Make no mistake, I'm a ShinRan fan through and through, but ConAi can be a lot of fun to write!

All disclaimers apply.

Warning: No pro in writing, never will be. And it's ConAi. Slight AU(change in time frame)

First impressions are weighty, some may say. An axiom mentions that there are no second chances in imposing the first impression.

My first impression of Haibara Ai was vague. Our earliest encounter was at Beika Elementary School, where she was nothing more than another transfer student to me. Minutes later, my curiosity was piqued, when she coolly ignored Genta's invitation to sit beside him and, instead, opted for the vacant seat beside me. Still, she was barely more than another stranger to me.

If I had to mention my clearest impression of her, it would be during that night, when she was revealed to be the shrunken creator of the drug, APTX 4869, the absolute source of all my quandaries right now. That night, I stared at her with absolute horror. A former member of the scandalous organisation with a fetish for the colour black, codenamed Sherry, scientist with an agenda to create the toxin to massacre without leftover traces, the root of all my predicaments…

Evil. There was no other adjective to portray her, and even that was an understatement. I had no inhibitions in expressing my exact opinions about her either, lashing out at her and ignoring all of hakase's placating words. She just sat there, accepting all my accusations calmly, only defending herself by saying she was forced.

I almost outright spat in her face.

Instead, I settled for slamming the door in her face.

*

*

*

Over time, we developed a kind of comrade relationship, a bond that most resembled the rapport between two survivors on a stranded island. Indeed, our situation was somewhat similar to marooned castaways, being the only two diminished person living on the entire planet Earth and endeavouring to elude the tangible clutches of the black organisation. It was a feeling only someone in our shoes would understand, and so we became some sort of comrade.

You would have thought she would open up with our burgeoning friendship. But no, she eternally hide behind her mask of indifference, which I very much suspected that she kept on even in her dreamland. Icy, aloof, expert at feigning crying, she intrigued me. I had never met someone like her before.

We were allies, but I knew next to zilch about her.

Until one day, we chanced on the dwelling of a professor her oneechan esteemed so much that she adopted his surname as her alias. Hirota Masami. The latter's mentor was murdered, and Haibara was extremely skeptical whether my detective prowess would prevail in the case. She reasoned that rather than poking my nose into the inscrutable homicide and thus endangering both our lives, it would have been better to keep a low profile. I just huffed away, rather used to her pessimism by now.

I did solve the case, in the end.

What I did not expect was the result.

She suddenly fell onto her knees before me, fisting on my shirt and howling that if I was so good, why had I not save her sister from her untimely demise. Tears gushed forth from her aquamarine eyes, and I could tell that these were genuine tears, not the crocodile tears she shed to pass off as a 6-year-old. Her face scrunched up, and her soft russet hair clung to her face desperately as she thumped and thumped into my chest, berating me with all her might.

It was the first time I realised that she had humane feelings as well.

Her words pierced through my heart when I recalled the decease of Hirota Masami. A person who was driven to death because of me, inadvertently or not. It was the greatest regret in my entire detective career, an error I vowed never to commit again in times to come.

She ruined my whole life by creating the Apotoxin 4869, I indirectly took her sister's life. Now we were even. I could practically hear the silent lock in my heart unfasten.

I finally forgave her.

*

*

*

There was a very fine line between love and hate. A filament, extremely fragile, susceptible to breaking at the tiniest snap.

When did I cross that line, I did not know.

I had always attempted to delve deeper into the mystery christened Haibara Ai. I prided myself in being a superb detective; there were no mysteries in the world I could not crack. At a conscious level or not, I was always struggling to decipher her, her remote façade as fascinating to me as a code would. Gradually, I began to discover some small habits of hers, like she would space out when she thought no one was looking, like the gentle gleam in her ocean-tinted irises as she gazed at frolicking kittens, the way she would smoothen her clothes when she was nervous – which was not often, I might add, the way she would cross her arms when she was defensive or just trying to hide something… They all contrasted with the diffident aura she characteristically emanated.

That captivated me even more.

Soon, I began noticing the undulating waves of her ochre hair, the way the silky strands would bounce off the golden sunrays, reflecting highlights of pure blond, the way her eyes twinkled when she smiled, the tender curves of her love-shaped head, the enticing strawberry lips, the slight swing of her hips when she walked…

It did not occur to me then how wrong the directions of my thoughts were, that they had absolutely nothing to do with decoding her anymore. If I had discovered this sooner, I would not have breached the flimsy thread partitioning love and hate.

As it was, I was totally oblivious of myself.

So when one day, our eyes accidentally connected when I visited professor at his residence, all sanity was driven from my mind as primal instincts compelled me to lean down and kiss her.

I kissed her.

It was a chaste kiss, a mere touch-and-go contact between lips, but it was enough to jolt me into my senses. Her features –for once not the omnipresent deadpan masquerade – exhibited apparent shock, molten turquoise depths widened in sheer astonishment while her mouth – which I just kissed, but ah! I should really get it out of my head – dropped open. I probably reflected the same expression, if not more.

