Chapter Text
Epilogue
~^~
Sonoko throws a completely unnecessary graduation party at the end of their second year of high school. She decorates her family’s entertainment hall with a grisly explosion of scarlet balloons and streamers and invites the entire class, but generously singles Ran out to help her set up beforehand because that’s what best friends do apparently. “Come on,” Sonoko wheedles. “You know this is going to be amazing. We’ve worked so hard all year, let’s just let loose for a night and have fun. You’re always so serious.”
“I already said okay. I’m here, aren’t I?”
Sonoko grins triumphantly at her. There are two imported trellises indoors loaded down with crimson roses. Actual live roses. Ran thinks she might be having a seizure. It’s more red than she knows what to do with. “We could get other colors in here,” she says, but obediently takes the proffered end of the streamer and climbs up to tape it over the double doors. The stepladder wobbles a little but holds when Sonoko hurries over to steady it. “Does it occur to you that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bloodbath?”
“What can I say? Red is my color this year. I look ravishing in it.”
Yes, Ran thinks. She props her elbow on the top of the stepladder and pushes her sweaty hair out of her eyes. She’ll have to take a bath before the party. She’s not a big fan of red, but watching Sonoko smirk up at her with that look in her eyes makes her reconsider. It’s what Sonoko’s best at and she’s not nearly unobservant enough not to notice when her chiseling is working. “Fine,” Ran sighs. “You can have your red party.”
“Thank you. Very generous.” Sonoko waits until she climbs down to hand her the other end. “Do you think everybody in class will come?”
“I don’t see why not. You’re pretty popular and you do know how to throw a good party.”
“Am I?” Sonoko says, small suddenly. “Popular?”
Ran tapes the other end up. She climbs down and pulls Sonoko into a hug, cradling the back of her head. She then gently increases the pressure on it until Sonoko is yelping and flailing against her. “Quit fishing for compliments,” Ran says, letting her go. “And get me more tape. We’re out.”
“You sound more and more like your dad every year,” Sonoko grumbles, pushing her mussed hair back into place under her headband.
Ran looks out the window and lets her eyes adjust to the brilliance of the blue overhead. There’d been rain forecast but it looks like the offshore winds have brushed it away for now. She rebraids her hair and then unlatches the window, pushing it open on freshly oiled hinges. Early spring air tumbles in to displace the heat.
“They will come, though, right?” Sonoko asks. “Your friends.”
“Our friends,” Ran says. She closes her eyes and lets the air leach the flush from her forehead.
~^~
Kogoro is dawdling on the toilet by the time she comes home. “Where’s the food,” he says from behind the door.
“Dad, the party isn’t until this evening. I just came home to shower and change.”
“That doesn’t answer my food question.”
“I don’t know what you think you’d do about food anyway with your butt on that toilet.”
“Easy, make more for my butt to do on the toilet.”
“Dad, I’m not going to put up with this next year,” Ran says sternly. “I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but literally nothing should be in that bathroom with you when you poop except maybe your newspaper, and to be honest even that’s a little gross. Just more socially acceptable.”
“Bathroom is the one place in the house where you don’t have to get up to go use the bathroom. People smarter than you are just saving themselves a trip. Bring me some chips.”
“Wipe and get your own chips. I’m going to shower.” She does take the liner up out of the trash and temporarily leaves it out on the landing before she heads up. She makes quick work of herself in the mirror, not bothering to doll herself up any more than a high ponytail and a pleated white skirt. She has little to prove to anyone at this point but underdressing for the occasion only invites whining from Sonoko, so Ran has learned to compromise. Kogoro is out and up in the kitchen by the time she’s done, burping quietly to himself as he ransacks the cupboards, and Ran tries not to default to homicide as she muscles him away and plunks him down at their the table. “You’re on your own tonight,” she tells him, but swiftly pulls open the refrigerator so she can piece together a snack for him, one eye on the clock. “I’ll bring you back some food but it won’t be until late. Please try to actually eat something instead of drinking your dinner.”
“Why are you dressed like that.”
“People will give up intel more easily if I look like a soft target. I’m playing the long con.”
Kogoro blinks at her. “Really?”
“I’m going to a party.” She chops up a carrot and a few radishes for him, glazes them with her pre-made temari mixture, and adds some chocolate wafers and a cheese slice on the side because otherwise he’ll sulk. “Eat all of that. And your vegetables. Milk or water?”
