I know this isn't what people expected if I ever wrote a sequel to Naming Games, but it serves to explain what Saguru meant at the end of Naming Games, about his first childhood not being all that fun. Plus, if I ever write a full version of this concept, this character would be included in a minor role by his own demand, so you might as well get to know him.
Also, I'd just like the say now that despite what is said by the character here, I don't have anything against the French or the Welsh.
Saguru often kept quiet about his life back in England. People could easily infer that he had a mother there, so that wasn't really an issue, but he didn't want the topic of other potential family being brought up ever. This is because of one person he was closely related to. Not an uncle or aunt no one liked to talk about, not an embarrassing cousin. No, someone much closer than that.
A brother.
"Your kid identity is French? What happened to your pride, Ru? Even saying that you're Welsh would have been more acceptable." Elias Chamberlain, seventeen years old and more obnoxiously childish than even Kaito sometimes, sat across from his technical older brother, arms crossed. "I know you're legally an adult and you can make your own life choices, but someone should have stopped you! I know that Kuroba doesn't have that much sense, but someone should have stopped you!"
"The whole point is to not be noticed as being Hakuba Saguru, you twit! If it gets out that I'm still alive, I'll be in danger." Elias blinked, and then grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling.
"You're doing a bad job with that. I knew who you were the moment I laid eyes on you. Now, I knew it because of how Auntie was treating you, and I knew that she only ever treated my older brother like that, and since I have an admittedly small grasp on reality, it wasn't a huge stretch to me that you could be eight again. But more people could make that connection, so you have to change more. I once had to go undercover to spy on one of your dates, and I was so good at acting that you two never knew it was me." He looked so proud of himself as he said it, even though Saguru had known he was he waiter the entire time. "Take a tip from me. Changing your accent and acting a little more childish and dyeing your hair and dropping the Sherlock Holmes enthusiasm is not going to hide your identity as easily as you think. You have to be a full on actor the entire time, and unless the person you're with happens to be me, Auntie, or Kuroba, you can't break character. You have to craft a whole new identity, not Hakuba Saguru was extra faked qualities."
"Must I remind you that you regularly break character on stage? But I admit, you have a point. It's one I'm all too aware of, but one I'm still wary of applying. I don't want to loose track of my actual self, and be so caught up in this child identity that I may one day reach the point where I'll willingly wear the dress Kaito bought as a joke." Despite the saddened and annoyed tone of Saguru's words, Elias's eyes lit up.
"Dress? Are you saying you wore a dress?" He snickered, knowing he'd have to ask Kaito about that later. If he'd managed to get Saguru into a dress, he might be more willing to be friends with the guy. The idea would horrify Saguru if he brought it up now, since Elias would no doubt bring up some stories from their childhood, and only the most embarrassing.
"It will not happen again. Not on my watch. Kaito seems to think it's amusing, and I've come to assume that it's just his own form of petty revenge." Of all the people he could be staying with in this state, Kaito had to be the worst of them. He'd be much more happy and less paranoid staying with Baaya, but he had a reasonably good backstory with Kaito, and for him to suddenly decide to live with Bayaa would go against that back story. Maybe the occasional sleepover now that she knew his identity and had shown 'Samuel' a lot of attention, but he was stuck with Kaito until this was over or until he killed him. Which ever came first.
"For what? That Kaitou KID thing you keep ratting off whenever you talk to me over the phone? Really, isn't it a little too obvious, to the point where it wraps right back to being unreasonable?" Kaito and Saguru had come to the agreement that while Saguru knew Kaito was KID, he would not use that against him and in the event they started chasing each other again, Saguru would unmask him properly. That meant he couldn't use Kaito's admission, and tell Elias that he'd been right the entire time. But considering what he discovered the last time he'd gone to France, Saguru was reluctant to correct Elias anyways. "Who would take those odds, really? Though, I don't know that much about magicians, so maybe they gamble on those odds. Maybe I should become a magician and find out!" The horror. "But you'd have an entirely different problem there, little brother." Elias crossed his arms, discreetly pulling a flask out of his jacket, taking a sip, and stashing it back. Saguru chose to ignore this for once, in favour of the main issue at hand.
"I'm older than you by almost a year, Elias. My change in height doesn't change that." Saguru let it go unsaid that Elias was taller than him even when Saguru was at full height.
"Yeah, I always wondered about that eleven month difference." He cupped his chin and tapped his finger against his cheek. "Like, did mummy decide after only two months of ignoring you, she wanted to go through the entire process again so she'd have another child to ignore?" Their mother was a very strange person. Good at what she did, but strange all the same. Back when Elias was considering other careers instead of acting and nefarious villainy, he thought that one day he'd be writing detailed essays on the workings of his mother's mind. Mummy was unnerving in her choices. It was the identity of Elias's father and the scandal around it that made Saguru want to keep Elias a secret from those who knew him. It was only a matter of time before Kaito did a little digging out of curiosity and found out.
"Thank God that she had the foresight to hire Baaya. That's probably the only good she's done for us in her life." Saguru said loathsomely. Elias nodded in agreement.
"You especially benefited from her raising us. I could have done fine on my own, because I was manipulative and endearing and could get my way with a tilt of my head or a whine or a cry. But you wouldn't have survived until now had Auntie not been there to care for you. Hey, " Elias chuckled darkly. "Remember when you solved your first murder case? Five years old and labeled a smart, but creepy child for an entire decade. You terrified mummy, so she treated you harshly. She's lucky you decided to keep on the path of being a detective and didn't use your extensive knowledge of police work and forensics to, let's say, get back at her?"
