Mikau: I blame YOU. Yes, you know who you are. This fic is really cracky, so don't take it too seriously. It was a lot of fun to do, though. I hope you enjoy it! And if you haven't checked out the Poirot Café forum yet, I recommend it.
Disclaimer: If I owned it, this disclaimer wouldn't be necessary. See the author's notes below for ownership on the various pics and fics referenced within.
…
They Turned Us Into Ponies!
Hakuba Saguru didn't really like horses. Growing up, he'd been teased one too many times, and he'd really had enough of all of the "clever" jokes and, frankly, lame puns. He'd suffered through everything from nicknames like "White Knight", "Prince Charming", and "The White Stallion" to inappropriate remarks made about the size of certain parts of his anatomy. If he heard the expression "hung like a horse" or any of its variants one more time…
There were also the memories of growing up in England that fed his aversion to all things equine. His grandmother, the 12th Baroness FitzHerbert of Eastwell, had a small herd of the animals. She delighted in games like croquet, cricket, and polo (that, apparently, a proper gentleman had to learn), so Saguru had been forced to participate when he was younger.
Saguru wasn't exactly an athlete. He wasn't completely useless; he could hold his own, but sports weren't really his forte. He could run, a skill honed by his vocation of chasing down criminals (and his misfortune of being born to wealthy, influential parents that attracted the attention of people willing to stoop so low as to kidnap Saguru to get what they wanted). Both necessitated the ability to run fast for both short and long distances.
That being said, he could handle croquet and cricket, but polo was…he sucked at polo. He just couldn't coordinate his own movements with the horse, and the animal would seldom do what he wanted it to. He never had a good time, and, on top of that, he had to muck out stalls and take care of the horses in order to be allowed to play a sport that his family was forcing him to in the first place. Perhaps he was being unfair to the horses, but he still held a grudge against the beasts of burden for his childhood trauma.
So he didn't really like horses; therefore, when he found out about the pony picture, he was not pleased, not amused in the least.
Kuroba had bounced up to him during homeroom one day with one of those smirks that spelled trouble for some unlucky fool. Usually that particular grin came out during third period chemistry, but it looked like Hakuba would be the unlucky fool to suffer today.
"Look. Look what I found."
Suddenly Kuroba's phone was opened and thrust into Saguru's face.
"Kuroba, I am still sore and exhausted from your shenanigans last night," Saguru sighed, pushing the screen away. "Do lower your voice and sheath that obnoxious smirk of yours."
Kaito blinked, looking at the detective with owl-eyed innocence. "Uh…When you say me, you mean Kid-sama, right? Hakuba…you and Kid-sama aren't…" Kaito shuddered for added effect. "Gross! Hakuba, I don't want to hear about your sex life with my personal idol! What's even weirder is that you think he's me." Kaito's eyes flew open wide into an expression of absolutely stupefaction. "Oh my gosh! You don't secretly have the hots for me, do you?!"
Saguru bared his teeth at the clown and snarled, "Kuroba, I was talking about the heist. You're antics at the heist. Nothing more. Nothing less. Now I really am not in the mood for you this early in the morning without the aid of any kind of caffeinated beverage, so I would advise you to move along and get lost already. Shoo. Before I lose my temper and present my evidence that you're actually Kid to Aoko-kun."
Kaito didn't bat an eye at the empty threat. The detective and thief were better friends than that. Kaito knew that Hakuba's bluff was just that. "But, Hakuba! Look!"
Kaito held out the phone once more, not quite so far inside of Hakuba's personal space bubble this time.
Saguru rolled his eyes, taking the phone. It was sometimes faster to go with the magician on things than to try to argue with, threaten, or dissuade him. Kaito was tenacious, so on days when Saguru's nerves were frayed, stripped down to the wire (like today), it was better to humor the thief. "What exactly am I looking at?"
"Fan site!" Kaito announced cheerfully. "For Kid-sama and you and the Taskforce and everyone!"
