Chapter Text
Just like when a lot of people said to never judge a book by its cover, it took somewhile for Haibara to eventually show her true self; that she was only a girl who wasn’t too different than any other normal girls of her age at heart.
Perhaps it was because the witch’s true heart was no longer hovered by the darkness of the deep forest. Or maybe leaving the forest and bathing herself under the sun gave her heart a fresh air to breathe. Either way, she started to open up and tried to blend herself in to the crowd of people that lived outside her little world. However, despite her resolved heart, it was inevitable that she felt greatly frightened.
Without a telling, the prince noticed her paranoia. So he took her hand in his and held it tight as they entered the fringe of society, telling her to never run away from her life. With an assuring smile plastered on his lips, he led the witch to walk down the streets– she followed.
And just like that, the days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and months to years. Time flied extremely fast when they went through with it together. Then in the blink of an eye, both of them were high school students once again, living a normal life as two growing teenagers.
“Edogawa-kun, please standby.” A classmate told Conan at the back of the stage. “It’s almost time for the prince to show up in the last scene.”
“Okay.” He nodded, readied himself to make his appearance to the play.
It was finally the day of the school festival.
Every students were busy with the customers who stopped by their stalls, while visitors and guests were excited to explore each event the school offered. Classrooms were decorated and turned into booths; haunted houses, maid cafes, art exhibitions, literature workshops– name them all. Every corner of the school was so crowded and lively.
It was after lunch hour that the drama performance by Kobayashi-sensei's class started. The gym was full of audience who were interested in watching the play directed by the sensei herself.
It went surprisingly smooth at first. With each dialogue expressed skillfully by the students, the audience was so immersed into the scenes, forgetting they were all watching a school play. Of course it was because the students had been practicing their roles very hard these past few weeks, especially him who got the role of the prince.
Yes, he had been practicing harder than he intended to, for every time he did the last, heart-pounding scene, he always got a scene cut by Kobayashi-sensei. It was only because many many times had he heedlessly stared at the witch instead of the sleeping princess.
Everyone laughed it off at first, seeing the all-popular-smart high school detective had done something thoughtless for once, yet the interruptions became worse after his confession to Haibara few days before the performance day.
Fool. She thought, although her lips formed a small smile.
Fortunately the blood of the great legendary actress Yukiko Kudo ran in his body, so with all his might and will, he successfully finished the scene and received a great round of applause on the last day of practice. Then this afternoon, he had to act it out in front of the real audience.
Remember to stare at the princess. Conan was reminding himself as he stepped out onto the stage once more.
The scene was started with him kneeling beside the black-gold painted cardboard coffin where the princess was laid. As he gazed at the beauty, he lowered his back and pretended to kiss her. The curse that was cast to the princess was broken and she woke up from her deep slumber. Afterward, the scene was ended with the narrator's speech, continued with the curtain call, and the whole gym was filled with cheers coming from the audience.
The performance ended very well– at least that was what the audience saw.
Indeed, anyone from a far would've not realized this, however every students who stood on the stage saw it very clearly that before the prince lowered his back to give the princess a kiss, he stole a quick mesmerizing glance at the eyes of the witch, again. Even Ayumi who was pretending to sleep could see it from the corner of her eyes when she slightly peeked to match the timing of her role.
But Conan realized it too late.
Although he was able to deceive the audience, in the end he failed to trick his classmates and above all, the detective boys. Genta whose mind was usually too busy thinking his eel rice, was able to catch it this time too. It would be a matter of time for the plump boy and Mitsuhiko to tease him on this every time they went together to and from school.
“Damn." He said to himself.
While he hadn’t gotten a clear answer to his confession, it looked like just being in love could suddenly turn someone into a fool, huh?
The quiet days in the school were gone almost immediately, for the following week after the festival, a rumour was spread through out the whole school ground. Not even a single student was left unheard of the hot talk about the school prince who fell for the school witch.
It was first started as small talks between their classmates who were suspicious of what they witnessed. Even with such sloppy detective skills they had, they were able to connect every dots starting from the last few days of the practice until the day of the stage play.
The talk was spread to another first year students at different classes, then not long after, the gossip reached the ears of the upperclassmen and the club members, even to the teachers. Thus, the whole school knew it.
The great success of the performance itself and the fact that Conan was socially famous at school, played so much part in spreading the news.
"This is the first time I would blame popularity." Conan said to no one in particular while he was sitting on a chair with his head rested on top of the small meeting table.
He was taking a rest inside their official detective club room after the school ended, together with the other tired four detective boys members.
"It was all your fault for being too obvious in public." Genta said to the bespectacled boy as he walked toward a chair after closing the door to the club room.
"Not to mention those many cuts during the practices.” Mitsuhiko said. "They all clicked together.”
After the rumour started to spread, the detective boys were asked everyday by almost everyone at school about the truth, since they were too afraid to ask the main persons themselves. Despite that the three of them understood very well that those two had always had special affair in between them, they answered nothing until the end of the day.
Aside to keep their precious best friends’ privacy, it was also out of their flair to answer the question, anyway.
"But this is so screwed up.” Mitsuhiko spoke up again. "I never knew that you two are so much popular than I thought.”
“True." Ayumi agreed. "I know that Conan-kun has a lot of fangirls, but I'm surprise Ai-chan has the same amount of fanboys too."
