Detective Conan: Dichotomy
1.Speak
Conan has gotten so used to using the voice modulator that he almost doesn’t notice it, almost forgets, until he hears his real voice-Shinichi’s voice-coming from it.
2.Touch
Conan is so accustomed to touch now-Ran’s impulsive hugs, Ayumi dragging him by the hand from one end of Beika to the other, Hattori’s rough and overly physical brand of affection, even Kogoro’s frankly predictable violence-that he doesn’t even notice it until he spends a full day without any physical contact whatsoever and ends up huddled in a corner of his room and shaking.
3.Memory
Shinichi’s skills are inviolate, but his memories are now unreliable; memory says that he doesn’t need help to solve a case anymore, but reality disagrees.
4.Vanilla
Ai once compared him to vanilla ice cream-its flavor goes with everything, but it’s never completely masked.
5.Chocolate
Conan retaliated by comparing her to chocolate-bitter and off-putting on its own, but positively coveted once it’s been sweetened; the comparisons were far from perfect, but it still made them both smile.
6.Ways and Means
Conan stares uncomprehendingly at the social worker who’s telling Ayumi’s parents about how she needs help to deal with what she’s seen; where, he can’t help but wonder, was this woman ten years ago when Shinichi and Ran first saw far too much, far too young?
7.Belief
Shinichi has always believed in himself-and why not, when he’d never been handed any conclusive evidence of his own consistent unreliability-but belief in others of the same magnitude is something Conan had never expected to find.
8.Linger
Shinichi never notices the smell of a crime scene unless he needs it to tell him something; he only realizes he’s taken it with him later, when he meets up with Ran and sees the look on her face when she gets close enough to catch the scent.
9.Illuminance
Conan’s not looking for the light at the end of the tunnel; just a bigger stick with which to beat back the darkness.
10.Ornament
As a detective, he takes little, insignificant things and turns them into traps; as a victim, he takes little, insignificant things and turns them into weapons.
11.Coup de foudre*
Conan has heard of Kaitou Kid-who hasn’t, with his…distinctive style?-but meeting him, speaking to him, seeing a true rival in him for the first time in Conan’s life still hit him like a lightning bolt out of a clear sky.
12.Archway
There’s one point in an arch which, if removed, will cause the whole structure to crumble; it bothers Conan that he can no longer say with any certainty who cannot be removed from the structure of his life.
13.Fate
Shinichi has little patience for people who insist on blaming fate or destiny or their circumstances for their crimes; as far as he’s concerned, your fate is made up of the choices you make every day, and you have no one to blame for it but yourself.
14.Pulse
Sometimes, late at night when the moon is too bright and the bed far too big, Conan sits in the window and listens to the beat of his heart; as long as I have this, he thinks, I haven’t reached the end.
15.Envelope
He doesn’t really think they’d send scores of hitmen to spray the Mouri Detective Agency with bullets-his enemies may be a bit subtlety-challenged at times, but that doesn’t seem their style-so it’s usually the little things that make him jump: a strange smell in the hallway, a person out on the street walking a different dog than yesterday or an envelope with unfamiliar writing placed neatly in the middle of the kitchen table.
16.Cold
Shinichi tries not to get angry-not just frustrated or annoyed, but truly angry-when he’s on a case, but on the rare occasions that he does, it’s startlingly effective; the anger flows like ice through his veins, blotting out distractions and freezing everything but the truth.
17.Need
Need and perception are dangerous things in Shinichi’s eyes; he’s no longer surprised to follow a mystery only to find them at the end.
18.Drunk
Conan takes vindictive pleasure in telling people-perfectly innocently, of course-all about how Hattori was the first person to get him drunk.
19.Mask
Everything Shinichi knows about disguise, he learned from Conan; everything Conan knew about disguise, he learned the hard way.
20.Rose
The scent of roses never held good memories for Shinichi-a funeral here, a serial killer there, etc., etc.-until the first time he breathed in the scent while looking at Ran’s smiling face.
21.Two
Afterwards, it takes a long time for Shinichi to resign himself to the fact that Ran may not ever look at him without a flash of surprise, like she expected to see someone else standing in his place.
22.Fresh
The first time Shinichi realized that he loved Ran like that was a greater revelation than the solution to any of his mysteries; he’d known her his entire life, but he suddenly felt like he was looking at an entirely different person.
23.Bribe
There are few things Shinichi hates more than the very existence of bribes; the thought of denying the truth and subverting justice for money fills him with disgust every time it crosses his mind.
24.Error
I always knew something like this would be my last mistake, Shinichi thought as the pain of that first change overtook him and his world went black.
