Chapter Text
The person that moves into the unit beside Shinichi’s is loud.
No, not loud in an annoying way — though sometimes, they do make him grit his teeth a little in annoyance when he’s dealing with a particularly time-sensitive case and he’s had only a total of six hours of sleep in the span of three days — for there is (usually) beauty in the noise.
See, his neighbour seems to be a musician. He says ‘seems’ because sometimes beautiful melodies will come from their room, but sometimes they’ll stop in the middle of a song, bang their hands once against the piano keys, and then silence would follow, up until they played once more.
If he were a more sociable person, he’d have knocked on their door and introduced himself to them already, maybe even make small-talk and compliment them on their playing. (And if he were more of a busybody, he’d tell them that their third C was slightly off-key and that they should have it fixed.) But that’s not the kind of person he is. Honestly, the reason why he even moved out of his house and into this unit that’s a train ride away from Beika was because he didn’t want people getting all up in his business. He’d pay this musician the same respect.
All in all, he gets used to their presence as a faceless source of free entertainment within a month of their moving in.
Ran still calls him sometimes, checking in to see if he was still breathing. Conversation is still a little awkward but Ran tries her best and he owes it to her to answer as honestly as possible and not make his replies clipped. He succeeds most of the time, but there are just some times where he can’t find the right words and he’s far too mentally tired to be social. She is gracefully aware of his faults, making sure to make conversations short and to the point when he’s in that state.
Today, he feels good—able to go toe-to-toe with Ran during their call. She talks about her law classes, talks about her relationship with Sera, about how her mother and father were able to have a civil conversation without any veiled contempt. She’s happy and he’s glad for her. He, in turn, talks about work without getting into the finer details of it, talks about his latest session with his therapist, about his new cooking endeavour that was not only edible but also actually tasted great.
“That’s great, Shinichi!” She says, and he doesn’t miss the note of pride in her voice. It makes him feel good, proud of himself even.
“Thanks.”
They continue to talk some more, but this time it’s more Ran talking about the people in Beika. He listens intently, humming to show he was listening, even giving some snarky quip that either has Ran giggling or yelling an indignant “Shinichi!”
“Oh yeah,” She says, after talking about Sonoko’s latest date plan for herself and Makoto, “how’s your neighbour?”
“Eh. Still there.”
“You still haven’t gone and talked to them yet, have you?” And there it is, that tone that he’s taken to calling the ‘Ran-neechan’ voice. He can almost see the furrow of her brow, and the hand on her hip.
“Not really, no. I’m not really… I don’t mind. They play nice, that’s it. But I don’t need to get to know them.”
“Shinichi,” she sighs, long-suffering. He knows she’s only looking out for him, but really. He doesn’t need more friends, she and Hattori are already enough for him.
“Besides, what if they’re someone old? Why do you assume they’re someone our age anyway?”
“Well you won’t know until you check it out for yourself now, won’t you, Mystery Otaku?”
He sighs. He doesn’t want to… it kind of, ruins the mystery. And yeah, that’s kind of ironic considering what his line of work is but. He doesn’t really need to know, so he won’t push it. He’ll continue letting the mystery of this person’s identity be something of a comfort for him.
“Maybe,” he replies instead, and Ran accepts his not-answer. They both know he won’t be doing anything about his mystery neighbour until a freak accident or a case brings them together.
That’s fine with him.
His mystery neighbour is practising a piece when he finally comes home after tailing a murder suspect for three days. He vaguely recognises the piece — Ludovico Einaudi’s “Nuvole Bianche”. He recalled how his mother had a short phase, during his childhood, wherein that was the only song she had playing in their manor’s music room as she read through magazines.
He’d asked her back then why she wasn’t changing the song. She had given him a rare smile — sad, wobbly — and he didn’t ask her again, content to just let the music flow between them as he read in the same room.
He does the same now—fixing himself a mug of coffee, pulling out a well-loved copy of “A Study in Scarlet”, and resting his head against his couch’s cushions. It’s perfect after those three long days, and Shinichi finds himself finally achieving peace, however temporary, until the next time Megure calls for him. The music is a wonderful addition as he unwinds, at last.
He doesn’t even notice that his eyes are closing just as Stamford introduces Watson to Holmes.
Shinichi wakes up with a crick in his neck from having slept in such a poor position. It’s still far too early to be up, and a quick look on his phone tells him that the time now is 3:37.
His book has fallen to the floor, thankfully closed, and the steaming mug of coffee he had made was now cold. He sighs at the wasted drink, yawning as he pours it all down the drain of his kitchen sink. The book is on the couch where he left it. He’ll be coming back to it when he wakes up later.
He pauses when he hears music still coming from his neighbour. Had they been practising the piece all this time?
He frowns a little when he realises that they’re playing the piece slower than the original. Variation, perhaps? It doesn’t seem to work as they stop just after a few seconds.
Whatever they’re trying to achieve, it doesn’t work, as they — he winces — slam their hands against the keys again.
He waits a bit more, wondering if they were going to continue playing.
It’s only when the time reads 4:02 that he decides they’ve probably gone to bed, and that he should do the same.