Detachment~Attachment

Summary: She tries to forget him, as he holds on to the thought of her. (summary for re-editing). Chapter 1, Detachment, written for Poirot Cafe's Themed Writing Competition #7: Alone prompt. KaiAo. Hurt/Comfort/Angst

What does it take to hold on? What does it take to recall?
How do we go back to the days before that Fall?

A/N: Hiya guys!~
Yeah. I know. New story instead of updating my current ones. I'm sorry my mind's nowhere near updates right now. I really am. It's just, Poirot Cafe's Themed Competitions have been tweaking with my brain cells for a while now. Heheh.

In the meantime, enjoy my first-time-in-a-long-time shot on a first-person POV entry~ :D

Although, forgive me if it sounds like prose in any way. I just want to try this one out.

Also, if repetition is not your cup of coffee, I suggest not reading this one. But repetition is catchy and fun and mind-boggling so, stay if you don't mind catchy and fun and mind-boggling.

DISCLAIMER: I am not Aoyama Gosho, and therefore I own no one. No one owns anyone! LOLWHAT?! xD

Detachment

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What does it take to let go? What does it take to forget?
What does it take to stop lingering on regret?

-*-.-*-.-*-

Being like this is fine. I hope nothing will change between us…

That was what I've always thought.

But it's too late now. We can never go back to how we used to be.

Not now, when the last traces of the 'him' I used to know has disappeared…

He was my light, my comfort, my ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

He was my best friend, and my most important person.

But he's nothing more than a stranger now.

Just another stranger.

I used to think there's nobody in the world who knows him better than I do.

I was naïve.

I once tried to prove his innocence, a little more than a year ago during a date to the amusement park. I never could have thought I was fighting a losing battle. And in the end has he really made a fool out of me? Did he really mean to do that? Does he really think I was that much of a fool?! If that detective's suspicions were true, then that means my best friend's hiding something he doesn't want me to know.

I used to think there's nothing in this world that I wouldn't know about him, the same way there's nothing I can hide from him.

But who am I kidding?

Every single time he's missing doing an 'errand' or watching some magic show or forgetting a birthday party, what if he's actually out there digging his own grave? Why would he do that?

It hurts me to know there's a side of him he's keeping from me. Or at least it feels like it. That haunting feeling that something dangerous is going on and there's nothing you can do but stand idly by…

Lost, unsure, and without anyone to stand by with you.

And then that night happened…

I couldn't say I know everything about that night, but surely Hakuba-kun did. You're a fool if you think I didn't know a single thing about those wounds you worked so hard to conceal, Bakaito!

After all, I'm the person who knows you the most… Right?

I didn't mean to be doubtful when I did it. I'm just curious. And so I asked the blonde one time as he got ready to leave, but the only thing he told me is that it's better to hear the truth straight from the very person to whom my suspicions are directed.

Class ended at the usual time, just before the sun kissed the ground. We found ourselves alone in the deserted classroom. Two people in the same room sharing about a feet of space, side by side for the last eight hours without one word from each other. And now that everyone else is gone, it suddenly felt suffocating.

With no time to delay, I talked to him about it straight out.

I started by asking about his wounded shoulder, to which he feigned innocence. Then I asked about his broken rib, then finally about the bullet wound on his chest that narrowly missed his heart.

I was expecting no answer, and all he gave me was one pained expression. He was trying to fake a smile, I believe, probably even thinking about breaking out to that eternally exultant trickster that he is, but then stopped halfway, knowing all too well I've seen through him. He stared straight at me in muteness, and his eyes reflected nothing back…

I broke the long silence. I confronted him. In hushed tones at first. But he wouldn't respond. He won't tell me anything. And somehow I knew this talk will lead to this, to me shouting my lungs out about my suspicions and frustrations and why the HELL do I even care?!

It was too much, and tears flowed like river. And he just stood there as if petrified but showing no emotions whatsoever.

Speak, I thought. I'll never tell anyone. I still trust you, after all. There must be a logical reason for what you're doing.

