Post by doctorpeggy on Jul 20, 2017 19:04:44 GMT
Prompt: “Awfully dumb for a bunch of smart people." Where Shinichi and Hattori (and/or Hakuba) prove that being geniuses doesn't exempt them from life's stupid mistakes.
(I didn't know if I was supposed to include the phrase 'awfully dumb for a bunch of smart people'. I played around with it, but in the end didn't put it in the story. I hope I wasn't wrong in doing so. Anyway, this came from my own tendency to look for things in the wrong places even though they're right front of me. I had to do some vegetable research for this.)
Word count: 1,003
Summary: Their inability to do even the most mundane things just went to show that they were no good at anything but solving cases.
Don't look too close
Shinichi hadn’t ever had much of an opinion on supermarkets till he had been in one as Conan, after which he had very quickly come to hate them. He had not once failed, much to his embarrassment, to get lost every time Ran took him to one, so he just tried his best to avoid supermarkets altogether.
Except now he was in a supermarket again. In Osaka. With Hattori, who was exponentially less responsible than Ran, so Shinichi knew he would eventually end up in some unfamiliar aisle in the middle of the store with Hattori nowhere in sight if he wasn’t careful. To make matters worse, his cellphone was back in Tokyo, getting repaired by Agasa-hakase after having broken for eighteenth time.
He decided to bury his pride as deep as he could, and cling onto Hattori’s hand like a lifeline.
He told himself it would save him embarrassment later.
“Oi Kudo, I can’t understand anything on this shopping list. What is Kazuha even trying to cook?” Hattori grumbled.
Shinichi took the piece of paper from him and studied it
“Hattori, there’s know way you can’t know what this stuff is.”
“Well I know what it is when I see it on my plate all cut up and cooked.”
Shinichi couldn’t argue with that. He couldn’t even claim to have seen any of the things on the list in any other form than the one Hattori had seen. He stuffed the list into his pocket.
They both agreed to wing it, and hoped everything would turn out fine.
Everything didn’t turn out fine. They hadn’t gotten past the first item on the list before they were utterly lost.
“Small radishes…” Shinichi enunciated slowly, as if it would help him figure out what exactly he was supposed to be looking for.
“Aren’t those the pink ones? They’re right there.” Hattori said, pointing to a shelf of pink root vegetables.
They walked up to the shelf, and Shinichi picked one up.
“What if they’re turnips?” he asked, eyeing them skeptically.
“Or they could be rutabagas.” Hattori added unhelpfully.
“What the hell is rutabaga?”
“A word Kazuha said once. She was talking about purple vegetables or something. I think she said something about purple potatoes, too…”
They finally decided to leave the radishes for the end.
Roadblock number two: Chinese cabbage. Shinichi wished he had taken Ran’s offer to teach him how to cook back when he was still in high school
“I’m not even sure what Chinese cabbage looks like.” He sighed.
Hattori shrugged.
“It probably just looks like normal cabbage. Let’s get whatever’s here, it’s not like Kazuha is observant enough to notice.” He said.
“Hattori, she’s probably very likely to notice.” Shinichi warned.
They picked up the regular cabbage anyway.
The next few things were done quickly. Shinichi was beginning to think they’d get done with the rest of the list without anymore trouble. He’d even gone ahead and said it to Hattori.
Of course he’d jinxed them by saying it out loud.
“Kudo, is this parsley or coriander? Wait, actually, aren’t they the same thing?” Hattori asked.
Shinichi, for his part, tried very hard to remember what the difference was.
“Don’t they, er, smell different or something?” He hazarded.
Hattori sniffed at the bundle of whatever-it-was. Then he tossed it decisively into their shopping basket.
“We’ll just pick up anything else that looks similar, too. One of them is bound to be parsley.”
They wandered through a few more aisles, searching for other items on the list. Shinichi compared two types of salt, not understanding why they were different in the first place.
He turned to ask for Hattori’s opinion, but the question died at his lips, leaving behind a stream of curses that sounded very wrong coming out of the mouth of a seven-year-old. It had been a mistake to hold a bag of salt in each hand and let go of his lifeline.
He tried to console himself with the thought that he had at least stayed not-lost for more than half an hour this time. It didn’t really help, considering that he’d seen Ran buy more groceries than they had within half that time.
Shinichi decided that Hattori would probably come back to look for him eventually, so he stayed where he was and tried not to look awkward.
He stood absolutely still for nearly ten minutes, but when Hattori still failed fantastically to make a show, he let himself wander a little. There was nothing all that interesting about the sugar and salt that lined the shelves, but Shinichi pulled packets off the racks and read the labels anyway.
As he was replacing a slightly large (for his hands) packet of sugar, something on the shelf itself caught his eye.
A small label, with the printed letters ‘sugar’ on it. Realization stabbed him like a corner of a table he had unsuccessfully tried to avoid.
He swept his gaze wildly across the rest of the shelves. They all had neat labels on them.
His hand came up to slap his forehead of its own accord. Evidently it did not appreciate belonging to such an idiot.
Shinichi had always prided himself in being able to focus his attention completely on a task and drown out distractions. It worked well for him when he needed to think about a particularly hard case.
He had never thought he could end up being so focused on something that he would end up missing what was right in front of him.
He blamed the confusing grocery list. He blamed Hattori. He blamed Ran for always cooking for him after his parents had left and not telling him what vegetables looked like.
