#coaiweek2020

He groans. She glares. They scowl at each other for the longest time.

Until he resigns himself, clicking his tongue and sighing heavily as he lets the girl lead him inside the apartment. He stands by the window the whole time, smoking into the night while she throws glances at him over her half-finished cherry cake.

“Where’s my gift?” She asks him later, when they’re both done with the pretenses.

“The cake’s your gift.”

“A cake is a cake!” She objects matter-of-factly, “I want a gift.”

“I don’t have a gift.” He states coldly. 

“But I want one.”

Gin curses under his breath, losing his patience and crushing his cigarette against the window frame. “Listen, you ungrateful brat! I don’t— ”

But her hands are cupping his face and pulling him close to her, close enough so her lips reach his in one sloppy kiss, and two, and three— and soon his hands are on the small of her back and she’s tasting the bitterness of his cigarettes. He kisses her with a kind of hunger that melts her teenage heart away, and she holds to the back of his shoulders in fear of drowning at the intensity of her own feelings. 

“ You… ” Gin breathes against her flushed cheek, chest heaving, “ You are in so much trouble. ”

  III.

 He’s at the top of the world at just sixteen, a world renowned detective with Japan’s heart stuffed in his back pocket. He sits next to her in classes and walks her home after school, their shoulders brushing in the most innocuous way as they both blush profusely. He dreams of her soft hands and her lips, of her hair sprawled on his shoulder and  her sweet whispers against his ear. He dreams of love while staring right into its cobalt eyes.

“Watch out!” He says, pulling her into his chest. A speeding car zooms by just inches away from where Ran stands, and Shinichi curses under his breath at the offender. He memorizes the plate number at a glance and makes a mental note to do a background check later.

“T-Thank you.” His blushing girlfriend-to-be peeps from his embrace, and his face goes through all shades of red before letting her go in embarrassment.

Ran smiles at him, not like she did the first time when he fell in love with her — softer. It’s shy and just the right amount of mischievous, her eyes refusing to meet his as her fingers play with a rebellious lock of her ebony hair.

God, he could kiss her.

Sonoko catches up to them.

  IV.

 She falls out of love as fast as she fell into it, yet he’s got no intention of letting her walk away. He takes everything away from her — her mind, her heart, her sister… and now he’s gunning for her life. 

She refuses to grant him that satisfaction.

  V.

 He’s back to being six and she’s worlds away from his reach, and he fills in the blanks of their love story with hollow promises he can’t be sure he’ll ever be able to fulfill. Little by little, he finds himself entangled in a web of lies that becomes his new reality, and the fairy tale love he once lived has now morphed into the pettiest urban legend, so much that he doesn’t know what to believe anymore — in the perfect past, this twisted present, or the uncertain future. 

  VI.

 She thinks that the boy is naive to a foolish extent, even though he’s about her age and a certified genius. He holds himself to a level of righteousness that’s frankly laughable, adamant not to let the world shake his faith in fairness and justice— so much that he doesn’t hold a grudge against her, so much that he vows to keep her safe.

She doesn’t expect to fall in love as soon as she’s fallen out of it. 

Even when she’s never within periphery and he’s got his eyes fixed on his angel, she can’t help when the tiniest sparkle sets a fire ablaze in her heart.

Could this be some sort of sick pattern?

  VII.

 He pretends he doesn’t notice, but she makes it hard to play dumb. 

The girl walks into his life like a hurricane that turns his world upside down. She’s cold and manipulative in a way that sends shivers down his spine, yet there’s something between her annoying self-sacrificing tendencies and her cynical view of the world that he finds quite peculiar— enough to decide that there’s more than meets the eye, and after scratching the surface of the walls she’s put around her to keep herself safe from the world, he comes to the conclusion that she’s worth putting his whole faith into, even if that means he’s bound to get burned. Still, her eyes are softer when they rest on him and her laughter more genuine when she’s laughing at with him. 

