Why Can't You Kiss Me NOW? (Detective Conan, Heiji/Kazuha, #8)
Title: Why Can't You Kiss Me NOW?
Author: fireblazie
Pairing: Heiji/Kazuha
Fandom: Detective Conan
Theme: #8 - our own world
Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan. I just like messing with the characters. xD
Kazuha had had it up to here with today.
Why? Because today, today, today, today, officially, royally, absolutely, completely, freaking, sucked.
She figured that she should have paid more attention to the omens that the gods seemed to be raining down on her that day. But she didn't. No, no, like any ignorant person out there, she chose to ignore it, and this, this was why she was so screwed.
First was when her English teacher decided to give them a pop quiz on the wonders of prepositional and adverb phrases. Kazuha had flunked. Oh, she had flunked.
(And what did Heiji get? Oh, of course the brilliant genius detective scored one-hundred-percent. Kazuha felt like shoving his katana up his - )
Ahem.
Then came gym. Usually, Kazuha didn't mind gym; she was pretty good at it, with all of her aikido training and all. But then the stupid gym teacher decided to bring out the frisbees. (What the hell? Were they dogs?)
And so she was kneeling down to pick up a frisbee she'd failed to catch. Natural. Everybody was missing frisbees all over the place. Frisbees were flying, everywhere. Anyway. So she was kneeling down, then she was standing up.
It happened, literally, in the blink of an eye.
She blinked.
And..
Wham.
She had just - oh, god. She had not just been - She had not, she had not -
She had.
She had just been smacked, right in the eye, by a flying frisbee.
She tried to open her eye. It wouldn't budge. The girl who'd thrown the said frisbee had bounded over to her - Kazuha narrowed her eyes dangerously at her - and was now apologizing profusely. She still couldn't open her eye. It felt like her eyelid had just grown to about the size of her fist.
Oh, bloody hell.
-.-
"You could've avoided it, couldn't you? You've been taking aikido for god knows how long. Martial arts reflexes and all."
Kazuha glared.
As best as she could with one eye, anyway.
Heiji smirked and leaned against the wall. She was lying down on the bed - highly uncomfortable, by the way - in the nurse's office. She pretended to glower heatedly at him while secretly admiring how good he looked. She mentally slapped herself for that.
"If that had been you, you wouldn't have been able to avoid it, either," she retorted.
"I beg to differ," he said, sniffing. "I've avoided arrows, bullets, knives.."
"Don't remind me," she muttered, and maybe she was seeing things, but she thought she saw his eyes actually soften, just a little bit. She shook her head, telling herself inwardly that it wasn't wise to trust what she saw when she was currently only seeing out of one eye.
"But," he said, and a different sort of emotion seeped into his voice at this point, "you are okay, aren't you?"
Kazuha sighed. "I'll live."
Crud. Why was he moving closer? He was supposed to leave, go off to class and leave her in the nurse's office to wallow in her misery.
And he kept coming closer and closer.
Crap.
"But you're not looking too good," he observed, hovering mere inches above her face. Kazuha prayed to the heavens that she wasn't blushing. "And you can't even open your eyes. You're not fine at all, aho."
Kazuha scowled at him. There went the romantic atmosphere - gah! What romantic atmosphere? This idiot would blow it sky high before it even reached romantic..
"It looks pretty bad.." And his voice got softer and softer, and his hands were on her cheek, brushing gently, gently, gently, against the swollen bruise. Funny, for some reason when he touched it, it felt better..
Kazuha wrinkled her nose at the thought.
And - good god, she was blushing. She could feel it.
Go away, go away, go away, her mind chanted.
Stay, stay, stay, her heart pleaded.
His fingers lingered against her flushed skin. She stopped breathing. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest.
The bell rang.
"I'll see you later," he said, after the ringing had subsided. "I'll walk you home."
"Ah - ah, yeah." She did not just stutter. He waved at her absentmindedly before disappearing out the door. Kazuha pulled the red fleece blanket up to her chin, hoping to the heavens that her face wasn't as red as the blanket.