Saguru blinked, mind screaming in horror as he looked the page over. "Do I want to know? Is this one of those places where young women draw and write torrid scenes of an almost pornographic nature about us?"
"You and Kid-sama," Kaito corrected, coming to sit on top of Hakuba's desk. He placed his hands down behind him and leaned back, kicking his feet back and forth in a lazy, carefree manner. "And, no. Not this one. The stories aren't that graphic. It seems that they mostly talk about recent heists, speculate, role-play—"
"—Role-play?" Saguru shuddered.
"Un!" Kaito chuckled as he pulled random things out of thin air—three scarves which he proceeded to mystically returned to the abyss with a wave of his hand (they were probably just being stuffed into his sleeve), four juggling balls which color-changed in midair (a trick of the light? Or maybe there was some kind of mechanism inside of them…only that didn't seem to be the case), some jacks that started to play themselves on a neighboring desk (now that was surely some kind of mechanical trick…probably), an entire bouquet of spring flowers (but how did he keep them from wilting or getting crushed while they were hidden among the folds of his clothing?), and two doves as white as big fluffy clouds which he kissed on the beaks and hummed a few lines of some half-familiar song to (surely he wasn't keeping the doves in his pocket! Was he? How did they keep from being smashed?!).
All the while, Kaito didn't miss a beat. "You know. Role-play. Where they pretend to be different characters and post as them, working together to tell a story."
"Don't those things often get…a little…?" Saguru didn't finish the thought.
Kaito shook his head as he released one of the doves to fly about the classroom, delivering flowers to all of the ladies. "Nah. In this one they solved a murder at that café in Beika, Poirot Café. Ever been? They have awesome chocolate cake. You were the one that solved the murder for the most part, but the police were there and all sorts of suspicious people and Kid-sama and that bratty detective kid with the glasses too big for his face and that bumbling sleeping detective and that scary karate girl with the detective kid."
The dove returned, landing on Saguru's head and starting to nest there.
Saguru bit his lip and reminded himself that a gentleman did not lash out at poor, defenseless avians that were only following their master's orders. "Kuroba…your bird. Do something about it. NOW."
Kaito smiled sheepishly and held out a finger for the dove to land on. "Hey now, Mona." Kaito clicked his tongue and made soft cooing noises at the bird. "Come here, pretty lady. It's not nice to play pranks on the stuffy detective."
Mona went back to her owner and received a kiss and a pat for her trouble.
Meanwhile, Saguru could feel that there was something in his hair. It was neither hot nor wet, so he assumed that he had not been defecated upon. (Thank. God.) It did, however, smell strongly…of lilies. Yes. There was a definitive floral scent emanating from the top of his head.
Kaito continued to smile and titter as he reached out and removed a crown of flowers from Saguru's hair. "Mona, you're so silly," he lightly scolded as he placed the crown atop his own head.
Saguru summoned up all of his self-restraint in order to keep from snapping at the magician, pushing the fool off of his desk, and going to the nurse's office to catch up on some much needed sleep. The preceding night, instead of getting a proper eight hours of sleep, he had spent the evening hanging from the ceiling in a cargo net, covered in confetti and glitter for two hours. And then he had lost an additional three hours down at the station, filling out paperwork about the whole embarrassing ordeal. At least he hadn't been put in a dress or an I Heart Kid shirt this time. Thank goodness for minor mercies and small miracles.
But Kaito continued to chatter, seemingly blind to the obvious rage of his rival. "And then, after the murder, there was a heist! Then after the heist, you and I went on a date."
"W-What?!" Saguru sputtered as Kaito hummed the Kamen Yaiba theme randomly. "Wait. Where do you figure in to all of this?! I thought that you weren't Kid."
"I'm not." Kaito shrugged nonchalantly. "But Kuroba Kaito (Nakamori-keibu's daughter's best friend and classmate and the number one Kaitou Kid fan) is a character known to truly devout Kid fangirls. There are even some fanfiction writers that have latched on to your earlier, crackpot theories that Kuroba Kaito is Kid because, apparently, it makes for really interesting relationship dynamics and plot points. So in this RP, they're writing it as if I am Kid, so you and I go on a date."
