A/N: Originally a chapter of a plot bunny gone too far, but it died so I'll post this here.

A muffled ring and an unpleasant vibration in his pocket woke him from his slumber. It smelled of dampness and rain and the clouded skies muted even the brightest of colors to a dull, cheap copy of the original. He shivered, pulling the blazer tighter around him, and exhaled a short, tired puff of air.

Blinking the bleariness from his eyes, he dug out the device when it refused to quiet it's ringing, nearly dropping it in his carelessness, and stared at the name that was presented to him in bright white letters.

Yoshida Ayumi.

Unfurling himself from where he sat curled up against the door, he slowly pressed the answer button after a moment's hesitation.

"Hel-"

"Conan!"

Wincing, his hand jolted away from his ear, instinctively saving his ears from the shrill, frantic cry that already sent him into a brief shock.

"Conan, where are you? Why aren't you at your house? Why didn't you go home - do you know how long Ai-chan has been looking for you? - what if something bad happened?" The frantic mob of questions was clearly audible even as he held the phone an arm's length away, and he tentatively pressed it against his ear when he could no longer hear her.

As he was about to voice his half-hearted apology, he heard a faint sound on the other end - like a sniffle. His eyebrows rose questioningly, a frown set upon his lips.

Was she crying? Why? - what was there to cry about?

His thoughts were interrupted by an unknown voice on the other end. "Hello? Edogawa-kun?"

He had half a mind to tell the girl that she was talking to the wrong person - after all, he wasn't Edogawa, was he? He was -

Edogawa Conan, his mind finished, making him blink in surprise. Feeling perturbed, he scoured his brain in search of an answer - another one, a different one. He came up surprisingly empty, and he felt a mound of frustration build on his tongue; he knew the answer, what was it? It was there, teasing his fingers and taunting his memories...

...but what was there to look for? He was Edogawa Conan.

"Edogawa-kun?" The girl's voice spoke again, sharper and clearer and lined with concern. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," he answered monotonously, too caught up with his own befuddled thoughts that he couldn't make sense of. His fingers gripped the phone tightly and he shut his eyes in a vain attempt to concentrate.

"Edogawa-kun," she repeated slowly, as if knowing he would flee from the conversation if she wasn't careful, "my name is Haibara Ai."

He briefly wondered the point of knowing her name - who she was, to him and the rest of the world - and if he knew her, too, in the life before he woke up in the classroom, before his memories slipped from his grasp and left him stranded.

He shifted, stretching his legs and arms in an attempt to restore feeling to the numb limbs, and regretted his decision to rest outside in the early winter weather instead of a warm home. His lack of answer spurred her to continue.

"Where are you?"

A simple question, but he found himself tongue-twisted for an answer. Home, he wanted to say, but he knew that this wasn't his home, not now, not to his current mindset, at least. And, no matter how much his lips parted to mouth it in helpless silence, he refused to voice it.

"I...I don't know," he settled for instead.

Silence on the other end. "Do you want me to come get you?"

The question made him feel like a child talking to his mother, but his lips parted and he spoke, firm and resolute, "No."

"Very well," she assented easily. He could hear protests on the other side - Ayumi's faint and incredulous "what? No, he needs to-" and the Haibara girl's quick interruption "be alone." - but it was concluded within seconds and she was talking to him again. "When you're finished, call this number and tell me where you are. I'll come and explain what you want to know."

Then the phone clicked and he was left to himself. In the back of his mind, he briefly wondered if she - Haibara Ai, a girl who sounded only around his age - could answer all the questions that have accumulated and weighed him down with confusion.

Then, he started thinking about his life before being awoken by Ayumi, how he was previously, what he did, who his friends were.

But most of all, he wondered who Edogawa Conan was.

"Kuroba, I-"

"What was that, Homura-san? Your sister found out that her boyfriend was going around behind her back?" Kaito slung an arm around a hesitant, surprised Homura and whisked him away, chattering amicably while his surprised classmate glanced nervously between Kaito and Hakuba.

"K-Kaito-san!" Homura turned scarlet, embarrassed that his sister's secret was told for the world to hear.

"H-hey! Kuroba, we have to t-" Hakuba paused, catching the dead stare the magician was giving him, but shook off his uncertainty and continued. "We need to talk."

Arm still loosely hanging from Homura's tense shoulders, Kaito turned his head, looking directly at the detective. "What's there to talk about, Hakuba? As far as I'm concerned, you've never wanted to talk before, so why start now?"

Hakuba clicked his teeth together, pushing down the frustration that was commonly associated with the enigmatic teen. He needed this to go smoothly, he couldn't have Kaito slipping in and out of his grasp before he could get answers. Counting quickly to ten - he couldn't afford Kaito to walk out on him again - and pulling in a deep breath, he calmed himself.

