Chapter Text
NOW AND THEN
Chapter One
Shinichi isn’t jealous.
He can admit fine detective work when he sees it. The way Hattori revealed how for at least 15 years, an Osakan construction company purposefully rebuilt pipes to reroute gas through buildings to threaten and kill inhabitants, is impressive. Although there haven’t been any clues about ongoing tampering today, some of the houses are still standing, there are still people living in them. Kansai’s Public Prosecuter’s Office has taken over the case by now, and there are rumours about a huge criminal network involved. Families who have been involved with the construction company keep coming forward from all over the country, lamenting the loss of beloved family members due to sudden illnesses or mysterious deaths. Not each of them will be attributes to manipulated gas pipes, but some will. It’s much easier to find justice once you know what to look for.
Good for Hattori, thus. Shinichi is all for giving people credit when it’s due.
Therefore, he’s totally not jealous when Ran keeps talking excitedly about this case from Osaka for more than fifteen minutes to her father and little Conan over dinner. He’s way too cool for that. Basically, he’s the very definition of un-jealousy-ness.
“—and Kazuha-chan told me that there are probably ties to the Yakuza group that terrorized Osaka and Kyoto for so long, you know, the one that was smashed when the Kansai-administration did the regional coup in 2002?” Ran keeps going, no end in sight.
“Most of the Osaka syndicate went underground,” Kogoro mumbles and Shinichi is pretty sure he hears a hint of jealousy in his voice.
(Which he discovers because he’s such a good detective. That’s the only reason.)
The case is gaining nation-wide attention as more and more details are discovered. Hattori handed the federals a blueprint for a kind of criminal operation Japan hasn’t seen yet. Construction companies are bending over backwards to prove their clean and correct work. Politicians demand clarification, justice, protection and responsibility, depending on whatever party they belong to. The media is going crazy: firstly, because of the wickedness of it all – what do you do when you realise your children’s rooms can be flooded with gas any time? How long will you say no to the Yakuza when you have nowhere else to go? Secondly, because all of this has been uncovered by a teenage hobby-detective.
(Shinichi added the ‘hobby’ for emphasis. That’s what the media thinks of high school-detectives like them. It’s not as if he needs to belittle— He tried to bring a point of view across, that’s all.)
Said teenage high school-detective has appeared in the news before, now and then, just like Shinichi had. Hattori usually tries not to overdo it, since the media likes to pick on the fact that the head of the Osakan police apparently needs the help of his underage son. It tends to turn into bad publicity for the Osakan police force, which is as unwarranted as it is unfair, and it also annoys Heiji to no end when the focus falls on his age or his father instead of the fact that he solved a crime.
This time, however, Heiji made sure to appear in as many newscasts and newspapers as possible. It’s virtually impossible not to stumble across Hattori right now. It’s come to the point where Sonoko has started to pester Ran about his phone number.
(Shinichi wonders who’d win in a fight – Sonoko or Kazuha? Kazuha is frighteningly good in Aikido (she’s frighteningly good, period). But Sonoko is Sonoko.)
“You must be so proud about your onii-chan!” Ran exclaims and Shinichi discovers again how astoundingly bad both Mouris are at detecting sarcasm. Ran beams at him and Kogoro’s mood drops into dangerous lows as ‘Conan’ nods enthusiastically. “I wonder if Shinichi knows already?”
Little Conan tries his best not to choke on his miso. Shinichi does know, thank you very much; Hattori has made sure of that, even though Shinichi hasn’t heard directly from Heiji in two weeks. Not since they said goodbye half-heartedly in Osaka, when Hattori had barely so much as looked him in the eyes.
Not since Shinichi feels a weird and diffuse mixture of indignation and something he can’t name because, excuse him, he just doesn’t believe in paranormal mumbo jumbo. He still has to sneer about it: Heiji claims to see the last minutes of dying people and thinks he’s solving their murders. It’s as ridiculous as it is stupid, and Shinichi is almost offended that he had considered this Osakan idiot up to par with him. When he’s not offended, however, Shinichi has to think about the plethora of notebooks hidden in Hattori’s room, about what that means, and the worry eats away at him.
His current mood, right now, drops even further when Shinichi looks at the newspaper Ran has bought today and sees Hattori’s smug grin on page three. That grin, he knows, is directed only at him. See that, Kudou? it says. I was right about her.