Hakuba stared at his tormentor with a blank expression of suppressed horror. He was suddenly feeling ill, and he could practically feel all of the color washing off of his face, leaving sick, sallow skin behind. "That is never going to happen. I tolerate your existence on a good day, but most of the time I despise you, Kuroba. You make my life hell!"
"Yeah, yeah. But we're totally all over each other in the RP," Kaito giggled—giggled!—and waved away Saguru's protests. "There's all this sexual tension, and we both know that we like each other, but we're being all shy and unsure and in denial about it, but you're so sweet to me and super supportive. A real Prince Charming! You're never that nice to me in real life," Kaito pouted, sticking out his bottom lip and looking at Saguru with those big, soulful indigo eyes. He looked like a kicked puppy. "Why can't you ever be that nice to me in real life, Saguru?" Kaito whispered, eyes pleading as he batted them.
Saguru abruptly stood, tipping over the desk and dumping Kaito onto the floor. "Don't. Call me that."
After whining loudly and making a bigger deal out of it than need be in order to draw an even larger crowd, Kaito slowly got to his feet and fixed Hakuba with an enormous pout of momentous proportions.
"And don't look at me like that," Saguru growled. "Enough of your nonsense."
"Boo," Kaito mumbled, brushing himself off and taking a seat on one of the nearby desks (the one belonging to Yamada-kun. Yamada-kun promptly abdicated his seat, knowing what was good for him). "You're so mean, Haku-chan!"
"Don't call me that either," Saguru snorted, sitting back down.
"Yeah, yeah. Fine. But you didn't have to go and hurt me like that," Kaito harrumphed, cradling his left arm and shrinking back like a frightened dog.
Saguru blinked, the rage instantly leaving him. "Kuroba, are you injured?" He got back up and went over to inspect the appendage.
Kaito fought and won against the urge to smirk triumphantly. Instead he stayed in character. "I just hit my arm. It's nothing. I'm fine, so get the hell away from me," he hissed, showing the faintest hint of teeth as he glared the detective down.
"Kuroba, let me look at it, or at least let's get you to the nurse," Saguru sighed, uneasily inching forward towards the seething magician. "Arms and hands are very important in your line of work. We need to see that your injury is looked after properly."
"I don't want to go to the nurse," Kaito snapped. "I want you to apologize for always being such a jerk to me! I was just teasing you, trying to be friends with you, and you totally just flipped on me! Why do you always have to be so uptight and mean to me?"
Saguru stared at the glowering, injured Kuroba for a moment, a dumbstruck look on his face. He had nothing to say in response.
Why was he always so short with Kuroba? The joker was annoying with the unique ability to get under the normally impervious Saguru's skin, but…did that really call for such violent reactions from Saguru? (He tried to bat away his kneejerk reaction of "YES.") Didn't Saguru pride himself on being cool, collected, logical, reasonable, and, above all else, a gentleman? Sure, Kuroba was obnoxious and childish, but did that excuse similar behavior from Saguru? Shouldn't the British detective rise above the pranks and the taunts and be the bigger person?
Saguru dropped into a ninety-degree bow at the waist. "I'm sorry, Kuroba. You're right. I overreacted. I beg your forgiveness. I was tired and irritated from the heist last night, but that's no excuse for treating you like that. I hope you'll be able to forgive me, so can we please take you to the nurse's office now to have your arm looked at?" Saguru slowly came up, giving Kaito an entreating look.
Only…when he raised his head and Kaito came into view once more, the magician was smiling and chuckling to himself, looking like a mouse that had just outsmarted a rather proud feline.
"Nah. I'm good. All's forgiven, so we're good now, Haku-chan," Kaito sang, swinging his legs back and forth once more.
