prologue

Kudo Shinichi had always exult himself in being a high school detective. He doesn’t remember since when did this unrestrained infatuation to solve things ignited, or perhaps it had been within him from the start. Albeit he doesn’t relish the reality of people killing one another, nor does he desire to cognize the reason behind those senseless bloodsheds, he finds certain satisfaction whenever he solves a case. Each case teaches him new lessons on life and relationships between humans. Howbeit, the thought of new cases deplores him as he doesn’t fathom why people kills for selfish needs, or misunderstanding that would have eased out if they have bothered to talk, or simply for the thrill of taking another’s life. Even with reasons, Shinichi finds them hard to accept.

Mysteries thrill him. The harder a case is, the deeper he falls into it. He seeks the excitement, the thrill and feed his brain with information piled on more information. Shinichi knows it sounds more than a little crazy – and no one else apart from his father who is the same ‘otaku’ as him will understand – but to Shinichi, mysteries are his life. Shinichi has no love for crimes, but he knows that as long as he gets his hand on one, there’s nothing that cannot be solved.

Since young, Shinichi had always been sharp and observant. Even without given information, he’s able to easily deduct something from what he observed and analyzed. To Shinichi, everything comes in a formula. Regardless of how impossible or perfect it seems, he knows that they also comes with a formula that breaks them apart. Shinichi unfolds them and pieces them together and solves them with tiny details that are usually overlooked and simple information that adds up in his brain.

Howbeit, there’s one thing that Shinichi finds it hard to fathom – a human’s heart. It’s simply an organ that beats life in a human body that no one can survive without. Such a simple structure, yet it’s complicated like a tangled maze. Shinichi is confused, and that’s a rare occurrence. He doesn’t like not knowing stuffs, but as much as he hopes for, he knows its wishful thinking to hope to analyze a human’s heart that easily.

In most situations, crimes are committed in a spur of a moment. What the heart feels changes what the mind thinks and thus operates what the body does. Shinichi isn’t sure how human hearts can be this confusing. Sometimes, he finds it hard to not wonder about what his own heart might be trying to tell him.

Edogawa Conan is a part of him that he isn’t sure if he likes it or not. Hate is a strong word that Shinichi detests using, so he settles with ‘dislike’ temporarily. He doesn’t like being Conan, despite that he had been from within him. Shinichi knows that being as Conan, he’s still able to solve crimes (albeit more discreetly) and feels the thrill and the rush of adrenaline. Yet, there are too many difference that even if he wants to ignore, it’s impossible to. Shinichi might be able to convince his mind that there’s nothing wrong with him apart from being shrunk, but Shinichi realizes deep down that he couldn’t convince his heart.

Sometimes at night, Shinichi doesn’t sleep. Instead, he thinks under the moonlight; he thinks about his life and thinks about what went wrong. Life, as everyone says, was supposed to be a simple affair. Somehow, everything turns complicated when it comes to him and Shinichi can only smiles bitterly, unsure if this is fate or a joke life gives him. He couldn’t even be a simple high school student anymore; heck, he couldn’t even be who he originally was anymore. Edogawa Conan, sometimes Shinichi really despises him; it’s like a veneer that he is forced to keep up and it exhausts him. Conan is sucking his soul and life out of Shinichi and sometimes he finds it hard to think.

Conan, being the seven years old, will be sitting on the sofa with a cup of soda or juice in his hands as he watches Ran thinks of ‘Shinichi-niichan’ as she occasionally looks out of the window. Conan will never find out about Ran crying in the middle of certain nights because she misses Shinichi too much. Conan will never understand Ran’s feelings because Edogawa Conan is just Edogawa Conan. He is not Kudo Shinichi and he cannot be. He is simply a seven-year old first grader that is simply just much more intelligent than others.

Yet, Edogawa Conan is Kudo Shinichi.

He’ll be sitting on the sofa, drinking the cup of soda mechanically as he watches Ran sadly through his peripheral vision and doesn’t taste the drink in his mouth. He won’t be able to sleep because he’ll be listening to Ran’s suppressed sobs and the pain tugs at his heart at every heartbeat. He won’t be able to sleep because he knows how much Ran thinks of him, how much it hurts, to the extent that the pain suffocates both of them.

Kudo Shinichi misses Ran; he reciprocates the feelings she has for him. Edogawa Conan does not.

It’s akin to having two identities, like a coin that has two sides. Ran had told him that analogy once, a few years ago after a certain case. Shinichi had not been able to comprehend what she was speaking about then. He had suffered a few injuries that rendered him unconscious for a few moments and when he finally woke to, he hadn’t been able to fully think through Ran’s word with that fuzzy mind of his.

“There’s always good and evil, light and darkness. This world cannot balance without both of them like a scale that would be tipped if one overrules. There will always be good within evil and darkness within light.”

He had forgotten about it until now. Ironically, Kudo Shinichi is now the coin itself. With two sides to him, it balances him yet contradicts him at the same time. He wants to be who he once was, but along somewhere he forgets who he should be. Who is he, really? Kudo Shinichi, the prominent high school detective, or Edogawa Conan, a child that doesn’t even exists? He is confused, and for the first time Shinichi is afraid. He is unable to piece the information in his head and he lost his way, unable to find his light in the overwhelming darkness.

“Does it really matter?”

Shinichi finds himself at a loss of words as he tries to seek an answer to Haibara. The two of them are same in many ways yet so drastically different. He isn’t sure of how she feels to living a period of life that she had already gone through, assuming an identity that neither belong nor exists in this world. Shinichi had once been slightly egoistic to the fact that he’s always able to see through anyone, realizes that there are still people that remains a mystery him – like his father, like Haibara Ai. He doesn’t know how to describe her, but it doesn’t matter to her. It’s as if she is awaiting something that she knows is inevitable, that she cannot escape.

If death comes, then death will come. She has no fear for death, neither does he, but Shinichi knows that there are some things that he cannot forget, some regrets that he is unable to let go and some people that he is not able to leave. However, for Haibara, she seems to treat her life like a joke. It doesn’t matter to her when she dies, or if tomorrow will never come. She expects her death some day for betraying the Black Society, but Shinichi doesn’t allow it. He doesn’t want to see her give up life so easily; he refuses to even let her go.

He doesn’t fathom if it’s because Conan cares for Haibara Ai more than a friend should, or is it Shinichi that isn’t able to let her go. Somewhere along sarcastic remarks and hidden intelligence, that apathetic girl wormed her way into his heart.

(“Does it really matter so much?”)

Sometimes, Shinichi really has no answers.