Opacus

Opacus: (of a cloud) dense enough to obscure the sun or moon.

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Everything she owns fits in a small suitcase: a pair of jeans, two blouses and one plaid t-shirt, a ruffled skirt she might never wear, brand new socks and underwear she can only pray will fit her and the ugliest polka-dot sundress to ever grace the face of earth, courtesy of Professor Agasa.

Maybe she'll wear the thing tomorrow when it's time to leave. That'll cheer gramps up, surely. Or at least it'll offer some sort of distraction from her abrupt goodbye. She can't stand to think what the old man will say to her come tomorrow. Farewells are not what you would call her forte —not that she's ever been through a proper sendoff anyway— people were just snatched away from her life since she can remember.

So yeah, maybe that'll do the trick—a pretty (ugly) dress on, wish you all the best and never see you again.

She stares as the half-empty suitcase with furrowed brows and wonders when she developed an OCD. It just feels wrong, and also kind of ironic that there isn't anything else she can take away with her —anything else she is willing to, at that. She leaves behind all the books and the pictures and Ayumi's last Christmas present; and with that she tells herself that she's leaving Haibara Ai behind. She's leaving him— them. And she's not planning on coming back.

There ain't anything for her to come back to, anyway.

So she represses the urge of stealing away a little bit of the past and resolves to fill the empty spaces left with pieces from her future, new memories she can lock and take away in her suitcase.

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Shinichi seems oddly uneasy when he knocks her door that night, the way he paces restlessly through her room is starting to make her dizzy. Half of the things he's saying don't make sense. Then again, maybe she's too busy disassociating with the reality of her departure to pay him any attention at all.

"Haibara—" It's almost a plea, the way he says it. She can feel her heart squeeze in her chest.

My name is Shiho, she wants to say. It's been too long since anyone called her that, and she's grown way too attached to a name that doesn't belong to her.

"You don't have to call me that anymore." The girl flashes him a smug smirk. Hopefully that will help cover her sadness.

He huffs with a bit of exasperation, his hand reaching to fix a pair of glasses that he's not wearing anymore. Old habits die hard, she realizes. The easy part is telling the world that Edogawa Conan and Haibara Ai have left forever, the difficult part is letting themselves come to terms with that.

And she honestly doesn't know if she would ever be able to.

"Very well... Miyano," He concedes, uncharacteristically out of patience. She can't help but snort and roll back her eyes at this man-child's attitude.

"What is it, Kudo-Kun?"

It would have been nice to hear him say her name, even just for once.

"You don't have to do this."

"What makes you think I'm leaving because I have to?" She offers him a lopsided smile, her eyes wandering over his face in a last attempt to memorize his features. Kind of shamelessly too, she must admit. After all this is probably the last chance she'll ever have.

There's a brief moment of silence in which he appears to be considering her words. She doesn't tear her gaze away, instead her eyes draw a map of the rosy feckless spread around his nose and keeps it treasured.

"Do you want to?" He almost stutters, and she doesn't dare let her mind wander about the reasons why there's a subtle hint of hesitation in his voice.

"Yes," She tells the floor, eyes fixes on the carpet as her lips curl into a soft smile, her tone so determined she almost believes it herself, "Of course."

When their eyes meet again, he's the one to look away.

"What about the professor, are you just gonna leave the old man alone?"

"Gramps was doing just fine before I came along." She laughs half-heartedly. As a matter of fact, everyone seemed to be doing perfectly fine before she came into the picture. She won't be missed. Maybe Haibara would be, but not Shiho.

"I thought you said you were tired of running away."

Well, she lied.

"That doesn't mean I have to stay here forever, Kudo-kun." As tempting a perspective as it might be, that wouldn't do her heart any favors.

He seems to have run out of arguments, which saddens her immensely. The basis of whatever relationship they have is so brittle that he doesn't even have one good reason for her to stay. Whatever they have— it'll all collapse to nothing the moment she walks out the door.

She's just a cameo in his life, a stranger passerby who came uninvited; and dream as she may, heroes don't fall in love with mad scientists.

"Where are you going anyway?"

"I haven't decided yet," She shrugs, "Maybe I'll send you a postcard when I get there."

"What are you, 48 years old?" He raises one brow sarcastically, "Get a phone, you fool. Text me when you get there."

"Since you asked so nicely," She deadpans, "You're cordially invited to go fuck yourself, Kudo."

He chortles out in amusement, and the sound sets a dozen butterflies fluttering in her heart.

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She regrets wearing the dress as soon the zipper goes all the way up —way too up— at the back of her neck. But gramps smiles through his tears, and his mustache tickles her cheeks when he kisses her twice goodbye.

She decides it was worth it.

When Shinichi complains and offers to give her a ride, she skeptically makes some snide remark about his driving skills, making the boy fluster in annoyance.

Ah, she's really, really going to miss that.

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She spends the whole the ride to the train station watching the opacus clouds covering the sky, wondering why is that no matter how she pictures the rest of her life it just resembles the mix of gray and blue hovering upon her.

She wonders if rain will fall one day, if the sky will crumble under the overwhelming load of sadness hiding the sun away. It'd make sense that it would, but things that make sense shouldn't hurt half as bad.

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Everything she owns fits well in a suitcase, what'll never belong to her she leaves behind —a name, a home, and half of her heart with it.