-.-
By the end of the day, she was able to open her eye, even if just a little bit. It was odd, seeing the world clearly in one eye, yet seeing it hazily, blurrily, through the other. She rolled out of bed, walking slowly and running her hand along the walls to establish her sense of balance.
"Crud," she muttered, as her vision clouded and she grasped at something in the air to keep herself steady.
She nearly jumped out of her skin - along with shrieking a few well-chosen adjectives - when that something wrapped around her wrist.
And fell backwards upon seeing stormy green eyes.
"Sh -" She was cut off when strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her to a standing position. Her breath came out in ragged gasps as her face pressed against somebody's shoulder. The scent of cinnamon hung in the air. She didn't want this moment to end. She wanted - she wanted to stay like this, forever..
Her body reacted on its own. She found herself pushing back from him, looking up. His eyes were angry, thunderous.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
She started. What emotion was that in his voice?
"You can barely see!" His voice was loud, echoing throughout the room. "You could've - you could've gotten hurt, you could've fallen, you could've broken something -"
"I'm not blind," she tried to snap, but he was seriously angry with her this time, and she couldn't do anything about it.
"And what then? Were you planning on leaving without even telling me? What would've happened if you'd tripped and fallen onto the road?!"
"Heiji -"
"No! You could have gotten hurt!"
And there was something in his eyes..
Could it be?
She smiled at him, a small, faint one. She reached out and rested her hand on his shoulder.
"I get it," she said, softly. "I won't do anything like that ever again. Okay?"
He blinked down at her and seemed to realize that he'd just ranted for the better part of the last five minutes. He cleared his throat and looked away. "...fine."
She smiled again and linked her arm through his. "Overprotective dork."
"Clumsy idiot."
-.-
They were walking home, Kazuha's right eye only partially open. How hard had that girl thrown that frisbee anyway? For crying out loud...
Plus... they were walking a little bit closer than usual. His hand brushed hers, his shoulder rubbed against hers. She could smell his scent. It was driving her crazy.
And back - back at the nurse's office. He had seriously, truly been worried about her. She could see it in his eyes. He'd really, really cared, and she wasn't sure what that meant. If it meant anything at all..
She wished she could make sense of it all.
Or take a large, heavy, blunt hammer, and whack him senseless.
Either one would do, really.
"Dammit!" She heard him exclaim violently, and then before she knew what was happening, he'd grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her away from the road, pushing her against the side of a wall, breathing heavily. Her head was tucked underneath his chin, and she felt - she felt so - so safe, so protected...
"That stupid car," she heard him mumble angrily, along with a few other choice words. He wasn't letting go of her.
Did she want him to let go?
"Are you okay?" He wasn't looking at her. He was staring at the wall, still pressing her against it, shielding her from the rest of the world.
She swallowed. "Y - yeah."
-.-
She could see her house in the distance. Instinctively, subconsciously, she found herself slowing down her pace. He was walking right beside her, eyes focused straight ahead. She couldn't help but notice that... well, he was kind of close to her. Closer than usual, anyway.
The streets were empty, lit by lightposts on the sidewalk. It was quiet. He wasn't saying anything, and she didn't know what to say to fill in the silence.
Her mouth opened. "My house is over there."
"I know."
God. There was something in his voice. Something, something... but she didn't know what it was.
They were drawing nearer now. She could see the front steps. The neatly trimmed grass. The azaleas. The lights were off. She knew they would be. Her father was at work, of course. He always was, always coming home late at night. But she didn't hate him for it. She understood - and she was used to it.
But tonight..
Tonight, she didn't want to come home to an empty house.
She didn't want to eat dinner out of a can.
She didn't want to be alone.
"I don't want to go home." The words fell out of her.
He stopped. "What?"
The right thing to do, her mind rambled on at this point, would have been to deny ever having said anything. To have just kept walking straight home, bid him goodnight, and close the door behind her.
Her mouth didn't listen.
"I don't want to go home," she repeated, softer this time. "I - I don't want to - it's empty and dark, and there's nobody there; my dad won't get home until later, and -" She cut herself off sharply and shook her head. She cursed at herself.
