A/N

If you haven't noticed, I skipped a hell lot of time frames… Like how Haibara appeared, like around… 4 years after the first Conan publication? Yeah. I was just too impatient, I guess… And this morning, I wonder why I had to wake up to the song that (translated to English) goes like this; The rich die, the poor die. Kings die, civilians die… Yeah, something like that… I don't even know who sang it -_-…

Sato took out the people in the outermost room, securing them with a rope so that they won't be able to run away when they came to. She touched her earpiece, turning it on, and said, "Area 3, secured."

"Area 4 and 5, secured!" Takagi said, tension clearly evident in his tone. They then proceeded to meet up with Mouri and Megure in Area 1, passing Shiratori in Area 2 and 6, where the children were kept. After securing everyone, they all hauled the bad guys into a police car, and all children into ambulances that they'd called beforehand.

In the interrogation room, they'd tried to ask them questions, because after all, it is the interrogation room. Conan had watched the whole question-answer thing, and everything the man said had been odd, at least to Conan's ears. The others seemed to accept it, though.

Later, when they were put inside a jail cell, Conan sneaked past the guards and came up to them. "What's your real motive?" he asked, his tone serious. The men looked at him, bewildered that a child his age would ask such a question in such a mature voice. Then, they all laughed.

"He's just a kid," one said between chuckles. "What would he know?"

Conan narrowed his eyes. True, he might be a child at this time, but he didn't like to be belittled, just because he was shrunk. "I know for a fact," he said, eyes cold in anger, "that you guys didn't do this because you wanted to. You were ordered to, am I right? And I supposed the leader isn't that dumb to actually stay with you folks for too long." He shrugged.

"You didn't want to at first, which explained some children escaping and reporting to the police, even though the said police didn't believe them at first. But then, you guys just… started to kidnap as many children as you can. I find that odd… so, why?"

The men quieted down, not expecting a child to point that out. Even the police seemed to believe their reasoning, in which wasn't false, but it wasn't the whole truth either. "True," one person said, his eyes were blank, nothing could be read by the child at all, "we were ordered to… But we were afraid."

"Afraid? Of what?" Conan asked. "He wanted the children to be used for some sort of experimentation… And threatened that he could also use adults if we don't get him any children within a month. That month soon changed into week, and after that, if we don't fetch him one child a day, he'd use one of us to repay it… And it was always randomly chosen, so we didn't want to risk it…"

"And so you kidnapped children just because you were scared?" A grim nod was his answer. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed. Humans will cower before their own fears and will do anything to avoid them, unless they're strong enough to overcome them. This was a known fact.

"And so? Who was he?" Conan asked, his last question for the men. They all looked at each other, uncertain. "Well, you might not believe us…"

"But he told us to call him…"

They all said in unison, "Birra Castello."

"We call him 'Castello' for short," one added. The name rang a bell in Conan's memory, where his dad and a friend or acquaintance of his brought a beer with the same name. 'Beer? A codename?' Conan thought, immediately relating it to the Black Organization, to Gin and Vodka. Just like how Haibara was Sherry in Shiho's form…

'Is he one of them?' he thought grimly. He was somewhat happy that he's close to the Black Org, because he hoped that he'd get the formulae Haibara needed to create the antidote to the APTX. But he was worried, to all those children who had been captured and not yet returned, dead or alive.

Walking back to the others, Conan got a severe scolding from Ran, mostly about running off on his own and not informing her at all.

It had been a while since the last time Ran and Aoko met up. They spoke of places, new and old, just to have some place to sit down and talk in peace. They settled at a small place where they ordered a parfait as they sat.

"So, how's life?" Aoko asked, her usual question when they met after such a long while. "Well, for one thing," Ran said, her tone taking a sad turn, making Aoko look at her, worried. "Shinichi's disappeared."

"Eeh?! Seriously?!" Aoko said, not believing it for one bit, because Kaito seemed to be busy stalking the said East Detective once. Ran's nod was uncharacteristically powerless-ish. "No way… When did you last seen him?"

