Our Story - Prologue

One of my most vivid memories is from when I was only eight years old. I remember it well because I was depressed at the time and that was the day I almost snapped. However, it's also the day that I came out of my depression and started to enjoy life again.

Now, you may be wondering: How on earth does an eight year old get depressed, aren't they supposed to be happy little kids?

To put it simply, I was exceedingly bored. Not to brag, but I've always been smart for my age, and school was a mind-numbing bore. Everything was too easy but they said that I wasn't old enough to try anything harder. Even my parents didn't think I was ready; my mom just wanted me to stay a little boy forever because I was, in her words "Simply adorable!" and my dad was always too busy to notice or pay me any attention, other than to suggest books for me to read so I would leave him alone.

Being so young, I wasn't allowed to say anything against the rules, against the adults, no matter how smart I was. Though goodness knows, I tried.

I felt like an eighteen year old trapped in a body that was far too young, far too small and far too unconvincing. It was suffocating and I hated it with a passion. But I put a wall, and pretended that I wasn't really screaming inside.

They all believed me, thinking that nothing could logically upset an eight year old boy. They were correct in a way; nothing should logically have been able to upset me. There wasn't any real reason for me to be depressed after all. Not in their eyes anyways.

I was one of the rich kids. I had good clothes, food, parents that loved me, and I had no shortage of friends. My parents loved me, there was no doubt about that, but they treated me like I was normal, pretended that I wasn't smarter than any other kid my age. They just refused to admit that I was strange. Everyone in my family was odd in some way or another and they were determined that I would be normal, no matter what.

Sure, I had lots of people that most would consider friends. I prefer to think of them as acquaintances. None of them actually knew anything about my personality, what I liked and disliked or even what my favorite color was. The only exception to that was Ran. I'm pretty sure that she knew my favorite color.

So, in truth, I had plenty of reasons. The rest of the world was just too dense to see them. At least, that's what I believed at the time. I know now that my walls just kept everyone on the outside and no one saw how truly unhappy I was. I suppose that, that was my fault.

But, enough of my silly chattering, let's go back to the beginning… it was the year I turned eight and the day that changed my life. I feel that, that's an appropriate place to start.

I was heading to Ekoda library, as usual, because they almost always had my favorite books on hand to read. There was a murder along the way, as usual; it's something that I've grown used to for eight years. It was on the train this time, new place, same routine. The police suspected the wrong man, as usual, because of the false evidence left behind. And no one would listen to me, as usual, even though I know who the real murderer was, as usual.

The suspect, a tall man with short black hair, cropped at his ear and angular features, argued with the police and denied all charges while the real murderer, a fragile-looking woman in her early thirties with long brown hair curled into a bun on top of her head, sat in the corner, supposedly mourning her late husband.

"But you've got to believe me, that man is innocent!" I exclaimed, trying to convince the inspector on duty. He was a gray and balding man in his late fifties, with black eyes made smaller by his thick coke-bottle glasses. Judging by the glasses, which had gone out of style quite a few years ago, he wasn't too fond of change. He also, apparently didn't like to be corrected by eight year old boys.

"What would a brat like you know?" He asked irritably. "We've got the evidence and it all points to him, who else could it be?"

"He was framed!" I insisted. The inspector shook his head disgustedly and walked towards the woman in the corner, presumably to ask her more questions. I marched over to the benches that were nailed to the wall and sat down, fuming.

Even if I was only eight, kids usually notice more than adults because they're shorter, more curious and don't search for just one answer. Adults always search for the first answer, the one with the least amount of explaining. They probably think that it would waste too much time to do it properly.

Stupid adults, always thinking closed mindedly. They want one solution and one solution only, usually the first thing they come up with. That's why society is so messed-up, it's all their fault! If they were just gone, we could invent new things. Make the world a better place! If they were only gone…

At that point I started running through all the murders that I'd ever seen, thinking about ways that I could get rid of them, all at once. I was so obsessed that I didn't hear someone sit down next to me until they spoke.

"Why don't you just prove it?"

The voice was high pitched, leading me to believe that the owner of it was a girl. I turned to look and unexpectedly found myself face-to-face with a boy my age. We were so alike that for a moment, I wondered if I was looking into a mirror. The boy grinned, breaking the illusion.

My mind started to clear away the fog of murders as I studied the boy next to me. I noted that his hair was a lot messier then mine and that he was about an inch shorter than me. He looked totally ordinary, except for his eyes.

They were a startling shade of deep violet that twinkled mischievously, as if he was constantly laughing at the world. I liked his eyes the most; I thought that they were brilliant. I almost got lost in them for a moment before returning to my senses.

"I'd love to but they wouldn't listen to me." I said, frustrated. He just shot me a little smile and asked me where my evidence was. I pointed them out to him and watched as he walked around the train, just looking at everything. Finally he walked back over and sat on the bench once again, whistling a tune under his breath. I wondered what he'd come up with while looking.

"Convince one of the nicer officers that you know what you're talking about and show them the evidence, they'll tell the inspector for you." He informed me. "Less work for you that way."

I stared at him in awe, it was so amazingly simple! I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought of it myself. I silently berated myself on my stupidity.

"Thanks a lot! By the way, my name is Kudo Shinichi." I said, extending a hand for him to shake.

