#x dcmk deja vu

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Déjà Vu (1/?)

Wrote this last year to wish my first fandom friend and waifu, dearest momo, the happiest birthday! <3

And, again, because of one review (thank you, Ophious! XD), I'm going to churn out a chapter on the lead-up and, maybe, what happens after... No promises when though! XD

Fandom (Pairing): DCMK (CoAi) Title: Déjà Vu Summary (Word Count): Overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that shouldn’t be familiar at all. For the prompt: “A cheesy fake marriage couple who broke up and found each other again.” (1277+?) Links: AO3 and FF

Part 1 (Current) | ?

Kudo Shinichi stands by the entrance of the cafe, looking for his w—fake wife for the third time that day, and for the twenty-second time that week. He spots her instantly, as he always does, sitting by the window drinking coffee while on her laptop. He knows she knows he’s here.

He straightens his coat and walks over to her, waving off the waitress approaching him.

With each step he takes, he feels a vague sense of déjà vu. Of course he would, having chased after her relentlessly the past days across halls after her lecture, across rooms when she’s just about to go off work, across restos on days she doesn’t have time to cook—across bars, even, that just so happen to have so many indecents leering!—and, like right now, across cafes on sunny afternoons she has time off.

It always starts the same. He approaches her and apologizes. He gets a hum of acknowledgment in reply, and that’s it. Just like that, it always ends the same as well. He mails her, but she doesn’t reply. He calls her, but she doesn’t answer. So he goes to her. And when he does, she doesn’t even look at him.

His last five tries though, he found that she doesn’t look away anymore when he positions himself in front of her, as long as he slowly does so from her periphery. Quite crafty of him, he thinks! It’s a small victory, but he’ll take what he can get up against his cold boss of a wife!

—Fake wife, he reminds himself.

...It doesn’t matter. He did something wrong so he should fix it.

He had tried waiting it over if she’d come around, like their scuffles before, but she didn’t. He’d been annoyed at that so he had tried to play it off, but after a while, her absence just felt too weird... Or rather, her presence, while not being physically there with him, was too weird! He could hear her nagging everywhere. He is hyper-aware of the space, that’s suddenly too empty, beside him, and sometimes he sees a strawberry blonde mop of hair only for it to disappear in a snap. He decided, days worth of chasing is a cheap price to pay for his sanity!

He didn’t expect it to drag this long though. Along with a sense of déjà vu is… a fear? No, no, just a worry that things won’t ever be back to the way they were. A minor worry is all it is.

But he isn’t Kudo Shinichi if he gave up easily.

He reaches her table. Miyano Shiho brings the cup of coffee to her lips and takes a sip. Leisurely, as if to say, she could care less about him.

It always starts the same. Shinichi is about to apologize. To his surprise, however, she speaks first.

“It was supposedly our anniversary.” She brings down her cup with a clink. She doesn’t spare him a glance.

He gets in her line of vision anyway. He sits across her, replying, perhaps a bit too chipperly, “I know, and I told you, I’m sorry!” He’s a bit excited, a bit more hopeful. She’s finally initiating conversations again!

She avoids his eyes, and looks outside. “Hmm,” is all she said.

With that hum, his heart plummets. Truthfully, It’s been grating on his nerves, but if he got angry again it’ll just turn into another shouting match and, this time, he just knows there’d be nothing of them left.

But this time, surprisingly—and thankfully! he thinks—she continues, “It’s obvious you’re sorry, given the way you’re hounding me.”

Sarcastic, annoying Shiho is back! If he was told two weeks ago that he would ever be this happy hearing obnoxious side comments from Shiho, he would laugh hysterically. This feels unreal—

“That, or you need me for something. What is it? Spit it out.”

He hadn’t even noticed he’d been smiling until he felt his face freeze on her words. That’s what she thinks? That he’s here for a favor?

He’s angry. He’s disappointed. It’s painful because in a split-second, recalling what he’d done for the past days and observing from her view, it would really only look like he’d been trying to curry her favor for something he wants done. After all, if he were to put himself in her shoes, it had always been that way between them, and he had given her no reason to believe otherwise.

His self-loathing can wait until later though. Not right now, when she’s finally speaking to him. “What, I can’t be sincerely sorry for—”

Her voice in monotone carries on, “—ditching your dearest wife in favor of tracking a sleeping suspect yourself? But why does it matter? It’s fake anyway.” She had turned to look at him. Her eyes are calm—but he can tell.

