Chapter 2: Rooftop conversations


The following week was almost too peaceful for Conan, who was used to odd circumstances leading to murder around him. It was a good, boring week, only two cases that had been easy to solve. One was a writer, who felt he had been stalked, which had been his manager that went a bit overboard in his concern about the writer. The other was finding a missing Item, that the owner had lost.

Kaitou Kids note had kept his mind busy for two days. Having searched the news in Museums it was no wonder he had at first missed the newly arrived Jewel. The large Moonstone, named Mūṉ ṭav, that now resided in a Planetarium, basicly meant moon dove. Ha, Ha. Dove, moonlit, starry sky. Yeah, right. It was so easy that he was almost embarrassed that it had taken him so long.

Right now he was standing at a window in the planetarium. They were currently on the highest floor of the building and Conan was more or less sure, that Kid would try to escape from the roof. The checks at the entrance would make it difficult for Kid to get out of the building otherwise, disguise or no disguise. From the window he had a great view of the slowly setting sun, while Nakamori was giving his usual speech to the live feed.

Looking from the sun to his watch he counted down the time still left before Kid would make his entrance, while looking at the people around him and around the treasure.

When the last rays of the sun finally disappeared, a tense silence filled the room, the officers looking suspiciously around for anything incriminating.

A low, portentous hiss sounded, followed by thick steam slowly crawling over the floor. The officers nervously looked down, unsure if the mist would have any consequences of mischief that the thief usually doled out like candy on Halloween.

Conan carefully put his hand in the substance to test the consistence between his fingers. It was simply fog from a fog machine that was hidden somewhere, so he quickly looked up again, just in time to see Kid landing on the case where the target lay. The officers that had just a moment ago surrendered the display case were now lying on the floor, mist crawling over their bodies like it wanted to swallow them whole.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, dearest fans and children!" the thief announced while standing up and spreading his arms in a welcoming gesture.

"Welcome to today's heist!"
Conan growled, being smaller than the rest the mist was already beginning to obscure his vision, while the officers only had it up to their waist for now. But he was sure the Thief had thrown him a mocking grin, when he had added the children part. For that alone he would get the irritating thief with his soccer-ball at least once..

While Nakamori charged Kid like a bull who saw a fluttering cloth, together with several other Officers (forgetting that there were people lying on the floor, adding to the chaos that piled up around the display case), Kid crossed his arms over his chest and quickly threw them out again. A swarm of doves hid the thief and display case from view, long enough for the phantom thief to make a disappearance. Meanwhile it seemed as if the area around the display case had been coated in some kind of glue. The police that had dog-piled there had now a real problem getting back up again.

Cursing his small body Conan took of running for the roof.

He arrived quickly enough to catch his breath a bit before the thief stalked onto the roof like he owned the building. Conceited bastard.

Quickly kneeling down he prepared to kick the round leather at Kid, when the thief spotted him and grinned.

"Tantei-kun!" Conan twitched. It almost sounded as if Kid was... happy to see him. Creepy.

"My favorite little critic!" definitely happy? Confused he stopped his movement and eyed the magician, that was by now almost carelessly flipping the moonstone brooch in the air, suspiciously.

"It has been a rather long time since we last met."

"...Isn't that because you haven't shown your ugly mug for four months?"

"My, my, does that mean you missed me? Counting the time since our last date!" the teasing voice grated on his nerves.

Still, he was not sure where Kid wanted to head the conversation, while he was in a crunched position half ready to kick a ball at his target. Since Kid was throwing the jewelry around like a coin, he couldn't really take aim at him without risking the jewelry being thrown over the edge of the roof as well. He did wonder if Kid had calculated that when going to the roof, which meant that the thief had probably known all along that Conan was up here before him.

Which led to the conclusion: Kid hat taken his time to get here, or all that Conan would have found was a hang-glider on the horizon. And if Kid had taken his time and predicted that Conan would follow him here...

"What do you want?"

That annoying smile was fixed to Kids face, Conan would love to wipe it off as it grated on his nerve.

