There is minimal minimal romantic/love element in this story if one considers there to be any at all(pairings: ShinRan & KaiAo). If there was a Genre 3, then I'd put Friendship.
There are a few original characters in this story, although I don't believe that they take the main characters' spotlight as they do exist for certain purposes; that is, to push the plot along.
It may help to question every step of the plot as it progresses, although I have to say that the truth is quite extraordinary.
I originally wrote this in Chinese: 能读中文的可以在晋江文学城或者白熊阅读搜索作者雪间蝉，文名第99道捉贼令
Chapter 13 is the ending, and there's four parts to the epilogue. The main story is written in third-person, and the epilogue is mostly first-person. Generally speaking, a chapter is on average about 1.5 times the length of chapter 0.
I do not guarantee the frequency of my updates for it took me some time to write this story in the first place, so it'll also take me some time to translate everything.
I will make minor edits from time to time, and I do plan on making more significant edits in the future.
If you like what you read—remember to follow, fav, and review!
On desolated grassland, there's a little boy who's continuously pushing wild grasses aside and walking towards the endless front; until that one moment, he suddenly stops. Throughout the process of forwarding, he originally had no intent of minding what his surroundings are like; only now when he recalls, these grasses seem to have somehow gotten harder to push aside and forwarding has become increasingly difficult. After a round of careful observance does he realize grasses seem to be denser and taller.
He sits down in effort to calm down and think, wanting to ignore the suspicion within and put all of his heart on finding somewhere that's truly flat, but then realizes not only is the growing speed of grasses abnormal but so is the color; these grasses are black. When he tilts his head up, he can see a whole patch of sky colored with a grayish-purple. Not knowing what kind of creepy dark place this is, one always feels some sort of pressure coming from ahead; not to mention, who knows why there hasn't been any encounter with any human nor even any animals.
The more he thinks the more frustrated he becomes, yet he doesn't know what to do, but were he to continue to waste time it would do no good anyway. So he starts to get up and coincidentally at that moment when he gets up, he sees that there is a familiar shadow of a human not far away.
"Dad!" He runs towards that shadow without thinking too much.
"Dad...?"
Yet when he hugs it, that shadow immediately disappears with the wind like mist without leaving any trace; and this is when he finally realizes, that black shadow was never human. Grasses beneath him instantly grow to support him so that he leaves the ground, other grasses around him each become a sharp knife one after another, while the rest entangle and connect with one another to become a sphere which quickly encircles and traps him in.
"Kuroba-kun?!" He has half gained consciousness when he hears someone calling his name. "Kuroba! Kaito Kuroba-kun! Please wake up already!"
"Ug..."
"Class is already over, now when do you think you're gonna keep sleeping till?!"
Kaito Kuroba looks at the clock and finally realizes that he slept for an entire class period, and now it's already time for lunch. He yawns and stretches, and then goes to the cafeteria.
The professor sees Kuroba and gets even more annoyed. He doesn't care if this Kuroba-kun tested into University of Tokyo with an exceptional score or not. It's just the first day of college and this student has already got enough guts to sleep during class, oh he'll see how that'll work out in the future.
After that dream he somehow didn't feel like eating, so he brought a curry bread to eat when he gets hungry and returned to class. Besides not feeling like eating, he also has a headache for some reason; maybe it's because yesterday night, he was too active. But then again, that dream was so obscure; at the time he didn't even recognize it was a dream, also the fear and pain was so real.
When Kaito Kuroba thought about these things, a loud gush of sounds suddenly travels from outside the classroom into his ears; it appears as if the source of most sounds are girls. Due to motivation of curiosity, he leans towards a window to oversee the general conditions. Most people are eagerly discussing some stuff, while a small portion of people are just too excited to the point that they scream.
Kuroba was wondering what it was, until the name Shinichi Kudo travels into his ear. Not much later does he catch a peek of that familiar face. When he does he subconsciously decides to go back to his seat, put his head down, and pretend to take a nap.
Nope, this isn't being afraid; after all, a law major student shouldn't have much contact with them physics major students, and Kudo doesn't even know that Kaito Kuroba is Kaitou Kid so it's not like Kudo can do anything with him. It's just that, he feels like whenever they face each other nothing good happens. But seriously, why did he forget that this guy returned to Tokyo half a year ago.
Oh well, after all it was him who used darts to decide to attend this school. At this point of the game, he just has to put up with it.
On the other hand, when Shinichi Kudo passes by the classroom that Kaito Kuroba is in and sees that hair that's even messier than his, he feels that it's somehow familiar; except, he couldn't quite figure where he had seen it.
Until the bell rings and Kuroba comes out of the classroom does Kudo recall, just last night he had a dream full of fantasy and illusion—it was in that dream did he see a silhouette of a person, a figure that was nearly if not completely the same as this person before his eyes now—
He gradually opens his eyes, only to see that his surroundings are a clear blue; but this blue, although it refreshes and gladdens one's heart, also lets one feel difficulty breathing as if asphyxiating. The ears also hurt due to the immensity of the water pressure. Kudo moves his hand a little bit. This cold temperature and feeling of flowing...also when he looks among the distance he cannot see an end, so he must be drifting in the sea.
He sees the color of the water start to shift, changing darker in color, and now finally realizes that he's slowly sinking.
Except he has no more strength to move his arms or legs, no more strength to swim knowing how long has passed and not knowing why he has ended up here, all Kudo felt was that a long period of time has already passed. Breathing is still that complicated and the ears still hurt a lot, but life still continues, along with this pain.
Maybe at the same time that he got used to the feeling he also got bored of it, of living as if he's dying; so he decides to stop struggling to breath once and for all. He lets frustration go along with the water to somewhere far away. Until some time when he doesn't even realize, asphyxia and pain all vanished. He emptied himself, no longer thinking of those complicated details like usual, no longer having being driven by hot-bloodedness, just finding peace with tranquility of the heart and having the most important people appear in his mind from time to time.
Suddenly, the water grabs Kudo's arms and legs as if it is alive, forcibly bringing him to somewhere while he still has no power to struggle. Until he sees a silhouette of a human a few meters away from himself does he stop, except he still couldn't freely move. The water pushes him closer and closer to that silhouette, closer and closer, until now their distance between each other is less than half a meter. Kudo carefully observes this silhouette, and figures it to be pretty similar to himself from its built to shape of face, etc.
The only difference is the hairstyle, in fact it's messier than his indeed. When Kudo had thought so, the water flow mercilessly pushes them from two sides until they get closer and closer. All Kudo sees before his eyes is sudden darkness, as if he passed through the silhouette. In addition to that, his arms and legs got stabbed by some unknown sharp object as if fixing the silhouette and him together.
Fresh red blood instantly mixes into the sea, flowing to unknown places, and saltwater has come in contact with his cuts. He has no idea what numbed his senses; he did not feel pain because of this. Within short time, Kudo hears the breathing of a huge object; it is the smell of blood which has attracted a shark. It instantly devours Kudo and that silhouette who were surrounded by the bloody smell.
This, is when he woke up—
That instant in between lunch and the start of class, he did not see the full face of that person but he did see his face from the side; somehow, it seemed oddly very familiar.
He thinks in detail, and reaches the conclusion that it's somehow very similar to the face of himself who he sees in the mirror everyday.
Was he thinking too much?
"Probably." Kaito Kuroba thinks to himself when he slightly arranges his hairstyle in front of the mirror after washing his hands.
That guy probably just stopped because he saw some acquaintance, it wasn't like Kudo was looking at him or anything.
Anyhow, just let Kaito Kuroba and Shinichi Kudo's knowledge of each other stay the way it is now.