Date initiated: May 4th, 2010

Genre: Friendship/Romance(?)

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan. All belongs to Gosho Aoyama.

A/N: Heya! Welcome to my next fic (lol, actually it's more of an attempt). With this one, I'll try to probably take a light approach. It'll be devoid of, or if any are present, lame humor - I've never been great at that sort of thing. A hint of angst from my previous pieces seem to follow me everywhere, so expect that too but I'll try to keep things clear and light. But please do bear with me.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Off we go.

It was a cool and sunny day. The morning breeze that wafted across the streets of Beika was a rare occurrence which was savored by each citizen of the bustling city. It was barely eight in the morning, yet people milled about carrying on with their scheduled daily activities with vigor. There were some who were dressed in formal suits with briefcases in hand, others with simple backpacks heading off to work. There were some who stood by casually, chatting with others on the sidewalks. And of course, there's the occasional group of teenagers in their school uniforms, all ready for another day in school. Their expressions and actions was a definite indication of their soaring mood and spirits.

Around a few corners, a young girl around the age of eighteen emerged from one of the many subway terminals that dotted the metropolitan city. Donning a light blue buttoned blazer and matching skirt that stopped just above her knees and red and white sneakers to fit in, she adjusted the backpack that was slung over a shoulder before pulling the white cap that sat on her head lower, concealing her face from onlookers. The people around passed by her, some in groups while others by themselves with hurried paces.

She smiled softly as her eyes darted around to glance at the random streets and buildings she had come to know.

She was back.

Looking up from her feet for the first time, the green-blue eyes seemed to sparkle with a momentary uncharacteristic glint, the foreign strawberry blonde hair framing her face gently that barely reached up to her shoulder.

"Welcome back, Miyano..." Softly, she said to apparently no one but herself. Stopping by a bus stop sign, she stood by along with a few others dressed like her. The boys donned light blue slacks, instead, which gave the impression that they were some sort of school uniforms. A bus approached the stop and one of the energetic girls ran over to intercept it.

"Let's go, guys!" Said girl, shouted over her shoulder.

Definitely energetic, alright.

"Hey, it's not gonna be leaving you behind." Another one huffed with an air of annoyance that failed to hide a hint of a smile in her voice.

Shiho Miyano looked up and at the signboard hanging from the windshield of the bus. Cuing up behind the others, she stepped in.

Next stop, Teitan High.

Somewhere else a few miles away, a long dark brown-haired girl stood in front of the doors of a large house. Her posture as she stood – arms crossed and her foot tapping the ground, not to mention that obvious frown on her face – pointed to none other than an annoyed expression. Her hand reached out for the handle bar to push it open, but just as she was about to, it was yanked out of her grasp and door was pulled inwards.

A drowsy looking teenager that she had known for years just yawned and gave a brief wave in greeting as he rubbed his eyes with his other hand, a buttered sandwich held between his teeth.

"Shinichi!" The girl shoved her face right next to his.

The boy, eighteen year old Shinichi Kudo, blinked suddenly looking fully awake as the girl's voice echoed in his ear.

"Can't you hurry up with whatever you were doing for once?" She continued.

The high school detective huffed in a mocking way and crossed his arms, holding the sandwich for a moment to speak. "Well, I would've been much faster if it weren't for a certain someone who happens to be shouting through the door every five minutes."

The girl just glared at him.

He laughed. "Oh, c'mon, Ran. You know I'm just messing with you." He flashed her his trademark grin.

Ran Mouri, his childhood friend, tried to hold the frown but even she knew it would not last. She found herself smiling at him.

"Well, alright." She conceded. "Maybe next time, waking up earlier would help."

That was a lame attempt to try and hold the upper hand on him. She knew she hindered him and that was her fault. She had been pulling that door open and close for the past twenty minutes or so, just to shout to him to hurry up. Each time, Shinichi would poke his head out of the doorway of a different room – sometimes telling her that it's no need to rush, sometimes he's 'trying' and sometimes, just to tell her to stuff it.

"Yeah, sure..." Shinichi snorted jokingly. "Want some?" He held the sandwich to her and she shook her head.

"I'm good, thanks."

The teen wordlessly gobbled down the bread and wiped his hands on the tissue wrap.

As they walked towards Teitan High, they chatted about this and that, commented on the on goings around them and just plain teased each other and laughing at their antics. It was just like back in the day, as if nothing had happened.

As if they had never been separated at all.