"Well, we were at Tropical Land… You know, after my Karate Regional Championship?" At Aoko's nod, she continued, "he suddenly ran off somewhere, and after that… Poof, gone."

"That's… worrying," Aoko said, her eyebrows knit together. "But, you know," Ran said, somewhat brightening up a little. Just a little. "After that, I went to check for Shinichi in his house, and found Conan-kun instead."

"Conan-kun? Who's that?"

"Ah, Aoko-chan, you haven't met him yet, huh? He's Shinichi's relative, and he's in grade school."

'Grade school?' Aoko thought, remembering the phone call she made to Shinichi after learning about Kaito's break-up. 'It was a child who answered his phone… And the one who asked him who he was talking to in the background… It was Ran's voice, right?'

The dots in her mind were starting to connect as Ran told her stories about how he started living with her and so on. "Heeh, you sound like you're fond of him, huh?" Aoko said with a smile. "Yeah, I guess so… But listen here, he's always unable to see where he is until danger is right behind him."

"Eh?"

"Well, he likes to play detective, probably Shinichi's influence," the last part she mumbled before continuing, "and he tends to run off and try to capture the bad guys himself… Really, he worries me a lot!" Ran ended with a huff. "Hoooh…"

"Aoko, next time you come, I'll introduce you to him. How about that?" Ran offered with a giggle. "He sounds like an interesting kid… I'd love to meet him!" Aoko said, beaming. She may not be one to love kids, but this 'Conan-kun' sounded different from other annoying children. For one, he sounds almost like Shinichi.

Following the child-detective everywhere wasn't getting him anywhere, he concluded far before, but he had a feeling that he had to keep on watching him. His sureness of 'Edogawa Conan' being 'Kudou Shinichi' had been confirmed far before, and they'd become friends of sorts.

It was probably because stalking his detective was something he liked to do before they dated, so the habit was coming back to him now. Besides, it helped him practice changing disguises and be as stealthy as possible when in close proximity to the child.

Conan seemed to notice him but unable to find him anyways, so he at least knew that he was being stalked. He wasn't in disguise at the moment, not exactly. His jacket was one that he wore only when he wanted to have quick access to his magic props, and with a wide variety at that.

He was about to change into a disguise, when a hand made him flinch. "What are you doing?" the owner of the hand said, and Kaito's practiced poker face came, making him look calm, as if he were waiting for someone all this time. "Ahoko! You're gonna give me a heart attack one day, for god's sake!" Kaito said, sort of annoyed.

"Well, you seemed to be stalking someone. I was suspicious, though. I mean, from Ran-san's story, Kudou-san shouldn't even be in Japan right now, so I wondered who you were stalking," Aoko said with a confused look. "Well—"

"Nakamori-san?" a sweet child's voice called, his eyes recognizing the daughter of the police he sometimes had to lead so that he could capture the thief. It took a moment for Aoko to recognize the boy. "Oh, Conan-kun!" she said, happy. "It's nice to see you here!"

The child was cute, his eyes sharp, yet in her eyes, seemed innocent, despite the murder cases he'd seen countless times, according to Ran. Without the glasses, he might even look exactly like a younger version of Shinichi.

"You were meeting Mouri-chan, Ahoko?" Kaito asked, a little bit surprised. He hadn't seen this coming. Had he been so preoccupied with the little detective that he'd sort of neglected his civilian life? Was that the reason for the confused looks his classmates gave him when he came back to school after stalking him?

"You didn't know, Bakaito?" Aoko said, very sure that she'd told him yesterday about her plans today. "Ah, sorry… My mind wasn't in the right place…" Kaito said sheepishly. Conan watched the two of them, trying to determine who had been his stalker.

Aoko might not be an option that is after he'd confirmed it with Ran. Kaito seemed to be the more suspicious one. His head throbbed a little, and he ignored the pain. He found himself thinking about going to the hospital later, but shook his head, dismissing the idea.

