#when its just 2 dumb arrogant teen boys trying to poke each other with what hurts the most as much as possible

[stuffoverthechocolate]

I have motives for tying all of Hakuba's interactions/relationship to KID

Op pls saguru does that himself, CANONICALLY 😂😂 u should absolutely tie all of his interaction and relationships to KID. It would literally not make sense for u not to do so (even when he's trapped on an island, he's STILL thinking about KID, what excuse does he even have lmao)

Go on.

Well, so very glad you asked random stranger. I can only assume this means you're wanting to hear my other Hakuba opinions, and you're in luck because that's literally all the encouragement I need.

So I'm gonna keep this rant to my thoughts of Hakuba's second Detective Conan appearance- The Detective Koshien. Cause there are actually a few different points there that I think are noteworthy. And this is gonna dip more into speculation than my thoughts on the last one- just giving you a fair warning.

And I'll start with the dynamic displayed between Hattori and Hakuba, because damn is that interesting.

To begin with when these two meet each other, Hattori doesn't know who Hakuba is (despite Hakuba being famous enough that one of his cases in England got television coverage in Japan), but Hakuba knows who Hattori is (though he only admits to having heard about him from his father). I think this fact contributes a bit to Hakuba having a sense of superiority over Hattori for the rest of the case, just that general sense of 'I know something you don't'. Meanwhile on Hattori's side of the interaction he's riled up when Conan compares him to Hakuba, he doesn't know this guy that's trying to steal the Detective of the East role but something about his little buddy telling him that this guy and he are alike is just rubbing him the wrong way. But more on Hakuba- generally I get the feeling that the way he introduces himself in that case is his attempt to make friends with Hattori, in his own kinda socially awkward way. He takes follows up Conan's comparison and tries to point out their similarities. He brags about the number of cases he's solved to show that he's skilled, but makes sure to say a number smaller than Hattori's to not hurt the other's pride- even if he immeadietly steps on that consideration by pointing out that the number he gave was only for cases in Japan. What really seals the deal for me in terms of him trying to get along though is that when Hattori objects to Hakuba taking Shinichi's place as the 'Detective of the East' Hakuba actually concedes and suggests that Conan fill that role instead.

Then when the case actually gets started he's very by-the-books about it. Which is odd, because he doesn't really seem to be that much of a stickler for protocol any other time we see him. There are a few ways that could potentially taken; maybe it's the result of butting heads with Hattori (possible but until the case starts and their methods clash Hakuba doesn't seem to actually have anything against Hattori)... maybe he's just been retconned a bit to have another trait to differentiate him from others (possible, but not really necessary)- instead I prefer to think that perhaps this is how he normally treats cases, after all this is also the only time we see him on a case that Kid isn't involved with and unfortunately we probably won't get another example anytime soon. So if we run with that assumption then Hakuba is normally the rules lawyer of detectives, but something about Kid cases in particular have caused him to loosen up, whether that's because he felt like he was being looked down on the first time (being given the case by his father in an attempt to knock him down a peg) or if it's just because he very quickly realized that going by the books would make him far too predictable to ever be a threat to Kid, so he had to adapt. (This post isn't about Kid though it'll be long enough just talking about the detective Koshien, but I do ship HakuKai/SaguKai, so uh... yeah let the bias be known, I have motives for tying all of Hakuba's interactions/relationships back to Kid.)

Annnnywaaay.

Despite Hakuba and Hattori butting heads on how to go about doing things, they work together well. Sharing information and actually trusting each other pretty easily. Hakuba complains about Hattori's methods but it comes from a place of wanting to ensure that the case gets solved with as little margin for error as possible.

I'd also like to point out that Hakuba is actually shown to use a pocket notebook to write down details of the case such as times that different people left a room (Counted down to the millisecond), and a rough schematic of the building they're in. We often see Conan writing down codes and such, but this instance of someone having recorded detailed alibis and case notes is (as far as I remember at least) unique to Hakuba. Realistically this is just because it's good to have a tangible record of such things, but this also paints him as being somewhat paranoid to be keeping track of others alibis so closely just in case something happens. Additionally I like to headcanon that maybe he does this because his memory isn't as strong as some of the other detectives we see (both Shinichi and Hattori being shown to have eidetic memories), there's really no evidence for this aside from him having a notebook and others not but It's a headcanon I like to play with.

Last thing I really want to point out about this case is probably the most obvious one, but it still bears mentioning... and that is the conclusion that Hakuba jumped to. He figures out that someone in the group is stealing and with almost no evidence linking them to the murder assumes they did it. Purely because after so long chasing Kid Theif=Culprit in his head, and when this is pointed out to him he actually smiles, because he realizes that because he made that connection he got tunnel vision and behaved almost as recklessly as he'd scolded Hattori for. This one ties back to that bit before that I said about how I think Hakuba might take a by-the-books approach normally but something about Kid makes him abandon that because you can almost see him switch modes in the moment when Conan and Hattori both call him out. Annnnd that's probably enough for this ramble.