#brain: now imagine if that was shinichi and kaito

[hayaku14]

KAISHIN STANS WE EATING GOOD

[autumn-foxfire]

I love the idea of Shinichi developing claustrophobia but not realising. One of the most terrifying times in his life was when Gin was opening those lockers and almost discovered him but Shinichi doesn't realise how affected he was by that until he ends up in a small space again.

Imagine the opening scene of Fist of Blue Sapphire, where instead of just the normal panic of waking up in a small space with no idea how you ended up in this situation, Shinichi ends up having a full blown panic attack. He's taken back to the time in the lockers, struggling to breathe and consumed with fear and then his heart drops even more when he sees the light from whatever he's stuffed inside opening.

He doesn't realise he's shaking and crying until his own face is staring back at him in alarm. He doesn't know how to react, the light of the sun is too bright and hurting his eyes, his ears are ringing and his chest feels so tight that he's still struggling to breathe.

Kaito recognizing the symptoms of a phobia immediately (how many times has he had to calm himself when people treat his own like a joke to mess with him). He drags the suitcase to the trees where no one can see and lets Shinichi calm himself down at his own pace and gather his barings away from prying eyes. He does some simple and easy card tricks for Shinichi's benefit, in hope of providing a distraction as his brain registers his need to panic is gone.

As Shinichi comes round, he's just so confused. Why was KID here? Why was he in a suitcase? Why did he panic like that?

Kaito explains the first two before tentively approaching the topic of the last one. He apologises to Shinichi for putting him that situation and that if he had been aware of his phobia, he would have done it differently.

Shinichi is struck by the word phobia. He never wanted to put a name to the feeling of unease and even fear he would feel whenever he had to crawl into a small gap after that fateful encounter but now another had noticed, had watched him lose himself to the consuming panic and he thinks it's time to do so.

Kaito listens intently as Shinichi explained when it started, how he had been trapped in a locker with the only thing between him and certain death had been a flimsy sheet of metal and a man who had been insane enough to check the small lockers for his enemy, only to stop at the last moment, just shy of finding them, when he realises that no adult could be inside one.

Shinich says something changed that night, he just never wanted to admit it.

And Kaito understood, as has been in the same situation as Shinichi, where he had felt that panic that makes you feel your lungs are no longer working and you're about to die but forced himself to endure it, forced the panic down because no one else understood.

He tells Shinichi as such, hints that he has one too, though he was not quite ready to share what it was (everyone else who knew used it against him after all) but he got the feeling Shinichi felt all the same.

Kaito apologises again for putting Shinichi in that situation but Shinichi just dismisses it and demands Kaito to tell him more about the case.

(When it comes time to return home, Kaito makes sure that when he's off the plane and has his luggage, he opens it up so Shinichi doesn't feel as trapped this time around)

[kawarikisaki]

Another one of the Au's i spin around in my brain sometimes.

The kid and the phantom thief

Shinichi/Conan while having legit deduction abilities mostly gained his fame as a detective because he secretly has the ability to see ghosts and has gotten evidence that isn't available to normal investagators through that skill. Kaito ends up getting shot and killed by the organization that targets him, he ends up becoming a ghost because he can't move on until the people that killed his father (and now him too) are in jail.... so he goes to Conan. Conan doesn't want to deal with this nonsense, he already has his own problems after all, but he can't exaclty ignore Kaito’s plight, and even if he wanted to Kaito is hard to ignore.

Kaito as a ghost can't interact with physical objects, and he can't change his appearance from how he looked in his final moments, but otherwise he's able to do anything he could do when he was alive plus a few ghost powers like turning invisible, phasing through walls, and possessing people to influence their actions. He's just a young ghost so he can't fully control anyone or do poltergeist stuff.

Conan of course has his normal Conan powers, just the additional bit that he can see ghosts. He can't hear them though just because i think it's funnier if Kaito has to communicate to Conan through pantomime, using all the theif tools and such he had in his pockets when he died as props. I like to imagine that Conan is pretty used to ghosts just pointing at their murderer or to a window that was used for escape and then it being Conan’s job to figure out how to explain the information in a way that police are going to be willing to accept as evidence- but no, Kaito is the most energetic ghost he's ever seen, going all in on playing charades to communicate once he realizes Conan can see him but not hear him.

....

.... i should probably actually write this one as a fanfic someday. But for now it keeps spinning in my head.

[tsuki-sennin]

Meet Shinichi Saruhara~! He's just a small town boy... with a super wacky family life~! His parents look identical, his sister is caught up in a love triangle, and his delivery man is super hot~! All this and more on Meet the Donbros! Premiering Sunday, December 24th on ABC~!

Been far too long since we had a Shinichi focus episode, so I'm looking forward to this~!

Spoilers, I guess...

-Ain't no breaks for the Donbros.

-Haruka-chan!

-C

-Chuwan?

-Is it like -chwan, the honorific Gaon uses to refer to humans/smol animals?

-Damn Saruhara, do you not work out?

-Oh, why'd you give Tsuyoshi the Hitler mustache hjlklhg

-Coupled with the glasses and combover, he gives me serious Bruno Ganz in Downfall vibes.

-TAROU WHAT WAS THAT

-Don Don Brothers!

-Okay so for this episode I'm watching the TV Anon subs, and they call it "Cringe Family" and... yeah <3

-"Yo, Kaito... are all of my beloved companions family? ...without me?"

-"Yes."

-Suzuki-san, you are rockin' that dress.

-Kameda Tsutomu.

-Of course, of course, this guy's our Hitotsu-ki!

-...did he scam an entire family out of nowhere?

-Soooo, Shinichi... what's your deal with this guy?

-Ohhhhhh, you're pulling a gigachad brain move.

-Good look scamming a dude with no money.

-I see the Professor's still beloved in his neighborhood :)

-Fake spiritualist... just like Kanedama from that Ep. 13 of Kakuranger. ...wonder if that's where we got his

-We had the boss lie for us~!

-Oh Jesus Christ, he followed us

-Oh here we go~!

-Outswindle the swindler.

-Good on Tsubasa for just like

-Instantly agreeing to help out.

-Damn, Sonoi.

-"What the dog doing with the shark?"

-Sonoza seems very proud of Murasame carving out his own path, how sweet :)

-"If the dog and the shark become friends... they must trigger some sort of game changing event."

-Aaaah, I see that smile too, Sononi~!

-Jirooooou~!

-Free Vegetables~!

-Daaaaaamn, Haruka, okay!

-Love how she picked both guys with girlfriends.

-"Look man, we're in too deep now, you gotta help us."

-While I do respect Haruka Saruhara establishing her right to date whoever however, I absolutely do not respect the way you worded that lmao

-"Hahaha, wow Tsubasa-san, we sure are the best rivals of all time, eh buddy~? Goku and Vegeta! Yusuke and Hiei! Deku and Bakugou! Naruto and Sasuke! Luffy and... I haven't really seen One Piece in a while, would you prefer to be Zoro, Ace, Law, Katakuri, or do you wanna pick for yourself?"

-"I might as well be Buggy, this is already humiliating enough."

-Everybody is haunted!

-Ah yep, classic cold reading.

-Stroganoff.

-Haruka I swear, if you actually had a cat named Stroganoff-

-Gave the poor thing a shoe hat.

-Miho-chaaaaan!

-"My older sister was born at a very young age. :("

-"And you'll get the spoon if you kill her off again!"

-Government assigned Dog. Tsubasa Inuzuka.

-Ooooooooh, Shurikeeeen!

-Dog...

-Ignored Jirou! How dare you!

-Scarecrow?

-That is a masterclass t pose, Beppu-san.

-...Shinichi fucking would t-pose without prompt.

-Tarou in da house!

-"I brought the meat."

-Oh I'm sure you did.

-Seems like Kameda is catching on.

-Imagine how much funnier it'd be if it cut off at "Tsubasa and I are dating".

-"Oh... good for you. I don't care."

-"Okaaaay, thank you for the meat, get the fuck out now, please~!"

-"I want meat."

-See, Tarou knows they're lying, but they don't know how they're lying.

-"Oh my God, Saruhara's mom is related to the salaryman!"

-Tarou is experiencing accidental neurodivergent-on-neurodivergent violence.

-Surrender your prized possession to be free of darkness!

-Haiku Meat.

-Worthless, worthless!

-"Noooooooooo, my dinner!"

-"Jesus Christ, fine I'll bring more meat, just calm down!"

-"Because reasons... It's quite alright Haruka, I think I understand."

-:)

-He only has death allergy hiccups

-Sometimes

-There's a demon.

-And his name is Momoi Tarou.

-Gotta know when to fold 'em, I guess.

-Ah nope, just straight up robbery!

-Made them think they're even crazier than

-Doggy man take an oolong nap :)

-"OH MY GOD THERE'S CRAZY PEOPLE AND MURDERERS IN THIS HOUSE!"

-HARUKA IJHKLHGH

-Tiger Jirou with the steel chair!

-Dead!

-GET HIS ASS SHINICHI!

-Himitsu-ki! You have been exposed for all from Earth to the farthest reaches of the Cassiopeia constellation to see! It's time for you to repent from your swindler's ways once and for all!

-Oh sure, kick a girl in naptime land, real nice

-Love this mix of the theme song btw

-Getting fired uuuuuuuup! Chozetsu Ninja!

-Time for the finale, it'd seem!

-Seiya seiya seiya seiya!

-25 points!

-Tsuyoshi ujhklhg

-Ah yep, time for the iconic Gorenger Hurricane!

-End Ball!

-Gotta build it all up!

-Oh no you don't!

-You ignored Jirou scammer man

-100 Point Shot!

-He has many things clinging to him indeed! They're called his companions~!

-And this cool robot bird he found.

-Get fucked!

-Awwwwww, Tarou :(

-Allegedly.

-Have a drink, shake your head.

-Poor Tsubasa, huh fellas?

-It's okay, he had a really fun time :)

-Shiina Naoki

-WAIT WHAT THE FUCK

-WHAT OKAY EVERYTHING'S HAPPENING THEN

-Most importantly for me, HARUKA'S USING OMIKOSHI PHOENIX YOU GO GIRL

-Well... I suppose I'll see you all next time, when Donbrothers does as it does

[stickers-on-a-laptop]

ep 47: jesus christ this was funny

ep 47

oh my god we're so close to the end huh

also my cat demanded pets before i could watch this, but like not where it'd be easy for me, no, she went up to my sister's bed and demanded to be pet there

right the op powers of overpowered

hot lady alert

SCREAMING AT SONOSHI AND THE LITTLE CARPET OF DISINFECTING

ew ew ew bro

DO NOT DO THAT AT ME I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH I LIKE YOU GET CHANGERIONED

KAITO! this is so funny omg

tsuyoshi and tsubasa in the back help

no jirou :(

this just sounds like a marriage ceremony help

AND THEN HE KISSED TAROU ON THE LIPS

kaito looks so done

shinichi will give this applause, he guesses

SONOZA

well tsuyoshi ain't happy

I LOVE HARUKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i didn't even notice the microphones this is so fucking funny

SONOZA ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS

i mean yeah but like also don't think that near tarou sonoi he'll get jealous

SHINICHI NEEDS TO KNOW

i hate you fjdsiofsdjiofjsiofsdiofsjio

everyone kick this man's ass! >we just aren't gonna know i bet. kaito is kaito

KILL HIM PLEASE

mustard to turn you normal? TRY THAT ON MIHO

shinichi was like "tf okay"

the ring of forgiveness is just. such. plot.

DO NOT TORTURE THE MAN LORD Y'ALL WILL REGRET IT

SEE! HE'S MAD! 5 FEET 5 INCHES OF PINK ANGER!!!

this is a THREAT

tsubasa. stfu.

sononi you too

KILL THEM ALL TSUYOSHI

right we did forget that tarou can't lie uh ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

kill them all anyways

THAT IS SO MEAN BUT SO FUNNY

how hot would it be to be in the juuto suit and then a brides dress

why make him look like that

Y'ALL ARE SO MEAN FJDISOAJFIDSOFJSDIOAFJIO

HI JIN THE SHOW REMEMBERED YOU EXIST I GUESS

sonoshi please

they do NOT LIKE SONOSHI EITHER PLEASE

of course it's not a problem rn fjsiodjfsodifjsdoifjisodfjsdiofsjiodfijo

getting back on topic? with the donbros?

"which means you fell in love with my son"

why is sonoi standing like chase

"damn. you're THAT gay? alright here"

i hate it here i hate it here i hate it here fjsdiofjsdoifjisodfjidosio GOD of course he has a button!

WUT

KILL HIM

shinichi you know you want to kill kaito do it

i dunno what tea this is but shinichi is INSULTED

no one let the donbros meet kiriya. or yuuto. or any americans.

THAT OK SIGN MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD TF IS THAT

NOW you remember jirou

"one second. why didn't i get a nouto. the hell."

damn sonogo he's just talkin! lord

so we put enough feminism into haruka and mentioned miho and sononi is talking about not men! time to make sonogo a vain bitch

SO THEY ALL HATE EACH OTHER LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THEY ARE THE MEAN GIRLS!

i really hope they say that again!!

shinichi has brain cells

SHINICHI TAROU IS GAY. DID YOU FORGET THAT AGAIN.

shinichi has a kill list today

SONOZA TRYING TO SWAY IT

at least he's admitting he's cranky

JIN PLEASE 4TH WALL BREAKING MUCH?

imagine if haruka WAS the last boss?????? fjsdiofjdsiofdsjioafjiosfdjiofsida Y'ALL ARE GETTING SMOKED

hell yeah be rude shinichi

do not bow to kaito

who cares not me

I SAID I DO NOT CARE

sigh

can we get back to like miho actually

SONONI I AM SORRY YOU GOT WRITTEN LIKE THIS

GAH

this is so weird and bizarre and STOP IT!!

why is this an ability she has now and how do we never let it happen again what the fuck remember when she was popcorn about this and it was really funny and now it's just so annoying

you can't have this both ways!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you can't have tsubasa being all in love with natsumi and then whatever the fuck this is with sononi i refuse

I AGREE TSUYOSHI

haruka is so normal, grabbing that microphone to make an inside comment i love her!!!!!!!!!

"RESERVE SQUAD. EW. COOTIES."

i love shinichi SO FUCKING MUCH

nah let sonoza and shinichi fight i think it'd be funny

PLEASE

sononi pls!

