#coaiweek2018

Hello, Kudo-kun, were the first words she’ll write

But, as she expected, her pen froze every time

Every time she thought of the next words to say

To write, to express, to let go, to confess.

Just like every other night before that day

She crumpled the paper and threw it away.

But when the paper missed the bin

And she saw what she had previously thrown in

She froze.

A bottle of alcohol, lying half-empty

Among the piles of discarded thoughts

And painful self-pity.

Once again, tears slipped out her eye

And once again, she hated that she cried

But above all her regrets and hate for herself

Was anger and frustration and helplessness.

Why? she once again asked herself

Her voice came out raspy,

Dry and dull and desperate.

Why did she agree to make the antidote in the first place?

Why did she give it to him, with a smile on her face?

Why did he take it right away?

Why does she wonder anyway?

But above all, she’d wonder

This she’d wonder every night

With a painful throb in her head

Confusion, sadness, fright

Regretfully and painfully

Like new-found agony:

Why didn’t the antidote work on her body?

She had unknowingly given away

The only thing that binded them

That day, that seemingly hopeful day

A naive girl had dreamed of them.

The idea of them

The possibility of them

Neglecting the truth

That there never was.

And from that moment on, she had to get used

To the sight of him finally return to the girl

Who was, from the start, his.

She was never, from the start, his.

From that moment on, she had to ignore

The sights of him looking back

At her? No way. Not her. Why her?

Why would he even look back at her?

Why does he have to worry about her?

So she left.

Because she knew if she were to stay

He’ll surely follow her anyway

No matter how much she pushed him away

Because he’s just too kind for that

Because, he says, he cares for her like that.

And, she knows, she fell for that.

And once again, she laughs in bitter regret

As the hopes she had built faded with her breath.

Miyano Shiho, known to the world as Haibara Ai

Once again reached for that bottle of hope

Or at least, what was once her last hope

Down, the liquid trickled, like the tears from her eyes

She fell to the side of her bed

Her nose runny, her head aching, her eyes sore

She left her pen and paper

Deciding, with bitter laughter

That there was no use to even try

So she closed her eyes

And hoped, for the last time…

He trusts her silence. While he can never understand why she's keeping what she knows under wraps, he trusts her. Truthfully, he understands why, but he's just a bit disappointed she doesn't trust him enough to lay her secrets bare. Just a tiny little bit disappointed, that was all he can admit. But not today. Today, he's livid, and he really can't spare the time to think about anything else, so, shut up, Megure-keibu.

She trusts his recklessness. She knows she won't be able to stop him once he's set his mind, and she admires him for that. Hmm, admires his stupidity, yes, because how can someone so intelligent be so frustratingly incorrigible and unrelenting? She can never win against him. By the way, no one needs to mind how her heart has somehow taken on that detective's relentlessness in those rare—not really, but she doesn't want to recognize it—moments of gallantry he surprisingly—not really, but, again, she doesn't want to recognize it—shows. But a few erratic beats here and there are to be expected, because she is, after all, a teenager. But right now, she's pretty sure her hormones are not the cause of all this tension. In fact, she's 100% sure—she has a kid’s body after all—and thinking about idle matters did not help in calming her at all. And so, while she might curse his thick head almost every day, she begrudgingly considers today as an exception and just wishes that he'd get here already. No matter how impossible—ahh, improbable for him it is. Because she knows for sure that he'd get to her. She just wishes he was here already.

She isn't pining by the way. It's just that, the entire room is burning and she just can't breathe.

“Haibara!” Right on cue.

“Here!” Coughing, she moves clear from the door. Few moments after, she hears, “Get away from the door, I’m kicking it open!” and in just two seconds—yes, she counted—the burning door is opened, and she feels a hand on her wrists, dragging her out, before she sees him. She swears to herself, the smoke got to her eyes and it’s making her teary.

Small frantic footsteps, she can’t help but note, "I think we've done this before already."

"Shut up and save oxygen, moron." An acerbic reply from him, and it both amuses and irritates her. She assesses herself: she has some burns but nothing she can’t handle, and she feels calmer, even as burning debris and furniture fall around them. Calm enough to think that she’d have his leg burns checked as soon as she sees a medic—and she does hope the stupid detective thought to call backup this time, since she’d been stuck here—and maybe assist Hakase on checking which fire-retardant mixture would work best for his creations.

She’s also calm enough to retort, “I’m not the moron who took so long to figure out which was the twisted pedophile in that group. I hate saying I told you so, but there’s one moron here and it’s not me.”

“You know, unconscious you maybe a pain to carry, but I’m starting to think that’s preferable to this.”

“You know, if you took any longer, I would have had to jump from the window.”

“Don’t joke around, that was the fourth floor.”

“I know. And there wasn’t anything I could use as cushion.”

He grips her wrists a bit tighter. He doesn’t notice. She does. "I trust you, Haibara, so don't go killing yourself off because I don't know what to think."

"...I trust you too, Kudo-kun."

He stops, looks at her, notices her injuries, barely resisting the urge to wipe off the dirt in her cheeks because, his logic says, he’d just put more dirt on her face and she will certainly notice and maybe, just maybe, she’d slap him unconscious and leave him in this burning hell. Nevermind that he’s still confused, why did she have to say that now? He stares a second too long, and she smirks. He desperately wants to roll his eyes, he can’t believe he fell for that again. He tugs her to the right, they’re near the exit.

"You're making fun of me? I'm still angry, and I just saved your life, so you could try to not make fun of me right now."

"Ah, but that's impossible."

"You're impossible."

The moment they step out, the night air greets them, cold and clean. “Next time, tell me before you go.” He doesn’t know when he released her wrist to hold her hand, but he hopes he got his point across as he squeezes her hand.

“You’ll find me anyway.”

He doesn’t let go.