Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they're here to stay,
Oh I believe in yesterday.
-Yesterday by Beatles

Yesterday
By Icka! M. Chif

I died yesterday.

Nothing went the way I expected it to, and yet I still ended up dying.

Life is funny that way sometimes.

It all started yesterday afternoon, with Ran, Sonoko and I walking home from school. It was a nice day, a bit overcast, and the girls were having fun chatting with each other. I'm still rather grateful that I was able to ditch the Shoenen Tantei. They're nice kids and all, but there are certain things I'm not willing to let them see.

Witnessing the death of a friend being one of them.

Everything was fine, until we were crossing a small street. A horn started honking furiously, and people dove to get out of the way as a car careened through the intersection. Sonoko was out of the way, having danced ahead to the sidewalk while teasing Ran about something.

Ran was standing right in it's path. I screamed, launching myself at her, attempting to push her out of the way. Instead, she turned at the sound of my voice and ended up catching me.

Have I mentioned just how much I hate this smaller body?

I think she was intending to toss me out of harm's way but I grabbed her coat from preventing her from doing so. If she was going to be splattered all over the front of a car, then I was going to be right there with her. A stupid sentiment perhaps, but we've always done everything together and I wasn't going to let something as trivial as getting hit by a car get in the way of that.

There was just enough time to look up and see the wide-eyed panic in the drivers eyes, when everything... changed.

The car suddenly skidded, slipping to the side to avoid us by a few feet and hit a pole, stopping. The noise and the panic of the previous seconds all seemed to completely -stop-, leaving only the heartbeat in my ears and the pulse of Ran's heart under the fabric of her coat.

Then the driver's door opened and life resumed.

Ran suddenly relaxed, pulling me close to her and wrapping her arms around me like she was hugging a large teddy bear or something. She was shaking, taking deep gulps of air to stay to prevent herself from crying. I was so relived that I nearly lost control of my form, so I didn't protest the opportunity to recover my composure.

My heart nearly stopped again when I looked up and saw the street.

The path the car had traveled was pretty clear, including where it had suddenly turned, sliding to the side.

Right where a thin patch of ice was evaporating.

The rest of the afternoon went by pretty much as expected. The police came, they took a statement and everyone went home. The driver's brakes had gone out, resulting in the accident. Miraculously, no one got seriously hurt.

Which put me on edge. Death was still there, I could feelt it, almost taste it, but now I didn't know when. Ran was distant as well, to the extent that her father noticed. I worried about her.

I should have worried more.

It was past mid-night when I woke up shivering. The temperature had dropped to the point where I could see my breath when my eyes finally focused. Mouri-san was still snoring like a log, unmindful of the change in temperature.

That was when I first heard it. "Shin'iiiiichi.... Shin'iiiiiiiiichi..." At first I thought is was a figment of my imagination. Then I realised that I could hear someone walking around outside the hall. Curious, I slipped out of bed and padded to the door, slipping on my glasses on the way. The floor was like ice, freezing my toes and the soles of my feet until I put on my housescuffs.

The door opened easily and I slipped into the hall. Mist seemed to hover everwhere, adding a creepy atmosphere to the usually friendly house. A single set of footprints broke the frost on the ground, raising my suspicions. I cautiously followed them out to the living room, where the mist was the heaviest.

Never let it be said that Ran is anything other than beautiful.

I had forgotten until that minute about her dual ancestry. Her father's side were temple keepers up until a few generations ago, which is where his strong sense to protect comes from, no matter how misguided it is. Her mothers side however, has faint traces of Koorime in it, so many ancestors back that no-one even remembers.

Shimmering with ice crystals, Ran seemed to transcend human beauty, becoming other worldly, even in her pyjamas. She was a 'Yuki Onna' in the purest sense of the term, a snow maiden.

"Shin'iiiiiiiiiiichi..." She sang, holding her hands out towards me. "Come here, Shin'ichi."

My father once told me that people of similar abilities are often called together without realising it. Psychics, Artists, Politicians, Youko, it makes no difference. There is a sub-conscious pull towards each other. It was probably one of the things that drew Ran and I together in the first place, her latent youkai ability.

