Disclaimer: The plot and characters in "Detective Conan" belong to Gosho Aoyama. I only borrowed them to write a fanfiction and do not make any profit.
Thanks a lot to our wonderful beta-reader DoRaeMon (Astarael00/Rae00).

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FS

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Sarcasms

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Epilogue

x.

"If you weren't so sarcastic..." he said quietly, pretending to talk to himself.

I could neither see the expression on his face in the darkness, nor really care what it was like. He had lied to me too many times without his face or his voice giving him away. He was giving a brilliant performance of the rejected admirer again, and I wondered if he had intentionally chosen the place in the darkest corner of the room to hide his face from me. I kept staring through the window and registered absently that there was a couple looking almost like us standing at the bus station, holding hands. He – a tall guy with long black hair – was smoking while she – a short-haired redhead – was smiling stupidly at the snowflakes falling on her outstretched free hand. Somehow the scene seemed absurd and almost funny to me. It was like looking at a clichéd picture that belonged to an alternative reality. Perhaps it would really work between us if I didn't belong to the Organization and he didn't belong to the FBI... if we were the same age and could have a normal date in a park or in a cinema instead meeting in an empty house... if he had not misused my trust to get information from me... if it was not my own sister, his childhood friend, who was given the task to spy on him...

Too many "if's", I thought.

"... If you thought it over again, you would come to the conclusion that I had no choice," he continued, following my gaze. "There was no way I could tell you that I work for the FBI, don't you think so?"

"No, you couldn't," I said calmly. "Of course there was no logical reason for you to tell me the truth. It would be ridiculous of you to think you just broke my heart. I've never been serious about you, Akai."

"Shiho," he said, making an effort to look hurt. He obviously thought it would sound romantic if he chose this moment to call me by my first name for the first time.

At the bus station, the young man put out his cigarette, took his girlfriend's hand and got onto the bus, which slowly chugged away. The driver didn't seem to be in a hurry, in contrast to me. I had let this FBI agent steal too much of my precious free time.

"I must go now," I said, pulling the hood of my jacket over my head. "Thanks again for hiding me from your colleagues. I guess we're square."

"If Gin finds out you have spent the night here with me, he'll ask you why I let you go instead of arresting you," he said. "Our 'friends' will suspect you of cooperating with the FBI, now that my cover is blown. Why don't you give it a second thought and come with me instead of going back?"

He took a step towards me and made a gesture as if he wanted to take my hand. But I had already turned away from him and walked towards the door. He did not attempt to stop me. I supposed he had spent enough time with me to know that, once I had made the final decision, I would not change my mind.

Still, he followed me silently to the door and walked with me towards the gate of the deserted house. When I summoned the courage to look at him for the last time, I noticed that he was frowning at me, fixing me with an intense green gaze that reminded me unpleasantly of Gin.

"Why?" he asked. "I know you don't want to work for them. Your sister doesn't either. My proposal applies to both of you. If you leave the Organization-"

"If we left the Organization, we wouldn't have any place to go to," I answered. "They would find us and eliminate us like they do with any other traitors. I'm sorry. But I'm not a born hero like you, you see. I'd rather work for the devil and stay alive than be free and dead."

"I'll protect you," he said firmly, in his sweetest voice. He was obviously enchanted by the idea of playing the knight in shining armour for a damsel (or two damsels) in distress.

"From Gin," I asked flatly. Did he seriously believe that I would trust him more than Gin, whom I had known for my whole life? Gin's reactions were predictable, for Gin always followed a few very simple rules. As long as Akemi-nee-san and I followed our orders and didn't endanger the Organization, he would let us live in peace. He had even proved to be good company and seemed to have a certain weakness for me. Looking at the matter of this point of view, I decided that I could trust Gin more than an FBI agent who had pretended to be in love with me because he wanted to gather information about the highest members of the Organization.

"We will leave the Organization some day," I said, "but not as traitors. We will find a way to buy our freedom. I don't want to be protected and watched by anybody."

"They will never let you go," he replied matter-of-factly. "And you will never be free as long as the Organization exists. There will always be somebody watching you. Why don't you want that person to be me?"

"I don't want to depend on you," I replied, moving in for the kill. "I'd rather rely on Gin, Akai. He might be a killer, but I can trust him more than you."

