DISCLAIMER: DO NOT REUPLOAD MY STORIES! I regularly reverse search all my stories and when I find just a single one reuploaded somewhere else, specifically Wattpad, I will file DMCA takedowns and hunt down the original authors of any other work that is reuploaded on the same profile or site, then I notify those other authors who have had their work blatantly stolen. I don't go beyond filing the DMCA takedowns, but other authors may not be as kind. Entire accounts have been shut down this way, so don't steal shit. Write it yourself.
My first fic! Warning: lots of bad grammar, spelling, storytelling, etc. I would correct it but I'd rather preserve this the way it is.
I do not own Detective Conan or any of it's characters. Both belongs to Aoyama Gosho.
– Deception –
"Shinichi?"
"Yo! Nice to see you, Ran."
Ran just kept staring at her best friend as he stood grinning in the door.
Inspector Otaki only had told them that Megure had called, since they seemed to have problems with the current case Kogoro was investigating. After Megure had hung up, Otaki had told them that the Inspector from Beika had sent someone over, whom he trusted to be able to help them. Then Shinichi had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Next to Ran stood Conan, eyes widened in shock and trembling inwardly, staring at the grinning teen in front of him. "This can't be," he mumbled.
Suddenly 'Shinichi' approached him, his grin widening even more. He chuckled when he crouched down in front of Conan, grinning right into his face. "Long time no see, Conan-kun. Did you miss me?"
Conan kept staring at him in shock. The teen in front of him was definitely not Shinichi, since he himself was the shrunken detective of the East. So who was it?
There was only one person who could disguise as himself and additionally had the guts to dare it. But for that person it was impossible to stand in front of Conan like that.
The people around the boy with glasses started to wonder about his weird behavior. Since he always talked about how Shinichi – besides the TV – had taught him everything he knew, practically making him the little detective he was now. And now 'Shinichi-nii-chan' knelt in front of him, greeting him happily and he just stared shocked at him.
Even Kogoro was starting to wonder. "Oi brat, what's wrong now? Are you telling us this isn't the real detective-brat, like last time? That he's KID who's disguised as Shinichi?" He waited for an answer, but only got an unsure, little nod from the boy. "Idiot! You know KID's dead. You were with us and saw how he was shot and fell in the sea. There's no way he could have survived!"
A pained expression crossed the boy's features.
It was true that KID was shot two months earlier. Conan had witnessed it himself from the rooftop the thief had fled from. He had watched how the white cladded figure fell from the sky, his cape tinted crimson red, when he had crushed into the depths of the ocean, not swimming to the surface again.
The police had assumed that KID had simply drowned and his accomplice had taken the corpse away before anyone could find it. The news had been talking about it all day, for about two weeks. Fan-sites of the Kaito KID on the internet were discussing wether he was really dead or just had pretended his death for some reason. That was a possibility as well, but after about a month, where no sign of the thief still being alive had shown up, most people seemed to believe in the KID's death. Some channels made specials about the thief and his biggest and most spectacular heists. But after another three weeks public had accepted his death and moved on, slowly trying to forget about the white cladded gentleman he was.
But one small detective never believed in the KID's death for even one second. People around him had noticed him being depressed about the whole incident and had tried to cheer him up. It was no big secret that Edogawa Conan was Kaito KID's rival and that they had had some kind of relationship.
Shortly after the whole incident had occured a crowd of reporter and camera teams had stormed the detective agency. All of them wanted some kind of statement from the KID's biggest rival. But Conan never said anything, just locked himself up in his room, thinking of some trick the phantom thief might have used to survive. Because the Kaito KID always had something up his sleeve. Right?
But everyone kept telling him that his rival was definitely dead, that he should accept it and move on.
"The world wasn't going to end because of the death of one filthy thief" was what Ran's father always told him. But he didn't want to accept it. There was no way that the phantom thief would be defeated that easily. He had been shot many times, he had always survived and had gotten away with only some scratches and bruises. That was what Conan always believed.
But the people around him, Ran and her father, Professor Agasa, his classmates and Haibara, Inspector Megure and his force, they all felt sorry for the boy being so depressed of the supposed death of the thief. They all wanted to believe KID was still alive, but there was just no way that could have been possible. So everyone tried to comfort him, everyone tried to make him feel better. But what they reached was the opposite: They crushed Conan's hopes of being challenged by his rival again sometime. He started to accept his rival's death and tried to move on.