Before going with his gut reaction of throttling the pesky sneak thief, Saguru took a deep breath and inquired, "You're not actually hurt, are you?"
"Nope. But look at this!" Kaito thrust a picture on his phone into Hakuba's face before the angry, humiliated, sleep-deprived detective could rip Kaito's head off. "It's you and Sera-chan!"
Saguru blinked, face going phoenix down red. "S-Sera-san?" He took the phone from Kaito, forgetting about his wrath in favor of curiosity.
"Yeah. And you're making that exact embarrassed expression in the drawing too! And look at Sera-chan! Isn't she so cute in her little deerstalker and inverness?" Kaito baited.
Saguru nodded.
"And somebody's even written a fanfic about you guys!" Kaito added helpfully.
Saguru's eyes widened. "S-Seriously? A story about S-Sera-san and me? Like, as a couple?"
"Hmm…on your way to being a couple," Kaito replied honestly. "There are some romantic scenes in there, though. The only thing is that the writer portrays you as this broody, troubled, broken, misunderstood youth."
The hopeful look fell straight off of Saguru's face and was promptly replaced with a frown.
"Actually, come to think of it, she's got your character down to a T!" Kaito chortled.
"I am nothing like that!" Saguru retorted, face turning red in anger.
"You are exactly like that," Kaito stressed.
"Well, what of you?" Saguru snorted. "How does she portray you? Or are you even in the story?"
"Me?" Kaito smiled, shining with pride. "I am a cross-dressing, butt-kicking, FBI agent fashionista from hell, baby."
Saguru stared blankly at his companion. "…Seriously?"
"Yeah. Seriously," Kaito replied unassumingly, slowly blinking twice. "I'm totally BA. I'm like the best character, and all of the readers love me. You should see what they say in the reviews."
"I can't believe this," Saguru sighed, face-palming in frustration.
"You'd better believe it," Kaito boasted, smiling haughtily. "In the fanfiction, whenever they write as if I'm Kid-sama, I'm the most BA, sexy guy ever. It's not every day that you get to be your own idol, so I'm just enjoying being mistaken for Kid-sama while it lasts."
"No comment," Saguru sighed. "You'd better hope that the people after Kid don't find those fan sites, stupidly believe what they read, and come after you in place of Kid."
Kaito had already considered the possibility and taken legal action to have the fans change his name and add disclaimers to the pages saying that the works were fiction and nothing more. Hopefully that would help, but…who was Kaito kidding? He needed to take down the Organization and fast before they really did find the fan sites and come after Kaito himself during the night as he dreamed, completely unawares.
"You'd have to be an idiot to actually believe the stuff they write. I mean…there's stuff about Kudo Shinichi being turned into a little kid," (Note to self, inform Tantei-kun of the data breach. His cover was blown. Hopefully the super sleuth could finagle his way out of that one somehow.) "and there's also stuff about you, me, and Kudo having a threesome. The bad guys would have to shift through an astronomical amount of ridiculousness. I think they have better things to do than read fanfiction that's sixty-seven percent gay smut."
"It can't be all that bad, can it? I mean…we just solve crimes. We bring murderers to justice and chase thieves and…" Saguru argued feebly.
Kaito shrugged. "Have a lot of crazy se—"
"—Kuroba, some of us are waiting for marriage!" Saguru snapped, the very tips of his ears turning fuchsia.
Kaito shrugged once more, unfazed. "Apparently the fans think that we're all horny teenagers that need the carnality as an escape from the unprecedented amount of death and tragedy we're exposed to."
"Ugh," Saguru sighed in defeat. "The people that write that stuff are insane, hormonal fangirls…like that Suzuki Sonoko character that's after you—Kid…whomever."
Kaito shuddered. "I actually think she's the one doing this. She's using her fortune to put out her doujinshi and proliferate all of those crazy pairings and wild ideas."
There was a beat in which both of the boys felt a distinct chill like an ice cube slowly sliding down their spines.