THIS FOOL AGAIN

SHE IS 18.

tarou shut the fuck up

THE GAYS ARE FIGHTINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

what the fuck please don't do that again

PLEASE FJSIODJSIDOFJIOFJISDOFJDSIOFIOAIJOF THE OTHER NOUTO COMING IN

send help

two monsters of the week

SHINICHI UP THE TREE

tsuyoshi is me

and then rule of 10

THERE IS LIKE 30 SECONDS LEFT JESUS

when a 2 foot plastic doll has more emotion than the cgi monstrosity

2 blues??????????

jirou next ep yay

DONBROS LIVEBLOG, AS COPY/PASTED FROM MY DISCORD

i did this like i was talking to my friend, so this is the "being friends with stickers' when she's watching something" experience

i think i'll put more thoughts in the tags, but don't count on it for every ep lmao

ep 1

21 years ago is 2001 sounds fake to me

wait i've seen this man--kao dake sensei

not even 20 seconds in and i get interrupted ;-;

moses, peach style (yes i know that's the story of mamotaro it's just that i'm jewish)

oh okay even the logo is rainbow for this one

dabbing in the year of our lord 2022

i have not seen miss silver girl anywhere ever who is that

five way back to back? oh this is going to be AWESOME

hello miss haruka i see TONS on you

fangire?

a kamen rider?

hello mr blue guy that gets shipped with the red

oi no nails on the chalkboard

a BOYFRIEND???

sorry mr boyfriend i do not remember you in zettai bl at all

she becomes a hero because of a spam ad nice

ATTACK OF THE KILLER SUNGLASSES

isn't this colorful??

hello kaito but i think without the adhd

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

gun!

cubes like zyuohger

okay mr red

bonds again? this IS zyuohger, go meet yamato

this guy is yamato 2.0

isn't that lily/the fourze teacher?

why translate mama as mommy what is the point of that

MORE CUBES AGAIN

i'm guessing this is the fourze school?

hell yeah ask and you shall receive

pfffffffffffffft thinking that mr blue man would be tarou

i like that this chooses when you're gonna fight

FJDSIOFJSIOFJDSIOAJOIA HE JUST KICKS HER OUT OF THE WAY

glasses and then glasses

mom i am watching donbrothers not thinking about how the trains and busses work in this damn country

pink dude

man cgi battles just annoy me like i am SURE i'll like this series but damn cgi battles are for the crossover movies and that's IT

FJDSIOFJSDIOFJDSIOAFJDSIOAFAIO I WANT DANCING LADIES TO ANNOUNCE MY PRESENCE AS I'M ON A MOTORCYCLE

"this one? no. no thanks"

kamen rider sentai

oh the first battle of these two let's go

reverse storm trooper aim

toei this is so much rainbow

man i have to remember zenkaiger gears? good thing i watched it

if you do a zenaki gattai and put "yo" imma "yo ho hoi"

kamen rider kick

is there no dancing song at the end AGAIN???

[rainyfox3]

Shards of a Misconception

for the one prompt challenge by @dcmkkaishinevents​...

The prompt: - “I won’t be good company.” - “Doesn’t matter.”

You can also read it over on AO3 if you want... pics are better quality there ;)

It was dark and gloomy in the café.

Even though it was still mid-afternoon, the lights immersed everything in a sad yellowish hue that reminded Shinichi of the setting sun in the evening of a day that could have gone on a lot longer. Outside the mood wasn’t any better. Rain was pouring down in sheets, the whole view was grey or blue with the exception of some bushes whose lurid green stuck out from the rest of the colors like a sore thumb. Only once was the scenery disrupted by a single red umbrella somewhere in the distance. Shinichi stared out of the window. His brain took in a lot of information but he didn’t really bother to process anything.

He felt empty.

The feeling had been there since half a year. Since that idiot had disappeared. It had been faint at first but it had always been there in the background like a word missing in the middle of a sentence. But now it was everywhere, encompassing Shinichi like a net of darkness with no way of escape. And the current weather didn’t help even a tiny bit.

Somewhere behind him in a dark corner of the café Shinichi heard someone stirring listlessly in a cup, the spoon clinking against the porcelain in an overly regular rhythm. It must have been the only customer besides him. What gained his attention however was not the clinking but the way it stopped. It was, or so Shinichi imagined, as if the one holding the spoon had just noticed something incredible. However, even with his curiosity stirred up Shinichi couldn’t muster up the energy to turn away from the window, so he just listened. The other customer, gave a low chuckle and stood up, letting the chair grate loudly against the flooring when he pushed it back. Weirdly enough he picked up his cup, the spoon gliding along its rim in the process. Then he began walking towards the front door of the café. What is he doing? Shinichi thought with growing curiosity.

Suddenly the person changed directions and came closer to where Shinichi was sitting. After that everything went dead silent and Shinichi focused his attention on the window again.

He stared at the leaves of the potted bamboo next to the entrance, watching them grow heavy and bend down under the weight of the raindrops only to spring back up again once the drops fell down.

“Hey.”

Startled Shinichi turned away from the window and ended up face to face with a man about his age. He had a bird’s nest of a haircut, dazzlingly blue eyes, a sad smile and he was holding a cup of hot chocolate.

So he’s been standing here the whole time?! Shinichi thought.

Why?

“Mind if I join you?” the man asked.

Shinichi gave a bitter chuckle.

“I won’t be good company…” he mumbled.

To his surprise the man suddenly smiled as if his sky was home to three suns.

“Doesn’t matter.” He said and sat down opposite to Shinichi.

What a weirdo…

For a long time they both sat there in silence, watching how the ripples spread through the puddles on the street whenever a raindrop fell into them.

At some point Shinichi took a deep breath and sighed.

“You ok?” the man asked him.

“Mm…”

“I’m Kuroba Kaito by the way.”

Shinichi briefly looked at the other’s outstretched hand, then turned back to the window without making any move to give the man a proper handshake.

“Kudo.” he said after a while.

“Oh you’re that detective, right?!” Somehow the man didn’t really sound surprised.

“Yeah, I guess a lot of people know me,” Shinichi grumbled, “because I’m always in these newspapers and blah blah, please don’t remind me of it, thank you.”

“Whoa! Did I do something wrong? What happened?”

“No. YOU didn’t…" Shinichi snapped "but who are you to care anyway?”

Shinichi didn't want to lash out at him like this and now he felt kind of bad about it. Ashamed, he focused his attention back on the potted bamboo outside. Apparently the man didn't seem offended at all though.

“Me?” he chuckled. “I’m a magician. I entertain people, I cheer them up. That’s why I do care!”

Slowly Shinichi turned away from the window again.

“You… are a magician? … Someone I once knew was a magician.”

When the man’s eyes met Shinichi’s they resembled the color of the weather outside.

“Was, you say?” he said pensively. “What happened?”

Shinichi shrugged, studying the surface of the table.

“He left. Without saying a word.”

This earned him a weird look from the other man. The cheerfulness of his expression had given way to something bitter or somewhat angry.

“Oh… Did he?” the man said flatly.

Huh?!

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you just ignore his note?”

Was it Shinichi’s imagination or did the man look hurt?

“Note?! what note?”

The man’s expression lightened a bit and he raised an eyebrow.

“The one in your cupboard in your new mug…”

“What new mug?!” Shinichi looked at him, confused.

And then his inner alarm bell began to ring.

“WAIT WHAT?!?!?!”

“Yep” the man said, “I bought you a mug and put it in your cupboard with a message in it and waited for you to give me an answer… I thought this was your way of saying no!”

Shinichi gaped. Suddenly, as if his hands started to move on their own accord, he reached out and touched the other’s face. It was real, no latex, no wig… his face. Kid’s real face.

“S-say… what was your name again?” Shinichi asked shyly.

“Kaito Kuroba” the man said with a warm smile. “Call me Kaito.”

“K… Kai-to” Shinichi tried.

He didn’t know what came over him after this. He stood up, leaned over the table and hugged the man.

“Idiot! Kaito… I’ve missed you soo much!” he whispered into the other’s collar. He couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks.

  “I… don’t actually use this cupboard when I’m alone…” Shinichi said later when they were walking down the street under Kaito’s bright orange umbrella.

“You don’t?” Kaito asked, “But then how do you drink your coffee in the morning?”

Shinichi looked at him and smiled, probably for the first time in half a year. “Remember when you were hurt and I took you to my place to recover?”

“Ugh… you mean when I broke your favorite mug because I was too weak to hold it properly?”

“Yeah.” Shinichi chuckled.

“That’s why I bought you a new one among other reasons…” Kaito defended himself.

“You know, that was my favorite mug because it was the one YOU used, and the one YOU dropped… It still is my favorite mug.”

“You… glued it back together?”

“And I’m using it eeevery day…” Shinichi glanced playfully at Kaito and leaned his head on his shoulder. “It’s never been in the cupboard since that day.”

“Oh… what am I gonna do now that you have two favorite mugs in your kitchen?!” Kaito said theatrically.

Shinichi laughed. “Not yet…”

“Huh?”

“Oh, you know... you still didn’t drop the other one…”

Kaito looked at him speechless. It was amazing how the detective had changed since he found him staring out of the window back in the café. It's like watching a flower loom after a warm rain shower in spring he thought.

“I’ll gladly take you up on that!” he said grinning broadly.

  Omake

“By the way, Kaito?”

“Hm?”

“How did you get into my house?!”

“Through the door…?”

“It wasn’t locked?”

“Nope…”

“…”

Notes:

This didn't exactly turn out how I wanted... oops... The pics underwent quite some editing... You can find the unedited ones on DeviantArt: page 1, page 2, page 3 ... don't be shocked XD

I really hope you had a good time reading (^.~)✧ If you didn't, tell me in the comments! What?! Oh... yeah, OF COURSE you can also leave a comment if you DID have a good time ^^

[dcmk-hoard]

you say you like to imagine other ways for Kaito to find out the truth about Conan. This is your free pass to ramble about your favorite scenarios because I am CURIOUS. Somehow, I've never actually addressed the how, I just accepted it as a natural fact that Kaito knows, no questions asked xD

Since you asked :3c

If we disregard movie 3 but keep as close as possible from canon (including narrative with the canon pairings), my favorite scenario is that Kaito connected the dots after a little investigation after he was blackmailed into disguising as Shiho with Haibara telling him what to say.

Even if he never discovered about the APTX, he knows real magic is a possibility thanks to Akako - things that should be impossible suddenly become an explanation. It wouldn't be out of ordinary for him to accept that people can shrink and that Conan is hiding his true identity. If anything, I like to headcanon he initially thinks it's the work of magic and only way too later discovers there is an actual scientific explanation.

(More under Keep Reading because there are so many possibilities ops)

Other canonverse explanation I like is something similar to movie 3 - Kid accidentally overhears it while preparing for a heist. But instead of phone call he is disguised as someone Conan is directly interacting with and now Kid needs to pretend he knows what the hell Conan is even talking about being Kudou Shinichi and guys in black?? Otherwise his cover would blow.

Another similar one is that we could also have Conan deducing that Kid just knows while Kid thinks Conan is just a really mature child and treats him accordingly just to accidentally discover he is a teenager when Conan casually talks about it and then Kid needs pretends he knew all along to keep face while being "wtf" inside. This one will always amuse me.

Alternatively, Kaito could have put things together if he ever looked into Kudou Yuusaku and his family. Since Yuusaku is supposed to be Kid's "father" and Shinichi Kid's "older brother", I like to imagine Kaito looked into them just in case he ever needs to interact with Yuusaku and accidentally discovered Shinichi = Conan in the process.

One more way would be Akako giving warnings about Conan being older than he is since the beginning and Kaito just thinking she was talking in riddles again until he realizes that for once in her life she is being straightforward about something.

Other favorite scenarios would take part of the fanfiction world with canon divergent elements.

You see, KaiShin, HakuKai and KaiHei are all Kid X Detective pairings, but they all have different flavors. I would say the main flavors of KaiShin are Protagonist Shipping, "Two sides of the same coin", Identity Reveal and Identity Porn.

And oh boy, I'm weak for those flavors, especially identity porn. It's good enough identity porn already with Kaito knowing Conan = Shinichi. But if you want to make my brain really happy, including that Kaito has no idea they're the same person makes the trope even more fun.

The two finding each other again post-canon as Kaito and Shinichi while not knowing the other is Kid/Conan but sensing a familiarity and longing in each other makes me really, really weak.

Any shenanigans with common fanfic tropes like soulmates / guides & sentinels / ABO or supernatural AUs where we can explore extra senses as a way of identity reveal both ways will always grab my attention owo

Aaah, there are so many possibilities in canon divergence verses that I probably would get overwhelmed listing all my favorite cases. But since I think the ask was more for the canonverse, I will stop it here xD

Since I'm a sucker for identity reveal and identity porn, if anyone has any headcanons they want to share, I would love to hear OWO

[snoozeeroo]

I'm not familiar with the songs you've listed, so I'll have to check them out and tell you my thoughts another time! As for my own list, here goes:

• I'm Coming after you - Owl City: Strong Kaishin Vibes (I'd love to animate this song someday, it would be really fun)

• Hourglass - Set it off: The Lyrics really fit Shinichi imo. "I never valued minutes I burned through, Seconds I wasted, I was fixated, You're devastated, sorry to say. I can't fix it, is this where I give in?" especially makes me think of Ran and Shinichi's Guilt. Just the whole White lies and pretending while losing time thing, It fits.

• Stronger - The Score: This one also reminds of Shinichi, With the (pre?) Chorus being about Shrinking and the BO thinking him dead. Also in my head I connect the condition/disease with being a detective. (Also a song I really wanna Animate some day, Centering Shinichi and a BO takedown)

• Catch me if you can - Set it off: Reminds me of Kid

• Smoke and Guns - Natewantstobattle: Also Kaishin Vibes

• Faded - Alan Walker: Reminds me of Ran and Shinran a lot, especially "Where are you now? Was it all in my fantasy? Where are you now? Were you only imaginary?" When I'm feeling more angsty sometimes I think of the "I'm faded" lines being more that her feelings for Shinichi are fading the longer he's gone.

• Slipped Away - Avril Lavigne: Another song that reminds me of Shinran.

• A mask of my own face - Lemon Demon: Reminds me of Kaito. With the 'Mask' being both Kid and the various disguises, And also sometimes being a poker face to mask how he's feeling. i also think of 'the handsome motherfucker looking back at me' being more his father and/or kid looking back at him when he looks at his reflection. (This is another song i really want to animate one day, One part in particular being the line "I'd wear it to a hoedown, and I'd dance with all the belles" But it's a heist and the belles are detectives; Shinichi, Hakuba and Heiji because the mental image is very funny to me)

• Sharks - Imagine Dragons: Reminds me of Haibara and Conan (As in Haibara talking to Conan Mostly), with the sharks being the BO. It's not exact but the vibes are there

• I see a dreamer - CG5: I know it's a very specific fandom song that has nothing to do with dcmk but somehow it reminds me of Kid anyway

• Do i wanna know? - Arctic Monkeys: Reminds me a bit of Kogoro and Eri

• Blow my brains out - Tikkle me: Saw this edit and it really stuck with me so I associate this song with Conan and Shinichi now, and imo it really fits them well.

And that's all the songs I have as of now, Would love to hear your thoughts!

- 💚

Hi anon! I've only heard about one of the songs you have listed here, such as Faded by Alan Walker.

I think it does fit pretty well! Shinichi's image has definitely faded in his universe and Ran longs to see someone who doesn't exist anymore.

I'm going to have to check out the rest of these. I'm very excited to listen to these as I've gotten pretty sick of my own playlist haha! Thanks so much for sharing with me, I'm really fond of receiving your questions and responses!💓

[equal-shipping]

Why Kaishin Still Holds Up, Even Now.

I FINALLY watched the 23rd Detective Conan and let me tell you what...

Why are there not more episodes with these two working so closely together? Like please?! They got that solved so quickly and just shared information with one another and can I please just have them interact before the series ends pleaaaaaase.

Yet I'm not here for begging. I'm here to rant and cleverly disguise that rant as an essay.

I want to rant about trust in Detective Conan (specifically with a look at Kaishin) and the Enemies turned Rivals turned Friends turned Lovers trope.

[Mild Spoilers Ahead]

Trust as a Driving Force in Detective Conan

If someone asked me what is one of the many driving forces in the DC plot as well as the cornerstone of many of the relationships in DC it would be trust. Most of the characters in DC are living their lives with lies as the foundation of who they present themselves to be.