After many weeks he joined Kogoro's cases again and got kicked around as always. Giving little hints, trying to help solving the cases and acting childish as always. But the childish smile he smiled was forced and everyone noticed it. They all saw the obvious pain he tried to hide. Many of them had tried to somehow get through to him, but he always just put on that fake smile and told them he was fine.
KID was dead and he wouldn't come back this time. That was what he had to tell himself and he even started to believe it.
And now there stood some disguised person in front of him, giving him that smile. Could it really be KID?
No, that wasn't possible.
Conan's shocked expression was soon after replaced by a frown. "Who the hell are you?"
The answer came along with a mocking voice. "My, my, no need to be offensive. Can't you see that it's me? Kudo Shinichi?"
"You're definitely not Shinichi-nii-chan, so who the hell are you?"
Suddenly Kogoro stumbled over to them and gripped 'Shinichi's' cheeks. He pulled and stretched them. "You see? He's not disguised, it's the detective brat."
"That's because he might be KID, who looks similar to Shinichi-nii-chan, so he wouldn't need a mask."
"Idiot! How would you know KID's face?"
"I've seen it often enough to know something like that."
"You aren't even supposed to be here! This is a crime scene so get out, brat!"
Conan was roughly grabbed at his collar and thrown out of he room. Unfortunately he hit the wall right in front of the room with his head and got a little dizzy.
Ran was already about to look after him, checking if he was fine, but was stopped by her father. "He's fine just leave him there. We need you to tell us everything you witnessed, since you haven't told us yet."
On the day of the crime Ran had been witnessing the attack from a distance by coincidence. Though she hadn't seen much of the culprit, she was the one who had saved the victim's life by calling an ambulance.
With a last glance at Conan she turned around again, though it was obvious she didn't want to. The door was then slammed shut by her father.
The reason they were at the large theatre was because the owner, Tanaka Hiroshi, seemed to have gotten threatening letters. Someone didn't want a certain play to be shown and demanded for it to be cancelled. After the letters were being ignored and the play was shown nevertheless, the wife of the leader, Tanaka Kiriko, was attacked and almost got killed. The following day the leader called at the Mouri Detective Agency, asking for help. When Kogoro, Ran and Conan had arrived in Osaka at the big theatre, Hattori and Kazuha had already been waiting for them. The detective of the West was also called by the leader to investigate the case.
Hattori had seen Conan only once since the whole KID incident and had barely talked to the shrunken teen on that day. No matter what he had tried he just hadn't been able to get the shrunken teen to help him solve the case.
The first week after the KID incident had been the worst. Conan had only rarely joined Kogoro's cases and was never interested in them. He himself was shocked of his own behavior, it had never happened to him that he had no interest in any unsolved and mysterious cases, but he just couldn't get himself to care for any. So he tried to get a distance from cases and let the police handle them on their own for a while, waiting for his enthusiasm to return again. But as soon as Kogoro had noticed that he wasn't able to solve any cases anymore and everything always stayed unsolved without his 'freeloader', he dragged Conan with him on his cases, despite his complains. Then the weeks of Conan's fake smiles had started.
After they had teamed up with Hattori and Kazuha they had entered the theatre and had been welcomed by the leader. He had shown them the place his wife had been attacked, then Kogoro had looked over it and proudly exclaimed he would know the culprit.
The leader had stated that it had to be an insider, since only his employees knew the whereabouts of his wife at noon, the time she was attacked. So it had been impossible for an outsider to know where she was at noon.
So the great 'Sleeping Kogoro' reasoned that the culprit was the leaders assistent. He accused her of having an affair with the leader and being jealous of his wife and that the letters were only meant as confusion to let the attack look like an outsider had held a grudge against the theatre itself. Then the assistant had yelled at him for accusing her and had demanded for evidence, which Kogoro of course didn't had.
During the commotion, caused by Kogoro, Hattori and Conan had taken a closer look at the crime scene. They had found some tiny marks on the floor, that seemed to have been caused by something dragged along the floor. They were told that the weapon used for the attack apparently was something like a wrench. By connecting everything they knew they got an idea of who could have been the culprit. After they had exchanged their theories, Hattori gave the shrunken high-school detective an expecting look.
"What? Is there something on my face?" Conan asked coldly.
"I'm just waitin' for that arrogant look of yours."
"Arrogant?"
"Whenever we're about to uncover the mystery about a case you get that arrogant look on your face and that always means you awready have a plan to trick the culprit to uncover himself by accident, or to find the crucial evidence."
"And?"
"I'm waitin' for that."