"Those crazy fans, they are all so scary." The three members said at the same time in low voices, while hugging themselves as they felt goosebumps all over their bodies. They felt those cold shivers more often now since they couldn't get those thirsty stares for the truth, that the fans had, out of their mind.
The two exhausted shrunken adults chuckled dryly at their friends' comments.
They were right. Both of them had never expected to have this many crazy fans. Although Conan didn't really mind it because he had always been on the spotlight forever in his life, but Haibara did. After all, she never really had the enjoyment for public exposure.
The fact that her cool, quiet, and mature demeanor was the reason many boys at the school adored her was already dumb enough to her standpoint. And now, she had gotten into the silly mess because the silly prince couldn't contain his own feeling through his act.
"So, what are you two gonna do now?" Ayumi asked, concern was reflected in her eyes.
"You can't just let this go on forever, couldn't you?" Genta continued the discussion.
"You have to do something, especially about those fans of yours, Conan-kun.” Mitsuhiko added.
“Hmmm." The three sighed together while doing the thinking pose.
Conan straightened his posture then brought his index finger and thumb under his chin. He tried to think for the best way to tidy up the mess he made. As he thought so hard, he took a glance at Haibara who sat in front of him, with the hope she would also come up with some ideas.
But she didn't. Instead, all he could get was a teasing in return.
"Would you get the answer by staring at my face, Tantei-san?" Haibara scoffed when she realized his boring stare at herself.
"Wha–?" He blushed.
The other three members in the room looked at them and laughed at his annoyed blushing face, breaking the serious atmosphere.
“W-Well." Conan coughed, trying to compose himself. "We should keep low for awhile, I think. The rumour shouldn't be last for too long.”
Everyone nodded in agreement to what Conan said. They also thought it was the best they could do for now, until they find a better solution to this problem.
“Alright! Let’s open our mystery box and see what cases are there for us to solve!” Genta broke the calmness in the room with so much excitement in his voice.
“Okay!” Mitsuhiko and Ayumi answered with the same manner as the plump boy.
Mitsuhiko took a small box that looked like a mail box from the front of the door and put it on the table. Genta opened it abruptly to begin checking its content, while Ayumi stood up and leaned slightly toward the table to peek its inside.
To Haibara’s amusement, no one asked about the truth behind the rumour nor did they pry into the matter further. If there would be anything, those three should be the one to complain about this situation, wouldn’t it?
This matter, after all, was purely about her and the detective. Yet here they were, acting so indifferent in spite of all the troubles– from their peers– they had brought upon the real teenagers’ quiet lives.
Shortly after, the door to their club room was abruptly opened. It was Kobayashi-sensei who intruded in to their club room, which she often did since she was the advisor for their detective club.
Everyone, except Haibara, laughed dryly at the teacher. She never changed– still the same mystery lover who happened to be a school teacher.
“Ah! Did I miss the ‘reveal the mystery box’ ceremo–?”
"Thank you so much, you all." Haibara cut the teacher’s speech and gained the attention of everyone in the room. Every eyes were on her now, a bit stunned. “Thank you for everything.”
The strawberry blonde finished her sentence with a smile– the most sincere smile she had ever shared to anyone. To them. The detective boys and Kobayashi-sensei were surprised at what they saw, silence overwhelmed the room.
Eight years of teaching and friendships, and only this one time did they see her captivating genuine smile.
And turned out, the witch could be so innocent and beautifully charming when she smiled.
"Just leave it to us, Ai-chan!" Ayumi said, breaking the silence. A very big grin was on her mouth, and a bit of tears could be seen on the edge of her eyes. She was touched by the strawberry blonde's smile.
"Yeah." Genta said excitedly, bringing his clenched fist up so everyone could see his untrained muscles. "I will use all my strength to protect you.”
"We'll do anything for our best friends." Mitsuhiko nodded his head.
Without any explanation of words, they all seemed to understand the thing that Haibara wanted to say from the depth of her heart. Her eyes told them so.
They were all looking at each other, laughing, while Conan enjoyed watching the moment from aside. The detective boys left Kobayashi-sensei flabbergasted by the thing that they were discussing just now, but the warm mood made her joined their laughter soon after.
The witch is smiling more and more, huh? He thought.
Despite the crowds of the town people in the public square, the witch couldn’t lie that she enjoyed the conviviality around her. Moreover, with the prince by her side and her hood on, no one really recognized her as the witch.
Until someone bumped on to her. She lost her balance, pulling her hand apart from the prince, and she fell to the ground altogether with her hood to her nape. With her identity revealed, she instantly became the center of attention in the crowd.
She immediately took her hood back to cover her face, but it was too late. People had started to whisper bad things about her and distanced themselves from the witch.
In the midst of her panic, a little girl approached her. She offered her a flower, while asking if she was okay. The witch could see the worry transpired on her little round eyes, and with her ability to see through someone’s heart, she knew the girl wasn’t afraid of her at all– unlike the crowd who only stood by the scene without helping.
Instantly, her quivered heart felt stronger. The witch braved herself and took the flower from her little hand as she said thank you from deep down in her heart. This was the first time for the witch to feel unconditional acceptance from someone, and it was only to this little girl did she show her true smile.
As she learned that there was indeed someone out there who would truly accept her for who she was, the chain that sealed her heart was slowly broken. So with her soft voice and a smile, the witch had unwittingly bewitched the little girl and some other people around them.
The prince who finally caught up to her from behind the crowd, was just in time to witness the scene from aside. Watching her smile, his heart too, was unknowingly held captive by one of her deadly spells.