And here is something that I love about the relationship these two have with one another:

The trust that Shinichi has on Kid was earned and vice versa.

I don't think that Shinichi thinks that Kaito Kid is the most honest person in the world, but he does know that the magician works by a code and he trusts him to not put someone in any immediate danger despite the fact that Kaito Kid does not inherently talk too deep about his heists with him.

Ask yourself this. Where in canon did it say that in Kid's heist nobody gets hurt by Kid? I've read the manga and nowhere does he really say 'this is a safe show for everybody!' Let me tell you where it says it: Nowhere.

So why do we all assume it to be that way? Because even we have trust in our favourite thief that he won't do something to actively hurt someone. Since the story is being told in Shinichi's point of view, most of the times, we can rely on the trust that Shinichi has placed on Kid to not get anyone hurt.

One big example of this would be in the Detective Conan Movie: The Sunflowers of Inferno:

Leaving Ran in Kid's care is a conscious decision he is doing despite the fact that he doesn't know if Kid is even going to make it out. Shinichi loves Ran probably more than he loves himself and he wants her out of danger enough to place trust in someone that, situation wise, has no business whether Ran or Shinichi live or not. I honestly think that even Kid was surprised that Shinichi made that decision.

Now I'm not going to put my shipper goggles when I make this statement and go 'OH MY GOD THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH IT SHOWS IT EVERYWHERE. LOOK AT THE SHOW, STUPID."

But these two have something that not many of the characters in DC have and that is a mutual trust without knowing all the details of their lives.

Kaito happened to guess that Conan was Shinichi and I doubt that Shinichi is going to meet Kuroba Kaito by the end of the series. These two barely know each other but through their interactions just happen to understand each other enough to work together amazingly when thrust into a situation where they have to help each other out.

Which brings me to the second thing I want to talk about.

My Enemy Went From Being My Rival to My Friend to my Lover, What Happens Now?

I want to break into Gosho's house and ask him to please let Kaito Kuroba meet Shinichi Kudou. Like this is such a might need that I'm almost scared of looking forward to the ending of DC because I just have a feeling it isn't going to happen.

I might also ask him why the hell every side character needs a romance subplot but that is neither here nor there.

But now that the ships have been decided and canon has sealed the final nail on everything, I just want to talk about the trope that makes Kaishin just so amazing for me.

If I am remembering my facts right, Magic Kaito came before Detective Conan. Kaito was a realized character, somewhat, and was clearly a very likable chara with a ridiculous high IQ and a secret he couldn't reveal to anybody.

I mean he's a goddamn beautiful man is what I'm trying to say.

When I first read the series I could immediately tell that Aoko was set to be the romantic interest, Gosho really ain't fooling nobody. She seemed cute, extroverted and a girl who seems to really care for Kaito. Of course there was the juicy tidbit of Kaito being the thief her father is hunting down that also kept the relationship interesting.

So I was more than okay with having these two together.

I was already a bit aware of Detective Conan so I was all for the ShinRan as well. The pining, the secrets, the care that Shinichi has for her that transcends the organizations doing!

Also fun fact: Kaito/Aoko was the basis for Shinichi/Ran! Which is why ShinRan is thematically better than Kaito/Aoko but I will not go into that.

So one sad day during quarantine, I decided to rewatch the series to see if I could get any writing inspiration.

Now I don't know if it was quarantine or a change of heart or just me growing up but Gosho's friend trope seemed boring to me the more the episodes continued on. I AM NOT THROWING THE FRIENDSHIP TROPE DOWN, IT IS BEAUTIFUL I STILL SHIP SHINRAN

But I was tired of picking vanilla and wanted to see what else was on the menu.

And as luck would have it, I had decided to watch episode 515: Kaito Kid's Teleportation Magic and fate decides to deliver me a wonderful hit to the heart:

What is it about characters pointing guns at each other that I love so much?

And Shinichi doesn't react like a normal fucking person he just goes:

He knows this man ain't gonna shoot. They have had five interactions before this (if we are going by anime episodes) and through all those interactions Shinichi managed to get to a level of banter with this guy that he hasn't had with any of his other enemies.

If he even considered Kaito Kid an enemy to begin with.

Both Kaito and Shinichi have a mutual respect for each other's skill.

They test each other out in several situations and are pleased when the other figures it out, kinda transitioning their little chases to more of a 'two really smart guys trying to outwit each other' and less of a detective trying to outsmart a thief.

Shinichi enjoys figuring out his magic and Kaito enjoys the challenge of making some of his magic tricks near impossible to figure out. Their friendship is something really special and if they can have it without even knowing the details of each other's life, imagine how strong it would be if they truly met each other face to face.

I don't really want to cross into headcanon territory that would turn them into lovers, lord knows we have more fanfiction to do so, but it is just wonderful to see these two men both living a lie respectively but finding some solace in each other that they can shut their brains off for one second and just...play.

Hell, Kid's heists might be Shinichi's safe place. In those heists he is known as the 'Kid Killer' and not just some brat who happens to figure shit out. His opinion matters in those heists.

And not just to the police, but to Kaito as well.

BUT IM GETTING OFF TOPIC!

I just wanted to show love to this wonderful ship q wq

[katsukifatale]

Kaishin for No.10!! That sweet, sweet attempt to resist each other 😆

this will eventually go up on ao3 so when it does pls go give it some love 😅

partially under a cut because it's a long boi.

-

there is nothing sexier than a well-planned, perfectly executed heist, kaito thinks.

he’s shucked up against the storage room on the roof of the hotel he’d stolen from that evening, watching the confused taskforce officers try to figure out how to tackle their latest failure. the gem in his pocket — not pandora — will be mailed anonymously to the inspector’s police station tomorrow. he’s alone up here on the roof — something he’s gotten a little pathetic over since tantei-kun stopped showing up at his heists. he knows why, though — it’d been the only story in the media for days on end. fbi, cia, secret police joint take-down lead by a mysterious detective, left unnamed for his own safety.

it’s no coincidence that kudou shinichi shows up just when tantei-kun disappears — off to america for witness protection, or so he hears.

kaito takes the gem out of his pocket, needing something to occupy his fingers while he waits for the police to clear out down below. he idly wonders what could be taking them so long and flips the gem gently over his fingers in a line, feeling the smooth top of it slide cooly along his skin.

it’s nice to have his theories proven — or well, they might as well be proven, even if there’s no proof. he hasn’t talked to kudou yet, but he’s looking forward to the day when kudou is well enough to return to matching wits, because he can only imagine how much more fun that’ll be when he’s the right size.

he tosses the gem up into the air, and that’s when it all hits the fan.

there’s a loud bang from his left, where the roof door should be, and a desperate shout of his name, and then a heavy weight is bearing him down to the cement. he goes with a surprised yelp, not managing to catch the gem on his descent. almost immediately after, there’s another bang, and a zip, and this he recognizes very easily — a high caliber gunshot.

he glances up to see who is on top of him — and his breath catches, because —

“k-kudou?!”

it’s kudou. kudou is on top of him, one arm around his shoulders and the other taking his weight as he looks up at the building across from them and snarls. his body is — his shoulders are wide, his waist narrow. his legs are thick like a soccer player’s, and his weight is enough to press into kaito without crushing him — a solid presence of safety, and he’s real and here and —

why is he —?

kaito’s fingers curl up in kudou’s jacket — when had they gotten there? — and without looking down kudou moves his hand from kaito’s shoulder and presses it warmly to his face. he must be looking for a signal, kaito thinks dazedly. in the other building.

“kid. you okay?” he asks. “could’ve shot you, what were you doing —”

grown-up kudou is attractive when he’s angry, kaito thinks.

“are you?”

kudou looks down at him, and his pretty mouth is a straight line.

“okay, i mean,” kaito clarifies. his brows furrow and he takes in the exhaustion ringing kudou’s features. “should you be here? you look…”

“dead?” kudou supplies. kaito can’t hide his wince with their faces this close, and kudou’s expression gentles and his thumb swipes across kaito’s cheek. “i’m fine, kid.”

“excellent,” kaito says faintly. “good.”

kudou stops paying attention to him, which is dandy. it gives kaito ample time to study his new facial features. he’s got a boyish charm to him — cute cheeks and a tapering, sharp jaw. he looks fierce like this, hot and intense, eyes glowing with the lights of the city. his eyelashes are long and thick and dark against cheeks flushed with adrenaline. he’s so handsome it’s unreal.

his mouth is easily the prettiest part about him. his lips are pink and chapped, probably from being bitten. kaito has lost control of his limbs or something, because his hand is moving without his brain’s permission, thumb pressing gently into the center of kudo’s bottom lip, fingertips curled up under his chin.

“kid?” kudou’s eyelashes flutter and his damp breath washes over kaito’s thumb.

“i’m going to kiss you,” kaito says, and watches in satisfaction at the darkening of kudou’s eyes.

kudou’s eyes flick back up to the building, ever the professional, but he licks his lips and murmurs, “okay.”

and then there’s a crackling sound coming from kudou’s ear, and kaito can hear a faint confirmation of target acquisition, and that takes both of their attentions.

“target?”

“snake,” kudou says. “now that the main part of the black organisation has been taken care of, we’re going after the remnants. snake is one that’s been worrying me the most. you — your heists —”

kaito makes an aborted sound and makes use of the hand that’s all tangled up in kudou’s jacket to yank him down, and finally kisses kudou square on the mouth.

heists are officially ruined. he’ll never be able to face off against kudou at a heist again without thinking about his mouth and the way it opens up for him almost immediately, or the way kudou’s hand on his face slides down to press solid against his chest.

“welcome back,” he says once they break apart and he gets his breath back. he feels more than hears kudou laugh above him, and oh lord, that swell of feeling he gets at the sight of that lopsided grin.

“good to be back.”

heists are sexy, but kudou shinichi is definitely sexier.

send me kisses

[purenguyening]

Kaito for the character ask game? 👀

Favorite thing about them: There's something reassuring to know even the coolest person is internally sometimes forced to make things up as they go.

Least favorite thing about them: The skirt flipping to get a glimpse of panties got old after the first time.

Favorite line: "See you later, maybe next time we can meet under the moonlight."

It sort of has the same energy as how Magic Kaito closes out ("See you next illusion.")

I always love these sorts of farewells.

Fun fact, Touhou project has something similar at the end of the games the farewell is "Until next dream."

Also it's quite romantic in a KaiShin context too. (If memory serves there's a trope in Japanese media about roundabout ways of saying "I love you" by saying the moonlight is beautiful, though I forget the details off hand right now).

BrOTP: Kaito/Aoko, Kaito/Saguru

OTP: Kaito/Shinichi/Shiho, there's a special feeling when it's specifically these three finding solidarity and comfort in knowing they're not alone a specific and unique circumstance in life.

NOTP: Kaito/Heiji, the Fairy Lips Heist created some really weird dissonance in me I didn't like.

Random headcanon: Hm, not really centered about him persay...

I like to think in his later life he'll win once at the Magician Grand Prix and Trucy Wright (Naruhodo Minuki) idolizes him.

There's some silly theory I have that Detective Conan/Magic Kaito and Touhou set in the same universe because I think about one of the character's alternate color palettes in a fighting game. Basically, I think Usami Sumireko. I've drawn something based on this like once, but I would like to draw a heist scene and have Sumireko make a cameo, it'll only be funny to me but it's a fun Easter Egg for myself...

Unpopular opinion: I don't think it's that unpopular, but I do like HC that imagine him as nonbinary.

Song i associate with them: Run - Epik High

The mental image of him singing the refrain while running away from the police (and Shinichi) makes me giggle a lot:

Favorite picture of them: I never stop thinking about this image set of four where KID is holding Pandora and the artist is making use of how twitter splits the four images to create one of the reflections of the jewel.

Just an absolute galaxy brain use of the site's quirks.

[movedyoakkemae]

ignore me, i’m archiving this thread bc... i love it. DO NOT REBLOG.

kid ( @kaivoleur ) & conan.

kid: 

    “ Have we talked about the moral implications and-or ramifications of putting infants in consistent, casual proximity with criminals and corpses yet? ”

conan: 

     conan tilts his head, almost birdlike, to the side upon that remark, briefly uncertain whether or not kid is making a joke about his stature and the rate of which he sees homicide cases or if he’s talking about the shōnentantei-dan and their current propensity to witness murders even WITHOUT conan in the direct vicinity.

     deciding to take it as the latter, he remarks with much self-recrimination, ‘ the kids are pretty good at bouncing back now – better than they did even a few months ago, but, yeah, i do wish they weren’t quite getting so used to it. dad used to take me to crime scenes when i was their age, but i definitely didn’t see the variety and intensity of crimes at the same frequency they did at their age. ’

     a wry grin touches his lips as he states, ‘ – y’know, they’ve even taken to talking about murder cases they’ve witnessed over lunch now ? nothing’s quite like hearing those three talk about the best ways they’ve seen a body being dumped – either through hydrochloric acid, chopping the body to pieces, or even just dumping a body into a river – while the other kids and our teacher are hanging onto their every word. those kids are going to be scary once they’re our age. ’

     ( he’s also continuously widely surprised that their parents would still let them go onto trips with him and agasa-hakase. conan’s pretty sure most parents would have IMMEDIATELY told the kids never to talk to conan again. he’s glad they didn’t because as much as the kids annoy him, he does genuinely like them, but… still. it probably would have been better for them to have been cut off from conan earlier on when witnessing one crime would have been in a once in a blue moon experience instead of literally every time they went on one of their weekly outings. )

kid: 

    KID hadn’t expected a serious reply, but that isn’t to say he’s not prepared for it. He quirks a brow at ‘ our age ’ and debates the merits of correcting the detective — on one hand, quipping about Conan’s current state is never not funny, but on the other, he’d really prefer to try and complete the night without getting a soccer ball power-kicked to his face, so.

