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candyficsTitle: The Apartment: What Really Happened
Fandom: Detective Conan
Characters: Heiji/Kazuha (General series)
Prompt: #89—work
Word Count: 1870 words
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: I do not own Detective Conan. It all belongs to Gosho Aoyama. I simply borrow the characters, tie them up, and dance them around like life-sized puppets. I do wish they’d stop complaining.
Summary: Heiji finally asks for the whole story. And Kazuha tells him…
Something had been bothering Heiji for a while now. It was one of those things that, in his mind, fell squarely into the gray area between safe issues to bring up and taboo topics. It was sort of like how he had skirted mentioning anything even remotely sexual upon her initial return for the simple fact of not wanting to say the wrong thing. Kazuha had been burned, and burned badly.
But as time went by, he realized that Kazuha was really not likely to be scared off by jokes or offhand comments like that. If anything, she seemed more comfortable with him now than she ever had before. So he had slowly reintroduced normal banter into their daily conversations, and been rewarded when she smacked him upside the head and called him an ahou.
There was only one thing he really wanted to ask her. And after pondering over it for a while, he decided to bite the bullet and take the plunge. He reasoned that if she didn’t want to tell him, she would say so, and that would be the end of it—and he wouldn’t really blame her if she refused.
Now he just had to find the right opportunity.
It came in the form of a late-night movie viewing. There was a movie on television that they both had really wanted to see, so they stayed up to watch it. By the end of the movie, he was sitting with his back against the arm of the couch and Kazuha was curled up in his arms, the back of her head against his chest. It was a familiar, comfortable position.
As the credits began to roll, she sighed. “Guess I should get to bed…”
He took a deep breath, and took the plunge. “Hey, Kazuha…can I ask you a question?”
“Hmm…” she murmured.
“…would you tell me what happened?” he said quietly. “Between you and…Adam, was it?”
She tensed, and he felt it. That was definitely not a good sign. It was already on the tip of his tongue to tell her to forget he asked when she said, “You’ve been wondering for a while, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have.”
Kazuha sighed and snuggled a little further into his arms. “I don’t think you’ll like it. It’s not pretty…but if you want to know, I’ll tell you.” She sounded almost resigned to this, like she knew that this should come out in the open, but she really didn’t want to talk about it.
“I want to know,” he said firmly, feeling much braver now that he’d asked and she had replied as she had—she wasn’t angry. “I want to know what really happened. It feels too much like a secret, and…I don’t want there to be secrets like that between us.”
“That’s fair,” she said thoughtfully. “All right…from the beginning. A friend introduced us because she thought I needed more human interaction. Andrea swore up and down that I would just love this guy and he was great and he was just what I needed. So we all went out one night and she brought him along. That guy was Adam, of course. And trust me, he wasn’t a total ass when we met. He was actually…very sweet. And I already told you that he had your eyes. The exact same color. That was really what sold me.”
Heiji couldn’t help but notice that she sounded a bit sheepish at that last.
“We dated for a while, and he was still very sweet,” Kazuha went on. “It was after we’d been together about…four months that he started bringing up the topic of sex. At first he just mentioned it casually, but after a while it got to be every single time we went out, he’d bring it up. I kept saying no, and he kept asking about it. It was…really annoying.”
“Why did you stick around?” he interjected, though it wasn’t accusatory.
“…I liked the attention,” she said honestly. “I was lonely, and it was flattering to have someone so focused on me. It’s a horrible reason, I know, but that’s how it was. But I did tell Andrea that he was starting to freak me out. She asked me why I didn’t just do it, and teased me when I told her that I didn’t want to.” Her tone turned icy. “That was the end of that friendship.”
Heiji chuckled dryly. “I was about to ask…”
“After a while…I guess he just wore me down. I really wasn’t that excited about the idea, and I was tired of him asking about it, but I didn’t want to end it because I was really tired of being alone. So finally, I just said yes. And…yeah,” she trailed off and shifted uncomfortably. “He came over and that was that.”
