Post by doctorpeggy on Dec 27, 2017 11:28:41 GMT
This was probably one of the more difficult, and definitely one of the more fun things to write that I've ever written for DCMK. To be honest, I didn't know how much I wanted a story like this until I wrote it, but I did know that dragons were the coolest things ever, so... it was kind of like a two-way present.
Sorry that it isn't very long, I have trouble with keeping the flow in check once I cross 2000 words.
I also wasn't sure how to translate 'Hakase', '-oniisan' and '-oneesan' so that it would still make sense, so just in case, they're: 'Doctor (title)' 'older brother (suffix)' and 'older sister (suffix)' respectively. Just in case.
Um, anyway...
Happy Holidays! I hope you like it.
Unexpected Christmas Gifts
[Ai]
Ai set the egg in the incubator on her bedroom windowsill, took a few steps back, and studied it. Speckled, robin’s-egg-blue, and a little smaller than a regular chicken egg, it didn’t seem particularly noteworthy.
Hopefully Hakase wouldn’t do something stupid with it.
Now, to call up that Akako girl again…
* * *
[Shinichi]
“Haibara… are you in there?” Shinichi called out.
He heard odd screeching noises.
“I’ll be there in two seconds!”
More screeching noises, coupled with Haibara’s frantic voice, although Shinichi couldn’t make out the words.
Then a disheveled looking Haibara stepped out of her room. Shinichi raised and eyebrow. Her hair seemed to have something not unlike bright blue sequins in it, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought that a part of it looked a little sooty.
He blinked.
“Whatever you’ve been doing in there… I’m surprised Hakase hasn’t found out yet.”
Haibara ignored his comment.
“What did you want?” she demanded.
“No, uh, I just came to ask you if—”
He was interrupted by another screech from the bedroom.
“If?” Haibara asked impatiently.
“If you were going to Ayumi’s Christmas party, and what you are getting her, and, well, if you had any suggestions for what I could get her. Although… it seems like you have your hands full with… whatever it is that’s in your room. Does Hakase know?”
Haibara opened her mouth to answer, but then her cellphone rang. She jumped and pulled it out of her pocket.
“Hi… oh, yeah… so you’ll come by tomorrow, around lunchtime… no there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it… teeth? There’s two sets of twelve, not all that sharp… I hope the fire won’t be dangerous… oh, okay, that makes sense… right, thanks. Bye.”
She hung up and stuffed the phone back in her pocket. Shinichi couldn’t help but wonder: teeth?
“Haibara…” “Hmm?”
“Who was that?”
“Oh, um. Uh, someone I met at the KID heist the other day.”
“You mean one of those people who were there? Nakamori-keibu’s daughter and her friends?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, I do remember you striking up a long conversation about something or the other with that one girl with the long hair. Koizumi, was it?”
“Um.”
“So what’s this about teeth? Don’t tell me those sounds coming from your room are…”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“I was shrunk, you know, so I do think that at this point I can believe most things.”
“A dragon. I made a dragon. Genetic engineering, plus some witchcraft. And Akako-san helped with the witchcraft.”
“I stand corrected.”
“And, well you asked what I’m giving Yoshida-san…”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not”
“You have to be.”
“Do you want to see it?”
“No… yes? Maybe?”
Haibara just turned around and walked back to her room, and Shinichi, for a lack of other options, followed her.
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he sure wasn’t expecting something that looked like a feathery disco ball, albeit a rather small one.
It was curled up on Haibara’s bed, and was eyeing him warily. With its tail tucked around its body, it was no bigger than a tennis ball.
Haibara ran a hand through her hair.
“It’s too smart for its own good. It knows where all my buttons are, and keeps trying to get me to give it more treats. Except I know it knows where my buttons are, so—”
“Um Haibara?”Shinichi interrupted.
“Yes?” she snapped.
“Why a dragon, of all things?” he asked.
“Well, you see, middle school is kind of a breeze, and you’re not around, so people don’t randomly drop dead anymore. So, well, I’ve got a lot of time to kill, so I thought I’d go the extra mile, and Yoshida-san has taken a recent interest in dragons, so…” she explained.
“So you mean you were bored.” Shinichi said flatly.
“Well… maybe a little.” she admitted.
Shinichi was already laughing.