“ Detectiveness must be infectious, ” he says instead, because he’s not in a particularly dodgy mood. First officers, then teens, and now children; he’s never going to be free of them, huh? The thought brings a smile to his face — he wouldn’t have it any other way, of course. The chase is pointless if it doesn’t attract attention, and ( even worse ) boring if some do-gooder isn’t trying to get in his way. “ I’m not going to have to deal with them on a regular basis, am I? I think even one tiny detective is grating enough on Nakamori-keibu’s nerves. ”

The thief doesn’t even want to think of what a group of five infuriatingly sharp children would do to the old man. ( Wait. Five? He pauses for a split instant, turning the detective’s words over in his head — he’d definitely said three, and three-plus-one… is one short. Hm. A thought for later, then. )

“ Hopefully, by the time they reach my age, we’ll both have everything… figured out, ” KID muses, a hint of a grin reaching his eyes. “ Not that I don’t enjoy all you young detectives making valiant attempts to slow me down, of course, but you know how it is. ” Probably not, but KID makes no further effort to explain.

conan: 

    ‘ a “regular” basis ? probably not. your heists usually run too late at night, and their parents tend to be pretty good at setting a bedtime for them. ’ he’s pretty sure ran’s given up on setting him a bedtime considering all of the cases he takes and how some of them may last into the middle of the night. ‘ and i think nakamori-keibu is getting used to me. ’

    he hadn’t been at first – in fact, nakamori-keibu had been downright hostile to the occasional addition of conan to the ranks, but, well, one can’t deny constant results. he’s pretty sure nakamori-keibu likes conan better than shinichi, at any rate, but, to be fair, shinichi only appeared once and immediately assumed control of the officers. conan’s only just come the closest to catching kid and getting jewels back as quickly as possible.

    conan rolls his eyes at kid’s unsubtle emphasis of separating their ages ( and, as such, picking fun of conan’s current predicament. if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s pretty sure kid doesn’t know the full story, he’d get a lot more pissed than he does ). ‘ just for that, i’m making sure the others get new watches, belts, and shoes, ’ he threatens.

    but, after a pause and the amused look crossing his face, it’s clear that conan has realised what an interesting and entertaining idea it would probably make. after all, the shōnentantei-dan were getting better at traps all the time, and, well, their soccer skills have also gotten better too just by playing with conan all of the time. hm… he might owe haibara a purse or something, but it might be worth it just to see kid having to dodge five high speed soccer balls.

kid: 

    “ I’m surprised you haven’t taught them your curfew-eschewing ways yet, ” KID remarks blandly, tucking his hands into his pockets. He’s been tempted multiple times to push the heist back further into the night — mostly because a sleepy Task Force is an easier to handle Task Force — but he really needs the crowds of an accessible hour to pull off some of his best tricks. ( Besides, much as he declines to admit it, he does need sleep too. Sometimes. When he doesn’t have anything else to do. So never, basically. )

Maybe if he got more sleep, he wouldn’t be accidentally inspiring his critics with awful, no-good, very bad ideas. One tantei-kun is enough, thank you very much, he doesn’t need an entire entourage of children power-kicking soccer balls at him. KID manages to suppress a shudder at the thought, merely letting his grin ice over a mere degree.

“ Don’t even think about it, ” he says with just a hint of dourness, although it’s obviously a little too late for that. “ Holding heists at reasonable hours is not worth getting pelted by a hail of weaponized sports equipment. Don’t make me push heists back to 3 AM and cheerfully let Nakamori-keibu know it’s your fault he’s not getting his much-needed beauty sleep. Hakuba would probably actively attempt to murder me, too, ” he adds as an afterthought. Especially if he did it during finals week — ooh, but now that thought’s tempting. Kaito doesn’t particularly need to excel, he just needs to pass, and he could do that in his sleep; Hakuba, however… Well. He can’t imagine the detective settling for anything less than his own best work. “ Hey, if I ever get murdered at my own heist, would you still investigate it? ”

It’s a question he voices with the light-hearted tone of a joke, but something in his expression — shifts, his gaze sharpening. As though halfway through the question, he’d realized what had actually come out of his mouth, and for an instant it’s not Hakuba on mind but Snake and a sniper’s scope. But the words weigh too heavily for his liking, so he pushes on with somewhat less-than-natural joviality, “ Or does being a criminal excuse me from your jurisdiction or whatever? I don’t know how you detectives work. ” ( A lie, for the most part. )

conan: 

   conan waves a hand as if to wipe the idea from both of their brains. ‘ you already know about it, so it wouldn’t make for such a good trap anymore anyway, and you’d be careful to look out for new watches, belts, and shoes for the kids. ’ now, the task force, on the other hand… that was definitely an idea to save for later.

   ( he also notes the slight familiarity of kid calling him “hakuba”. nakamori-keibu gets, well, “nakamori-keibu”, and conan gets “tantei-kun” and, on occasion, “meitantei”, so why does hakuba get called by his last name ? it may be nothing, but he notes it either way. ).

   “hey, if i ever get murdered at my own heist, would you still investigate it?” the question seems light-hearted, coming from kid’s lips, a laugh at his own morality perhaps, but there’s something in his expression that shifts. conan’s eyes immediately narrow at the clue – it’s genuine, that shift of expression, judging from how kid tries to falsely lighten the air with, “or does being a criminal excuse me from your jurisdiction or whatever? i don’t know how you detectives work.”

   he had heard rumours of unidentified criminals moving around at kid heists, but he hadn’t personally seen any sign of them, so he had just dismissed them as rumours. now, conan wonders if he shouldn’t have. something to look into, definitely. if someone was trying to kill kid, in a way that he apparently thinks is possible given the question, conan needs to put a stop to it yesterday.

    ‘ idiot, ’ he deadpans, affecting an annoyed appearance, as if insulted by the question. ‘ if someone – however unlikely – managed to kill you, i’d hunt them down and make sure they’d get arrested. it doesn’t matter to me if you’re a thief or not – murder takes precedence over thieves any day, and criminals don’t deserve to die, no matter what th – anyone – might think. ’

    the slip comes from remembering asō seiji… they had murdered so many people, and still… conan had tried so hard ( and failed ) to save them.

    ( he has to close his eyes against the sudden memory of heat, and the same haunting tune playing in his ears. it’s a failure that still tastes bitter in his mouth, ash and smoke from the fire choking his lungs. shinichi thinks, for however long he’ll be alive, he’d never listen to moonlight sonata in the same way ever again ).

kid: 

    A laugh bubbles up to KID’s lips but doesn’t quite make it out of his mouth ( he could not say why, himself; relief? exasperation? he doesn’t know from where the laughter rises but he refuses to let it breach the surface ), and he wonders for a moment what the detective had been about to say before ‘ anyone ’ — but he lets him have his secrets, in the end. The thief lets only an amused breath escape, rocking his weight slightly, as though to leave, because this is already too much exposed in a single confrontation and he should leave before he lets himself slip too far. Or farther; maybe this is already too much.

But when the little detective closes his eyes, the thief holds himself still, because all of the sudden it is not the hilarity of his own possible doom that lingers over his thoughts. Rather, abject horror sours his amusement because if Conan goes after the crows at his heists, if he tips the balance so carefully maintained in the heists and manages to corner them…

Snake may be incompetent, but he’s still got BITE, and wild things are always most vicious with their backs to a wall.

    ( Meitantei is brilliant.               But so was Toichi, before he burned. )

“ Mm, good to know. But don’t hold your breath, ” KID says breezily, tearing his mind away from the old, old memory. “ I don’t plan on dying anytime soon. Try not to jump at shadows too much in the meantime, tantei-kun ~ ” He waits and makes sure to meet the detective’s gaze as he speaks, trying to convey the unspoken warning; just because he’d nudged a bit of confirmation about the… dangers associated with his moonlighting, doesn’t mean he wants Conan diving headfirst into it.

This is KID’s territory, and he’s got first dibs, so to speak. His way is a bit of a balancing act, trying to slowly key his critics in on what’s going on without alarming them or alarming Them, but maybe with this step, he can get a little closer to that end goal.

With a flick of the wrist, he reveals a grey marble in the palm of his hand. He lets it slip from his fingers, and when it hits the ground, it erupts in a cloud of smoke — and by the time that clears, KID’s gone.

[squidpro-quo]

Roommates

AN: For @sup-poki and @mintchocolateleaves‘s emogust prompt “Roommates”, suuuuuuper late but I couldn’t forget athlete!kaishin and especially not Kaito as an acrobat

“Oi, Kudo! Can you stop staring for a minute and focus?” 

Shinichi turned away from his view of the gym and back towards Heiji just as a soccer ball slammed into his face, sending him reeling back with his nose stinging like hell. The pain was enough to snap him back to his current situation, not the daydream he’d been entertaining a second ago, and now he certainly had the focus to glare at Hakuba as he and Heiji jogged closer. 

“That’s the third ball to the brain cage this week, Kudo,” Heiji said, clapping an arm across his back and pulling his shoulder close as Hakuba passed by on his way to retrieve the ball. “I tried to warn you this time too!”

“I was paying attention, it just caught me off guard.” Shinichi grimaced as he pulled his hand away from his nose, gaze sliding unbidden back to the side of the gym. The assembled figures stretching against the wall, some now pointing down towards the soccer field with heads clustered together, were close enough for him to pick out the lithe one in the leggings and loose tank top bending down to touch his toes. Shinichi didn’t need him to look up just yet and see the disaster of a fool he’d made of himself at the moment, that could wait. 

“Aaaaand you’re still not paying attention,” Heiji muttered, snapping his fingers in front of Shinichi’s face, poking him in the nose once he refused to look away. “Seriously, I thought you guys were roommates? What’s making this so hard? You literally see him every day for several hours. You sleep less than ten feet away.” 

“Likely that is the source of his inability to kick the ball instead of receiving it with his face,” Hakuba cut in, returning with the ball in hand and calculating gaze in store. “You should ask him before anyone else does.” 

“Ask him what?” Shinichi tried to play dumb, but the ball must have shaken a screw loose or something because a second later his brain caught up to why this whole line of questioning was a bad idea. “Who’s going to ask him?”

“You can’t think you’re the only one who gets distracted by splits and somersaults, right?” Heiji tried to slap the ball out of Hakuba’s hand, but the other was used to the habit and stepped out of range. 

“If you keep drooling over the leotards then pretty soon someone else will take a move while you’re still recovering from your repeated brain injuries.” Hakuba smiled slightly, dropping the ball down to bounce on his knee. 

“You’ve got a chance, Kudo!” Heiji shook him in encouragement, Shinichi fighting to stay standing against his strength. None of their reasoning was convincing him to take the climb the grassy hill up to the gym and do something embarrassing in front of the entire gymnastics team. He could just imagine the way Kaito would look up from his stretch to smile and ask if he wanted to do some exercises together later. “He’s got his own puddle of drool.” 

That got his attention.

“What? How do you know?” Shinichi turned towards Heiji so sharply that his nose twinged from the speed of the movement. 

“You know you can be real blind to things right in front of you sometimes, right? Handshake trick, my ass, you can tell what someone had for breakfast but not that your own roommate stares at you when you’re not looking.” 

Shinichi wanted to glance up towards the side of the gym yet again but resolutely kept his gaze fixed on the soccer ball now passing from the tip of Hakuba’s foot up to his head. Balancing it for a second before returning it to his hands, Hakuba still had time to shoot Shinichi an unimpressed stare. 

“I saw him lose his balance when you scored in that scrimmage match last week. And he keeps watching you run by too. Doesn’t spare the rest of us half an eyeful, guess our shorts aren’t short enough.” Heiji grinned, before giving Shinichi a shove in the back. “Now hurry up, we’re taking a water break for your health. Don’t come back until you’ve done something about your very flexible distraction.” 

Shinichi looked up to find Kaito standing back up, eyes catching on his own and while he raised his leg above his head and braced it against the wall beside him, gave Shinichi a small wave. 

What the hell, he could always just ask Kaito a quick question and those two wouldn’t know any better until he came back and told them he didn’t do it. Shinichi started climbing the hill, hands braced on his thighs with each step from the steepness. His practice jersey stuck to his chest with each lunging stride but he managed to reach the top without becoming out of breath. Which was a relief, because he needed it available for it to be stolen when Kaito beamed at his approach and bounded out of his stretch to meet him halfway to the rest of the team. 

“Looks like you’re going hard today,” Kaito said, eyes brushing up and down Shinichi’s rumpled shirt and shorts with a meaningful look.

“No, no we’re not…” Shinichi scrambled for better words before he made a fool of a misinterpretation. “Yeah, coach is working us hard. You guys on the bars today?”

“Rings, actually. I’ll have noodle arms by tonight.” 

“Do you want some tonight?” Shinichi blurted, mouth moving faster than his slightly battered brain could keep up. Maybe Hakuba was right about potential concussions. 

“Some what?” Kaito leaned to the side, hands on his bare hips as he spoke, dipping into a stretch while Shinichi had to face the fact of how much of his skin he could, see from his shoulders to his waist. 

“Noodles. Do you want to get noodles tonight?”

“Uh, sure. I thought it was my turn to make dinner?” Kaito shot him a perplexed look, straightening up. 

“I was thinking we could eat at a restaurant.” Shinichi tried again. 

“Oh. Is this because you ran a load of your laundry right when I needed to do mine?” Kaito laughed sheepishly before adding on, “I actually just stole some of your shirts instead, so you don’t have to pay me back.”

“No, it’s not about that.” Though now Shinichi knew why he’d been faintly possessive when he’s seen Kaito yesterday. He gave up and went for direct instead. “Go out with me.” 

“I mean I’m cool with getting noodles somewhere, I’ll go out to eat.” Kaito shrugged, the strap of his tank top slipping off his shoulder with the motion. He pulled it back up and smiled, that infuriating grin that Shinichi now knew to be his mischievous one. 

“You know what I mean, Kuroba,” he muttered, his blood pumping from how riled up his damn roommate could get him, in more ways than one, and not from the rigorous practice anymore. 

“Just wanted to see how long it would take you. Too many soccer balls to the head will do that to you,” Kaito said, a satisfied look gleaming in his eyes. 

Before Shinichi could retort, one of Kaito’s teammates, Akako’s familiar wicked sharp voice, cut in.

“He fell flat on his ass so much he had to bribe us to keep quiet.” She pointed between the two. “Finally. You two are denser than a pair of weights. Get out of here, Kudo, you’ll have him all to yourself tonight. Right now he’s mine.” 

Shinichi glared over Kaito’s shoulder at her but Kaito took hold his arm and after a quick squeeze, pushed him down the slope. 

“It’s a date!”

If you’d like to know more, prompt me here

[astoriii]

Human “Glitch” / Failed Cloning AU Prompt

Fandoms: Detective Conan | Case Closed, Magic Kaito

Pairings: Kudō Shinichi | Edogawa Conan x Kuroba Kaito | Kaitō Kid (kind of... keep reading. You’ll see what I mean.) // could be Gen with no pairings tho

Warnings: Major Character Death. Angst. Abuse of pseudo-science.

Ohoho~

This is going to be a doozy.

So... I apparently came up with this idea July 26, 2017 at 6:40 pm according to my Notes app. I have a vivid memory of this. Lol. Not that any of that is important, but I just wanted you all to know how long this idea has been taunting me. I just wanna delete it.

Anywho, I was going to write a little preview of this au for my story dump on ao3, but alas!! I’m too lazy and uncreative to do that. Okay. I digress. You’re probably only here for the prompt thing so let’s go!!!

This story starts out normally. Kudō Shinichi is a famous high school detective and the arrogant mother fluffer we know and love. Ran is his beloved childhood sweetheart and all that shebang.

The change is that the B.O. is working on a method to clone people in addition to the APTX 4869. Why? I have no idea. But... basically, when the cloning process is complete, the B.O. can “rewire” the brain and by doing so, they can essentially turn the clone into a different person.

(It’s how they get some of their best agents. They kill and clone some of the most brilliant minds in certain fields and “rewire” their brains to make them loyal to the B.O.)

So. You’re probably wondering: wtf. Lemme continue...

The Tropical Land date happens. The poisoning happens. The difference? Gin and Vodka stay around long enough and Shinichi dies. Like, actually dies. No shrink. He’s not that lucky.

And because of his reputation, Gin decides that it would be a waste to let such a brilliant mind go to waste. They take the body along with them with the intent of cloning Shinichi so that they may turn his clone into an agent.

So, like, the whole cloning thing? The clone grows in stages—basically like 1 week or 1 month = 1 year. Does that make sense? I hope.

But, so, Sherry stumbles upon Shinichi’s body and the clone some time after Shinichi had been fed the APTX. Right now, the clone is at the physical age of 6—so people think that Shinichi has been missing for 6 weeks/6 months.

Do you see where this is going?

Realizing what’s going on, she somehow (don’t ask) speeds up the cloning process. In doing so, she is able to give the clone all of Shinichi’s memories and knowledge and stuff. Sherry does this in some twisted attempt to “right a wrong” because she doesn’t believe he deserved to die for one reason or another.