"What makes you think I would want something from you?"

The eye-roll Conan couldn't hide only earned him a snicker.

"Okay, you got me. Let's say I'm curious about you."

This time Conan grimaced a little and again, stayed silent.

"At first I thought you were just an incredible intelligent child. Since I know about you, that could be explained. It doesn't explain how you came to be you though."

"And it's not like it's got anything to do with you either." Conan replied, his face closing off and the azure eyes becoming sharper. Why was the thief suddenly so interested in his past and how he became shrunk again?

"So?"

"So what?"

"It's not like I could tell it to someone. And I'm a curious person."

"... is that supposed to make me pour my heart out to you...?"

He couldn't believe Kid snorted. Surly he had misheard. Okay, so he had actually kind of often heard Kid make sounds one wouldn't expect, but normally there was a reason like on the Sky-ship, when Kid had been challenged to take the Lady Sky. Where he had accidentally tickled Kid when he tried to get to his Grapple hook gun.

"And by the way, Kid... Are you sure you can afford to have leisure conversations now?" Conan asked dryly, sometimes he wondered about Kids mental state. "I mean, the police won't be stuck down there forever, you know?"

Kid's laughter threw him off balance just as much as the jewel being thrown at him, which he barely caught. He had always been better with his feet than his hands. In the time he was busy fumbling for the jewel, Kid had swung himself over the fence that stood in the way of his escape.

"I suppose not." the thief shrugged his shoulders, standing on the edge "Well, first they would have to get themselves out of that sticky situation... Not that they would be able to catch me anyways, but I do worry about Nakamori-keibu's blood pressure. Better not to risk it." Conan clenched his teeth, with the fence between them he wouldn't be able to kick anything at kid, so he just opened his watch – more as a threat than anything else, since he didn't want to kill Kid by tranquilizing him and causing him to fall.

"Anyways, Tantei-kun... I will just have to keep an eye on you, to find out myself what brought your little problem on, right? See you soon" he called over his shoulder before stepping off the roof.

Straightening himself and being irritated that he fell for such a trick and let the thief escape unharmed he frowned after the white hang-glider.

"You're better off not even trying..." he sighed, not seeing the small dove with a microphone sitting behind him. Did that mean that from now on he had to watch out that this stupid thief didn't stick his hat-covered head into business that didn't concern him? Great, as if he didn't have enough problems for now.

Cradling the small brooch carefully in his small hands he made his way back to the police that were probably still running around.


After he got to the police and had given the jewel back, telling them Kaitou Kid hat managed to escape yet again, his hand was grabbed in a tight grip. When he looked up he saw Ran scowling down at him. Uh-oh.

"Conan-kun! You always disappear, making me worry." she knelt down beside him drawing him in a hug that made him blush and freeze.

"Stop worrying me so much. I know you like Kids heists but you always do reckless stunts. Leave Kid to the adults.

Ran... Awkwardly putting his hands around her (Small, too small to encircle her fully now) he whispered a soft apology.

"It just got really stuffy in there, I couldn't see anything. So I thought I would head outside to get fresh air and Kid was there!" in the end he raised his voice in (hopefully) childish excitement and waved his hands as good as he could before Ran loosened her hug and gave him a smile.

"Oh. So that's where you've been." She probably thought Kid had more or less handed the Jewel over to him, which wasn't exactly a wrong assumption.

Crisis averted for now.

When they headed home though, Conan couldn't help but feel followed.


A/N:

So... here is the next chapter. I decided to post my notices at the end of the chapter for now.

By the way, I'm hoping to make this a longer story, so it will probably progress very slowly. In case I got your hopes up for romance, that will still take a long time to show itself. This is mostly a Drama/Adventure Story.
For now I'm writing randomly at different chapters. I actually am up to chapter 6 and working on chapter 7. I've got some of the last chapters already written out too, though, as well as a few small parts I'm hoping to integrate.
Next update will be in a week :)

Next chapter title: The crime that led to the crime