Eyes

                                    

                                          
"Ai-chan! Ai-chan! It's terrible! I've heard that Genta has been murdered! Please call back, Mitsuhiko and I are very worried and confused-"
                          
That was an invoice mail from Ayumi. 
                          
Ai sighed. She could not give them a call right now, fearing that they would get endangered. The armed forces had promised that they will keep an eye on people like Ayumi, Mitsuhiko, Kogoro and other civilians that might have had in contact with her or Conan. They had lied to the people they cared about, keeping their identities in secrecy. Now that it was budding open, it must be difficult for them. 
                          
Her eyebags felt droopy. She had lacked sleep for the past few days, purely concentrated on helping to locate him. He must be somewhere, somewhere deep in a hideout. Their last conversation was not pleasant and it was bitter to think that that would be his last memory of her. 
                          
He had sacrificed for me. 
                          
She bit her lip in order not to express that ache. Of course, he did care. Perhaps not the way she wanted him to care, but to an extent, he did. Why did she stubbornly held onto the excuse that she was the one who ruined his life? 
                          
Because even if it was a fucking shit experience for me, at least I got to meet you, damn it!
                          
That sentence replayed repeatedly. Was Conan really content with meeting and spending his days with her? To be like shrunken teens? Given her past, he deserved better. Someone who wasn't as jaded as her, someone who wasn't tainted, someone who lived a normal life. She was certain until her last talk with Ran. 
                          
A hand touched her at the top of her head, like a father to a child. 
                          
"Stop frowning. I had found where they are. They are on the island in the East of Japan. It's a small island that has a tourism business, but no one really knows what is beyond the dense forest in the background. The details of how the Black Organisation had that part of that and kept it in discrete...isn't important now. Our suspicion is that they have ties with the elites or the government body. We're gonna get the boy and Jodie back," Akai said with a cigarette in between his teeth. 
                          
Ai slightly jumped. This was the man that had claimed to love her older sister but failed in protecting her.  
                          
"The day when Jodie was taken, she told me your relation with us. That Akemi was my half-sister. Also, that my mother and your mother are sisters," she replied unemotionally. She never knew him or his siblings, so it was odd to call them her family. It was very strange, that she still had cousins and an aunt that were alive. Yet there was a glimmer of hope that beamed within her - she still had others, which left her rather confused but safe. 
                          
He gave a nod and answered, "all the more for us to retrieve them." 
                          
"I just hope that we are not too late," he said darkly. The man was hard to read, but Ai felt fear in him. 
                          
She did not know the details, but from how Jodie behaved around Akai, there was definitely something complicated between them. Sadly, Ai also knew that one of them loved the other more. Surely, she would have wanted Akemi to be happy with the guy, but knowing her sister, she would have wanted Akai to find his own happiness instead of mourning forever. Jodie had waited for him long enough and the woman did not deserve to suffer. She deduced that they had an agreement to discuss their issues after this whole chaos, but that promise cannot be guaranteed now. 
                          
Similar to Ai, guilt must be consuming him. Jodie had cherished him despite his unreasonable treatment towards her. The moment he wanted to make amends with her, she was taken away, and he'll be damned if something happened to her. 
                          
Akai had already lost another, he cannot afford to lose Jodie - even if he had not truly been good to her.  
                          
Yes, both cousins will be damned if they were too late to save their respective treasures.