ShinShi - The Perfect Pair

Chapter 3 : The Little Things

"You're awake." Shinichi said as he opened her room's door and found her sitting on her bed with her face facing the window.

Shiho turned to him. "You're here."

Shinichi grabbed a chair and walked to the side of the bed. "How do you feel?"

"If broken bones and wiped out memories are great, then I am fantastic."

Shinichi didn't know whether to frown or smile at her sarcastic answer. Part of him was annoyed as usual, but another part was relieved with the familiarity. She might lose her memory, but she was still his Haibara.

Wait, since when did he claim her as his?

"Sit, detective. Why would you hold a chair if not to sit on it?"

Shinichi rolled his eyes and sat facing Shiho. "So, you still remember nothing?"

"Smart guess, Sherlock"

"What?" Shinichi gasped.

"What?" Shiho asked back in confusion.

"What did you just call me?"

Shiho frowned, "Sherlock.....but I don't know why, it just came out of my mouth." Shiho looked confused. "Did I call you that often?"

"Yeah, and some other names," Shinichi said, trying to suppress his smile and sound bitter.

Shiho smirked, "Mind to tell me the examples? I might need it for future references,"

Shinichi smirked back, "I won't put my neck on the line, you know."

They look at each other in amusement for some time, before Shiho finally stop smiling and lifted her gaze down.
"You know, I was thinking a lot after our short conversation and your very limited information. You said I was a scientist." Shiho turned her gaze to her hands. "When I think about it, I seem to know a lot about chemist. I know what is this medicine they give me, the composition, the purpose, and the effects. I can distinguish poison and medicine, or how to turn one into another." Shiho paused a little before continuing. "But I don't remember my family. I don't know how old I am. I don't know what my favorite food is. I don't even know the color of my eyes, that I needed to look at the mirror, trying to recognize the woman reflected on it." She sounded so lost and sad, that Shinichi unconsciously reached her trembling hands. "My mind now is blank pages, and I need people to fill that in, to fill in my life for me."

Shinichi'a chest hurt as he saw the girl in front of him. He squeezed her hands to stop it from trembling and used his other hand to lift her chin. Her beautiful face looked pale, and her big eyes looked at him sharply, eventhough Shinichi still can she the sorrow and pain that she tried to hide.

He caressed her face, unable to stop himself. "You're 20 years old. You're not picky on food, but you prefer to eat healthy, and your favorite is strawberry. You only drink your coffee black, and by the amount you consumed it, I believe what running through your veins is coffee instead of blood. And you can conclude from the reflection in the mirror, that you're a beauty with turqoise eyes."

Shiho stunned. Didn't he say they were a partner? What kind of partner exactly? Were they always so romantic?

Shiho cleared her throat and slightly moved back to eased the intense contact. "Thanks, detective. What about family?"

Shinichi deliberately left that out. He should know better that there was no point in hiding something from her. "Your parent passed away when you were still a baby," Shinichi paused a moment before continuing, "and your sister passed away around 2 years ago."

"Quite a tragic life, I suppose," Shiho frowned.

'It's not even the full story,' Shinichi thought, not saying it outloud.

"So, I'm alone since then?"

"You're not alone. You have us," Shinichi protested.

Shiho only shrugged. "Then what happenned to me?"

Shinichi hesitated, "we don't know."

"Lying is not your specialty, I suppose. Why don't you want to tell me?"

"I'm not lying," Shinichi denied weakly. When Shiho only stare at him, he continued reluctantly, "well, not exactly. You were missing, kidnapped, to be precise. But we don't know exactly what happenned during that time. We were expecting you to tell us, but it turns out not only you cannot tell what happenned, you even lost your whole memories,"

Shiho knitted her eyebrows at his explanation, "kidnapped? Not some kind of accident? For how long? You know who do it? What is their purpose?"

Shinichi prayed that he pick the right words, "you were missing for 3 days, and when we finally found you, you were unconscious for another 4 days," he hesitated again. "We know who did it. In fact, all of us know them well. It's the organization that we've been trying to destroy for the last 2 years."

"What kind of organization?"

"Eh, uhm," Shinichi hesitated. "Bad guys organization,"

Haibara rolled her eyes. "No shit, Sherlock. If they were nice guys, I wouldn't have ended up in hospital."

Shinichi frowned. She was indeed the Shiho that he knew.

"Why did they kidnap me?"

"We know too much about them. They had eyes on inventions and technologies all over the world and they were highly dangerous. They moved in shadows. Most of them were trained assassins, and they did not hesitate to torture, or even killed people who got in their way.  Since we brought half of them down, it was natural for them to wanted to take revenge. So they took you."

"So how did I get away?"

"We tried to trace you at first. But it led to nothing, you could be anywhere, anything could happen. So in order to find you, the only option was to bring them down. All of them. So we did." As he told this, he looked down at his feet. Shinichi didn't mention the fact that it needed full force of the joint ventures to finally made it. He also didn't mention the endless night, the constant terror that haunted him that they would not find her......alive.

Silence hung in the air for a moment. Shiho let the information sinked in. He did not say it, but she could sense the fear and pain flashed his eyes as he told the story.

Shiho gave in to the urge to touch him, so she reached his hands and whispered, "It must have been hard. Thank you."

Shinichi looked at her. He didn't know what to say, so he just squeezed her hands gently. This is what he missed from her. Despite her façade being cold, and her words often sarcastic and cynical, she originally had a sensitive and empathetic heart. And no one understood him better than she did.

They fell into comfortable silence until Shiho said, "so from what you've told me, my life had been black. Is there any colorful side though?"

The irony. Her life indeed revolved around the black organization.

Shinichi coughed a little before answering, "it's not always rainbow indeed. But if you appreciate the little things, despite the hardwork we put to fight the bad guys, we live rather comfortably. We eat proper food, thanks to your cooking ability. We have many helpful devices invented by the professor, all of them are one of a kind. We have little kids who have high curiosity and tend to be loud as our friends. We go camping once in awhile. And eventhough you always complain about it, you helped me a lot with whatever cases that happen often unexpectedly." Shinichi unconsciously smiled as he said it, somehow not realizing that most of what he said was the story of Conan Edogawa and Ai Haibara, not Shinichi Kudo and Shiho Miyano.

Shiho smiled along. "Little things are enough."

***