A/N Story name courtesy of my father. If it does end up containing explicit material, this story will probably be relocated to AO3. For now, they will be updated in sync with each other (though this version may have heavier editing since doc manager does weird things to your brain).
www . flagfic . com - people who own e-ink readers, use this to save your eyes (remove spaces)
An Unsure Game
Chapter 1
The magician swept back a cloak pocked with stars, revolving on a precariously balanced stiletto heel as he turned the class' concentration onto the aluminium dinner spoon pinched lightly between thumb and forefinger. With a quirk of lip and flip of hand, he jarred it against the side of a solid metal bowl, the sonorous 'clang' reverberating through the air. Shinichi mentally calculated the wavelength as it passed, the only person in the room aside from the presenter not eagerly pitching forward and balancing on the front two legs of his chair.
"Now," the magician declared. "I will show you all an act of psychokinesis. This – as I have demonstrated – solid spoon, shall now be bent with merely the power of my mind." The man's eyes shuttered, chest rising with the intake of air, arms rising with it, pulled by invisible strings. The tension simmering in the enclosed room was palpable. Shinichi settled his chin on his hand and peered at the magician under lowered eyes, a small frown tugging at his face.
One gloved hand stroked down the length of the spoon, fingers fluttering while the practitioner's brows knitted, creating steep ravines in his forehead. This continued for a breathless minute – his arms, chest, shoulders seized with a force seemingly beyond the comprehension of mortal minds, spasms forming the deft strokes of an eccentric dance impregnated with obscure beauty. Suddenly, his body snapped silent, eyes the crosshairs of a gun fixed on an unseen point on the far wall. His arms rose, sloughing through the viscous, ether-like substance the air around him had been transfigured into – his fingers releasing their tenuous hold on the bowl of the spoon.
Slowly, the slender neck of the utensil bowed.
A collective gasp as the class took in the miraculous bent spoon, wondered about the magician's ability to wire the physical and mental realities and confirming their decision never to be on the wrong end of his affection.
The magician wore a pleased smile (with condescending qualities, Shinichi noted). He tapped stiff fingers, pad on corresponding pad in a polite request for attention. "This isn't a magic show," he said sternly, ignoring the covet giggles of some of the audience. "Can anyone please enlighten us to the technicalities behind spoon-bending?"
"Psychokinesis!" was the immediate answer.
The magician brandished his hat at the offer. "That is what we want the audience to believe. But to us magicians...?" He dropped the sentence, hands extended, opening his chest in a question.
"Ha! Too easy! You just warmed the spoon until the metal was soft and let gravity do the rest for you, and then said it was because you had mystical abilities."
Shinichi paused, arm frozen at a 45 degree angle to his desk before releasing it to sleep on the wooden surface again. The answerer was a boy lounging at the summit of the classroom, lips contorted into an easy grin, hands locked behind brown hair looking as if it had come out of a washing machine. In his case, the 'no feet on tables' rule had been seen and cleanly forgotten, the magician – no – teacher at the front of the classroom wearing a chagrined look at the development.
"…correct, Kuroba. And in the future, please refrain from moving seats lest someone else gets your germs on them."
The boy, Kuroba, spread his arms – a blatant imitation of the teacher just moments before. "Why, I'm hurt – I would think people would be grateful to carry my genes." A light puff of grey smoke and a rose with faint golden petals appeared in his hand. Kuroba poised its slim stem between his fingers and aimed it at the magician, launching it like a dart. It cleaved the air, piercing the velvet hat on the magician's head with a quiver.
Amidst the roll of stifled laughter, the corners of the teacher's mouth seemed ready to dust the ground. "You. Will desist, Kuroba." A tone that tolerated nothing emerged tightly strung from the man's lips. Kuroba shrugged and tipped his chair back again, hands resuming their position behind his head.
The teacher resumed class with as close a semblance of normality as possible while delivering a speech accented with subtle ribbing at Kuroba's antics. The aforementioned target seemed to be made of a frictionless surface, the insults splashing and running off him in rivulets, his expression never deviating from the amused to mischievous to blank range. Occasionally, during the more attention-imploring snippets of the lesson, he would unleash a monster on the classroom. The first was a parrot whisked from the black hole that seemed to be synonymous with the endless storage capability of his cloak, squawking an indignant 'I don't know' whenever the teacher deemed it was the correct moment to request input from the class. Then a girl clearly lacking any common sense gave it a cracker and hell's minions descended. Several more 'accidents' followed, until by the end of the class, the teacher was wet with an unknown petroleum derivative, his hair dyed a blinding neon blue, with Kuroba's parrot nesting on his shoulder, returning faithful as a boomerang with each subsequent attempt to shoo it away, pecking at the poor man's cheek whenever his skin contorted – in other words, whenever he spoke.