Haibara raised an eyebrow.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
Shinichi laughed harder.
Oh boy, he was never going to let Haibara live this down.
“You were bored,” he said, trying to control his laughter, “you were bored so—so you genetically engineered a dragon!”
“Well…” Haibara started to say
“And one that can fit in my fist!” he said.
“It’ll get bigger, it only hatched a few days ago.” she replied indignantly.
Shinichi stopped laughing and gasped for air.
He steadied himself with a deep breath.
“So, how are you going to gift it to Ayumi? The party is in one week, and you have to tr-train the d—” he burst into laughter again.
Haibara sighed.
“Thank you for the vote of confidence.” she murmured.
Shinichi wiped tears from his eyes.
“Sorry, it’s just that it’s kind of hilarious.”
“In what way?”
“I mean, who’d have thought? And especially you of all people, making a dragon… and a real one at that, I mean. Well.”
“Fine, Kudo-kun, if you think me incapable of doing things like bringing fictional creatures to life, then maybe I should do it more often to prove you wrong.”
“Ah, no, I didn’t mean it like that, just, Haibara, it’s a joke…”
“Humph!”
Haibara turned around and walked up to the dragon and held out her hand. It edged away from her. She let out a long-suffering sigh.
“Come on,” she urged, “my patience is running thin.”
“Can it even understand you?” Shinichi asked as the dragon reluctantly got up, crawled up Haibara’s hand, and climbed onto it.
Haibara shrugged.
“It seems to,” she said, “and Akako-san said something about how it’s supposed to be smart. Other than its bothersome willfulness, I’ve been finding that it can be trained very easily.”
“But will it listen to Ayumi?”
“Kudo-kun, I don’t know any animal that hasn’t taken a liking to Yoshida-san. You remember the dog incident, I’m sure.”
The dragon blew a puff of smoke from its half-open mouth. Shinichi raised an eyebrow.
“It breathes fire, but it’s supposedly not dangerous. It’s magical fire or something.” Haibara explained.
Shinichi was about to ask about the dragon some more, but found himself staring at the creature and wondering if it would do him any good to learn more about it. Shinichi decided he should probably treat it like any other pet, because magic was more than a bit much for him.
“So, is it a he or a she?” he asked.
“It doesn’t have any reproductive organs.” Haibara informed.
“Well, so then I suppose you can just make it up?”
“I could. I don’t think the dragon has any motivation to decide for itself.”
“Or maybe you could just not decide. I mean, only humans ever concern themselves with identity anyway.”
“I suppose it can just be a wild and natural beast with no specific identity.”
“It’s not actually natural.”
The dragon let out a sudden, high-pitched growl, as if it could understand.
“Well,” said Haibara, “it sure seems to think it is.”
“How the hell does it understand what we’re saying?”
“I don’t know. It’s partly magical, so there’s that.”
“Oh, yeah. That. Remind me to stop asking stupid questions like that.”
Haibara laughed.
“Anyway, now to figure out how to tell Hakase about it.” she said.
“Well, I’ll leave you to that. See you around.”
In the end Shinichi had to figure out what to get Ayumi for Christmas by himself.
* * *
[Ai]
Ai was late, but she’d made it. She’d spent too long instructing the dragon how to act until it was allowed to come out of its basket. Hopefully the fat that she hadn’t told it what to do after it was let out wouldn’t end up in some sort of disaster. She lifted the decorative paper over the top of the basket one last time.
“Shhh,” she to told the dragon inside it.
The dragon blew a puff of smoke, then tucked its tail around itself and sat still, looking at her with one part excitement and two parts suspicion.
“Good,” Ai muttered.
She rang the doorbell and waited.
She really hoped Yoshida-san would like the gift, although she had grown a little attached to the dragon, to the point where it had crossed her mind to keep it and buy another gift for Yoshida-san.
She adjusted her grip on the bag that contained gifts for all her other friends.
The door swung inwards.
“Oh, Ai-chan! Come in! Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas, Yoshida-san.”
In the living room, Tsubarya-kun was sitting on one of the easy chairs, and Kudo-kun was seated in one corner of the sofa, with Ran-san next to him and Genta-kun next to her. They all greeted her excitedly. Kudo-kun glanced at the basket and grinned crookedly. Ai, for her part, winked at him and sat down on the other easy chair, facing Tsubarya-kun.