She isn’t aware that he’s fallen silent until she has the milk carton in her hand and realizes she never got an answer. She glances over her shoulder. Kogoro isn’t looking at her anymore. He has a cigarette out and is rolling it between his third and fourth finger. He taps the butt of it lightly against the surface of the table, thumbs it back in a slow circle against his palm.
She straightens. “Dad, what’s wrong.”
“Nothing.”
“Dad.”
Kogoro’s gaze is out the window. He props his elbow on the table and touches the cigarette to his mouth without lighting it – a nervous tic. “Dad,” she prompts gently.
“Look like your mother,” he mutters, almost too soft to hear.
Her jumpy stomach relaxes even as her chest tightens. She sets the carton down and goes to him, and he grumbles about it but ultimately accepts her affection as she draws him against her. “I’m excited,” Ran says. “This next year… it’s really big. I just want you to know that I’m grateful you’re giving me the chance, Dad. I’m looking forward to working with you. But either way, I’m staying right here. Okay? Besides, Mom says I look way more like you anyway. She’s embarrassed to be seen out in public with me now.”
“The only thing she should be embarrassed about are the spots she keeps missing on her chin when she shaves.”
Ran rolls her eyes but drops a kiss on his cheek. “I’m heading out,” she announces, gathering up the kitchen trash and jogging out to snag the living room’s. “Can you put new liners in the cans while I’m gone?”
“Fine.”
She glances back over her shoulder one last time before she shuts the door. He’s lit the cigarette, his face still turned towards their window. A steady ribbon of smoke trails through the gap over the sill. He exhales slowly, breathing back in through the gap of a loose fist. He doesn’t touch his vegetables, but he doesn’t touch the treats either.
~^~
She’s dumping the trash into the receptacle in their alley when she hears the name. She blinks and leans out the mouth of the entrance. The three children are wearing Teitan Elementary uniforms and are talking animatedly enough to nearly run into the bench in front of them as they pass by. “—to go back,” the big one says. He’s only a head shorter than Ran, but his cadence is childish and the little ones accompanying him are clearly his classmates. “Nobody will ever believe us.”
“I still think we should bring him something for his birthday.” The girl in contrast is one of the smallest children Ran has ever seen wearing an elementary school uniform. She looks like a doll. She glares up at the boy with such ferocity that Ran has to stifle a startled laugh. “And we can’t just go about telling everyone, Genta. We made him a promise.”
“Yeah, but doesn’t it bother you we know something this cool and that nobody else will believe us if we told them? Like we could seriously be famous if we told a magazine or something.”
“Famous for what,” the other boy sighed. “It’s not like we’re ghost hunters or anything. We just know of one and he doesn’t even show up on cameras. We can’t prove it.”
“Then let’s just bring an expert in or something.”
“Conan-kun says that he won’t show up if we bring anyone else, so I don’t really think we should even bother talking about it,” the girl says. “Besides, isn’t it more fun that we have our own secret? We’ve never had a case like this before. Who knows, maybe the Junior Detective League can even catch the people who turned him into a ghost. Or, ooh! We can be detectives for ghosts too! Ghost Detectives!”
“Now that would be something worth bragging over,” the smaller boy sighs wistfully. He grins up at the taller one. “Maybe then even you would have something to be proud of after that.”
“I’ll have you know I’ve won every single eating contest I’ve ever entered,” Genta huffs. “You two losers can’t even finish your own lunch.”
“Hi,” the girl smiles at Ran.
Caught, Ran surrenders a sheepish wave. The smaller boy eyeballs her and puts a protective hand on the little girl’s back to scoot her in front of him. She protests with a whine. He shoves Genta’s back pointedly, and with a sigh Genta picks up the pace with the rest of them.
Ran shoulders her purse and watches them go until her phone stirs in her pocket. “Ran,” Sonoko shrieks.
“I’m coming, Sonoko,” Ran sighs, and when she hangs up she feels the wind catch her ponytail and the sensation it makes across her neck makes her shudder. She closes her eyes. She breathes.