When the bell rang, the teacher fled the room faster than the students
Tucked in the rustle of papers and choir of voices eagerly discussing what they learnt (or didn't learn) during the lesson, Shinichi masked a smile. That man…Kuroba… was not half-bad.
"Shinichi!" The hoarse voice formed the words with an elated lilt. "You were admitted!"
The boy stilled, hands pausing in the motion of flicking a page. He fingered the crisp corner thoughtfully. "Admitted to?" he asked, clapping the book shut and letting it become the newest addition of a rapidly growing pile snaking it way into the air above the stool it stood on.
"Regerade's School for Aspiring Magicians," Mouri said, eyes scintillating as he relayed the news. "The best in the country – no, the best in the world!"
"Wouldn't private tutorage be more advantageous?" Shinichi rebutted. He paused, eyes narrowing as he studied Mouri's face, noticing the slight tensing of the muscle where his gaze met. The man was declining his question of eye contact. "…and the rest?" he said quietly.
Mouri twitched, the silver watch hugging his wrist suddenly piquing a disproportionate amount of his interest. "Ah… they only give you first choice," he offered.
Shinichi sighed. "Why…" he forced his words, fighting a lead ball lodged in his throat. "…I have no interest in magic. The opportunity is wasted on me."
An irresponsible man, Shinichi thought, weariness rising to take the place of the coldness his heart had been clasped in. A selfish man also. But that was to be expected – as the Selfish Gene outlined; natural selection, the advancement of living biology could only be the product of selfishness, a trait slighted in the present hand of morality. He was too aware that he would have been eagerly claimed by any school he wished – feeling as if the path forward was already carved in diamond, unbreakable but for the words Mouri had uttered. The future had enclosed a life spent in the bosom of death, unravelling the single truth behind all 'mysteries', snatching it from the grasp of the supernatural and placing it in the framework dictated by rational science – the religion of theory and observation.
But of course, it was necessary for Mouri to stumble into the same profession, become his guardian and be controlled by shallow pride. Under his watch, Shinichi would never become a detective. Only one fish could swim in that pond.
And since all roads led to Rome, or in this case, Shinichi's prospective career, Mouri picked out the singular track running adjacent to them that lead to nowhere. Or, nowhere Shinichi was at ease to investigate.
"…It's a good thing, learning magic. Magicians are paid in statuettes of gold and gratitude, and you get to entertain kids. Hey, you like working with kids so that's a bonus! And the places you see – travelling around the globe, performing impossible feats with royalty looking up at you and going 'that's the guy who could contact the supernatural-"
"There's no such thing," Shinichi cut in. The excuses pouring off Mouri's tongue made his stomach want to reject his lunch. The floor swayed as he escaped the man, his face pressed tight as he used the input from sensitive fingertips to fumble at the doorknob. With a click and rattle, it came free, Shinichi desiring nothing more than to ensconce himself in that blessed darkness beyond the doorway and thaw the ice his head seemed to be wrapped in, away from Mouri, whose every word seemed to solidify the numbness in his mind. He flung the door away from him, a sharp crack sounding as it jarred the wall.
Renegrade's School for Aspiring Magicians. He tested the name, disliking it immediately.
3 years, he told himself. 3 more years and you will be free.
The goose-down sheets sank under his weight, clear blue eyes staring vacant at the unadorned ceiling. He would sleep, but the restlessness pervading every particle of his body robbed him of the luxury. He played out the scenes from A Sign of Four in the theater of his mind, dragging his senses from their physical cage and becoming immersed in Holmes' own.
"I never guess- it is a shocking habit, destructive for the logical faculty." The words rolled smooth off his tongue. He smiled ruefully. He couldn't guess, but he could make hypothesises and thus, predictions – the essence of deductive reasoning imperative in detective work.
He still remembered the sick dread; 3 years of being trapped in a hive of magicians. He had predicted he would fall prey to boredom before the year flitted away. But then Kuroba had teleported, blowing that theory out the window. And thus each lesson, he was drawn – insect to a lamplight – to that single challenging smirk that promised magic far beyond studious levels. Here was a package of mysteries on its knees, begging to be exposed in the light of rationality.
Shinichi was more than happy to oblige.
A/N 'tis an AU, and the author is god. :3 ehehehehe
Next chap is a button click away.