“So now that we’re all here,” Yoshida-san said, taking a seat on the dining chair she had pulled up, “let’s play a game!”
“What game?” asked Tsubarya-kun.
“I know,” Kudo-kun said with smirk aimed at Ai, “Let’s all exchange gifts, and try to guess what’s inside them. The one who guesses the most right gets to open one other person’s gifts.”
“Shinichi, you can’t have everything be a competition,” Ran-san reprimanded, “why don’t we just try to guess, but not have a winner?”
The first one up was Tsubarya-kun. “Well, they’re all books.” he said in less than ten seconds.
Well. That wasn’t too exciting.
And that was pretty much how the rest of them went.
For all their claims of being excellent detectives, the detective boys and Kudo-kun had not been able to deduce what gifts their friends would like, and nearly all the gifts ended up being pretty generic.The only thoughtful gifts had been from Ran-san, which had been knitted sweaters and scarves, which were, according to Ran-san, in each person’s favorite color.
For Ai, it was a present enough to see Kudo-kun admonished by her every time he admitted to gifting a detective novel. Which was every time someone guessed the gift from him. She couldn’t remember when she had started laughing.
So the entire thing was going pretty uneventfully.
Except now it was Yoshida-san’s turn.
“Well, I already know Shinichi-oniisan’s s a mystery novel,” she giggled. Ai wondered vaguely if the girl still harbored a crush on him. Ran-san whacked him on the head.
“And Genta-kun already told me he was buying a stuffed animal,” Yoshida-san continued before Ran-san could yell at Kudo-kun again, “Ran-oneesan’s is…” she felt the neatly wrapped package, “mittens?”
Ran-san nodded.
“Tsubarya-kun definitely bought me that craft set I told him I wanted the other day,” Yoshida-san said, shaking the gift box, “and Ai-chan…”
She stopped short. She picked up the basket and studied it.
“I’m pretty curious as to what you’ve got in there, too, Haibara.” Kojima-kun said.
“It’s warm,” noted Yoshida-san. She studied the basket some more. “Is it a cake, or a pie?” she asked finally.
Ai shook her head.
There was expectant silence.
“So…” urged Yoshida-san.
“Open it,” Ai blurted.
She prayed that nothing horrible would happen. Yoshida-san slowly lifted the decorative paper off the basket.
“Ai-chan!” she squealed, “This is the best thing ever! It’s a sculpture of a dragon, isn’t it? It looks so real!”
Everyone crowded around to look, save for Kudo-kun, who hung back and rolled his eyes at Ai.
‘A sculpture’ he mouthed, smiling.
Ai looked towards the basket. The dragon was curled up with its eyes closed, but Ai couldn’t tell if it was asleep or not. She guessed it wasn’t.
“It’s very realistic,” noted Tsubarya-kun. He paused. “I’m getting the weirdest feeling that I can see it breathing. Isn’t it moving slightly?”
“It is!” agreed Kojima-kun.
“Some kind of mechanical thing, then?” asked Ran-san.
Then the dragon cracked one lazy eye open.
“Look, look it’s awake! Whoa, is it a robot?”
And then all hell broke lose as the dragon leaped out of the basket and soared around the dangling light fixtures. Ai couldn’t tell if Yoshida-san was screaming more or Kojima-kun, and she sure as hell couldn’t make out the words. And all the while Tsubarya-kun and Ran-san were shouting something over the ruckus, most of which was lost to the chaos that the dragon had created.
Ai shook her head. She should have known. After all, that thing had a penchant for stupidly dramatic things.
When the dragon finally landed, it was, unsurprisingly, on Ai’s head.
“I spent quite a while doing up my hair, you know,” she told it.
The dragon just crowed smugly, satisfied with its entrance.
“Ai-chan, do you have a remote hidden somewhere?” Yoshida-san asked.
Ai held up her hands.
“If you’re not controlling it…” said Ran-san, “Shinichi, you’re awfully quiet. You were in on this weren’t you?”
Shinichi displayed his hands.
“Nothing up my sleeve.” he assured.
“Haibara-san, how exactly are you controlling it?” Tsubarya-kun asked slowly.