"Then," he said, voice equally soft, hands ghosting around her shoulders, as if uncertain whether he should hold her or not, and what was worse was that Kazuha wanted him to hold her... She pushed these thoughts out of her head as he continued, still gazing into her eyes, "you don't have to."
-.-
She sat down on the couch, listening to his mother talking on the phone, letting her father know that she was sleeping over. Her eye was still swollen - Heiji's mother had expressed horror and compassion, and even handed her a large ice pack, which Kazuha was currently pressing onto her injured eye.
How had things turned out this way?
"Don't even try to think about it," she muttered, "you'll just end up with a headache."
"Don't strain yourself now," Heiji said, amiably, sitting down next to her. "All that thinking."
She stuck her tongue out at him and removed the ice pack from her eye. "How does it look?"
She found herself gulping audibly as he moved closer, eyes gazing directly into hers. Her heart pounded, thud, thud, thud. "It kind of looks like... you're wearing purple eyeshadow."
Kazuha blinked, incredulous. "...what?"
He shrugged. "It's true. Your eyelid's bruised, so it's purple, and it looks like you're wearing eyeshadow.."
"You're kidding."
He rose from the couch and held out his hand. Kazuha stared at it for awhile. What did he want?
"Come on," he said, impatiently.
"What?"
"I'm going to prove it to you." He jerked his hand towards her. "C'mon, in the bathroom."
Everything was so absurd. But she found herself reaching for his hand, watching as his fingers tangled through hers and as he pulled her up easily. He didn't let go of her hand, not even when they'd reached the bathroom. He turned on the light, and Kazuha peered at her reflection.
"It does look like eyeshadow!" She turned her head to the side. "Oh, it looks bad, though, doesn't it.."
He pulled on her arm, and as she turned, he cupped her cheek in his left hand. "Kind of," he observed, fingertips hovering over her cheek, sending her pulse racing, her stomach hurling. "But it's a lot better than this morning." Relief crossed his voice at this point. "This morning, it was huge, and you couldn't even open your eye..." His voice dropped an octave. "I was worried."
Oh.
Oh, oh, oh.
He did not have the right to say things like that. He did not have the right to take her completely off guard and - and - and pull off crap like that, and make her want to - make her want to kiss him senseless, and -
Good god. Why was he so close? Why did he always come closer when all she wanted to do was run off the face of the earth, just to get away from him, to get away from these conflicting feelings in her heart?
Then he moved away. The air was cold where he once was. "I'll get you some more ice," he murmured. "You're running out."
Kazuha stood there, stunned. What had - what had just -
She sighed and followed after him, turning the light off behind her. That was when she heard him mumbling to himself, words that didn't make any sense, words that she almost didn't hear.
"I can't," he was saying. "Not now. Not now. Not - not ever. Dammit, don't be stupid.."
Kazuha furrowed her brow. What?
"...she can't even see.."
Kazuha was about this close to smacking him over the head. What couldn't she see? Her eye might have been really really swollen at the moment, but she wasn't, by any means, blind..
She ran after him and yanked at his arm, violently. He yelped and accidentally let out a few words he probably hadn't meant to. Upon seeing that it was her, he sighed exasperatedly.
"What's wrong with you?" she beat him to the punch. "You're all - you're all mumbling to yourself - and I don't get a single word you're saying -"
His arm snaked around her waist. Her breath caught in her throat. "Because," he said, "you -"
Kazuha froze.
He closed his eyes suddenly and turned away, his fingers brushing against her shirt, her skin, as he did so.
Kazuha twitched.
He was absolutely, positively, not going to just walk away from her for the third time in a row. Not after the crappy, sucky day she'd just had at school. Oh, no.
"Hattori Heiji!" She found that using his full name had more of an effect. "I swear to god, if you don't march over here and kiss me now, I'll punch your brains out!"
Heiji blinked.
Kazuha glowered, absolutely fuming.
And then he crossed the room, pulled her possessively, almost harshly, against him, and claimed her lips with his. Kazuha melted in his arms.
"Happy now?" he asked, smirking.
