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 sunset…
After sunset—while the moon and the stars are momentarily obscured by blankets of broken, fast-moving clouds—the world around you two has darkened considerably, leaving only a few translucent violet and fuchsia streaks in the night sky. You thought you had stopped seeing shapes in clouds, but now they bear an uncanny resemblance to reddish, lilac threads of lace—of fate?—adorning the night's dark, mysterious silhouettes.
Black birds (ravens, not crows, judging by their croaky calls and their wedge-shaped tails) are circling above. To a more superstitious mind, they would seem like an omen of death; but to you, they've lost their status as harbingers of doom. A few moths have gathered around the lamps and the lanterns, casting their nervous, erratically fluttering shadows on your bench and on the path behind you two.
"Have you ever told Kudo about the goals of the Organization?" Seiya asks, changing the topic when he notices that you aren't ever going to tell him your reasons for dismissing him in such an offhand manner.
"I've never dared to!"
The insinuation remains unspoken, but his quiet laugh tells you that he has grasped what you haven't spelled out.
"I'm sure my parents would have loved him—Kudo would have moved up the ranks in no time at all! My father told me the secret of happiness was to let go of impossible dreams. Romance was only beautiful as long as it didn't destroy one's life… If only he had been able to do what he had preached! My mother, on the other hand, often told me the story of the phoenix and compared the Organization to it—forgetting the instances in which the phoenix legend wasn't used to illustrate fresh beginnings but futile endeavour. Hope is always the last thing which dies—I still have to appease the highest codename members with lies and crazy schemes to keep them from launching self-imposed kamikaze missions."
Although he has changed into a pair of blue jeans, which are more suited for motorcycle riding than the trousers you chose for him this morning, he is still wearing the frilly shirt with colourful diamond-shaped patches, reminding you of a rather romantic depiction of the Fool or the Magician on a set of tarot cards you once spotted on a crime scene. Only a few hours ago you believed him to be a compilation of all your past loves, but now you can only see all the peculiarities which distinguish him from them.
"How did you survive after I wiped out Pandora's Box?" It's still difficult for you to imagine Seiya in the types of situations in which you had seen Gin.
Before flying to Chicago to meet the highest American codename members, he had downed a whole bottle of sherry—stranger-san admitted. He knew very well he was facing the real possibility of receiving the same treatment as the one the first-generation crows had given Haruka-san's mother. It amazed him that no one had tried to assassinate him and his brothers on the way from the airport to the apartment they rented. Apparently, the Chicago faction had its own internal issues; and all Seiya needed to do was to add fuel to the flames so that his enemies would eliminate each other instead of turning on him.
"Of course I was prepared to do whatever I had to do—taking out anyone who stood in my way!—but the scariest thing about the enterprise was that winning was so easy it felt almost effortless: everybody was so tense and paranoid by the time the Organization went down that we didn't have to do much. I shot one codename member—a traitor who had tried to overthrow me—and framed another traitor for it… And hell broke loose before you could count to ten."
He falls silent as he waits for your reaction—presumably expecting a vehement condemnation of his actions or (more likely) the confession that you would have done the same had you been in his shoes. And you begin to doubt that either of you two would be acquitted if you two had to defend yourselves before the divine court of justice which Greco-Roman philosophers often appealed to.
"I shot Gin at Pandora's Box," you tell him instead.
"I thought so," he remarks, unimpressed by the revelation. "You aren't very good at hiding it!" Fixing you with his intensely curious, searching gaze, he asks when you don't elaborate, "Do you regret it now?"
You pause for a moment to imagine a world in which you hadn't created the twenty-six pills and hadn't shot Gin, in which Seiya didn't lead the Organization, and in which Kudo hadn't survived Pandora's Box.
"I don't think so."
He smiles in expectation, waiting for you to continue your story, but it's impossible for you to proceed without giving away too much. And your spirits sink when it strikes you that a relationship between you two would always be like this—a charade which will never end before love leaves.
g.
The sound of his mobile phone startles you two out of the ambiguous silence. This time, the ringing tone is a different melody from the one you know although you believe it to be the melody of Three Lights' first single, having heard the intro before leaving Furuhata's bar after lunch. The radio must have played a medley of the first Three Lights songs during the announcement of the band's return.
Seiya rummages in a pocket of his jacket, which you're still wearing, draws out a small white mobile phone, which must be the one he uses for business connections and acquaintances, and swipes at the screen with a quick touch of his thumb.
You wistfully recall how the same thumb has brushed against your cheek and your lips, loosened the belt of your bathrobe, and drawn patterns on your knee. And the thought that it will take only a few words to bring back this morning and revive the love you've killed suddenly strikes you with unexpected force, pushing the voice of reason into the back of your mind.
"Time's up!" he sighs as he puts his phone away. "I must run now since we still have to fetch Taiki and Yaten. Shizuka-san is waiting for me in front of the park—in Haruka-san's car since Haruka-san has picked her up on the way to my apartment." He stares into the distance, where the twilit silhouettes of the skyscrapers loom like dark, ancient towers, with a puzzled frown. "Since Shizuka-san has told Haruka-san that you're with me at the moment, Haruka-san has asked me to send you her love."
