Stay! By My Side

Chapter 21

Ai's POV

Last time we had a talk about the I-want-in thing was inside the girl's toilet inside the Tropical Land. What a place to have such deep conversation. The weekend has passed and we still didn't talk about that any further. He promised to think about it. Well, I could say it's good enough. I'm just gonna stay obedient to everything he said, and let's see if that will change his mind.

Anyhow, all I could think for now is to spend my time efficiently on the final antidote. Also today I need to give him the first stage as promised. Why do I make that promise back then? I must not be in the right mind. It's school day and if anything bad happened he won't let me go to school by myself. And we skipped school thousand times already. I wonder what the teachers would think of this.

Good thing is, Kudo-kun and his Osaka friend wouldn't bother to hide that they up to something from me anymore. Except they haven't told anything about the something. Whatever, I just had a nice mood today and I wouldn't ruin it by overthinking something I wasn't prepared to know yet.

"You're irritatingly on a good mood today", says he, the one I gave my heart for since countless times ago.

"Mm-hm"

"You promised me to give it today, remember?"

"I do."

"You're scary when you're being somekind of yes man."

"Oh my, I'm a woman in case you didn't know."

"I keep forgetting it since you rarely behaving like one."

"And here I wonder how could a great detective have such a narrow view on an opposite gender."

"By that, I mean you're one of a unique personality. That's a compliment, you should be grateful."

"That was a bad kind of compliment."

He didn't reply on that, which mean he gave up. So I win again. By the time we got home, the professor is nowhere to be found while the Osaka friend is sleeping carelessly in front of the TV. This house has become somekind of nest for a bunch of self proclaimed detectives. And I don't remember being agree on any of that.

I'm heading towards the lab with Kudo-kun following me behind. I take the first antidote and give it to him.

"Are you gonna take it here?"

"Yeah." And without further ado, he shallowed the pill.

"This is gonna hurt like hell, bare with it."

He wait for the antidote to take effect almost eagerly that anyone would think he took somekind of godly medication.

"Are you that happy, Kudo-kun? Someone might have a wrong idea just by looking at your face right now."

"Are you not? If these go well, we're gonna be back to our original form."

He said that joyously that somehow drown my heart into the deepest fear of losing him.

"You're not?"

Before I answer that, he screamed in pain. It started.

______________________________________

Shinichi's POV

Every cells inside my body is burning. Aren't these too much? And I still need to bare with this for an hour and a half. I screamed my heart out and wondering how could she get through this without screaming.

My leg is losing their strength and my sight is getting blurry. I feel Haibara reach my body and brought me to the chair. She gives me water and told me to take as much water as i could.