Archive of Our Own ^beta

(Shadows settle on the place that you left)

She stares out from the window of the detective agency, the phone receiver dangling from the wire.

She gives no heed to it.

Her face crumples. She is crying.

There she will wait for a friend, for a lover, for a brother.

There she will wait forevermore.

-

A small figure slides down the glass of a telephone booth, heart full of sorrow, eyes full of regret.

There he will mourn what he had and what he has.

There, he will make her wait forevermore.

(Our minds are troubled by the emptiness)

He is sitting at an empty cafe.

He stares into an empty coffee cup. A frown settles on his face.

He sighs. 

He gets up again.

He’s tired of getting up again.

(Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time)

The brat is laying on the ground. Blood is pooling at the side of his head.

He scoffs.

‘What a waste of time.’

He called Vodka to leave, sparing a glance to the fallen detective.

‘You shouldn’t have gotten yourself involved, Kudo Shinichi.’

He thinks.

He turns around and makes his escape with his partner and doesn't look back, unaware of the storm his actions will bring.

But for now, the storm will simmer, Lain down in the dirt.

(From the perfect start to the finish line)

A man sits at his desk.

He is frowning.

There is a vial in his hand. A gun on the table.

The chaos is about to come for him.

Yells and screams silenced by gunshots.

His eyes glaze over, struck in memories of the past. When he was happy with his makeshift family. Before the ascension to head.

It has been many decades since then. The memories bring a bittersweet smile to his face. 

He will go out with a bang. Just like the rest of them did.

A thought passes through his head of the one responsible for the chaos slowly but surely approaching, Kudo Shinichi.

‘A smart boy’, he thinks. Smart enough to unravel everything he’s been taught to preserve.

He doesn’t know how to feel about that boy. He doesn’t have to.

He places the vial thrusted into his hands by an associate onto the mahogany oak desk.

The gunshots have ceased.

He picks up the gun instead.

(Setting fire to our insides for fun)

The lights are off when he opens the door and he thinks, ‘it seems like the brat isn’t staying up late to read his mystery novels today.’

He stares down at the punk in the futon, it’s too big for a child Conan’s the brat’s age with soft eyes, eyes only a father can have.

He snaps out of his daze.

His eyes glaze over, he sighs.

And he drinks

and drinks

and drinks.

He will wake up to his daughter yelling at him to cut down on his drinking unless he wants to drink himself into an early grave.

Doesn’t he?

He grumbles and helps her throw the trash away.

He drinks again a week later.

(Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong)

Haibara Ai is a scientist, not a love counselor.

She is a scientist. 

But she is also a good friend.

So when Kudo Shinichi comes knocking at her doorstep at half-past midnight after a necessary phone call, she lets him in.

-

He leaves the next morning.

She watches him go with a cup of tea in her hands, warming them up in the winter cold.

Her breaths fog the plane of the window as her mind wanders to her sister and her lover.

Her mind is shadowed with guilt.

She watches him walk out the frosted gate with a heavy heart.

(We are the reckless we are the wild youth.)

The strike of the pipe was the nail in the coffin.

He slumped down onto the grass, bleeding from a head wound and almost unconscious.

He wondered if this was karma for all the other times he risked his life like this.

But one thing is for sure, he will never forget them.

The storm swears.

And then he knows nothing more but pain .

(Chasing visions of our futures)

“This is it.”

He looks at the speaker, a seemingly 9 year old boy.

He nods.

No words are exchanged between the two.

He takes a breath and comes to gazes with Edogawa Conan, the boy who is never as he seems.

He smiles and lets no mask come to his face.

Purely Furuya Rei.

And steps out as Bourbon.

Amuro Tooru is no longer.

(One day we'll reveal the truth)

She takes a look at the kids she and him have practically brought up and lets a smile come to her face.

He stands beside her, slightly shorter due to a side effect. 

He is older now. 

He is older than he will ever seem.

-

The kids are no longer kids, and they have grown into their roles as detectives brilliantly.