"You're able to solve the case without my help. This is no big mystery where you need my assistance." With that he just walked away, leaving the sighing Hattori behind.
Apparently this case wasn't that easy to solve as Conan had assumed. After about another hour, were Hattori had tried to find the crucial evidence pointing against the supposed culprit, he instead found evidence leading to a different culprit. He already had a vague theorie how both possible culprits could have been connected, causing the wife to seem to be attacked by two different persons. But it still lacked evidence and he desperately tried to find it.
Then the call from Megure had come, who had been told about the whole case by Kogoro. And since the last weeks cases of Kogoro hadn't been going so well he offered to send someone for help. When everyone had assembled in one of the backstage rooms, Shinichi suddenly stood in the door.
Conan rubbed his now throbbing head after being thrown out by Kogoro. He stared blankly at the closed door and was trying to figure out who that person disguising as himself could have been. It couldn't be Kaito KID, that was impossible, wasn't it?
He heard Kogoro arguing with Hattori and the Shinichi impostor about the method the culprit used. As always Kogoro appeared pretty stupid compared to the combined wits of Hattori and 'Shinichi'.
Conan just sat there waiting for Hattori to solve the case.
Surprisingly, after Hattori had offered his theorie, the crucial evidence was brought by the impostor. Just like the real Shinichi he reasoned everything out together with Hattori. They explained that the threatening letters where only meant as a diversion to distract the police from the real motives of the attack. When they then accused one of the actresses of being the attacker, Yamaguchi Ayako, she got mad and demanded for evidence. They then pointed out that something should be stuck on one of her shoes. Together they reasoned that the marks on the floor were caused by an earpiece of Kiriko, which had fallen off after the attack and had been stuck on the culprit's shoe. Also the earpiece should have had Kiriko's blood on it. The bloody earpiece was then indeed discovered on the sole of Ayako's left shoe and blood was also found on the left sleeve's inside of her jacket. She then confessed and explained her motive.
Ayako had held a grudge against the leader's wife. When she got her first role in one of the theatre's plays, she had felt like her dream had become true. But because she had been amazing in her first play the leader's wife became jealous at her. Whenever Ayako had made a mistake the leader's wife had embarrassed her in front of everyone, calling her clumsy and untalented. That was the reason Ayako had wanted to kill the leader's wife, so she had attempted to ambush her and to then kill her with a blow to the head by a wrench. But as she had waited for Kiriko to arrive, one of the technicians suddenly had appeared and hid as well, not knowing of the presence of Ayako. When Kiriko then arrived he attacked her with the wrench Ayako had prepared and ran off. Ayako went over to the victim to confirm wether the leader's wife was really dead. Kiriko then woke up only to be hit again by Ayako, who had grabbed the thrown away wrench. Then she as well had run off, leaving the injured woman behind. That was when Ran had arrived and saved Kiriko.
When the reasoning was over and all evidence had been given, the technician also confessed and explained that Kiriko had hit his six year old son with a car two months earlier and caused the boy to be paralyzed, forced to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Slowly Conan stood up after the dizziness had worn of. He headed to the big stage the plays were shown on and then went behind it to look around a bit. He tried to find an undisturbed place to think about everything that had happened, to find out who that impostor could be. In the end he sat on a large box full with tools behind the stage. But before he could even start to think he heard voices calling after him.
"Conan-kun, were are you?" he heard Ran's worried voice calling.
"He's probably just playing around again, he's just an annoying kid, don't forget that," the annoyed Kogoro's voice was heard.
"I just hope nothing happened to him. He has been so sad lately and he's telling no one how he really feels about… that."
"Don't worry about him, he'll get over it soon enough."
"I hope you're right dad. Maybe you should talk to him, Shinichi."
"Huh?" was the Shinichi impostor's response.
"Since you're the one of us who knows Conan for the longest time, then maybe you can get through to him. He always talks about you having taught him everything he knows and he seems to care for you very much. I think he even sees you as an older brother."
"You think so?" The impostor was a little bit surprised by that statement.
Smiling the brunette girl nodded. "He really cares about you, Shinichi. Try to talk to him, would you?"
"Of course, if you think it would help."
Hattori and Kazuha just listened to the whole conversation, while bickering as always.
The five of them then came across Conan sitting on top of a large box. Looking back at Ran, who nodded reassuringly at him, 'Shinichi' walked over to where the boy sat.
By seeing the impostor approaching him Conan jumped off of the box and simply walked away.
Again looking back, the impostor saw confused looks on everyones faces. Otaki and the other policeman now joined the group, curious about what they were looking at.