“I’m not. It’s doing things on its own.” she answered simply.
“Ai-chan, that’s impossible.” Yoshida-san said.
Ai paused to think.
“Oi, get off my head.” she ordered.
The dragon jumped off and on the coffee table, effectively ruining Ai’s hair.
Yoshida-san’s eyes glowed.
“It listens to you!” she exclaimed. She held out a hand towards the dragon, but oddly, it cowered away. Ran-san did the same, but the dragon only shied away further.
All of a sudden, the dragon seemed to come to the realization that there were people other than Ai in the room.
And perhaps it was because it felt everyone’s eyes on it, or perhaps because it had realized it wasn’t all as alone as it had thought, but for some reason it scampered off the table and hid behind Ai’s left heel.
It struck Ai that for all its bravado, the creature was fairly shy.
She almost laughed.
“What,” she asked it, “how come you’re scared after that entrance?”
It curled around her ankle and whimpered.
She reached down, and held out her hand. The dragon hesitated, then slowly climbed onto it. Ai brought her hand back up.
“Can I…?” asked Yoshida-san, reaching out.
Ai held out her hand to Yoshida-san, but the dragon scurried up her arm.
“Come on,” Ai coaxed, lifting the dragon off the crook of her elbow with her other hand. It looked back at her pleadingly, then startled when Yoshida-san touched it. It froze.
“There, there, that’s a good dragon,” Yoshida-san cooed, stroking the dragon. It relaxed against her touch.
Ai smirked.
“What were you so scared of?” she teased. The dragon blew an indignant flame at her.
“Oi!”
Yoshida-san giggled, but stepped away.
“It breathes fire?”
“Don’t worry, it’s not dangerous. I should know.” Ai reassured.
Yoshida-san hesitantly stepped forward and started stroking the dragon again. It made a sound not unlike purring, and Ai felt an irrational pang of jealousy. It hadn’t done that with her.
Slowly, the dragon warmed up to the rest of Ai’s friends, and by the time Ran-san told them they were going too far, they had already been trying to toast marshmallows using the dragon’s flames (with, predictably, no success).
“So,” Ai finally said to Yoshida-san, “it’s going to be your pet from now on.”
The dragon, hearing Ai’s words, flew to Ai’s shoulder, but she put it down again. It looked back at her.
“Don’t worry, it’s low maintenance,” she added, then continued, “except that for the fist couple of weeks I’ll come to check up on it for this girl called Koizumi Akako who helped me breed it. Oh, and, other than that, don’t let it get into your bed at night, or it’ll decide it can do it all the time, and then you’ll have to be cleaning feathers off your sheets. And it has a penchant for randomly blowing flames. Of course, it’s not dangerous, but it can get annoying. I do think I trained it out of climbing onto the kitchen counter, but—”
“Ai-chan?”
“Yes.”
“This is the more wonderful than I could ever wish for, but don’t you think you want to keep the dragon? I mean, it also seems to want to stay with you…”
“Me? But it’s yours. It was always yours. I bred it for you.”
“Ai-chan, I think you’ve gotten attached to it, and I don’t want to take it away from you.”
“But…”
The dragon nuzzled Ai’s neck. Ai melted.
“I do want to keep it,” she admitted softly, “but I can’t. It’s for you.”
Yoshida-san stepped forward and reached out and pet the dragon.
“Ai-chan, I can’t be happy with the gift if you’re not happy. And I definitely can’t be happy if the dragon isn’t happy. So why don’t we do something? It’ll still be my dragon, but you’ll keep it for me. Think of it like another Christmas present from me to you. And I’ll play with it when I come to visit. And, well, why don’t I name it? Wouldn’t that officially make it my dragon? Unless it already has a name…”
“It doesn’t,” Kudo-kun replied.
Yoshida-san thought for a bit.
“Cuddles!” she decided finally.
“Cuddles?” repeated Kojima-kun.
“Yep, isn’t it cute?” Yoshida-san asked.
“I think it’s adorable,” said Ai, “But, are you really okay with me keeping the dragon. It was meant for you, after all.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s still my dragon, except you’re keeping it. And that’s perfectly fine by me. Besides, you love it so much, and it loves you.”
Ai smiled.
“She says I love you,” she told the dragon jokingly, “she says you love me.”