"I'm Kuroba Kaito, magician extraordinaire! Charmed, I'm sure." It was a joke the way he said it and I fought off the urge to laugh. The boy, who I now knew as Kaito, reached out and grasped my hand, grinning once again.

I got the feeling that he liked to grin, it felt free and joyous. I'm not quite sure how I knew that, I've never been good at reading people. I vowed to get better at it, if just to unravel this wonderfully mysterious boy in front of me. He snapped me out of my thoughts, telling me to go talk to the officers and solve the murder.

I did exactly that, running up to a young officer, a new addition to division two if his crisp uniform was any indication. I tugged on his pant leg until he looked down at me. He smiled kindly and leaned down until we were nearly eye to eye.

"What can I do for you?" He asked cheerfully. I explained my reasoning and showed him the evidence. It took a while, nearly ten minutes, but I finally got him to listen to me. An expression of shock took over his face as I concluded.

"You… you figured out all that?" I nodded, and asked him politely to go and tell the inspector what I had deduced. He scrambled to his feet and ran over to the older man, babbling almost frantically, though comprehensibly. I watched as understanding dawned on the inspector, and permitted myself a smug smile because, I had finally done it, I had solved my first successful murder case. The police of course, questioned me on how exactly I had come across the evidence and other related topics after they led the woman away in handcuffs.

By the time I was completely finished with them, it was dark outside and all the trains back to Beika had already left the station. One of the officers, the one that I'd first told my tale to, offered me a ride home once he was done with everything. I accepted and he told me to wait in the station.

On my way out, I looked for Kaito, but the station was deserted. A feeling of disappointment flooded through me and I wondered why I felt like that. I'd only known Kaito for maybe nine minutes, at most and I hadn't even talked to him for all of the time. I finally decided that it was because I didn't know him that well that I felt dissatisfied.

Sort of like I was leaving a good novel unfinished, never knowing the ending. It felt abrupt, and vaguely wrong. I wanted to bring him back, ask more questions, make a study of him, and try to learn what made him tick.

The officer came up behind me and led me to his car, cutting off my chances to look for Kaito. I felt cheated, but kept the feeling to myself. It wouldn't do me any good to upset the man that was being so nice to me, especially since he was my only way home.

We chatted on the drive to my house; I learned that his name was Takagi Wataru, and that he was eighteen years old. He had just joined the police force recently, as I'd guessed, and he was struggling to prove that he belonged there, mostly because he was so young.

He reminded me of myself in a lot of ways and I found myself pitying him as I heard more about his misadventures, particularly his failures to get a girl, Sato Miwako, to notice him. I absently wondered why he was telling me all this, when we arrived at my house. He stopped the car just inside the driveway.

"You don't need to come in with me." I tell him. He shakes his head good naturedly and unbuckled his seat belt. I sighed, knowing that it wouldn't do me any good to argue, and led him into the house.

He talked with my parents and told them about the case I had solved. My mom was shocked and my dad just gave a little smile, like he'd known all along. I sat as Takagi explained all the little nuisances of the case and let my mind wander.

Eventually, they finished talking, and Takagi drove home. I was sent to bed so my parents could discuss what I had done. I heard them talking until the early hours of the morning. When they finally stopped talking, I knew that I had been successful by the smiles on their faces as they woke me.

And that concludes my first meeting with Kuroba Kaito. I wouldn't seen him again for a very long time, but I never once forgot him.

I was glad that I'd met Kaito; he helped me a lot more than he ever could have imagined. Because of our encounter I studied crime novels, and honed my detective skills, worked on my ability to read people and my physical capabilities. Over the years I became quite good at soccer though I soon quit the school team because it was using up too much of my time.

My relationship with my parents changed after that as well, my mom started to see that I wasn't just a cute little accessory, but a living person and that I wasn't normal by any stretch of the imagination. My dad started to take more of an interest in me; we had long discussions about Sherlock Holmes, mysteries and best of all, lots of conversations about his books. It all fascinated me, and I was thrilled with my new found interests.

Ran and I became better friends once I dropped some of my walls and allowed people to get to know what I was really like. She soon became my best friend and shortly thereafter, my girlfriend. Even though it didn't last long, no more than a month or two, it was one of the happiest times in my life. I genuinely regretted that we broke up, though I knew it was for the best. Since then I'd merely made sure that her new boyfriends were nice, and that they actually cared for her like she deserved.

All of these new things, and new discoveries, kept me busy until the next major event of my life. It would happen nearly 9 years later, a week after my seventeenth birthday.

I would meet Kaito KID.

AN: Just thought I'd sort of.. you know, let you know that I'm alive. I'm honestly on a writer's block regarding Why I Love You... I've got a paragraph or two done but I can't seem to get past it. I know what I want to do with it... the words just don't want to come. Same thing happened with It Started With Discovery and I still haven't gotten around to doing anything with that one yet...

Anyways, this is my first time writing a story using "I" so I'm not really that confident in it. But I edited it a couple of hundred times so it should be okay... I hope. Also, I don't know what I'm doing with this yet... I think that it will be KaiShin (ShinKai?) but I'm not entirely certain... I may just switch things up for the hell of it.

Review please? :)