10Wishing You Were Here
A Detective Conan fanfic by Wchan 2001
Note: Explanations at the end. Please enjoy!
Chapter 1: December 23
1000
"You'd better put this on, Conan. Flu's in a rage this season," Ran wrapped a wooly scarf around the little boy and helped him into his coat, "there!" Conan looked up as the tall girl got herself into her own winter gear and patted her pocket. He reached his hand out to her, "Shall we go?" Ran gladly took his hand and they walked out of the detective agency, locking the door behind them.
"Ran-neechan, where are we going?" Conan was trotting, trying to keep up with Ran's strides. "Shopping of course! It's Christmas season and we wouldn't want to go around empty handed now, do we?"
'And thugs are rampant these days, since people are bustling in the streets with cash in store… man, if only I could be Shinichi again.' Conan looked down at his red sneakers, then at Ran's brown boots…
And he tripped at some chipped part of the sidewalk, his glasses going off from his face.
"Conan, are you ok?" Ran knelt down beside him to help him up, and the young boy tensed, recalling how Ran would get mesmerized at each instant he looked close to his supposed-to-be form. "Um, my glasses!" Conan reached for them nearby and felt dismayed, "Oh no, cracked." Ran got him back on his feet and looked at his now blushing face. Her finger traveled across his bangs and stroked his hair with that nostalgic look on her features, "We'll just get them repaired. There's a pretty good optician in the mall anyway." Ran stood and they resumed walking.
"Huh? Well, Ran-neechan, you see, I'd rather have them fixed by doctor Agasa. I guess that it would be too expensive for us to go to an 'extervagant' optician!" Ran giggled at the mispronunciation, "It's 'extravagant', Conan-kun! C'mon, let's speed up a little so we won't get frozen!" Conan sighed. It was already hard to keep up with "childish standards", but he had to deal with Ran's overflowing energy.
In the train, they stayed near the windows. Ran leaned on the glass and Conan did the same. His glasses were in his pocket. The young detective couldn't help but notice the amount of fog on the glass caused by a dismal sigh from the girl in front of him. Surely, she would want Shinichi to be there for Christmas. Parcels were getting tiresome.
He's got to be there.
1030
Ran went through her list, "Ok, I got one for Otousan, Sonoko-chan, … hmm! I can't believe I also remembered Heiji-kun and Kazuha-chan! There's also doctor Agasa, Megure-san, my lovely professors… Conan," she winked mischievously at the pouting little boy. She managed to hide the gift she got for him, by getting his attention with the electronic games section of the mall, "and, oh! Shinichi!".
Conan's heart sank. He felt so undeserving of such attention. "Ran?" he tugged at her sleeve, causing her heart to miss a beat, hearing his serious tone and calling him in a familiar manner, just as Shinichi would, "Can I play at the video game demos over there?"
Ran sighed and shrugged, "Ok then! Just don't go following some weirdoes and walk out on me and you know what I mean!" She put her hands to her hips, then lowered herself to pat his head, "Just be a good boy, ok?"
Conan nodded, flashed his wide, childish grin and ran over to the direction of the toy section. He was suddenly stooped in his tracks by a certain machine called, "The Magic Genie", and a huge sign saying, "Make your wishes come true". He slowly walked towards the machine, which was twice his size. At the top of the slot compartment was a large glass structure, rather intricate in design, taking up more or less half of the whole gadget. Inside was a statue of s genie shown waist up with moving arms, mouth and eyes. It did not look attractive at all. The "genie" looked more like an evil terrorist from the movies. Scary.
Conan shrugged and pulled out a silver coin from his pocket, 'Everybody knows it's a freaking game,' he thought, 'and knows it's all a jinx.' He sighed. He knew he was fooling himself.
He inserted the coin into the slot and turned the knob. After hearing the tinkle of the coin, he heard the pre-recorded voice speak, along with some scratchy Middle-Eastern music, "I am the all powerful genie. You are my master and your wish is my command." Hideous. He tiptoed to the glass and whispered his wish into it. He would not want everybody hearing him and have kids laugh at him.
After a short while, a small card came out of the genie's mouth and fell into the claim compartment, along with the sound of a coin, indicating that he had change; but what he got was exactly the same coin he inserted a while ago. He shrugged and read the card, "Your wish is granted". He put the card into his pocket, and made his way back to Ran, mentally scolding himself for being so infantile.
1200
"Otousan! We're home!" Ran carried a two bags in one hand and proceeded into discarding her complicated attire. Conan shook off some snow and put another bag of items on the floor. He busied himself with his shoes, and winter apparel.
"Good thing you came early, Ran," Kogoro was literally leaping down the stairs with a mochi in his mouth, "inspector Megure had some informal, yet important matters to discuss with me, so I'm off to the station. You just prepare yourselves some lunch ok?" he donned his coat and swallowed the rice ball, "And before I forget, I have a list of Christmas shopping on the table in the kitchen. Can you do those for me? I need them tomorrow." And after random rice-spittles, some cussing and angular entanglements with the coat hanger, Mr. Mouri was on his way.