But!!!

The clone’s physical body... it’s unstable. She realizes this, but she doesn’t know to what extent. Sherry dumps the clone somewhere and buries Shinichi’s body to keep another clone from being made.

What she doesn’t know is, shortly after she dumped the clone, the clone reverts back to the physical age of six as that had been the last stage it had been stable in.

And when the clone awakens... it (I’ll start saying he now) thinks he’s the real Kudō Shinichi.

The B.O. finds out about Sherry’s betrayal. She lies and says that she buried/burned/whatever the clone and the body. With that, she’s locked up and she takes the APTX.

And she shrinks. Sherry gets lucky. And she hates it.

Now shrunken, she goes to the Kudō residence to see if the clone made it. When Agasa finds her, she asks about the clone without mention of how he’s a clone and reveals that she had been part of the organization that had “taken” him.

When Agasa tells her that “Shinichi” had shrunk, she realizes that the clone had been too unstable with her interference—whether she tells Agasa the truth... I have no idea.

But the clone... as Conan, he is unaware of his status as a clone, but he is aware that there is something not quite right with him. I imagine he’s more paranoid and cautious. After all, there’s a huge blank between Shinichi’s last memories and his own memories of waking up. For all he knows, he was captured by the B.O. or something.

And even tho he is a clone of Shinichi, he doesn’t have the same exact feelings as him—he’s kind of his own person because of Sherry’s interference.

...

And that’s it!! That was a whole doozy, wasn’t it?

I remember planning for Conan to find out. And it’s just an angsty mess because he has all of Shinichi’s memories and knowledge—has his face and all that, too—but he knows he isn’t Shinichi. Like, it’s a whole different type of... dysphoria?? Like, his body was that of a teenager. And now it’s a child. Except... that body wasn’t his body. Except it is. But it isn’t.

Do you see his struggle here???

But after learning that he’s a clone, he asks Haibara to find a way to stabilize his body so that he can properly avenge Shinichi.

(It’s the least he can do.)

The APTX antidotes... well, I imagine that it’s different for him and Haibara? Like, he shrank because of his instability, which Haibara is looking to fix somehow. Tho... I imagine there is some APTX copied into his system or something? So APTX antidotes have some effect on him—like a trigger or something. Idk. I think this is, like, the sole reason why I haven’t written anything for this.

And, Ran??? Conan knows that Shinichi loved Ran, but he’s only known her as a sister. The feelings he has for her are Shinichi’s feelings and he refuses to act on those because it doesn’t feel right. Like, he may have Shinichi’s memories and all that, but Conan isn’t her Shinichi.

The KaiShin thing? It’s... more so self-indulgence on my part. Lol. You could basically just disregard that and have no romantic pairings at all. Shrugs. But!!!

Conan just... he likes how he feels more carefree at heists? He enjoys the banter and the thrill and the feeling. He doesn’t have to pretend as much and Kid makes him feel like he’s his own person?? And he loves it?? Like Kid doesn’t expect him to be anything but Tantei-kun. Like, Conan is a clone. Shinichi is the one he was cloned from. But Tantei-kun? He’s just a critic who keeps Kid on his toes. Like, Kid doesn’t expect him to be an ordinary child but he also doesn’t expect him to live up to a now-dead brilliant detective.

Does that even make sense? I have no idea. It’s late and I’m running on five hours of sleep.

But like... hoo boy. Just thinking about all this... Shinichi’s parents learning that Conan is a clone of their dead son. Ran possibly never knowing that her Shinichi is dead. Conan dealing with the fact that every part of him is Shinichi and hating it because he doesn’t feel like Shinichi and he feels that it’s wrong to even pretend. Maybe even Hattori learning that his true rival died.

Anyway. That’s all. Thanks. I’ve been wanting to post this somewhere but it didn’t feel right putting this in my story dump on ao3. Let’s not discuss any weird plot holes or anything because I don’t think I was completely sane when I wrote this two years ago.

[sokikuro]

Just Hanging

Word count: 2665

The moon hung low and bright, bathing the world in its silver light. They swayed rhythmically to the uncanny beat of the earth, their bodies pressed together intimately, only their mouths were separated by a hair's breadth of distance and the air friction was the only force to hinder their otherwise eternal dance.

“Well, now I know how sardines are feeling.”

“Oh, very clever. S-sardines because of the net. I get it.” Kaito tried to sound sarcastic but probably failed miserably. His slight hysteric laugh at the end didn’t help either he guessed. He tried to clear his throat but it was rather hard in the position they were in. So he closed his eyes from the blurry image of a pair of blue ones belonging to one decidedly unimpressed Kudo Shinichi to get his Poker face back on track and took small, even breaths through his nose, focusing on just himself for a short moment. He needed to calm down if he wanted to turn their situation into his favor.

“It’s an experience you called upon yourself my dear Meitantei-san,” he tried again, hoping that his critic would forgive his earlier slip under these circumstances. He was, after all, basically caught, something that would never have happened to either of his parents. He could already hear his mother's merciless teasing.

What was he thinking? He was not caught. This just happened to be a minor setback. Nothing he couldn't handle, really.

He hoped that the detective would chalk up his little, tiny, not really worth to mention not quite loss of character up to exactly those thoughts, though.

“Smooth.” Of course he wouldn’t simply ignore it, considering he always was unforgiving towards his slips no matter how small and insignificant they have been to his overall scheme. “And it’s your trap.”

“You activated it.”

“You dodged.”

“Have you ever been hit by one of your cursed soccer balls?” Aggravating the detective probably wasn't a good move to reach his goal but he just somehow failed to take hold of the serenity that was, without a doubt, essential for someone like him.

Forget teasing, his mother would be scolding him in her uncanny way of not actually scolding him, talking in riddles and not just using double but triple meanings, so that no one that could possibly overhear could make a connection, especially a loudmouthed inspector and his violent but cute daughter.

Kaito was ripped from his short musing when he felt a silent, long drawn exhale against his lips, sending an unpleasant shiver down his spine. “Why would you even put that net there?”

“Why do you always appear on my roofs?” This time he had his voice completely under control and gave it a dash of mocking for good measure. Kaito flinched immediately, not being able to suppress the reflex caused by getting suddenly pinched in his thigh. “Someone is forward.”

“Someone went straight to bondage.” The detective answered in the same mocking tone.

“At least I didn’t plan on starting with chains.”

Silence followed the slight outburst. The swinging motion was slowly coming to an end but they started to spin a bit more around their axis, the movement not strong enough to cause them vertigo - at least for him, he wasn't quite sure about the detective, he hoped though, otherwise this would become a lot more unpleasant - and disgusting.

Kaito got aware that he digressed from his main problem and so breathed in deeply. He tried to clear his mind of unnecessary thoughts and focus on an escape plan while he strained his ears to pick up on any noises not their own. His traps could entertain his task force for only so long and he was pretty sure that he has seen Hakuba lurking around.

He exhaled slowly. If only his hands were free. A bit room for movement would also be nice, he hadn’t thought this through if he even had been thinking at all at the time. Why did he dodge this way? He needed to train on his reactions and reflexes a bit more, Aoko was due for a good teasing anyway and maybe he would even present her with some kind of long range missiles (the mop was getting boring, he could dodge that in his sleep by now, not that he wanted to test that theory).

The detective made a small wiggling motion, tilting his head a fraction, presumably to get a bit more comfortable. It simply reminded Kaito of just how close they were, made him aware of the warmth seeping into him, of a calm beating heart not his own.

A detective never should have been able to get this close to him and now here he was, stuck in a net with the smartest of them all.

Who actually owed him quite a lot. (Letting him go now and then could hardly count as a fair trade-off.)

And had his hands free. (Somewhat. More than him at any rate.)

And usually was quite reasonable. (Not like that prick Hakuba.)

And honestly was his biggest fan. (No matter how much the detective denied it.)

"Chocolate.” The simple word, ringing loud after their silence, sliced through his thought process, thankfully, he knew that he had started to go off track again.

“What?” The detective should be able to reach is back pocket that luckily contained the small stripe of metal which he had needed for his earlier trick. It should be sharp and sturdy enough to cut the net just behind his back, freeing them.

Or maybe he could even reach his card gun if he managed to get a bit more room between them. Way more effective-

“You smell like you took a chocolate bath.”

“Nothing wrong with chocolate,” answered Kaito absentmindedly. After a moment the conversation caught up with him and he mentally shook himself, his instincts screaming at him to not give anything about himself away. Why was it so hard to concentrate today? He normally had no trouble to think up a plan while holding a casual conversation full of deflections and misdirection.

“So you took a chocolate bath?” The detective sounded disbelieving, almost disgusted.

“No.” Kaito pronounced the word carefully a part of him still confused about his lack of concentration while the other part desperately tried to hide just that. “That would be too much of a waste and I don’t want to imagine the cleanup. Come to think of it-“ A slight jab to his thigh cut his grand vision and rambling off before he could talk himself into an embarrassment. He really had to get a hold on himself, and fast. The blood rushing to his head, due to gravity's merciless pull, would soon hinder his thinking even more. At least the spinning came to an overall halt as well.

“Do you live on anything else?”

Kaito raised a brow, getting slightly annoyed by the constant distraction (at himself for needing it to stop his mind from wandering to countless places, which, actually, was his norm but he usually had a perfect handle on his multitude of thoughts, not like now), nevertheless his voice sounded cheerful as he answered. “The chase.”

Another jab to his thigh. This was getting old fast. “I wonder what will do you in first.”

“Aww, is my dear Meitantei-san worried about me? How touching~”

“Idiot.” And another pinch followed. Of course. “I’m just making observations you stupid thief.”

“Why do you always have to be so violent?”

“Must be your charm. I know around fifty people that want to punch you at least once – and those are only the pacifist ones.”

Rude. Everyone loved him. Then again, he had read somewhere, that people tend to turn violent towards beings that are way too cute for their own good, for whatever reason he found incomprehensible (sometimes evolution just sucked), and he was cute, specifically if he dressed up as women, who were always cute no matter what, even if they were homicidal witches with an ego problem.

Where was he?

“Or you just don’t know how to express your feelings.” For a moment everything was still and then Kaito gritted his teeth. “Would you stop doing that?”

"You're a moron. Not everyone is as repressed as you are.” He pronounced the words almost biting, emphasizing every odd word with yet another stab in his thigh. He would end with a big bruise for sure.

“You are the one who can’t stop touching me.” What was he doing? He had no time for this. Was the detective trying to delay him deliberately? He had to be, there was no other reason for him to act this way when they were trapped in a net like, like those f-finny things. In that moment, after all he had been through for this detective, Kaito felt betrayed. He knew that they weren’t friends, they couldn’t ever be, but he had thought that they shared a mutual understanding and enjoyed each other’s presence. He loved having his favorite critic crashing his heists. What if said detective has gotten bored of his shows and antics? The thought felt like a slap to the face, a slap his brain proved unwilling to process.

"Only because you're wasting time arguing instead of freeing us!"

Wait.

"It's been what? Five minutes?"

What? "As good as I am at impersonating him, I don't have Tantei-san's supernatural time-knowing-skill." His voice sounded dead in his ears. He felt numb, barley registering the long-drawn pain from his thigh or his own words.

"Whatever!" The detective sounded aggravated, and maybe a bit... worried? "Get us out of your stupid trap or do you want to get caught like this? Which, by the way, would greatly lower my opinion of you. Caught by your own stupid trap. That's not how I want to catch you, you stupid thief. Now do something!"

Oh. OH.

The numb feeling wasn't completely gone but Kaito could feel relief and a tad embarrassment wash over him. His body, stiff and taut until now, slowly relaxed and it was then that he noticed just how on edge he really has been, how much he has slipped. Why was he always such a mess around this detective, unable to fully keep a hold on his Kaito Kid persona? One way or another Kuroba Kaito always peeked through. And yet-

"I was trying to get up with an escape plan, but someone kept interrupting me." He injected every ounce of gratitude he felt into his words, strangely not feeling like a total sap.

"Could have fooled me. I was starting to think you like having me close and couldn't bear to separate." The detective smirked tauntingly. At least Kaito thought he did.

"Which self-respecting criminal would want to have you close?" A beat of silence. "No. Don't answer that. I don't want to know."

"Moron." The word was merely a sigh. "Can we get to the part of your great escape now? Or do you actually want to get caught because you couldn't stop flirting with a detective in time?"

Kaito's thoughts came to a screeching halt.

"My dear Meitantei-san, I'm sure it's not me doing the flirting but be assured that I am quite flattered." The detective turned red, he could feel the rise in temperature. A grin slowly stretched across his face. "No reason to be shy all of a sudden, in fact I seem to be in need of your boldness." To prove his point he curled his fingers slightly. His grin widened. The detective shivered against him, either he just found a sensitive spot or he was reacting to the change in mood. Both scenarios were kind of interesting, always good to know the weaknesses of his enemies no matter how small. The heart under his other palm quickened its beating.

"Don't." There was some form of hurt in the single utterance but Kid didn't care to interpret it, there were more pressing matters to attend to, so he simply hummed in response and curled his fingers a bit more. "Maybe I just should let them find us like this."

"Oh? But that would ruin our gentleman's game, wouldn't it not? And I clearly remember you saying that that simply wouldn't do. Not to mention, it just proofs that you little detectives can't outsmart me. What a shame that must be." His grin turned sharp. "Time is ticking, Meitantei-san, what shall it be?"

The muscles of the detective's stomach clenched under his hand and a low growl came from the direction of his throat. "Fine. Tell me what to do - Kid."

He dearly wanted to taunt him for giving in so easily, sadly he had no such time. "There is a stripe of metal in my right back pocket. Can you reach it?"

The detective hesitated for a split second before he moved his left hand carefully slow from his thigh to his pocket. "I knew that piece of metal looked out of place."

"Hm, too late for that now." Kid felt the detective turn even warmer while he traced his hand up his body.

"Wouldn't your card gun be more effective?" The hand reached his hip, mirroring his right counterpart.

Kid hummed thoughtfully. "I had the same thought, but I doubt we can move far enough apart so that you can reach my front, not to mention the risk of triggering a few of my probs."

"Or the possibility of me slicing your leg and gaining hard evidence against you." The detective mused moving his hand agonizingly slow towards his back pocket. "Why is the net so restricting?"

"True, and yet such an action would be beneath you." He let his voice drop into a sultry timbre. "After all, you want to have the pleasure of catching me in the act." The hand reached its goal but remained still. Kid waited a few heartbeats. "To hinder movement of course, which reduces the danger of the captive getting hurt or using dishonorable gadgets against unsuspecting, innocent thieves."

The detective snorted. "Of course." Finally, he shoved his hand down his pocket. "It also makes it impossible to see your face."

A bang could be heard in the distance. "My, my, you make it sound like I planned this." More banging. Kid supposed they had two to three minutes before the cavalry arrived. The grip on his hip tightened as the detective pulled out the metal. "Cut the net. You can't widen it by pulling but cutting it is really easy."

The detective did as he was told. "Everything you do is planned."

"What if I did?" Just a few more cuts and he could let himself fall out. "It happens to be an honest mistake, though."

"Not from you." The words were so silent, Kid almost missed them, he couldn't dwell on them since the detective continued louder. "Am I supposed to believe that? You could have dodged every other way instead of barreling into me. Doesn't seem very smart to run along the exact same line as the thing you're running away from."