It’s absolute nonsense. No one dreams about past crimes. Whatever Hattori uncovered, it wasn’t the solution to a weird dream he had had before. It’s a coincidence that the girl whose death he investigated is the same name he told Shinichi earlier. It’s a coincidence. Or maybe he already had read her name and projected it into his dreams.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter because it’s nonsense. Right?
“I can’t wait to tell Shinichi about it tonight!” Ran exclaims.
Shinichi decides that he will be very busy this evening. Busy. It’s not the same as being jealous.
“Ergo: It’s nonsense,” Shinichi ends his rant with a dramatic and resolute gesture. Unfortunately, his audience doesn’t applaud.
Ai isn’t paying much attention as she flips through some papers on her desk. He’s used to her aloof behaviour by now – Haibara doesn’t participate in most of the conversations until she has something profound to say, but she listens to everything. The professor, on the other hand, is sitting on the other side of the couch, a large cup of tea in his hands, and looks at him pensively. He’s obviously very invested, which makes sense, giving that Shinichi rarely comes over to hold emotionally-charged speeches.
“It’s impossible to dream about past deaths,” Shinichi repeats. He has been repeating this a couple of times already, and the lack of support is a bit disconcerting by now. He had counted on a much quicker assurance from his two scientific friends. “Nonsense. Right?”
“Highly unlikely,” is all that Ai offers without as much as looking up. Not exactly the enthusiasm he wanted to hear, but Shinichi takes it.
“Yes!” he calls, and points at her. “Impossible!”
Agasa-hakase hums. He’s playing with the string of the tea bag. “It doesn’t sound like Hattori-kun, though.”
“Trying to get attention sound a lot like Hattori,” Shinichi mumbles and feels bad about it immediately. Then again, the Osakan’s current media appearances are kind of proving his point.
(He still feels bad.)
“So, you say he’s lying?”
Shinichi shuts his mouth with a click and doesn’t know what to answer. That’s the question, right? Is Heiji lying to him? He doesn’t think so – Hattori may have the IQ of a chopstick (one (1) single chopstick), but he’s not a liar. At least, that’s what Shinichi thought. He’s been reconsidering what he really knows about his friend for the last few days.
His mind wanders to the notebooks full of gruesome death scenes. Who would fake something like this? What for? It would be way too much effort for a lie or a joke.
The alternative, however, isn’t much better. Shinichi has spent a lot of time concentrating on not going there, but now he talked himself into a corner: If Hattori is not playing a sick joke on him, the only other logical explanation is that he’s crazy.
“I don’t know,” is all he says for now. It’s heavy, and the Professor and Ai are smart enough to get the meaning.
He’s not sure why he came here and told them, to be honest. Of course, Shinichi is at the Professor’s a lot; here, they call him by his actual name. Here, they treat him like the person he really is. He doesn’t have to pretend, and it’s nice. He likes Ai and he likes the Professor – it’s just that he doesn’t really come here to talk.
“It doesn’t sound very pleasant, does it?” Professor Agasa asks. “Dreaming about death all the time.”
“Nightmares suck,” Shinichi agrees, and emphasizes the word nightmares a bit too much. It makes his voice sound weird, and Ai looks up when it tweaks. “It’s nothing more.”
Because that’s just the logical thing, right? And the best outcome among a bag of horrible options, because if Heiji is being plagued by nightmares, then Shinichi doesn’t have to believe in paranormal weirdness and Hattori doesn’t have to be a liar.
“If you think he simply has nightmares, why are you avoiding him?” Ai asks.
As always, Ai asks the right questions. Maybe that’s why he came here. Shinichi doesn’t need support to reject paranormal bullshit or conclude that Hattori needs professional help if he intends to stick to this story. He needs help figuring out what to do next – because he doesn’t know how to talk to Heiji about it. He still remembers Hattori’s disappointed face when he proposed a logical theory about the ghosty nightmares. It is, pun unintended, haunting him.
Shinichi is an overachiever. Always has been – good grades, expressive talents. Along came proud parents, happy teachers, impressed soccer coaches; he’s not used to people being disappointed in him. And Hattori, of all people, definitely never looked at him disappointedly before. It made something stir in his chest, and by now he thinks it might be a guilty conscience.
“Maybe you’re focusing on the wrong detail, Shinichi,” Professor Agasa coughs. The conversation is making him uncomfortable; Shinichi tends to forget how much the old man likes Hattori. “Whatever is truly going on, I wonder why he decided to tell you now?”