"You're more likely to do that than me, Elias." Saguru replied back coolly. He got the labels and the lonely childhood, when it was Elias who deserved such haunts.
"Oh certainly. It would just raise too many questions, though I'd have a reasonable alibi if I did it now. Supposedly, I'm off in France, spending the school year at boarding school, and people have been paid off to not say otherwise. As much as I would have loved to have stayed in England, something came up." His friendly attitude dropped completely, and after all this time, he finally got down to business. "There's been talks of what Snake and his men did to you. Our rival organization is not happy that one of their products was sold on the black market, and there's been a lot of downgrading on their side, and attacks on our own."
"If left as is, Kaito and I may not even bother with trying to take them down ourselves." Saguru said with cynical amusement. "But I'm sure the sinister villain has more to tell, doesn't he?" Elias nodded.
"Don't let it out that I told you this, but I think our rival organization may have acquired Pandora in some way. The higher-ups are whispering about it. Whether it's true or not, they certainly have discovered a way to de-age the human body," He gestured to Saguru."And if that got out, can you imagine how everyone would freak? They've been striving for immortality for so long, and while this isn't any Pandora, imagine what could be done with it! I'm mostly in this whole business for the thrill, but even I'm entranced by the idea…" He trailed off, gaining a fanciful look in his brown eyes. Saguru rolled his matching ones.
"You've always been one to want the unattainable. Believe me, this is not fun. But I have what I wanted, so I guess I can't complain." Elias dropped his fancy, and pouted.
"Aww, you didn't want to catch up with your little brother? Harsh. To think, I was going to give you free tickets to my next show, which I'll starring in once I get home from 'France'"
"You're a better criminal than you are an actor, and yet I still can't believe how long it took me to figure it out. I would have rather had you arrested on the spot, but you do cover your tracks very well." It didn't help that he had suspicions that Elias had higher connections than his 'lowly underling' persona usually told, and he'd have a whole lot more trouble keeping him in prison that way. "And since I'm now directly connected to the organization you work for, I'll need your help more than ever."
"I told you about our suspicions on Pandora, like you obviously wanted! Isn't that enough? Though, if you can promise me I'll receive a get out of jail free card when this is over, I'd be willing to be your man on the inside." Elias offered, even though he would have done it either way. He was tiring of the organization he worked for, and was hoping to strike out on his own, but they didn't particularly like deserters. They always left them with a complementary bullet to the head and their very own shallow grave. What a deal!
"This is potentially dangerous for the both of us, but sadly the only way you'd be useful. But you 'baby-sitting' me while 'Kaito-niisan' is busy is already risky enough, so it wouldn't do good for us to meet up that often, and you know your phones are tapped, except for the one that, what was it? 'Went boom'?" Elias snickered. He'd attached an explosive to it, slid it under the door, and ran like high heavens. That was all he bothered to explain of the incident. There was no 'why?' answered.
"Well, I'll still try and warn you of anything big through any means possible. I'll certainly update you on Pandora, or what they think is Pandora. Does Pandora even exist? I highly doubt it, but it's fun to ponder." Elias muttered the last part to himself.
"It does seem like a useless endeavor, and Kaito is risking his life for something that most likely doesn't exist…or at least doesn't exist as expected. But no matter, I do believe it's time that we make our way back to Baaya, so that Kaito can pick me up. Then you should get as far away as possible from me." Elias huffed, but downed the rest of his (cold and legal) drink that he'd ordered at the cafe they'd spent the last half hour in. Saguru hadn't bothered getting anything.
"I do have something that I need to go to in forty-five minutes, so I guess it is time to end this family reunion." Elias gained that sinister look in his eyes, which seemingly betrayed his next words. "Nothing you should worry about, Ru." Actually, he had a date with this pretty Japanese girl he'd met the week before. But he wasn't going to tell Saguru that. Saguru wasn't one to tease, so that wasn't the issue. He'd probably try and spy on them, and then dramatically tell her that Elias was a dangerous criminal, and so on, and Elias really didn't need to deal with that today.
Saguru seemed to be considering saying more, but sighed and shook his head. He was already going through a moral crisis with Kaito's nightly work. He didn't want to ponder too much on Elias's. It was driving him crazy.
After leaving the cafe, they walked back to the house Saguru had shared with Baaya – Though it was temporary only Baaya's now – keeping to themselves, and generally not acknowledging the other. Despite claims to otherwise, they'd been like this all their lives. They'd put of fronts of having a deep brotherly bond to those that would care, but in general, they didn't care all that much for each other. A conflict of interests since they were children. They had a friendly truce, but that was it.
When Elias stalked off, leaving Saguru on the doorstep, waving and smiling, Saguru did not wave back. He turned on his heel, and went into the house without a word. Why bother?
I could have also called this story 'Saguru's Half-Brother the Sociopath' but that's a little wordy, isn't it?
My idea of using Elias in the story came from the fact that Kaito's organization doesn't have many canon members named, and I had him in my head, so I thought I might as well write this, despite hopes for it being a well liked as Naming Games being slim. It turned out much longer than I expected. Elias is kinda useless, and should have had a bullet in his head ages ago, but somehow he's managed to live this long. That's his only great achievement.
Oh, and Auntie is what Elias calls Baaya, or as she'll be called in this AU by other people, Amelia Chamberlain. Technically she'd be his stepmother, but that's not something they'll ever properly acknowledge.
As a gauge, how many people would actually like a full version of this Chibi Hakuba AU? It does not want to be written despite my efforts and pleas, but maybe if enough people showed interest in it, I could trick my mind into focusing on writing it and writing it properly.