"Okay. Enough of the depressing, disturbing stuff," Kaito decided, pulling up a different page on the forum. "Look. This will cheer you up for sure!" Kaito trilled, easily shaking off the trauma of the previous line of thought. "A couple of days ago, one of the girls on the site started drawing these! Aren't they cute?!" Kaito chuckled, showing his friend a drawing of a pony in full Kid regalia, drawn in the My Little Pony style.
Saguru blinked. "Cute? No. That is an image straight out of one of my nightmares. Why in the name of all things holy is that pony dressed like the bloody Kaitou freaking Kid?"
"He's not dressed like Kid-sama, that is Kid-sama…in pony form," Kaito explained in a condescending tone, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.
"Oh. Well. Forgive me. My mistake," Saguru snorted, returning the snark with interest.
"Exactly. You should beg for forgiveness, you plebian," Kaito sniffed before slapping on a great big grin. "Anyway, it's totally awesome!"
"How can you say that? They've taken you—sorry—your idol and turned him into a pony. How are you okay with that?" Hakuba demanded.
"Because…I like cute things?" Kaito blinked innocently, tilting his head to the side and looking at the detective with big doe eyes. He clapped his hands together, and when they parted there was a blue pony plushie in his palm. "And Kid-sama makes a pretty BA pony. I bet all of the other ponies respect him."
Saguru nodded slowly, blinking in confusion at the stuffed toy. Did the magician just walk around with those things or what? That…wasn't normal. "Right. I'm sure all of the other pony people respect Pony Kid."
"Check out this one!" Kaito closed out of the Kid pony conglomeration and pulled up another. "It's Kudo Shinichi and Edogawa Conan! Check out the little Pony Conan! Isn't it just too much!? I love it!"
Saguru found himself blinking once more before his senses returned to him and he slunk back to his own desk. "Wow. That's very…very… Well, whoever the artist is, they did an excellent job with the hair. Conan-kun's cowlick looks unreasonably hard to draw, so I must admit that they did well on that…. Alright. Fine. The Pony Conan is actually kind of cute, but don't tell the guy that I said that."
"Don't worry. My lips are sealed." Kaito shot Hakuba a trustworthy smile, thinking to himself that Tantei-kun would soccer ball Hakuba in the face if he ever found out. And then the tyke would probably give Kaito himself a good super powered kick. And then there would be the artist should her identity ever come to light. That poor, poor artist.
"But…why does the Pony Conan look so much like the Pony Kudo-kun?" Saguru's eyes narrowed. "They even have that same…that same mark of some sort on their rear ends."
Kaito shrugged, deciding to do the shrunken sleuth a favor since it was Kaito's fault that Hakuba was finding out about the wonderful world of fandom in the first place. "You mean the cutie mark? I don't know. In all honesty, the two probably look alike in real life because they're related. Some kind of cousins or something. I forget how this crazy family tree of ours fits together sometimes."
"Ours?" Saguru's brow furrowed into three incredibly deep trenches of suspicion. "Meaning that you too are a member of the Edogawa and Kudo family trees?"
Kaito nodded, an utterly honest expression on his face. "Yeah. Why do you think we all look alike? We're all distant cousins."
"You're related to some of the foremost detectives of our time?" Saguru stared in incredulity.
Kaito nodded.
"And you're a thief?" Saguru chuckled, finding the whole thing rather humorous.
Kaito shook his head. "No. I'm a magician. A MAGICIAN," he stressed. "Geez. Did a traveling charlatan make your elephant plushie disappear when you were little or something? You seem to have this deep-seated conviction that magicians are criminals for some reason."
Saguru glared at his rival. "I'm not going to dignify that with a response. You know what you did."
Kaito raised an eyebrow, coming over to sit on the desk in front of Hakuba's. ("Sorry, Yuki-chan. Can I borrow your desk for a sec? Thanks so much! You're the best.") "Haku-chan, sometimes I really wonder which one of us is truly the crazy one."
