Don't make deals with Witches, they said. Witches feed off desperation and always take more than they give. It will seem like a fair bargain, they said, but it will not be. Think before you sign a contract. Think before you decide what you're willing to lose to gain something else. Deals with Witches were like Monkey's Paws; prone to going wrong even as they granted the wish in its base form. Cover your bases. Know the loopholes if you truly must make a deal.
But Shinichi thought and Shinichi thought he knew what he was willing to lose. He'd been dying, a curse, and time had been short, but yes, he'd thought before he sought out the Witch.
He'd made a deal to stay alive, to stay with Ran.
Now, watching someone with his face and his voice, Shinichi could only stew in fury silently, watching as Ran was swept off her feet by someone that played at being him.
No one would think that 'Conan' was the real Shinichi. Afterall, Conan couldn't even say a word if he wanted to. Mute, small, helpless Conan that Ran doted on like a little brother. Conan who could stay by her side and never say words he longed to confess out loud.
"You're lucky," the Witch had said after the pain had passed and Shinichi somehow, impossibly, was still alive. "You managed to stay human. Most people with that sort of deal would have ended up an animal."
And Shinichi had opened his mouth to reply, something cutting and sarcastic, but not a sound escaped his throat, just the wheeze of air passing from his lungs into open air and his lips moving into shapes uselessly.
And still, still, even as his body was too small and his voice was stolen, he thought himself lucky because Ran took him in even though she thought he was a stranger. He was alive.
But there was the Witch, wearing his face. There was the Witch stealing Ran's heart. There was the thought that this was inevitable; if he died or lived as he now was, Ran would still end up with someone else.
The worst bit was that Shinichi couldn't even think of a reason the Witch would want to woo Ran. She wasn't magic. She didn't have riches or a high ranking name. Ran was merely Ran, a pretty young woman, daughter of a guard-turned-drunkard, aiming to be a guard herself. A lovely person. Lovely, yet nothing next to a Witch who could change fate.
So maybe it was all aimed at Shinichi. Maybe he was meant to make a deal and watch what he really wanted from it slip away at the hands of the person he made a bargain with in the first place. Maybe he was missing something and there was a way to escape the curse and the deal, just beyond his understanding.
But Shinichi was Conan now. Conan, the boy taken in off the streets. Conan, the loved little brother, not Ran's would-be lover.
All the words he couldn't say pressed like a phantom stone lodged in his throat.
Shinichi looked away because there was nothing Conan could do.