It was the second Wednesday of the month, which meant Kaito's day off and a his day to go people-watching. He was posing as an Australian tourist - tiny denim shorts, a lime green crop-top, sneakers, and an ashy brown ponytail waving behind him. Plus a camera around his neck for good measure. His destination: a certain conveniently located tree in Beika. Oh yeah, he was going full-on creeper, since it was for the sake of his favorite pint-sized detective boy. He wasn't going to do anything malicious, just spy on him, maybe tinker around with the boy's life a bit if it was necessary. Maybe he would even get to dress as Shinichi! He probably wouldn't; he just loved seeing that look on the kid's face when Shinichi popped up and Tantei-kun was the only one who knew who he was, and couldn't do anything about it.
Kaito caught his dark chuckle and forced it short. "Hm..." He rested a finger on his chin. "Which way now?" he said in slightly mangled English. He needed to make sure he had his voice straight before getting to the more populated areas of Beika, like beyond the side street he was currently walking down. Even if he was just going to spy, it always paid to be careful.
Being Kaito, he never took the easy way. When he spotted the tree he planned to perch in, he merely eyed it for a moment before passing it. A few turns later, he was climbing up the backside of a noodle restaurant. He really needed to stop dressing as women, because those clothes weren't enough to protect him (or his disguise, for that matter) from damage from things like uncut branches or an accidental slam against bricks. He got to the rooftop unscathed anyway, as could be expected, and shook out his ponytail. He edged over to make his hop to the next building when a certain familiar feeling washed over him - not the good type, but the ominous type. Frowning, he pressed his binoculars to his eyes.
Ah yes, there was the problem: there was already someone in his tree.
Shit. He needed a new way around. From where he was, whoever it was could easily spot him. Kaito threw a rope down to find a new course.
Ten minutes of sneaking around prying eyes later, Kaito focused his lenses in on the man in his spot. The man's face was mostly concealed by his hat. He was wearing a dark trench coat and holding something. Kaito inched slowly towards a new branch to get a better angle on the guy. After making sure he was steady, he zoomed in on a newspaper clipping. Well that didn't seem suspicious or anything. He couldn't see what was on the clipping, but the fact that the suspicious man was looking straight at the street in front of the agency gave Kaito a pretty good idea of what he was doing. Little Conan Edogawa had made a name for himself all over again and he had been in the papers quite a bit for it. Conan always tried to play it modest, but the media loved taking advantage of cute children to get readers. Plus, Conan furthered the media sensation that was Sleeping Kogoro.
That settled it: Kaito's new plan was to make sure this creep (no hypocrisy intended) didn't hurt his innocent little Tantei-kun.
"Conan-kun! Guess what?" Ayumi said, grinning.
"Hm?" Shinichi hummed in disinterest.
"The new volume of Yaiba comes out today!"
"Oh, really." Shinichi didn't even look at her. In all honesty, he just wanted to go home.
Genta and Mitsuhiko were excited, though. The boys and Ayumi cheered Yaiba behind him.
Haibara walked behind. I guess they didn't want to tell me, huh... Then again, unlike Shinichi, she'd never pretended to like children's series for the sake of looking childish. A ghost of a smile played at her lips. Your own fault, Kudo-kun. She understood how that would become a habit, though, when Ran was bending down, staring at you with her innocent big blue eyes, trying to make what she thought was a little kid happy. Haibara liked Ran, but she didn't pity Shinichi.
Genta patted Shinichi's shoulder, decided he knew why Shinichi wasn't excited. "I know you don't get a lot of allowance, so I'll let you borrow mine." This was accompanied by a thumb pointed at himself and a gentle tone of voice to accentuate how generous he was being.
Oh yay, Shinichi thought as he mustered a smile. "Okay. Thanks." He hadn't even read it last time. He used to read bits of it so he knew what they were talking about the next day, but he had long gotten sick of children's stuff. He'd just feign a bad memory. The kids thought he was out of it because of Ran going to college anyway. He didn't agree. It was half-true at most. He was just tired. Her being gone had only helped accelerate the inevitable exhaustion for his situation. Other than that, he wasn't too bitter about it. Was he supposed to try to hold her back instead? He wasn't that selfish.
Shinichi forced his mind to stop and heaved a sigh. He'd gotten caught up going on about Ran again. It wasn't as though he had to explain it to anyone - least of all himself.
The sigh didn't escape the notice of the Shounen Tantei. "Ah, and then, we should get ice cream!" Mitsuhiko suggested hastily. The others cheered in agreement, hoping for Conan to do the same.