“…what happened next?” he asked. “I mean…not that part. You don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to. But afterwards?”
She sighed. “It was…pleasant enough, I guess, as far as first times could go. But I regretted it before it was over. And then like a true charmer, he rolled over and went to sleep. I just cried for a little while until I dozed off. And when I woke up the next morning, he was gone.”
“Bastard…” Heiji breathed.
“A few days went by and I didn’t hear from him. It was about a week later that he called and asked if I wanted to go to the mall. So we went to this mall—it was about a ten-minute drive from my apartment building. He was silent the entire way there,” she shifted again. “Once we got there and went in…he told me it was over. And then he left.”
“Wait—he left?”
“Yup.”
“Did he take you home?” Heiji asked incredulously.
“Nope. He walked out and left me there.”
“I’m regretting more and more that I didn’t kill him when he was here,” Heiji growled.
“There’s more, though,” she said calmly. “It was too far to walk, and I was sort of in shock, so walking wasn’t a good idea. A good friend of mine, Kathy, worked at that mall. So I walked down to the store where she worked. And lucky me, there she was. I just asked her for help—she obviously couldn’t leave to take me home, but she let me use the phone. So I called one of our good friends, Sara. And she said to wait in the store, she’d be there in five minutes.”
While Heiji was processing all of this, Kazuha pushed away from him and sat up. She turned enough to give him a good view of her profile, but did not look directly at him. “I hung up the phone and started to cry. I guess that’s when it hit me what had just happened. I didn’t even care where I was or who was watching. I sat down on the floor behind the counter and just bawled. I don’t know what I would have done if Kathy hadn’t been there. I guess she got her co-worker’s attention before she grabbed my arm and dragged me to the back room. By the time Sara got there, Kathy had calmed me down a little bit—enough to tell them what had happened.”
Heiji shook his head. “Man…”
“I told them everything—they knew Adam had been bothering me about sex, but it wasn’t until then that I told them I’d caved. I told them how he’d just dumped me. And then I cried a lot more. Kathy had to go back to work, but she let Sara sit back there with me for a long time before she got me out of there. She took me home and stayed there with me.”
Heiji found himself wishing that he could have met these two girls.
“I felt like a whore,” Kazuha said bluntly. “I’d been used, and I knew it. Well, a little while later, the phone rang. Sara answered it. Kathy was off work and she was coming over. She got there about fifteen minutes later bearing burgers, ice cream, and two big bottles of tequila.” She actually chuckled at that. “Then they basically jumped me, pinned me to the floor, and forced first the food and then the booze down my throat while repeating ‘He’s an asshole, he’s an asshole’ over and over again. We got completely hammered, did goofy things for a while—I’m a really happy drunk, for the record—and woke up the next morning on my living room floor.”
Now Heiji wanted to thank them.
“About three days later, I was sitting at home by myself, thinking about things…and I just snapped,” she admitted. “I was completely lost, I felt totally alone…and I realized how much I missed you. I really don’t remember going to the airport or anything…the next thing I knew, I was on the plane. And now here I am. You know the rest.”
“Do you miss your friends?” Heiji asked. “Those two girls?”
“I do miss them. Remember when we went back to the States to get my stuff, and I said I had to go somewhere? That’s where I went—I went to go see Sara and Kathy. I felt horrible about running off like that without telling them, and it turns out that they were really worried about me. They didn’t know if something had happened to me or if I was okay…” Her tone was fond. “They were wonderful friends. I write them frequently. Sara in particular wants to meet you one of these days.” At last, she turned to look at Heiji with a wry smile. “I showed her your picture. She thinks you’re hot.”
Heiji laughed. “It’s official—I need to meet them one of these days.”
“Maybe we can work that out,” she chuckled in response before her expression turned more somber; she bit her lip nervously. “But that’s the whole story. So…what do you think?”