Kazuha smiled, his arms locked around her, keeping the two of them in their own world, apart from everyone else. "Very."
- fin -
Author: fireblazie
Pairing: Heiji/Kazuha
Fandom: Detective Conan
Theme: #8 - our own world
Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan. I just like messing with the characters. xD
Kazuha had had it up to here with today.
Why? Because today, today, today, today, officially, royally, absolutely, completely, freaking, sucked.
She figured that she should have paid more attention to the omens that the gods seemed to be raining down on her that day. But she didn't. No, no, like any ignorant person out there, she chose to ignore it, and this, this was why she was so screwed.
First was when her English teacher decided to give them a pop quiz on the wonders of prepositional and adverb phrases. Kazuha had flunked. Oh, she had flunked.
(And what did Heiji get? Oh, of course the brilliant genius detective scored one-hundred-percent. Kazuha felt like shoving his katana up his - )
Ahem.
Then came gym. Usually, Kazuha didn't mind gym; she was pretty good at it, with all of her aikido training and all. But then the stupid gym teacher decided to bring out the frisbees. (What the hell? Were they dogs?)
And so she was kneeling down to pick up a frisbee she'd failed to catch. Natural. Everybody was missing frisbees all over the place. Frisbees were flying, everywhere. Anyway. So she was kneeling down, then she was standing up.
It happened, literally, in the blink of an eye.
She blinked.
And..
Wham.
She had just - oh, god. She had not just been - She had not, she had not -
She had.
She had just been smacked, right in the eye, by a flying frisbee.
She tried to open her eye. It wouldn't budge. The girl who'd thrown the said frisbee had bounded over to her - Kazuha narrowed her eyes dangerously at her - and was now apologizing profusely. She still couldn't open her eye. It felt like her eyelid had just grown to about the size of her fist.
Oh, bloody hell.
-.-
"You could've avoided it, couldn't you? You've been taking aikido for god knows how long. Martial arts reflexes and all."
Kazuha glared.
As best as she could with one eye, anyway.
Heiji smirked and leaned against the wall. She was lying down on the bed - highly uncomfortable, by the way - in the nurse's office. She pretended to glower heatedly at him while secretly admiring how good he looked. She mentally slapped herself for that.
"If that had been you, you wouldn't have been able to avoid it, either," she retorted.
"I beg to differ," he said, sniffing. "I've avoided arrows, bullets, knives.."
"Don't remind me," she muttered, and maybe she was seeing things, but she thought she saw his eyes actually soften, just a little bit. She shook her head, telling herself inwardly that it wasn't wise to trust what she saw when she was currently only seeing out of one eye.
"But," he said, and a different sort of emotion seeped into his voice at this point, "you are okay, aren't you?"
Kazuha sighed. "I'll live."
Crud. Why was he moving closer? He was supposed to leave, go off to class and leave her in the nurse's office to wallow in her misery.
And he kept coming closer and closer.
Crap.
"But you're not looking too good," he observed, hovering mere inches above her face. Kazuha prayed to the heavens that she wasn't blushing. "And you can't even open your eyes. You're not fine at all, aho."
Kazuha scowled at him. There went the romantic atmosphere - gah! What romantic atmosphere? This idiot would blow it sky high before it even reached romantic..
"It looks pretty bad.." And his voice got softer and softer, and his hands were on her cheek, brushing gently, gently, gently, against the swollen bruise. Funny, for some reason when he touched it, it felt better..
Kazuha wrinkled her nose at the thought.
And - good god, she was blushing. She could feel it.
Go away, go away, go away, her mind chanted.
Stay, stay, stay, her heart pleaded.
His fingers lingered against her flushed skin. She stopped breathing. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest.
The bell rang.
"I'll see you later," he said, after the ringing had subsided. "I'll walk you home."
"Ah - ah, yeah." She did not just stutter. He waved at her absentmindedly before disappearing out the door. Kazuha pulled the red fleece blanket up to her chin, hoping to the heavens that her face wasn't as red as the blanket.
-.-
By the end of the day, she was able to open her eye, even if just a little bit. It was odd, seeing the world clearly in one eye, yet seeing it hazily, blurrily, through the other. She rolled out of bed, walking slowly and running her hand along the walls to establish her sense of balance.