The dragon jumped onto Yoshida-san’s shoulder, as if to defy what Ai had said.
Ai laughed.
“I guess I do love you.”
Sorry that it isn't very long, I have trouble with keeping the flow in check once I cross 2000 words.
I also wasn't sure how to translate 'Hakase', '-oniisan' and '-oneesan' so that it would still make sense, so just in case, they're: 'Doctor (title)' 'older brother (suffix)' and 'older sister (suffix)' respectively. Just in case.
Um, anyway...
Happy Holidays! I hope you like it.
Unexpected Christmas Gifts
[Ai]
Ai set the egg in the incubator on her bedroom windowsill, took a few steps back, and studied it. Speckled, robin’s-egg-blue, and a little smaller than a regular chicken egg, it didn’t seem particularly noteworthy.
Hopefully Hakase wouldn’t do something stupid with it.
Now, to call up that Akako girl again…
* * *
[Shinichi]
“Haibara… are you in there?” Shinichi called out.
He heard odd screeching noises.
“I’ll be there in two seconds!”
More screeching noises, coupled with Haibara’s frantic voice, although Shinichi couldn’t make out the words.
Then a disheveled looking Haibara stepped out of her room. Shinichi raised and eyebrow. Her hair seemed to have something not unlike bright blue sequins in it, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought that a part of it looked a little sooty.
He blinked.
“Whatever you’ve been doing in there… I’m surprised Hakase hasn’t found out yet.”
Haibara ignored his comment.
“What did you want?” she demanded.
“No, uh, I just came to ask you if—”
He was interrupted by another screech from the bedroom.
“If?” Haibara asked impatiently.
“If you were going to Ayumi’s Christmas party, and what you are getting her, and, well, if you had any suggestions for what I could get her. Although… it seems like you have your hands full with… whatever it is that’s in your room. Does Hakase know?”
Haibara opened her mouth to answer, but then her cellphone rang. She jumped and pulled it out of her pocket.
“Hi… oh, yeah… so you’ll come by tomorrow, around lunchtime… no there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it… teeth? There’s two sets of twelve, not all that sharp… I hope the fire won’t be dangerous… oh, okay, that makes sense… right, thanks. Bye.”
She hung up and stuffed the phone back in her pocket. Shinichi couldn’t help but wonder: teeth?
“Haibara…” “Hmm?”
“Who was that?”
“Oh, um. Uh, someone I met at the KID heist the other day.”
“You mean one of those people who were there? Nakamori-keibu’s daughter and her friends?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, I do remember you striking up a long conversation about something or the other with that one girl with the long hair. Koizumi, was it?”
“Um.”
“So what’s this about teeth? Don’t tell me those sounds coming from your room are…”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“I was shrunk, you know, so I do think that at this point I can believe most things.”
“A dragon. I made a dragon. Genetic engineering, plus some witchcraft. And Akako-san helped with the witchcraft.”
“I stand corrected.”
“And, well you asked what I’m giving Yoshida-san…”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not”
“You have to be.”
“Do you want to see it?”
“No… yes? Maybe?”
Haibara just turned around and walked back to her room, and Shinichi, for a lack of other options, followed her.
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he sure wasn’t expecting something that looked like a feathery disco ball, albeit a rather small one.
It was curled up on Haibara’s bed, and was eyeing him warily. With its tail tucked around its body, it was no bigger than a tennis ball.
Haibara ran a hand through her hair.
“It’s too smart for its own good. It knows where all my buttons are, and keeps trying to get me to give it more treats. Except I know it knows where my buttons are, so—”
“Um Haibara?”Shinichi interrupted.
“Yes?” she snapped.
“Why a dragon, of all things?” he asked.
“Well, you see, middle school is kind of a breeze, and you’re not around, so people don’t randomly drop dead anymore. So, well, I’ve got a lot of time to kill, so I thought I’d go the extra mile, and Yoshida-san has taken a recent interest in dragons, so…” she explained.
“So you mean you were bored.” Shinichi said flatly.
“Well… maybe a little.” she admitted.
Shinichi was already laughing.
Haibara raised an eyebrow.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
Shinichi laughed harder.
Oh boy, he was never going to let Haibara live this down.
