my lap when she was two or three."
He is perfectly aware of the innuendo, you realize, fuming with impotent rage. How could you have thought your stranger to be endearingly innocent when he is actually a manipulative bastard who knows exactly how to use his charm?
"Now that you've had your revenge, I suppose that makes us square!" While you're irked by his roguish, smug grin and the fact that he has mentioned Odango—his one and only true love!—again, you feel a sense of elation at hearing your name without an honorific from his mouth. For all his mean pranks, Seiya isn't the small-minded sort of ex-lover who immediately reverts to formal honorifics after the end of a relationship. Maybe you two can be friends some day, as unlikely as it seems.
In response to your comment, he only fixes you with a disbelieving gaze. Noticing that his eyes still have the power to shut down the rational, dependable side of your brain, you grudgingly concede that, just like the reverse, great lovers usually make lousy friends after the last boundaries have been crossed. It won't do either Seiya or you any good if you two slip into an on-again, off-again friendship with certain benefits for the simple reasons that true friendship can't ever be forced and blind love will never die.
If he had dared to entertain any illusions about your feelings for him, you'd have shattered them by now, your attractive companion darkly remarks. "It was only a plush polar bear, wasn't it? Your loss was a mere bagatelle compared to mine."
As he suspected but didn't want to accept because it was a mortal wound to his ego, you can't feel an ounce of real compassion for him although you're always considerate towards Kudo, Seiya sighs. "But since I'm in a generous mood tonight," he impertinently imitates your tone from last night as he fishes a packet of cigarette and a lighter out of his oversized pockets, "I'll forgive you if you invite me over for dinner."
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