From the expression on his face I could tell that was quite a blow for him. He only looked at me silently and murmured a small "It's your choice" when I turned and left. I walked over the street, raised my hand to say farewell without looking back to him and held my head high until I was sure that I was out of his sight.

Walking down the street towards the metro station, I wondered why he had not arrested me. He could have arrested both Akemi-nee-san and me if he had wanted to. He knew that I was one of the Organization's most important scientists. He knew about Vermouth and could guess that I was working on APTX 4869. Moreover, he could have used me as bait to catch bigger fishes. But – for a reason I could only guess – he didn't. He just watched me walking away and decided to disappear from my life as if he had never existed. In front of the metro station, I heard a sound behind me and turned round, ready to face him. However, it was just the sound of the wind blowing a plastic bag against a garbage can or "dustbin", as Akemi-nee-san, who at times refused to use American English, always called them. All of a sudden, the sight of the worn plastic bag was too much for me. I sat down on the stairs in front of the metro station, removed a long black hair from my best coat, and cried like any other fifteen-year old girl whose hopes had just been shattered by the man she loved.

x.

The sudden beginning of Prokofjew's last Sarcasm – a somewhat disturbing arrangement for cello solo by the ingenious Mr. Alec Vineyard, who was misusing his talents to make fun of other people's work – interrupted my involuntary walk down memory lane. I could remember that Alec had told me about his daily practice from seven to eleven a.m., but I hadn't expected him to play something like the fifth Sarcasm (which sounded awful on the cello) at a time when most people would prefer a piece by Bach. He was scratching although he never scratched, arousing my suspicion that he only played so cruelly to wake me up. The clock next to the bed said it was already eight a.m. Alec, who was an early riser, must be hungry.

In front of the bed, on the floor, there was a suitcase with the old clothes I had worn when I was shrunk for the first time, when Shinichi and I were still Edogawa Conan and Haibara Ai. It seemed that Shinichi, who had kept the spare key to Professor Agasa's house since I developed my multiple personality disorder and became increasingly unpredictable, had fetched my clothes for me while I was still sleeping. Perhaps he stumbled over another corpse this morning and was already working on a new case, for he had obviously disappeared without leaving me a message.

I picked a red dress (one of my favourites) and new underwear and sneaked into the bathroom. It was bad enough that I would have to think of a way to tell Alec the truth about Shinichi and me. There was no way I could face him in this shrunken state before I had taken a shower and changed my clothes.

After the shower I sorted through the things I had brought with me from London and put the clothes, which had become too big for me, into a pile. I would lock them up in a drawer until I found a way to return to my original size. My laptop, musical scores and books, however, went back into the suitcase because I still needed them. Shuichi's blue cardigan, which my alter egos (for a reason I absolutely couldn't understand) used to carry with them whenever they travelled somewhere, went back into the suitcase as well. If my subconscious did not want to part from it, I shouldn't force myself to, I argued. On the other hand – when I looked at myself from a certain distance – I realized how ridiculous it was... trying to forget somebody whose cardigan I couldn't bring myself to lock away.

"It's your favourite, isn't it?" Shinichi remarked, closing the door behind him. He had opened the door so quietly that I had not heard him entering the room.

"Where have you been?"

"In your friend's room," he said, smiling. "I wanted him to play the Sarcasms for me."

So that was the reason Alec had been scratching on his cello. He was the kind of musician who could play any piece of their repertoire in front of a big audience without making a fuss, but suffered from stage fright when they had to perform in front of a single person they respected.

"He has a very high opinion of you," I said. "Otherwise he wouldn't have played so badly. But why did you pick the Sarcasms? They don't even belong to a cellist's repertoire."

"It was just on a whim," Shinichi said, sitting down onto the bed. "You said you're playing them, and the title sounds intriguing. Giving the word 'sarcasm' a plural form suddenly makes it sound like something you can touch."

I smiled at him, surprised at his last remark.

"I thought the same when I heard it for the first time," I said thoughtfully.

"When was that?"

I had forgotten when it was, I lied. I did not want to talk with him about the Sarcasms, for the time when I had tried to find a connection between these pieces and my own life now seemed to me infinitely far away. It was after Shuichi's death, a few weeks after the downfall of the Organization, I recalled. After seeing the Sarcasmes/Sarcasms/Sarkasmen printed in bold red letters on the cover of a CD, I looked up the exact meaning of the word "sarcasm" in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and discovered that it was "a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain" or "a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual". It disturbed me that, in both cases, sarcasm inflicted pain on the other person while I had never intended to hurt others with my sarcastic and cynical remarks. The more sarcastic and witty a member of the Organization had been, the more he or she had impressed me when I was young. For me, sarcasm had been equivalent to strength.

