"Kudo-keibu." Someone from his division approached his desk. "Shoko-san, one of the witnesses from yesterday's case has arrived to give her statement."

"Alright. I'll be there in a minute." He replied as he wrapped the things he did before he took some important papers for the swimming pool case with him to a meeting room.

This was Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, 1st division of the criminal investigation– the day after the incident in the pool.

The weather today was superlatively hot somehow.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Shoko-san." Shinichi said to the girl who sat in front of him across the meeting table. "I'll now begin with the questioning about yesterday's case in the pool."

The girl nodded. Her eyes were puffy from crying too much for her dear best friend who became the victim of the murder case. What saddened her more was the fact that it was one of their friends who planned it– the one who scolded the other girl for not stopping the victim from going to the slide.

It was just an act though.

She knew the victim wanted to ride the slide so badly, so she used this chance to make the murder look like an accident by swapping the content of the medicine box with the victim's sleeping prescription. Due to that, the victim was in the state of lacking her consciousness and she ended up falling head first to the slide.

Her bleeding nails proved how hard she struggled to fight with the gravity along with the five-meter curvy route– it helped severing the impact on her skull, causing the grievous concussion which led to her death.

There was actually a high probability that the victim would fall asleep before she went to the slide for the umpteenth time yesterday. That was why the murderer had prepared some other plans too aside from this.

And it was all because of a one-sided romantic jealousy.

It took roughly an hour for the case to be solved. Of course it was Shinichi who unfold its truth, with the help from Ai in identifying the pill. Every detail she gave him about the medicine was greatly supported later on by the lab results from the forensic team.

There was no doubt she was indeed a first-class biochemist.

"This would be all, Shoko-san." Shinichi ended the meeting once he received the signed documents.

He raised up from his seat to escort the girl out from the room.

"Please do justice for my deceased best friend, Tantei-san." She began to cry again as she walked to the door. Anger and sadness were mixed in her words.

Crap. How many tear glands did she have?

She had been giving out her tears several times during the questioning, yet she could still shed it once again now.

Shinichi was bemused by her sudden weep. This was one of the reasons why he hated doing an after case report; because he had to see people's emotions exploded before his eyes. Crying was included.

He then noticed the girl took some closer steps to where he stood, so he instinctively backed away. What was she trying to do now?

"Err, Shoko-san…" He tried to call her consciousness. She was getting too close to him now while there was no more room for him to withdraw.

"I don't care for anything else as long as that murderer was sentenced with absolute punishments!" She grabbed his shirt abruptly and cried out loud into his chest.

He was as hard as a statue now, both his hands were awkwardly staying still on the sides. He was always weak against crying women. They made him lose all his rationalities and senses which in the end, intercepted some nerves in his brain because whatever he did, he would only make the cry worse. In other words, he just didn't know what to do in this kind of situation.

His mind began shouting some garbled words or even curses.

Truth be told, someone opened the door to the meeting room from outside as if God listened to his illogical wishes. Shinichi was startled but he couldn't move; the girl was still clinging on to his shirt so tightly. He looked toward the entrance to see it was Miwako. She needed to use a meeting room but didn't notice someone was occupying this one until she entered it. She forgot there was something called a small window of her height beside the door to peek in first.

"Oops, sorry." She apologized with such a cheeky smile on her face, and was going to retreat to search for another empty meeting room.

What was that with her half-witted apology? The corner of his mouth was twitching in irritation.

"Ah! Wait, Takagi-san!" Shinichi hastily stopped her from going upon realizing this was his only chance to get out from this state. "Actually I'm done using this room, so go ahead and use it."

His speech was gradually slowed down and he almost said the last part in a whisper when his pair of dark blue orbs finally fell onto her blue evil ones.

He was surprised to see her here.

She was just right behind the female inspector, standing in between the door frame, followed by the detective boys and Yuuto who were still queuing outside. Right, they were all here to give their witness statements for yesterday's incident.

Uh-oh.

"Never knew you are allowed to give a fan service when you're on duty, Tantei-san." Ai smirked.

Shinichi swallowed hard hearing her remark.

He knew clearly that she was enraged with something. Something vicious that he would never dare to discover but he had to because he was the one who was responsible for making her like that.

Everyone on Earth called it jealousy.

If it wasn't his fault, he was unsure for what other reason she had for pointing out his nickname so coldly with that beautiful voice of hers. Also, her eyes. He saw her blue eyes turned so dark the instant their gazes met.

So, the tension between them had intensified to the highest level of grimness.

Out of everyone in the room, it was only him and her who could decipher that cryptic message behind her tone. However, Miwako could sensed a black butterfly was roaming in the air. She didn't miss the perplexed look of the young detective toward the strawberry blonde too.

