I figure that whenever Shinichi gets back to his normal self, he's going to absolutely hate anyone calling him cute. He's put up with that enough as Conan, after all. (And being called cute is annoying, even when you're an actual little kid - I always hated it when I was little.) Anyway, I pointed this out to a friend, we got to talking about it, and the conversation ended something like this:

"I need to write this, don't I?"

"Yes. You do."

And so I did. :3

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters in the following work of fanfiction. They all belong to Aoyama Gosho.

Cute

After the downfall of the Black Organization, Shinichi was relieved and grateful to no longer be stuck as a seven-year-old shadow of his former self. It was almost like a new source of confidence – he felt a lot more like himself now that he was back to normal, and he actually was, if you stopped to think about it.

It was a rather pleasant thing to dress up in an adult-sized suit, he mused as he adjusted his tie – a suit tie, he'd had enough of bow ties to last him a lifetime. And it was definitely a quite welcome novelty to be treated with any degree of respect by those above one meter in height. He was going to a charity dinner held for policemen – publicly, he had been invited since he had always been such a huge help to the police force. In truth, it probably had more to do with his help in the bust on the Organization, but that usually stayed out of the papers.

Hattori had also been invited, for much the same reasons as Shinichi. And to top it all off, Shinichi even had a date to this thing.

Ran looked very pretty in a dress. Well, Shinichi always thought she looked pretty.

All in all, Shinichi was in a very good mood as they showed their invitations at the door.

The one damper on the evening gave a gruff cough behind them. Occhan had also gotten an invitation. Shinichi privately blamed himself for making The Idiot into such a famous detective.

(Nobody tell the man that his daughter is on a "date". This has been a public service announcement. Thank you.)

The author moved on with the story just as the three of them found their table. Seating was pre-arranged, and there would be speakers later in the evening, but for now, people were mostly milling around from table to table, ordering food, or getting themselves a drink. To the great Sleeping Kogorou's credit, he managed to wait a whole ten minutes before heading to the open bar in the back of the dining hall. It was a testament to just how concerned he was about his daughter and her relationship with certain punk detectives. Normally, he would have made a beeline to the booze as soon as Ran first had her back turned.

"He's going to end up drinking too much," said Ran with a half-hearted glare at her father's retreating back. Looking back at Shinichi, she gave a small smile. "You really did get all dressed up, didn't you?"

Was she giggling? Yes. Yes, she was.

"Yeah." Shinichi shrugged. "So?" he asked casually, wondering what was so terribly entertaining.

"Well, it just reminded me of that little jacket and bowtie you used to wear." Either oblivious to or ignoring his annoyed expression, she continued, "You look so cute in a suit."

Shinichi stared at her, feeling very insulted.

"It's true you know. It's adorable," she said, grinning rather wickedly.

"Ran…" Shinichi growled through gritted teeth. "Can you please not—" He was cut off by a shout from a few tables away.

"Oi! Kudou!"

Shinichi turned his head rather sharply to see Hattori making his way towards them. It was a bit of a novelty to see him wearing formal clothing for once.

"Heiji-kun! Is Kazuha-chan here?"

"Not yet. But her dad got invited, so she will be. I'm glad you guys got here, I didn't know how much longer I could stand sitting over there."

"Eh?" Ran sounded a bit confused. "Why, what happened?"

"Guess who sits at the big table over there." He gestured to a long table at the head of the hall right in front of the small stage.

"High-ranking officers, right?" Shinichi answered, straightening a little in his chair to get a better look. "Like police superintendents, that sort of thing."

"Right," said Hattori distastefully. "And their families. And guess who I just happened to end up sitting next to?"

Shinichi didn't have to guess, he could see the empty chair next to Hattori's parents, and on the other side of it was a shock of wavy blonde hair.

There weren't a lot of people associated with Japan's police departments that had blonde hair.

"Hakuba?" Shinichi ventured a bit stiffly. Hattori might have provided a good distraction, but he was still a bit miffed over the "cute" comment.

"The one and only," Hattori answered sarcastically. "Anyway, what have you guys been doing?"

Well, not miffed, exactly. Make that still pretty annoyed over the "cute" thing.

"Oh, nothing much," Ran said brightly.

Shinichi was brooding over it and he knew it. Well, maybe he should have just let it go…

"I was just telling Shinichi how cute he looks in suit."

Make that pissed off. And several other unprintable things.

"Ran, I don't think I'm going to speak to you for the rest of the evening." He put as much calm as he possibly could into his reply. This was made rather difficult by the fact that Hattori had dissolved into uncontrollable laughter.

"But it's true! I always thought that Conan was the cutest little kid I'd ever seen." There was mischief sparkling in her eyes again. Shinichi vaguely wondered if this was overdue payback for lying to her for so long.

"I said, I'm not speaking with you," Shinichi growled at her. "And can you please stop laughing, Hattori?"

"Kudou, calm down," Hattori managed to choke out in between peals of laughter. "Unless it struck a nerve?"

A glare was the only response he got.

"Now you're not talking to me, either? Geez, you really have such a short temper." He was once again rendered temporarily incapable of speech or thought as a fresh wave of laughter hit.

That was it.

"I'll talk to both of you later when you've stopped being idiots," he snapped, standing up. He walked away from the table, and with nowhere to go, headed to the bar at the back, hoping they had something non-alcoholic.

It had officially turned into a Very Bad Day. Evening. Whatever. He sat on a stool as far away from Occhan as possible. He was still fuming. Honestly, he got poisoned, shrunk, shot a couple times, he brought down the majority of a vast and dangerous criminal organization, and for some inexplicable reason became the brunt of a lot more jokes than he appreciated.

If one more person started joking about his former height, he was going to…

"Oi, Tantei-kun. You shouldn't be at the bar, now should you?"

Shinichi twisted so fast in his seat that he almost started to get a little dizzy. Fortunately, seeing red and having his vision spin a bit seemed to completely cancel each other out. Don't ask how.

A man he recognized as a senior officer in the Kaitou Kid Task Force grinned back at him, sipping at some amber drink. The man had most definitely not been sitting there when Shinichi had sat down ten seconds ago.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, glaring daggers at the man. "And unless my sight is a lot worse than I thought, I'm fairly sure you're not supposed to be sitting at a bar, either."

"All my favorite police officers are here, why wouldn't I be?" The Kid grinned at him from behind someone else's moustache, ignoring Shinichi's second comment entirely.

"Right. I've had enough of this." Shinichi grabbed the drink away from Kid and downed it in one gulp. "And don't start about how I'm a minor. Also, if you call me 'Tantei-kun' or make one joke about my age or apparent age at any point in time, then the whole hall gets a Code 1412 alert."

Kid considered this. "You know, Tantei-kun, I think I already did both those things. Maybe it was over your head?" With a grin and before Shinichi could react, he dropped a smoke bomb, drawing shouts from part of the room and simple confusion from the rest as pink smoke billowed out from the bar.

When it all cleared, the thief was, quite predictably, gone. Probably just in a different disguise, but that wasn't very useful information if it came to trying to find him.

Shinichi felt rather like he wanted to punch something.

~Fin

Hope you liked the shameless torture of poor (adorable) Shinichi! Please review!