31_days | March 9, 2008, Detective Conan/Case Closed, Youth, IQ Deficiency and Fate’s Twisted Sense of Humor

Title: Of youth, IQ Deficiency and Fate’s Twisted Sense of Humor

Day/Theme: March 9: Beyond your reach

Series: Detective Conan/Case Closed

Character/Pairing: Shinichi/Ran

Rating: PG/K plus

There were things Shinichi didn’t mind so much when it came to his shrunken self. In fact, there were definite pluses.

He got to hold Ran’s hand pretty much constantly.
He had really easy homework.
He got out of the most awkward of situations with some quick thinking and a cute smile.
He got away with certain things because he was so young. (Some of these things were also things that Ran would never dream of doing with Shinichi if he were his proper size and age.)

There were more pluses, on certain days, but then…today wasn’t really one of those days. Today was a day when being a little kid again was a really big pain in the ass. Today was a day when fate seemed to be sitting back and having a loud laugh at his expense.

Everything that could go wrong had, everything that could be too high for him to reach was, and it seemed that on top of it, he was developing a cold or something, because he felt like crap to boot.

He decided to give Ran a ring – thinking that she’d sympathize with Shinichi at the very least because he was sick – only to be rudely hung up on after barely five minutes of talking. It was looking to be a generally sucky day, and Shinichi was ready to accept that, but then he got to Kogoro’s office. And in addition to his bad day, it seemed that fate had decided to make things interesting. Because there in the office, looking out the window for some important reason, Shinichi was sure, was none other than the infamous Heiji Hattori.

Shinichi was sure Heiji was brilliant – after all, how many teen prodigy detectives could there possibly be? And Shinichi was willing to admit that Heiji was probably a nice guy, but the day Shinichi had led so far brought him to be skeptical of Heiji’s intentions. And the anvil dropped, so to speak, as Heiji made his first logical deduction.

For as smart as Heiji seemed to be, Shinichi decided, he must have been stupid for not realizing the potentially dangerous effect his words had on Ran. Because Shinichi knew that look. That dangerous look on Ran’s face right now. It meant that someone was going to get their head handed to them.

Heiji continued to merrily dig Shinichi’s grave, and Ran continued to get angrier and angrier – Shinichi was ready for distraction tactics. And then he sneezed. And just as everything else had this day, it only caused trouble.

Granted that strange foreign liquor had the delightful side-effect of abating Ran’s anger at him, and that was good, but it also made for one hell of a headache. And then, just when things were looking up – he’d solved the case, he’d shifted Ran’s suspicions as to his character, and he’d had the joy of looking down at Ran for the first time in a long while – something shifted. Shinichi didn’t know whether it was fate’s continuing mocking laugh at his very being or if it was just the pattern that his life had been following as of late…but Shinichi found himself facing another indiscernible chunk of time stuck as Conan. Again.

It was almost pathetic in its unfairness.

Of course, Heiji left, and Shinichi found himself feeling much better after resting for a bit…he was even able to think clearly, and connect his sudden growth spurt to the Chinese alcohol that Heiji had given him – well, fate couldn’t have that.

Shinichi just looked in shock at the cupboard. It just wasn’t fair. Being little sucked. Big time.

1. He had to go to bed obscenely early.

2. He was too young to see any of the cool movies.

3. He was growing dumber by the minute having to watch mind-numbing cartoons and having to re-learn his ABCs.

4. A six-year-old girl was convinced that he was her soul mate.

5. He was too weak to do anything without Agasa’s gadgets.

The biggest pain, though, was his shortness. All in all, that was the most annoying feature of his revisitation of his youth. He could handle bedtimes and gadgets and little girl crushes, and even the issue of his questionable IQ deficiency. But when he needed something, no matter how trivial, or no matter how important, chances were, with his luck, it would always be just out of his reach.

-O-

A U T H O R S N O T E

What was that I was saying about trying to post these earlier in the day? Because that’s obviously working for me, isn’t it?

Blah…

There are just no words. I’ve been reading too much of the manga. :D

~Ayaia