"Ah, sorry Conan-kun, let me introduce you, this is Kaito. Kur—"

"Call me 'Kai'," Kaito said, his words cutting Aoko's. "That's not nice, Bakaito," Aoko said. Ignoring her statement, he said, "Nice to meet you, Conan-kun," with an emphasis. Aoko eyed the magician, confused by the change in his usually calm and collected demeanor.

"Same here," Conan said childishly, suspicion rising within him. A mischievous grin spread across his face, and he kneeled in front of the detective. "Conan-kun, do you know who I am?"

After a suspicious look from Conan, he said, "A magician." Aoko's eyes went wide. "How did you know that?"

"Well, for starters, Kai-nii-chan's jacket seem to be able to house many things underneath it, and seeing the glitter on his shirt, he must have at least something inside. Plus, his hands are calloused and seem to be unable to stop moving, so I bet that he's trained to do many continuous things simultaneously, like a magician," he reasoned.

"That's right," Kaito said, conjuring a rose out of nowhere. "Looks like Ran-san wasn't lying when she said that you seem to know more about a person with one glance…" Aoko said, amazed. Upon accepting the rose, Conan's breath caught.

'What's this feeling?' he thought, a dull throb on the back of his head coming into his attention once more. 'It's like… Receiving roses had always been a norm… It feel so familiar…' Conan smiled at them and excuse himself to get back to the Agency, seeing that it was almost dark soon.

Yep. Conan decided that going to a doctor might be safest, for now. The throb subdued a little once he was back at the Mouri Agency, with Ran setting the table for dinner.

"Hmm," the doctor said towards Agasa, looking at the notes in his hand. Haibara watched him closely, seeing how Conan spoke about how his condition was. 'Could it be due to the impact Gin inflicted on him?' she thought.

It was a hard enough impact, to make a teenage Shinichi to lose consciousness. When Conan had pointed at where he was hit, the possibility of a small portion of memory loss was average to high. He might even had a concussion, but seeing that it was only a minor memory loss, she shrugged it off, seeing no evident threat.

"You're lucky you didn't die," Haibara said for the nth time, making Conan look at her, always. "What's this about?"

"Nothing," she said, a smirk on her face. "So, how did you know that your head starts hurting and the possibility of memory loss?" she asked after a while, genuinely curious. Conan seemed to choose his words carefully before starting his story about the night where he shrunk, and when Aoko had called him, and the night of the heist, where the pain started.

"So he asked your name and it felt… wrong, for some reason?" Haibara asked, an eyebrow raised. Conan's blush was cute, at least in her mind, and she felt the need to tease him. "So, you wanted him to call you Conan-kun? Or rather," her eyes glinted in a way which made Conan feel as if she knew more than she lets out.

"Would you rather he call you Kudou-kun?" she asked. Imagining KID calling him 'Kudou-kun' wasn't what he'd call right either. For some reason, he felt as if he should call him by his given name. Heck he'd even let him call him 'Shin-chan', the way his mother called him.

'Eh?' Conan thought, snapping out of his earlier thoughts, 'Why did I think that?' Conan's blush made Haibara smile. "I suppose that you have some sort relationship with KID once before," the small scientist stated, voicing her thoughts.

"… What sort of relationship would a detective and a thief make?" Conan said, unimpressed, but his head throbbed. '… She's probably right…' he thought. 'If she were wrong, then my head won't throb like that…'

Head throbbing had easily been connected to returning of memories, since he'd heard about the slight memory loss, he realized. Now, what did the head throb on Kai's appearance have to do with his memory? He wondered.

One morning, Conan found a surprise in the Office, which was Kai and Aoko sitting in front of Ran, drinks served on the table. Kogoro was out, probably at the station with Megure. And Ran was smiling, calling him and gesturing so that he would come over and sit beside her, right across Kai.

"Aoko-chan, this is Edogawa Conan-kun," Ran said fondly. "Oh, you're that kid from before!" Aoko said, happy. "I knew it! I knew from first glance that you're the 'Conan' Ran referred to!"

"Eh? You guys know each other?" Ran asked. "Yeah, sometimes, he comes to my dad's office to help out with KID heists! I didn't realize that Ran-san was talking about you!"

