Detective Conan
Cooking with Ai
by
sgamer82

"Onii-chan."

Shinichi barely heard the little girl's voice.

"Onii-cha~an," it tried again, adding a touch of sweetness to the words.

Shinichi didn't stir.

"Kudo-kun!" the voice said again, clearly losing patience. Shinichi started to wake just as he felt small hands push at his shoulder.

Either the owner of those hands didn't notice or didn't think Shinichi was waking up fast enough.

"Wake up!" it said.

Fortunately, by this point Shinichi was awake enough to catch the girl's small wrist in his hand before it could smack him in the face. After a moment of struggle, Shinichi released her.

"I'm up, I'm up," he said. It was indistinct due to grogginess, but he said it. The girl, satisfied that he was awake enough to be vocal, lowered her hand.

"What time is it?" Shinichi mumbled. He looked at his bedside clock, then to the window, then, suddenly alert, to the girl at his bedside.

"Is everything all right?" he asked seriously.

"What?" Ai stared at him blankly. "Yes, of course. Why would you think otherwise?"

Shinichi relaxed. Ai would not be so obviously confused by the question is something were actually wrong.

"Sorry," he said. "It's just that it's five thirty in the morning and the sun isn't even up yet."

Silence.

"And?" Ai frowned.

"And for as long as I've known you, I have never seen you up before the sun by choice."

Ai glared at him.

"I set an alarm," Ai told Shinichi.

"I have also never seen you, in the almost full year you've lived here, set an alarm. You always rely on Mom to wake you for school."

"I do not 'rely' on her!" Ai was getting indignant.

"Oh no?" Shinichi replied with a grin. "Then did I imagine Mom so annoyed she declared that if she had to wake you up she got to dress you for the day?"

Ai's scowl confirmed Shinichi's memory.

"Or Ayumi-chan saying you got a lot of compliments about how cute your new look was."

Ai's scowl became a growl. Shinichi raised a placating hand.

"All right, I'll stop."

"I'll go get things ready." Ai began to leave the room. "Just meet me in the kitchen."

Ai suddenly stopped, turned, and gave Shinichi a short bow.

"Please," she added, as if she'd just been told to mind her manners. With that, Ai left, closing the door behind her.

Shinichi started to get out of bed, only to stop and wince as a sharp ache came from his right leg. It wasn't painful, Shinichi had grown too used to the sensation to think of it as "pain", but it was irritating. Shinichi tried not to grumble too much as he grabbed for his cane. The crippling of Shinichi's leg wasn't the worst of the scars the Organization had left in its death throes by a long shot. Shinichi told himself that often; it did nothing to prevent the situation from occasionally getting to him. Mainly on chilly mornings like today's, where it made him every bit as reluctant as Ai about getting out of bed any earlier than he had to.

It also, in light of what he had just said to Ai, made Shinichi profoundly grateful high schools required uniforms.

Once ready for the day, Shinichi made his way to the kitchen. He entered just as Ai seemed to be finishing preparations for whatever she was doing. Judging by the saute and frying pans Shinichi spotted, among other items, she clearly planned on cooking. Shinichi scanned the countertops and stove for the ingredients she was using. The eggs and rice in particular caught his eye.

Omelette rice? Shinichi wondered to himself. Shinichi and Ran alike had been fond of the dish in their youth. Ran had made it for Conan many times under the assumption he loved it, too. It had gone on to make a comeback in the Kudo home following Ai Haibara's addition to the family. In Ai's case, however, Shinichi had always assumed that was more because omelette rice was a common staple of Japanese childhood than because Ai herself genuinely enjoyed it. Now no longer certain, he wondered if she'd developed a taste for it.