“I think you lucked out in the friend department. I think it was a good thing that you got away from that son of a bitch, even though the method of getting away was that painful. And I think that if that guy ever comes back here again, he’s going to die. And,” Heiji leaned forward for a hug, which she leaned into without reservation, “I’m not sorry I asked.”
“What would have happened if you had been sorry you asked?” Kazuha mumbled into his shoulder.
“Hmm…” Heiji seemed to think for a second before he grinned wickedly. “Ya know, tequila does seem to solve a lot of problems, and you said that you were a very happy dru—“
Kazuha leaned back and glared at him. “Would you stop ruining these nice moments?”
“I can’t help it!” he half-whined, laughing as she grabbed his head and tried to wrestle him into a choke-hold. “I swear, I don’t try to do that! It just happens! ACK!”
Failing to get him appropriately restrained for a noogie, Kazuha pushed off the couch in a huff and marched towards her bedroom. Still, she paused in the doorway and gave him a slight smile. “Ahou.”
PS. There you have it—what happened between Kazuha and the Jerk. Just a few quick story notes…
First: Sara and Kathy are two of my actual friends. One is an online buddy who I really think was my sister in a previous life, and the other I have known since kindergarten—almost seventeen years. BOTH OF YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!
Secondly: I’m sure someone out there is thinking that this is not a realistic break-up. I would agree with you, except that it actually happened to a friend of mine—her boyfriend broke up with her almost exactly as you see it here. Took her to the mall, said it was over, and ditched her. So it’s really as real as you get. Truth is stranger than fiction, yes?
Thanks for reading, all! Much love!
Fandom: Detective Conan
Characters: Heiji/Kazuha (General series)
Prompt: #89—work
Word Count: 1870 words
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: I do not own Detective Conan. It all belongs to Gosho Aoyama. I simply borrow the characters, tie them up, and dance them around like life-sized puppets. I do wish they’d stop complaining.
Summary: Heiji finally asks for the whole story. And Kazuha tells him…
Something had been bothering Heiji for a while now. It was one of those things that, in his mind, fell squarely into the gray area between safe issues to bring up and taboo topics. It was sort of like how he had skirted mentioning anything even remotely sexual upon her initial return for the simple fact of not wanting to say the wrong thing. Kazuha had been burned, and burned badly.
But as time went by, he realized that Kazuha was really not likely to be scared off by jokes or offhand comments like that. If anything, she seemed more comfortable with him now than she ever had before. So he had slowly reintroduced normal banter into their daily conversations, and been rewarded when she smacked him upside the head and called him an ahou.
There was only one thing he really wanted to ask her. And after pondering over it for a while, he decided to bite the bullet and take the plunge. He reasoned that if she didn’t want to tell him, she would say so, and that would be the end of it—and he wouldn’t really blame her if she refused.
Now he just had to find the right opportunity.
It came in the form of a late-night movie viewing. There was a movie on television that they both had really wanted to see, so they stayed up to watch it. By the end of the movie, he was sitting with his back against the arm of the couch and Kazuha was curled up in his arms, the back of her head against his chest. It was a familiar, comfortable position.
As the credits began to roll, she sighed. “Guess I should get to bed…”
He took a deep breath, and took the plunge. “Hey, Kazuha…can I ask you a question?”
“Hmm…” she murmured.
“…would you tell me what happened?” he said quietly. “Between you and…Adam, was it?”
She tensed, and he felt it. That was definitely not a good sign. It was already on the tip of his tongue to tell her to forget he asked when she said, “You’ve been wondering for a while, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have.”
Kazuha sighed and snuggled a little further into his arms. “I don’t think you’ll like it. It’s not pretty…but if you want to know, I’ll tell you.” She sounded almost resigned to this, like she knew that this should come out in the open, but she really didn’t want to talk about it.
“I want to know,” he said firmly, feeling much braver now that he’d asked and she had replied as she had—she wasn’t angry. “I want to know what really happened. It feels too much like a secret, and…I don’t want there to be secrets like that between us.”