Ran had never felt more alive. At least she didn't notice ever since Shinichi disappeared one night after their trip to Tropical Land, claiming he had been trying to solve a difficult case. She hadn't seen him for about over a year, but then suddenly, he appeared at the Detective Mouri Agency doorstep one late night in battered clothes and with bandages wrapped around his head and on other injuries he seemingly sustained.

It started with the question 'why'.

Just that one word, when it slipped out of her mouth as she eyed him involuntarily. She didn't know what had happened but in the next few minutes she found herself listening to Shinichi confessing everything.

How he was going after an underground criminal organization, trying to take it down.

How he had worked trying to do so and explained his reasons and his motives for bringing it down.

How he was shrunk back into a seven year old and 'had been around you all the time'...

He told her everything.

That's when it all clicked. Ran felt a number of emotions surge through her – skepticism, anger and hurt. She was skeptical to his explanations, angry because he had lied to her and hurt because he chose to leave her in the dark. She just screamed at him, that night. She was grateful that her dad Kogoro Mouri wasn't home or he would've thrown a tantrum that would've been thrice as worse in the presence of the high school detective.

But somewhere along her fury, she found herself slowly breaking down until she couldn't hold it anymore. She let herself cry. She let her suppressed emotions of frustration and pain out all at once. The thing that she remembered was Shinichi holding her, whispering comforting words as he hugged her, apologizing over and over.

Ran had forgiven him soon enough. She knew she would not be able to hold it to him. Who was she to blame him for lying to her to protect her?

But still even with knowing that, it left a sting. She didn't know why he left her in the dark.

Didn't he trust her enough to understand... or was there something else that he didn't tell her?

Perhaps something already obvious but she could not grasp...?

But looking back at him now as they laughed, she smiled. What is important now is that he was alive, here and no longer in threat of danger anymore.

Somewhere in between her musings and reality though, she felt her smile fall flat. Shinichi's laughter subsided gradually, leaving a painfully soft smile lingering on his lips. The look on his face was a million light years from the situation they just have shared. What was supposed to leave a contented smile or even a grin on any other person's expression, left a clouded far-away look on Shinichi's eyes. Out of all the faces Shinichi showed, this one were the most recent she came to know of... or see but could not understand, to be more precise.

Ran had noticed that he had changed somewhat subtly – physically yes, but also mentally. There was this glint in his eyes that she couldn't explain. She had wanted to ask several times what he was thinking about, what had been bothering him but always bit her tongue at the last second. Maybe it was the change in him, but she wasn't sure. Heavy silence that descended immediately changed the light mood and as always, Ran kept to herself once again. She felt as though even by being in his presence at such a time, she was trespassing.

And before they knew it, they were walking through the gates of Teitan High joining the crowd that was flooding into the halls of the school buildings. Looking at the large clock by the front gates, it indicated that there was about forty minutes to go before homeroom. A little bit too earlier for Shinichi's taste, yet a lot of people had already come in.

The open grounds were abuzz with random conversations. Needlessly to say, they did not miss anything, from their friends and classmates greeting them to simple matters as what subjects they would be taking for the whole day.

But what they did miss was the bus that rolled to a halt in front of the school gates, just as they stepped into the building's interior.

Shinichi Kudo, genius high school detective, plopped down in his seat tiredly, immediately laying his head on the desk. Looking around briefly, he glanced at his classmates. Some were talking in whispers, some did not bother with keep their voices down as their laughter rang out as loud as it could get in the morning, and some at the back of the class desperately trying to copy yesterday's assigned assignment. Nothing much changed between the time he was shrunk and the time he reverted back to his body. Definitely your average high school day.

Only then he noticed the corners of his mouth were stinging slightly.

The facade dropped.

He glanced around the classroom again. No one even gave him a glance at his seat near the back of the class besides the cheerful morning greeting to a friend. Ran had split up from him in the hallways, being dragged off by one Sonoko Suzuki for who-knows-what. He guessed probably another gossip with which Ran would end up being pissed off at.

He sighed slightly. He might try to deny it... but he knew everything, from the smiles he smiled to the cheerful exterior he put up sometimes, it was just fake.

It was plastic.

Where was the old Shinichi that he knew to be himself?

Where was that detective who would smirk whenever something was going on in his mind?

Where was the arrogant teen that would do anything to get his way?

Where was that care-free attitude?

Looking back now, it all seemed like...

...Someone else's reality. That was all he could describe it as.

He himself did not know, as well. All he knew was he changed somehow. His outlook on different things was changed, from the subtle day-to-day life routine to the smallest unnoticeable things.

Except for one thing.

His mind wandered back to a certain incident.

