Title: In Good Times and Bad

Genre: Romance/Humour

Rating: T

Warnings: Language, much fluff

Summary: They have a somewhat untraditional marriage. Well, they disagree, but everyone else thinks so anyway. KaiShin

Disclaimer: Do not own. Gosho Aoyama owns DC and MK.

Shinichi wasn't sure what he was expecting when he noticed he finally had a next-door neighbour.

Then again, he might not have been thinking at all. It was in the wee hours of the morning after all, when the plane finally landed, and he had suffered through hours of half-waiting, half-dozing at the airplane before managing to clear all his papers and luggage. Even his much-abused plane narcolepsy didn't save him from the grumpiness that plagued most travelers who shifted multiple time zones.

So he just drowsily looked at the newspaper resting against the door, before eyes tracked up to the name plate beside it. Kuroba, it boasted, with a jaunty green four-leaved clover stuck next to the characters.

Shinichi blinked slowly, bumped his luggage up the last flight of stairs, and unlocked his door. It swung open to reveal his room, immaculate with modern steel and glass furnishing but dusty from disuse for a good three weeks. He toed off his shoes, neatly nudging his loafers straight with a foot (in between his sandals and his slippers, just the way he liked it), before slowly plodding in.

The door swung shut behind him with a click.

At first, he thought that he got quite lucky with his new neighbour. After all, there was nothing quite as awkward as having someone you detested living right next door, picking up post from the side-by-side letterboxes, sharing door step space (it was a small apartment block in Tokyo, and there wasn't so much space as lack of space) and that dreaded uneasy silence when you shared a lift.

(That clumsy reach over to jab at the buttons, the odd standing around, barely two feet from each other, yet pretending that the other didn't exist. The worst of all, feeling your nose itch crazily for the half-minute it took for the lift to reach ground floor so you could flee a respectable distance away and let loose your signature gunshot-pigeon-scaring sneeze.)

So he felt rather happy when he got positive hearsay of his reportedly amiable neighbour. Mostly.

Miyamoto ("Call me Yumi!") updated him on the latest neighbourhood gossip as they met near the trash. "He's been helping me out with taking out the rubbish a lot! No, don't worry about that-", when Shinichi tried to help her carry the heavy bags but willingly let go of them without any further protest. "He seems like a very bright boy; I hear he goes to Tokyo University too," she said in a hushed voice, as if wary of any eavesdropping interlopers taking offence to her praise.

Shinichi grunted under the weight. He looked at her strangely and lowered his voice too, wondering why they were whispering. "Oh, that's good."

"Yeah," Miyamoto ("I told you to call me Yumi!") sounded cheerful. "Just that he's a little… odd. Well, if you're bothered by the explosions in the middle of the night, could you just settle it with him peacefully?" She winked at him conspiratorially. "I kind of like him."

Shinichi decided not to ask. Or think too deeply about it. "… Okay."

He was a heavy sleeper after all. His mother once told him that he would be able to sleep through a zombie apocalypse. If the explosions weren't too loud, or too frequent in the day time, he could deal.

Genta, who lived on the fifth floor, asked him casually as they watered the plants together, "Do you think he can teach me how to pick my mailbox? I can't find my keys again and my mother will be mad if she knows." He was holding a watering can loosely with his left hand and punching furiously at a console with his right. The can swayed alarmingly as the floor ten boss mob was pummeled within an inch of his life, and the spray of water scattered over the dusty floor. Shinichi's brows furrowed and he nudged a potted plant under the capricious shower with a foot.

"I'm not sure that's ethical," Shinichi told him.

Genta frowned and snapped his fingers in epiphany. The boss mob let out a terrible electronic scratchy wail and perished under the relentless onslaught and victorious music played. A tiny smidge of beige punched a tinier fist into the air. "Ah right, I should just ask him myself right? You won't know unless you try." He punched Shinichi's bicep (possibly the highest body part he could reach) and the watering can slung heavily across his spine. Shinichi let out an oof! and was thankful that half the weight of the watering can was spilled over the floor earlier. "Thanks, man!" He held up a hand in farewell and jogged off.

Shinichi frowned after his speeding figure and eyed the leftover wilted potted plant on Genta's shelf. Cacti should be fine without water for a while, right? He doused it conscientiously anyway, watered Genta's plants again with a careful eye (Just in case, because plants didn't deserve to suffer for his carelessness) before leaving for school.

When he was standing at the bus stop, Sonoko leaned over and prodded at him with a shimmery purple pointy nail. He turned questioningly and she grinned at him. Like a shark. "Hey, do you have his number?" She batted her eyelashes tremendously at him. He stared in awe and wondered how the curled lower lashes didn't jab her in the eye when she blinked. "You're his neighbour, aren't you?"

He assured her that he hadn't even met his mystery neighbour yet; much less got his number, and will pass it on the instant he did. He felt a slight stab of sympathy for his neighbour in his stomach and consoled himself. Hey, Shinichi just had to pass the message on. If he lost the number somehow, he certainly wasn't to blame. It was a faux pas to kill the messenger these days, wasn't it?