"I only hear you complain about my actions in general, not about our situation, in fact, you are obviously enjoying it." He splayed his hands against the detective's torso. "My deepest apology for having to end it."

Kid let himself fall out the hole, pushing against the detective, losing his hat in the process, reflexively he activated one of his flash bombs, landing awkwardly on his lower back with enough momentum to roll to his feet. Behind him the detective had started to curse. He ignored it and simply acknowledged the arrival of his beloved task force by throwing a smoke bomb to hinder their vision and mask his escape, only after jumping down the roof and activating his hang glider did he finally open his eyes.

Kid could feel the piercing gaze of his favorite detective following him and enjoyed every second of it.

[lisatelramor]

Lay In the Atmosphere Ch1

So as I was writing Not Left To Stand Alone, the idea for this fic, with Kaito's history with the Kudos, was nagging at the back of my brain and the second I was done writing the bulk of NLTSA, I was writing this fic. ^_^;;; Which... emotional whiplash as NLTSA ends on happy notes and this is ANGST-DEPRESSION-TEARS for Kaito. >_> I mean it's not 100% angst, but let's be real, most of this is a grief and anxiety spiral mixed with shit life choices that Kaito eventually manages to drag himself out of.  That said, if you haven't read NLTSA this should stand well enough on its own as a separate story.

I was listening to Panic at the Disco almost nonstop when I was writing this so the title comes from “A Casual Affair” which is kind of ironic since Kaito, Shinichi and Ran don’t do casual anything. ^_^;; A more fitting piece of music for this fic is “Smoke and Mirrors” by Imagine Dragons, but that could just be my current music binge talking. :P Hop on the angst train, guys, hope you enjoy sadness catharsis and bittersweet ends since this fic is Kaito at a very low point in his life.

Chapter 1

Kaito shuffled a deck of cards absently as he and Jii leaned over a map. It was covered with Kaito’s notes and annotations about guard shifts, traps, and escape routes. “I think that about covers it,” Kaito said. “It’s only a small role you’ll be playing this time, Jii-chan.” He flashed his assistant a grin, “You shouldn’t have to worry about anything tripping up those bad knees of yours.”

“My knees are perfectly fine, Kaito-sama,” Jii said with a sniff. He was older, much older than when Kaito first met him, and he’d looked old then. His gray hair was going mostly white now, what little he still had left of it, his glasses that much thicker and his hands a bit more gnarled than before. He was still a capable magician in his own right though, keeping up with Kaito like he was half his actual age.

Still, Jii wasn’t getting any younger, and sometimes Kaito worried that he was asking too much. Ever since the divorce with Aoko, Kaito had been holding more heists again, and it was taking a toll on both of them. Kaito sat back with a sigh. “I think we’ll take a break after this one,” he said. “Rest a bit and do some research. Leave the police guessing. Work on some new gadgets to keep them on their toes.”

“Active resting,” Jii commented, amused.

“You know me, always doing something.” It was a joke, but it wasn’t; Kaito hadn’t rested much at all since Takumi was born, not even before then with school and Kid work, but especially not after Takumi. “Buuut, you should actually rest. You’ve been saying you wanted to go on vacation. Why not close up shop for a bit? Go to Okinawa and get that time on the beach, or heck, go to France for a few weeks.”

“I don’t know...” Jii gathered papers together, conflicted. “I couldn’t leave all the work to you to do. You should take a proper vacation too, Bocchama.”

Kaito was hardly as young as he used to be, but he couldn’t help a lopsided smile. He’d always be the ‘young master’ to Jii. “It’s fine. I’m not planning on doing much. Just scouring webpages. I promise that I won’t do any legwork until you’re back.”

Jii returned the smile. “Well, if you insist...perhaps a short vacation would be nice.”

“Of course it would. You’ve earned it.” The deck of cards fanned from one hand to another and vanished up Kaito’s sleeve. “We’ve earned it,” he corrected at Jii’s pointed glance. “I promise to do actual resting.”

“Perhaps take a real vacation of your own?” Jii said pointedly.

Kaito considered. How long had it been since he went somewhere just to relax? Since he didn’t have work or school or Kid or child-rearing? He drew a blank. That was probably Jii’s point. “If I take a vacation I don’t think I’d go anywhere, or not far. I don’t want to miss spending time with Takumi.”

“Then take him with you. A family vacation.”

“That could be fun.” Takumi camping or taking him to visit a zoo or to see the sights in Kyoto. Kaito could show him how to do coin tricks and do every fun thing he could think of that a child might enjoy for a week. Aoko would never go for it though, so it would never happen. Not a weeklong trip like he desperately wanted. Kaito shook his head. Maybe he’d just settle for taking Takumi to an amusement park sometime soon. Take Takumi and Momoi’s kid, Shiemi, since they got along so well, let them get hyped on sugar and run it all off between rides. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” Jii said. He smiled, the sort of proud, doting smile that always made Kaito wonder if this was what having a grandparent felt like. Probably not. Grandparents didn’t defer to you.

Kaito stretched. “Get some rest, Jii-chan, we’ll have a lot of work tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Kaito-bocchama.” Jii collected the notes into a neat pile to stash away in his office like so many other heist prep days before.

“Night, Jii-chan.” Another late night, another early morning, but nothing out of the norm for either of them. Kaito fixed tomorrow’s plans in his head one last time as he left. It had been a while since he pulled a supposed teleportation trick. They got harder every time he had to think up a new way to make one work. Thank goodness Jii was still quick as ever. The usual firm resolve solidified around the plan’s concept. He’d get it done. He always did.

***

The jewel-inset mirror in his hands felt abnormally heavy as Kaito raced through prepared retreat paths. His heart pounded overtime with adrenaline and the steely satisfaction of leaving Nakamori-keibu in the dust, cuffed with his own cuffs to a guard rail. “Jii, I have the mirror,” Kaito said, curt as he saved most of his breath for running. “Get yourself out.”

Ideally, Jii would already be on his escape since his role in the teleportation trick had ended, but knowing Jii he’d stuck around. He had the habit of doing it to make sure Kaito had someone watching his back, and it had helped Kaito more than once out of some bad scrapes over the years. There was an affirmative through the earpiece; Jii would take the north route while Kaito kept attention his way a little longer before he pulled his final vanishing act. Good.

Kaito dived down a stairwell leaving a smoke bomb bubbling thick blue smoke behind him. A slap of a hand on a trap trigger, and somewhere his dummy should be taking off, one more diversion.

The number of diversions he needed were ever increasing. There had been no gunshots during the heist proper this time, nor the time before that or the one before that either, and the gap had him feeling twitchy. It was usually every couple heists that there was some sign of the crows he attracted with his shiny displays. Nothing.

A face switch, clothes switch, quick change and makeup in record time for a young woman to emerge around a building and watch for a moment as the task force scrambled by a few minutes later, going straight in the direction Kaito had been headed.

There was a burst of static on the com. “Jii?” Kaito checked the mirror. The gem was dull in the moonlight and the faint neon light a short ways outside the alley Kaito hid in. Not Pandora. He slid it away again. There was another burst of static. Kaito glanced up just in time to see his dummy going down, perfectly silhouetted against the moon. The false glider made a V as it tipped straight down.

The crows or Nakamori? Kaito shivered. “Jii-chan?” Kaito tried again.

Nothing.

That didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong. Jii could be somewhere he couldn’t answer for fear of being caught. Or maybe he hadn’t heard—he was a bit hard of hearing in one ear...the ear that didn’t have the earpiece... Or maybe he’d been forced to drop the earpiece altogether for some reason.

Kaito clenched and unclenched his hands, staring back toward the route Jii would have taken.

He turned back.

No one paid any attention to a young woman dashing down the street—she wasn’t running away from the scene of the crime but toward it after all; Kid wouldn’t run back toward it and ruin his escape. Kaito was glad for the anonymity as he slipped past a few stray groups of officers doing rounds and circled around to Jii’s escape route. The north route had less bolt holes and twists than the path Kaito took, but Jii should have been plainclothes, back to being a seemingly frail old man. Even if the police stopped him, it wasn’t like they’d hold him. He wouldn’t have a mask and Kid was well known to be a young adult.

“Come on, Jii, where are you?” Kaito murmured under his breath. If Kaito was Jii and sure that he wasn’t needed anymore for the heist where would he...? Kaito ducked down an alley. Jii had a stiff knee and a lot lower stamina than Kaito. He wouldn’t have climbed, but he’d probably run until he found a good place to stop. This alley came out on a side street and there was another even narrower alley up ahead with a fence that was easy enough to put between him and a pursuer...

Kaito rounded the corner, inching past an over-full garbage can and froze. “...Jii...chan?” A shape was huddled at the end of the alley near the fence, on its side in almost a fetal position. Kaito took a step forward. “Jii—” He saw the blood. Too much blood. One more step and Kaito recognized the scarf, had given that scarf to Jii a month ago for his birthday, had joked about the four leaf clovers woven into it marked him as a Kuroba in all but blood. The clovers hadn’t brought Jii any luck as part of his face was missing where the bullet must have exited. Kaito’s stomach clenched.

Jii. Jii was on the ground, broken, bleeding. Dimly, Kaito guessed he’d been climbing the fence. When he was hit. The earpiece had fallen out, blood-soaked now. The shot and the fall the bursts of static? Or had Jii realized...? Kaito reached for him—to check what he already knew, move him, cover his face, Kaito wasn’t sure—but as he bent a shot cracked just past his head into the concrete wall beside them.

He dropped on instinct. Jii three feet away, but bullets. But Jii. Kaito bit his lip hard enough to bleed. Another shot made the choice for him, sending him back out of the alley and its deadly narrow confines. Each footfall was a reverberation in him, ache spreading out from his chest like he’d been the one to get shot, throbbing like a bruise. Beat-beat-beat and Jii left behind him.

The alleys and roads were a blur, indistinct and unreal compared to the scene by the fence and yet so sharp in focus Kaito could remember the glint of broken glass on the pavement like dozens of knives and the cold press of metal searing into his palm when he ducked past a fire escape to get to another bolt hole and change identity again.

Nothing from the earpiece, broken, nothing to receive.

Kaito was a middle aged business man when he got back to his neighborhood, inconspicuous. Another person walking home. Another person possibly drunk. He didn’t need to affect his stagger. Each step was heavier the closer he got to his own door.

Change to himself, go home, hide the mirror, check the phone for messages on automatic because maybe Kaa-san or Jii—

Feed the doves. Sit in his childhood bedroom come home again.

Kaito sat and stared at the same walls he’d stared at the night after meeting Jii years ago. On his desk was a note about looking into vacation spots. If Kaito stared at them long enough, maybe it would all prove to be a bad dream and Jii would still be planning a trip south and Kaito would call Aoko and make a bargain to get Takumi an extra night so they could have an adventure.

The moon was still bright and silver out the window. Light enough that it could reveal anything, even what you didn’t want to know.

Kaito wanted to believe Jii was okay. That he’d walk around the corner any moment and apologize for making Kaito worry. But death was a lesson learned young.

—Kaa-san with her hand across his eyes, “Don’t look, Kaito, don’t look,” the impression of a fireball burned into his retinas as tears dripped down his face without him knowing why, yet, just that something was terribly wrong—

Kaito touched his cheek. It was dry. Funny. It felt like he was crying inside.

On the desk, his phone buzzed. He didn’t remember putting it there, but the body would follow routine when on automatic. It showed Aoko’s number. Kaito watched it ring, the phone buzzing and buzzing before it rolled over into voicemail. A minute later it buzzed again with an incoming text message.

The thought of talking to Aoko right now was too much. Kaito left the phone buzzing and headed to the bathroom, stripping out of his clothes and stepping under water as hot as he could bear it. Its sting left his skin red and aching.

If he’d been faster...no, Jii would still be dead. If he’d pressed Jii to go on vacation sooner... If he hadn’t gone with a doppelganger teleportation plan. If Jii had been safe at home tonight. If, if, if. He looked like he had a full body sunburn by the time he shut off the water. It gurgled down the drain, chased by drips and drops as he stayed hunched over the shower knob. He hurt all over, inside and out now, and it wasn’t quite enough still.

Kaito left a trail of wet footprints back to his room, not bothering with a towel. Kaa-san was away. No one would care if he was naked because there was no one there to care. His phone showed several missed calls from Aoko and four texts.

Kaito, what the fuck. They just ID’d a body as Jii. What’s going on? Kaito closed his eyes. Jii... to be found be some unknown person like that... Kaito wished he could have taken him from that alley. But then what? He looked at the next message. Kaito? then, Pick up your phone dammit. The phone started ringing again as he held it. Kaito read the last message with a squirming feeling of guilt inside the numb grief and horror: You’d better not be dead too. The caller was Aoko again of course. He answered.

“Aoko.” There was a long silence on the other end. Kaito wasn’t sure what tone his voice had had.

Aoko let out a breath. “You’re not dead.”

“No.” That was Jii. Kaito wasn’t hurt at all for once.

“What happened?” Aoko demanded.

“I don’t know. He didn’t answer and I found him like that. Had to leave when someone shot at me.”

“...fuck.” There were goosebumps all over his arm and legs now. He ignored the cold, listening numbly for Aoko’s voice. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but they’re reviewing this as a mugging because Jii didn’t have a wallet on him. The only reason he was ID’d is because one of the officers that found him remembered him from seeing him around us over the years.”

“A mugging? With that angle of a shot? And high caliber rifle bullets?” Kaito said, disbelief leaking through the shock that had followed him from the scene of the crime. “Anyone with eyes could see he was climbing the fence when he was shot.”

“Look, I didn’t see the details, that’s just what I’ve heard.” Aoko was tense, upset. She had been close to Jii once too, even if since the divorce they cut contact.

“A cover up,” Kaito said. He could almost laugh because of course. Of course it would be covered up, swept under the rug and dismissed as quickly as possible. Kaito was willing to bet the case wouldn’t even last a month. Old anger curled through him at the unfairness. They took his father and now they took Jii and both of their deaths would be seen as chance happenings instead of the premeditated murder they were. “Dammit.”

“Was Jii at the heist tonight, Kaito?” Aoko asked. There was the cold, judging tone he had come to expect from her. The one that laid blame on his shoulders every time she spoke to him or looked his direction.

Kaito didn’t answer that question. Answer or no answer, it would damn him either way.

“Damn it Kaito,” Aoko said. “It’s not enough to just be you, but Jii?”

Kaito didn’t answer that either and for a while there was just Aoko’s ragged breaths over the line and Kaito’s controlled ones. The world was falling out from under him but he still had control over his body. He could walk out of here and in the path of a bus and die smiling if he felt like it, a convincing smile even as he couldn’t cry. Not tears that were his own anyway.

He licked his lips, mouth feeling dry, swallowing past the lump in his chest. “How soon do you think the body will be released?” It was Kaito who would arrange a funeral. Kaito who was the officiator of Jii’s will. Kaito who had been everything to Jii once he stepped up into his father’s shoes. It felt a bit like betraying Jii, worse than failure, that he was in this position now, stuck fulfilling these roles long before either of them thought he’d need to.

“I don’t know,” Aoko said. “Until they close the case. If they don’t find any leads or if someone is framed...”

“Okay.” He could handle this. He was an adult. Almost twenty-six. He could handle this and Jii’s loss. “Okay, thanks.”