~^~
She visits Shinichi’s shrine on his birthday and isn’t surprised to find Yukiko there. “Yusaku came earlier,” Yukiko says, not turning as Ran approaches. She’s in a subdued lavender pants suit today, her hair cropped and curling around her ears. She has on a wide-brimmed purple sunhat that Ran would die of embarrassment wearing but that looks predictably gorgeous on a movie star. “He doesn’t like to show emotion. He prefers to grieve on his own.”
“I thought that might be the case.” Ran settles that year’s soccer ball on the shrine. In a week they’ll come back to retrieve it and donate it a child who needs it more. There are flowers already in place and a keychain in the shape of a spyglass. “Sonoko came by earlier too. She’s the one who brought the spyglass.”
“He’ll love it,” Yukiko laughs. “But you’d know that, of course. Thank you both as always.”
Ran watches the meandering column of smoke from the incense. “Seventeen,” Yukiko murmurs. “I had so many plans for him once he got to be a third year. He’s old enough now to do so many things, have so many new opportunities.”
Ran lets her eyes linger on Shinichi’s kanji. Yukiko closes her eyes and tilts her head back slowly, letting the sun break through the guard to warm her face. She’s young still but there are signs of wear. Grief started carving them out early. “He’d be so handsome,” she whispers. “Just like his father.”
Ran settles on her knees and bows her head to pay her respects, but as always the words are mostly rote. The important parts of Shinichi aren’t here. It’s his stolen future she grieves for here, not him. For the family who will never get to see it with him. “I have something I want to give to you,” Yukiko says when Ran stands. “I want you to accept it.”
Ran takes the patterned cloth sleeve from her slowly. She glances at Yukiko for permission before sliding it off. Underneath sits a stern navy glasses case.
Ran eases it open with her thumbs. A child’s set of spectacles sits inside on a strip of velvet, pristine lenses blinking the sunshine back up at her. “He was wearing these that night,” Yukiko says. “They were broken when he was hit. The police missed them – I only found them by accident when I went back later. I… was still in denial back then, so of course I immediately went to get them fixed. I wasn’t sure why I felt such panic but did. I sat outside the optometrist’s office until they opened the next morning. I paid extra to expedite it.”
“Yukiko-san.” Her throat is closing. “Yukiko-san, I can’t take these.”
“If you don’t you’ll break my heart.” Yukiko’s voice cracks. “I want you to have these. You still see him, don’t you? You can sense when he’s here?”
Ran nods.
“Then you having them is the next best thing,” Yukiko says. “Keep them safe. I feel better knowing they’re with you. It’s what I sincerely want, Ran. Please accept them.”
“What will you do?” This conversation seems worryingly final. Ran’s worry redoubles when Yukiko only shakes her head. “Yukiko-san, he loves you,” Ran says urgently. “You can’t—”
“I’m not going to do anything foolish, Ran,” Yukiko says. “I think… after ten years, I think I’m just done feeling sorry for myself. I’m going to be traveling more from now on. I won’t be at the house so much anymore. At first I stayed because I thought he might visit, but gradually I grew to accept that he won’t. But I want him to know that I’m not abandoning him. It’s just that I have so much more I can give to the world than my grief. I failed Shinichi, but there are other children out there that need help too. Even if it’s too late, I want to prove that I can love unselfishly.”
Ran can’t speak. She slowly closes the case and covers it back up.
“Keep him safe for me,” Yukiko says. “Whatever is left of him, let him know that I love it all.”
~^~
A week passes before she’s finally ready. She immediately notices the changes in the path as she sets foot on it for the first time in years. There are more markers now, a clearly-defined hiker’s trail now sketched through the first three kilometers of the forest. She’s briefly concerned that it’s been bisected all the way back to the mountains, but to her relief it stops at the river, a sign on the opposite bank warning travelers that their way will no longer be marked.
She eats up distance easily now, hopping over the same roots and ditches that had snared her as a child. The woods are swollen with new growth, the unseasonable heat bringing out the spring greens earlier than in previous years. The clearing has clearly been visited recently, the grasses flattened almost uniformly across the circle. The log has been pulled out from its previous spot to sit more center-stage. It’s more decay than wood now and she feels a little uneasy lowering her teenage body onto it, but she finds a reasonably firm spot and takes off her backpack. Her lunch is half eaten and her thermos is still full. She eats the other half, savoring it unhurriedly, gaze nowhere in particular as she enjoys the breeze on her sweaty neck. She likes her hair long but the frequent ponytails have been giving her headaches. She might chop it off next year unless given incentive not to.