As soon as Ai saw Shinichi enter, she directed him to a stool at the kitchen counter that gave him a clear view of the stove. She had even set up a second seat with a pillow for Shinichi to rest his bad leg on. Once seated, Shinichi spotted a piece of paper on the counter in front of another chair. It was folded in half and surrounded by crayons. Shinichi picked it up and unfolded it. Drawn on the paper were two people who could only be his parents, Yusaku and Yukiko Kudo. Even if there hadn't been only one person who could have been responsible for its presence, Shinichi had sat next to its artist in Sumiko Kobayashi's first grade classroom long enough to recognize the style on sight.

The art is simplistic, he thought, mentally adopting the tone of a professional critic. Not childish, per se. It is more indicative of one to whom artistic ability does not come naturally. Not especially fancy on backgrounds, but with much greater attention to detail on people; demonstrated in certain places where it's clear she re-colored the lines to get them just so and make it as accurate as possible. Better penmanship than one would expect possible with crayon.

Before Shinichi could read what Ai had written in that better penmanship, the paper was suddenly snatched from his hands. Shinichi watched as a red-faced Ai, having clearly rushed over upon realizing that he'd been staring at, carried her drawing off to the kitchen without another word. Shinichi frowned as he watched her go.

And that just about sums up how things are between us, now... Shinichi thought.

Shinichi had stopped being Conan and Ai had stopped being Shiho. After that, his parents had gotten the bright idea to invite Ai into the family and give her as normal a life as they could for her self-imposed second childhood. Ai had said "Yes", and Haibara had become Kudo. Nearly a year of being brother and sister later and the whole thing was still too strange for the two of them to wrap their heads around.

"Um... it's a nice picture," Shinichi tried. No response from the kitchen other than an egg being broken with perhaps more force than was necessary. Shinichi decided following up with "it looks just like Mom and Dad" would not be appreciated and instead opted to change the subject.

"So what, exactly, am I here for?" Shinichi asked as he heard the sound of eggs sizzling. "You were a bit vague about this when you asked me to help you."

No, not "vague", Shinichi thought, now that he'd said the words out loud. More like "hesitant". She was more polite than usual when she asked, and every time I tried to press her about just what she needed, she turned red and evaded the question.

He wasn't sure what to make of that. Not yet.

"I have everything under control," Ai told him.

"Are you sure?" Shinichi asked. "You don't need help getting anything off a high shelf?"

"I prepared everything before I woke you," Ai replied. Shinichi frowned.

"In that case, I'll ask again. What am I here for?" Shinichi asked. "You're a better cook than I am, you readied everything you needed ahead of time so you don't need my height, and I'm not nearly as up to heavy lifting as I once was."

It was a few moments before Ai, her attention on her cooking, answered.

"I said I'm fine," Ai insisted.

"So then, what, you woke me up before the crack of dawn for no other reason than to watch you cook Mom and Dad breakfast?" Shinichi asked, his irritation clear.

"And us," Ai replied lightly. "We need to eat, as well."

"In that case..." Shinichi got to his feet. "If you don't actually need my help I'm going to go back to bed and-"

"Wait!" Ai said suddenly. Shinichi stopped and turned. Ai was in the middle of placing the first of her finished omelettes on a plate. Once she finished, she turned and faced Shinichi.

"You're right, I don't really need your help," Ai admitted. "Not with the cooking itself. I just need you here. I need you to stay right where you are until I am finished. That's all. Will you do that? Please, Kudo-kun?"

"Why?" Shinichi asked. Ai's face became red once again.

"I need someone here and, because of the occasion, I can't ask Papa or Mama."

Shinichi didn't answer out loud. He did, however, sit back down.

"Thank you," Ai said, and returned to her task, starting a second omelette.

Now sworn to remain where he was, Shinichi entertained himself by trying to work out what Ai wasn't telling him. He pondered his newest information as he watched Ai work.

He had a pretty good idea now as to why she was so hesitant to explain herself to him. The menu and the card suggested, whatever Ai was up to, it was, in her mind, distinctly childish. She had avoided that sort of thing like the plague when they both had been in first grade. Even now, for all she had opened up both before and since choosing to stay a child, Shinichi rarely saw Ai behaving like anything but the Haibara he had known. Not, at least, when she knew Shinichi could see her.