"Crud," she muttered, as her vision clouded and she grasped at something in the air to keep herself steady.
She nearly jumped out of her skin - along with shrieking a few well-chosen adjectives - when that something wrapped around her wrist.
And fell backwards upon seeing stormy green eyes.
"Sh -" She was cut off when strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her to a standing position. Her breath came out in ragged gasps as her face pressed against somebody's shoulder. The scent of cinnamon hung in the air. She didn't want this moment to end. She wanted - she wanted to stay like this, forever..
Her body reacted on its own. She found herself pushing back from him, looking up. His eyes were angry, thunderous.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
She started. What emotion was that in his voice?
"You can barely see!" His voice was loud, echoing throughout the room. "You could've - you could've gotten hurt, you could've fallen, you could've broken something -"
"I'm not blind," she tried to snap, but he was seriously angry with her this time, and she couldn't do anything about it.
"And what then? Were you planning on leaving without even telling me? What would've happened if you'd tripped and fallen onto the road?!"
"Heiji -"
"No! You could have gotten hurt!"
And there was something in his eyes..
Could it be?
She smiled at him, a small, faint one. She reached out and rested her hand on his shoulder.
"I get it," she said, softly. "I won't do anything like that ever again. Okay?"
He blinked down at her and seemed to realize that he'd just ranted for the better part of the last five minutes. He cleared his throat and looked away. "...fine."
She smiled again and linked her arm through his. "Overprotective dork."
"Clumsy idiot."
-.-
They were walking home, Kazuha's right eye only partially open. How hard had that girl thrown that frisbee anyway? For crying out loud...
Plus... they were walking a little bit closer than usual. His hand brushed hers, his shoulder rubbed against hers. She could smell his scent. It was driving her crazy.
And back - back at the nurse's office. He had seriously, truly been worried about her. She could see it in his eyes. He'd really, really cared, and she wasn't sure what that meant. If it meant anything at all..
She wished she could make sense of it all.
Or take a large, heavy, blunt hammer, and whack him senseless.
Either one would do, really.
"Dammit!" She heard him exclaim violently, and then before she knew what was happening, he'd grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her away from the road, pushing her against the side of a wall, breathing heavily. Her head was tucked underneath his chin, and she felt - she felt so - so safe, so protected...
"That stupid car," she heard him mumble angrily, along with a few other choice words. He wasn't letting go of her.
Did she want him to let go?
"Are you okay?" He wasn't looking at her. He was staring at the wall, still pressing her against it, shielding her from the rest of the world.
She swallowed. "Y - yeah."
-.-
She could see her house in the distance. Instinctively, subconsciously, she found herself slowing down her pace. He was walking right beside her, eyes focused straight ahead. She couldn't help but notice that... well, he was kind of close to her. Closer than usual, anyway.
The streets were empty, lit by lightposts on the sidewalk. It was quiet. He wasn't saying anything, and she didn't know what to say to fill in the silence.
Her mouth opened. "My house is over there."
"I know."
God. There was something in his voice. Something, something... but she didn't know what it was.
They were drawing nearer now. She could see the front steps. The neatly trimmed grass. The azaleas. The lights were off. She knew they would be. Her father was at work, of course. He always was, always coming home late at night. But she didn't hate him for it. She understood - and she was used to it.
But tonight..
Tonight, she didn't want to come home to an empty house.
She didn't want to eat dinner out of a can.
She didn't want to be alone.
"I don't want to go home." The words fell out of her.
He stopped. "What?"
The right thing to do, her mind rambled on at this point, would have been to deny ever having said anything. To have just kept walking straight home, bid him goodnight, and close the door behind her.
Her mouth didn't listen.
"I don't want to go home," she repeated, softer this time. "I - I don't want to - it's empty and dark, and there's nobody there; my dad won't get home until later, and -" She cut herself off sharply and shook her head. She cursed at herself.
