DISCLAIMER: Detective Conan is the respective creation and property of Gosho Aoyama.

AUTHOR: Melpomene-the-Tragic-Parody

MAIN CHARACTERS: Conan Edogawa, Ayumi Yoshida

CHAPTER: #7

TITLE: Under the Weather

~D.C~

In times like these, Ayumi regretted not packing her umbrella before she left the house.

She also wished that the Detective Boys had bothered to listen to Detective Sato this time around when it came to their latest case based on the pursuit of a suspect behind a bank robbery. Admittedly, they had bitten off more than they could chew and the consequences had been heart-stopping. Because of a few unintentional errors, Mitsuhiko and Genta were both in the hospital; Mitsuhiko had a severe concussion and a broken arm, and Genta had been shot in the leg.

Enduring the lecture from Inspector Megure had not been pleasant, and more from their parents were certainly on the way. The Detective Boys had blushed their way to the pointed of mistaken fevers.

Until that moment, it was a reminder that, though their deductive reasoning skills had improved greatly over the years, they still had much to learn, and taking on cases without Haibara or Conan had been too risky, depending on the situation. Professor Agasa and Haibara had gone out of town for a science convention and Conan had been out on an investigation with Detective Chiba.

But when he found out what had happened from Detective Sato, he came straight to the hospital without hesitation, having been closer than Mitsuhiko's or Genta's parents.

If Inspector Megure's and Detective Sato's disapproval hadn't hurt them enough, Conan's certainly did the job.

When they were kids, there would be occasions where he really did yell at them in frustration, but over the years, he developed something else. All he had to do was walk into the room, examine their faces, stare them dead in the eye, and then turn away as if he couldn't look at them anymore.

Nothing was worse than his disappointment. It was more than getting into trouble. It was like being a failure.

Ayumi remembered sitting in the chair next to Mitsuhiko, trying her best not to cry. Conan never raised his voice at them, but they could hear it. His tone was cold as an icy lake above which suppressed disbelief, worry, anger, and disappointment settled. With his hands clasped behind his back, he stared out of the hospital room window and just listened what Inspector Megure had to say on what they did.

It didn't help that he solved the entire case from just hearing the details and staring out of the window.

After understanding all the facts, and narrowing down the suspects, he found five possible locations that the culprits could be. Talk about an insult to injury. An hour later, the culprits were apprehended and the case was closed. Then again, his skill now surpassed that of the Sleeping Kogoro. The press had nicknamed him the next Detective of the East.

He hadn't spoken again until the police had left.

"What were you thinking?" Conan turned, his sharp blue eyes gleaming dangerously behind his glasses. "All of you? Were you trying to prove you were smarter than me? That your reasons were efficient enough without validity?"

The Detective Boys remained silent, which finally ticked him off.

"Answer me!" Conan snapped, his voice louder than it had been the entire time he had been there. Genta, Mitsuhiko, and Ayumi flinched. "How many times must I tell all of you that crimes and cases aren't games?! You're not little children anymore! You find more trouble than me! And I live with the Sleeping Kogoro!"

"We only wanted to help!" Genta said angrily. "And we knew who the culprits were—"

"Then why didn't you inform Megure-keibu?" Conan demanded. "Don't you think that would have been the wiser decision? You wouldn't be in the hospital if you'd done that! They had guns!"

"We haven't forgotten," Mitsuhiko grumbled. He had been grazed by a bullet or two. "Y got into plenty of trouble, too!"

Conan whipped around, his glasses flashing dangerously.

"That's because I was always trying to keep you lot out of trouble!" he snapped, so loudly that the doctors and nurses in the hallways outside were startled. The Detective Boy's flinched in surprise. Conan never yelled at them anymore. "Everything with you was either a treasure hunt or a case that was too much for you to handle on your own! And both had the potential to get you killed! I spent more time running after you than your parents!"

"But—"

"No! I'm not listening to an excuse this time!" Conan said firmly. "The Detective Boys is a high school club! Not a police department! Not a private investigation company! You are just children!"

Ayumi glared at Conan through tear-filled eyed. "You're our age! You're no different!" she snapped back at him.

"I know my limits," Conan countered. "And I work for the police department, in case you've forgotten! I'm supposed to work on cases!" He finally lowered his voice. "All of you are clever enough to solve riddles and puzzles. But that doesn't give you the right to take enforcing the law into your own hands! Haven't you considered what would happen if your injuries were worse, or if you had died?"

"Megure-keibu already gave us a lecture," Genta said, frowning.

"And it'll fall on deaf ears, no doubt," Conan grumbled to himself.

Conan had no time to say anything else as Genta's and Mitsuhiko's parents rushed into the room with the doctor. Ayumi took a chance to dart out of the room as it filled with the outraged and panicked voices of worried parents and hurried down the hallway. Not that she was being a coward, but if they were here, then her mother would have been informed by the police of what happened by now, and if she wasn't home immediately, she might never have a chance to leave the house ever again.