He decided he would not wait for Hattori. He did his best to navigate through the store, found the exit within reasonable time, and found himself a spot next to the doors to wait.
Hattori would just have to deal with the vegetables by himself.
(I didn't know if I was supposed to include the phrase 'awfully dumb for a bunch of smart people'. I played around with it, but in the end didn't put it in the story. I hope I wasn't wrong in doing so. Anyway, this came from my own tendency to look for things in the wrong places even though they're right front of me. I had to do some vegetable research for this.)
Word count: 1,003
Summary: Their inability to do even the most mundane things just went to show that they were no good at anything but solving cases.
Don't look too close
Shinichi hadn’t ever had much of an opinion on supermarkets till he had been in one as Conan, after which he had very quickly come to hate them. He had not once failed, much to his embarrassment, to get lost every time Ran took him to one, so he just tried his best to avoid supermarkets altogether.
Except now he was in a supermarket again. In Osaka. With Hattori, who was exponentially less responsible than Ran, so Shinichi knew he would eventually end up in some unfamiliar aisle in the middle of the store with Hattori nowhere in sight if he wasn’t careful. To make matters worse, his cellphone was back in Tokyo, getting repaired by Agasa-hakase after having broken for eighteenth time.
He decided to bury his pride as deep as he could, and cling onto Hattori’s hand like a lifeline.
He told himself it would save him embarrassment later.
“Oi Kudo, I can’t understand anything on this shopping list. What is Kazuha even trying to cook?” Hattori grumbled.
Shinichi took the piece of paper from him and studied it
“Hattori, there’s know way you can’t know what this stuff is.”
“Well I know what it is when I see it on my plate all cut up and cooked.”
Shinichi couldn’t argue with that. He couldn’t even claim to have seen any of the things on the list in any other form than the one Hattori had seen. He stuffed the list into his pocket.
They both agreed to wing it, and hoped everything would turn out fine.
Everything didn’t turn out fine. They hadn’t gotten past the first item on the list before they were utterly lost.
“Small radishes…” Shinichi enunciated slowly, as if it would help him figure out what exactly he was supposed to be looking for.
“Aren’t those the pink ones? They’re right there.” Hattori said, pointing to a shelf of pink root vegetables.
They walked up to the shelf, and Shinichi picked one up.
“What if they’re turnips?” he asked, eyeing them skeptically.
“Or they could be rutabagas.” Hattori added unhelpfully.
“What the hell is rutabaga?”
“A word Kazuha said once. She was talking about purple vegetables or something. I think she said something about purple potatoes, too…”
They finally decided to leave the radishes for the end.
Roadblock number two: Chinese cabbage. Shinichi wished he had taken Ran’s offer to teach him how to cook back when he was still in high school
“I’m not even sure what Chinese cabbage looks like.” He sighed.
Hattori shrugged.
“It probably just looks like normal cabbage. Let’s get whatever’s here, it’s not like Kazuha is observant enough to notice.” He said.
“Hattori, she’s probably very likely to notice.” Shinichi warned.
They picked up the regular cabbage anyway.
The next few things were done quickly. Shinichi was beginning to think they’d get done with the rest of the list without anymore trouble. He’d even gone ahead and said it to Hattori.
Of course he’d jinxed them by saying it out loud.
“Kudo, is this parsley or coriander? Wait, actually, aren’t they the same thing?” Hattori asked.
Shinichi, for his part, tried very hard to remember what the difference was.
“Don’t they, er, smell different or something?” He hazarded.
Hattori sniffed at the bundle of whatever-it-was. Then he tossed it decisively into their shopping basket.
“We’ll just pick up anything else that looks similar, too. One of them is bound to be parsley.”
They wandered through a few more aisles, searching for other items on the list. Shinichi compared two types of salt, not understanding why they were different in the first place.
He turned to ask for Hattori’s opinion, but the question died at his lips, leaving behind a stream of curses that sounded very wrong coming out of the mouth of a seven-year-old. It had been a mistake to hold a bag of salt in each hand and let go of his lifeline.
He tried to console himself with the thought that he had at least stayed not-lost for more than half an hour this time. It didn’t really help, considering that he’d seen Ran buy more groceries than they had within half that time.
Shinichi decided that Hattori would probably come back to look for him eventually, so he stayed where he was and tried not to look awkward.
He stood absolutely still for nearly ten minutes, but when Hattori still failed fantastically to make a show, he let himself wander a little. There was nothing all that interesting about the sugar and salt that lined the shelves, but Shinichi pulled packets off the racks and read the labels anyway.
As he was replacing a slightly large (for his hands) packet of sugar, something on the shelf itself caught his eye.
A small label, with the printed letters ‘sugar’ on it. Realization stabbed him like a corner of a table he had unsuccessfully tried to avoid.
He swept his gaze wildly across the rest of the shelves. They all had neat labels on them.
His hand came up to slap his forehead of its own accord. Evidently it did not appreciate belonging to such an idiot.
Shinichi had always prided himself in being able to focus his attention completely on a task and drown out distractions. It worked well for him when he needed to think about a particularly hard case.
He had never thought he could end up being so focused on something that he would end up missing what was right in front of him.
He blamed the confusing grocery list. He blamed Hattori. He blamed Ran for always cooking for him after his parents had left and not telling him what vegetables looked like.
He decided he would not wait for Hattori. He did his best to navigate through the store, found the exit within reasonable time, and found himself a spot next to the doors to wait.
Hattori would just have to deal with the vegetables by himself.