The blonde's glare intensified. "You were talking about the connection between Kudo-kun and Conan-kun."
Kaito shrugged it off, crossing one leg over the other and tossing his flower crown so that it landed on Yuki's head. "The fans think that they're the same person because Kudo's gone off on some super-secret case around the same time that Edogawa Conan comes to town. They look alike because they're related, and they're both detectives, therefore Conan must be Kudo, shrunken by some kind of experimental drug!" Kaito's easy expression hardened into a frown. "You see how silly it is?"
"You're right," Hakuba snickered. "That's utterly ridiculous. Young women sure come up with some farfetched ideas, don't they?"
Kaito nodded knowingly. "I mean, these are the same people that are absolutely convinced that you and I are madly in love, constantly struggling to keep our hands off of one another. They write stories where we inexplicably start making out in class. I believe that should give you some idea of how much stock you should put in anything they say."
"You have a point," Saguru conceded.
Kaito's manic grin came back. "Wanna see something funny?"
"I'm concerned that we might not see eye to eye on what exactly constitutes 'funny'," Saguru confessed.
"It has to do with ponies…and the fact that it's come to my attention that you don't really like a detective from Osaka by the name of Hattori Heiji." Kaito smiled toothily, putting the Cheshire Cat to shame with the size of his grin.
A devious smirk blossomed on Saguru's face. "Show it to me. Show me the Pony Hattori."
"Done and done," Kaito snickered, opening the image.
"Oh my God!" Hakuba couldn't hold in the fit of laughter welling up inside of him at the sight of his rival transformed into a pony. "It looks just like him! I love this artist! She's a bloody genius! Could you please send me that picture? I need it for blackmail and bragging rights."
"But of course!" Kaito happily obliged his friend, emailing the file to the detective along with the site's URL.
"Are there any more of these? A Nakamori-keibu or something like that? Do they have a Kuroba Kaito pony as well?" Suddenly Hakuba was viewing the ponies in a much more favorable light.
"Me? No. No me yet." Kaito shrugged. "There is another pony of a different phantom thief, though. I don't know if I should be insulted that the artist did that Dark guy before me or not, but…from what I can tell she's planning on doing more ponies…and the chibi tantei as a spy as well as a HakuSera pic."
Hakuba's eyes widened. "I'd like to see that."
"Well, I sent you the link, so you can check the site on your own time in the future. I'm not so sure what the timeline on that is though," Kaito admitted. "It seems like the ponies are being done first…maybe?"
"So there aren't any more ponies?" Saguru asked with mild interest.
Kaito bit his lip. "Uh…you don't actually want to see the last one."
An intense look of displeasure descended upon Saguru's face, and suddenly he looked kind of intimidating. "There's a Pony Hakuba, isn't there?"
The face that the detective was making made Kaito want to be able to answer "No! Of course not!" Instead he nodded, holding out his phone. "Don't break the phone, okay? I know you can afford to buy me a new one, but I'm kind of emotionally attached to the present model."
Saguru took a deep breath and then laid eyes upon the abomination.
Kaito chewed on the inside of his cheek as he waited for some kind of reaction.
Saguru gave Pony Hakuba a bone-chilling death glare.
Kaito nervously licked his lips. "Well…honestly, it's not that bad. I mean…it's got your funny hat and the weird cape thing that you like."
Saguru's grip on the precious phone tightened.
"Did I say 'weird'? I meant distinguished! Definitely distinguished! The awe-inspiring, cool, elegant hat and the distinguished cape!" Kaito resorted to flattery in hopes of saving his dear, sweet mobile.
"Are you kidding?!" Saguru gasped. "I look ridiculous! No one could ever take me seriously after seeing this!"
"I thought it was kind of cute." Kaito shrugged, giving up on the phone. "I mean…the pose is really cool, and I think it captures your personality well. Pony Hakuba looks confident, like he means business. It's not like he's floofy rainbow colors or anything either. I mean…he's a very realistic, down-to-earth pony that just happens to be wearing your signature outfit," Kaito reasoned, trying to talk the detective down.