Tell me the truth, Kaito, so I can help you!

In fact, tell me anything, for I'm sick of this non-reaction.

SPEAK, DARN IT! the voice in my head shouted, but I grew mute and summoned all the strength I have into hitting him on the chest. I was shaking in anger, and he's holding it back but I feel him shaking as well.

Yet… nothing. No sound from his mouth, no emotion on his eyes, no… no, nothing!

And I gave him a solid slap across the face. And watched as he continued concealing his feelings.

Two things remained in my hazy mind; two pathetic choices that my stupid self can come up with as of this moment…

To break down in front of him in an attempt to draw out the 'Kaito' I know, or to run away like I always do because I'm afraid…

Afraid of what I might do, and what he has become.

And I chose the latter.

And I swear, I've never known fear until the thought of losing you dawned on me.

I thought he didn't want to talk when he started avoiding me in class, heck, he started avoiding me everywhere. I had too many opportunities to walk over to him, act like nothing in the world is wrong, probably even tell him that despite the fact that things are different between us nowadays, I miss him.

And I miss him so, so much.

The skirt-flipping and mop-chasing has stopped since then, and frankly, every single day's becoming plain.

I didn't want to admit it at first, but a day without Kaito is just… normal. And I hate it that way.

I miss the jokes, the laughter…

And most of all the magic.

I don't know if he did it to annoy me more, but he just stopped coming to class altogether.

About a week short of our high school graduation.

Cling… Clang…

The clock chimes the same way it did around twelve years ago.

Except the two happy children who met there were nowhere to be found. In their place stood two teenagers, one still yearning for the truth and one wanting to prolong a lie.

I meant to say something of length, about when I started doubting and when I found out. I wanted to ask him why he didn't tell me, or if he still trusts me the way he did for the past years we've been friends.

But I was stopped short when I realized he called me here only to say his goodbyes.

His goodbyes. On this very spot where we first met. Where we were young and blissful and innocent.

Now that the memory is stained with just one hefty decision, something not even twelve years of friendship can mend, what's gonna happen to us?

Why is this happening?

We're growing apart. I was trying to reach out but it seems you're not even trying to do something about it.

I covered my ears, not wanting to hear any more of his words, his excuses, his lies.

Everything he says sounded like I was listening through deep waters.

At that moment, I finally got it.

I hear nothing, understand nothing, and that's what you want me to believe. That's what you want me to be.

And once again, my dear friend Fear came to surface.

I ran away, because sometimes it's the best thing to do when things are too confusing, too hard to understand… too painful.

I ran away expecting he'd run after me or at the least call out to me… and then possibly explain. But he didn't.

And so with the clock tower the only witness, I let my feet take me away. Far, far away until the thought of him can't follow me any longer, until only one phrase lingers in the recesses of my muddled mind…

I can never forgive him.

I've always loved blue roses. It reminds me of the first time we ever met. And even if I don't tell him that, he always knew. And I hate that I love that side of him.

Sometimes I can never decipher what's going on in that complex mind of his.

Every night after that clock tower incident, I find myself drawn to the balcony, and find one additional blue rose on the floor. It went on that way for days, weeks, months, ever since he disappeared.

Pathetic.

Here I am, trying to forget about him and then every night he drops in without my knowledge, only to leave behind another painful reminder that he exists. If this is his cheesy idea of an apology, then I better give him a piece of my mind… right after I find him, or right after he appears, whichever comes first…

Really, how much longer does he plan to keep this up?

The longer he hides, the further I'm slipping away… the further we're falling apart.

Does he even see it?

If I knew I would miss him, I should have held on.

Just where does one find the answers to the many questions surrounding me?

It seems my search has been for naught so far.

Every time I thought I have stumbled upon some clue, it always slips through my fingers. For one question answered, five more questions appear before me. It was like getting stuck in a labyrinth with many entrances but only one narrow way out. And the longer you stay in there, the more tiring it becomes. I looked everywhere, heck I even enlisted the help of my detective classmate. But he's no help at all. Apparently the genius magician never filled him in and only assured him he's doing what he does to find the truth. What truth? How can you even find the truth while lying?