Being sarcastic was not a natural character trait; and sarcasm was certainly not a gene, which could be passed from a parent to their child. It was just a bad habit and, in my case, only began as a display of wit, a mask that protected my real self from the eyes of the older members of the Organization. After the night I refused Shuichi's offer to leave the Organization, however, it became a nice tool which was always available and would always stand between others and me. In a sense, it became a part of myself.

In short, I had learned to make sarcastic remarks since my childhood and enjoyed it until I noticed that it had become my second nature and impossible to suppress.

Afterwards, being sarcastic had seemed like a curse to me. No matter how much I tried, my sarcasm would win over my friendliness. As I lacked my sister's courage to be straightforward when needed, I shrank from sentimental situations which required a straightforward, serious answer from me. When Jonathan Black, my assistant, admitted that he loved me and asked me out, I was unable to give him a nice refusal but only gave him a half-humorous, witty remark which must have seemed embarrassing and insulting in that situation. Since I was not a fool, I certainly did not try to convince myself that I was really responsible for the development of Black's psychopathic nature, which immediately turned his obsession for me into hatred of other strawberry-blonde women. Being disappointed by a woman didn't give a man the right to take such a bloody revenge; and a mentally stable man wouldn't have had any problems understanding that. However, I still felt guilty for being a prisoner of my own bad habits, unable to break them even when I wanted to, and was sorry that my sarcasm had set off Black's murderous disposition.

The sun was shining brilliantly through the window, chasing my thoughts of Black away. I had changed during the past years, I realized. Although I had returned to my shell after Shuichi had been shot from behind by a sniper of the Black Organization fifteen years ago, the years I spent with the Detective Boys had not passed without leaving its marks on me. I might never become a great pianist as my alter ego Miyano Shiho might have become, as life was now the only art I was really interested in, just as I wouldn't manage to change my stubborn cynical character within twenty-six hours as my alter ego did. But I suddenly felt deliriously happy – as happy as possible despite being stuck in a child's body.

"What a great weather," Shinichi remarked as if he could read my thoughts.

"I've missed the summer in Tokyo," I answered. "I've been in London for too long. How long exactly? Almost a year?"

After switching between alternative universes, I had lost my sense of time.

Shinichi smiled and flopped down onto the bed next to me.

"Fourteen months," he said. "If you had not come back this summer, I'd have gone to London to give you APTX. We thought you'd never return again."

"I... she... thought she had spent her whole life in London. But I still don't know how it worked. I had so many memories of my life in London which my mind must have made up. I even wrote letters to my 'mother' every time I was on tour, playing chamber music with a cellist and a violinist who were studying with me."

"And Alec?"

"I thought I had known him for years. But my brain must have made it up again."

"You can't have known each other for very long. Hakuba says you didn't have any friends and led a very secluded life. But he couldn't watch you for the whole time. So I guess you must have befriended Alec when Hakuba returned to Japan last spring."

"Hakuba," I sighed. "How come I can't remember seeing him?"

"Because you didn't see him," he grinned. "That's what you can expect when Hakuba tails you. But we need to change our topic: What are we going to do with your cellist now? He seems to me a rather forceful person and highly intelligent. He won't let anybody trick him very easily."

"What about telling him the truth? He would believe that something had happened to me if I suddenly disappeared over night. After everything that happened yesterday, he would probably think you had murdered me last night if I didn't show up."

"That would be an additional person who knows about APTX," Shinichi said gloomily. "Do you know that he is Vermouth's nephew? Yesterday afternoon I called Hattori and asked him to investigate Alec. This morning Hattori left me a message in my mobile phone. Alec's father was Sharon Vineyard's cousin. They even had a good relationship with each other. She visited him for a few times in Chicago and always brought his son presents. That was before Alec's parents got divorced and his mother took him with her to London."

"Alec once told me that his father had a cousin with remarkable acting skills," I murmured. "But I still think we should trust him. We don't have a better choice, anyway."

"Fine. But you will tell him the whole story. I doubt he will believe me when I tell him... And now there is still Black and his crew. I think you knew him, judging from his behaviour towards you?"