“That’s fair,” she said thoughtfully. “All right…from the beginning. A friend introduced us because she thought I needed more human interaction. Andrea swore up and down that I would just love this guy and he was great and he was just what I needed. So we all went out one night and she brought him along. That guy was Adam, of course. And trust me, he wasn’t a total ass when we met. He was actually…very sweet. And I already told you that he had your eyes. The exact same color. That was really what sold me.”
Heiji couldn’t help but notice that she sounded a bit sheepish at that last.
“We dated for a while, and he was still very sweet,” Kazuha went on. “It was after we’d been together about…four months that he started bringing up the topic of sex. At first he just mentioned it casually, but after a while it got to be every single time we went out, he’d bring it up. I kept saying no, and he kept asking about it. It was…really annoying.”
“Why did you stick around?” he interjected, though it wasn’t accusatory.
“…I liked the attention,” she said honestly. “I was lonely, and it was flattering to have someone so focused on me. It’s a horrible reason, I know, but that’s how it was. But I did tell Andrea that he was starting to freak me out. She asked me why I didn’t just do it, and teased me when I told her that I didn’t want to.” Her tone turned icy. “That was the end of that friendship.”
Heiji chuckled dryly. “I was about to ask…”
“After a while…I guess he just wore me down. I really wasn’t that excited about the idea, and I was tired of him asking about it, but I didn’t want to end it because I was really tired of being alone. So finally, I just said yes. And…yeah,” she trailed off and shifted uncomfortably. “He came over and that was that.”
“…what happened next?” he asked. “I mean…not that part. You don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to. But afterwards?”
She sighed. “It was…pleasant enough, I guess, as far as first times could go. But I regretted it before it was over. And then like a true charmer, he rolled over and went to sleep. I just cried for a little while until I dozed off. And when I woke up the next morning, he was gone.”
“Bastard…” Heiji breathed.
“A few days went by and I didn’t hear from him. It was about a week later that he called and asked if I wanted to go to the mall. So we went to this mall—it was about a ten-minute drive from my apartment building. He was silent the entire way there,” she shifted again. “Once we got there and went in…he told me it was over. And then he left.”
“Wait—he left?”
“Yup.”
“Did he take you home?” Heiji asked incredulously.
“Nope. He walked out and left me there.”
“I’m regretting more and more that I didn’t kill him when he was here,” Heiji growled.
“There’s more, though,” she said calmly. “It was too far to walk, and I was sort of in shock, so walking wasn’t a good idea. A good friend of mine, Kathy, worked at that mall. So I walked down to the store where she worked. And lucky me, there she was. I just asked her for help—she obviously couldn’t leave to take me home, but she let me use the phone. So I called one of our good friends, Sara. And she said to wait in the store, she’d be there in five minutes.”
While Heiji was processing all of this, Kazuha pushed away from him and sat up. She turned enough to give him a good view of her profile, but did not look directly at him. “I hung up the phone and started to cry. I guess that’s when it hit me what had just happened. I didn’t even care where I was or who was watching. I sat down on the floor behind the counter and just bawled. I don’t know what I would have done if Kathy hadn’t been there. I guess she got her co-worker’s attention before she grabbed my arm and dragged me to the back room. By the time Sara got there, Kathy had calmed me down a little bit—enough to tell them what had happened.”
Heiji shook his head. “Man…”
“I told them everything—they knew Adam had been bothering me about sex, but it wasn’t until then that I told them I’d caved. I told them how he’d just dumped me. And then I cried a lot more. Kathy had to go back to work, but she let Sara sit back there with me for a long time before she got me out of there. She took me home and stayed there with me.”
Heiji found himself wishing that he could have met these two girls.
