File Twenty-Six: A Late Night Visit
"Eh?! Surgery?!" Kogoro shocked shout resounded in the entire hospital. "It wasn't just a regular cut?"
Agasa shifted, uncomfortably, and mumbled a bit while he struggled to find the right words. Kogoro just stared at him, blinking, before an annoyed expression took hold of his face. Feeling anxiety gnawing at him he was about to press the older man to tell him what was going on for once and for all.
Surprisingly though, it was the little girl who spoke first.
"He was shot by a gun," Kogoro would have been lying if he said that he wasn't a bit disturbed by the way this kid talked ─ coldly, calmly and too mature, far too different from other children to be deemed normal. "His left abdomen was injured. The bullet pierced through, but there was a great deal of blood loss. There's the possibility of nephropathy."
For a slight moment, the man wondered what kind of seven year-old knew word 'nephropathy', but he shook it off when the meaning of her words dawned on him.
"I hear he's in critical condition."
Conan, the freeloader that had lived in his own house for the better part of the year had been shot. The thought of an innocent child whose age didn't even reach two digits had to go through all of that made his skin crawl.
Once the initial shock had subsided, worry started to settle in. Mostly when he heard his daughter calling the child's name and saw her, running with the doctors as they rolled a stretcher towards the operation room.
And the little boy just laid there, a mask attached to his face. Pale. Fragile. Motionless.
"Doctor, it's an emergency!" it looked like Conan's bad luck wouldn't end just like that. "Our last spare of blood matching this boy's blood type was used on our last surgery! We don't have enough!"
"What?" the doctor frowned. "Even if we send a message to the blood center, they won't make it in time!"
Ran glanced towards Conan and, without hesitating, stepped closer to the doctors. "Excuse me," she said, with an outstanding certainty. "If my blood is alright, then... I have the same blood type as this boy."
Everyone looked back to Ran, relieved after hearing that.
Nobody noticed however the way the little boy's eyes opened in an amazing display of willpower, struggling to focus on the older girl, at least until she turned around to see him. She must have realized the terrified expression he currently had, because she leaned over and rested her hand on top of his.
"You will be okay, Conan-kun," she smiled, sweetly. "Just hold on a little longer, okay?"
Ran then turned to the nurse, nodding at her, before rushing over the clean room to verify that they actually were compatible. Kogoro watched the retreating form of his daughter with a very serious expression, before turning back to the little boy.
There was a distressed look on Conan's hazy eyes which surprised the man, his gaze still focused on the way the girl had just went away. He seemed to be scared about something, which was weird considering how courageous the boy was, and Ran's words hadn't seemed to help.
So, the man stepped closer, completely confused. If he was honest, the child seemed even more scared than he had been before Ran had tried to comfort him. Then, it fell on him.
His arm moved over the boy, then hesitated. For a slight moment, he just stood there with his hand on the air, before he sighed. Awkwardly, it rested on his little head.
Blue eyes darted towards him, startled, but he didn't even turn his head to look. So, the man crouched down, so he would be in eye level with the injured child.
"Ran will be okay, she's a strong and healthy girl," he whispered to him. "Losing a few droplets of blood is not a big deal to her."
The boy didn't say anything, probably because he lacked the strength to do so, but he seemed to relax a tiny bit against the pillow.
"So you better focus on getting better, squirt."
Kogoro held on his gaze for a few moments, until Conan weakly nodded his head while closing his eyes again. Once he was out of the child's sight, the detective stood up and shook his head.
What was all of that about, anyway?
The next thing he knew, Kogoro was looking at the 'Operating' sign on the door that had just turned on, sitting on the waiting room beside his daughter. Agasa and the little boy's friends were also there, oddly silent probably due to worry.
He focused on Ran, however, who just stayed there, staring at the gauze on her arm with an empty look. Then, the man sighed, and pulled out his phone.
Ran looked up at him, curious by his actions.
"I'm going to call the kid's parents," he said as he stood up.
"Ah," she nodded, suddenly realizing that that was one of the first things that she should've thought of, and also pulled her phone. "Then, I'm going to tell Shinichi about Conan-kun."
