Our Love Is Like Fireworks [Detective Conan Fanfic] (Rei x Shiho)

Chapter 43 (Last Chapter)

If I had learnt one thing in life, it's that everything happens for a reason. 

Prince Charming would have never found Cinderella if she never lost her slippers. Apple would have never become as big as it is now if Steve Jobs never got fired. The Avengers would have never won, if they didn't lose first. 

This is a story of missed opportunities. This is a story of happy moments. This is a story of walking towards the edge of life and realising it is too late to rewind time and go back to how it was, because no one ever looks at the moment when it is right in front of them. We all seem to found ourselves ogling in the direction of the past like drug addicts who spend their lives searching for the pill that will bring back that rush of their first time. But they never end up finding it, so they ruminate in the cycle of finding the thrill that's close to it, but never it. 

This is a story of right person wrong time. Written in the stars like perpendicular lines that only share one point of intersection, their hearts will not align a second time. But were they ever the right person then? If they will never meet again, their story was never significant enough for a sequel. It never needed one. 

But again, everything happens for a reason. Maybe somethings were just never meant to happen if you never seized it in that moment. But maybe it was just never meant to happen at all. We'd never know. 

In real life, the possibility of having the same opportunity come back again is near null. Second chances are rare, but not taking them the second time is rarer. 

__________________

So I guess I'm way too much of a sucker for fluffy fiction, because 5 years later, we find Miyano Shiho on the streets of late night London. 

London had always been her second home. Although it never had the same scent of ramen trailing down tiny alleyways, nor the same tatami they had in every house in Japan, she found joy in London in her own way. She wasn't fond of the hazy heat of summer of Japan where everyday was a constant mental battle between drenching her hair under a sweat-soaked cap or exposing her skin under the evil rays of the sun. London is cold, it rains, and the worries she had in Japan are non-existent here. 

Underneath her scarf, she finds a tightly knit smile that had subconsciously formed. There wasn't anything special about today, and she had to mentally check to see if it was actually New Years Eve without her knowing. May 21st, random date. But before her, bursts of colours erupt into a cobalt sky. 

She stands near a small bridge overseeing the city. It was the perfect location tonight, faraway from the crowds that gathered around London Bridge or The Big Ben to catch a glimpse of the ephemeral paintings of the sky. 

Life for her now consists of daily morning flat whites and almond croissants from the bakery down the street for her unit, along with thirty minute walks to her building she works at now. A designer, senior designer, perhaps to be clearer. Of course, if anyone attributed 'senior' in any field other than for her talent and expertise, she would have them know how it feels to deeply regret. 

For the first time in her life, she feels like she has found some sort of direction. Not running away anymore, she is chasing. Chasing what her life has to offer. 

She feels her phone vibrate a little and the blue message pops up. A little rush tickled in her body. 

A man in the distance strolls gallantly up to her, hands in pockets, eyes gaping straight at her, passed the crowds of tourists he walked, passed the fireworks. Shiho couldn't see clearly, but she knew well enough that it was him.

Within seconds, he was only inches away from her. His thick, wood scented cologne soaks in her a drunken nausea, perhaps it was a little too overbearing for her taste and she'd make a mental note to remind him that women aren't exactly attracted a diluted scent of tree barks. But it wasn't really her problem anyways.

He's wearing a black cloak that stops just above his ankles, stereotypical fashion of the cold and gloomy London. Black shades even at night, what is trying to hide from? The fireworks?

"Tonight is looking marvellous", there was an air of animosity that surrounded him and it seemed to be source from their unexpected intimacy. He takes a breath, turns to her, "And you, you are looking absolutely stunning".

She gives him her timid smile, the one she uses when she wants to hide the fact that behind that perfectly knit look, she is bubbling and goggling up with frankly, disgust. So the simple thing to do was to look away, and keep gazing at the fireworks.

He does not catch the hint, "Hey Shi," he takes her hands in his, "I want you back, I'm sorry for everything that has happened, I'm sorry for our past, I'm sorry for my reckless actions", he takes a long breath, "I want to start over". 

She looks at him through the darkness, and she can't seem to make out his facial features even through the light emitted by the fireworks. Too much colour for his face, perhaps, "I don't want to," she replies callously, and says nothing more. She doesn't understand why now, why here. Men are stupid creatures and will come crawling back to you the second you decide that you don't give a fuck anymore. "There is someone else".

Yanking her hand away and stuffing it in her pockets, Shiho steps away from him, and he doesn't move for a few seconds. 

"Are we done here?" that was her signal for him to go. He hesitates, the question of who is bubbling up to the surface along with feelings of jealousy and hurt. But eventually, he complies, seemingly crestfallen and disappears as a distant shadow from the fireworks. 

Her attention is drawn back again to the text on the phone.

In 5 minutes, look up

Another text is sent. 

Now

The sky was now plastered with three words, a comma, and a question mark. 

She feels an arm wrap around her shoulders, an indescribable sensation of warmth and protection. This time, the man that is close to her body gave her a feeling, not of animosity, but of security. His touch is different, not rough and reckless like her lovers in the past, it is gentle, it is sensitive. It is the familiar touch that she knows only belongs to her. Like if the whole world were against them, she wouldn't be afraid. So long as his arms are wrapped around hers, hands intertwined with hers, she is happy, she is loved. 

The hot rush in her stomach and the haziness in her mind is not unlike feelings of ecstasy, of some type of drug stronger than anything known to them. Yet beneath the clouded neurone scattered in her brain vibrating like heated matter, one thing was clear.

"Like what you see?" Rei Furuya takes her by the shoulders, slowing inching closer to her. "So what do you say?"

She smiles, "I don't see much," she says jokingly, placing her hand on his chest, "but I do".

And under thousands of specks of sparks falling down from the sky, they kiss. Bodies so close that no dark energy would be able to pull them away. They kiss like lovers who have loved for thousands of centuries, like lovers who have been separated by fate but brought back by destiny. Their kiss is a promise that their strings are interlocked and will never let the power of time nor destiny to break them apart. Their lines will touch forever, stories will be in sync. 

In the distance, there remains the ash traces of the fireworks lingering. And you can make out three clear words, 'Marry me, Shiho?'