So that was how Ayumi ended up walking home alone.

She clutched her hands to her elbows, trying not to cry as she walked. Conan hadn't yelled at them in months. Not like this. She had never heard such pain and fury in his voice before, not when he and Heiji Hattori had gone up against the culprits who had shot both himself and Kazuha Toyama a year ago, or when he walked in on someone trying to drown Ai seven months ago. For a sixteen-year-old, his rage frightened Ayumi more than her mother's, or even Inspector Megure

The fact that she was in love with him made the pain worse because she knew there was heartache at the source of all his problems, and he refused to explain what it was.

When it started to rain, she thought it couldn't get any worse.

But the wind blew sleet and soon she was soaked to the bone and freezing cold. The sensible thing to do was find shelter, like everyone else without an umbrella, but Ayumi was just too stubborn. Instead, she walked to the park and without further ado, she took a seat on one of the benches and started to cry. She couldn't help it.

She'd been scolded three times in two hours, ran through gunfire, and exhausted most of her energy trying to save Mitsuhiko after he was grazed by bullets and concussed after falling down a flight of stairs. Then she had to calm Genta when he was actually shot. Not to mention that incessant hormones added to her stress levels.

The tears mixed with the raindrops as she wrung her hands together. Her fingers were numb and her eyes were blurry. Thunder cracked somewhere in the distance. She was sure she'd get ill after all of it, but she didn't care. She didn't even know how long she'd been sitting there until a shadow came over her and the rain stopped falling on her head.

"What—?" Ayumi gazed up through her tear-filled eyes to see a tall, thin figure hovering over her with an umbrella in his hand. "C-Conan-kun?"

She brushed the tears away and stared. It really was him, standing over her like a dark angel with disapproval written all over his face. Something hollowed out in her stomach.

"Ayumi-chan, what are you doing out in the rain?" he asked. In spite of his expression, his voice was gentle. "You'll get sick."

"I don't care," she sniffled.

She half-expected him to grasp her under the arm and drag her out of the rain, not to sit down next to her, still holding the umbrella over her head. Rain fell on his back and pants, but his head remained dry.

"Tell me what's wrong, Ayumi," Conan said. He didn't even bother with an honorific.

"You!" Ayumi said. Conan tensed in surprise. "Conan-kun, you forget that we're not that different from you! Why is it you are allowed to do police work, solve crimes, and deal with criminals, but the Detective Boys aren't?"

Conan looked away. "It's complicated."

"Complicated? Conan-kun, I can handle what you have to say!"

"It's different, Ayumi," Conan said. "It's a matter of responsibility. Megure-keibu trusts me to handle the situation without matters getting out of hand, and accepts that my reasonings are—"

"Conan-kun," Ayumi said. "When it comes to solving cases, we look up to you. Whenever Mouri-san tells you to stay away, you don't listen. Just how different are we?"

Conan fell silent. In the harsh downpour, it didn't matter.

"That was years ago," he finally said. "Oji-san doesn't have a say anymore because the Sleeping Kogoro is finished and whatever gift he had is gone. The department looks to me now, since the death of Kudo Shinichi. I don't solve crimes for fun or pride. I solve them because they need to be solved and because it's all I need to do. It's the only life I've really known. I graduated ahead of you with an immediate spot in Megure-keibu's unit.

"You, Genta, and Mitsuhiko, you still have options, even if detective work is what you really want to do. You still have school, your families, and your lives to live… I know what I'm risking, doing what I do. The three of you can't continue to take the same risks."

Ayumi stared at Conan's expression. Something about it had aged ten years. His sharp blue eyes were weary as a man who had seen too much and could never forget.

"Ayumi, I've always admired that resilience you all have," he continued. "Actually, I envy it. Because I don't doubt that you'll all get into some trouble again because you always want to do the right thing."

"But isn't that good?" Ayumi insisted. "You were the one who inspired us to uphold what is good and honorable. To not bow in the face of corruption or wickedness, but to fight for justice! Why do you want us to stop?"

"Because it's not your responsibility!" Conan closed his eyes behind his fogging glasses. "Can't you see that? What happened today… it could have gone a completely different direction." The pain in his eyes was unmistakable. "What if it had been worse? I almost didn't hear Sato-san when she told me what happened."

The umbrella tilted in his hand. Instinctively, Ayumi wrapped her hands around the handle. Her heart hammered when she realized he was trembling.

"Just for a moment, I didn't know if I'd see you all in the hospital beds or a morgue," he said, his voice falling to hush as the rain began to lighten. "I already lived through that and I would rather die than see any of you in coffins like…" Her name was unspoken but they both heard it. "I've already lost enough. I can't lose you guys, too. I need you to understand that."