When he saw the teenage girl suddenly standing up, then wobbling a bit because of the quick motion, Kogoro panicked a bit. "It's okay, I can do it," he told her. "Just give me the detective brat's number and..."
He trailed off when he saw the female shaking her head and staring at him with a resolved and determined expression.
"It has to be me."
Kogoro couldn't argue.
Despite of it all, it was quite a peaceful night at the hospital after Conan was wheeled out the operation room ─ which had taken far too long for everyone waiting. Once the boy had been deemed safe, the professor personally had taken the exhausted children back home.
Conan was fast asleep, recovering from his long surgery, that had been deemed a success by the doctors, and the stitched wound that had yet to completely heal. So, relieved by the fact that the child was going to be just fine, Ran had dozed off in top of Conan's bed, definitely tired after giving the kid so much of her blood but not wanting to leave him alone.
All in all, everything was going well.
At least, until the little boy's eyebrows were brought together.
"Please, let me do this!" that voice rang through Conan's mind. "My blood... My blood is fine, right?!"
"But Kudo-san, you can't do that in such a condition. Your injuries are quite serious as well!"
Conan tried desperately to open his eyes, to shout, to do anything. To stop his brother from doing something like that when he was so severely hurt...
... But how did he get so badly injured anyway?
His head whipped to the side, pressing against the pillow as his facial expression twisted.
Then he was back again to that same place. Something sharp was pressing against his neck, and Shinichi's gun was pointed at his face once more. His breath hitched and tears welled up on his eyes.
And now Conan saw blood. Blood everywhere. His hands. His back. His brother's torso.
There was also something on his little hands. Heavy. Cold.
"... Onii... chan..." still captive of his own cruel mind, the child softly mumbled.
A finger gently caressed his forehead, brushing away sweaty strands of his mussed hair. Blue eyes slowly blinked open at the tender motion, flickering at the unfocused, blurry figure sitting at his bedside.
When the attention first shifted to him, the person seemed to flinch, before calming down instantly. He continued with the ministrations on his head and even Conan, in his confused, sleepy haze, understood it was to help him calm down.
And it really helped. The child felt himself sinking deeper into his pillow and closing his eyes with a sigh of contentment.
There was something nostalgic and warm about this person. This familiar, yet foreign kindness was something that, at the bottom of his heart, missed dearly.
Yes, just like...
The teenage boy pressed a hand against his bloody side. The child was running towards him, desperate, hands stretched forward.
"Oniichan!"
Before he knew it, the child was standing up on his bed and about to get up for some reason and the person beside him, startled by that sudden motion could only catch him as the kid stumbled forward. The person just sat there, confused, as he stared at the back of the child's head.
At least, until Conan's hands weakly latched on his shirt. "... I'm... sorry... Oniichan," his voice was soft and weak, muffled by the boy's clothes. "... I..."
He couldn't really tell if Conan was fully conscious at this point. "Shh," still, the teenage boy smiled sweetly and held the child closer against his chest, rubbing his hand against the kid's back. "It's okay, Conan," he reassured the young child. "It's okay."
As Conan was settled back into the bed and the blankets tucked tightly around him, his sleepy eyes, which hadn't left the figure speaking comforting words at him, blinked lethargically.
The hand started to brush through his hair again.
Just then, just for a moment, the blurry figure came back to focus.
There, at his side, he saw the face he missed the most.
He blinked slowly again and realized, with a sense of panic, that he really didn't like doing that. Every time his eyes closed, they opened a tiny bit less.
Against his will, he blinked once. Twice.
... Thrice.
At the fourth time, his eyelids were too heavy to open again. So, with a terrible ache on his heart, he allowed himself to be swallowed by darkness once more.
Even after the little boy's breathing had evened out and he had settled down into a hopefully dreamless slumber, the person didn't leave. With uppermost care, he dried down the lone tear that had escaped from the child's eye as he had fallen asleep against his own wishes.
And for hours he just sat there, at his bedside, stroking through his hair and hoping no more heart wrenching nightmares were plaguing this poor boy's mind.
