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Conan stared in the mirror. He fixed the small black tie around his neck. It matches the black jacket and black shorts and black knee socks and black shoes. The boxes behind him are all taped up, ready to go into storage. The room feels foreign. A distant memory of a bygone era. A life once lived now gone forever.
He takes his glasses. His hands shake as he puts them on. They only stop when he flicks the light off behind him.
The halls are dark. Filled with memories of a ghost. The house is too large, the walls too high. They could crush him, crumble down and bury him, if he let them. Perhaps they already did. These walls that hide his crime, these walls stained with his blood.
“Are you sure this is right, little detective?” Green eyes bore holes in him.
“It’s too late for questions like that, Akai-san.” Conan takes the man’s offered hand.
It’s the hand he holds throughout the funeral.
His mother cries. And Conan thinks he should feel something from that. Thinks he should feel something at the sight of his own face above an empty casket. His father is stoic. The face of a man that Conan had once admired but now felt nothing but bittersweet love for. A father who pushed him to be better until he died for it. A father who probably regretted those choices. His mother’s acting is superb. Perhaps because it’s only partially acting.
The Kudo’s will be fine. They will love each other as they always have. Wholeheartedly. They will travel the world and forget their son as usual. And Conan will live on, a life of his own making.
Ran sobs.
It’s ugly and it’s broken and it’s loud. She collapses beside the casket of a friend who won’t be coming back. A friend who won’t call her again. She’ll never know that he should have died 2 years ago. She’ll never be able to appreciate the extra time she had because she’ll never know how he broke his heart into a million shards just to give her a little more time with him.
Takagi looks between him and the casket. A man that knows. A man that ‘solved’ his murder. Did the Black Organization ever think they would be taken out by a single overly kind murder detective? Probably not.
Haibara can’t meet his eyes. She killed him. Two years ago. Two weeks ago. She’ll never know she’s innocent. He’ll never be able to tell her the truth. He wonders if he should feel guilty about that. But Akai Shuichi drops his hand and picks her up so she can put a lily on the casket. The adoption papers are signed. Okiya Subaru is a single father who lives with Professor Agasa. His dear new daughter is a shy creature. Miyano Shiho died long ago. She never got a funeral. Conan wonders if he should have asked for a picture of her to be placed beside his.
He stands alone now. The murderer always attends the funeral. Alone in his funeral clothes. He wonders if he should have worn a white kimono instead. The ghost here to haunt them one last time. If he lays in the casket, will he feel something? If he forces some tears, will the grief come to stay in his too small body?
But the guilt doesn’t come.
And eventually everyone has said farewell to the 19-year-old who died at 17.
Conan is the last. The last to say goodbye to himself. A stack of pictures is his last gift to Shinichi. He wishes he could give more. Wishes he could fill the casket with everything that made Shinichi a person. But those things were pitifully few. So instead, he chose the proof of a life lived.
It’s a broken thing.
The car outside is white. It’s such a contrast to the endless black that it’s almost blinding. The man beside the car doesn’t wear black. Perhaps because he has lost enough. Perhaps because for him, this isn’t a goodbye. He’s carrying a bouquet of chrysanthemums in a rainbow of colors. It’s almost cruel, to mix the meanings in his hand. Love and mourning, devotion and goodbye… Conan accepts the flowers anyway.
“Are you ready to go, Conan-kun?” Zero’s voice is annoyingly pleasant.
“Mn… Did you send someone to collect my stuff from the Mouri’s?” He doesn’t need to ask, of course Zero would have taken care of that.
But it was normalcy. It was Conan and Zero.
“Of course.” Zero held the car door open for Conan.
Conan doesn’t bother asking where they are going. It doesn’t matter. According to his documentation, Edogawa Conan was now under protective custody. Officially, he was living with Kazami. Unofficially, he would be wherever Zero is. Kuroda had explained that Conan would be provided anything he wanted in exchange for his assistance. They wouldn’t stand in his way if he wanted to become a detective. They wouldn’t stop him from anything. As long as he stayed with Zero.
Zero didn’t take them home. Wherever that is now.