That told Shinichi that Ai found what she was doing embarrassing, yet important enough to her that she was doing it anyway. It was worth doing even though it apparently required doing it in front of him. Furthering that theory was that Ai was calling him "Kudo-kun". Shinichi's parents appreciated that adjusting to the current arrangement was a gradual process. The only concession his mother had demanded and enforced was they, at bare minimum, refer to each other like siblings. Haibara had become Ai, Kudo-kun had become Onii-chan, and both had fallen into the habit strongly enough after nearly a year that when either of them did something different, it was always deliberate.

She said she couldn't ask Mom and Dad "because of the occasion", Shinichi mused. All right, then, what's the occasion?

Shinichi dismissed birthdays as a possibility. Neither his mother's nor father's were approaching and they were far enough apart that Ai would have been able to ask either of them to help her with something for the other. He ruled out Mother's Day and Father's Day for the same reasons. His father hadn't recently done anything professionally to warrant a celebration. He briefly considered Ai's own birthday, but dismissed that, too. That would have brought about the reverse situation, his parents surprising Ai. For the same reason it couldn't be something particular to Shinichi. So what occasion could there be specifically between Ai and his parents that would prompt her to try and surprise them like this?

Shinichi could only think of one. One reason Ai would be doing what she was doing. One reason that, once Shinichi considered it, explained her need for his presence.

It hasn't been almost a full year... he realized.

"It's been exactly a full year," he said out loud. Ai finished her third omelette and looked back at Shinichi.

"That's it, isn't it?" Shinichi asked Ai directly. "It's the anniversary of your adoption."

"Yes," Ai said as she began cracking the last of her eggs. "One year ago everything became official."

"Congratulations." Shinichi smiled. "Surviving a year with Mom and Dad is no small feat."

He heard what almost certainly had to be a quicky stifled laugh from Ai.

"You weren't so easy to deal with either, Onii-chan," Ai shot back. Shinichi chuckled himself.

"I assume that's why you didn't tell me?" Shinichi said. He saw Ai nod.

"Whenever the sibling situation is involved things between you and I get..." Ai seemed to be struggling for a polite way to say what she was thinking.

"Awkward as hell?" Shinichi offered, not struggling to be polite.

"Awkward as hell, yes," Ai replied.

Shinichi grinned.

"And that awkwardness probably isn't helped by what looks like you deliberately doing this all as childishly as you can. The choice of a child's dish, the handmade card and drawings..."

He trailed off and heard Ai sigh as she took up his cue.

"And making sure I have grown-up supervision while I use the stove, yes." Ai turned to face Shinichi, her cheeks were red but her expression serious. "It seemed rather poor manners to break their rules while showing my gratitude for everything they've done."

Shinichi nodded. That was about the reason he had expected, once he realized what Ai was up to.

"Incidentally, the stove rule is probably my fault," Shinichi told Ai. At her curious look Shinichi continued. "I got the same idea you did when I was your age-"

Shinichi stopped, his face turning red as he turned to Ai, who was suddenly turned back to her cooking. She had clearly heard his slip.

"I mean... that is..." Shinichi stammered.

"When you were the age I am now?" she suggested as she finished the final omelette.

"I'll take it," Shinichi replied, gratefully. "When I was the age you are now, give or take, I had the same idea. I wanted to cook breakfast for Mom as a birthday present. I even convinced Mom to let Ran sleep over so she could help. Mom knew we had something planned, just not cooking." Shinichi chuckled. "That was the day we discovered learning how to cook isn't the same thing as knowing how to cook."

Shinichi heard a laugh from Ai as she put some bread in the toaster.

"What happened?" she asked.

"After everything was put out and the smoke alarms were turned off, Mom sat us down, told us that she was very touched by what we were trying to do for her, then spent the next five minutes scolding us for the damage we caused to the kitchen. Ran was in tears by the end."