Ooh, what is this? She said to herself inaudibly. This would be interesting for her to watch, might as well use it to tease him eventually.

Shoko, on the other hand, was only blinking her teary eyes in confusion at the sudden change in the atmosphere. It seemed she hadn't realize the thing she had brought unto herself in this one roasting summer afternoon.

"I-I didn't…" He hardly tried to explain with flustered face, his eyes were still fixed on Ai's.

"I'm sorry for losing my mind, Tantei-san." Shoko said so sweetly to him as she released his shirt to get her handkerchief. Her face was blushing from sobbing too much. "And thank you for comforting me."

"Ah, that's…" He was the one who was losing his mind now because his wife had to hear all of these ambiguous nonsenses which were so full of misunderstanding.

How sly. Miwako said in her mind. She was irked by the girl's performance.

"Oh, look what I've done! I've ruined your shirt with my make up." The girl was innocently reaching out her hand to wipe his damp tainted shirt but was stopped midway by a voice.

"He has a spare shirt."

"Eh?" Shoko turned to see the owner of the voice.

"Police officers who work with blood and tricks will always have one or two spare of shirts with them." Ai explained as she threw her cold glare to her husband. "Since they also sweat a lot from running around and chasing down criminals. Right, Tantei-san?"

And Shinichi shuddered. Just listening to her called him with that nickname again using her perfectly overdominant tone was enough to send him shivers down his spine. Now her electrifying glare had added more to it.

The girl's head was back to look at Shinichi for his confirming reply. He returned it with a stifled smile.

"It's okay, Shoko-san. Just like what she said, I have a spare shirt in my locker." He tried to end this quickly before the world came to an end because of his wife.

The girl apologized for real, then she left after being convinced by her idol. She couldn't help but to admire the detective more than she had previously did after learning more about his line of work.

The detective boys and Yuuto didn't really knew what took their time to stand outside the meeting room. Their curiosity grew once they heard a girl with tear marks on her messed up face excused herself from them and headed to the lift.

"Isn't that the almost-falling nee-chan from yesterday?" Genta asked.

"She is. But why is she crying?" Ayumi replied.

"She has lost two of her best friends at once." Mitsuhiko said. "So of course she will cry, right?"

"Well, maybe." Yuuto doubted it was the whole case because he felt a fearful aura coming out from the doorway before the girl left. He wanted to ask someone what truly happened inside but was too afraid to do so.

"We'll be using this room then." Miwako sighed in amusement, breaking the abnormalities in the room.

"Alright." Shinichi was relieved that this awkwardness had been resolved, although he understood he would have another one coming later on– once he got home tonight that was.

He took a short second to glance at Ai before he walked out from the room. He needed to see how her mood was after this absurdity was handled. To his dread, it still tasted sour. She didn't even glance back at him when he walked past her, instead she averted her gaze from him on purpose.

Well, what more could he say? He owed her a lot of explanation after all.

As much as he wanted to drag her with him to somewhere private and explain to her about everything, he just couldn't do it since there were many eyes and ears in the building. Besides, everyone knew them as neighbors, and neighbors didn't explain about each others' private affairs too much, did they?

He then excused himself from everyone to change his shirt; he also had other things that needed his attention soon. Even so, he couldn't help but to ponder about this whole situation from the beginning.

He surely didn't see that coming from his wife, that she would be angered by romantic jealousy over a simple (yet problematic) thing such as that, just like any other normal girls. Moreover, she showed it so clearly on her face– or at least it was clear enough only for him to see.

But that icy harsh tone, that cold darkened glare, everything about the way she reacted was almost similar to the one she threw at him on the last time they spoke to each other eight years ago. At one side he believed Ai would never make hasty decisions based solely on her emotions, yet on the other it frightened him that this thing would make her leave him again.

While he was supposed to be enraptured by her overflown jealousy because it meant she cared for him greatly, he couldn't stop himself from getting terrified to the bone upon figuring out such a dumbstruck realization.

Shinichi leaned his forehead to his closed locker door after he changed into his clean spare shirt. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Somehow he felt half of his energy was drained just from thinking about his wife.

What should he do tonight to make her forgive him?

.

.

.

"Okay, everything is done." Miwako ended the interrogation. "It's nice to meet you all here again."

The sky was in a shade of clear blue and orange by the time the detective boys and Yuuto finished giving off their witness statements. It had been long since the last time the detective boys did this– it was the first for Yuuto– so they had been enthusiastically telling all the things they witnessed yesterday regarding the case, except for Ai.

She had been so quiet after Shinichi excused himself from the meeting room, only to speak when she was asked. She wasn't typically chatty either, however she didn't seem to be as lively as she always did. She was even much colder than the normal Ice Queen whom everyone saw at school.