When they were close to the agency, a familiar sensation washed over Shinichi. It wasn't the comfortable kind of familiarity: it was the dark, cold tendrils of an unknown watcher grasping his heart. Shinichi was the logical sort, but he knew better than to write off such feelings as paranoia. He had to get away from the kids... only, what if they would still be targets?
"Kudo-kun, you feel it too?" he heard whispered next to his ear.
He nodded, giving Haibara a pointed look.
Haibara sighed, crossing her arms in discomfort. "It don't seem like them, but I can't say for sure."
"What are you talking about?" Ayumi asked, butting in between the two - in jealousy, no doubt. Genta and Mitsuhiko were already engaged in another conversation.
Shinichi shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. "It's nothing, I was just mentioning a book I wanted to read. Maybe they'll have it at the bookstore!"
Ayumi bought it easily; Shinichi was known to be a book geek. "Oh. You can read real grown-up stuff, huh? I wish I could read as good as Conan-kun," she said shyly.
Shinichi felt like he had just made this worse for himself. "Ah, it's not that big a deal. I learned a lot from my family, so..." Making excuses was pointless, though, since the Shounen Tantei accepted him for a genius and didn't come up with any silly ideas like him actually being ten years older than them. It was funny how the kids came up with more logical conclusions than people his age, who actually had figured him out.
He reminded himself to stay sharp while they crossed the agency. The big question was whether or not they were going to be followed. He couldn't let whoever was there know that he'd noticed anything out of the ordinary, though, so he used Haibara and the Shounen Tantei as a cover while inwardly figuring out all the ways he could apprehend this guy depending on where he attacked from.
The moment the children came up, Kaito knew he had hit his mark. The man in black seemed to check the clipping out again before shoving it in his pocket. The children passed the agency and immediately, the man jumped to action. Kaito waited until the suspicious man was on the ground to leave his own hiding spot. It was time to play a game of cat and mouse. Kaito decided on taking the high ground to keep an eye on Tantei-kun as well as his pursuer. This meant some extra sneaking to ensure passers-by didn't catch sight of him, but that was no problem for him.
Tantei-kun happened to be in amazing luck, because it just so happened he'd swung by at exactly the right time. He wasn't going to let anything happen to the little detective on his watch. Maybe Kogoro would learn to discourage the press from printing stories about Conan, too. Kaito was positive Tantei-kun didn't need any more attention drawn to him than he already got.
A few blocks away, the Shounen Tantei were heading into a bookstore. Shinichi lagged behind, standing before the entrance and letting his eyes sweep over his surroundings. A grin tugged at Kaito's lips. So he had noticed. That was Tantei-kun for you.
"Oh no!" Shinichi said suddenly. "I forgot I have to pick something up for oji-san before I go home. We'll meet back here to walk home, okay?"
Ayumi's head popped out of the door while Genta and Mitsuhiko paused for a moment to agree. Haibara said she was going with him, not bothering to explain why. Since she hadn't shown any interest in the books, the Shounen Tantei weren't too suspicious, although Ayumi had a distinct air of jealousy.
Kaito had his eyes set on the guy in black, who was now situated in the alley a few buildings away from the bookstore. The moment that man made his move... Kaito watched with narrowed eyes as Shinichi and Haibara started walking. As the kids neared, Kaito climbed down silently, positioning himself to jump off of a windowsill to tackle the guy.
Shinichi froze when he heard a gun click to his right. He turned his head with wide eyes and stumbled back when a brown-haired girl fell on the man's back? Before Shinichi could try to help, the girl had managed to knock the man out and rope his wrists and ankles behind his back.
The girl seemed to just remember he was there. "Oh, boy! Are you OK?" she said in her accented English.
Shinichi, too, remembered his place. "That was scary! Thank you, nee-chan!" he responded in Japanese.
Kaito reminded himself to stay on guard around that kid. He jumped over to where the girl was - a normal person would dote on the girl more, right? "Hey there, cutie-pie!" he cooed in purposely horrible-sounding Japanese.
Haibara frowned dramatically, as though the shock of nearly being attacked had just hit her. "Th-thank you, nee-chan!" she said with a watery sounding voice.
After patting the girl's head, Kaito bent down to the girl's level, waving a finger in the girl's face with an apologetic, but firm expression. "You have to be more careful about places like this! Your precious little boyfriend can't always protect you." He failed to notice the frown deepen. "You're so cute and little and adorable and defenseless that bad men will want to eat you up! You have to call the police next time you notice someone suspi- ah." Kaito's face warped in horror when he realized that indeed, his own face was exposed.
Haibara twirled that particular piece of the disguise in her hand, an innocent smile coming to her face, with a mischievous smirk laying beneath it. "Eeeeeh? So this is what the Kaitou KID looks like?"