They have been getting suspicious lately.

It's almost time for them to find out.

(That one will die before he gets there)

His lungs are burning.

Is he burning?

Is this how he’s going to go out? 

Like his dad?

-

Nothing was supposed to go wrong, it’s the typical heist held by the moonlight phantom.

Typical, if getting shot every now and again ever is.

It was supposed to be normal.

The crows got tired of waiting.

The heist went up in flames.

-

“KID!” small hands slap his face and tug at his clothing, muffled voice bringing a smile to his face even in this situation.

He thinks, ‘You came, thank you."  I don’t want to die.

He closes his eyes.

(And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones)

His breath comes out in quick gasps, his lungs feeling like lead, his throat feels like sandpaper, his eyes are wet.

He takes a deep breath and forces back the panic.

He leans the limp body of the showman on the wall, making sure not to disturb his injuries.

He searches for his phone and pulls it out. He dials, the red seeping into the ground by his feet.

“Furuya-san. Can you do me a favor?”

“Where are you.”

('Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone)

Kudo Shinichi is a name she hasn’t heard in a long time, 

She can barely remember him now.

Ran hasn’t heard from him since that last phone call. Unbidden, thoughts spring to her mind.

‘Is he finished with his case yet?’

‘Does he remember her?’

‘Is he free yet?’

She shakes her head to banish them and walks past the produce section in the supermarket, a small hand clutched in hers.

(We're setting fire to our insides for fun)

He doesn’t question him when Kudo asks to go get a drink.

He doesn’t question him when he drinks shot after shot after shot.

He doesn't question why he does the same.

He jokes that this should be his first taste of alcohol since he became an actual adult.

Kudo bites back that he’s the one responsible for the first time he drank that Chinese wine.

He laughs.

He’s about to take a shot but stops when he sees Kudo bang his head onto the table and asks, “Is this what we should be doing?”

Muffled words reply.

He laughs drunkenly.

‘No, it's not.’ They both think.

He looks at the grown up Edogawa Conan and sighs. 

(Collecting pictures from a flood that wrecked our home)

Kaito sneaks into the base as quietly as he can. He’s only supposed to be doing some recon to find out if this is the storage facility that has the APTX 4869 test solutions needed by the little miss for the meitantei.

And who else to go but the smartest and best thief in Japan!

He sneaks into the guards uniform and takes a peek at the patrol schedule in his pocket. 

‘Easy as stealing from Nakamori-Keibu’ He chuckles to himself in his head.

He turns a corner and slips into the storage room thought to be where the test solutions are, Kid smile threatening to overwhelm the face he currently has on.

“Now, let’s find that box.”

He’s looking for any box with the name Miyano Shiho on it but his eyes catch onto a box with the name Miyano Akemi and he surges forward to grab it.

“Hm. Miyano…. Wouldn’t this be the Little miss’s sister?” He wonders aloud.

He contemplates opening it and retrieving something for miss scary scientist and opens the box, not really expecting anything. He grins.

-

“Really, I would think he knows better by now than to leave packages like he does the things he steals” She says, intending to give that stupid thief a scolding later.

She opens the box and almost drops the mug of tea she has in her hands.

Her eyes glisten with tears she won't let fall.

She gives a sad smile, picks up the photograph and sets it down onto her desk; a permanent fixture now.

A door clicks close as Conan walks into the room with a cup of coffee in his hands looking like death warmed over. 

He yawns as she turns to look at him with an unimpressed expression on her face.

She shakes her head and sits down at her desk chair, turning her back to him.

She hides her smile from the unexpected gift and says, “Tell your thief that he needs to stop placing the things we ask him to get like the jewels he steals. And…. thank you.”

Conan startles and almost chokes on his coffee, “Huh? For what-” His sentence is cut short as he spots the photograph that wasn’t there before on her desk. 

He smiles.

“Got it.”

The silence is a comfortable one.

(It was a flood that wrecked this home, 

And you caused it.)