Shinichi observes, “You’re eating it all this time.”
“Well, you’re not going to eat it,” Ran says, mouth full. She motions towards the clearing with her foot. “I hear you’ve been having little visitors, ‘Conan-kun’.”
Shinichi rubs his fist under his nose. He looks exasperated but tolerant, squinting off into a cloud of questing sparrows on the opposite end of the clearing. Ran has a strong feeling little visitors have been bringing little crumbs. “I couldn’t tell them I was ‘Shinichi’. They’re not stupid, they would’ve figured it out.”
“But why Conan?”
“After the author.”
It takes her a second to get it. “Very clever,” she laughs. “Do you actually like it, or was it a panic-decision on the spot?”
“A little bit of both.” Shinichi is painfully small. Ran has to try not to stare at his hands as they pluck at his shorts. It’s hard to believe they had ever been the same size. He looks like he’d fit into her backpack. “It’s grown on me. And it’ll help protect me if they do end up gossiping. Which apparently they did.”
“Just on the street. I was the only one who overheard them, but the only reason I even paid attention at all is because they mentioned a ghost in Hanamiya. Not many of you here.”
“You know, that’s surprised me too, actually. I thought for sure this would be a more popular haunting spot.”
“Maybe it’s like with animals? Their territory. I’ve never seen a ghost in a graveyard. Maybe we all get our own spots to haunt when we die, if that’s what we want.”
“You came back,” Shinichi says. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t.”
Ran finishes up her lunch and washes it down with a gulp from her thermos. She puts the lid on and makes a note to drop by the store later to pick up more rice. “I wouldn’t have minded,” Shinichi says. “If you hadn’t, I mean.”
“I said I would always come back.”
“And I said it was okay if you didn’t.”
Ran turns to face him. He blinks up at her for a few extra seconds before looking down and away. The extra eye contact is proof enough that he’s missed her and she feels her throat close a little despite herself. “You’re a stupid boy,” she says. “You don’t know everything. You still don’t.”
“If you call me names it’s bullying at this point,” he says testily. “You’re in high school now, act like it.”
“I’m going to be working next year. For my dad, in the agency. He’s taking me on as an apprentice.”
Shinichi jolts visibly. Again his gaze readily comes up to meet hers and maybe she’d been too quick to explain away the eye contact as sentimentality. The kids visiting may have brought something out of him that she hadn’t been able to. “You’re going to become a detective?” Shinichi asks.
“I’m going to try.”
“Is it because of me?”
It’s so conceited and accurate that Ran can’t help but laugh. “Yes, Shinichi. Other reasons too. But yes.”
“So you’re going to do what I can’t.” Shinichi presses his lips together. “Figures. You probably just did it to make me jealous.”
“Oh, how did you know. The great Kudo Shinichi, meitantei. You read me like a book. Who says you couldn’t just come and take over yourself?”
“Hey, I could,” Shinichi bristles. “I’ve only gotten smarter these past few years.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I can go in and out of time, you think I’m just going to stay stagnant? And the kids have started bringing me books. For all you know I can run that agency.”
“Well.” Ran stands. She dusts herself off, patting her seat to get the flakes off it, and holds down her hand. “Let’s go, then.”
Shinichi looks at her.
The wind picks at her hair. She is going to chop it off, she decides right then, on a whim. Sonoko will scream but Ran wants to remember what it’s like to be free of ties. She thinks it’ll probably do her some favors in karate too. With the tournaments coming up, she’s looking to defend her Kanto championship and doesn’t really need more blind spots. “I can’t,” Shinichi says.
“Don’t start with me, Shinichi. Not today. Not ever again.”
“Ran, I can’t.”
“You will,” she says, and finds his gaze, and holds it. Now that she’s so familiar with her, Ran can see signs of Yukiko all through him. He’s definitely not his father’s child. The eyes are hers, the softness of his hair, the pointy little chin and delicate ears. She tries to imagine Shinichi grown and wonders if technology can help with that someday. Just a picture of what could’ve been if it hadn’t been interrupted.
“I can leave, but it takes a lot of effort. It tires me out to not have an anchor.”
“I’m going to be your anchor.”
“No you’re not. It tires you out too. You just don’t remember it.”
She withdraws her hand and reaches into her pocket.