“You’re upset, and I’m sorry for making you feel that way.”

“And why does that matter? Everything’s fake.”

“Shiho—”

“Miyano. It ended.”

“Shiho, the deal��s for six months—”

“You’ll only be short a day, Kudo-kun. That deal ends tomorrow. Never knew the great detective to be so stingy.” She raises her hand to call over the waiter. She’s ready to leave.

But he isn’t. He grabs her hand, gently bringing it down on the table, his fingers entwining themselves into hers. His eyes never left hers.

She scoffs. “Consider this special service, Shin. How many minutes would you like to hold hands this time?”

He doesn’t waver. “I’m sorry.”

She says, venomously, “I’m not an angel that waits, Shin. Don’t treat me like you treat Ran, because I am not her.”

His eyes bug, the expressions in his face switching, mixing, and he almost shouts, “I never—!”

She cuts him off, “You solved the case, Shin. No more need for dear wife Shiho.” She had put her free hand on his shoulder to placate him. Her other hand, she untangles from his and raises it to call over the waiter.

She continues, “It’s over. Aren’t you glad? You won’t have to hear me nagging you to wash the dishes again.” She ends with a smirk that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

The waiter acknowledges her, and he goes off to prepare the bill.

Once he does so, she clasps her hands together and looks outside, ignoring her fake husband’s pointed stare. Ex-fake husband, she corrects herself. Does that make her a fake divorcee? She entertains herself with idle thoughts just so she can bear his gaze.

But he won’t let her. He reaches out, again, for her hand. He wraps them in his. He says, “One day.”

She almost sighs. “Kudo-kun, I’m done—”

“Just one day, Shiho.”

“Why?”

“Say yes.”

“What for?”

“One day.”

If she’d just been stronger, just been a little less in lo—a little less attached, she wouldn’t have talked to him today. Hell, she wouldn’t be in this predicament at all if so, because she would never have accepted the deal, never would have dug a hole so deep that in just six months she can’t snap out of the role she was tasked to play. Perhaps, she was such a good actress that even she, herself, got fooled into thinking she can swim and not drown. Now, if she was an even greater actress, she just needed to make herself believe nothing had ever happened.

But she wasn’t.

And she isn’t.

She closes her eyes. Gently, slowly, her fingers tangle themselves with his. Out of habit, she tells herself. Just a troublesome habit.

She replies, “Tomorrow, then.”

She curses herself for being so weak. To him. Always to him.

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#31 Days of CoAi ends...

Happy CoAi Day (5/1), everyone!

Today is the last day of 31 Days of CoAi!

The 31 Days of CoAi project has been my way of keeping my promise to start posting up a prompt a day (which I had imagined I’d do for a year, but here we are). Since 4/1 and 5/1 were both days celebrating the CoAi submarine, I figured, what better way to celebrate the ship (and shamelessly spam the coai tag) by putting into action what I initially planned (but in a smaller scale)! And I even managed to wheedle out friends to do it with too!

And so, I struggled the entire month. Without noticing, it’s already the end..!

In my first post for 31 Days of CoAi, I talked about how I started shipping CoAi. Now, on the last day of 31 Days of CoAi, I think the best question to cap this project is: Why do I still ship CoAi?

(And, if you remembered what I said during my 4/1 post, what does my answer to that question have to do with Shinichi and why I’d love Shiho for Shinichi?)

Why do I still ship CoAi?

Given that it’s more or less never going to happen in canon, why do I keep clinging? Well, no canon ever has stopped anyone from shipping!

I can’t deny though, it was very clear from the start that Shinichi and Ran would be endgame for the series. Was there even doubt?

(Before you maul me, please let me just reiterate that I ship CoAi from the bottom of my heart, I swear!)

You see, Shiho had no one, but Shinichi actually had a whole lot of people on whom he could rely. Even though the number of people who knew could be counted in one hand, he at least still had someone. As CoAi shippers, we could say—But there was no one else that was in the same de-aged Organization-entangled boat as him! Shiho would be the perfect person to understand him!!!

But, really, if we were holding a competition as to who understands Shinichi the most, would Shiho really win? Perhaps, yes. But wouldn’t Ran, being Shinichi’s closest and best friend almost all his life be a good contender for the number one candidate for the title?

