Chapter 1

"Kudo! What's up?" the tall, dark skinned Osakan greeted cheerfully, his grin wide and childish. Shinichi looked up from her book—The Hound of the Baskervilles—giving him a bored look that was the usual expression of the eighteen year-old girl.

"Hattori," she replied, turning the page. Heiji frowned, hurt that his best friend had greeted him so rudely, and crouched down to put his face closer to the girl, who was lying on the couch in the Kudo Mansion's library, her chin cupped in her palm. She didn't even glance at the boy as her eyes skimmed down the familiar page quickly.

"Come on, Kudo," Heiji complained loudly, poking Shinichi's arm obnoxiously. Shinichi managed to ignore him for a couple of minutes, but Heiji eventually won out.

"What?" she demanded, turning her beautiful blue eyes to the boy, her black hair flipping to hit Heiji's face. Heiji frowned at the frustrated tone, but took the moment to steal the book away from her. She snapped out to reach for it, but Heiji was faster. He shut the book and threw it onto the table beside the two. He grabbed Shinichi's outstretched arm and pulled the unwilling girl to her feet.

"You promised to go around Tokyo with me today!" he said, reminding Shinichi of the phone call she'd received the day before.

"I'm comin' down ta visit ya tomorrow! Yer going to take me around the city, ain't ya?" Heiji asked, and Shinichi, who'd been reading her book sighed tiredly.

"Yes, yes, whatever," was her reply. Heiji was obviously grinning as he went on to tell her about some case he'd solved before the police had even arrived the other day. Shinichi stopped listening, and finally closed her cell phone once she realized that Heiji had hung up.

"I suppose that's what you consider a promise?" she asked with a frown. Heiji nodded and pulled her out of the library to the door, where he put on his shoes and handed Shinichi hers.

"Yep! Sure do! But don't worry, I've got it all planned out. A trip to the ice-cream shop, then to the art museum, and then to lunch…" he went on about what he wanted to do all day, but Shinichi wasn't listening.

Sometimes, she wished she hadn't met Heiji, and that they hadn't become friends. The boy was so loud, and obnoxious. He visited Beika all the time, bothering her about such trivial things. Constantly, she had to remind him of his life back in Osaka, just so he'd leave her alone for a week.

He took her out of the house, going directly to the ice-cream shop that he'd visited many times before with her. Shinichi got her usual vanilla, but Heiji decided to get a different choice today.

"Hmm," he said cheerfully. "How about cotton candy with caramel sauce and lots and lots of sprinkles!" he told the man taking his order. The guy grinned, writing it down and high-fived his regular visitor. The two had hit it off immediately, almost as soon as they'd met.

They ate their ice-cream as they walked around town, and Heiji told Shinichi about what had happened during the past week that he hadn't seen her at all. Of course, he'd called her at least twice a day.

And for some reason, he kept bringing up Kazuha. He usually didn't, but today, he kept studying the girl's face whenever he said her name. She finally asked, "Are you two going out?" This shocked him, and he rushed to assure her that that was completely wrong and that she was seriously crazy for thinking so.

"Well, you seem to be talking more and more about her," she pointed out to him and he blushed slightly. She waited for him to admit that they actually were, but no such thing happened. He just looked around for something to distract her. She sighed, but mentally shrugged. It didn't matter to her if the two were going out. It was their business. Not hers.

So Heiji dragged her around her home town all day, not bringing Kazuha up again. And, to the surprise of Shinichi, she actually enjoyed her outing with Heiji. He was funny when he wasn't being annoying, and actually very gentleman-like. He did small things for her throughout the day without seeming to even know he was doing them. Shinichi liked that about him.

Heiji, who was planning on going to a nearby motel to stay at for the night, was invited to stay at the Kudo manor for as long as he liked. When Shinichi had told him this, he'd blushed a deep red, and had tried to decline, but Shinichi was firm. "It doesn't cost you anything to stay here, and it's completely fine with me, so you're staying." Heiji finally gave in, but chose a room as far from her's as possible, saying that he liked the room the best.

"Good night, Kudo," he called as he stepped into his room, firmly shutting the door behind him. Shinichi murmured her own 'good night' and made her way to her room. Once there, she collapsed tiredly on her bed, a single thought entering her mind. Hattori's really weird. Nice, but weird. And then she fell into a peaceful slumber.