The next time Conan woke up was to the sight of a bag of clear liquid at his side. He just stared at it, blankly, before turning his head to look out the window.
Birds were chirping and the sun was up in the clear blue sky.
He had lived to see another day.
Being alive, however, also meant he was able to feel pain. Because of that, he couldn't help but groan quietly when he sat up, a bit too quickly, and press his hand to the place it hurt.
By the corner of his eye, Conan noticed something on the end of his bed, so he looked up. His eyes opened, surprised, at the sight of Ran, who slept with her face buried in her arms, which in turn rested on the mattress.
"You should thank Ran," a voice suddenly said, so his eyes shifted away from the girl to the doorway. Kogoro yawned, loudly, as he stepped inside the room. "Even after giving 400cc of her own blood to you, she stayed here all night watching over you."
Conan said nothing, just glanced at the IV needle sticking on his arm as Kogoro leaned over his daughter, adjusting the coat he had placed over her shoulders last night.
"We're lucky your blood just happened to be the same as Ran's," he said to the child. "If your blood was any rarer, you'd have passed to the other world from blood loss."
The boy stayed silent, as some fragments of what happened last night passed through his mind. He faintly remembered Ran saying that she would give her blood to him, and that alone had triggered another distant memory he hadn't been able to reach before.
"... you can't do that in such a condition. Your injuries are quite serious as well!"
Everything was fuzzy, but he recalled Kogoro calming him down, saying things he couldn't remember at the moment.
Said man was currently standing in front of him, a stern expression on his face. "Hey, Ran gave you a lot of blood," he told him. "If you don't get better soon, I won't forgive you!"
Conan blinked twice, before a teasing smirk appeared in his features. "Oh?" he raised an eyebrow. "I haven't expected Occhan to be such a tsundere."
Kogoro scowled at him. "You're lucky you're injured and I can't hit you, because..."
"You're only proving my point there."
The pair was so deeply immersed in their banter that they didn't notice Ran stirring and sitting up. Silently, she stared at the two as they argued.
Conan deadpanned, saying something that definitely irritated her father. His voice was still a bit hoarse and his face was a bit too pale for her liking, but he looked so much better than he had when she had first seen him upon arriving at the hospital.
He then laughed about something and Ran couldn't help but smile a little, feeling relief washing over her for the first time since last night.
It was the child the first one to notice Ran was up.
"Good morning, Ran-neechan," he said to her, causing Kogoro to stop his argument where it was to turn to look at his daughter.
"Good morning, Conan-kun," she smiled wider at him. "How are you feeling?"
Before he could say anything back at her, Kogoro snorted. "The brat is fine," he gave him a side glare, which he returned. "More than fine, actually."
"You, on the other hand, don't look fine," Conan raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you sleep well, Occhan?"
"Dad, did you really go back home as you said or did you sleep in the waiting room?" Ran giggled.
"Whatever," Kogoro grumbled "I'm going to go get a doctor."
Right after that, the man left the room, closing the door behind him and the two occupants of the room looked at each other before laughing at his oh-so-obvious concern.
Conan however hissed in pain at the sudden movement, sending Ran into a nervous fussing panic state, which took at least five entire minutes to subside. As a result, the child was gently pushed back into the mattress and told not to move, under any circumstances ─ he had just gotten out of surgery, for goodness sake.
It weren't her words, the sense they made or the pain of his injury that caused the kid to agree so easily, but the sight of the black bags under her eyes that contrasted against her sickly pale face. Well, she did stay all night taking care of me after giving me so much blood...
Then it came back to him, prompting his hand to reach for his own forehead.
That comforting warmth...
"Sorry, Ran-neechan," he said after a while, with an apologetic smile on his face. "After everything you've done for me, I caused you a lot of trouble last night, didn't I?"
"Ah, no, not at all," she laughed, a bit embarrassed, scratching the back of her head. "In fact, I fell asleep right after you got out of surgery and didn't wake up until now."
Her smile faltered, however, when she noticed Conan's eyes widening, like two plates.
"... Conan-kun?" she called him, feeling worried.
He composed himself with a flinch, probably after being jerked away from any line of thought he had been until now. The kid didn't have time to explain, because the door opened and the doctor entered the room, Kogoro in tow.
