[March-2-2008] [Detective Conan/Case Closed] Having an Open mind

[ayaia-moon.livejournal.com]

Title: Having an Open Mind
Day/Theme: March 2, 2008: Running up the tracks for a head on collision
Series: Detective Conan/Case Closed
Character/Pairing: Ran/Shinichi
Rating: G/PG (K/K+)

Ran Mouri stiffened. She had the unsettling feeling that she was being watched. She narrowed her eyes. She was pretty sure it could only be one person…

She whirled about in her seat, smirking in satisfaction to see one Shinichi Kudo staring attentively at the eraser at the end of his pencil. She glared in his general direction, confident that he could feel her glaring at him just as she’d felt him staring at her. He continued to study his eraser like it was the most interesting thing he’d ever beheld in his life. Ran sniffed haughtily, turning back to her work.

She felt a surge of gratitude for Sonoko who had convinced her to take a study hour this period – if that little scene had happened in any other class she could have been severely scolded by the sensei.

As the bell rang signaling both the end of the class and the end of the school day, Ran moved with a fluidity and expertise honed from her many years as both a karate student and a maid for her father – she managed to slide out the door and into the hallway without even catching Shinichi’s eye, and by the time he would manage to slip out after her, she’d be long gone.

A month or so ago, Ran had been rudely awakened in the dead of night to a loud and insistent pounding on the door. Upon muttering a few choice curse words and opening the door, Ran had been shocked to see a haggard-looking Shinichi Kudo, gasping for air and shaking from exertion like he’d run to her house after a marathon.

And the story he’d begun to tell was either an amazing fabrication…or a very intricate truth. It was a tale of a mysterious organization shrouded in black – and the subsequent destruction of said organization – a strange poison the likes of which the world had never seen, and humans had never tested...until Shinichi. And Ran had listened. And Ran had gotten angry. And then Ran had just stopped listening.

To Shinichi’s credit, he had left when she’d told him to leave. And he’d only stayed outside the locked door for about half an hour, insisting that she had to hear him out. But he had ultimately seen the sense in letting Ran cool off. When he’d returned to school a week or so ago, Ran had pointedly ignored him.

And that’s what she had been doing since. Cooling off, and ignoring him.

Truth be told, Ran had to admit to herself, she had sufficiently cooled off. And she’d been itching to hear the rest of Shinichi’s story – at least to see if it was worth her while to hate him for the rest of her natural life. But she was stubborn. (And with her parents…it was hardly surprising) And she didn’t want to make the first move. Besides. Shinichi was a detective, so he could figure out a way to communicate with her, no matter how stubborn she was being. Right?

“Mouri-san? Do you consider yourself an open-minded person?”

Ran blinked. The question had seemingly come from nowhere, and she had to think hard to remember where she was and why the voice was familiar. She’d come down a hallway she didn’t normally use (better to avoid Shinichi).

“Mouri-san?”

Ran blinked again. She turned to the source of the voice – a boy of average height and build, holding a notebook at the ready to record her answer. It finally clicked. He was in her karate class. His name was Kenji. He ran a UFO club or something, and he had an amazing roundhouse kick.

“Mouri-san? Do…Do you consider yourself an open-minded person?”

It was a simple enough question. A “yes or no” variety even. All she had to do was open her mouth. But it was like the question had rattled her core.

“It’s…complicated,” she said at last.

“Explain?” Kenji had flipped his notebook open eagerly, pulling a pen from his pocket and writing down her name.

“Well… people can look up their horoscopes in the paper, or they can try their hand at a fortune-telling game, and that seems open-minded, right? I mean…it’s basically a belief that your life can be ruled by tarot cards or the stars, and that’s…pretty far-fetched to a logical mind.”

Kenji scribbled furiously in his notebook, trying to get what she was saying word for word.

“I personally don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster, or Bigfoot; I don’t believe the theory that life as we know it started on some level of primordial ooze. And that could mark me as closed-minded…”

Ran paused as Kenji scribbled; the latter looked up in confusion; noticing for the first time that some of the students that had been passing them had stopped…perhaps to hear what Ran had to say? Kenji shrugged, and indicated she continue.

“I belive in fate. I believe in karma. I believe in omens – both good and bad – and I believe that sometimes things happen for a reason. I belive that if someone does something stupid – like racing trains, or rock-climbing without a harness – they might actually have good reasons for doing what they do.”

Ran smiled a little. The traffic in the hallways had all but stopped, as if she were some freakish car-accident that they couldn’t help but stare at as they passed her by. She saw Shinichi out of the corner of her eye. Somehow it didn’t surprise her. Kenji smiled at her. He seemed like a little kid at Christmas.

“I believe that there’s life after death,” Ran persisted then, “and I believe in always giving people more than one chance. And any of these things can be interpreted as either the mark of a lunatic…or someone who is open-minded. So…yes. I think I am open-minded…because the alternative is that I’m stupid or crazy, and I really don’t think that’s true.”

Kenji made exclamations about quoting her in some online magazine or something. Ran murmured her assent, not really caring, watching as the small crowd dispersed at last. She turned to where she’d seen Shinichi. He stiffened under her intense gaze, but Ran just sighed.

She walked toward him pointedly, and he looked almost skittish at the fact that she was finally acknowledging he existed after ignoring him for so long.

“H-hi…Ran,” he said nervously.

“Shinichi,” she said firmly, glaring at him, but not as intensely as she’d been doing as of late.

“Yes?”

She held her arm up in front of his nose, her hand clenched into a fist. “If you ever pull anything this stupid again, I’ll kill you. Understand?”

Shinichi nodded.

Ran’s expression relaxed into a smile. “Good.”

 

                                            -O-

 

A U T H O R S   N O T E

 

Aaahh! I had to hurry and type this in a freaking HOUR because I left my jumpdrive that had the whole story on it at WORK!! Go me!!