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Shiho returned to Japan after a year of absence. Everything about Tokyo – the buildings and the streets and the people too – seemed profoundly changed to her, as though entire generations had passed during her time away. The professor was the same, thin white hair that sat on a round face, a bit thinner or perhaps just older. He welcomed her with a warm embrace, the kind that had initially unsettled her and now she found herself missing. It was the little things that made her doubt her decision from a year ago – thirteen months to be exact – to run away from everything that had become familiar. She had always liked running away, or rather it came so easily to her that she liked it.
Shinichi greeted her with equal warmth, he even called her Shiho, pronouncing her name so naturally. There had been a time, when Shiho was still in Japan, during the months after the defeat of the Organisation, when he’d transitioned from Haibara to Miyano – strange for her more than for him. She had to get used not so much to her adult body but to what it meant, the complex social ramifications that children were free from.
After a few months, Shinichi had started calling her Shiho. She had been surprised, surely hadn’t expected it. He’d said, “What? We’re friends. You can call me Shinichi if you want to.” That she never did. She settled for his last name, preferring the emotional distance it implied.
Shinichi Kudo in his element was insufferable, too much to bear; Shiho could only ingest him in small doses. This much had remained unchanged. One morning he came to visit her at the Professor’s house. She offered him coffee. The outlines of the kitchen took shape around them with meticulous familiarity; quickly they fell into recycled words and gestures. Intimacy unsettled them, pride prevented them from making mistakes, so they limited themselves in words, in gestures, in glances. Every encounter was a trifle different performance that changed in details but not essence.
Shinichi asked, “How long are you staying?”
“I’m leaving Thursday.”
“The professor’s birthday is Wednesday.”
“That’s why I’m leaving Thursday.”
Shinichi stretched up to grab the sugar from a high shelf. He removed the lid, took two teaspoons, one for each cup. He handed her one, Shiho rotated it under the yellowed light from the curtains. “This is how you take it now, yes?”
Shiho had confessed it to him at some point (“Yes, sugar – not two, just one”) but she considered the words plastic, conventional. Sometimes she thought Shinichi didn’t pay attention to the subtleties, or if he did, it was only because he had an agenda, that detective instinct guiding him. Shiho wasn’t used to being understood. She didn’t want her gestures to be decoded, her words to be anything more than simple communication.
She kept her focus fixed on the cup for a while, seemingly eternal. “How’s the case going?” Shinichi looked at her with confusion. “The professor talks to anyone he thinks is paying attention.”
“Uh-huh,” said Shinichi, flashing her a smile. “Are you interested in the dead wife or the dead husband?”
“There’s a dead husband as well?”
“You need to stay up to date.”
“Impossible with you.”
They smiled at each other, between them shimmered the camaraderie that Shiho thought long lost.
“So, Thursday then?” said Shinichi.
“Uh-huh.”
“You turned down that job?”
Understanding took a moment to dawn on her.
“The professor talks to anyone he thinks is paying attention,” they said together, he with a wry smile.
Thank goodness she had asked him to keep it a secret! Not that it mattered. Indeed Shiho should have expected it. She cared for the professor, had a sincere affection for him like she’d never had for anyone before, but she reproached him for being too expansive, not measured enough in his behavior. He couldn’t keep a sense of decorum, put on a brake. This – Shiho had to admit – had often worked in her favour. It was that fervent streak that made her feel at home, wanted and not rejected. She had never believed that people like the professor existed before meeting him.
“Was it because of me?”
Dashed out of her thoughts Shiho blinked in rapid succession. “What?”
“That you left, was it because of me?”
They were stepping outside the familiar framework now, improvising. Shiho wanted to stop him, should have stopped him, but Shinichi always beat her to the punch. He looked up at the ceiling, blew air from his mouth. “I always thought, I don’t know, there was something you didn’t like about me. I thought we were friends, and for a time we were. But then you started acting weird. And I know that I made, well – mistakes.”
“We both did,” Shiho cut him off, not wanting to hear a word more. And they had talked about it, however briefly. More than that they had silently acknowledged said mistakes – the lies and everything else – and moved on. She was not the confrontational sort, not when it came to Shinichi Kudo.
He said, “It wasn’t the professor, it wasn’t the kids. I thought it must be something I did.” He looked at her, and it was that look that should have warned her, prompted her to run away. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save her. Akemi. I don’t think I ever said that. Well, now I am. I’m sorry.”
Shinichi had a way of making sense of things that was radically opposed to the hierarchical order of Shiho’s system. She was afraid of him, afraid because she fundamentally couldn’t understand him, couldn’t synthesise him into a manageable formula. As a child she had learned to shape herself based on others’ expectations. Adults didn’t like being challenged by a little brat, therefore she remained silent, pretending innocence and even ignorance. With the members of the Organisation not a protest came out of her. She lowered her head, nodded, went along with all that she was said to do. She pretended nothing could harm her. The lie had lasted so long that she had ended up believing it.
Then there was Shinichi: Shinichi with his blunt honesty, his inability to accept peace as a long-term treaty. With a few words he could unsettle her. She instead preferred the nothingness, words unsuitable for moments of real emotional exchange.
“I don’t blame you for anything,” she said, the mere idea absurd now. “Is that what you thought?”
“You left without much of a warning. One day you were here, the next you were going to London.”
“I thought it might help clear my head.”
“From what?”
She looked down at her hands. “There’s too much here I don’t know how to deal with.”
“Is that a bad thing?” At this Shiho frowned and he shrugged in the fashion that suggested a struggle to sort his feelings. He was, she knew now, more emotionally mature than he showed; it was the words he often lacked. “It means there are people here you care about. Who’s there in London? Even the Queen’s dead.”
It was so sudden she laughed, a rather inelegant laugh, almost hysterical. Shinichi’s face was brilliant with a smile. She despised how easy it was for him, this shape he could take despite the natural inclination towards shrewdness they both shared.
“Sunday,” he said.
“Sunday what?”
“It's as good a day as any to leave.”
“Why Sunday?”
“I don’t know, just throwing ideas out there,” he said and folded his arms. “You can stay, is all I’m saying.”