"Job well done as always, Kudo-kun." The now chief inspector Shiratori said, patting Shinichi's back as he walked pass him at the vending machine. He stopped by the other machine beside him and pressed a button after choosing the drink.

"Thanks." Shinichi replied before he popped his own canned coffee open. They were just ending the closed meeting about a serial rape-murder case awhile ago thanks to his help. "But something is still odd."

The hanging last statement intrigued Shiratori's senses like it was something that was worth some ears. He knew full well that Shinichi was always so sharp when it came to cases. With that, the two of them started discussing further about the homicide case while taking their small break.

"How is your wife doing, Shiratori-san?" The young detective asked once the discussion stopped at a dead end. And since they were taking a break, so he might as well ask about his former one-of-a-kind elementary teacher. Talking about this surely brought back some nice memories of the adventures when he was living his two years as Conan.

"She's as cheerful as always, but she has been busy recently with the sixth graders." Shiratori chuckled. "You know, it's almost that time of the year again– the entrance exams."

"The entrance exams, huh?" Shinichi was somehow entranced by the words.

It suddenly reminded him that Ai was supposed to join this year's national exams too. But unlike any other normal students, she didn't have to worry about her score, of course. Seeing how she was so great with chemistry, he could guess she would take something around science or math courses in the university.

She would have it easy for sure, or so he thought.

"Can I ask you for help, Shinichi?" Agasa suddenly gave him a call over the phone on one fine late afternoon. His perturbed voice sounded terrible. "It's about Ai-kun."

Shinichi was agitated once he heard his wife's name although he tried to remain calm. It had been so long since the last time the Professor talked to him with this kind of cowered tone. It only meant there was something seriously wrong with Ai.

"What is it, Professor?" He put all his work aside, leaving his desk for a more private area in the office.

"Well, you see. Her homeroom teacher called me just now. She notified me that Ai-kun hasn't submitted her written future plan form required by the school." Agasa explained with so much concern. "It seems she has some troubles deciding for her career. She keeps quiet about it though, even when the teacher asked her during a private after-school lecturing session few weeks ago."

Shinichi's memory instantly jogged down to the conversation he was having with her that evening. It was true Ai told him that she had a one-on-one session with her homeroom teacher, but she didn't mention anything else after that.

So it was actually about this? He deduced.

"And you want me to talk to her, do you?" The detective got the idea immediately without further explanation from Agasa.

"Yes!" The old professor replied. "There will also be a parent-teacher conference next month and I am asking you attend it on behalf of me. Will you do it, please?"

"What?" Shinichi was a bit agitated. He could never be more speechless than now.

Really, what did the Professor think when he asked him to go to Ai's school as her guardian? Not to say, it was to attend a meeting that would probably be talking about her career plan. Didn't he realize that she was– in reality– a year older than him? She could've chosen it on her own– she just needed more time, maybe.

Nonetheless, Agasa insisted it wasn't the case and that was why he asked Shinichi for help with this.

"Truthfully, I could have just gone there. But she doesn't say anything to me about this meeting at all." Agasa sighed. "Perhaps, she doesn't want me to worry over this. So wouldn't it be awkward for her if I were to appear so suddenly at her school?"

"Well, true." Shinichi groaned. Knowing how melancholic she could get sometimes, it was likely for her to keep things to herself while trying to be strong by holding everything up behind her face. On those times, it was only him who could make her open up although she would surely be displeased once he intruded the line. "Fine, I'll go on your behalf."

He sighed as he hang up the phone call after bidding his goodbye to Agasa. He almost used up all his yearly leaves, damn it. While he was planning to spend it on Ai and Chiharu, guess, he wouldn't have anymore left for Christmas this year.

What was she doing anyway? She should've had this easy, shouldn't she? This wasn't her first time going through this thing after all, so why did she hesitate?

Shinichi ruffled his hair, bewildered by a lot of questions that were piling up inside his head. It always worried him whenever she hid something from him. He better try to talk to her seriously about this as soon as tonight.

Gosh, she never failed to harass his thoughts, did she?

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"Daddaa! Daddaa! Look!" Chiharu came running to her dad once she heard the front door opened. She was wearing an over-sized apron while carrying a long wooden spatula from the kitchen. She almost trip herself if it wasn't for Shinichi who caught her just in time.

"Woah! Be careful there." He said as he helped the little girl steadied herself. It was the first thing he said when he entered his house instead of his usual 'I'm home'. Even so, all his fatigues from work were all gone in a split second upon seeing his daughter's laughing face.