“You were bored,” he said, trying to control his laughter, “you were bored so—so you genetically engineered a dragon!”
“Well…” Haibara started to say
“And one that can fit in my fist!” he said.
“It’ll get bigger, it only hatched a few days ago.” she replied indignantly.
Shinichi stopped laughing and gasped for air.
He steadied himself with a deep breath.
“So, how are you going to gift it to Ayumi? The party is in one week, and you have to tr-train the d—” he burst into laughter again.
Haibara sighed.
“Thank you for the vote of confidence.” she murmured.
Shinichi wiped tears from his eyes.
“Sorry, it’s just that it’s kind of hilarious.”
“In what way?”
“I mean, who’d have thought? And especially you of all people, making a dragon… and a real one at that, I mean. Well.”
“Fine, Kudo-kun, if you think me incapable of doing things like bringing fictional creatures to life, then maybe I should do it more often to prove you wrong.”
“Ah, no, I didn’t mean it like that, just, Haibara, it’s a joke…”
“Humph!”
Haibara turned around and walked up to the dragon and held out her hand. It edged away from her. She let out a long-suffering sigh.
“Come on,” she urged, “my patience is running thin.”
“Can it even understand you?” Shinichi asked as the dragon reluctantly got up, crawled up Haibara’s hand, and climbed onto it.
Haibara shrugged.
“It seems to,” she said, “and Akako-san said something about how it’s supposed to be smart. Other than its bothersome willfulness, I’ve been finding that it can be trained very easily.”
“But will it listen to Ayumi?”
“Kudo-kun, I don’t know any animal that hasn’t taken a liking to Yoshida-san. You remember the dog incident, I’m sure.”
The dragon blew a puff of smoke from its half-open mouth. Shinichi raised an eyebrow.
“It breathes fire, but it’s supposedly not dangerous. It’s magical fire or something.” Haibara explained.
Shinichi was about to ask about the dragon some more, but found himself staring at the creature and wondering if it would do him any good to learn more about it. Shinichi decided he should probably treat it like any other pet, because magic was more than a bit much for him.
“So, is it a he or a she?” he asked.
“It doesn’t have any reproductive organs.” Haibara informed.
“Well, so then I suppose you can just make it up?”
“I could. I don’t think the dragon has any motivation to decide for itself.”
“Or maybe you could just not decide. I mean, only humans ever concern themselves with identity anyway.”
“I suppose it can just be a wild and natural beast with no specific identity.”
“It’s not actually natural.”
The dragon let out a sudden, high-pitched growl, as if it could understand.
“Well,” said Haibara, “it sure seems to think it is.”
“How the hell does it understand what we’re saying?”
“I don’t know. It’s partly magical, so there’s that.”
“Oh, yeah. That. Remind me to stop asking stupid questions like that.”
Haibara laughed.
“Anyway, now to figure out how to tell Hakase about it.” she said.
“Well, I’ll leave you to that. See you around.”
In the end Shinichi had to figure out what to get Ayumi for Christmas by himself.
* * *
[Ai]
Ai was late, but she’d made it. She’d spent too long instructing the dragon how to act until it was allowed to come out of its basket. Hopefully the fat that she hadn’t told it what to do after it was let out wouldn’t end up in some sort of disaster. She lifted the decorative paper over the top of the basket one last time.
“Shhh,” she to told the dragon inside it.
The dragon blew a puff of smoke, then tucked its tail around itself and sat still, looking at her with one part excitement and two parts suspicion.
“Good,” Ai muttered.
She rang the doorbell and waited.
She really hoped Yoshida-san would like the gift, although she had grown a little attached to the dragon, to the point where it had crossed her mind to keep it and buy another gift for Yoshida-san.
She adjusted her grip on the bag that contained gifts for all her other friends.
The door swung inwards.
“Oh, Ai-chan! Come in! Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas, Yoshida-san.”
In the living room, Tsubarya-kun was sitting on one of the easy chairs, and Kudo-kun was seated in one corner of the sofa, with Ran-san next to him and Genta-kun next to her. They all greeted her excitedly. Kudo-kun glanced at the basket and grinned crookedly. Ai, for her part, winked at him and sat down on the other easy chair, facing Tsubarya-kun.