He drove far, all the way to the coast, all the way to an overhang where they could see the waves crash upon the shore. A cliff where he could look down at the sea below.
“Daring me to jump, Zero-no-niichan?” Conan called over his shoulder, staring down at the dark water below.
Sunset was red, like blood and fire and love and rage and passion and obsession. How poetic. Zero was surprisingly romantic.
Conan threw the bouquet over the edge, watching it flutter brokenly into the ocean.
“I killed him for you. I murdered him with my own two hands.” Conan laughed, and if it was shattered around the edges, that was between him and Zero.
“You could blame me, Conan-kun. You can tell the world I killed you. You can hate me. I’ll take it all. Your hatred, your love, your grief, your happiness.” Zero’s hands settled heavy as shackles around his wrists.
Two weeks ago, he might have been willing to do that. Two weeks ago, when they stood in a crumbling underground facility hastily combing through data. Two weeks ago, when Zero told him that, if Conan took the data, Zero would be forced to reveal it to Kuroda and in turn the FBI, CIA, and Interpol. A list of names to prove the Black Org murdered hundreds, potentially thousands. Or proof of a groundbreaking poison that could sure, create a cure, but would more than likely be perfected and used by the world governments to kill thousands more.
Two weeks ago, when Zero made him a deal. Destroy the drug data. Become his. Murder Shinichi. Be loved. The ultimate form of love to Zero.
Kill himself.
Shinichi had too many entanglements. Shinichi was loved by too many. If he stayed… There is no future with Zero there. Shinichi can’t be with Zero. Because Zero exists in shadows and lingering stares and hidden corners. Shinichi existed in the light.
Conan was somewhere trapped between the two.
It wasn’t fair.
He’d only wanted to get his body back…
He’d only wanted to stop a crime…
He’d only wanted to impress his friends and family…
He’d only wanted to be loved…
He’d been 17.
Only 17.
“Shinichi’s blood is on my hands. You can’t take that from me, Zero. You may have helped me pull the trigger…but we both know there was no real choice. Perhaps if I had hesitated, you would have pulled it for me. Maybe if I said I would choose myself over the nameless thousands, nameless millions, you would have taken the choice from me. But I chose them over me.” Conan turned, looking up at Zero in the dying light.
“Nothing good ever comes from chasing a starving beast, Kudo-kun.” Haibara warned him.
“Playing with wolves is a good way to get eaten, Conan-kun.” Akai told him.
“No one will be able to pull you out, if you go chasing wolves, Shin-chan.” His mother begged.
Zero, a wolf with pretty blond hair and pale blue eyes glowing with madness. Zero had wanted him for a while. Had wanted him for longer than he had known that Conan wasn’t actually 7, 8, 9… Conan should have heeded the warnings of his family. Maybe things never get to this point.
No, there was no choice. Faceless masses saved from potential death at the hands of foreign powers. And in return for his sacrifice, he fell into the jaws of a wolf that would take whatever scraps remained after Conan killed Shinichi. Zero would pick his bones clean. Zero would lick every drop of blood. Zero would consume him until nothing remained but a memory.
What a future he had.
“You owe me love. You owe me your everything, Zero. You’re mine now. I have nothing else. I killed everything in me for you. Now you’ll give me everything that is you.” Conan wrapped his hands in Zero’s shirt.
The mad smile stretching Zero’s lips shouldn’t be enticing. It shouldn’t make Conan’s heart skip a beat. The man dropped to his knees, graceless and desperate. His hands clawed at Conan’s sides and hips. He was hauled forward into the man. A kiss the same as those waves so far down below. Soft lips, harsh teeth, wet tongue. Demanding and breath stealing. Zero takes his swirling agony and replaces it with blooming heat.
“You’re mine…only mine, Conan-kun.” Zero’s words are slurred against his lips, hungry and crazed and nothing a man should whisper into the mouth of a child.
The cold ring pressed into Conan’s palm is a promise of devotion.
A funeral.
A wedding.
It’s poetry.
It’s madness.
Shinichi died.
But Conan lived...and maybe, with time, Zero's love would make up for the losses.