That's it, chessmated by the Queen, you tell yourself with a sense of detachment, too numbed by the news to feel anything. Perhaps you should laugh at the irony that you've often admired Tenoh-san's unusual swiftness of reaction without anticipating that, one day, you will suffer the consequences of her lightning speed. There is no mistaking what her gesture said. If you don't keep your hands off her friend, your caring but despotic former ally will stay true to her word.
The melody of last night—the song your stranger sang when you heard his voice for the first time—announces the arrival of a new message; and Seiya gives a wry smile after glancing at the screen of his black mobile phone, which he has fished out of the other pocket of his jacket.
Speak of the devil: Haruka-san is going to escort him to the airport, Seiya informs you as he scrutinizes your face with bewildered eyes. Your stranger is more intelligent than he believes himself to be, possessing the gift to see the whole picture and take in all the important details without consciously trying to analyze them. Your terror when you learned about the identity of his parents… your actions at Pandora's Box, which he can't explain… his conviction that his parents would never have incinerated Kinmoku Sei… your sudden refusal to stay in a serious relationship with him… Tenoh-san's desperate attempts to separate you two… You can tell with certainty that he has begun to connect the dots and is only one step away from solving the mysteries of his life; but thwarted by his belief in the essential goodness of the people near him, he is still grappling in the dark—and you would rather die a gruesome, violent death than letting him find the answer.
"Auntie, Uncle!" calls a tall woman in broken English, and the elderly couple, whose presence you've forgotten, join her on the path behind your bench. "It's already half past six—we must hurry!" Together they stride along the path which Seiya and you walked last night, towards the ginkgo trees and the azalea shrubs in full bloom.
Powerless against the forces of the whole universe conspiring against you two, you wordlessly take off his jacket.
"You can keep it if you want!" He looks just as miserable as you're feeling. "We can wrap the contents of my pockets into the shawl."
"Nonsense! Your jacket doesn't fit me—and I don't have space for… redundant stuff… in my closet!" To your distress, you realize that your tone sounds insultingly dismissive and harsh. But he appears to have hardened and grown accustomed to—or indifferent to?—your abuse, as he doesn't seem hurt by your behaviour.
After rising from the bench and slipping on the jacket you've handed him, he turns to gaze at you again. But he doesn't turn around completely, and you wonder whether he is already far away, in New York or on the plane—leaving behind his cold and fickle ex-lover, who has dumped him after only one night, to focus on all the things which truly matter in life. A ghost of a smile steals into his eyes before the corners of his lips curve up, and he gives you the same smile as the one he gave you under the balcony last night, the smile which reminded you of Akemi-nee-san's when you saw her for the last time. Even his smiles, which haven't lost their warmth, tell you it's time to say goodbye.
"You should go home now," he remarks, indicating your naked arms. "You're going to catch a cold if you stay here."
Even in your despair, you have to smile at his quaint, albeit not patronizing, chivalry.
"Are you going to accept the offer?" The urge to pin him down and force him to give you a definitive answer has become irresistible. "I mean the Hollywood remakes."
"I don't know yet," he admits. "What do you want me to do?" He is studying you inquisitively, curiously, with deep blue eyes which suddenly look centuries older than his age.
"I think you should do whatever you think is right," you respond after a moment of hesitation, on realizing that telling him to pass up such an opportunity would be the height of selfishness. "Of course it sounds like a great project! Your brothers will be ridiculously happy to work with you again, and your fans will hang themselves or die of heartbreak if you don't come back."
Again you're falling into old patterns, you know—but the words are spilling out of your mouth as if someone else had written the script, and you inwardly curse yourself for digging your own grave as you proceed to list and elaborate on all the compelling reasons for his return. Being nice has seldom done you any good—but love often has a masochistic, idiotic side to it, which compels the most pragmatic people to cut into their own flesh and give themselves up in order to make the beloved happy.
"All right, I'm going to accept the roles!" he testily cuts you off. Seeing your reaction, he adds in a softer voice, "That is, if you don't want me to stay."
Since your voice has stopped functioning, you only keep staring past him across the pond. The ducks have paddled away in the meantime, and the wind is ruffling the deep water, distorting the reflection of the full moon. Reluctant to give up but unable to ruin his future for your selfish dreams, you fall into a long, stony silence before you slowly, laboriously, shake your head.
"Before I saw you again tonight, I thought I'd just wait for you here, hoping that you would return to me if we stayed in touch," he says at last, before he bends down and you raise your head, instinctively offering him your face. Wrapping his arm around your shoulder, your stranger kisses you lightly on your lips, drawing away the moment you feel his familiar heat on your skin. "I'll write to you and call you from New York—but as things are, I'd rather not stay here and watch Kudo and you get married and raise kids together."
