Chapter Text
Edogawa Conan was thrilled to have his original body back.
Haibara Ai watched him through the rising steam of her coffee, her expression unreadable. Her mug was nearly empty. Only she knew she’d begun pacing her sips on purpose, dragging them out so she could keep both hands wrapped around the oversized ceramic like a shield. He had been her Frankenstein. And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that the man standing before her now—whole, restored, irritatingly tangible—felt like the end result of someone else’s sleight of hand. A magician’s flourish. Familiar, yet subtly wrong.
It took her a moment to pinpoint why. She had never before observed him, as Kudou Shinichi, from this close, for this long. She had always kept herself at an optimal viewing distance—arms folded, chin propped, standing in shadow. He existed best as an image: the smug guest on a television screen, a voice crackling through a podcast episode, a figure transplanted effortlessly from crime scene to police briefing to street corner (which, statistically speaking, also tended to become crime scenes). He was the knight in a stage play, leaning down to kiss the princess beneath the lights.
Now he was in her room.
He noticed her stare and strode straight toward her. Had his walk always been this annoying when he was Edogawa-kun? He bent down until his face was level with hers, grinning shamelessly as she sat trapped in her chair.
“Don’t make that face,” he said lightly. “It’s erotic.”
“…Hah?”
For a split second, she genuinely considered throwing the coffee in his face.
Tragically, this was her room.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” she snapped.
She’d said those exact words before—during one of his unannounced phone calls. Apparently, he remembered it too, along with some context she wasn’t privy to, because he suddenly laughed, stupidly, unabashedly so. Haibara refused to reward that with a reaction. She spun her chair around, presenting him with her back.
“Oi, don’t be such a poor sport," he said, leaning closer anyway, "You love joking around more than anyone.”
“Don’t you have something more pressing to do?” she clipped, opening a webpage, closing it instantly, then pulling up a random social media feed and skimming the trending topics.
Trump declares himself president of Venezuela on Wikipedia—what? She’d meant to scroll absently, but found herself actually reading, tuning out the steady hum of Kudou-brand white noise beside her.
She finished the news and, against her better judgment, clicked Recommended for You.
Kudou Shinichi’s face visibly drained of color.
“Couldn’t you wait until I left before hijacking the computer?”
“Want to watch together?” she offered innocently. On the screen: the latest episode of The Daily Show.
Without a word, he grabbed the lone sofa and dragged it closer—was he flexing on purpose?—then dropped onto it and said coolly, “Play it.”
“You’re moving it back later, right?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
She shot him a look and hit play.
A good talk show, like good sex, leaves you both satisfied and hollowed out. When the host exited the stage to land his final callback, the room settled into silence—quieter than before.
She was waiting for him to leave.
When Shinichi realized this, it irritated him far more than it had any right to.
“I noticed you didn’t change back with me,” he said at last.
“Congratulations,” she replied, dry as a textbook. “You have eyes.”
He turned to face her properly. Her expression had already reset, jade-green eyes calm and unreadable, reflecting a version of him that looked more unsettled than he liked.
“Why?” The word slipped out through clenched teeth.
“Weren’t we supposed to share the same destiny?” he looked away as he added quietly, as if raising the stakes.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
That stopped him cold.
“…It’s nice,” he said after a long pause, scrambling for something safe. “Being back. I mean… one can drink again.”
She let out a short laugh. “So the great detective’s a drunk,” She turned back to her computer, clearly done with the subject.
But he wasn’t. His irritation sharpened, his voice rising despite himself. “Why are you so eager to kick me out?”
“Do you really want me gone that badly?”
“Gone where?”
She stared at him as if he’d said something absurd, her expression finally animated—though not in the way he’d hoped. She tilted her head, teaching tone fully deployed.
“In very simple terms, the relationship between Haibara Ai and Kudou Shinichi is identical to the relationship between Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko and Kudou Shinichi.”
“And the relationship between Miyano Shiho and Kudou Shinichi," she continued evenly, "is the same as the one you have with a subway ticket clerk, a delivery guy, a news anchor you’ve just met, or a waiter whose name you didn't bother to learn.”
“In short, you simply—”
The words don’t belong here were cut off by his sudden kiss.
Like lightning. Like a downpour.
Every thought in her head evaporated, washed clean by the softness of his lips and the traitorous, cascading sensation of her entire body turning weak and warm. She didn’t know when she’d closed her eyes, or when his hand had slipped to the back of her head, fingers threading into her hair. What startled her most—damn him—was realizing she liked this: the feeling of being cherished and invaded all at once.
His mouth tasted faintly of lemon, absurdly clean and sweet, like something torn straight from a shōjo manga. The irony of it only made everything worse.
She wished she had struggled. After all, she couldn’t have struggled free. At least then, when she panted that he was insane, she wouldn’t sound quite so hypocritical.
“This," his breathing was uneven now too, "is also why you should change back.”
The sound of his panting indecently compelling, making her blush even harder. His eyes were fixed on her lips, slightly swollen now, marked, satisfying some animal instinct to claim territory.
She was grateful that though her voice felt distant, she could still make it cold. “You should probably leave before the FBI next door breaks in to arrest you.”
“…Are you seriously thinking about another man right now?”
“And then go back to the agency," she went on, merciless, "Maybe tonight at… the Beika Hotel rooftop, right? Where your father proposed to your mother.”
“Yeah,” he shot back. “And I’ll invite you to our wedding too. Want to give a toast? Beg nicely—I might say yes. You can wish us eternal love, a hundred happy years, and lots of kids there.”
She should have been hurt. And she was.
But he looked more wounded than she’d ever seen him—so raw it barely felt like Kudou Shinichi at all.
She almost felt smug.
Had Ran ever seen him like this?
“This was an accident,” she said finally, turning away, delivering the verdict like a judge’s gavel.
His jaw clenched, every muscle in his body taut with restraint.
“Leave the sofa. You don’t need to move it back.”
He let out a cold laugh, channeling every last shred of self-control into not slamming the door behind him.