"Conan-kun!"
"Are you okay, Conan?"
"Does anything hurt, Conan-kun?"
If the way the door bursted open wasn't an indicative enough for the child to know about his friends' presence, their loud voices surely did. "Ah, guys," he let out a smile, trying to comfort them, after he ate the piece of apple that Ran had kindly peeled for him ─ after fifteen minutes or so of the child arguing that he could still peel an apple, thank you very much, in vain, obviously.
Ran glanced at her watch and giggled a bit, amused to see that barely ten minutes had passed since the time they had been supposed to get out school. "Hello, everyone," she smiled at the four kids.
Three of them nodded, eagerly, at the older girl, while Haibara stared at her with a blank expression. Conan noticed that and couldn't help but let out a dry laugh.
"How is Conan-kun?" asked Ayumi, with such a serious face that Ran thought it was cute instead.
"He will be okay," she explained to them. "As long as he doesn't open his stitches and rests quietly for a while."
There was a collective sigh of relief before they all turned to Conan, who flinched at the sudden attention, before directing his gaze away from them and towards the window.
"By the way, Ran-san," Mitsuhiko spoke up, concerned eyes looking up at her. "Are you okay?"
"You don't look good," Ayumi added.
"I bet she's hungry," as expected Genta commented.
Ran tried to wave the comment off, but Conan pipped in before she could.
"She is," he replied with a sigh. "She hasn't eaten anything since morning, even if I, her father and every single living soul on this world tells her to, she refuses."
The three children gasped. "Eeeh?!"
"Conan-kun," she chastised, quietly, before turning to his friends. "There's nothing to worry about, I..."
"Iron," Haibara's calm voice sounded through the room, prompting everyone to pause to look at her. "Primary component of hemoglobin, extremely important for the transport of oxygen through the body. Lack of this mineral causes, among other symptoms, fatigue, headaches and nausea. In that case, it's strongly recommended to eat foods rich in iron, such as meat, fish, eggs and raisins."
Conan tried hard not to wince at the last word, but the teasing look and smirk Haibara sent his way told him he hadn't done a good job.
It went unnoticed by the others, however, who just stared at her. The three children mostly because they hadn't understood a word she had said, and Ran because she was surprised a seven year-old knew that much, in the first place.
She then remembered the weird amount of random stuff that Conan knew and the shock passed quickly.
"Go eat something, Ran-neechan," he told her, for the seventh time that week. "I'll be fine, I promise."
"Conan-kun is right!" argued Ayumi, as the other two children nodded behind her. "Don't worry, we'll take care of him!"
Ran couldn't help but laugh lightly at their determination, while Conan rolled his eyes. "I'll call you if something happens," the child said, holding his phone up.
The girl gave a worried glance towards Conan direction before sighing, loudly and nodding to him. "Then, I will be back soon," she smiled at them, and soon she was out the room.
None of the children saw, however, the girl leaning against the now closed door, pulling her phone out of her pocket. She stared at the screen with a sad look.
"...Ran, what do you want?" she remembered his sleepy voice from the other night. "Do you have any idea of what time it is?"
"Shinichi," the seriousness of her voice prompted him to click his mouth shut. "I'm currently at Beika General Hospital."
There was a pause and Ran heard Shinichi's breath pick up at those words. "What..?"
"Conan-kun was shot."
Upon realizing there was no way to sugarcoat things, she had decided to go for a rather straightforward route. Ran stayed silent for a while as the teenage detective had gone quiet as well, probably letting that fact sink. "... How is he?" finally, he found his voice to ask.
"Not so good," she answered, frankly. "He's undergoing surgery right now," then, with a pause, she added. "Shinichi, the doctor said that there was a big chance that... that he..."
Her mouth went dry at that, not finding in herself the courage to say those words, especially when it was about little Conan.
For a few minutes, it was silent.
And then...
"I understand," she heard Shinichi's voice say.
Before he hung up on her.
Ran frowned deeply, putting her phone back on place. What's that stupid detective maniac doing anyway? she thought, feeling the urge of kicking him in the face rising at every waking second. He doesn't even answer my calls or my texts... That idiot.