By the time he made the same promise to the sixth girl, he started to wish that he was neighbourless. He shook himself mentally. Don't be mean! He scolded. That guy could be an awesome person to live with. Certainly, it would be less of a pain to find someone to take care of his plants when he was gone for a long while (Ran would kill him if she visited him and found the orchids she liked so much dead). He plodded up the stairs, nursing the bag of salt in his arms balefully. Even the cashier at the little convenience store around the corner had asked him for the thrice-damned number.

Just as he stomped up to his front door, the door next to his suddenly swung open with a crash. A head of messy hair peeked out and stared at him open mouthed. Shinichi gaped back equally shamelessly.

Oh. This must be the famous neighbour. Shinichi frowned and wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or insulted. That guy was practically a doppelganger with weird hair. He consoled himself with the thought that he got just as many requests for phone numbers. Except that his was more of the 'I need you to solve a murder/find out what's wrong with this creep/help me with work variety.

Well, that's okay, he thought sulkily. He could have Sonoko with her creepy butterfly-fluttery lashes and her shiny purple nails any day.

The other guy recovered his wits first. He bounced out of his room, fired off a question, "Do you need help?" and didn't wait for an answer before seizing the bag from his arms. Shinichi blinked at him as he chattered, "Hi! I haven't seen you around before! I'm Kuroba Kaito, magician extraordinaire, and I live at #08-17!" He waved at his open door as if he didn't come running out just seconds ago. "If you have any questions about the area, you can just ask me or Takagi or Satou or Megure or any of the other police who always patrol around the area, though you probably shouldn't ask Takagi and Satou when you see them together, it's bad to ruin the moment, not like they get any and if they do, if you didn't ruin it, something would have anyway- oh, I see you've found the grocery store downstairs but there are a lot of good places to eat too like-"

Shinichi wondered how Kaito could find the breath to string together so many words into a sentence. He thought it was probably what contributed to the jumble of semi-incoherency that was tumbling out of his mouth. "Er," he cut in. "I'm not new."

Kaito stopped mid-word. He closed his jaw with a click of teeth. "You're not?" He sounded inordinately dismayed.

Shinichi stopped outside his door. Kaito followed him like an abandoned puppy. He fished in his pocket for his keys. "No."

Dawning comprehension was seen on Kaito's face and his eyes flickered to the name plate next to Shinichi's door. "And… you're Kudou. Kudou Shinichi, that the others have been telling me about. The one who's been away for study for three weeks." He paused and his eyes trailed to the keys clinking in Shinichi's hand. "And you're my neighbour."

Shinichi unlocked the door and sniffed. He smiled satisfied. Ah, wasn't gone for too long then. He pulled at the bag of salt in Kaito's arms. Kaito let go of it reluctantly and Shinichi shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. If I don't go back to the kitchen quickly, it's going to wilt and taste bad. He frowned.

Kaito was sniffing, with a fascinated look. "What is that smell?"

"Vietnamese pancakes." His mother and father had a taste for exotic cuisine due to their travels, and every time they came back to Japan, his mother would enslave him to recreate dishes from the other side of the globe. "My mother likes them," he informed Kaito solemnly, enjoying the hungry expression on Kaito's face.

"Ah," Kaito nodded as if it made perfect sense.

Shinichi nodded back at Kaito. He stepped inside. Kill the awkward moment as soon as possible. "So uh," he nodded again, not sure why he was nodding. "Thanks for… carrying my salt for three steps. Bye."

He swung the door shut in Kaito's face and guiltily did not look out of the peep hole to make sure he didn't hurt Kaito's feelings too much. Nope.

Midway through his meal, he realised that he didn't ask for Kaito's number and he'd have to do so the next time. He sighed and thumped his head against the table.

At least he seemed normal, Shinichi thought hopefully, as he washed his dishes and scrubbed the bottom of his pan meticulously. Normal was safe. Normal was good.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to keep his illusion for long.

As a matter of fact, Kaito didn't even allow Shinichi to keep his dreams of a peaceful home life for more than five hours.

At dinner time, Shinichi heard knocking on the door. He turned off the fire, switched off the gas and hung up the apron, making sure everything was in its rightful order (kitchen safety!) before dashing to the door. It swung open to reveal Kaito, clutching a fork and spoon, and staring at Shinichi with the most pleadingly expectant gaze Shinichi has been faced with in all his years. This included puppies, kittens, small children, hapless victims and criminals trying to beg their way out of an arrest.

Shinichi twitched. "What."

Kaito's distressed pout grew exponentially.

Shinichi shut his eyes tightly and sighed. He stepped aside and waved Kaito in.

His face brightened and he joyously pranced in, immediately heading for the kitchen by virtue of his nose, where all the delicious smells and aromas were coming from.

Shinichi barked at him to stay away from the knives! Go set out the table! Behave! and pinched his nose bridge.

Somehow, he had the feeling that his peaceful apartment complex life was about to change.

AN: Erm… Yeah. Somehow DC and MK characters all live in an apartment complex together somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Tokyo. Why not? 8D;; It's slice of life, for fun, slightly pointless, and not to be taken seriously. [/laughs] Updated periodically when I can string together enough scenes for a chapter.

(I tried to take this seriously, but my mood just… wow, I don't even know ahaha.)