Well, it wasn't latent anymore. Something about the incident with the car had triggered her inherited abilities, probably for the first time in centuries. And for several heartbeats, I couldn't think. I find that tends to happen when I'm really close to her.

"Ran?" I walked up to her, my fingertips brushing hers. They were so cold, as cold as death is said to be.

"I've been waiting for you, Shin'ichi..." Ran whispered, drawing me closer. Up close, I could get a better look at her eyes. Beneath half lidded lashes, they were vacant, as if she were in a trance. The power was new to her, and had overwhelmed her. In layman's terms, she was on automatic pilot.

"Shin'ichi..." She sing-sang again, running her fingers over my face before slipping my glasses off. I gulped, unable to back away due to her arm firmly around my waist. "I've been waiting for you, Shin'ichi..."

It wasn't until her frozen hand reached back to hold the back of my head that I remembered why it is not a good idea to run across a Koorime.

They are vampires.

Legend has gone back an forth on if the gained energy from their victims by a white cloud of mist through their mouth or by drinking blood. Maybe it was her hanyou blood as opposed to a full Koorime, but by the way she was moving towards my neck, it was pretty clear which Ran preferred.

And by that time her grip on me was so strong I couldn't have pulled away, even if I had wanted to.

Contrary to popular mythos, you do not actually bite someone on their neck to drain them of blood. You go for the junction of neck and shoulder, right above the collar bone. Or the inside of the elbow, but that's not nearly as dramatic sounding. Not only is there a better blood flow there, you don't run the risk of crushing something that they might need to keep the blood flow going, such as the windpipe.

One hand held the back of my head, moving it one way as the other slid up, moving the loose collar of my pyjamas the other direction, to bare my shoulder. I couldn't help but to shiver then, not because I was afraid she was going to hurt me, but because it was -cold-.

Icy breath numbed the bared skin, so I didn't feel when her fangs sank in. There was a faint pulling sensation, then things got a little hazy. I remember wrapping my arms around her in an attempt to stay upright, then her cradling me like a small child as my heart slowed down, then stopped beating entirely.

It's rather hard to kill a Shinigami, especially when we don't want to die. But it's still rather un-comfortable having your physical form being disrupted like that. When I became aware of things again, it was already mid-morning, and I was curled up on the couch with several blankets over me.

Once Mouri-san finally stopped laughing at what ever television show he was watching, he informed me that Ran wasn't feeling very well, and that I was staying home sick today, due to the fact that I had been un-naturally cold and they hadn't been able to wake me up.

I assured him that I had probably just caught a bit of a cold or something, and pretended like everything was normal again. Ran doesn't seem to remember anything from last night, and I'm hesitant to bring it up with her, in case it was a one time fluke.

But if she has woken up to her Koorime abilities, that would explain why I thought she would die yesterday. In a way, she did. The accident changed her, so that she's no longer completely human like the way she was before.

I think I'm glad this happened. I may not be able to go back to being Shin'ichi just yet, but at least I was able to remain as Conan with her.

Besides, Otousan and Okasan -do- keep saying I need to spend more time with my own kind. I just don't think they meant it like this.

Fin.

Koorime: Literally 'Ice/snow maiden'
Yuki Onna: See Koorime
Hanyou: Halfbreed. (think Inuyasha)

This came around because of a mental picture that haunted me, Ran as a vampire stalking Conan. Think I'm in a bit of a blood thirsty mood right now...

The thing about where to drink blood is as accurate as I can remember. Learn all sorts of strange stuff late at night stocking books...

The reference to Ran's ancestors having Koorime blood and not realising it comes from a legend of a Yuki no Onna and a fisherman named Minokichi. The Koorime froze his master one night during a snow storm, but spared Minokichi because of his young handsome looks, making him promise not to tell anyone about her.
A while later, he meets a beautiful pale woman named Yuki, and ends up marrying her. Several years after this, he's foolish enough to make a comment to her that she reminds him of someone he once saw, the Yuki no Onna who froze his master to death.
She gets furious and would kill him if it were not for their children. She disappears, leaving him to take care of their TEN children. ^^;;

Sounds kinda like Ran's mom, ne? ^_^

You can find the full story here.

Song quote is for Ysabet, who threatened to sing the Beatles unless I put more of this series out. It worked, the Beatles scare me.

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