"An old admirer of mine," I said quickly. "A scientist of the Organization. He was only a member of low rank without a cocktail code name. I never thought he could kill anybody. He was not able to kill a mouse then."

"He went to prison just like the other low-ranking members. But then his roommates complained that he was mentally ill and bullied him until a psychiatrist, who became interested in the case, discovered that he had serious mental problems and had him moved to the new Suzuki mental hospital. After a while, a nurse fell in love with him and helped him to escape. He managed to take two of his friends, who he had met in the mental hospital, with him. They became his allies during the murders." His eyes darkened. "The body of the nurse was found in a small pension in the suburbs of the city yesterday night."

"And why are you still here?"

He immediately understood what I meant.

"There is nothing to investigate. The case is closed," he answered. "Mitsuhiko-kun will take care of the rest of it and conceal the connection between the case and APTX." He smiled and gave me his hand. "Let's go and scare the living daylights out of Alec. Shall we?"

x.

We did scare the life out of Alec, just as expected. He dropped his bow when he saw me standing at the door. Seeing the child-size copy of your friend grinning at you was certainly enough to bring the nerves of the strongest person on edge. After an extended breakfast and a thorough cross-examination on both sides, however, everything was happily resolved. Alec told me that we had known each other since my arrival in London and had been friends since April when we visited the same improvisation course. A few of my alter ego's recollections were true. There had been a few students who wanted to go out with me, and the director seemed to have paid me special attention. But there had been, of course, no funeral. Most of the things which happened after my last talk with the first cellist only existed in my alter ego's brain. Perhaps my mind had killed the other alter ego (Akemi, the scientist who left Tokyo for London) when my last alter ego (Shiho, Akemi's daughter) became too strong. And – if Shinichi had not given me APTX in time – I might not have been able to return. Miyano Shiho would probably have taken over my whole mind and erased my real personality for ever.

"But I must admit I still don't understand your story. If you're the same Shinichi Kudo who had brought down the Black Organization fifteen years ago... How come you still kept your old name? Somebody must have noticed that you didn't age," Alec said.

Well, he had called himself "Conan Edogawa" when he was shrunk for the first time, Shinichi explained. After taking the first permanent antidote and returning to his original size, "Conan Edogawa" went abroad to live with his parents while "Shinichi Kudo" returned to his old life. After the downfall of the Organization, however, I discovered that the antidote was killing us; and we had to take APTX again, so...

While he explained the whole story to Alec, I let my mind wander and returned to the time fifteen years ago. When I told Shinichi that we would have to take APTX again, he didn't bat an eyelid. It did not go well between Ran and him, although I didn't know the reason then. When he decided to wipe out Kudo Shinichi's identity and to continue his life as Edogawa Conan, neither his parents nor I could talk him out of it. Hence Kudo Shinichi, too, "died" officially during the downfall of the Organization. Two years later, Ran and Hakuba Saguru, a Sherlock Holmes freak just like Shinichi, got married. I had never understood how those two found each other. It seems they had met each other during one of Edogawa's cases and met again when Ran went to London for a year. They had been shuttling back and forth between Japan and England since then and seemed to be very happy with each other. In the end, nothing turned out as expected after the Black Organization went down. And I was no longer naive enough to wonder why. I just accepted the changes and moved on.

The hardest blow had been Shuichi's death. After defeating Gin and destroying the Organization with Shinichi, he had been shot from behind by a sniper who must have been a low-ranking member of the Organization. His murderer had never been found. I had spent a few days with the FBI, or rather with Shuichi, before Shinichi and I took the first permanent antidote. During those days, my old feelings for Shuichi had returned; and I had hoped that, after the downfall of the Organization, we could resurrect our old relationship, which might turn into real love. After his death, I tried to banish all the memories of him from my mind. In a way, I was more successful than I had hoped. I didn't visit his grave, in contrast to Jodie-sensei, who took care of it and once asked me whether I would come with her. I did not keep anything that could remind me of him except from my favourite cardigan, which he had given me shortly before his death when I was cold and which I didn't want to throw away. It was the only sentimental luxury I could afford without endangering my new peaceful life.