25.Appetite
Shinichi eats like a commuter fills up on gas; fortunately, Ran is well aware of this and makes sure to let him know the difference between eating with her and taking her out to eat.
26.Refrain
It’s a refrain, a catchphrase, even a joke to a select few, but to Shinichi, it’s an unshakeable, unquestionable tenet: there is only one truth.
27.Family
Edogawa Conan’s family was never supposed to be anything more than a carefully constructed lie, but somehow it all became real while his back was turned.
28.Grieve
Conan taught the Shonen Tantei about investigation, about questioning everything, about seeing what is hidden, about self-reliance, and with his leaving, he taught them about grief.
29.Vapor
The sight of his body changing, shrinking, vaporizing is one that haunts Shinichi in his dreams, even years after he no longer has to worry about it happening again.
30.Tea
Shinichi’s done some strange things in his lifetime, but drinking tea with Kaitou Kid on the rooftop of a bookstore while the Task Force frantically searches for them in the museum across the street has got to be one of the strangest.
31.Medicine
They say they’re looking for a cure, like “Conan” and “Ai” are a disease to be purged, but there is only one truth and Conan can only stay blind to it for so long.
32.Moth
Shinichi could have been anyone, gone anywhere-he didn’t have to become Edogawa Conan, didn’t have to inflict himself on Kogoro and vice versa; just like always, Ran drew him in like a moth to a flame.
33.Perfect
Shinichi’s been called perfect, an unbeaten detective; the label’s never felt as heavy as it does now that regaining his life depends on proving it true.
34.Rope
Shinichi never reached the end of his rope, so Conan’s learning how to reach out for the very first time.
35.Wind
Conan feels the wind tear at him as he races through town on his skateboard, bares his teeth in a savage grin and thinks, I will not be caught so easily.
36.Crossroads
The crossroads of Shinichi’s life had come, not in a theme park or under a bridge, but in a study, backed up against a bookshelf and forced to choose between a lie and the truth; the frightening part is, he can’t say he’d have chosen any differently even if he’d know where it would lead him.
37.Summer
Cases are particularly difficult for Conan to solve during the summer-not because they’re more difficult than at any other time of the year, but because everyone seems so much more determined to get him to “go out and play like a normal kid.”
38.Candy
Hattori says Conan has a candy addiction; Conan archly informs him that addiction implies dependence, and if he doesn’t turn over the Skittles right damn now, he’s going to get a soccer ball somewhere very unpleasant.
39.Photograph
Shinichi hates every single photograph Ran drags Conan into for the reminder of everything he isn’t, anymore; he guards them jealously for the reminder of everything he’s fighting to get back.
40.Spoon
As a joke, Kogoro once gave Conan a baby spoon-the kind with the rubberized safety coating-which somehow found its way into the pen cup on Kogoro’s desk just as he was reaching for a pen to take down a particularly attractive female client’s contact information.
41.Forest
Shinichi may not ever remember his birthday, but he always knows when Valentine’s Day is coming up from the increasing number of muttered comments from Ran containing the words “forest” and “trees.”
42.Mirror
Breaking a mirror is a warning sign, which is why Conan will never do it.
43.Smoke
In his more depressed moments, Conan thinks that his life is going up in smoke without him; in his more unguarded moments, he thinks that maybe it’s just his illusions.
44.Shine
Conan can be intelligent and precocious, but he can never openly test his limits as he did as Shinichi-he can never truly shine, ever again.
45.Balloon
Shinichi never actually plotted to harm any of his teachers, no matter how much he disliked them; Conan nearly broke the streak when an otherwise innocent science demonstration gave Genta the idea that, if he could just get enough helium, he could make Conan fly away.
46.Vine
After one particularly traumatizing case, Conan takes to throwing popcorn at the screen every time he sees someone climb up a wall using a clinging vine in a movie; those things are not as sturdy as they look.
47.Butterfly
Conan has never had an attachment to butterflies beyond the information gained from watching them; since the change he’s very nearly hated them, because their great, irreversible change is a step forward and these days it feels like the only steps he takes are backwards.
48.Gloves
There’s a moment of perfect stillness at the beginning of every investigation-time slows and the mystery settles into his mind like a truth that awaits only his discovery-then the gloves come off and the hunt begins.
49.Venom
At one time, Shinichi had a mild fascination with venomous animals; these days, Conan has had rather enough of poisons, and the two-legged animals that employ them.
50.Remain
There will always be a Kudo Shinichi, and there will always be an Edogawa Conan; no matter what name he’s using or what body he’s wearing when he passes from this earth, there will be records, images, traces left behind-someone or something, somewhere, will remember them both.