Mind you, I like Shiho a lot, but I don't know why this story ended up in my head.

I wrote it.

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Kate

Shinichi Kudo would be the first to admit that for the first time in his life, he felt quite unable to adapt himself to a new situation.

Not that the situation was exactly new, he thought sardonically.

He, the once charismatic teen detective was finding himself unable to deal with the crowd of fan girls,

How he hated them!

I was difficult for him to believe that for a little more than a year age, he had been one of these children!

War changed people, he admitted, ruefully. What he would not give to be able to be among those gossip-mongers, to feel that innocence and forget the blood that stained his hands, the mere gore of the battle against the Black Organisation.

Shiho had understood him, along with the other FBI and CIA Agents who had been on the project. They had sacrificed as much as him, if not more to see a world of peace. However, she had left, bitterness clogged his throat. Betrayal hurt.

Abandonment hurt.

Shinichi pointedly ignored Ran's attempts to catch his attention. Pathetic, he could even find the guts to talk with a friend now.

God! Where was his supposed bravery?

Bravery is a polite way of saying stupidity, a voice eerily similar to that of Shiho's breathed in his mind.

Ah, the pain!

She haunted him!

Yet, to his surprise, he could not hate her. As much as he wanted, he could not even despise her for rejecting him, for leaving the bloody country!

Everywhere he looked, he saw her, little subtle reminders. As if to punish him of a mysterious crime in a previous birth. The daffodils reminded him of her laughter. The whitewashed fence of her pristine nature. The plain blackboard of her no-nonsense attitude. The chemistry tables of the quiet obsession with anything scientific. The library of the silent, studious nature. The constant typing in the computer room of her manic recording of everything she deemed worthwhile.

Everywhere he looked he saw Miyano Shiho. A companion, friend, confidant, lover, partner, one who did not stay.

A companion who left.

A friend who quit.

A confidant who admit defeat.

A lover who betrayed.

A partner who got tied.

She had ruined him, made him a shadow of the boy he had been. But maybe he was more of a man that the boy had once been. Maybe he would still make something of his life, while pining for a woman who was as easily captured as sand in his fist.

Maybe a time would come when he would not feel this stabling pain at every fleeting image of hers in his mind.

Perhaps he would be able to look back to this day with a smile and say, "I loved this girl but she did not love me back. You see, she packed up and left Japan a soon as she could."

Even as Shinichi felt the pain of an old wound, that of a cold knife twisting in his heart, he could not bring himself to hate her.

He knew that he never would.

End.

I thought of writing it into a multi-chaptered fic but then I realised that I lack commitment a lot and would never finish it. Since I hate unfinished fics, it would be hypocritical of me to leave my own incomplete, right?

So, maybe if a reader feels like adopting it, contact me!

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