She didn't notice, however, the pair of blue eyes staring at her, a sad glimmer visible on them.
Three pairs of eyes were owlishly blinking at him while the boy, who was receiving all that attention, couldn't help but try to back off their sight, just to sink deeper into the pillow he was propped up with.
And Haibara was having so much fun with this, he could tell by the way she laughed softly under her hand.
"... What did you just say, Conan-kun?" Ayumi asked, sitting with Mitsuhiko and Genta at the end of Conan's bed, eyes wide open.
"That I will tell you everything," he said, with slight hesitation on his voice. "There are things I've kept you in the dark about, and you deserve to know."
Mitsuhiko's eyes opened. "Is it about that mysterious organization?"
Conan nodded.
"You guys told me before that you wanted to know," he said. "And that's the least I can do for you," then, with a sincere smile, the child added. "You are my saviors, after all."
Mitsuhiko, Ayumi and Genta looked at each other for a moment before turning back to their friend, whose expression remained unchanged.
"You got me out of that place, instead of leaving me there to save yourselves," the child continued. "I was told that, had I arrived at the hospital a minute later, I wouldn't have made it. So, for all of that... Thank you."
"There's no need for that!" Mitsuhiko argued, instantly. "You saved us first from the gun, didn't you?"
"That means we are even," Ayumi glanced towards her other two friends. "Right?"
While the three children exchanged grins as they nodded at each other, Conan chuckled lightly, closing his eyes. Idiots, he thought, fondly. At that time, I was actually paying you back.
Because they had already saved him, almost a year ago.
Even when he had pushed them away. Even when he had believed he would be better off on his own. Even when he had been so hurt and alone...
They had reached out for him. These three kids had saved him.
Like so, he spent the next thirty minutes talking about every single encounter he had gone through ever since. His encounter with Gin and Vodka on the train, the explosion that had taken Tequila's life and even that his 'suspicions' about the drug Shinichi had taken ─ he couldn't exactly tell them about the Apotoxin-4869 without telling that Haibara was actually Sherry.
He also decided not to say anything about Haibara's dead sister ─ he would tell them some of that when the girl wasn't present, but honestly Conan didn't want to bring up such a touchy topic with the young scientist around.
"And who is that Singani person you were talking about before?" Mitsuhiko asked.
Haibara gave him a look, wondering how he was going to deal with that kind of question. "I heard Tequila saying that word, along with my brother's, at that time," then her lips curved upwards, amused at his ability to lie without batting an eye. "I think he has something to do with Shinichi-niichan's disappearance."
"Have you figured it out?" Conan's head spun to her place on the chair beside the bed and noticed her icy-cold eyes narrowing a bit. "Do you know who Singani is?"
The girl saw the boy pausing, hesitation glinting on his eyes for a moment before he glanced out the window. "... No," he settled with that answer. "I have no idea."
Ai did not say anything in return.
Conan said nothing either, yawning tiredly as he leaned against the pillows, listening intently as the other three started discussing about that mysterious character and coming up with multiple theories that ranged from coherent but probably wrong to what's-wrong-with-you-Genta? kind of wrong. Seriously, the kid genuinely believed Singani was the owner of the bakery next door because they had run out of bread ─ and what kind of bakery doesn't have bread, right? That's definitely suspicious!
At some point Ayumi sighed, exasperated. "I don't have a clue," she admitted, with an embarrassed laugh. "Do you have any theory, Conan... kun?"
She trailed off, causing the rest of the children to look at her, questiongly, before they noticed what she was staring at. They couldn't help but be surprised when they saw Conan's slightly laded head, fully resting his entire body against the pillows. A closer look let them see his eyes were closed and soft breaths were coming in and off his barely open mouth.
"Rude," Genta scoffed. "To fall asleep on us just like that..."
"Do you think he's okay?" Ayumi wondered, a concerned frown in her features.
Mitsuhiko inched closer to him, hand hovering over his friend's shoulder, when he was stopped. "Stop," Haibara's voice prompted the child to freeze. "Let him sleep."