"Yeah… We also met the other day," Kai said, receiving an accusing glare from the boy. Now he was sure that the child detective knew that it was him who stalked him, and he gave him a mischievous grin in return. He didn't feel any guilt from stalking him anyways.

As the two girls chatted happily, the thief and detective had a somewhat silent, almost telepathic chat of their own.

C: "So why were you stalking me?"

K: "Isn't that obvious?"

C: "… How obvious should it be?"

Conan fidgeted, worrying a little bit. He didn't know why though.

K: "As obvious as those nights we spent together."

He grinned. Conan frowned.

C: "What nights?"

K: "It's a secret~"

With Kai grinning and Conan frowning, they all went out for a walk. "Those two really like to talk, huh?" Kai said, his grin still intact. "I suppose," Conan said, shrugging. "… I feel like Sherlock Holmes for some reason," Kai said, knowing exactly what the child's reaction should be.

"Why?"

"Just cause… I mean, walking like this with you? I feel that you're like Watson who watches my every move," he said teasingly. "What?! You're the one who's older than me! You're supposed to be Watson!"

They fought about deciding roles on which who should be Sherlock and who should be Watson, and their conversation ended up to how helium could also be used for things other than balloon fillers. Ran and Aoko had stopped their talk to watch the closeness of the other pair, smiling at each other as they started warring on how solar energy should be used.

"For a kid, he's holding such an intelligent conversation with someone like Kaito, huh?" she stated, a confused "huh?" came from Ran. "I mean, see here? They're talking about stuff we haven't even learned in school! Even I didn't know that Kaito could talk about stuff like that."

Ran nodded, a sad smile on her face. "Yeah…" was her only reply. Aoko knew that the boy reminded her of Shinichi was too much, and it felt weirdly uncomfortable for her to see that. She cleared her throat and winked at her, "How about we leave that pair to themselves, and we go have ice cream or something?"

Ran looked dumbfounded as Aoko dragged her away. The two didn't notice.

They stopped their words war when they came to an agreement that coffee is better when mildly sweet, although Kaito grumbled about how the sweeter the coffee, the better. "Huh? Where's Ran-nee-chan and Nakamori-san?" Conan asked, confused.

"Well, I guess it's just the two of us then," Kai grinned, happy. Throwing him an unimpressed look, Conan said, "They're probably off to some ice cream or something."

"Well, for your information, I was surprised that you didn't notice them walking away just like that," he said in a mocking tone which set the Shinichi inside him off. "Well, see here—"

His phone rang, and he looked at the caller info; Haibara Ai. "It's Haibara…" Conan said, excusing himself to answer the call. "Yeah?"

"Kudou-kun," she said, tense and grim. The tone made him let out his serious voice, "What is it?"

He knew by now that the only times Haibara would call him 'Kudou-kun' was when there was some sort of immediate urgency happening. "Ayumi… she's…"

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's disappeared. Genta-kun, Mitsuhiko-kun and I are searching for her at this moment. We're at the park near your house. By house, the Kudou Manor."

"Alright, I'll be there."

He clicked the phone off and looked sharply at Kaito. "Sorry, I gotta go."

"Your friend's in danger?" he asked, knowing that tone all too well. "Yeah," he said, a shadow casting over his face. "I'm afraid that the recent child kidnappings are happening again…"

"I thought you guys captured them?" he asked, looking at Conan for elaboration. Conan shook his head. "Not all of them."

"Let me help," Kaito said, firm and determined. "Huh?"

"It's better to have more people search, right?" Conan nodded, a smile on his face. "Alright."

"What's your friend like?" he asked. Taking out his phone, Conan showed him a picture of Ayumi in his phone, one taken when they were at a museum together. "This girl's name is Ayumi. The others are Genta, Mitsuhiko, and Haibara."

"Alright. Let's go," Kai said, dead serious. Conan nodded and led the way to where they last saw Ayumi.

A/N

Aww… I didn't want Ayumi to be kidnapped… She's too innocent for that! Birra Castello is a random beer name I found on the internet, by the way... No, I'm not fond of drinking, thank you very much.

- To be continued -