He lingers on at the edge of the pond under the cherry tree, gazing down at you with dark, expectant eyes. It may be only wishful thinking, but you believe to see a flicker of hope in them, a hint of indecisiveness. He is waiting for your reaction, hoping for a protest or at least a remark indicating that his deductions are wrong or that you've changed your mind.
The temptation to reach out and take what you want without considering the inevitable consequences threatens to overwhelm you again—its persuasive voice is already whispering into your ear that you can get away with it if only you're smart and unscrupulous enough. In the distance, the last tints of red and gold are draining away from the horizon, leaving a cool, serene blue world behind while the memories of last night and this morning flit through your mind. Although it has lost none of its appeal, your string of memories is now interrupted by other recollections, which alter and modify the colours of your treasured gems like a dreary, ill-lit background rendered in erratic brushstrokes would have done: Gin's empty perfume bottle, Kakyuu's crushed body on the pavement, Rye's silhouette under the hotel window, the newspaper featuring the One Billion Yen Robbery and Hirota Masami's Death, the storm at Pandora's Box, the coin in Paris, the Professor's grave, the pond in Monet's House, Tenoh-san's phone call…
You've tried to conjure up Seiya's reaction to the truth—but no matter how hard you try, you can't even imagine how it will be. Perhaps he would stay with you out of obligation or sympathy—or simply because he would be too attached to you to leave, but the knowledge of how his parents died would break him in the end. As much as you'd like to believe it, you can't imagine a perfect world in which one can forgive one's partner such a deed.
A couple hours—even when each minute has been stretched to its limit and filled with shared memories—isn't long enough a timespan to make a decision which will ruin the life of your partner. Like the flower he gave you, this relationship is still too young and frail for the circumstances under which it has to grow; and you've been fighting against yourself for so long that you've become too weak to hurl yourself into a fire again, get burned again, and rise from it again. What you need is something that can withstand a harsh winter or even survive in a waterlogged and contaminated soil—something which doesn't necessarily have to be breathtakingly beautiful and wildly romantic but is steady and tough, surviving all the ups and downs life hurls at it. For you, life itself is hard enough.
"Take care of yourself…" you tell him, realizing at the same time that you're still a coward when it comes to the details which matter. Even if it weren't for the lump in your throat, it would be impossible for you to add the two words which could induce him to stay.
"'Take care'?" he echoes, exhausted. Then he gazes at you again, with weary resignation, which you've never seen in his eyes before. To you, his silent admittance of defeat is more tragic than if he had cried. But before you can react, he has already left you in fast, hurried strides, fleeing from the night which will be haunting you both. All of a sudden, the knowledge that you might have seen him in person for the last time hits you, and blinded by the tears which uncontrollably well up in your eyes, you can barely discern his retreating figure in the dim evening light.
The last casualty of the last fight or a long-overdue price… Even now, his gait is eerily fast and light—like the airy, weightless steps of a ghost at twilight.
g.
On the horizon, the sun can no longer be seen. The last band of light is still lingering there, a final reminder of what you've lost. A few birds are sailing across the sky—dark apparitions, whose mirror images are flitting across the pond shimmering in all shades of green, blue, silver, and gold.
He will return to the stage and the screen and—there is no doubt about it—resurrect his great career, which has never really ended. But your future is shrouded in mystery, hidden behind the dense veil of time. The last twenty-four hours have been so surreal that you wouldn't be surprised to learn that this was only a dream during the last breath of your life. You've recalled past moments of sorrow and happiness, seen one-time loves, friends, adversaries, and allies, made peace with yourself and the world, and tried to solve the mysteries of your life. You've been waiting in Charon's boat with a wild card and a key in your pocket, lingering for a moment on Styx or Acheron to gaze back at the world of the living for the last time.
The faint, regular beeping sound has restarted again—a chilling reminder of the steady, uninterrupted, ceaseless flow of time…
Or perhaps you've been on Chiba Mamoru's operation table and will survive—for Miyano Shiho is a cat with seven lives, who will cheat both Time and Death and even the Bosses of the underworld and heaven.
You find some consolation in the thought that, whatever may happen to you, the universe will continue to exist. The Detective Boys will grow up, mature, and become independent without needing either Kudo or you. Kaito will entertain the world with the most spectacular magic tricks. And your detective will continue solving cases like a messiah who can't rest, endangering himself and his loved ones, and—so you hope—get everyone out of danger.
Tenoh-san and her family will continue to deal with their enemies in their own way. Undeterred by Odango's secret infatuation with Seiya, Odango and her husband will stay happily married. Unless she meets her own stranger, Misa will keep sending her "Taiki-sama" love letters at least once a day. And Yaten-san and Taiki-san… You'd rather not dwell on your encounter with Shortie and Stick during what could be your last moment on earth, but you believe they will be all right since their brother is going to join them for their comeback.
Your beautiful stranger will continue to enthral his audience, turning heads and breaking hearts wherever he goes. Anokata must have foreseen the volatile, blind love he would always inspire when they heard his voice and saw his smile, which was why they named him Starry Night, the embodiment of everlasting, vain hope—the greatest evil or the only blessing from Pandora's Box.
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