There's only one person who can give me answers, I thought.

And so, being the crazy inspector's daughter that I am, I attended a Kid heist without anyone's knowledge. It's the only chance I got to see him again.

It was supposed to be just a little conversation, of me having to pull out that answer he never got the chance to tell me as his normal self. I thought, if the high school magician won't tell me anything, then maybe the Gentleman Under the Moonlight, being the gentleman he deemed himself to be, would give me some answers.

I was wrong.

For as soon as I took a glimpse of that flashy white cloak, my throat turned as dry as a bone and my eyes just started welling up.

I realized I'll never be able to get the answer from him.

For in front of me stood a Faceless Phantom.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

He quickly took notice of my presence, and greeted me in the most elegant fashion I've ever seen, even kneeling down in front of me to plant a chaste kiss on the back of my hand, and offering a single blue rose. It seemed surreal, like an overused scene from fairy tales I used to read when I was little.

But it fueled my frustrations even more.

I meant to shout at him, even ask who he thinks he's playing his games with, why he has to do what he does, tell him he's crazy to even be in this mess to begin with and that he shouldn't have lied to me. All that and more as I choke on fresh, painful tears. But even before I knew it, I was falling…

The next thing I knew, I was waking up the next morning to the sight of my bedroom ceiling.

It's odd.

He's the same yet he's not. And once again I was faced with the same riddle for the hundredth time that month, lost and alone and alone and lost…

All because I cared too much.

Where are you Kaito? Why are you doing this? Are you doing fine? and Why do I even care still?

I wonder, does anger disappear over time, or have I just been lonely for so long that my mind starts won—wandering to 'him'?

Damn, why does every single thing and place remind me of him all of a sudden? I want to run away. I want to forget. I want to feel all right again, but…

It's weird.

Somehow I've grown used to the feeling of loneliness, probably even fond of it, that I just started curling up into a little ball when I found a white velvet paper on my bed after school, telling me the same words I heard as I lose my consciousness during that heist.

I'm here. I always am. I always will be, it says, and I want to believe.

GOD, I long to believe, but all I have are empty words caused to hold on to false pretenses.

Then again what have I to hold on to?

It's hard, but I want to believe I'm still holding on to it, to the unspoken promise he'll come back, that we'll be the same way we were before.

And during those sleepless nights, I would seek solace from the moon, and the lone blue rose Kid gave me.

It's faint, but only now when it's wilting did I realize he did some kind of magic to the said flower.

Only now, just as I was planning to throw it away and replace it with one of the fresh roses that littered my balcony floor that I noticed illegible markings in between folds of satin.

Shame I can't make sense of them anymore…

For the days that follow, my mind filled with thoughts of him.

And I don't know if it's just my imagination, but sometimes I see him—or probably someone who looks like him?—by the ice cream shop, in street magic performances, by the clock tower…

Shadows of him lingered in Blue Parrot, or inside his now empty house, or on the school grounds as classes go on…

And I wanted to believe it's not just an illusion, or a trick of the mind.

That one day he'll be back to explain, that one day he'll be back and we'll be happy again…

That one day I'll never feel lonely again.

For now I can only console myself…

You're never alone, chimed the clock tower by the station.

You're never alone, says the wilting blue flower by my bedside table.

You're never alone, whispered that man clad in white, with a sad sparkle in his eyes, both strange and familiar.

You're never alone, he used to say, with that wide gleam of his that never fails to mend and break my heart.

That's right…

I'm never alone…

(Only he lives in a world of his own, in a world I cannot reach.)

I'm never alone…

(Only, he was never really there.)

A/N: Sooooo? What'cha think?
Review me/constructive criticize me pretty please? Thankies!~
Love you loves!~

I have to remind everyone this is just halfway done, so please tune in for the next one. For a change, ne? I don't update much often after all... :D

Love lots,

-neonquincy1217-

:3