(no subject)
Title: have ever, have never
Fandom: Detective Conan
Summary: the human memory is a funny thing.
Characters: (mostly) Ran.
Length: somewhere around 1,300 words
Rating: PG-13+ for disturbing imageries
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When Ran was eight, there was this terrible accident. Yes, an accident, that was how they put it. Her teacher Tomoe-sensei came to class trembling and ghostly pale, and she couldn't get the words out for the span of five long breaths but her classmates, too busy finishing their assignments, didn't pay attention. There was an accident, Tomoe-sensei said. Her voice was thin and strained. Your parents will come to pick you up, she said. In the meantime, wait. Her classmates didn't hear the word accident. They heard class dismissed and their face lit up at the promise of freedom. Ran noticed because she's been taught to be perceptive, to listen to the flap of butterflies and the different shades of decaying paint and the hollow spaces beneath spoken words. She couldn't remember who taught her these things. Her father? It must have been her father. Who else?
-
What they called an accident was this body laying limp on the snow-covered courtyard. She wasn't supposed to see it because she was eight year-old and eight year-olds were supposed to learn about anatomy and skulls in illustrated textbooks but not in real life, never in real life. She didn't see much because the body was covered by a yellow tarp, but she knew it wasn't an accident accident. Not a hit-and-run, because there were no tire tracks, only marks that looked like the bottom soles of boys' sneakers, five pairs of footprints with long, frantic gaps. They weren't walking. They were running. Panicked. Wanted to mug the boy, she thought, thinking they coud intimidate this scrawny junior who looked as if he could have been knocked down by a strong gust of wind. Then, then something wrong must have happened. Pushing, pulling, spitting, an accidental flare of temper which came to an abrupt stop. A staccato in the middle of a frantic number.
-
She didn't know the boy. She couldn't even remember his face. She felt sorry for the parents, though. It must have been heartbreaking. That night Ran's father hugged her a little tighter, a little longer, and she was still mad about his cheating and drinking too much, but she hugged him back. She was a sweet, obedient little child then. Something must have gone wrong, after. An accident.
-
Eight years later she sat at the counsellor's office, the coldness of the ice a sharp pain against her split lip and bleeding knuckles. Ran couldn't stand the woman's solemn eyes, the hopeful light getting dimmer with every visit she made.
You do know there's something wrong with you, right? Tanaka-san said. Or maybe she didn't, and Ran just imagined hearing it because it was a question she expected to hear. No one would ask. They tiptoed around her, whispered, hid things. She found newspaper clippings in her father's office (boy found dead, possible ties to bullying incidents in local elementary school) and overheard long phone conversations between her parents (look, I know a good therapist, just let me- / She's fine, she'll be fine) and sometimes she could almost hear them holding their breath, waiting.
-
She had this nagging feeling that she'd missed something important.
-
"Mouri Ran? You're Mouri Ran, right? No, wait!"
There was this reporter. Some first-timer, barely out of college, all bouncy giddiness and transparent glee at the prospect of a good story. For some reason, that story was her.
Ran balled her fists instinctively and the guy stepped backward, held up his hands in a motion of surrender.
"I've been hearing amazing stories about you. The girl vigilante who tracked down bullies and made them pay. And for some reason the school's treating you like a problem child! That's not right, that's not right at all." He was aiming for charming and sympathetic but landed somewhere close to slick opportunist. She wanted to bash his head in but the hallway was packed with students, she just earned the headmaster's good graces after winning the regional martial arts championship, and her father had promised nice dinner over the phone. She didn't want to ruin all that for some short-lived satisfaction.
"How about you tell the other side? High school student by day, hardcore vigilante at night? You're a babe, people would rally around you-"
"You have a handsome face," she said calmly. It was something he heard often, she could tell. Even so, he smirked. "Really?"
"Yeah. It'd be a damn shame if I had to break your nose."
He chased her all the way to the parking lot. "Shinichi Kudo," he shouted, "He was your best friend, right?"
-
In another world, maybe she could have been a proper vigilante. The kind of heroine who fought for truth and justice and all that is good. Sometimes she imagined what that girl's life must be like. She would have a childhood buddy or two. A stupid crush, maybe. She would still be into karate-that was too much in her genes to ever change. But she would never enjoy the sound of broken bones and too-late remorse, or experienced the kind of pitch-black rage that override her common sense. She wouldn't feel so much at home with senseless violence.
Inside her locker, she found a handwritten note. "Mouri-sempai, I hope you didn't get into too much trouble for what happened last week. The bastard's finally stopped bothering my sister, so thank you, thank you, thank you-"
-
Ran took care of a dog once, a cute pomenarian with one limp leg and waggy tail that belonged to her neighbor. She surprised everyone by correctly guessing that he came from a shelter. Conan reminded her of that little runt. He was the sweetest, most amusing kid, but there was something not quite right with him. It wasn't anything ominous and she didn't hate him because of his strangeness. If anything, it made her feel even more protective. She wasn't quite right too. They were kind of the same.
-
Her father didn't like it when she and Conan became close friends. Maybe he wanted her to make friends with people closer to her age. Maybe he knew that Conan couldn't stay with them forever. He never spoke to Conan unless she was present as well. Once, coming home from a week-long camping trip, she asked, half-jokingly, if he'd been feeding Conan while she was gone. He gave her an odd pained look, as if he didn't quite know how to answer the question. "'Course not," he said grumpily. "He just went to Agasa's. That brat's taste is too expensive for my wallet."
-
"You've been doing better," her third or fourth counsellor said. That little friend of yours must have been a good influence, eh?"
"Oh, Conan? I can bring him here! You'd love him."
Ran thought she caught a flicker of sadness beneath the cool, placid smile. "Maybe next time."
-
And then there were those moments.
Conan would hem and haw, shifting his weight from foot to foot and addressing her in a ridiculous caricature of a proper adult voice, and she guessed it was about wanting to pee or an extra bottle of orange juice, but then: he'd look at her as if he was someone she knew, someone she needed to remember. And she'd hold her breath and waited until he did something totally childlike and goofy, or someone nearby would just drop dead, or her father would sneeze loudly, and the moment would disappear.
-
Is she going to be okay?
She's eight, and she just saw her best friend die. Of course she's not okay.
x
A/N:
An alternate universe where Conan was a figment of Ran's imagination-a composite shadow of the best friend she couldn't bear remembering.