“I felt like a whore,” Kazuha said bluntly. “I’d been used, and I knew it. Well, a little while later, the phone rang. Sara answered it. Kathy was off work and she was coming over. She got there about fifteen minutes later bearing burgers, ice cream, and two big bottles of tequila.” She actually chuckled at that. “Then they basically jumped me, pinned me to the floor, and forced first the food and then the booze down my throat while repeating ‘He’s an asshole, he’s an asshole’ over and over again. We got completely hammered, did goofy things for a while—I’m a really happy drunk, for the record—and woke up the next morning on my living room floor.”
Now Heiji wanted to thank them.
“About three days later, I was sitting at home by myself, thinking about things…and I just snapped,” she admitted. “I was completely lost, I felt totally alone…and I realized how much I missed you. I really don’t remember going to the airport or anything…the next thing I knew, I was on the plane. And now here I am. You know the rest.”
“Do you miss your friends?” Heiji asked. “Those two girls?”
“I do miss them. Remember when we went back to the States to get my stuff, and I said I had to go somewhere? That’s where I went—I went to go see Sara and Kathy. I felt horrible about running off like that without telling them, and it turns out that they were really worried about me. They didn’t know if something had happened to me or if I was okay…” Her tone was fond. “They were wonderful friends. I write them frequently. Sara in particular wants to meet you one of these days.” At last, she turned to look at Heiji with a wry smile. “I showed her your picture. She thinks you’re hot.”
Heiji laughed. “It’s official—I need to meet them one of these days.”
“Maybe we can work that out,” she chuckled in response before her expression turned more somber; she bit her lip nervously. “But that’s the whole story. So…what do you think?”
“I think you lucked out in the friend department. I think it was a good thing that you got away from that son of a bitch, even though the method of getting away was that painful. And I think that if that guy ever comes back here again, he’s going to die. And,” Heiji leaned forward for a hug, which she leaned into without reservation, “I’m not sorry I asked.”
“What would have happened if you had been sorry you asked?” Kazuha mumbled into his shoulder.
“Hmm…” Heiji seemed to think for a second before he grinned wickedly. “Ya know, tequila does seem to solve a lot of problems, and you said that you were a very happy dru—“
Kazuha leaned back and glared at him. “Would you stop ruining these nice moments?”
“I can’t help it!” he half-whined, laughing as she grabbed his head and tried to wrestle him into a choke-hold. “I swear, I don’t try to do that! It just happens! ACK!”
Failing to get him appropriately restrained for a noogie, Kazuha pushed off the couch in a huff and marched towards her bedroom. Still, she paused in the doorway and gave him a slight smile. “Ahou.”
PS. There you have it—what happened between Kazuha and the Jerk. Just a few quick story notes…
First: Sara and Kathy are two of my actual friends. One is an online buddy who I really think was my sister in a previous life, and the other I have known since kindergarten—almost seventeen years. BOTH OF YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!
Secondly: I’m sure someone out there is thinking that this is not a realistic break-up. I would agree with you, except that it actually happened to a friend of mine—her boyfriend broke up with her almost exactly as you see it here. Took her to the mall, said it was over, and ditched her. So it’s really as real as you get. Truth is stranger than fiction, yes?
Thanks for reading, all! Much love!
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-29 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-30 04:11 pm (UTC)And sort of glad to hear about the break-up seeming realistic--I was figuring someone would say it was too melodramatic or something ^^;;
no subject
Date: 2008-01-29 05:55 am (UTC)Although I feel sorry for your friend ! :(
no subject
Date: 2008-01-30 04:13 pm (UTC)And yeah, that was one phone call I never expected to get. Fortunately, when he came crawling back, she kicked him to the curb z(^o^)b
no subject
Date: 2008-03-04 05:08 pm (UTC)...i can't believe that i missed one apartment fic! Well i did read it but i forgot to leave a comment ^^" Nehehe...
Heiji should really meet Kazuhas frinds from america ;) Bet that would be fun! And of corse i LOVE the last past where Heiji is just.. Heiji! XD awesome!