Shinichi stood in front of the Agasa Residence. From the looks of the house, interior cast in evening darkness, he assumed the Professor wasn't home. Knocking briefly on the door, he entered and shut the door behind him.

"Hey, Haibara." He called out immediately. No reply.

He scoffed mentally. Typical Shiho, really. Probably locked up in her room or the lab doing who knows what on that computer of hers. Descending to the basement, he found it empty and dark, unoccupied. He looked around once more to make sure he had not missed her in the darkness, and proceeded upstairs to the second floor.

"Haibara." He called out again as he stood in front of her room. "Are you in there?" His hand moved to the knob and was about to turn it when he found the door slightly ajar. Pushing it open, the door creaked slightly as he was greeted by the same layout of the room he had once seen it in.

Moving in slowly, he glanced around. Nothing seemed to be out of place. The desk, wardrobe and the bookshelf seem untouched. The bed was neatly kept, window curtains closed as they always have been.

But it was so quiet that he felt something was... wrong.

He moved cautiously towards the computer desk and was greeted by a folded note. Reaching out slowly, he unfolded it as his mind began to wander to the worst scenario. On the piece of paper, was a neat handwritten message in red ink, the calligraphy of which he attributed to a certain strawberry blonde.

"I'm sorry, Kudo..." He whispered it aloud. It did not take him a fraction of a second to realize the situation. Glancing around the room frantically, he called out her name once more. With no reply, he dashed over to the window and parted the curtains hastily to look outside. Not a single person was out and about.

"No..." He whispered in disbelief as he scrunched up the note with a shaky hand. He didn't know what to feel. The detective being himself, flipped the whole house upside down with a dim hope that he himself knew would be proven false. And he was right, the house was completely vacant. As if no one had lived in it.

Back at her room, all her belongings were left behind – the small clothes she once wore to the books and novels she had owned. Everything, except for the picture of her sister – the evidence being the empty picture frame on the bedside table.

She had really left...

That had been just a few weeks after the fall of the Black Organization. The FBI had its ways, he would say – it was a series of covert raids on its nests and sabotages within the infrastructure of the syndicate. How they had achieved that, he did not know, since he himself knew next to nothing about them. But one way or another, they have managed to do it. The National Security Branch unit of the FBI managed to recover all sorts of data from the organized computer mainframe of the Organization's network connecting it to several unresolved crimes and murders and illegal trafficking spanning the globe.

Aside from that, data of its activities and projects were also recovered. Shiho was able to recover the Apotoxin-4869 data and successfully, develop the counter-agent shortly. Needless to say, he was ecstatic when he reverted back to his body.

But now, he did not know for the life of him, where that went - why he felt hollow. Nothing had ever been the same when Shiho had left that evening, with only so much as a note left behind. That pathetic short note signed as 'Sherry'.

So it was still 'Sherry', huh? She never did get him at all...

He didn't understand. Why? Why did she leave? What the hell was she thinking, anyway? Why did she-

He sighed. He tried not to think about it as much as he could but would almost always find himself thinking about her involuntarily. He played with the idea of asking the FBI to track her down, but he abandoned that. As much as he wanted to, he knew Shiho wouldn't like it. And he respected her.

So instead, he tried to deny how he was feeling, play along like nothing was wrong.

He knew he was only fooling himself...

Looking out of the window by his seat, he watched the same old yellow school bus roll away from the gate. He chuckled in apathy. He never realized he would miss her. It was really ironic to him. He never expected to miss Shiho's witty retorts, the glares she would send his way or even just her presence. She was... different, to him – a unique person all together. She intrigued him to no end with that slightly distant personality and nature of hers. She always kept to herself, rarely ever conversing unless spoken to. Or otherwise, provoked, he would say.

He only wished he could see her one more time. Inside, he knew he wanted to. For the last four months that she had disappeared, like the wind with time, he never felt like this towards anyone. It was like she had become a part of him that he was not able leave behind. Just four months, some would say...

'Haibara...'

He would only say this though. That girl, she had taught him a lot despite the difference in their personalities and nature. She taught him about imperfection and humbleness. He no longer walked around basking in fame, 'grinning like some big hotshot' as Ran had once put it.

When he was shrunk to Conan Edogawa, the whole world seemed just like one hell of a stinking dump. It was nothing compared to what he was used to – a perfect world with the fame and attention being the Detective of the East. Instead, he was kicked over a hundred squares back and even though that had only lasted for about a little over a year, she had made him see that it was never and would never be a perfect world.

Life itself, would never be perfect.