The youngsters shared a synchronized sigh, "Well, Conan, I guess it's the mall for us again," Ran sauntered in the halls, Conan at her heels, "Say – why don't we prepare ourselves some lunch, then we can go do the shopping?"
"Sounds fine with me, Ran-neechan!" the diminutive lad put his hands behind his head.
1330
Ran basically spent the malling time fuming, due to the excessively long queues at that time, and the amount of people crammed in one place. Kogoro had been inconsiderate enough to want to give the whole station a present! He remembered everyone else as Santa Claus would, but he never thought of his ex-wife. Conan sneaked off to get Ran a present "from Shinichi".
1700
"Four hours! I can't believe it!" Ran and Conan slumped onto the couch, their tired feet throbbing from all the walking. Ran felt her leg muscles turned into jelly due to the time-consuming queues, all in different sections in the mall.
A simultaneous grumble reverberated through the halls.
"Dinner, Conan-kun?"
The little boy managed a small nod, as Ran went to the kitchen to fix themselves a TV meal. They were going to watch a memorable, seasonal movie which would trigger memories to both of them. Conan looked at his cracked spy equipment on a table nearby, under the lampshade. He had left them before they left for their second round of spending spree. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a rather crumpled card, the one from the genie. He looked at the back of the card, where the numbers "00-2324" were inscribed. He looked up the nearby wall clock, then at his watch: five fifteen PM, or 1715. They were not in the year two thousand, and whatever that number is, it must just be the serial number of the card. He slapped his forehead for being so foolish. What he was holding was just some piece of processed tree trunk from a dumb machine that is utterly dysfunctional.
Ran came in with a tray with two bowls of rice accompanied by plates of katsudon and grapefruit juice. She sat down beside Conan, put the tray on the table in front of them, and turned the TV on, "Oh! They're replaying the second 'Saint Seiya' movie later tonight! Want to catch that one, Conan?", "I don't think so Ran. I'm so tired!", "That's ok. Come on, let's eat! I'm famished!"
After a happy, "Itadakemsu!", they dug into their bowls and almost choked in laughter at the comic show they were watching.
1835
As Ran cleaned up their meal, Conan went into cutting neatly inched tape and stuck them at the edges of the coffee table (Kogoro just had to break the tape dispenser yet again!). When he has surrounded half of the table with the sticky strips, he dragged in the bags of gifts one by one. When the last bag had been dragged in , Ran was already in the living room, laying out the rolls of gift-wrapping paper on the coffee table.
"Gosh, Conan-kun! We have a long night ahead of us!" Ran started measuring out paper for the CD she was giving to her Dad. Conan smiled as he cut more tape, and snipped out some colorful cardboard for cards, 'Ran is so creative! I'd say silver ink on black paper looks better than those cheap custom-made cards', he mused. Ran even told him to write "Merry Christmas" for her, since his handwriting is so cute.
As the gifts came and went, Conan noticed that he didn't see the one for Shinichi.
"Ran-neechan! Where's the one for Shinichi-niisan?"
"It's already under the tree, beside yours! My, you really need your glasses! They have the same wrapper!"
Conan looked around and saw two ready-made bags, one slightly bigger than the other, made with glossy blue wrapper with pearly white complementary cards and ribbons, indicating that they came from the same shop. He sighed and resumed his task.
2215
"One last gift…"Ran yawned loudly, "And I don't even know to whom Dad's going to give this one to." She had used up more than fifty rolls of paper (some gifts were really big), and Conan was wallowing in a pile of scrap paper, "I guess that now, you'll have something for your Holiday collage project, ne Conan-kun?"
The minute lad rubbed his eyes and opened the sixth packet of cello tape, and a third roll of red ribbons, 'Gee, Ran really improved in her gift-wrapping! Last year, we used up forty-five rolls of paper for less than half of what we have wrapped today, because she kept on tearing them apart.'
When the last present had been wrapped, ribbon-ed and labeled, both let out a heavy, yet accomplished sigh and stretched out on the floor.
"Conan, thanks so much for helping me, but you really need to get to sleep."
"But, Ran-neechan, you need help in cleaning up."
"Iie, don't worry about me. You need your rest. Go on, go to bed, no 'but's ok?" Ran's voice was slowing down to a heavy drawl.
Conan got up and dragged himself to bed, "Oyasumi, Ran."
Ran's eye lids were falling shut, as a small sigh escaped her lips, "Oyasumi, Shinichi."
0000
Conan slept soundly, thanks to the warm sheets. That was, until he was jolted up awake and felt the urge to go to the bathroom. He slipped out of bed, and he felt as if his feet were way past the mattress. He shook the idea off. He looked at the clock in the hallway; he never thought that the clock would be placed that low. From the glowing light, it read "00:01:04".
In the bathroom, it also never occurred to him that the toilet seat would be that near to the floor. Afterwards, he lifted his boxers back into place.
Boxers? The last time he checked, he was wearing pajamas and come to think of it, it was cold all of a sudden. He reached out for the knob to flush the toilet and as he pressed it down, he did a double take.
His arm was longer. His hand was bigger.
He turned to the mirror above the sink beside him and he was met by a surprised Shinichi Kudou.