I discovered the second permanent antidote when the Detective Boys were fifteen. Life had been unusually peaceful during those three years if I didn't count the murder cases that we – or rather one special member of us – always stumbled upon. All the relationships around us suddenly made progress. Detective Takagi and Sato were married and were expecting a daughter; Ran's friend, Suzuki Sonoko, and Kyogoku Makoto had a hard time fighting against the Suzuki clan to get married, but they prevailed; and Hattori Heiji and Toyama Kazuha had just announced their engagement. Sometimes, I wondered whether Edogawa was still in love with Ran. But – although we spent even more time with each other than we did before the downfall of the Black Organization – I never talked to him about private matters anymore. He, on the other hand, had made several attempts to ask me about my past and about Shuichi. But when he noticed that I did not feel inclined to talk, he accepted my silence. Whenever I was not with him and the Detective Boys, I would work on the second antidote just to keep the memories from coming back to me.

The second antidote (which accelerated our regenerative process) turned out to be even more disastrous than the first one and forced me to develop the third at any cost, as it prevented us from aging like normal human beings. Hence, after taking APTX again, Edogawa and I stayed trapped in the bodies of fifteen year-old teenagers while the Detective Boys naturally grew. When they went to university (only Genta-kun and Ayumi-chan because Mitsuhiko-kun decided to skip university and immediately began to work for the police after finishing school), Shinichi and I felt that we couldn't keep our identities as Edogawa and Haibara for much longer. People began to notice that we did not age. We knew that what seemed like a harmless youthful appearance at the age of twenty would seem extremely disturbing at the age of forty. And I began to work even harder than I had ever worked before.

To avoid running into old school friends and acquaintances too often, we rented a three-room apartment in Shibuya (the apartment where my alter ego met Black) and continued our private studies there. I wrote all kinds of online articles to earn a bit money while Edogawa still helped the Takagi's, who knew about our situation, solve cases. Sometimes, the Detective Boys would visit us. During those university years, Ayumi-chan met Mifune, the cousin of one of Sonoko's acquaintances, a very funny mystery writer, and married him one year after their first meeting. Genta-kun fell in love with Maria, the girl who went to elementary school with us, after meeting her again on a birthday party after university. But it seemed he felt self-conscious about being overweight, as he had been trying to lose weight during the past two years and had not dared to ask her out yet.

Mitsuhiko-kun, on the other hand, had concentrated on his job and was making quite a career. Although his intellectual streak was often more of a hindrance than help when it came to solving cases (he had to pull himself together not to get lost in the labyrinth of his complicated theories when the case was, in reality, simple), he was on his way toward becoming one of the best brains in the police forces. When Genta-kun and Ayumi-chan finished their studies and decided to join him, they formed a small but effective group which Megure-keibu teasingly called "The Three Musketeers".

At this time, Edogawa Conan disappeared (because Shinichi was tired of disguising himself as a twenty-three year old when he barely looked sixteen) and Kudo Shinichi No. 2 was born. This Shinichi was an orphaned young man – the son of a chemist and a secret agent who died during the downfall of the Black Organization – who looked so much like "the late highschool detective Kudo Shinichi" that Kudo's parents Kudo Yusaku and Kudo Yukiko adopted him and gave him the name of his son. I was very skeptical at the beginning. But the less believable the story sounded, the more the reporters would buy it, Shinichi had said: Their reasoning would be that if Kudo Yusaku, that great mystery writer, and the great actress Kudo Yukiko wanted to make up a story, they would have thought of something more believable. Nobody could think of a drug which prevented people from aging, anyway. Hence the impossible-sounding story – which would make a small gem for the gossip column – must be true. Now that I was thinking about it, I wondered what would have happened if my alter ego could have investigated the story of Kudo's life before she met him in Tokyo.

After Kudo accidentally told a reporter that our apartment once belonged to his father (Kudo Yusaku had once rented the apartment and lived there for a few months) and that it was the reason he had decided to move in with Haibara Ai, who had stayed in her apartment after "Edogawa Conan" had left Japan for the US, the reporters came to the inescapable conclusion that the non-existent secret agent who was supposed to be Kudo Number Two's father had lived there. Luckily, nobody had cared enough to investigate into this matter. When the reporter of the previous night asked Kudo whether his apartment in Shibuya had belonged to his father, who had been shot, he meant the invented secret agent, not Kudo Yusaku.

