[Detective Conan] After Despair, My Archenemy Hugged Me

○ New Her

○ Liyuan Zhihe, self-destructive, artistic madwoman, genius girl

and

Shinichi Kudo, sound values, stubborn sense of justice, teenage detective

“Liyuan Zhihe, what are you up to now?!”

Whenever Shinichi Kudo ran into something involving her, he would lose his temper and shout at the top of his lungs, completely forgetting to keep up appearances.

She was always talking about fate, life and death, and other unscientific nonsense.

She never studied, sleeping through class and sleeping through breaks. Rumors about her ran rampant around school.

And on top of that, she insulted his idol, Sherlock Holmes!

Her remark, “Detectives are nothing but clowns chasing after something called a criminal,” had completely tanked Shinichi Kudo’s opinion of her.

After that, one rumor after another, along with her actions that defied common sense, kept brainwashing Shinichi Kudo into believing all the exaggerated stories.

“Rumor or not, her dead-eyed and crazy demeanor really gets on my nerves.” Those were Shinichi Kudo’s exact words.

But then, one day...

Shinichi passed by Class 2-A.

He saw the girl, whose long, straight black hair was usually impeccably neat, looking disheveled. Her eyes were ringed with red, and the classroom was silent, with no one else inside.

The girl had both hands wrapped around her slender neck, squeezing tighter and tighter...

Shinichi Kudo rushed over and slapped her hands away, pulling her out of her seat.

“You’re crazy!!”

“...No.”

“No.”

“No.”

Liyuan Zhihe stared at the broken fountain pen on the ground, crouched down, and picked it up. The shards cut her hand, and red liquid flowed out, but she didn’t stop. She just squeezed tighter and tighter...

Shinichi Kudo’s heart thudded. Gripping the girl’s shoulders, he asked,

“Liyuan, why aren’t you crying?”

“Liyuan, why are you smiling?”

“Liyuan, why... are you leaving?”

Her lifeless eyes were forced to look up at him.

She reached out with her unbloodied hand, and Shinichi Kudo took it. The girl hugged him, still without crying. She said nothing, only quickly pulling away from his embrace.

Liyuan Zhihe took leave from school, and a bad feeling rose in Shinichi Kudo’s heart.

He skipped class again. The teacher wouldn’t approve his leave request, wanting him to put the case aside and focus on his studies. Given everything that had happened, no amount of explaining would clear things up this time. Besides, everyone knew what he and Liyuan were to each other: mortal enemies.

Shinichi Kudo ran for a long time, circling the streets of Tokyo several times.

He couldn’t find her. Still couldn’t find her.

“A girl with long, straight black hair? Oh, I remember. She went that way...”

“Arigato!”

There was only one place she might have gone.

A place for someone with a warped sense of right and wrong, a terrifyingly quiet place, where an artistic madwoman was most likely to go.

Oh my god, how had he not thought of it? The art museum.

Shinichi Kudo found her in the gallery on the second floor of the art museum.

Liyuan Zhihe was staring at a painting, an oil painting... of a stormy sea.

“Do you like the sea?”

“I like the sea in the painting.”

Shinichi Kudo thought about it for many days, and finally decided to use a deal to persuade her to keep living.

“...Liyuan, how about a deal?”

“I’ll take you to find the sea in the painting, and you stay with me for five months. How does that sound?”

Liyuan Zhihe was tempted, but she still didn’t want to interact with a stranger.

“Three months.”

“Deal.”

The neat handwriting on the note made Shinichi Kudo even more certain he had made the right choice.

Liyuan Zhihe followed Shinichi Kudo around as he solved cases. She discovered that the boy loved being a detective so much. He was almost... a little like her, and yet somehow different.

She decided to keep watching him.

One day, Shinichi Kudo told her:

Maybe the world really is the way you think it is, filthy, corrupt, and rotten.

But you can’t condemn it completely, because there are still people who love this world.

Shinichi Kudo asked,

“Are you willing to believe in the world one more time?”

“I’ll be with you.”

Liyuan Zhihe thought, that offer was very tempting...

She took a sip of water to moisten her throat, then parted lips that had not spoken in a long time.

“Okay.”

Reader’s Guide:

If it’s not to your taste, please don’t leave hate. Thank you.

Liyuan Zhihe is an artistic madwoman. She never treats anything connected to her art carelessly. She has always kept herself shut away in isolation, comforting herself and avoiding contact with others, which has led to her being ostracized. So when she is desperate, she is deeply grateful even for an embrace from the darkness.

Shinichi Kudo may be out of character. I’ll do my best to keep him on track.

I want to say: where there is light, there is shadow.

Theme: Don’t give up on the world or yourself