"See you guys around." Miwako said for the last time as she sent the teenagers out in the lobby. They all replied with gratitude for allowing them to mingle in the office for a little bit afterward. Again, Ai didn't say anything; she was usually the most polite among them all.

"Ai-chan." Ayumi called her. She noticed how inattentive the strawberry blonde was, as if something else was preoccupying her head.

"Hey, Ai-chan." She was worried now, seeing her best friend looked more distressed by the seconds.

"Ai-chan!" She raised her voice in the end, startling the owner of the said name as well as the boys and Miwako. They all turned their attentions to the two girls.

Ai blinked several times to find Ayumi's face was so close to hers. She caught a glimpse of concern in those sweet eyes.

"Ah, sorry." Ai looked apologetic.

She had only realized her thought had wondered somewhere that she was in a daze for awhile. She even forgot the ticking time if she didn't see more pinkish orange than white clouds in the sky through the large panes of glass in the lobby.

"Sorry guys, but I need to get going to somewhere else to meet someone."

What a half white lie as usual while she was actually going to Eri's office to fetch Chiharu up. Of course it was because all of them, besides Ai, thought the baby girl was in the day care during office hours since Shinichi didn't have a summer break like they did.

Telling them she was doing an errand to take care of the baby for the whole holiday would be impossible too. As close as neighbors would, no one was thick-skinned enough to ask such a ridiculously troublesome request to the other neighbor, right?

"Why didn't you just cancel it?" Ayumi gave out her idea. "You look very pale."

"It's fine, Yoshida-san. The meeting shouldn't be long anyway." She declined.

Ayumi complied with a heavy heart. She knew her best friend was seriously looking unwell, yet she also knew when to stop pushing her concern further. She just didn't want to worsen her mood.

With that, Ai bid her goodbye and parted from the rest of them.

The detective boys innocently believed in her lies, albeit no one could beat Miwako's forte in analyzing peculiar situations and Yuuto's sensitive senses as the captain of the school's soccer team. Both of them were suspicious of the fake teenager's behaviors; something was wrong with her.

Perhaps the thing happened this afternoon was the cause?

The latter indeed didn't know anyone he could ask about it, but the female inspector knew where she would get her informations from– the 'close' neighbor of course.

.

.

.

The way to the Kisaki law firm was supposed to take a fifteen-minute walk, nonetheless it took her thirty. Her mind was back to being preoccupied again, slowing down her pace. She was only one corner away from the office building, waiting for the crossing light turned green when she saw her own face on the reflection of a store window display.

Just like what Ayumi observed, she was undeniably looking distressed. She didn't have much to say though, she was conflicting with her inner self about the unusual thing she noticed inside her heart. Ai had clearly known from the start what that thing was, however she had a lot of doubts about it. Like, how in the hell did she fall into a fit of jealous rage upon watching that fangirl flirted with him?

She felt totally nothing when she saw him saved that girl from falling yesterday, but she did feel vigilant now. Maybe the things she unwillingly had to hear the day before in front of the vending machine was influencing her mind.

That some girls might take their chances to throw themselves on her husband.

Despite all that, she still found it weird.

Ai knew herself so well that she was never be the overly jealous type of a woman (or girl). Even when she had to see his heart belonged to her ten years ago, she could still control her desire and repressed it. Heck, that previous old scenario was even more complicated than the one she was facing right now.

But somehow this time was different.

She believed Shinichi won't fall for those kinds of tricky foxes, yet she had to admit the fact that she had lost control of her poise for awhile there and was greatly outraged in her jealousy today.

Did she suppose to feel like this?

Was being in requited love could be this exasperating?

Ai sighed as she entered the office building and went to the designated floor of the law firm.

This uncontrollable emotion was totally new to her and worst of all, there wasn't anything scientific about all these while she was a scientist, goodness gracious. She had the feeling that she was definitely going to screw this.

Author's note: Okay, so I actually wanted to continue writing this chapter, turning it into the longest one in the history of this fic (haha). But I had to control myself so I won't bore you– the readers– from reading too long while this is a multi-chapped fic.

Anyway, although this was supposed to be a simple problem (like, who didn't get jealous when you saw someone of opposite sex were flirting with your spouses) and it wasn't as complex as when Shinichi was admitting his feeling for the strawberry blonde, but I imagined this would be too complicated for Ai to accept. This was her first time to feel a real consummated love after all, and it was way much different from all the love she got from her deceased sister and parents, her adoptive family, and the detective boys. Right?

Hope you like this chapter too. Do not forget to give your comments and reviews. Happy reading!

Disclaimer: All characters of Detective Conan are belong to Aoyama Gosho. I don't own any single of them.