The nameplate matter, which had seemed so mysterious to my alter ego, was not hard to explain either. The nameplate on our apartment had shown "Haibara Ai/ Kudo Shinichi" in Kanji, with the Latin transcription of our names engraved in tiny letters underneath the Kanji, which was the reason Alec, who had been sitting on the street, couldn't read it. Shinichi must have told one of the Detective Boys (Mitsuhiko-kun was the best choice) to remove the nameplate because he knew that he wouldn't be able to explain to Alec and me why our names were engraved on it. I could not imagine what would have happened if Alec had paid attention to the names on the postboxes when he was running around the house or if Shinichi had forgotten to have the nameplate removed…

Eight years after creating the second antidote, I finished the third antidote and – despite Shinichi's protests – decided to test it on myself before I gave it to him.

"So you're Kudo Number Two," Alec said. "What are you going to do in ten years? Invent Kudo Number Three or Edogawa Number Two?"

"I suppose we'll have to leave Tokyo and begin a new life after that," Shinichi shrugged. "But I still hope Ai will find the real antidote until then."

"I can adopt you," Alec beamed, ruffling my hair just as Shinichi did the previous night. They had lost their respect for me completely since I had been shrunk. "Or I can make you my cousin, which would be even better."

"Not a bad idea," Shinichi remarked. "But she can be my cousin as long as we stay in Japan. How would you like to be called, Ai?"

"I don't know," I said. "As long as it's not something like 'Ai Miyano' or 'Shiho Haibara', I'd take almost any name you give me."

"What about keeping Ai Haibara?" Shinichi suggested. "Nobody would think that you're the same Ai Haibara who went to school with Conan. You're too young, and-"

Both Alec and I groaned in response.

x.

In the end, we agreed on "Shiho Miyano". In Tokyo, nobody would remember Miyano Shiho, as I had spent most of my time as "Sherry" in the laboratories of the Black Organization when I was young. Alec spent the rest of the holiday at Shinichi's house and did not return to London before September (when he absolutely had to because the new semester at the conservatoire began). When the Professor, Ran and Hakuba came to visit us (their children had stayed in Osaka with Hattori) and we introduced Alec to them, we made another curious discovery which threw Shinichi and me off balance. Alec and Hakuba turned out to be related to each other, for they discovered that they had the same distant relative (a cousin who had been Hakuba's childhood friend and who had helped raise Alec when his parents were busy making each other's life a living hell). Hence Hakuba must be Sharon Vineyard's nephew, too, which seemed to me a particularly scary thought.

I took the second antidote again and did not experience any side effects afterwards. The regenerative process of my cells had been accelerated just as expected, which did have its advantages. Living with Shinichi and following him to all his cases had been a dangerous undertaking. But, as I knew that neither of us could die, I didn't need to worry about our safety too much. Sometimes, when I see how fast the Professor, who has come back to Beika since my return, is aging and losing his former zest for adventures, I have to prevent myself from mixing APTX and the second antidote into his tea. Eternity, no matter how pleasant it seems at the beginning, will become a curse after a while. I keep telling myself that, and hope I won't shrink the Professor in a sentimental fit some day.

Just like Ran and Hakuba, Hattori and Kazuha often visit us and – just like Ran, unlike Hakuba! – leave all kinds of sundry articles in Shinichi's vast entrance room when they hurry home. Their relationship is – in contrast to the peaceful relationship between Ran and her husband – still a stormy one, with many ups and downs. Like Shinichi's parents, they are constantly arguing about little things. Kazuha leaves her husband about three times a year to go back to her father and returns every time after a week under the pretence of feeling guilty for leaving the mystery-obsessed idiot starving to death by himself. (Just like Shinichi, Hattori has never learned to cook.)

The (still secret) relationship between Shinichi and me goes well, although I still wonder what it exactly is. When Shinichi and I were still inexperienced with the new situation, we walked hand in hand through the streets and then blanched at the remarks of people whose observation was good enough to distinguish between a brotherly love and a romantic – though completely platonic – love affair which has not made any progress over the years. Now we know to play our roles in public very well, he slipping with ease into the role of the protective older cousin and I giving a convincing performance of the young girl who has lost her parents and is now completely depended on his care. Besides I refused to go to school again; and, to my relief, nobody seemed to care. Privately, Shinichi and I have stayed friends and, in a sense, partners in crime, which is often too little and sometimes for much for both of us, especially when his reckless character worries and irritates me. But there are moments when I am completely content and happy and believe that he feels the same.

