Creatures of Habit

By Crystal Snowflakes

Author's Notes: So this was actually started back in March when I wanted to do a collection of one-shots for Conan/Ai and Shinichi/Shiho... Hope you guys enjoy, and if you're wondering, these perks (or unusual habits) are actually mine... And yes, I am awfully strange. Enjoy!

Author's Notes #2: Another story I've managed to find in my old fanfic folders.

Disclaimers: All things that are remotely familiar do not belong to me, but to Gosho Aoyama.

Haibara Ai was a teenager shrouded in mystery, peculiar in many ways.

And Conan had taken the time to notice the most unusual habits of hers because he had had so many years to study her strange quirks. It really wasn't that bizarre to him to spend so much time with her, because after all, she was the only one in the world in the same situation as him, and she was the only one in the world that would understand him.

He'd begun to instinctively watch her after the blacks had been brought down.

The first thing he noticed about her was her refusal to step outside the tiles on the floors. He'd observed this behaviour once when they had been ten and in a mall with the kids, and she'd kept her attention on the ground the entire time, making sure she didn't have half her foot on one tile, and the other half on another tile.

He'd thought that it was just a once in a lifetime occurrence, because it was just plain silly to make sure not to step on the gaps between the tiles. And he found it slightly endearing when he witnessed this habit a second time.

The second thing he was aware of was her dislike for odd numbers. She would always prefer eating an even number of everything, such as two rice balls, and if she was still hungry, she'd eat four, but never three. She'd stuff herself if it meant avoiding an odd number. And if it was impossible to eat an even number of something, she'd take an even numbers of bites.

They had once gone to a fast food restaurant with the kids, and he'd been counting the numbers of fries she'd been eating. Her last one was a very short fry, and any normal person would've just thrown it in their mouth and be done with it. She had taken a bite of out it, chewed half with her left side, and the other half with her right.

Every time they got home, she would turn on the television, not because she wanted to watch it, but because she thought Agasa would have messed around with it. Of course, messing around with it meant leaving the television on a volume level with an odd number. After fixing the volume, she'd turn off the television.

He almost laughed at her absurdity.

One of the habits that made him really want to snigger was the way she would glare at anyone that would write or fold their books. Granted, it was a pet peeve of his own because he personally thought that books should be respected, but he would never glare nor stop anyone from doing so.

As a matter of fact, she'd once threatened to murder Hattori when he had been reading her chemistry book, and was about to fold the page for future reference. That had made Kuroba giggle incessantly like a little girl.

The next habit he could think of irritated him. He'd first been aware of it at the Detective Agency when Ran had been making sandwiches for everyone as an afternoon snack. She had eaten the entire outside of the sandwich first, and after making sure that none of the bread crust was left, then she had proceeded to finish her sandwich with a contented smile on her face.

The reason why this habit of hers irritated him was because it really was a pain to make a sandwich for her. While she wasn't picky when the sandwich was being prepared by someone she didn't know well, she was extremely picky (and he swears that Haibara does it just to spite him) when he makes it for her.

She hated it when the mayonnaise on the sandwich hadn't been spread on the corners and the very sides of the bread. As a matter of fact, she hated it so much that she had once refused to eat the revolting thing.

And that wasn't the end of the pickiness of the sandwich. She liked her sandwiches perfectly crust-less, an exact square, and cut into four pieces diagonally. She'd refuse to eat it if it wasn't exactly the way she wanted the sandwich.

She was also very peculiar whenever she mailed a letter, although he found it sweet in a childish way. She would always slide the letter in the thin slot, wait a few short moments, then with a small smile on her face, stand on her tiptoes and pulled out the large opening of the mailbox to make sure the letter slid in, and hadn't gotten lost on its way down to the bottom.

When he had once asked her about the strangeness of her actions, she said with a ghost of a smile on her face, that Akemi had done that when she had been alive.

The last habit, and the one he thought was the most adorable, was the way she liked her pillows cold. She'd practically purr every night she sank her body beneath her blankets and rested her head on her pillows, and while there was no problem with that, problems would arise if she was sleepless that night.

As mentioned before, Haibara liked her pillows cold. So when she'd been laying on them for a while and they'd become warm and uncomfortable, she would become irritated, mutter some silliness, and flip her pillow around. Then she'd purr once again as her head hits the cold pillow.

While that problem was only really noticeable if she was unable to sleep, she still had the tendency to flip her pillows around in the middle of the night while she was asleep.

He doesn't really quite think she's aware of her actions, because she's asleep when she turns them around.

But he finds it endearing nonetheless.

And that was why, when Ran and her new boyfriend was sitting on the couch outside with Ran's old photo album and too busy to make Conan his usual after-school snack, Conan decided to make his own sandwiches.

When Ran asked Conan why he made his sandwich such an unusual way, he mind came up blank, and merely told the truth. "Haibara likes her sandwiches this way."

At this, Ran shot a wink at her adoptive brother. "So you've got a crush, don't you?"

The shrunken detective almost slipped. "Wh-What?"

"On Ai-chan." Ran giggled.

"You're crazy if you think I have a crush on that... that..."

"That what?" Keiji asked innocently, teasing Conan.

At that moment, the detective wanted to snap back at the man and tell him that no, he was not fifteen, but twenty-five, and that he could shove his teasing up where the sun didn't shine. But Ran would be difficult to handle, and she'd probably ask him what he meant by being twenty-five...

So he merely gritted his teeth and replied scathingly, "I am not crushing on Haibara. I will never crush on Haibara."

"Someone's in denial, Conan-kun!" Ran said in a sing-along tone.

"Ran-neechan! I do not—"

"Tell me, Conan-kun. Would you really make a sandwich the way Ai-chan liked it if you didn't like her?"

"I would if she refused to eat it." Conan replied stubbornly.

"So what if she refused?"

"I made it. So she should eat it."

"And why did you make it in the first place?"

"Because I ca—" Conan stopped, "That's twisted logic, Ran-neechan. It's cheating."

Ran patted her adoptive brother's head fondly. "It's not cheating if the twisted logic makes sense, ne? You care, and it seems like you care more for Ai-chan than Ayumi-chan, in any case. Now, would you be able to think of why that is? You're a smart one, Conan-kun. I'm sure you'll be able to do it... Although you're really just as dense as Heiji-kun when it comes to your feelings..."

Conan could merely pout, and sat on the ground as he grasped his sandwich and began munching on it.

His hand drifted towards the remote as he turned it on, and made sure it was on the news channel before he upped the volume level by a notch.

The corners of his lips twitched upwards. Haibara would have a fit if she knew that the volume had been on 21 the whole day...

And he stopped his thought abruptly, the sandwich forgotten on his plate.

"Conan-kun?" Keiji called the frozen teenager. "Conan-kun?"

The younger man turned around and glanced at the man who had once stolen the love of his life. "Ran-neechan..." He called, his eyes still wide with shock. "I think I am crushing on Haibara."

Ran could only laugh in response.

Author's Notes: I hope you guys enjoyed this!

March 2008