"Wait, Chii!" Ai briskly appeared from the kitchen. She was running after the little girl. Her face was flushed and she seemed to be out of breath, as if she had been having fun playing with Chiharu before he came in. But being mischievous as she was, the little girl ran out of the kitchen, making her worried that she would trip over the apron.

She was relieved to find her husband succeeded in stopping Chiharu from running. Too bad, she didn't notice the wooden spatula on the floor. So she accidentally stepped on it, causing her to lose her balance and slip forward. She shut her eyes, readied herself to crash onto anything in front of her. It surprised her though, when she landed on something soft instead– she was caught in Shinichi's arms.

"What a great way to greet your husband." He teasingly remarked.

"Heh, the same goes for you. What a nice catch." She returned it with another remark; both of them chuckled.

Since his arms were already there, he used this chance to tighten his hug around her and pecked her chastely on the lips. She smiled, returning his embrace by curling her arms around his neck.

Now, how could he bring up the serious discussion when she looked this happy? He just didn't want to ruin her mood, yet on a side note, he had promised the Professor who was also literally his father-in-law to help him with that matter.

But again, maybe it could wait until much later.

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"What were you two playing before I came home?" Shinichi asked as he walked to the fridge to get himself a can of cold beer. "It looked fun."

He had only gotten out of the bath a minute earlier. His towel was still loosely covering his wet hair and some water droplets fell from the edge of his bangs.

The apron that was worn by Chiharu was now on Ai, all together with the wooden spatula. The baby girl was giving them up after Shinichi stopped her from falling. She went to play with some potatoes afterward while watching her mom cook dinner from the kitchen island.

"She was only trying to mimic what I did, so she snatched the spatula and asked me to put my apron on her." Ai told him with a smile, recalling the image of the cute Chiharu just now. "See, she is playing with the potatoes now because she saw me cut some for dinner."

Shinichi chuckled as his eyes followed to where Ai's forefinger was pointing at.

"Daddaa! Daddaa!" Chiharu called him from her seat.

"What is it, Chii?" He complied, walking nearer to her.

"Aaa…" She opened her mouth while extending a handful of potato toward her dad. She was gesturing him to open his mouth too.

Confused by what his daughter wanted him to do, he turned to Ai. His look was throwing her a silent question of what he was suppose to do with the brown vegetable. The strawberry blonde stifled a laugh, which slightly embarrassed the detective for asking her help upon something so simple.

"She is pretending to be a chef or something like that, and she is telling you to eat it." She finally explained.

"Heh, she surely is growing up, isn't she?" He said in amusement while turning himself back to Chiharu. Pretending to eat the potato, he then earned some satisfying giggles from the little girl.

"Of course she is." Ai replied plainly before announcing that dinner was ready.

Shinichi brought Chiharu to her baby chair, then he seated himself on the chair across Ai. He saw her serve the baby girl some foods on her plastic plate which she dug in at once. Just until a few months ago her baby muscles were still clumsy and untrained when holding the cutleries, but she could eat on her own now. He couldn't deny that his adoptive daughter was surely growing up. This reminded him that they should be ready for enrolling the girl to a pre-school this coming spring as well.

"Then what about you, Ai?" He asked unwittingly although he hurriedly held his tongue back right away. Screw him for slipping such words out of his mouth during the short moment of discussing Chiharu's growth.

On the other hand, Ai could only blink her eyes at him, stunned, while wordlessly protesting his ambiguous question. Sensing he couldn't get away with this, Shinichi coughed lightly as he gathered his mental state to utter a question that might enrage his wife a bit.

"You're a third year now, so I guess you have some plans in mind about what you're going to do next after you graduated. Right?" His voice was almost inaudible by the time he finished the question. Strangely, he was getting intimidated by her blank stare.

"Was it the Professor who asked you to ask this to me?" She scorned.

"Well…" He replied with a half-smile. His eyes were trying to avoid her stern gaze but they failed.

"I was right then." Ai softened her eyes, however, and sighed as if she had already known beforehand that her adoptive dad would ask for his help to talk to her about this problem.

"Was I too obvious?"

"No, I just guessed it right." She assured him. "I have this intuition that the homeroom teacher would inform my guardians about this. And knowing how considerate the Professor is toward my feelings, he would ask you to ask me instead."

Shinichi smiled dryly. She was totally correct on that.

"So, what will your answer to the question be?" He went straight for the main point since she knew his intention already.

"I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders lightly. "Becoming a full-time housewife, perhaps?"

Shinichi choked on his beer upon hearing her reply, disbelieving his ears. Watching at his response, she somehow felt annoyed.

"Is me becoming a housewife that bad?" She lowered her head, trying to cover her expression with her bangs.

"N-No." He tried to explain in between his coughs. "It's just… I just find it hard to imagine you doing repetitive monotonous schedules everyday."