Something in Ayumi's heart broke.

There was no lie on Conan's face. He meant every word he said. Years ago, he fell into such a depression that Ayumi wondered if he would ever be the same again. He'd lost his parents. Shinichi Kudo and Ran had died alongside Kaitou Kid, a young man with his secrets untold. Whatever had happened that year, the Conan she knew now was more mature and fiercer than before, but he was also broken, and he hated to show it.

Too much baggage, he would say whenever she brought it up. He refused to elaborate. She couldn't bear to see the sadness in him. It was a mirror to how she felt inside.

It was impulsive, what she did next, but she couldn't bring herself to change her mind. Moving the umbrella to the side, she leaned forward and gently pressed her lips to his. He gasped in surprise at the act, his lips parting unconsciously.

It wasn't the spray of fireworks Ayumi had always imagined.

Umbrella discarded, the rain gushed down on their heads, through their hair, and splattering against their skin like buckets of ice. Conan's glasses pressed to cheeks and his lips moved with uncertainty against hers. The feeling of his fingers tightening under hers made Ayumi shiver instead of the cold, but it was when his other hand brushed against her chin that Ayumi's heart decided to run a marathon.

She didn't think he'd kiss her back!

The feeling was almost too good to be true. The fear from the encounter with the gunmen hadn't left her, or the horror at seeing her two closest friends in the hospital, but the pure glimmer of shock and hope surging around in her heart was enough to quell some of the hurt inside. The kiss was brief and chaste, but it left her breathless.

Conan's glasses had fogged over completely. The two sat close, unmoving and flushed from the cold. Ayumi's heart hammered mercilessly, her wide eyes following his hands as they reached up and removed his glasses, revealing a pair of equally startled sky-blue eyes.

"A-Ayumi…" he started hoarsely but uttered nothing else.

Ayumi bit her lip, growing increasingly worried by his silence. Emotions tumbled around like a hurricane in her chest, furiously scolding her for such brashness; but they were silenced when Conan retrieved the umbrella and stood up.

"I'll walk you home," he finally said. "You'll get sick, staying out here."

The walk to Ayumi's house wasn't very far, but the journey was an eternity when she walked abreast beneath an umbrella with a silent boy she had just kissed. Whatever anger that had spouted from him was gone, but doubt kept picking at her, suggesting that the kiss might have been an oversight. She didn't just ruin their friendship, did she? She wasn't sure she could stand it if he suggested that they forget it ever happened.

Was it okay that he wasn't saying anything? Right now, she needed him to say something!

"Are you mad at me?" she asked once they turned onto her street.

Conan shook his head. "I'm just surprised. I thought you outgrew your crush on me ages ago."

Ayumi's face went bright red. "You knew about that?"

The look on Conan's face clued her in that she had just asked a very silly question.

"Look, Ayumi, I…" Conan took and deep breath and stared out at the charcoal sky above them. "It's not my place to tell any of you what to do. You, Genta, Mitsuhiko… The truth is… I've always been proud of you all. No matter what crazy idea you all came up with, your hearts were always in the right place. But I guess Haibara was right; I still see you guys as kids who need my protection."

He shook his head and glanced at her. Ayumi felt herself blush.

"But you're not a little kid anymore… I didn't realize how true that was."

He looked away, just as they stopped in from of Ayumi's complex building. They found shelter beneath the building's canopy as the downpour effectively eased its attack on Beika city. The impending realization that she would have to go to her apartment and confront her mother about her day's events left her torn on wanting to stay right there by the doorway. However, standing there with Conan, she was simply left with the jittery thought that he still had something to say to her.

She wasn't sure wish made her more nervous.

"I should go. I'll see you later," she said, shivering from head to toe. But when she turned to enter the lobby, Conan reached out and pinched her jacket sleeve, causing her to stop. "What?"

Conan took a breath. "About earlier…"

Ayumi's heart skipped a beat. "Yes?"

"Why did you kiss me?" he asked.

Her emotions were swirling around. Smiling slightly, "Why did you kiss me back?"

Glasses fogged and riddled with droplets, it was impossible to see his eyes, but the piercing sensation they emitted had not gone amiss. But her bright blue eyes trailed the slight curve of his lips and growing sheepishness of his ever-too-serious face, and the seed of hope began to bloom that, in all the trouble she had found herself in that day, something truly good had come from it.

~D.C~

FURTHER NOTES:

This was literally turning into the chapter that would never end, which was why the ending was ambiguous. What happens next is a toss up for you guys to imagine. Sorry about being away again, you guys. I'm not good at kicking the long-wait hiatuses, am I?

Reviews and criticism are welcome.

—MELPOMENE-THE-TRAGIC-PARODY, signing out.