“Kaito—” Aoko’s voice low and sharp with anger or a threat, he wasn’t sure, but he hung up on her anyway. She’d take that out on him some way later, probably when she dropped of Takumi on the weekend. If she dropped off Takumi on the weekend. Fuck.

Kaito scrubbed at his eyes.

Just...fuck.

Jii was dead and it was Kaito’s fault. There was no going back from this.

***

Jii left him everything. His business, his collection of magician paraphernalia, his house, his savings—everything. Kaito wasn’t sure what to think or feel about that. Jii’s body had been released only two weeks after his death when a supposed mugger turned himself in, pled guilty, and got a life sentence. Kaito looked into the mugger, but whatever they had on the guy to make him be a scapegoat, Kaito didn’t find it.

And now here he was, holding a memorial in Jii’s bar for him because his body was already cremated and he hadn’t left any specifications for his burial. There were frequent patrons drinking to Jii’s memory and old magician friends. Not Chikage. Kaito hadn’t been able to get ahold of his mother in the last few weeks. Of all the times for her to pull one of her radio silences, this was the worst moment for it. She should have been here. As Toichi’s wife, one of Jii’s older friends, she should have been here but she wasn’t and might not have even seen any of Kaito’s messages to know Jii was dead yet.

Alcohol burned down his throat. He’d poured himself a glass of Jii’s favorite whiskey to drink for him and hadn’t stopped drinking since the memorial started. It was a bad idea but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

There were two regulars—Ryousuke and Yuuta, both people Jii had been on first name basis with—in front of Jii’s memorial photo at the moment. They had offerings of alcohol and the mochi from a shop a few miles away Jii had loved.

There was something restless rising in Kaito, had been rising for the last few weeks since Jii’s death. He wanted to take a pool stick and shatter it.  Jump off a building and wait until last moment to deploy his glider. Bait the police and the organization on his tail until there was no room for thinking beyond what was needed for survival. There were two dozen half-planned heists on his desk in the hidden room at home. Kaito hadn’t slept much lately. The only time the restless feeling was quiet was when he was pushing his body in the small hours of the night, seeking out what he needed for the next heist, the next, the next, however many he had to do.

There’d been a moment where he wondered if it wasn’t better to quit. It got Oyaji killed, got Jii killed. It’d probably kill Kaito too. But that moment had passed quickly and it felt like there was even less reason to stop. They kept taking and taking and he’d have to be the one to stop them somehow. He had to.

The whiskey tasted like nothing. One more liquid swallowed down. At the door, Aoko and Takumi entered, dressed for a proper funeral instead of...this. Kaito swallowed again, though there was nothing in his mouth. “Hey.”

“Kaito,” Aoko said. She looked around the room and the people at various stages of drunkenness with a small frown. “This is...lively.”

“Yeah, well...” Kaito shrugged. He had let whoever showed up, show up. Some of them might only be there for the alcohol. He crouched down beside Takumi to give him a hug. Small arms hugged back. Takumi was six now, already so big, and getting bigger every time Kaito saw him. Aoko who lived with him every day probably didn’t notice little things like how Takumi’s hair was just shy of needing a haircut or how he’d gained a centimeter that month alone. “Hey. You doing okay?”

“Yeah.” Takumi settled back on his feet, glancing at the rest of the room. He’d been here before. Jii had a holiday party most years, and he’d babysat Takumi a lot, especially in the first few years. “Kaa-san said Jii-chan died.”

“Jii-chan did die,” Kaito said, heart heavy. Takumi was old enough to understand death, had been for a while. This was just his first encounter with it being someone he knew.

“Is he like Yuki?” Takumi asked, referring to one of Kaito’s doves that had died a few months ago. She’d died of old age and they had found her body in the dovecote when they went to feed the birds one morning. It had been a chance to talk about life and death. Kaito was glad they’d had that talk because Takumi was glancing around like he expected a body to roll off one of the pool tables.

“Not quite like Yuki,” Kaito said, “but he’s passed on like she did. There isn’t a body because it’s already been cremated—burned up.”

“Oh.” Takumi bit his lip and Kaito gave him another careful hug. He hadn’t drunk so much that he’d lost control of himself, but he’d had enough that Takumi needed his full concentration. “That doesn’t hurt right?”

“No, he was already dead.” Kaito glanced at Aoko, and from her expression, he guessed that this was something Takumi’d asked already and he was getting a second opinion on. “You can’t hurt anymore if you’re dead.”

“Oh,” Takumi said again.

“There’s a memorial if you want to say goodbye to Jii-chan,” Kaito said. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear from you. Ok?”

“Ok. I’m going to tell him I’ll miss him and I hope he’s happy wherever he is.”

Kaito forced a smile for Takumi and patted him on the head before Takumi marched toward the memorial with a determined look in his eye. That left Kaito with Aoko.

“He cried when he heard,” Aoko said.

“He loved Jii-chan,” Kaito said. Takumi was in front of the memorial, hands clapped together and his face screwed up like he was trying to will his prayer to reach Jii through sheer determination. It was uncomfortably similar to how Kaito used to stand in front of his father’s memorial as a kid, face screwed up as he promised he was working hard to be a magician.

“You’re drunk,” Aoko said, and Kaito realized she’d been studying him. Sober, he would have noticed immediately.

“I had a few drinks in Jii-chan’s memory,” Kaito said. “He ran a bar, Aoko, it’s how he’d have wanted it.”

“That doesn’t mean you should go get drunk.”

“Maybe you need a drink.”

Aoko glared at him.

Kaito held up his hands. “Fine. Stay sober.”

Aoko crossed her arms, clamped tight around her middle like she was holding herself together. “This shouldn’t have happened,” she muttered.

“No, it shouldn’t.”

“I know he was helping you,” she said, not looking at Kaito at all. “He’s the only one who could have been all these years.”

“I never denied it,” Kaito said tightly. His hands itched to fiddle with his cards or perhaps pour another drink. He settled for rolling the buttons on his cuffs between his fingers. Takumi’s serious expression had softened into something sadder. A bittersweet expression better fitting on an older face than a six year old’s.

“They killed him for it.”

“I know.”

“Like your father.”

“I know.”

“Like they’re trying to kill you.” Aoko gave him a pointed look.

Kaito hissed out a breath between clenched teeth. “I know, Aoko.”

“Hasn’t stopped you from throwing yourself head first into danger.”

“Who the hell else is going to do anything, Aoko? The police? You? The police just arrested a man for mugging Jii when anyone with eyes could see that wasn’t what happened. The police can’t stop a damn sniper from showing up at heists. The police have done jack shit in getting rid of any of the crows.”

“Oh, because committing crimes is vigilantism and everyone knows how effective that is,” Aoko said, scathing.

Kaito’s hands clenched into fists. He didn’t want to have this argument. Not again, and not here. “Drop it.”

“Kaito, Jii’s dead. How many more people are going to die before you’re satisfied?”

“Aoko, shut up,” Kaito said, teeth gritted.

“No. You’re out there on a grudge mission and who the hell is benefitting? Jii-chan was like a grandfather to you and he died for your damned selfishness. Who’s next Kaito? You? Me? My dad?”

“Dammit Aoko, not now!” Kaito’s throat hurt and he realized he’d just shouted. Everyone in the room was looking at them and he couldn’t grip his control at all in that moment. “This is a funeral,” he said, still loud, but not quite shouting, anger burning through him because couldn’t they just...just feel sad about losing Jii together for one moment? “If you’re going to get mad at me, you can leave.”

Aoko stared at him, and he realized this was one of the only times he’d raised his voice at her. Aoko yelled. Aoko was flashfire anger, outbursts that burned quick and died when she let that anger out. Kaito didn’t yell. Kaito tried not to ever yell at all even if he was angry, and he’d screwed up this time. In the mass of faces looking at them was Takumi, eyes wide with something a lot like fear. It hit like one of Aoko’s mop swings to the gut.

“Please,” Kaito tacked on, quiet again. “Not today.”

Aoko’s lips formed a tight line. “I’ll say what I need to say to Jii-chan and we’ll go.” She was across the room in a handful of strides and Takumi was still staring at Kaito like he’d never seen him before.

The other people in the room looked away, trying to pretend they hadn’t been staring and Kaito sat heavily in the closest chair.

It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before Aoko was marching back toward the door. Takumi trailed after her, hesitant.

“We’ll talk later, Kaito,” Aoko said to him before she left. When Kaito offered Takumi a hug, he held on to Aoko’s hand and didn’t accept it.

That was another blow to Kaito’s heart. He’d messed up bad. When the door closed, Kaito buried his face in his hands for a moment. “Fuck.” Years of trying to at least look like he and Aoko didn’t fight in front of Takumi, years of keeping his voice down and not escalating things and he’d fucked it all up in one moment.

Was it the alcohol or his own emotions betraying him? Both? His patience finally reaching a limit? Why didn’t matter, it had happened either way. “What am I supposed to do with this mess, Jii-chan?” he mumbled to himself. Around him the funeral was continuing, people moving on from his family’s outburst and returning to celebrating Jii’s life.

Well, Kaito had already fucked up and he was already halfway to drunk. He might as well bury himself deeper. Kaito poured himself a new glass and forced himself to mingle with the other people. Jii would want to be celebrated so Kaito was damn well going to try.

***

Kaito gripped the toilet as his body did its best to physically remove his stomach via his esophagus. The alcohol burned twice as bad coming up as it had going down and left an even worse taste on his tongue. Ugh. He hadn’t had this bad of a hangover since... since maybe forever. Kaito hadn’t even drank that much at his own wedding. Ugh. Never again. He wasn’t touching alcohol ever again. Sorry, Jii, all of it went to paying customers only. Kaito would leave a bottle on his memorial instead of drinking a glass in his memory...

Ugh.

It would be bad enough to be glued to the toilet with his insides roiling, but Kaito’s conscience was nagging at him too. He’d been drunk when he argued with Aoko last night, but not so drunk that he didn’t remember Takumi’s fear or rejection. Fuck. Kaito was the worst father. He’d scared his kid and lost his temper and for what? Getting shitfaced in an ill-advised moment of trying to forget he existed? He deserved each and every moment of agony he was experiencing.

What had he been thinking?

Kaito had work in an hour. Work and then he had to take Jii’s ashes to his family grave. Kaito wiped his mouth as his stomach twisted again. No vomiting this time. Just a steady nauseated ache that filled his whole body. Tomorrow he was supposed to have Takumi for the day. He’d planned to take the day off work and spend it with his son at the zoo or something, following Jii’s advice to take a break back when they were planning a vacation. Kaito had put in the request for the day off and everything, but it was kind of hollow now. There was still the opportunity to make up for scaring Takumi. Put on his happy mask and do fun things and make Takumi laugh because hearing his laughter always made Kaito feel lighter inside.

He could fix this screw up even if—

Kaito shoved away from the toilet, flushing its contents like it would erase the last half hour from happening. Move, he had to move, get dressed, drink water and get out the door. Don’t linger in the kitchen with its unwashed dishes and the table where he’d laid out dozens of heist plans over the years. Don’t linger on the urn in his bedroom. Don’t linger on the new set of keys or paperwork to be filled out or any of the other official odds and ends that had been dumped on him. Definitely don’t linger on the photo hanging in the hall of Jii and Kaito and Aoko at Kaito’s wedding.

Somehow Kaito made it out the door and to work without being late. The glass of water had had middling success of staying down and the pill he took to counteract the headache only soured his stomach more, but he made it. Another day at work, another day his coworkers couldn’t see him hanging on to his sanity by the skin of his teeth.

He forgot to pack a lunch, but then he wasn’t really hungry anyway.

***

There were three heist plans spread across the table, all of them for the next month. He’d planned to have a break, but now it felt like if he stopped even for a moment, life would shatter apart at the edges. Takumi hadn’t come over on the weekend—Aoko said he didn’t want to come that week, and Takumi had agreed when Kaito asked to talk to him, and this wasn’t the first time this had ever happened, but for it to happen now... So no Takumi and still no Kaa-san around the house and too much time and space to himself just like in high school, Kaito had to fill it with something.

All of the heists were ones he’d started compiling information on a while ago, things Jii had gathered preliminary information on. Now Kaito would have to do all the legwork and research himself. This was fine. This was fine, he could handle it. The first was at the museum and he knew it so well by now that he could plan an exit at any point in the building in his sleep at this point. And the other two were owned by collectors and he’d been chipping away at figuring out the defenses on those for a while. There hadn’t been any callouts from Jiroukichi in a while so he should keep an eye out for challenges soon as that would be on schedule any time now...

Kaito lost himself in minutia, going over things with a fine toothed comb and composing the first of his heist notes bit by bit.

It was easy to lose track of time in Kid’s hidden room. Especially when there was no one there to drag him away from work.

Kaito wasn’t getting much sleep these days.

***

He’d said he wasn’t going to touch alcohol again, but that was a lie. Funny thing about being left a bar; there sure was a lot of alcohol in it. Jii’s whiskey glinted golden in the light, one light in the back because the bar was closed. Just Kaito and a bottle of imported whiskey and a heist note.

He needed to hire someone to run the bar. For now it made a nice place to be when he didn’t want to go home. The back room smelled like Jii—cigars and cologne and a particular brand of aftershave all mixed into one scent that lingered. Jii’d lived out of that back room. The bar was a home and a business and the back room was testament to it with its shelves of collector items and Jii’s futon folded away in the closet and his scent seeped into the tatami. The bar was Western, but the back room was Japanese. Jii’d served them tea under a kotatsu in the corner, peeling tangerines and plotting new magic tricks.

The room spun a bit as Kaito sat up from the floor. He didn’t remember lying down, but he must have at some point. There was the heist note. The note he meant to do something with tonight. Send it?

He used a children’s substitution cipher, worked it into a poetic format that read like a nonsense poem until you pieced its clues together. It mentioned blackbirds. Would anyone notice the significance? Would anyone care if they did? The police didn’t catch his watchers often. They were like literal shadows sometimes, more slippery than Kaito as Kid when they sent out the snipers, the professionals, the assassins, not just the run of the mill thugs.

The golden whiskey—no, it was amber, wasn’t whiskey always amber? Kaito couldn’t decide if that mattered or not—caught the light one last time before it slid down his throat. Gone. (More in the bottle, but—) Kaito set the glass down hard enough to smack over the bottle. It had its cap on though, nothing spilled, wow didn’t want to spill Jii’s whiskey. The room went a bit hazy on the edges, tilting as Kaito stood, or no, that was him tilting and he had better muscle control than that.

Steady. In control. His hands didn’t shake, his body didn’t waver. Deliver the note.

To who? Nakamori—no, too loud, bad choice. Not Aoko. Couldn’t be Aoko, Kaito couldn’t be around Aoko that would hurt worse and if he hurt worse—not Aoko. The owner? Too far, trains weren’t running this late. Maybe the paper, but the paper was last note and there was such a thing as too predictable and maybe he should choose a police member... Kudo! Kaito grinned, wavered in place a moment. Kudo hadn’t been to the last few heists and that wasn’t right, Kudo saw things better and he noticed the shadows even if Nakamori didn’t and Kudo still owed him for helping take out the crime organization a few years back. Give Kudo a note and he had to come and that would make the heist harder, but that just meant Kaito would have to work harder and working harder meant less time feeling and Kaito wanted that even if it was too hazy right now to pinpoint why—

Jii.