“So now that we’re all here,” Yoshida-san said, taking a seat on the dining chair she had pulled up, “let’s play a game!”
“What game?” asked Tsubarya-kun.
“I know,” Kudo-kun said with smirk aimed at Ai, “Let’s all exchange gifts, and try to guess what’s inside them. The one who guesses the most right gets to open one other person’s gifts.”
“Shinichi, you can’t have everything be a competition,” Ran-san reprimanded, “why don’t we just try to guess, but not have a winner?”
The first one up was Tsubarya-kun. “Well, they’re all books.” he said in less than ten seconds.
Well. That wasn’t too exciting.
And that was pretty much how the rest of them went.
For all their claims of being excellent detectives, the detective boys and Kudo-kun had not been able to deduce what gifts their friends would like, and nearly all the gifts ended up being pretty generic.The only thoughtful gifts had been from Ran-san, which had been knitted sweaters and scarves, which were, according to Ran-san, in each person’s favorite color.
For Ai, it was a present enough to see Kudo-kun admonished by her every time he admitted to gifting a detective novel. Which was every time someone guessed the gift from him. She couldn’t remember when she had started laughing.
So the entire thing was going pretty uneventfully.
Except now it was Yoshida-san’s turn.
“Well, I already know Shinichi-oniisan’s s a mystery novel,” she giggled. Ai wondered vaguely if the girl still harbored a crush on him. Ran-san whacked him on the head.
“And Genta-kun already told me he was buying a stuffed animal,” Yoshida-san continued before Ran-san could yell at Kudo-kun again, “Ran-oneesan’s is…” she felt the neatly wrapped package, “mittens?”
Ran-san nodded.
“Tsubarya-kun definitely bought me that craft set I told him I wanted the other day,” Yoshida-san said, shaking the gift box, “and Ai-chan…”
She stopped short. She picked up the basket and studied it.
“I’m pretty curious as to what you’ve got in there, too, Haibara.” Kojima-kun said.
“It’s warm,” noted Yoshida-san. She studied the basket some more. “Is it a cake, or a pie?” she asked finally.
Ai shook her head.
There was expectant silence.
“So…” urged Yoshida-san.
“Open it,” Ai blurted.
She prayed that nothing horrible would happen. Yoshida-san slowly lifted the decorative paper off the basket.
“Ai-chan!” she squealed, “This is the best thing ever! It’s a sculpture of a dragon, isn’t it? It looks so real!”
Everyone crowded around to look, save for Kudo-kun, who hung back and rolled his eyes at Ai.
‘A sculpture’ he mouthed, smiling.
Ai looked towards the basket. The dragon was curled up with its eyes closed, but Ai couldn’t tell if it was asleep or not. She guessed it wasn’t.
“It’s very realistic,” noted Tsubarya-kun. He paused. “I’m getting the weirdest feeling that I can see it breathing. Isn’t it moving slightly?”
“It is!” agreed Kojima-kun.
“Some kind of mechanical thing, then?” asked Ran-san.
Then the dragon cracked one lazy eye open.
“Look, look it’s awake! Whoa, is it a robot?”
And then all hell broke lose as the dragon leaped out of the basket and soared around the dangling light fixtures. Ai couldn’t tell if Yoshida-san was screaming more or Kojima-kun, and she sure as hell couldn’t make out the words. And all the while Tsubarya-kun and Ran-san were shouting something over the ruckus, most of which was lost to the chaos that the dragon had created.
Ai shook her head. She should have known. After all, that thing had a penchant for stupidly dramatic things.
When the dragon finally landed, it was, unsurprisingly, on Ai’s head.
“I spent quite a while doing up my hair, you know,” she told it.
The dragon just crowed smugly, satisfied with its entrance.
“Ai-chan, do you have a remote hidden somewhere?” Yoshida-san asked.
Ai held up her hands.
“If you’re not controlling it…” said Ran-san, “Shinichi, you’re awfully quiet. You were in on this weren’t you?”
Shinichi displayed his hands.
“Nothing up my sleeve.” he assured.
“Haibara-san, how exactly are you controlling it?” Tsubarya-kun asked slowly.
“I’m not. It’s doing things on its own.” she answered simply.
“Ai-chan, that’s impossible.” Yoshida-san said.
Ai paused to think.