He listens to the muffled crying coming from Ran’s room. The sound echoes loudly in the empty apartment.

He takes in a shuddering breath and steels himself, putting a wide smile on his face before opening the door.

“Shinichi?”

His smile dims just the slightest bit before Ran shakes her head in grief and pulls him to her chest, the sight of his similarity too much to bear.

He relaxes in her arms, playing the role he’d given himself and lets his big sister cry on his shoulder.

-

He’s half asleep when the door to the room he shares with the old man opens and the smell of alcohol drifts in, footsteps following.

Unlike normal, they stop just by his head. Silence for a few minutes as Shinichi contemplates saying something to signal that he’s awake when Kogoro starts, “You look so much like that other detective brat you know? Don’t break her heart like he did hers. 

Don’t break my heart like he did hers.”

Neither acknowledge the tears dripping onto the futon.

(And you caused it)

The door slams as the detective brat walks out the door, another case stolen by him.

He grumbles and yells and complains but lets him in the door when he comes back anyway.

They settle around their routine, Ran in the middle of both their worlds, their scathing words to hide their growing fondness of each other as they eat.

Bickering fills the detective agency till the moon is high in the night sky.

-

When the call comes he is the one who takes the call, not drunk for once.

He remembers clearly the tired voice that came through the receiver, asking for a Mouri Ran.

He remembers calling for her and catching her when she falls to the ground, her hands and body shaking with grief.

He strains to hear what she’s muttering to herself and when he does, his world cracks as a small piece of his heart breaks as he listens to what his daughter tells him.

The receiver dangles from the cord.

( And you caused it)

He stares at the elementary school bag by the wall, at the papers of scattered homework on the dining table mixed in with childish drawings from school, at the small voice calling his friends on that mobile phone of his, at every inch of the apartment-agency with the signs of life of three people instead of two and wonders when the smaller brat became such a vital part of his everyday life.

He puffs out a cloud of smoke as the brat yells at him to open up a window like another detective brat before ignoring him until he did it himself and hiding a small smile all the while.

-

He remembers the brat in the corner of the room with a shadowed face, eyes full of despair before he pushes past his own grief and joins the hug and wrapping his small arms around the both of them as they fell apart.

His own eyes stinging from unshed tears.

-

That night the agency was the quietest it’d ever been and if he struggled to get out of bed after his alarm rang the morning after - his hair a mess and eyes puffy- no one knew.

He loses the battle and picks up a drink at noon. 

(Well, I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette

I'm a lifeless face that you'll soon forget)

The door to the agency opens as another case comes in and they are asked to investigate, the usual routine commences. 

They don’t mention the day before.

As they walk out the door a wind breezes through an open window and they see Kudo Shinichi instead of Edogawa Conan as he walks out the door, nose filled with the scent of expensive Sakura flowers.

Kogoro shakes his head, the motion filled with wistfulness. 

They walk out the door without Ran.

(My eyes are damp from the words you left)

The sound of the door closing is a welcome relief to the emptiness in her chest as she lies curled up in her bed, the pillow underneath her head damp from sweat and tears.

Her eyes are dull and thoughts are racing a mile a minute.

She hasn’t told anyone else yet.

Sonoko, Sera, Megure-keibu, his parents.

Oh my god, his parents.

Her face crumples as a fresh wave of grief rolls over her.

She doesn’t get the courage to come out until later.

Much later.

(Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest)

The idea comes to his mind suddenly, the danger too high for them to be involved anymore.

His mind wars with it, tugging it and analysing from every angle.

He goes to Haibara, he goes to Hattori.

He makes his decision.

-

The call comes suddenly, Ran falling to the floor as Kogoro tries to support her.

He stands in the corner, with the knowledge that this is what his sin is.

He has to protect them.

But Isn't this hurting them?

He takes a step towards the duo, legs as heavy as lead.

(And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one

'Cause most of us are bitter over someone

Setting fire to our insides for fun

To distract our hearts from ever missing them

But I'm forever missing him)

And you caused it.