She made him look past that arrogance of his, and face reality. Life is imperfect, but what would make it great are the little things that it would give you.

Give you, but most people would not notice unless something happened...

"Hey, Kudo. Could you give us a hand here?" Shinichi heard one of his classmates desperately call out, probably for some help with the assignment. One of the slackers, he was sure.

Other times, he would just brush it off such requests with a 'Screw you. You should have done it yesterday' look while he smirked at the glaring person. But right now, it seemed more appealing to help them out with nothing better to do.

Sighing, he got up grabbing the necessary textbook and headed for their spot past the empty seat beside his. It will probably do him some good. Giving the grounds a once over, he failed to notice a single white hue among the throng of blue as he moved away from the window.

She was back, back to Beika city. A place that she had left and tried to leave behind – a place that meant a great deal to her. Her mind wandered back to that day four months prior. It was a coward way out, she knew, but also the easiest. Not for the first time ever, Shiho wondered how Shinichi reacted to her leaving. Probably, he would just blow off a tantrum at Agasa's and forget about her, all together. She wasn't the sort of person someone would like to remember, anyway. If anyone, it would just be the sake of contempt.

Shiho let out a silent chuckle. How pathetic of her to have run away like that. She should have known she would lose, though. She had left the town with best interests in mind – not for herself but for that detective.

She left to able to give him a chance to move on. Give him a second chance at the life she indirectly snatched away – a life with her, Ran. Her existence was like a shadow. As long as she was around and about, Shiho knew he would not be able to completely leave everything behind. And besides, she really had no reason to stay. At first, it seemed pretty easy to do. But then, she began to doubt if she really wanted to do it.

'Do I...?' That question flitted into her mind more and more often. 'Can I...?'

But her being Shiho, reasonable and rational, she left nevertheless. Even though she herself was a victim, that did not make her any better than a fugitive for being the one responsible for their predicament.

So, she left. She left him behind; left the house she called home for the last year. She never did belong here. Of course, that was never the only thing that drove her to leave as well...

But it was Shinichi's words themselves that would lead her back here again, and today where she stood. She didn't know how he would react – would he scream and blame her again like last time? Or would he shove her aside like he never noticed her this time? - she didn't know. But she wouldn't turn away.

'Don't run away, Haibara... Don't run away from fate.'

Just exactly what she would do. He told her that, he taught her.

Because, to her, Shinichi was not just a person that happened to cross her path. He was a friend she relied on and a confidant in whom she had confided in some of her most personal matters and dark secrets. Shinichi was a person she trusts and something more.

She might never find out how, but he managed to break her out of her shell – that indifferent layer she held as a shield - and expose that frightened vulnerable girl that lie forgotten inside. He saved her from the cold withering hand of Death that she so welcomed numerous times. He shined a ray of hope that beckoned for her when all around was just endless blackness of despair and lies.

He made her feel. Again.

Shiho never asked for any of those, yet he gave it unknowingly to her. He made her breathe in life again. She supposed it was one of the things that managed to win her trust in him. And how, without thinking, her feelings would slip into comfort and ease whenever he was around. How he made her feel human.

She must be losing her touch, she thought. She was surprised that he managed to have an influence on her, however unnoticeable it would still be on the outside.

"Alright, here we are." An awkwardly cheery voice suddenly broke her from her reverie.

A woman around her early thirties was looking up at a small label above a door. Turning to the strawberry blonde, she handed her a small cardboard slip that detailed her schedule. "In you go, Miyano-san. I might as well introduce you to everyone. Classes are about start shortly."

Accepting the slip, Shiho pocketed it while sliding the door open, mumbling a silent 'Thank you, Amagi-sensei' and stepped in. She would be having a share of personal space in 3-E for the year. She wondered how this would go from here this time, without the pressure from the Black Organization. Stepping in through the door into the noisy classroom, she moved to stand by the teacher's table just in front of the clean whiteboard, followed by Amagi-sensei.

It was just another normal Tuesday for everyone. Maybe she would find out for herself.

A/N: Slow pace much? Haha, probably... Anyway, this would be my first multi-chaptered fic but also just a trial - so please bear with me. I've been hesitating to post this one up but after some nagging, I've decided to give it a shot. I can't make any promises on swift or sooner updates - think of it as a warning. I'll probably be having my hands tied with the coming days but I'll see what I can do. I hope it wasn't as bad as I seem to look at it like, though. But no matter.

If you've made it this far out reading this, I thank you. Well, I hope you enjoyed it at the very least anyway. Laters! *disapoofs*