“Oi, get off my head.” she ordered.
The dragon jumped off and on the coffee table, effectively ruining Ai’s hair.
Yoshida-san’s eyes glowed.
“It listens to you!” she exclaimed. She held out a hand towards the dragon, but oddly, it cowered away. Ran-san did the same, but the dragon only shied away further.
All of a sudden, the dragon seemed to come to the realization that there were people other than Ai in the room.
And perhaps it was because it felt everyone’s eyes on it, or perhaps because it had realized it wasn’t all as alone as it had thought, but for some reason it scampered off the table and hid behind Ai’s left heel.
It struck Ai that for all its bravado, the creature was fairly shy.
She almost laughed.
“What,” she asked it, “how come you’re scared after that entrance?”
It curled around her ankle and whimpered.
She reached down, and held out her hand. The dragon hesitated, then slowly climbed onto it. Ai brought her hand back up.
“Can I…?” asked Yoshida-san, reaching out.
Ai held out her hand to Yoshida-san, but the dragon scurried up her arm.
“Come on,” Ai coaxed, lifting the dragon off the crook of her elbow with her other hand. It looked back at her pleadingly, then startled when Yoshida-san touched it. It froze.
“There, there, that’s a good dragon,” Yoshida-san cooed, stroking the dragon. It relaxed against her touch.
Ai smirked.
“What were you so scared of?” she teased. The dragon blew an indignant flame at her.
“Oi!”
Yoshida-san giggled, but stepped away.
“It breathes fire?”
“Don’t worry, it’s not dangerous. I should know.” Ai reassured.
Yoshida-san hesitantly stepped forward and started stroking the dragon again. It made a sound not unlike purring, and Ai felt an irrational pang of jealousy. It hadn’t done that with her.
Slowly, the dragon warmed up to the rest of Ai’s friends, and by the time Ran-san told them they were going too far, they had already been trying to toast marshmallows using the dragon’s flames (with, predictably, no success).
“So,” Ai finally said to Yoshida-san, “it’s going to be your pet from now on.”
The dragon, hearing Ai’s words, flew to Ai’s shoulder, but she put it down again. It looked back at her.
“Don’t worry, it’s low maintenance,” she added, then continued, “except that for the fist couple of weeks I’ll come to check up on it for this girl called Koizumi Akako who helped me breed it. Oh, and, other than that, don’t let it get into your bed at night, or it’ll decide it can do it all the time, and then you’ll have to be cleaning feathers off your sheets. And it has a penchant for randomly blowing flames. Of course, it’s not dangerous, but it can get annoying. I do think I trained it out of climbing onto the kitchen counter, but—”
“Ai-chan?”
“Yes.”
“This is the more wonderful than I could ever wish for, but don’t you think you want to keep the dragon? I mean, it also seems to want to stay with you…”
“Me? But it’s yours. It was always yours. I bred it for you.”
“Ai-chan, I think you’ve gotten attached to it, and I don’t want to take it away from you.”
“But…”
The dragon nuzzled Ai’s neck. Ai melted.
“I do want to keep it,” she admitted softly, “but I can’t. It’s for you.”
Yoshida-san stepped forward and reached out and pet the dragon.
“Ai-chan, I can’t be happy with the gift if you’re not happy. And I definitely can’t be happy if the dragon isn’t happy. So why don’t we do something? It’ll still be my dragon, but you’ll keep it for me. Think of it like another Christmas present from me to you. And I’ll play with it when I come to visit. And, well, why don’t I name it? Wouldn’t that officially make it my dragon? Unless it already has a name…”
“It doesn’t,” Kudo-kun replied.
Yoshida-san thought for a bit.
“Cuddles!” she decided finally.
“Cuddles?” repeated Kojima-kun.
“Yep, isn’t it cute?” Yoshida-san asked.
“I think it’s adorable,” said Ai, “But, are you really okay with me keeping the dragon. It was meant for you, after all.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s still my dragon, except you’re keeping it. And that’s perfectly fine by me. Besides, you love it so much, and it loves you.”
Ai smiled.
“She says I love you,” she told the dragon jokingly, “she says you love me.”
The dragon jumped onto Yoshida-san’s shoulder, as if to defy what Ai had said.
Ai laughed.
“I guess I do love you.”