I think it is at this point that my shipper feelings completely win out: that Shiho can actually contend with the people Shinichi has known his whole life and the people that share Shinichi’s love for mysteries. In fact, this is one of the ideas that just captivate me in the CoAi dynamic: that she knows him so well despite having spent just half a year with him and being so different from each other.

Of course, we could always attribute Shiho’s understanding of Shinichi and being in sync with him to her constant observation of him. That, and that she’s a genius in her own right, so she is likely to be able to keep up with his thoughts.

But, more than that, and I think this is something I’ve already said countless times in my first post, I ship CoAi because of their shared experiences that had unfolded right in front of us, the audience. And, I keep shipping the two of them because I can imagine so much of what I wanted those shared experiences to mean for the two of them, especially how I wanted Shinichi to be affected by it.

I know this is fiction, and the series is definitely not strictly constrained by real-life logic (otherwise, would really only half a year pass? Would people really drop dead everywhere Shinichi goes? And that’s only two of the most glaring of all unrealistic elements in DC, not that it’s anything bad), so characters are not expected to act as if they were real people too. This is true for all series.

(Though I do believe that “Truth is stranger than fiction” but let’s not go there right now, haha!)

But we, the audience, abide by real-life logic, and are immersed in it. I can’t help but use this standpoint to construct their characters and to imagine the unsaid, to fill the blank spaces in between:

—What happens in their daily lives as school kids?

—What happens in the nights Shiho works on the antidote?

—How has Shinichi’s inner thoughts, logic and feelings been affected by his encounter with the Organization, living a lie, living in hiding (as much as that means for Shinichi, really), in constant fear that he will be found out and cause the people around him their lives?

—When Shinichi realizes he now has “friends” he’s actually close with besides Ran, how would this change him?

And now I ask the more shippy and canon-divergent questions:

—When Shinichi realizes there is actually someone else not Ran or his family who would “go that far” for him, how would he feel?

—As much as Shiho had changed throughout the story, what Shiho habits had Shinichi picked up?

—If Shinichi had stayed with Agasa instead of the Mouris, how would have Shiho and Shinichi fared as housemates?

—If Shinichi had gone with his parents, how would have Shiho’s introduction arc gone, and what aspects of their relationship would change? 

There are a lot more questions in my head, and probably a lot more that others can come up with! 

And, actually, canon touches on most of these. But there’s a great big hole, an empty lot that screams the meme “It’s free real estate!” for us CoAi shippers.

Of course, you could argue the same for any two people in the series. 

Since we’re already talking about something we can say for all pairings, I’d like to slide in how I’m so charmed by the thought of Shiho and Shinichi tied by the red string of fate. Imagine, Shinichi and Shiho, two unrelated people (unless proven otherwise by Gosho...) are lucky enough to experience the super rare side effect and survive APTX. What a coincidence, right?

In any case, I acknowledge that most of these questions and points for takeoff are really not that unique to CoAi. I can spin the questions around and it would probably be applicable to every possible ship ever. However, the answers (and further questions that those answers spawn) that I think up to those ideas keep me shipping CoAi, because it’s just so them.

Their possibility, for me, is irresistibly attractive.

Honestly, though, as much as I’ve written explaining why I ship CoAi, it’s not like there needs to be rocket science to ship two (or more) people together. I could have just said, “Ah, they look cute together!” and be done with it. And I personally believe there isn’t anything wrong with that!

I just wanted to share how I got so attached. I don’t think I would have fallen in this deep if there weren’t those.

Going forward, I plan to finish up my promises on my update post last 19-01: I’ll whip up Mask’s third (and probably last) chapter, Deja Vu’s extra chapter (probably a prequel), Rest and that KaiShi fic I promised momo and Angel-Chan234. After that, I will be focusing on reviewing the fics everyone has already done because I think the CoAi fandom needs more audience!

My askbox will always be open though, and I’m always up for conversation!

Still! The last day of 31 Days of CoAi has yet to end! In 4 hours, I’ll be posting my last fic post for the project (tag for all fic posts: x fic posts), and 4 hours after that, I’ll be posting One Chilly Morning (tag for all prompt fills: x prompt fills; tag for all fics in One-verse: x dcmk one rainy afternoon).

If you missed it, my previous meta post is posted here on my Tumblr blog (tag: x meta) and all the posts I’ve done for 31 Days of CoAi is here as well (tag: 31 days of coai)!

Thank you for staying with me throughout this project!