The children just stared at her, blankly, as she shifted her glance towards the boy. "Kudo-kun must still be exhausted after the surgery he went through last night," she explained to them. "We should let him rest for now."
"That's true, but..." Ayumi looked away from his friend to look at Haibara. "What do we do now?"
"Didn't you promise Mouri-san that you would take care of Kudo-kun until she returns?"
Ayumi blinked at that, then looked at her other two friends and the three nodded determined. Haibara chuckled at their display of determination while Conan just slumbered away, unaware of what was happening in his own room.
Kazuha at first was a little confused to see a grown up woman standing in front of her school gate that afternoon, but it turned into mild confusion when she fixed her eyes in Heiji and then into what-the-hell-is-going-on-here? confusion when she started heading towards him.
"Eh?" Heiji stopped in his tracks to blink at the woman. "What are you doing here?"
When she realized that the two of them seemed to know each other, Kazuha's confusion was overtaken by surprise. She stared at Heiji, for a few moments, before turning to the woman, and then to her childhood friend again.
"Heiji, do you know this person...?" then, it occured it to her and her eyebrow began to twitch. "Don't tell me that all those times you went back and forth to Ekoda you met with this woman over there?"
"Yeah," he replied, without hesitation, not understanding what the problem with that was.
"EH?!" she seemed to shout, angry for some reason. "What did you think you were doing?! She's too old for you!"
"... Eh...?" when he realized what she really meant with that, he blushed furiously. "I didn't mean that, I swear!"
"So you didn't?" her eyebrow rose, highly unconvinced. "Then, who is-?"
"Kato Momoka," the woman replied, with such a serious expression that Kazuha couldn't find in herself to answer. "I was a receptionist at Ekoda Hospital, where he had been investigating a death that had happened more than a year ago."
Heiji frowned at that. "So," he spoke. "Why are you here?"
"I want you to resume your investigation," Momoka's eyes narrowed. "I want you to investigate Watanabe Satoshi's murder case."
Haibara was just eyeing a random magazine when she heard the sound of the door slowly opening, to reveal a young male nurse, whose hair was covered by a surgical cap, peeking inside while tugging the facemask up, before stepping inside.
"I didn't expect this to become a slumber party," said the nurse, a bit shocked.
The girl examined his face for a moment, until her eyes widened slightly in recognition. She recovered quickly, though, shrugging with a small smirk while shifting her gaze to her friends.
Mitsuhiko, Ayumi and Genta had fallen asleep a few minutes ago, limbs and bodies all tangled with each other at the end of Conan's bed. They had decided to be as quiet as they could for the sake of the bespectacled boy, and when Haibara had looked up they all were already like that.
"They all stayed up until late last night," she shrugged, returning to her magazine. "So I guess this was bound to happen."
The nurse chuckled, good heartedly, at that before walking towards the patient. Slowly and with extreme care he positioned the bed so the child could rest lying down, instead of the semi-recumbent position he had just been sleeping in.
"Aren't you tired, also?" he asked softly, so he wouldn't disturb the children.
"I'm used to pull all-nighters, so it's normal for me."
He thought about scold her about how dangerous that habit could be but decided not to since he knew it would only fall in deaf ears, so he just shook his head to show his disapproval.
His eyes then fell on the little boy in the bed and softened instantly. Honestly, he thought, fondly, tucking the blankets tightly around him before going to reach for his glasses.
A small hand latched to his arm at that and, oh boy, he downright panicked.
There was little reason not to do so. The child was blinking the sleep out his eyes, rubbing them roughly with one hand while he kept his grip on the hem of the nurse's sleeve.
Said nurse did not move, just stood there. Frozen.
"Edogawa-kun," the child heard the girl say, with a light chuckle tainting her voice. "I think it would be best if you let this poor hospital worker go."
It took a couple of seconds more than usual to let go. "... Ah," Conan smiled, feeling embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."
"N-No, it's okay," the nurse laughed, good heartedly, as he slowly walked backwards before turning around so quickly that Conan didn't even have the time to see his face clearly.