"Conan-kun, wait!" they heard 'Shinichi' call after the boy.
At hearing the call after him, Conan tensed and turned around with a scowl never leaving his features. "What the hell do you want?" he yelled at the Shinichi-impostor.
Now everyone, including the impostor, was confused by that outburst. Why was the boy acting like that towards 'Shinichi'? Wasn't he glad to see him again and to be able to talk to him? Obviously not, but why?
"Why are you mad at me, Conan-kun?" 'Shinichi' asked, a smirk forming on his lips.
That smirk. The smile only that one person could have. With that mocking voice calling him 'Conan-kun'.
The shocked look appeared on the boy's face again.
When the impostor walked towards him slowly, he didn't move an inch. And when the impostor had reached him, he again crouched in front of him, lowering himself to eye level with the small boy. But the shock never left the boy's face.
"I'm back. Did you miss me, Tantei-kun?"
Conan's eyes widened even more, when he finally realised the truth behind the disguised person. "Where were you?"
The outburst shocked the spectators again. It just wasn't normal for Conan to scream like that.
"I had to hide. There were some guys after me and I had to hide myself to shake them off," the impostor answered calmly in a low voice, so the others wouldn't hear him.
The shoulders of the boy with glasses slumped and his expression changed again to a pained look. Normally Conan had his expression under control when he wanted to. He could easily hide any emotion, but in that moment he just didn't have the strength to hide anything. His face and emotions were open to read like a book.
"I started to think you were really dead." His voice started to crack and became a whisper.
"Don't be ridiculous. As if I would die that easily," KID exclaimed cheerfully. But he still couldn't wipe away that pained and disappointed look from his Tantei-kun's face. In a last attempt to comfort his favorite detective he pulled the small boy close him and hugged him. Everything went silent as he held on to Conan's small frame.
After a few seconds he broke the silence. "Ne, Tantei-kun, you're a good actor aren't you?" he whispered. He received no response. "I need you to act as if I'm really Kudo. If someone besides you would know I'm still alive I would get into trouble. I know it's not normal for a thief to ask for the help of a detective, though I don't really think we're just simply detective and thief. So are you going to help me out?"
When Conan silently pulled himself out of the hug, KID shot him an expecting look. Then Conan finally looked up to him.
"Why didn't you even call you idiot?" he yelled right into 'Shinichi's' face
"I-I'm sorry, Conan-kun, but I didn't know you were that worried about me."
"Of course I was worried, Shinichi-nii-chan! Why wouldn't I? Besides you never cared about how I'm doing, you always just talked to Ran-nee-chan! Why did you do that?"
"I hadn't thought you cared about it that much."
KID didn't know if the next part of their act was really an act. The next thing that happened was something no one had ever even imagined to happen. In the corners of Conan's eyes tears began to form. After a little sniff he threw his arms around KID's neck and hugged him tightly. Conan's voice then became heartbreakingly tearful. "You're an idiot."
Now it was KID's turn to look shocked. Was this really an act? Or had Conan really been that worried about him?
"Ta-Tan… Co-Conan-kun. Were you really that worried about me?"
Just a muffled, little sob was heard.
No one actually believed that Conan, who was usually more mature than any other child in 'his age', stood there, crying into the shoulder of his 'Nii-chan'.
When KID turned his head to look at their 'audience' he noticed that Megure and some of his subordinates were also there. When did they get here? he wondered. With Inspector Megure were Shiratori, Takagi and Sato. Maybe they were nearby and wanted to check on Mouri-san and the case. He then noticed the look everyone was giving them.
No him, KID.
Including even Kogoro, they all gave him some kind of death glare that meant something like: You made Conan cry, now you're going to pay for that.
A little yelp escaped his mouth, before he noticed that Conan had suddenly stopped crying. When he looked down to the boy he noticed that Conan was smiling into his neck.
"Are they giving you the death glare?" the spectacled detective asked with a low voice, more mature again.
"Um, I think so."
From Conan's mouth a little chuckle escaped. "They're going to rip you into pieces when this is over."
"Can't you calm them down somehow?"
"I could, but I won't."
"Why would you do such a cruel thing, Tantei-kun? Didn't you just cry because you were so worried about me?" he whispered in a slightly panicked voice.
"Maybe yes, maybe no. But them ripping you apart is your punishment for worrying me."
"Eh! You're so cruel, Tantei-kun!"
When Conan looked up again he had a huge grin on his face. "I know."