"It's because I never wanted to talk that I have to start now." He tried to keep the bite out of it, and successfully kept it to a minimum, but was still unsure of how Kaito would react. "Everyone - everything - has to start from somewhere, Kuroba."

While Kaito was silently regarding him, Homura took the chance to duck under the weight of his arm and scuttle away, looking back over his shoulder every three steps to make sure the magician wasn't following. Hakuba's eyes trailed his classmate as he flew through the door, and when he looked back at Kaito, he found him standing dangerously close.

Within pranking range.

He was only mildly surprised when Kaito pulled out his sleeping gas, colored that ridiculous pink he learned to loathe after his endless trials with Kid, and sprayed it right in his face.

"Kur-" he coughed twice, then shielded his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his jacket "Kuroba!"

"Sorry, Hakuba-chan," Kaito clapped his hands together apologetically, but he could see the smirk peeking out from behind his fingers. He ignored the sugar-sweet honorific added to his name. "I have something to do here and there, so I'll do you a favor and let you rest, okay? It looks like you haven't slept in forever."

His overly concerned tone was revolting to Hakuba's ears. But, after seeing the quick glance Kaito sent his way before he exited the door, he couldn't help but think that he was actually looking out for him in his own twisted way.

But then he heard the door shut and the lock click, and he immediately abandoned the thought in favor of sleeping to the many, many ideas he had for retribution.

A few moments later, the door unlocked and slid open though Hakuba had already drifted off to sleep. Kaito chuckled quietly, uncapping a marker that he always kept handy, and knelt beside the slumbering detective.

He wrote "IDIOT" across his forehead. He colored circles around his eyes, a ridiculous mustache just below his nose. He wrote detective on one cheek, annoying on the next. After drawing a cringe-worthy beard, he mourned the fact that he had no colored markers with him. It would have made it at least a hundred times more fun.

Sighing, he sat down beside Hakuba's sleeping form, crossing his legs and leaning back on his hands. He craned his neck back to stare at the ceiling, watching as the sun slowly colored it orange and gold, and flopped down on the floor when his neck started to ache.

They'd probably need to leave soon, but he had a feeling the teachers wouldn't come and check on them, so he closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift.

There was Aoko and her mountain of sweets, Aoko next to him when they waited at the station, Aoko beside Hakuba when they studied, Aoko holding hands with him, then Hakuba, as she dragged then along to who-knew-where.

And then there was Aoko, cold and lifeless as she went down six feet under, never to be seen again.

There was Hakuba who stood tall, stiff as a board, but tall all the same. He didn't cry - not then, anyways, not when Kaito was in sight - but the magician knew he bawled for three days straight when he didn't show up for class. There was Akako who bit her bottom lip so hard he thought her teeth would tear through the flesh just to keep the tears at bay because it was taboo. There was Keiko, shaking and sobbing and calling out to deaf ears.

Then there was Kaito who couldn't even bring himself to cry.

Curling his fingers inward, he sniffed, threw an arm over his eyes, and whispered so quietly that even he had a hard time hearing it over his pounding pulse.

"I'm sorry."

He only meant to walk around, to clear his head, before calling the Haibara girl.

"He's dead!" A woman screeched, sobbing into her hands, wiping away at tears and make-up alike. It smeared her cheeks, and she looked more devastated and agonized than he originally thought.

Police sirens whistled over the pitter-patter of rain, wailing urgency and purpose to people who were miles away. Conan stood in the cool drizzle, mesmerized by the color scarlet made with the transparency of raindrops. He greeted the death with a strange mix of excitement and cold calculation, and the thrill still thrummed and tingled underneath his skin, shocking his blood into a pleasant buzz.

But he stayed where he stood, not lifting a single finger to help.

The police showed up then, all shouts and quick rundowns; and when one officer came up to him, saying that students shouldn't be at the crime scene, and if he had nothing to say then he should hurry on home, he nodded with silent understanding and walked off.

The professionals arrived, and there was nothing he could do.

And as he left, he ignored the twitching fingers screaming at him to go back! Search!, his eyes' urge to glance back every five seconds as he left the crime scene, the beating heart in his chest that was saying this is what you've been waiting for - because what could he do? A high-school student without the faintest idea of who or where he was. What could he possibly do in comparison to professionals who were trained for this? Lived for this?

Feet splashing in the puddles forming on the sidewalk, he dropped his gaze to the ground and clenched his phone in one hand. His mind spoke, quiet and remorseful and tinged with yearning, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out in frustration.

You lived for it, too.