"I confess that it never occurred to me there might have been an actual reason behind their requirement for supervision." Ai got four glasses out and pulled a carton of juice from the fridge. "I assumed it was simply because that's the kind of rule you give children. They do that frequently enough."

"I've noticed," Shinichi said as Ai began pouring. "Half the time I see you with Mom or Dad, it makes me remember when I was a kid."

"And the other half?"

"Makes me remember when I was Conan," Shinichi replied with a frown and much flatter tone. He saw Ai's expression became as serious as his own.

"I can imagine," Ai said. "I never truly appreciated how much playacting you had to do until I decided to embrace it myself."

"You never did bother with it much, before," Shinichi mused. "Not unless you were being bribed... or had a chance to mess with someone... who was usually me."

"Indeed." Ai smiled. Then she frowned. "Because of that, however, I've often wondered just how Mama and Papa can so readily go along with it." The smile returned, accompanied by a slight blush. "They really do make me feel like their child, but the question that keeps occurring to me is how they can do that knowing what I really am."

"Do yourself a favor," Shinichi told Ai, his tone dead serious, "Do not ask them. You won't like the answer."

"Really?" Ai asked, clearly curious. Then the frown that had appeared on Shinichi's face registered. "I take it you're speaking from experience?"

Shinichi gave Ai a serious look.

"I mean it," he told her. "I can't imagine you being any happier about it than I was."

"Onii-chan," Ai said with a smirk, "what would you do if someone told you what essentially amounts to 'you do not want to know'?"

"Everything in my power to find out," Shinichi answered, almost before Ai had finished asking the question. He sighed. "Okay, just don't complain I didn't warn you."

"Your warning is what made me ask in the first place," Ai retorted.

"In any case," Shinichi began. "I wondered the same thing you did and, one day, I asked Mom and Dad, point blank, 'don't you feel weird treating Haibara like a kid when you know she's my age?'"

Shinichi felt his frown deepen.

"What did they say?" Ai asked impatiently.

"According to Dad, it isn't difficult at all." Shinichi's voice became a passable imitation of Yusaku Kudo's. "'After all, she is a child'."

Ai stared at Shinichi.

"Then Mom followed up with 'just like you, Shin-chan'!"

"Oh, my." Ai grinned at Shinichi. "No wonder their answer displeased you. How it must hurt your ego to know they still see you as their little boy."

"And probably always will," Shinichi grumbled. He heard a snort and looked down to see Ai pointedly looking away from him, trying not to laugh. Shinichi scowled, then smirked.

"You realize the implication, don't you?" Shinichi asked. "If I'm Mom and Dad's little boy, and they see both of us the same way, what does that make you?"

Ai's struggles to not laugh died down as she realized Shinichi's point. Other than that, however, her response was not at all what he expected. Shinichi had been ready for a sarcastic retort, or maybe an angry and embarrassed shout of "shut up". He had not anticipated Ai to become completely silent, nor the thoughtful expression that came over her face.

"I have to finish setting the table," Ai said eventually. Shinichi noticed an increased urgency in both her tone of voice and her actions. It seemed to him as if she was barely holding herself back from running as she finished her tasks. Once Ai was finished she gave a very critical eye to the end result, a dining room table with four place settings of one omelette, one glass of juice, and a plate with several pieces of toast. Ai nodded, apparently pleased with what she saw.

As this all happened before him, Shinichi considered what he was witnessing. It was clear that he had misread Ai completely. At first Shinichi could not figure it out, but as he watched Ai hustle and bustle back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, he deduced what it most likely was.

She smiled when she said Mom and Dad made her feel like their child, and I just told her that's exactly how they see her,Shinichi mused. After all, if I'm their little boy, and they see both of us the same way, what does that make her? Their little girl. Shinichi grinned. And I was so annoyed by and trying to tease her with it, she knows I wasn't trying to tell her something she wanted to hear.