Kaito frowned. The room was empty, just a light and a bottle and a glass and Kaito. It smelled like Jii and whiskey where Kaito spilled a bit pouring, though that was his sleeve not the room. Jii wasn’t there and Kaito was alone. His throat went tight and his hands went clammy and the room spun in a way that wasn’t from the alcoholic haze in his head.

Note. Note to Kudo and then home, sleep, work, heist.

Jii’s bar was closer to Beika than Kaito’s home. It was closer, but by the time he reached the Kudo manor, his head was a bit clearer, enough to wonder what the hell he was doing, but not so clear as to change his mind and back out.

Even drunk it wasn’t hard to avoid Kudo’s surveillance cameras. Kaito had visited before, a few times, all the way back in high school, and while the security was better than back then, it wasn’t that much better. A light’s on in the study, and another upstairs. Kaito perched outside a second-floor window, glimpsing Kudo Ran in a night-light lit hallway pacing back and forth with a child in her arms.

Kudo had a daughter. Kaito’d forgotten that, but there she was, still a toddler, so little that it hurt to look at her because it brought up all sorts of memories. That had been Kaito once. Kaito, pacing with a crying Takumi, woken up by nightmares and Aoko living in the police dorms during her training so there had only been Kaito to hold him. Whispered words and hummed songs, little silly stories and soft reassurances in the dark until Takumi had calmed and slept again. Long, achingly exhausting nights that Kaito sometimes wished he could live again because for all that it had been hellishly difficult, it had been happier too. Simpler. Ran’s lips moved and Kaito could make out syllables of a lullaby.

He tore himself away, moving to the next window and the next with a clumsiness he blamed on the alcohol, then back down toward the glow of the study.

Kudo sat at a large wooden desk, paperwork strewn in front of him. Not that anything was getting done. Kudo kept starting to write then stopping and glancing at the door. If he wanted to check on his daughter, he should just check on his daughter.

Kaito fiddled with a pen in his pocket, filled with the urge to add a personal note to the heist note. Kudo should know not to waste what he had. If it was Kaito he’d—

Kaito flattened himself to the wall as Kudo glanced up at the window. The light inside would make it hard to see anything outside, but the mirror effect meant nothing if Kaito was all but pressing his face against the glass.

Kudo stared for a minute before shaking his head. He rubbed at his eyes with the weariness of a man that didn’t get near enough sleep as he should. Kaito knew the feeling well.

Go, Kaito thought. Go to Ran-san. Lo and behold, Kudo did, giving his work a last look of distaste.

The light in the study went dark. It took a matter of seconds to get the window open and land amidst Kudo’s stacks of papers. Kaito staggered a bit on the landing, the room spinning a bit. Still drunk. The papers on the desk were gibberish until Kaito’s brain clicked and the writing resolved itself into English. English case files? He could pick out the words, but the meaning wasn’t forming a whole. Kaito gave up snooping and set the heist notice in the middle of Kudo’s desk where he’d be sure to find it when he went to do paperwork tomorrow morning.

Kaito always thought Kudo would be neater than this. Files, files everywhere, with an organization system only Kudo would know. They’d tell him what Kudo was up to now, but it wouldn’t give Kaito any information he could use. He tiptoed around them, back out the window and into the dark. He should leave now. Instead, Kaito climbed upward again.

Ran was still in the hall with the night light, but Kudo was there too, arms around her and gently running a hand over his daughter’s hair. Kaito ached inside alongside a bitter twist of jealousy. Stupid brain, he had no right to be jealous when he ruined things himself. But Ran forgave Kudo. Why couldn’t Aoko forgive me?

His hands hurt, clenched tight on the window frame. No wonder Kudo hadn’t been to many heists lately. He had this to come home to. This to protect. He didn’t need the distraction of Kid heists like he did once. Didn’t need the danger they could bring either.

Kaito could climb back down and take his note back, plant it somewhere else.

But Kudo dealt with murderers and Kid’s heists were no more dangerous than Kudo’s daily life most of the time.

If Kaito opened the window, waited for Kudo to let Ran put their daughter to bed, waited for him to turn and walk down the hall and find Kaito there, how would he react? With fear? Block off his wife and child and stand defensive in the hallway? Or would it be like in years past, when Kaito had time to bother him more? Would he roll his eyes and complain after that first tense moment of anticipation? Kaito’s hands itched to open the window, to see if Kudo saw Kaito as a threat or not. To see what would happen simply for the sake of curiosity.

He shifted in his perch and—slipped. He was falling before the sensation registered as falling, a beat too late to stop. Only muscle memory had his arm flinging out and catching a thin tree branch to slow the fall. It broke with a sharp crack, wrenching his arm and leaving him to smack face first into Kudo’s azalea bushes.

“Owww....” He hadn’t done something that clumsy since high school when he was constantly flying by the seat of his pants.

Upstairs, the window opened. Kaito flattened himself against the wall.

“...No, I don’t see anything. Maybe a tanuki?” Kudo’s voice said.

Adrenaline pushed the last of the alcohol haze away. Wait...wait... The window closed. Kaito dashed for the walls and was over them in record time. He was two blocks away before he realized he’d taken the tree branch with him. He left it at the next trash site he ran across.

Yet again, Kaito vowed not to drink that much anymore.

***

Normally Kaito felt at least a bit of a rush from heists. Even the ones he was least excited about brought on the adrenaline rush of a performance, the thrill of having eyes on him that would always happen because he was a performer at heart. Since Aoko joined the grunts in the Kid task force, though, that rush hadn’t been as sharp. Since Jii’s death, well, Kaito wasn’t feeling much of a rush at all.

There was still a flow of emotions animating his movements under his skin, but it wasn’t a performer’s high where everything came together in the moment. No, it was closer to desperation and the chilling certainty that he was always dancing on a knife’s edge these days. With Aoko, with Kid’s goals, with his own sanity.

His cape billowed white around him, snapping in the wind. Rooftops felt a bit like freedom. Jumping from them felt a bit like absolution.

Kudo stared him down, there before Nakamori or Aoko, one step ahead as always. That, at least, Kaito could rely on. He’d take what little slices of normality his life could get.

“I see you accepted my invitation,” Kaito said, pulling his hat at a better angle to shade his face.

“Considering you broke into my home to leave it...” Kudo said, trailing off as he narrowed his eyes. “What’s your game this time, Kid?”

“Game?” Kaito smiled. It was easier to smile with Kudo right there, easier to play the part when he had a foil to work against. “Can’t I just miss having you chase me? It’s been, what? Over half a year? You’d think I wasn’t your favorite thief anymore.”

Kudo huffed. “Kid, I work homicides.”

“Then this is like a vacation. With less bodies. Your vacations always end up bloody.”

For a moment Kaito thought he would get a smile from Kudo, but he got an eye roll instead. Pity. Kudo had a sense of humor unlike some other detectives Kaito knew. “Give the gem back, Kid,” Kudo said, one hand held out like he thought Kaito would comply. Oh such optimism. There was open air behind Kaito’s back and even with the search lights combing the wrong direction, there was nothing stopping him from jumping.

“Has that ever worked in all the time you’ve known me?” Kaito said.

“Mm, if you feel threatened enough.”

“You’re not chibi Inspector Gadget anymore; somehow you were more threatening a meter high with a soccer ball.”

That did get a flicker of a smile. Good. Good, something bright to spark a bit more life into the hollow thrill. Kudo had a gun. He didn’t aim it in Kaito’s direction though. Instead he...pointed? “Who says I don’t have any more gadgets, Kid?”

Kaito’s eyes widened as there was a flicker of something— He fell backward off the roof before whatever it was could hit, activating the glider. That had been too easy. What was the catch? The air caught, jerking him from a plummet into a glide. Kudo was left standing on the edge of the roof, watching. No further attacks, no gunshot-cracks or stinging pain from a glancing blow. Far below police lights flashed blue and red in little clusters, lost to his misdirection. Their lights didn’t touch him here, and the bit of him wound tight since the start of the heist uncoiled. Kaito exhaled slowly, letting lingering tension leave his body.

Exhaustion creeped at the edges of his consciousness, but for now it was ignorable. Just fly a bit more, change to something less noticeable, and get home.

Halfway to his rest point, Kaito noticed a small white object on his sleeve, almost unnoticeable except that it was a shade too bright compared to his suit. A tracker, tiny and intricately made, and something that had to be Agasa’s work. Ha. Kudo almost had him there... Kaito made sure to slip it onto a neighborhood cat collar when he changed clothes; they liked to linger near a convenience store a block away and would lead Kudo on a frustrating chase.

***

Aoko was up late again, nursing a cup of coffee from what Kaito could tell from his vantage point. Doing paperwork, writing reports, some of them probably relating to the third heist he’d pulled this month. Kaito could almost feel the beat-up wooden kitchen table under his fingertips and smell the sour scent of coffee brewed too dark too long. Aoko would have her hair pulled back and the tired frown between her eyes and her free hand tapping away as she tried to put things into objective, unemotional accounts. Kaito used to sit across from her and see her get closer and closer to boiling over before doing something little, like a shoulder rub or refreshing her coffee with something better for her to get the persistent frown to melt away into a tired smile. There was no one to do that now.

Takumi slept upstairs, had been asleep for several hours now. He came over to Kaito’s home over the weekend, but he had spent most of his time with Kaito’s birds and none of Kaito’s attempts to engage him in things that would normally brighten his day had worked.

This wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened. Kaito knew that it was hard on Takumi whenever Aoko and Kaito were more at odds than usual but... It still hurt.

It felt like he was missing all the important things in Takumi’s life. He was in first grade, and his best friends were Momoi Shiemi and Fujitaka Gen, and right now Takumi loved frogs and sentai shows and anything he could learn on animal origami. Last year it had been kites and things that flew and Kaito had helped him make a giant kite in the shape of a penguin because Takumi had insisted that penguins should get to fly.  But Kaito didn’t see the day to day. He didn’t see Takumi get excited on the first day of school or when he made a new friend. He didn’t see him come home every day and hear what he thought about each new thing he learned. Kaito heard it after the fact, on weekends when Takumi would rather draw pictures or go to the park or practice simple magic tricks than talk about things like school.

It was Kaito’s own fault he didn’t have that and life never stopped shoving it back in his face.

At the kitchen table, Aoko made an unhappy face at the taste of cold coffee. That was Kaito’s cue to leave. He could only get away with looking so long. Somehow, eventually, Aoko would notice and she’d be mad.

Sometimes Kaito needed to see them breathing to know what was real though.

***

“I’m so sorry about Jii, Kaito. He was a good man...”

“He was so much more than that,” Kaito said into the phone cradled in his hands. A phone call, not even a video call, but a phone call. He couldn’t even see her face to see how much she meant it, though she had to mean it. Jii was important to Kaa-san too. “Where were you? Where are you, it’s been weeks—” He caught himself before his voice broke.

“I’m so so sorry, Kai-chan,” his mother said, voice soft like it was when he was little. It was too little too late to soothe him now though. “I should have called... My suitcase got lost and I only just got it back. I didn’t know. I didn’t know...”

Kaito stared up at him father’s painting, the side with Toichi, not Kid, and Kaito was almost as old as his father had been when he had Kaito.  A few more years and he’d have outlived him age wise. A small, unfair part of him wondered if she would notice if he was the one that died tomorrow, not Jii. Chikage had been globe-trotting for years now, this wasn’t anything new, just a bit longer than they usually were out of touch for, just... He wanted to cry, but there weren’t tears to do so, just a clogged up feeling in his throat and a tight chest like when he’d broken a rib and he’d been wrapped in bandages for weeks. He breathed and it didn’t show at all.

“...How are you holding up? Do you need me to come home?”

Yes, Kaito thought. Yes and Please and I need someone so much right now, but what came out of his mouth was, “No.” Kaito marveled at how calm it came out. “No, I’m fine. I’ll be fine. You’re busy doing...” She hadn’t said what she’d been doing this time, or where she’d been going that led to losing her suitcase. “You’re busy. I can handle things. I’ve been handling them. Jii left me the bar and I hired someone to run it. I was thinking about hiring Momoi Keiko—you remember Keiko?—to keep track of stock and finances...” In his spare time—ha—Kaito was looking into what it took to run a business and what he’d need to know to make sure the bar was running properly. He’d moved anything Kid related far from Jii’s place and he’d managed most of the other trying details that death left behind. Paperwork. Emotional weight. Kaito managed for the last twelve years well enough without his mother to turn to at all times, he could do this now. “I’m fine.”

Part of him hoped she’d insist on coming home anyway.

The rest of him wasn’t really surprised that by the end of the call he still didn’t know when she would be back home.

***

Blueprints and messily handwritten notes laid spread about the table. Kaito’s pencil tapped at an increasingly rapid tempo as he scowled at the executive office diagram. “It’s like they designed the room to be as restricted to get to as possible. Not only is it the top floor, it only has one window of bulletproof glass, and can only be accessed by a private elevator.” The CEO had recently obtained an ornate antique clock set with large gemstones at four quarters of the clock face, and of course he’d chosen to have it displayed in his office. An office that was ridiculously secure. The man had to be paranoid. Maybe justifiably paranoid if he’d risen to his position under suspicious means, but that wasn’t Kaito’s main concern.

“Ugh...” Tap-tap-taptap-taptaptap. “I could probably impersonate an employee to get in there, but that’s the first thing they’d be looking for. Maybe if I climbed the elevator shaft...? Jii, what do you—” The tapping died as Kaito froze, realizing his mistake. He stared blankly at the papers in front of him for a moment. “Shit. Right,” he said. “Right.”

The silence he’d momentarily forgotten felt too loud. The house was too big, the rooms too empty. There were photos of dead men on the walls in the hallway and all the decorations were chosen by a woman that spent less than a full month a year in the house. The pencil lead snapped under the pressure of Kaito’s hand.

“Right,” he repeated under his breath.

He clicked out a new length of lead.

It was harder to get back to work now that he’d remembered he was alone.

***

It felt a bit like when Takumi was a toddler; Aoko at the police dorms and Kaito juggling school, a baby, and Kid all at once. Only now it was Kaito juggling work, attempts at bonding with his son, and filling every spare hour he had with Kid until it felt like he was more Kid than Kaito. Kaito had loss and family struggles hanging over his head. Kid had targets and research and traps to funnel energy into and Kaito was funneling more energy into them than he had in the last five years.

If he held still too long, the world would catch up to him, so he kept going. Delved into gem trade records and museum collection records. Scrounged through rumors and imports and legends. He ran through blueprints and pieced together traps and smoke bombs and a new knock out gas. He constructed new tricks and practiced them until he saw them in his sleep. Mirrors, wires, speakers, training doves to go to new places and carry new things.

Kaito sent his attention in a dozen directions and felt each new task stretch him a little bit thinner. He was caught in the arc of shuffled cards but he didn’t know who held the deck or what card would come out on top.

He’d learned how to balance things, once. He knew how to take breaks and appreciate little moments and build relationships with coworkers and informants and what not. Kaito had learned to enjoy early mornings with cups of coffee and the sound of doves waking up in their roosts and the orange glow of the sun peeking over the horizon. There weren’t any of those moments now. He slept when his body gave out and he woke to the shrill of his phone alarm with enough time to get to work. The ate a lot of take away and instant meals when he remembered to eat at all, and it was only in the moments Takumi was there that time seemed to slow into anything resembling the calm he’d found.

It was better this way though. It was better because Kaito would rather keep busy, burn himself out, than find out what would happen if he stopped moving.