Biting his lip a tad too hard, Saguru gradually let go of the phone, shoving it back to Kaito, roughly pushing it towards the other teen's chest with a decisive, "Fine."
"Fine?" Kaito fumbled for his phone as it slipped through his fingers like a slick, unmentionable creature of the aquaphilic variety. He eventually apprehended it and made it disappear in a puff of his trademark pink smoke.
A third dove appeared instead, landing on Kaito's shoulder, cocking its head to the side, and cooing in what seemed to be confusion.
"Yeah. Fine," Saguru sighed. "I don't want to have anything to do with fanart or fanfiction or fan sites in any way shape or form."
"Awww," Kaito whined. "Don't rage quit on me, Haku-chan. The fandom is so much fun! Disturbing sometimes, but fun!"
Saguru would not be convinced. "I'll allow you to sort through all of that for me. I simply don't have the constitution for it, considering there's probably much, much worse out there than Pony Hakuba."
"Fair enough." Kaito shrugged. "Considering there are very detailed smut fics written about us and pictures of you kissing Kudo-kun and—"
"—Whoa. Wait. I've never met the guy!" Saguru shrieked.
"People ship you two," Kaito replied matter-of-factly.
"Why? Why on God's green earth?" Saguru replied in wide-eyed terror.
Kaito shook his head, indicating ignorance. "I honestly think you two would hit it off if you ever met, but…I don't know, Haku-chan. Maybe because you're both detectives? Because you've both chased Kid before? People ship Kid and Nakamori-keibu, Hakuba. The internet is a scary, scary place with no rhyme or reason."
"Right. Like I said, I'll leave the fan-related things to you." It was all Saguru could do not to whimper.
"Worst of all, the inaccuracies when it comes to crime solving and heists!" Kaito faked a swoon. "Whenever they do get around to throwing a crime in there."
Saguru shuddered, putting his hands over his ears. "Stop. Stop your nonsense. I haven't had enough caffeine for this."
Kaito smirked, satisfied with the outcome of their sojourn into the world of fandom together. He was pretty sure that he'd completely put the detective off the idea of ever looking at a fan site ever again. Kaito had also managed to discredit the fangirls and their superior powers of deduction concerning things like the true identities of certain phantom thieves and the very idea of high school students shrinking into grade school sleuths.
No, the detective wouldn't be poking his nose where it didn't belong for a long time coming, so both the meitantei and Kaito's identities should be safe, brushed off as the wild fantasies of crazy, bored women with overactive imaginations. Well, Tantei-kun's for the most part at least.
Kaito couldn't help but chuckle softly in triumph. Mission accomplished.
And not bad for half an hour's work! He'd have to write a memoir someday about all of the clever, innovative ways he had screwed with the poor detective's mind. Once the statute of limitations had run out on all of Kid's crimes, anyway.
"May we start homeroom now?" the teacher sighed loudly during the break in Hakuba and Kaito's dialogue. "We're running late."
"Whoops," Kaito whistled, hopping down off of Yuki's desk and summoning the two doves that had been busy flitting about the room, decorating it with streamers, confetti, and flowers. "Sorry, Sensei!" Kaito called as he scrambled to his own desk over by the windows.
Saguru stood and bowed deeply, cheeks burning in mortification. "I'm terribly sorry for causing a disruption, Sensei. It won't happen again. I'm sorry. I didn't even realize that it was time to start homeroom; I was so wrapped up in the discussion with Kuroba-kun."
"I think the whole class was," Kaito tittered, receiving a half-hearted swat from Aoko.
"Shut up, BaKaito. You're disrupting the class and picking on poor Hakuba-kun after he worked so hard at the heist last night!" Aoko scolded.
Kaito stuck out his tongue to taunt her but then held out a yellow rose as well just to throw her off balance.