He grows attached to the girl with the evil eyes and snide remarks, to the uncanny friendship and shared secrets. She, with all her pessimism and morbid jokes, becomes a pillar in the ruins of his life, a totem of sanity in the madness of their situation. 

He tells himself that it couldn’t be, that such a… remarkably interesting person wouldn’t harbor feelings of fondness for him. Even when she stares at him for longer than it takes him to notice  and puts her life on a thread to weave him out of dangerous situations, even when she says she likes him and immediately takes it back… it’s just out of the question.

Besides, he can’t help that he wants her to stay.

  VIII.

 She won’t dare call it love, but she’s willing to entertain the idea. This time, it’s her choice to make. Love has knocked her off her feet before, and she’s done falling for impossible prospects that are too emotionally unavailable to fall back for her. 

Higo’s sweet disposition is a novelty she can’t quite get used to, for she’s never known love to give back or burn this slow. He takes her hand and walks her to the quietness, leading her through the darkness of her own night. With her back against his chest and the reassurance of safe haven in his embrace, she finds the strength to fight away her demons, to heal.

He reminds her of herself in so many ways, that maybe by loving him for what he is she might eventually fall in love with herself too.

  IV.

 He tells himself he’s happy for her, even though happy right now means driving himself insane over the thought of them. Jealousy is unbecoming of him, and it shows in the mean-spirited comments and short text conversations with her. It’s apparent in his vacancy during get-togethers, in his reluctance to make eye contact with her lover and the sudden unfounded disdain towards Big Osaka. 

Kudo Shinichi is, to no one’s surprise, jealous.

It isn’t like him to behave like this. He shouldn’t be bitter and petty over something that doesn’t concern him. But something went wrong in the process of never acknowledging her feelings for him and her actually moving on from them, something that felt like sheer betrayal to him. 

He knows. He knows he’s being unfair... and selfish. It’s not something he can help.

But she’s happy, and he keeps telling himself he’s happy that she’s happy , even when he’s not happy at all.

  V.

 She watches them fall apart as if they were made to be broken, and the sight is both terrifying and fascinating at the same time. It all collapses at once like a house of cards, not leaving them a chance to find footing until the pieces of them are all scattered on the ground. 

It makes her question what’s the point of falling in love if all love does is die. And if the greatest love of all time has also fallen, is there even hope for them to make it last?

She holds on to her lover like she would to a candle in the night. 

  VI.

 He’s twenty six and still oblivious of the concept of good timing, so the moment he hears the news he can’t help but rush to her house with bags of unsolicited take out and a bunch of rented movies. She greets him with her signature panda eyes and a red nose to match, but he pretends he doesn’t notice — force of habit, one might say.

“Heard you broke up.” He says like a dumbass, and she honestly wants to slam the door on his nose and give him a piece of her mind.

She doesn’t. 

She’s done crying and her dumbass detective does come to her with sweet offerings that she’s frankly too emotionally drained to decline. And if she’s honest with herself, she kinda missed his company and his stupid face. So she lets him in and endures six hours straight of uncensored zombie apocalypse films with her head resting on his shoulder while listening to his over-enthusiastic plot commentary.

VII.

 They are thirty six and the walk back home feels longer than ever before, but the snow is freshly paved on their side of the road and the stars the only witness, so he pulls her under a dim streetlight just to see the face he knows so well, and his fingers find the familiar path that trails from her cheek to the hollow of her neck — one step and he’s closer, warm hands on her shivering skin; two steps and her body melds against his chest; three steps and their lips are home.

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(null)

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They are timeless and non linear and out of touch with the universe’s rules, because if love is supposed to be a continuous unfluctuating thing, they have failed in every aspect to prove it. She falls for him first and she falls for him last, and for her he never ever, ever stops falling. 

Love, as they know it, is a curious thing. It comes and goes and bends and changes, and for what’s worth, it binds them.

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