The look on Shinichi’s face when she pulls out the glasses case is indescribable. If he’d inherited his mother’s dramatics Ran thinks he might’ve fallen to his knees. “She got them fixed for you that first week,” Ran says. “She’s kept them all these years. She’s finally ready to move on, but only if she knows you can move on too.”
“I haven’t…” He’s dazed. “They were lost.”
“Not lost. Just broken for a while.”
He reaches for them. He pulls his hand back. “No,” Ran says. “It’s okay. Touch them. They’re yours.”
“I can’t.”
“Trust me.”
Shinichi can’t take his gaze away from them. She extends them further. Trust me. He hovers hesitant fingertips over them. She can see both resentment and reverence in his eyes.
“Trust me,” Ran says.
Shinichi settles his hand down on them with the delicacy of a butterfly’s wing.
Ran feels the ripple of it go up her arm. Shinichi flinches his head back and the intake of air – of air – ricochets through her head. It rings in her ears. He stumbles back and this time he does fall to his knees. When he lowers his hands there are glasses on his face and the contact from his hand is still tingling through hers. She closes the physical glasses back inside their case and pockets them and feels them hum. “What happened.” Shinichi is half-panicked. “What happened. What did you do.”
“It’s okay.” She reaches out for him. He tries to flicker away from her and he can’t. His image is static and tangible. She catches his elbow and— god. God. She feels her tears spill over. She holds his elbow, she palms his pale little face, and she watches him break apart like Yukiko had broken apart. She steers his tears away with her thumbs. “It’s okay, Shinichi.” She braces their foreheads together. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t understand. I’m still dead, aren’t I?”
“Yes, but you’re anchored now.”
“To the glasses?”
“To me, through the glasses. I think.”
Shinichi’s face looks older with the glasses. He flicks his fingers up to adjust them and on the way back scrubs an embarrassed hand over his wet face. “I made a promise to you, Shinichi,” Ran says. “I’ll always, always come back. And as long as you’re here on this earth – as long as you want to be here – you’ll have a home with me.”
Shinichi fumbles with the temples of the glasses. “And now, I think,” Ran says, “would be just about the time where you start calling me ‘Ran-neechan’.”
Shinichi flinches bodily. He gapes up at her with offense and horror. “Or ‘Mouri-sama’,” Ran adds just as cheerfully. “Or ‘Ran-tantei’. I’ll take any of them.”
“Since when am I your subordinate?”
“Since I grew old enough and tall enough to lay down the law.”
“I’m not calling you any of those things.”
“I suppose I can let you get away with just ‘meitantei’,” Ran says. “I’d prefer a ‘sama’ on the end but I’m willing to compromise for your dignity.”
“I’d rather die,” the dead boy hisses.
“And you…” She again takes his face, and she’s not sure she’ll ever get used to the glorious freedom of this. He doesn’t shy from her touch. Ten years alone. She wants to make up for every minute in every one. “Maybe it’s time you take a new name too. Your mom is starting over. Maybe this is the point where you stop looking back too.”
Shinichi’s eyes flicker to the clearing behind her.
She knows this is probably the last time she’ll set foot here. She can feel herself pushing back against its boundaries in a way it hadn’t occurred to her to do as a child. What had once seemed protective and secret now felt smothering. She ached to be back out under open sky. “But while we’re on the subject of my employment, I’ve been thinking my dad could use some help on the detective front when I’m at school,” Ran says, “So I think maybe what you need to do is embrace your new role in the agency. Can you think of any name that’ll help you get into character?”
Shinichi’s eyes eventually flit back to her.
Ran smiles. She doesn’t bother to hide her tears. She wonders if Kogoro will scream more or less than Ran did when she had first been introduced to ghosts. She’s been softening him up to the paranormal for years and imagines at this point it won’t be much of a push. It depends on how much she liquors him up first.
Shinichi’s hand flexes in hers. She feels him start to pull away, then give up to offer a tentative, experimental squeeze. He’s out of practice. She immediately responds, tightening her own grip to encourage him.
He drops his expression away from scrutiny to gather himself. When he looks back up it’s above her, finding the breaks in the canopy. Through the cradle of green and out into blue.
“Let’s go home, Conan-kun,” Ran says.
The boy before her watches the sky. His chest takes a quick jump: in and out like breath.
“Okay,” Conan murmurs.