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Conan—Shinichi—finds a book on his perfectly made bed when he crosses the threshold of his childhood room.
A children’s book, to be more specific, sitting there by its lonesome as if it's been impatiently waiting for his arrival.
And a note from none other than KID, with a single word elegantly written on it:
Hiraeth.
The meaning eludes Shinichi right now, he'll have to research it later because he's too busy at the moment.
What is KID plotting now? Shinichi shakes his head fondly while wearing a genuine smile. And so, he shelves the book for later.
That starry night finds him comfortably sitting cross-legged on the bed, book spread on his lap, and so, he reads.
The Zombie Kid :
A baby boy was born in a small village. He had pale skin and large eyes.
Shinichi was born in a world declared black and white. He was taught early on that colors were but a luxury.
While raising the baby his mother naturally came to the realization that he had no feelings whatsoever.
Shinichi was a deathly quiet kid, he didn't even cry as a baby, he was later told.
Yukiko fed him with baby formula, whispered tales of her grandeur as lullabies, and her absence. As a successful career woman, she didn't have much time to spare.
He grew up quiet.
All he had was the desire to eat, like a zombie.
At times, Shinichi would watch, from the door cracked ajar, his mother sitting at her vanity table, despising her reflection and basking in her conceit, accentuating her natural beauty with synthetic products.
At the time it was a decoction of a child's silly musings, but Shinichi had harbored the thought that his mother mirrored a lifeless doll who had to apply makeup to resemble a human again, powdered blush simulated blood thrown into her cheeks.
Slip into silk gloves just to warm her fingers. His mother's hands were always unexpectedly cold, as if the blood flow stopped just shy of her wrists, icing her fingertips.
Ice burns like fire, if you dare to touch it for long enough, leaving you both scorched and unfeeling.
So his mother locked him up in the basement so the villagers wouldn't see him.
With fame came pretense, putting on shows, setting stages and rehearsing speeches. His parents slid into the habit of throwing gaudy parties, Shinichi shoved into the second floor like a minor inconvenience better left alone.
Through the gaps between the balusters, Shinichi would watch greedily mingling guests garnering his parents’ attention, and he would get acquainted with his unquenched needs, the very first time he tasted resentment.
Thus, Shinichi burst into the grand event like a storm, scattering it to pieces and ruining the party, he tore down the pretense and took satisfaction out of the lot of them taking offense.
His mother got so angry that night, he remembers.
Her pearly white scleras threaded crimson, pupils shrinking, the aggravated flush reaching beyond her pale foundation and spreading down to her neck, not artificial but authentic.
The curious thing was, Shinichi had felt… relieved.
His mother was angry at him; for the first time directing something other than a superficial, lukewarm sentiment at Shinichi.
And every night, she stole livestock from her neighbors to feed him. That's how she raised him in secret. One night she'd steal a chicken, the next night a pig.
When Shinichi barely came into the double digits, Yukiko came to the conclusion her son was too old to be watched over, so she fired the babysitter.
Shinichi recognized loneliness, a ghoulish friend, until it soaked into his lungs, spreading its seeds like disease.
Solitude drenched his life. With the sole exception of Ran, none of the other kids wanted to play with him, so more often than not Shinichi had to create his own entertainment.
Chasing after shadows that appeared unattainable, far and farther away, that disseminated evil, that had to be punished for the harm they caused to the innocents, came, almost, all too naturally.
A number of years passed like that.
Shinichi grew quieter, more focused, and cognizant. His black and white worldview cemented itself deeply and raveningly into him, rendering him colorblind.
With age, hunger came, to break the mold he was made to fit into, to be more. Shinichi's triumphs became trophies to be flaunted, not by him. In public Shinichi was shown off; a never-needy, never-lonely jewel, whose shine reflected on them.
With time, the blood ran dry, a web of cicatricial tissue knitting together the open wound. He'd run the pads of his fingers over the raised scar on rainy days, when the echoes of memories past would ache a little more.
Some days, he’d forget about them long enough to forget why he needed to.
Then one day, an epidemic broke out.
Mom and Dad grew busier the older Shinichi got, assailed by responsibilities and deadlines that they ultimately fled, changing countries like clothes, narrowing windows of communication and suffering jet-lags and timezones.
Shinichi didn't even try to chase after them…much.
Eventually, rust grew between telephones.
Shinichi had loved with a fire red, but it soured blue.
It left the remaining animals dead, and it also killed many people.
Apathy is only frightening in theory, the absence of feeling is a blessing disguised as a curse.
Shinichi wore it almost proudly, walking through life unfazed and unfeeling, neglecting his attention-seeking demons.
But sometimes they cropped up unbidden, ripping apart his farce, clawing at the mask, screaming, screaming:
Move on.
I don’t want to move forward —Shinichi had startled even himself with such an outlandish, selfish thought, pure and raw.
Those who survived the epidemic left the village.
Ran once asked him why, why cladding himself in the detective role, why the want to become such in the first place.
He faltered for just a split second, not because he doubted his answer, but because he didn't think the reason was worth breathing into life. This was the last and first time Shinichi pronounced these words out loud.
In his mind's eye, torn between crevices and split thinking lines, his mother's permeating distance feeding his aloneness and festering the wound inside, back when he still felt, cold and left to fend for himself, hanging by a thread while something inside him was growing dead.
“Because I want to save someone.” Shinichi had finally answered her.
But the mother couldn't leave her son all alone. And to appease her son crying of hunger she cut off one of her legs and gave it to him. After that, it was her arm. She gave him all her limbs.
Conan—Shinichi—now reads voraciously but trepidous, anxious.
His stomach is knotted, cold sweat beading his forehead, he's slightly nauseous.
For some reason, at the present moment, he thinks, really fixates on it, his mother didn't return his last three calls.
When she was left with nothing but her torso, she embraced her son for the last time to let him devour what was left of her.
Shinichi doesn't realize he's crying until the tears start smearing the words a watery black.
Back when his parents still lived at home, he vividly recalls worming his way into their bed while his mother was lost to the dark and dreams. He curled himself against her back like a newborn, but his arms had been too small to reach around and embrace her properly, the comforter trapping her away from him, the fabric not resembling in any way the warmth of skin.
Shinichi had hurt, yearning for her acknowledgement, starved for her affection; hunger so deeply rooted, his stomach thought his throat’s been cut.
With both his arms, the boy tightly held his mother’s torso and spoke for the first time in his life:
“Mom, you’re so warm.”
Shinichi breaks down. Crumbling in regret, defeated, spent, dying. Just pure, unbridled crying. Wrenching emotions meshing together, igniting the deep blue burn icing his chest.
God, what a mess.
In the thick of it, KID sneaks in through his window and settles over him like a weighted blanket, embracing him tightly, holding him without talking, while Shinichi aches and breaks and cries himself to sleep.
His dreams cut deep, tossed and scattered, they shape questions with no answers.
What did the boy really want?
Satiating his hunger, or feeling his mother’s warmth?