Shinichi looks at the old man, perplexedly. That is … actually a very good question. Hattori claimed to have these dreams forever. Definitely langer than they’ve known each other, which is about a year. He frowns at the thought; it feels longer (then again, it also feels much longer since he’s been Shinichi Kudou as well. Sometimes, he barely remembers.). Why tell him now? Or, to put it precisely: why tell him only now?
“He said it’s getting worse,” Shinichi thinks aloud and isn’t sure he understands what that means. But he remembers the tiredness that had crept into Heiji’s voice two weeks ago in Osaka.
“Oh, my.” Agasa shakes his head. Shinichi can already see how the old man is swaying. Agasa Hakase’s brain is big, but his heart is bigger, of course he takes Hattori’s side (still not jealous). “He told you because he wants your help, Shinichi.”
“My help?” Shinichi throws up his hands. There it is again – disappointment. It’s not fair! “What can I do about nightmares?”
Or mental illness, for that matter? It’s not like Shinichi, in his very special situation, is going to be a therapist anytime soon. He’s also not going to buy an Ouija-board and call on the spirits to leave Hattori alone, or cast some spell during new moon to appease the Gods or the elements or whatever, and –
“You can listen,” Agasa scolds. “Just be a friend.”
--and Shinichi feels like the biggest asshole on the planet. Shit.
“I …,” he starts. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know how to continue. “I’m hardly the right person for that.”
“Isn’t he the one who figured out your true identity?” Ai asks, voice still disinterested. “I guess it makes sense that he told you, of all people. He believed you, after all.”
Of course, Haibara joins the conversation only to kick him when he’s down. “He didn’t have to believe me, he figured it out. It was the logical thing.”
It’s scary how much he sounds like a sulking child right now.
“Well, he assumed you were a bit more open about things you can’t explain right away. Given your condition ...”
“Do you believe that one can dream about past deaths?” Shinichi asks, crisp.
“Of course not,” Ai answers immediately. “He has nightmares. He probably needs psychological help.”
“Tell you what, Shinichi,” the Professor smiles at him. “Why don’t you invite Hattori-kun over? We can run some tests on him. Let’s collect some data first.”
“Oh, we could finally use that EEG!” Ai agrees. For the first time this evening, she sounds actually interested. “It’ll be fun.”
‘Fun’ isn’t the word Shinichi would use to describe the situation. There’s Ran on the other side of the phone, talking excitedly about Hattori’s latest masterpiece, and Shinichi tries to sound interested for her sake and un-jealous for his own. At the same time, he’s trying to read a new newspaper article about the construction company scheme, and his brain rattles.
He can’t, for the life of him, figure out how Hattori knew what to look for. The case was wonderfully presented and air tight – as long as no one wondered where one would have to start to investigate. Hattori must have some source of intel he hasn’t made public.
A few hours later, he finally crumbles. It’s been nine days, and he’s tired of the silence. He misses his friend.
There, he said it.
You (2:23): Ok, how did you find out about the rerouted pipes?
It’s the middle of the night, but Hattori answers almost immediately. He texts in the middle of the night a lot, now that Shinichi thinks about it. He doesn’t want to think about it.
Hattori (2:24): There was a crack in one of her walls tha looked new. They jst painted her room.
You (2:24): You’ve been in her house?
Hattori (2:24): Na, it’s been torn down years ago.
Damnit. It doesn’t make sense. Shinichi is frustrated about the case, but at the same time, he’s happy they are speaking again. Hattori writes like he always writes, and that’s a bit reassuring.
Just be a friend, the Professor told him. It’s a hit that hurts. While he has a really good explanation why Shinichi can’t be a good friend to Ran right now, it doesn’t work with Hattori. He can’t hide behind Conan Edogawa for this one.
You (2:40): Can you come to Tokyo for a couple of days? The professor wants to run some tests on you.
That’s it. Shinichi is offering an ear. Whatever the hell Hattori is going to do about it. Maybe Ai is right and they can find some proof that the idiot needs professional help. It’s what friends do, right?
Hattori (2:44): Sure 😊 summer holiday’s starting next week!
Shinichi realises that he held his breath and releases it slowly. Just be a friend, he thinks. And: Collect some data first.
What fun.
-tbc-