Just as he was opening the door, however, somebody did it for him. A overweight man with a black suit and blonde hair stepped forward, almost bumping into the guy. The nurse bowed slightly, apologizing for his actions, before disappearing out the door.
The man that had just entered glanced over his shoulder, towards the hospital worker that had just left. Conan could swear he just saw him smirking for some reason.
Until he was pushed away from the doorway as a woman made her way through, and at the sight of the plump, raven-haired female with black clothes Conan couldn't help but open his eyes, widely.
He could clearly remember seeing that very same face when he was kidnapped from Kogoro's office last February.
"Co-chan!" if it hadn't been so painfully obvious who this woman was, now he definitely knew. "Oh, my poor baby!"
Conan's eyes opened in fear and he tried to scramble away, but he didn't succeed. Her arms were all around him in an instant, cuddling him against his chest. "Mom, let me go!" he cried, annoyed. "Ouch, my wound! Watch it!"
"Oh, sorry, sorry!" she smiled, apologetically, and loosened her grip on him. That didn't mean, to his displeasure, that she had let him go.
A blush blossomed into his features when he heard Haibara laughing, under her breath, at the scene in front of her, and struggled a little to free himself from her clutches.
"Conan-kun? Who is she?"
The boy became redder, if possible, when he heard Ayumi ask that, before realizing that his three friends were wide awake ─ probably due to the ruckus from before ─ and staring at them both, curiously.
"We're his parents," the man, who Conan now identified as his father, explained with an amused smile. "I see you have been taking good care of our son, didn't you? Good job."
"Eh?" Mitsuhiko blinked. "But weren't Conan-kun's parents supposed to be Kudo Yusaku and Yukiko?"
"Yeah, but right now we're Edogawa Conan-kun's parents," Yukiko told the children, with a wink. "Keep that as a secret for now, okay?"
"Okay!" they all cheered.
And Conan decided he would have preferred to die from blood loss last night.
Haibara, surprisingly, said nothing about it at all. Just sighed and went to the door. "We should get going, everyone," she told them, with a rather indifferent expression. "We can leave Kudo-kun with his parents for now."
They nodded and hopped off the bed before rushing out the door. "Haibara-san," Conan stopped her, before she could leave, and gave her a serious look. "Thank you."
She paused for a moment, then seemed to smile and nodded. The door closed right after that.
With all the children gone, the room fell into a deep silence. Conan looked up at his parents, and they stared at each other, without knowing what to say for a moment. The child, however, didn't care.
He just genuinely smiled at them, because he didn't need them to talk to know what was through their minds.
His hand went to his own shoulder, mind-absently, while his smile faltered a bit. Yeah, he realized. It's just like that time...
Except Shinichi wasn't there, wearing that expression as he watched his parents embrace his little brother. That expression Conan couldn't read, no matter how much he tried.
"Feels like a deja-vu, right?" Yusaku spoke first.
Obviously, his father could read him like a book as well.
"There are things that are different, however," he said to him. "Like, for example, Shinichi-niichan didn't try to give me his blood this time."
The pair froze at that, staring at the kid, wide eyed for some reason that Conan couldn't comprehend ─ in fact, it made him even more suspicious. "Do you remember that?" Yusaku asked, after a moment.
"Some of it, not much though," he replied, eyes narrowing a bit and hands clenching around the blankets. "Say, at that time, was Shinichi-niichan hurt?"
"It was just a cut, nothing to worry about," his mother tried to reassure him, yet accomplishing on making him frown, instead. "You can't donate blood if you're injured, however. We were lucky that Ran-chan had the same type of blood than Shin-chan and could give some to you."
He blinked at that. Ran-neechan did?
Yusaku smirked. "Be sure to thank her properly later, alright?" he told him.
Conan could only nod.
The Kudo couple left not long thereafter, deciding to fly back to America before the media would notice them missing and make a fuss about it.
Like so, ten days passed by in a flash.
A/N:
Dy: Thank you for pointing out that mistake! I actually read again that part and I don't know what was wrong with me but I had several grammatical errors in that short scene, lol.
Yose Hyuann: She probably will, eventually. Not even I am that evil XD
AnimeFan2003: I will, don't worry ;)