"Then," he said, voice equally soft, hands ghosting around her shoulders, as if uncertain whether he should hold her or not, and what was worse was that Kazuha wanted him to hold her... She pushed these thoughts out of her head as he continued, still gazing into her eyes, "you don't have to."
-.-
She sat down on the couch, listening to his mother talking on the phone, letting her father know that she was sleeping over. Her eye was still swollen - Heiji's mother had expressed horror and compassion, and even handed her a large ice pack, which Kazuha was currently pressing onto her injured eye.
How had things turned out this way?
"Don't even try to think about it," she muttered, "you'll just end up with a headache."
"Don't strain yourself now," Heiji said, amiably, sitting down next to her. "All that thinking."
She stuck her tongue out at him and removed the ice pack from her eye. "How does it look?"
She found herself gulping audibly as he moved closer, eyes gazing directly into hers. Her heart pounded, thud, thud, thud. "It kind of looks like... you're wearing purple eyeshadow."
Kazuha blinked, incredulous. "...what?"
He shrugged. "It's true. Your eyelid's bruised, so it's purple, and it looks like you're wearing eyeshadow.."
"You're kidding."
He rose from the couch and held out his hand. Kazuha stared at it for awhile. What did he want?
"Come on," he said, impatiently.
"What?"
"I'm going to prove it to you." He jerked his hand towards her. "C'mon, in the bathroom."
Everything was so absurd. But she found herself reaching for his hand, watching as his fingers tangled through hers and as he pulled her up easily. He didn't let go of her hand, not even when they'd reached the bathroom. He turned on the light, and Kazuha peered at her reflection.
"It does look like eyeshadow!" She turned her head to the side. "Oh, it looks bad, though, doesn't it.."
He pulled on her arm, and as she turned, he cupped her cheek in his left hand. "Kind of," he observed, fingertips hovering over her cheek, sending her pulse racing, her stomach hurling. "But it's a lot better than this morning." Relief crossed his voice at this point. "This morning, it was huge, and you couldn't even open your eye..." His voice dropped an octave. "I was worried."
Oh.
Oh, oh, oh.
He did not have the right to say things like that. He did not have the right to take her completely off guard and - and - and pull off crap like that, and make her want to - make her want to kiss him senseless, and -
Good god. Why was he so close? Why did he always come closer when all she wanted to do was run off the face of the earth, just to get away from him, to get away from these conflicting feelings in her heart?
Then he moved away. The air was cold where he once was. "I'll get you some more ice," he murmured. "You're running out."
Kazuha stood there, stunned. What had - what had just -
She sighed and followed after him, turning the light off behind her. That was when she heard him mumbling to himself, words that didn't make any sense, words that she almost didn't hear.
"I can't," he was saying. "Not now. Not now. Not - not ever. Dammit, don't be stupid.."
Kazuha furrowed her brow. What?
"...she can't even see.."
Kazuha was about this close to smacking him over the head. What couldn't she see? Her eye might have been really really swollen at the moment, but she wasn't, by any means, blind..
She ran after him and yanked at his arm, violently. He yelped and accidentally let out a few words he probably hadn't meant to. Upon seeing that it was her, he sighed exasperatedly.
"What's wrong with you?" she beat him to the punch. "You're all - you're all mumbling to yourself - and I don't get a single word you're saying -"
His arm snaked around her waist. Her breath caught in her throat. "Because," he said, "you -"
Kazuha froze.
He closed his eyes suddenly and turned away, his fingers brushing against her shirt, her skin, as he did so.
Kazuha twitched.
He was absolutely, positively, not going to just walk away from her for the third time in a row. Not after the crappy, sucky day she'd just had at school. Oh, no.
"Hattori Heiji!" She found that using his full name had more of an effect. "I swear to god, if you don't march over here and kiss me now, I'll punch your brains out!"
Heiji blinked.
Kazuha glowered, absolutely fuming.
And then he crossed the room, pulled her possessively, almost harshly, against him, and claimed her lips with his. Kazuha melted in his arms.
"Happy now?" he asked, smirking.
Kazuha smiled, his arms locked around her, keeping the two of them in their own world, apart from everyone else. "Very."
- fin -