Disclaimer: Detective Conan belongs to Aoyama Gosho.

Author’s Note: This oneshot was a respond to a challenge from Hikari-chan, a.k.a. Chitsuki, or Tsu, from a long, long time ago. I recently dug it up, and since several people requested that I post it here, here it is. Dedicated to Tsu, and squishes to astarael00 for betaing.

Milk

Ai was chopping potatoes for dinner when she remembered something. She turned, opened the fridge, and peered into it. As she'd thought, they were out of milk. She'd planned to run down to the grocery store that morning after the professor had emptied the last carton of milk they had during breakfast, but the weather was spectacular. Howling wind, blinding rain, and an intermittent hail. Going outside in that weather was as smart as walking around with a big flashy neon sign that said "This is Sherry" above her head—an automatic painful death.

It was Sunday, so she'd decided to laze around and wait for the storm to pass. Somehow, the professor had managed to blow up some more stuff in the basement, and she'd ended up cleaning up the mess and lecturing the elder scientist about lab safety. Time passed. And she forgot all about the milk.

Groaning inwardly, Ai shut the door of the fridge and glanced at the window. It was only drizzling now. The store would be closed if she waited until after dinner. She found the professor, who was surfing the Internet, and told him that dinner would be slightly late tonight.

"Do you want me to go with you, Ai-kun?" Agasa asked when he learned that Ai was going to the grocery store.

"No, thanks," Ai said. If the professor went, he'd probably spend most of the time at the store ogling the different snacks and begging Ai to allow one pack of cookies, two packs of chips, three packs of candies, etc. Never mind the milk.

Ai grabbed her umbrella and headed toward the grocery store. She hoped that there was milk, and not rotten milk, at this hour. The best time to shop was when the new stock just arrived and refreshed everything on the shelves. Evening was not that time.

Shaking her umbrella as dry as she could, she hurried to the dairy section. She located the brand of milk that she usually bought and quickly scanned the dates of expiry. Good, there were a couple more cartons of fresh milk available. She reached for the innermost one but realized that there was another hand reaching for it, too. She looked up, and for a moment, she thought she was seeing things.

The person withdrew his hand and bowed. "Ladies first." When he saw that Ai was still staring at him, he asked, "What?"

Ai snapped out of her trance and muttered a thanks as she pulled out the carton of milk. She didn't think she was hallucinating. She didn't think that Kudo could have magically come across the antidote either. So the only scientific explanation she could come up with was that this was just someone who looked like a certain moron.

"What? What!" the person pressed.

It didn't look like this Kudo-look-alike was going to let her go peacefully without finding out why she'd stared at him like he was a ghost. Well, she supposed, he was a ghost in a way.

"Is there something on my face?" the Kudo-look-alike pulled a mirror out of nowhere and studied his reflection, trying to find the peck of dust or mud or whatever that would've made a girl stare at him like that.

"Nothing." Ai sighed. "You just remind me of someone I know." She turned and hoped that he would leave her alone.

Unfortunately, her answer aroused his curiosity. "Really?" he said and tagged behind Ai, forgetting to pick up his carton of milk. "Who?"

Ai suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. "No one special," she said. Maybe she should tell this guy the one thing that all teachers taught in pre-school: Never talk to strangers. Yet, he wasn't exactly a stranger, was he? Or maybe she meant that he shouldn't talk to her, because to him, she was a stranger, who also happened to be an ex-Organization member that was shrunk by the very thing she created. Definitely not the stranger to talk to.

"But he is, isn't he? Otherwise no one would remind you of him," the Kudo-look-alike reasoned.

Ai passed her carton of milk and money to the cashier and gave the Kudo-look-alike a flat stare. "Oh, he is special. Anyone can remember a moron who doesn't give a second thought to the consequences that result from his spur-of-the-moment decisions."

The Kudo-look-alike's facial expression was unreadable. He didn't look surprised by Ai's definition of "someone special," and he didn't seem to be insulted. He asked calmly, "So will you remember me as someone special?"

Ai was taking the plastic bag holding the carton of milk from the cashier when she heard his question. She froze midway. After what seemed to be a long time, she finally looked at him with an equally unreadable expression before turning away and heading toward the exit. "Yes, I suppose," Ai said quietly.

She heard footsteps behind her and idly wondered if he was going to follow her all the way back to the professor's house. She stepped out of the store and opened her umbrella as he came up next to her.

He asked, "So what is your name?"

"Why don't you tell me yours first?" Ai countered and thought, Mister Someone Special. She glanced up and saw that he was grinning.

"Do special people need names to be remembered as special people?"

Ai was torn somewhere amid exasperation, defeat, and absurdity. She began walking down the sidewalk, not sure whether to be glad or annoyed that he was still following her. Maybe he just so happened to live in the same area as she did? "Well then, I hope you can remember me as someone special, too," she remarked.

"Fair enough," he said but then shouted, "Oh no! I forgot the milk!" Waving a quick goodbye to Ai, he dashed back into the store, muttering something like, “It’ll be the fish's revenge if I forget the milk!”

Ai stared after him and shrugged. She'd seen her fair share of weird people. As she started down the sidewalk, she realized that the plastic bag in her hand was heavier than before. She looked down and was startled to find two cartons of milk sitting in the bag. She went back to the store, but the Kudo-look-alike was nowhere to be found.

(END)