I have not found the antidote yet and – though I try not to think about it – often wonder whether I ever will. In a sense, I had developed the perfect supplements to APTX 4869 when I created Antidote Number Two and Number Three. Neither Shinichi nor I can grow or die. On the other hand, we had never enjoyed better health. And Alec, who has had to cancel a few concerts because he has become very susceptible to infections and common illnesses since he began his career as a touring cello soloist three years ago, has more than once begged me to give him APTX 4869 and the immortality-antidote. He would love to spend an eternity playing cello, he told me every time. And then I would ask myself whether I should tell him that his auntie, the beautiful famous actress who escaped from jail last year, might still be cursing my parents and me for having developed APTX 4869. She is the only person in the world on whom the imperfect APTX has had the same effect as the Antidote Number Two. She cannot age, cannot die, and will spend an eternity drifting through life and fighting against her everlasting boredom.

Shinichi has just come home and is storming into the kitchen where I am standing, making omelettes for breakfast.

"Did they wake you up in the night again?" I ask, grinning at his disheveled appearance, his reddened cheeks and glowing eyes.

"No. I went out on my own... I had a few suspicions yesterday and..." He shakes his head, flops into a chair and laughs. "Guess who is lodging in the Grande Suzuki at the moment, Shiho."

"Alec?"

"No, but another Vineyard."

I almost let the egg in my hand fall onto the floor.

"But you don't need to worry," Shinichi adds quickly. "She doesn't intend to murder anyone, at least not at the moment."

"Have you called the police?" I ask. The thought of Vermouth living in Beika absolutely does not appeal to me. "And how on earth has she managed to pay that hotel?" As always, my thoughts get practical when I feel trapped.

"She is a survival genius. Paying the Grande Suzuki shouldn't be hard for her. No, I haven't reported her to the police. She is our ally at the moment. Let's forget past grudges and move on."

Shinichi and she have called a truce, he tells me. She will allow me to take a sample of her blood to study the unknown effects of APTX 4869. If it helps me to create the ultimate antidote, we will give her a pill of it. And all of us can start our lives anew afterwards, struggling to organize our limited time as normal people do.

"That would be wonderful," I remark thoughtfully. "Too good to be true."

"Almost nothing is too good to be true," he replies with a smile, leaning comfortably back in his chair and closing his eyes because the light from the window is blinding him. For a moment, we are only Kudo Shinichi and Miyano Shiho again, without the shadows of the past and the worries of the future troubling us. Life has taken enough unexpected turns to prove to me that, just like blows of fate, strokes of luck do happen. And perhaps, stripped of my mistrust and skepticism, I will learn to deal with them like Shinichi does, enjoying my life, taking whatever the future holds in store for me without complaining and being prepared to grasp the chance when fortune smiles upon us.

The End

x.

Author's Notes: Finally I've completed a multi-chaptered story which I'm not going to rewrite again. (I think a few people will sigh in relief now.) "Sarcasms" began as an experiment and was not supposed to be so long (only six chapters for the five Sarcasms and one Epilogue). But, as always, I failed to foresee how many words I would need to tell a story.

Despite the serious-sounding title, "Sarcasms" is, just like most of my stories, written tongue-in-cheek. It is not supposed to be a speculation of what might happen at the end of the original manga and does not intend to be an essay supporting Conan-Ai or Shinichi-Shiho. I'm sure that most of the things that happened in this story will never happen in the original DC universe. That's why I wrote this story.

I'm going to illustrate the story some day, but not very soon, as I don't have much time and am concentrating on ENCOUNTER in VENICE now. If you're interested, you can find everything on FS' Suitcase/my Livejournal (please look for the link on my profile), Author's Notes, explanations, illustrations (when I've finished them). I am not allowed to post those things on this site.

Thanks very much to everybody who has managed to get through the twelve chapters, especially to readers who have reviewed and those who have pointed out typos and grammar mistakes in the story. Although I've reread it many times and had sent it to Rae, who betaed it, we might have overlooked mistakes which seem obvious to you. I'll be thankful if you point it out so that I can edit it. And if you still have questions after reading the plot of the story, you can ask me in your review, a PM or leave me a comment on Livejournal (I do accept anonymous comments on Livejournal and can answer to them, whereas I cannot answer to anonymous reviews on this site.)