Content that the breakfast table met her standards, Ai left to go get Shinichi's parents out of bed. There was an extra spring in her step as she finally lost the battle to not break into a run. Shinichi wondered if Yusaku and Yukiko were already awake, waiting for her to come and show off what she'd done. Whether Ai had to actually wake them or not, however, Shinichi knew that he had only a couple of minutes, at most, if he was going to follow through on the thought that had come to him as he watched Ai set the table.

He was quick enough to both complete his task and make the first of two trips back to his bedroom, which was not far from the kitchen. He passed his parents and Ai in the hall on the second trip. Yusaku didn't comment on the glass of juice in Shinichi's free hand, merely told his son good morning. Yukiko, as ever, was less prone to be silent.

"Are you coming?" his mother asked. "Acchan says she made us breakfast. She even managed to get up before the sun rose to do it."

She patted Ai on the head as she said this. Shinichi glanced down and saw Ai looking at her feet very intently.

"I watched her make it," Shinichi replied, "I've got a few things to do before I get ready for school, so I'll be eating in my room."

Yukiko scowled at the obvious lie. Yusaku put his hand on his wife's shoulder and gave her a subtle shake of the head.

"All right," she said with clear reluctance. "But we're going out to dinner tonight. All of us, Shin-chan, no excuses. It's the anniversary of Acchan's adoption; we're spending at least some of it as a family."

"Yes, mom," Shinichi said dutifully as Yukiko went to the dining room. Shinichi looked and saw Ai had remained behind.

"You know..." she said with uncharacteristic reluctance. "There's no reason you can't..."

"Thanks," Shinichi said. "I mean it; but be honest with me, Haibara, do you really want me there?"

Ai immediately opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Shinichi assumed Ai was likely about to tell him "of course I do" or something in that vein, only to stop when his use of "Haibara" registered. Instead she took a moment to collect her thoughts before answering.

"No." Ai shook her head. "But I was prepared to bear it because it would have been wrong to exclude you." Ai's face turned red. "This whole thing is embarrassing... I don't mind when it's Mama and Papa, I actually enjoy myself, too. But... it's just... when you're there... it's..."

Ai trailed off.

"Awkward as hell," Shinichi said for her. Ai nodded.

"I understand," Shinichi said. "It's one thing around Mom and Dad, or people who never really knew Shiho Miyano, whatever they know now. You and I were, are, closer than that. We certainly bickered like siblings long before we actually were."

That got a grin out of Ai.

"It's obvious this anniversary is important to you and, because I know that, I'm going to step aside and let you have your moment." Shinichi's tone then became more light-hearted. "You go and have breakfast with Mom and Dad. Let them marvel at your cooking, let them praise you for remembering the rules and not doing it alone, get Mom's side of the story I told you, and let her dote over you and squeal with delight over how you wrote 'Mama', 'Papa', and 'Ai' in ketchup on your omelettes. Go. Have your fun. Mom already said we we're all going out tonight. We'll squirm in embarrassment together then."

Ai smiled at Shinichi, then her expression changed to confused, then thoughtful, and finally suspicious. This last came with narrowed eyes directed at Shinichi.

"I didn't do anything with ketchup."

"No, you didn't." Shinichi smiled. "But the credit's all yours."

Shinichi turned and left before Ai could respond. Shinichi eventually heard steps hurrying off in the direction of the dining room. Shinichi entered his bedroom and sat at his desk to start eating. The omelette was good. No surprise there. Once upon a time, Shiho Miyano had lived alone and had to cook for herself, and Professor Agasa had praised her cooking when she had lived with him.

Shinichi had left his door open a crack and, from it, could faintly hear chatter coming from the dining room. He couldn't make out words, but the tone was such that he could tell Ai was clearly having a good time with his parents.

Shinichi's fork stopped halfway to his mouth as a realization struck him.

Have I been doing that this whole time? he asked himself. He honestly wasn't certain, but he knew it had to stop. Ai had now been a Kudo for a full year and, Shinichi now understood, it was only the first of many.

With that thought in mind, Shinichi took another bite of his omelette and listened as Ai had a good time with their parents.