"So you're saying some other people are doing better at that, but not me, huh?"

Shinichi shivered at her cold harsh tone. It seemed her mood was going deeper than the ocean now. Was there something wrong with the thing he said?

"W-Wait, I didn't mean it like that–"

"I think I'll turn in for the night now." She didn't let him finish his sentence. She put down her chopstick a bit too forcefully before she stood up. "Can you clean this up by yourself later? Just tell me when Chii is done with her food."

Shinichi didn't give her any reply; he felt stupefied. The room was filled only with Chiharu's chomping sound and Ai's footsteps that were fading away as she went upstairs to her room. She didn't even touch much of her food yet.

He slumped backward to the chair, staring at the high ceiling of the room while trying to recall where he had gone wrong. He realized nothing.

Shit, when was the last time their discussion turned into a fight? Right, it was eight years ago. Nonetheless, this and that were two different things. While the former was something worth a fight, this one didn't even the slightest. He better did something about it if he wanted his sanctuary to last.

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Ai curled herself on her bed. Her head down to her toes were covered with the blanket. She was trying to remember what happened some minutes ago and why the hell she got mad at him.

It wasn't like he said something wrong either, yet she felt disgruntled by his opinion on her. This was so out of her character– to be mad for unspecified reason was never her thing at all.

Perhaps she was too stressed out thinking of the decision to make about her future plan and the pressure she felt from everyone was killing her mind. Or maybe she was too self-focused when she heard him comment on her choice. Either way, she realized she had misinterpreted his words. After all, he had never even once said that she was never a good wife, hadn't he?

What a fool. She cursed herself.

Ai closed her eyes as exhaustion overcame her mind. Why would their first argument after they were married was all only due to a simple thing? It wasn't worth anything the least. She better mended it before it was too late.

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She was woken up in shock to find it was already past Chiharu's bedtime. While she was so sure she didn't hear any knockings on her door, perhaps she missed it when she fell asleep. At that, she hurriedly got out of her bed to check on things with the detective.

Opening the door to her room, she was greatly surprised to find Shinichi standing right in front of her. He too, was showing the same expression as her. His raised fist was telling her that he was going to knock on the wooden barrier.

For a moment, both of them were staring at each other with wide eyes and in silence until Shinichi broke it first.

"Um, I'm here to tell you that Chii has fallen asleep in her own room some minutes ago." He said nervously, bringing his unused fist to scratch the back of his neck instead.

"Hm, okay." The strawberry blonde nodded in reply before they fell into a pause once again. No one moved, and no one dared to fixate their gazes toward the other.

"Ai, I–" Again, he was the first one to break it, unable to stand the unsettled atmosphere in between them.

"I'm sorry." Ai said the words, preceding his apology. "I don't know what came to me to be that mad at you while you only tried to help me."

He turned speechless as he kept listening to her say. Deep down at the back of his mind, he was very much relieved that they were going to resolve this worthless argument sooner than he thought.

"And I couldn't disagree with your criticism more. In fact, it creeps me out whenever I imagine myself getting tangled in a tedious routine as a housewife." She told him, still avoiding his eye contact. Her left hand started to twiddle around her right arm, and the boring plain floor somehow had became a more interesting view than the man in front of her. "But I'm just too desperate about all this future plan stuffs."

Shinichi smiled. At last, she was telling him things. Removing his hand from his nape to caress the top of her head, he finally captured her eyes once again. A light tint was forming itself on her cheeks, feeling the big hand she had been holding onto every time she went astray. Such a simple gesture from him and some assuring words, and she was cleared up from all her muddy thoughts.

She never knew that sharing her brimming problem to someone she trusted could feel this good, especially when that someone was her partner– her husband.

"It's okay to get lost sometimes. I'm sure you'll find the way out in no time." He grinned. "And one more thing."

He left the last sentence hanging as he bent forward until his lips almost touched her right ear.

"You can lean on to me more, you know." He whispered just right then before he straightened his back and smiled smugly at her face.

She immediately brought her hand to cover the spot he just breathed in to, leaving it hot and red. The tint on her cheeks turned in to a deeper shade of blush as she cursed inaudibly at his annoying complacent look. He could've just said the thing straight to her face without the need to whisper it to her ear, yet he chose to tease her by blowing some hot breaths to her sensitive spot.

What a great way to lighten her head up.

Despite that, perhaps he would be the first person she would say her thanks to once she had made up her mind about her future career decision. And the Professor too, for helping her from behind the scene.

Author's Note: Even the best understanding partners would fight sometime, right? But they made up in the end and that was the most important thing in a relationship, I guess (haha).

And as always, please give me 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.