She blinked, reaching out to take the flower, but then it exploded, and glitter rained down upon the unlucky girl.
"I didn't see you sticking up for poor Hakuba thirty minutes ago when I started badgering him," Kaito pointed out. "I bet you were busy listening to the discussion too, Ahoko," Kaito laughed.
Aoko clenched her teeth, reminding herself not to cause a scene no matter how badly she wanted to smack that insensitive fool upside the head with a cleaning apparatus. There had already been enough of a delay with Hakuba and Kaito's boisterous, extremely distracting conversation.
I mean…there were stories out there where Kaito…her best friend since kindergarten Kaito was in love with someone else? There were stories people had written about Kaito being that hated, wretched scoundrel Kid?! There were explicit stories…explicit pictures of Kaito with other men?! She didn't know how to feel about that, and the fact that Kaito himself had seen those pictures, read those stories was…! And he wasn't bothered by them?!
"Ahoko, your face is getting all red," Kaito teased reaching out to poke her cheek.
She smacked his hand away, hissing, "BaKaito."
Maybe Kaito wasn't entirely the man that she thought. Come to think of it, over the past two years, Kaito had changed.
Aoko was ripped away from her thoughts as the teacher started to speak once more.
"Hakuba-kun, it's fine. Why don't you go lie down in the nurse's office? Your complexion doesn't look so good. You really did work hard last night at the heist, didn't you? Go lie down. Kuroba-kun will take notes for you."
"W-Wait! Why me, Sensei?" Kaito protested.
Their teacher fixed him with one of those "You shall not question me" stares. Normally the lady was super nice to the point of being a pushover. She was kind of spacy, but she was a likeable person, a good teacher. However, like most women (as Kaito was slowly learning), she could turn into a fierce, incredibly intimidating obstacle when she was pushed too far.
Apparently Kaito had pushed her too far this morning.
"Kuroba-kun, you started this. You will take responsibility," she decreed.
"Right. Yes, Ma'am," Kaito reluctantly agreed. "I'll take notes." He didn't even bother throwing his "My handwriting looks like bird scratch" excuse out there.
"Thank you, Sensei," Hakuba begrudgingly agreed, gathering his things and exiting with a bow. "Excuse me."
The detective left, trudging down the hall and to the right to the nurse's office where he would lie down and most likely have nightmares infested with anthropomorphic ponies…and that was if his imagination didn't decide to run wild, fueled by his lack of sleep and terrible experiences at the heist the following night…and the paperwork that followed. If Hakuba was utterly without an ounce of luck, he'd probably end up with frightening dreams about all the fan-generated materials out there.
Meanwhile, back in the classroom, as soon as the door had closed behind Saguru, the teacher turned to Kaito with a broad smile and asked, "Kaito-kun, would you mind sharing with the class the web address to that forum fan site that you were talking about?"
Kaito smirked and snickered, "My pleasure. It's all one word, all lowercase. Three w's, dot, poirotcafe, dot, com. Enjoy!"
The
End
…
Mikau: Okay, so before anything else, let's do credits. The RP on Poirot Café is done mostly by Detectivewriters (Natsumi) as Conan, DragonAce1999 (Starlight) as Vermouth/Heiji, Kaggami(-chan) as Kaito/Chikage, and me as Hakuba. Recently we've been joined by GeekyGenius as Superintendent Hakuba Akihiko. The HakuSera picture that Kaito mentioned is by neonquincy1217, and it can be found in the Fanart section of Poirot Café. The HakuSera fic is, of course, my own Falling in Love Literally which is on here. There's also a FLL thread in the Fanfic section on Poirot where there's discussion and extras. Hakuba's elephant plushie belongs to Icka M. Chif. All of the pony pics are Natsumi (Detectivewriter)'s, and they can be found in Poirot's Fanart section. Well, I hope you enjoyed the silliness. Let me know what you thought, what parts or lines were your favorites or where it fell flat. And do take a look at the forum! Thanks everyone!