And I did the stupidest thing a guy could do after kissing a girl.

I ran away.

Panting, heaving, gasping for air, my brain frantically rewired itself to make sense of what I just did. What did I just do? Why on earth did I do it? What the heck was wrong with me? What could she be thinking of me right now? And a very, very outrageous thought – Did she like the kiss?

It was wrong, downright wrong, absolutely positively unbelievably wrong.

That night, it occurred to me that I did not once bring Ran to mind. What did that mean? Was I in love with Haibara?

I didn't know.

*

*

*

My brain must have been somewhat affected when I consumed APTX 4869, because when I reached school the next day – after a night of sporadic and fitful sleep interspersed with highly inappropriate dreams of a certain girl – I had completely forgotten that Haibara and I attended the same school.

Or more accurately, the same class.

Sitting side by side.

I froze at the doorway. She was just sitting there, as straight-faced and blank as ever. Perhaps I could drift along in the flow and pretended nothing ever happened either, but then, what kind of person would I be?

My left foot paced out, and then my right foot followed, and then left, right, left… By hook or by crook, I managed to move from the doorway towards my seat, towards Haibara, when a swift shadow appeared before me, facing Haibara. My brain identified it as Mitsuhiko.

He cleared his throat and fidgeted a corner of his uniform.

"Haibara-san," he started, "are you free this Sunday?"

I was entirely caught off guard by the question – I did not think he noticed me behind him at the moment – but if Haibara was, she did not show it.

"Nande?" she serenely replied.

"I was thinking… Eto… You won't mind going out with me?" he stammered, bright patches of scarlet on his cheeks.

"You mean a date?" Haibara twirled a coil of her hair on her finger.

Evidently Mitsuhiko was inordinately taken aback by the blunt inquiry.

"Y-Ye-Ye-Yeah, i-if yo-you p-put it t-th-that w-way," he basically stuttered out.

"Excuse me," I bit out between gritted teeth, startled at the harshness of my own voice. He jumped, but I simply pushed him aside and marched towards my seat. I plonked down and dumped the bag onto the floor as if it had personally wronged me. A glint of mirth in Haibara's pupils caught my attention, and I briefly wondered what it was that amused her so.

"I think I can make it," she responded, smiling dazzlingly at Mitsuhiko.

"Really?!" both Mitsuhiko and I screamed, though for very different reasons that was for sure – for Mitsuhiko, joy and surprise, for me, well, I was not very certain myself. In fact, I was stunned by my own reaction.

"Yeah, why?" she tossed out to no one in particular. Obviously, Mitsuhiko assumed the answer was for him.

"Nothing, I was just amazed Haibara-san would go out with me." Then he shifted his weight awkwardly. "I think I should get back to my seat."

As soon as he was out of earshot, I said, "What was that all about?"

"A date with Mitsuhiko, is that erroneous in any way?"

I flinched in chagrin. "No!"

Haibara shrugged. "Then what are you whining about?"

"I'm not whining!" I yelled, blood pressure shooting unhealthily high.

She shrugged again. "Masaka," was her ambiguous response.

Silence.

"B-But, what about yesterday?" I finally demanded in resignation.

She glanced at me. "What about yesterday?"

I cringed visibly. "Y-You know, w-we kinda… kinda… kissed, don't you remember?"

A sudden flash in her eyes confounded me which vanished so presently I brushed it off as a trickery of light.

"The only thing I remember is you fleeing off," she retorted. Was that – hurt – in her voice?

"Gomen, I-I… I didn't mean to, it shocked me," I answered.

She turned away, eyes strategically shielded behind her curtain of bangs.

"Since it's such a shock, there's nothing much more to say. It's no big deal."

A prickle formed in my chest, spreading to my entire chest and coiling in the pit of my stomach. I gulped impulsively.

"It wasn't a shock, it w-"

"Forget it, just drop it, okay? I don't need your pity, your reassurance, your whatever! You obviously regret it, so just pretend it never happened!" she snapped. It was then I finally realised that my bolting away injured her more than she let on.

"I don't regret it…" I mumbled just soft enough for her to hear. She swivelled around, and I noticed the unnaturally glossy shimmer in her eyes.

She was crying!

I grabbed hold of her hand, this time articulating more loudly, "I don't regret it at all. It was what I always wanted to do." I meant it.

"Y-You mean…"

"Yes, I like you. I don't know when, I don't know why, I just do. Now the question is, what do you feel about me?"

Haibara gasped. I probably would gasp at my own pluck too, but I was too preoccupied keeping a serious face on.

"I… I've got to talk to Mitsuhiko-kun."

My heart sank. Was that some form of rejection? Disappointment must have been written all over my face because she swanked at my head and gave me a radiant grin.

"Baka, to cancel our date this Sunday. Speaking of which, I'm still free on that day…"

I grinned.

"I'll think of where we should go."

You don't have to tell me, the title's lame, but I'm too tired(lazy) to think of a good title and summary. XP