Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed.

Pairing: KaitoxShinichi

Rating: T

Lyrical Spices

Salt

[Song Inspiration: Safe and Sound by Sam Tsui ]

The news was splashed across every newspaper and television channel.

It had happened at a new department store. The place had been having a grand opening. The celebration featured several characters from popular children's television shows. Naturally, that meant the place had been full of families with children. Among those children was the young daughter and son of a very wealthy family.

Because of that, the department store's opening day celebration had attracted the attention of a ring of criminals. They had taken advantage of the store's computer-controlled security system to trap everyone at the celebration inside. Then they'd demanded three billion yen in exchange for the lives of everyone they'd trapped. They had set a deadline of a measly twelve hours for their demands to be met and threatened to blow the entire store up if they were disappointed.

However, it turned out that one of the culprits had had a personal grudge—something about having been dumped. He planned to get back at the woman who'd left him by killing her children. The bastard had knocked out his fellow blackmailers and started the countdown on the bombs in the building well before the deadline.

Details varied depending on which news sources you went to, but all the reports agreed that, if it weren't for the work of a brave group of kids who'd been among the hostages, a whole lot of lives would have been lost. Fortunately, no one had died. Unfortunately, the kids in question (along with the bastard behind it all) were now in the hospital, some with very severe injuries.

A suspicion kindled in Kaito's mind the first time he saw the news. There was nothing in any of the reports about who exactly the kids in the incident had been, but he had a sneaking feeling that a certain someone could very well have been there. It was just the kind of trouble he'd get himself into.

"It's horrible, isn't it?"

Kaito looked up from the newspaper in his hands to find Aoko giving him a sympathetic look over the café table. Ah, so she must have mistaken his long silence for distress at the article. Well, he supposed she wasn't entirely wrong. He was pretty damned worried about a certain little detective who could very well have been involved. And the rest of it was pretty awful too, although it was more infuriating than distressing, all considered it was already in the past.

"Some people seriously need to get over themselves," he said, setting the paper aside.

"It's despicable how selfish they were," the inspector's daughter agreed, scowling. "Putting all those people through all that fear and threatening to take their lives just so they could get what they wanted. And so many of the hostages were only children too! And seriously, killing someone's children just because they dumped you? It's disgusting!"

"Yeah. Listen Aoko, I need to get going." The magician rose from his seat, placing a handful of coins and bills on the table to pay for both their breakfasts. "Can we finish that project some other time?"

Aoko blinked at him. "What? But—"

"It's important."

Aoko stared into her friend's serious face. That expression only ever appeared in very serious situations. She swallowed. "O—okay."

She was rewarded with a quick smile, and Kaito was gone.

-0-

Kaito stopped by the Mouri Detective Agency first, but it was empty. Then he went to the Kudo Manor. It too was empty. After that, he went next door to the Agasa house just in time to see the old professor and the little girl, Haibara, leaving in a hurry.

Kaito followed them.

As he'd half expected, they ended up at a hospital. As luck would have it, it was a hospital whose floor plan the thief had studied before. What did surprise the thief, however, was the crowd in the hospital parking lot. Half of them appeared to be reporters from various television stations, magazines, and newspapers. The other half were police doing their best to keep the eager reporters at bay.

Kaito shook his head at the circus and slipped in like a shadow after Professor Agasa and Haibara and followed them all the way to a hospital room higher up in the building. The room was too small for him to sneak in unnoticed though, so he ended up peering down into it through an air vent in the ceiling.

His heart skipped a beat when he saw his Tantei-kun lying in the hospital bed, pale and drawn. However, his concern subsided when he noticed that there was no IV, and the bandaging he could see peeking out from beneath the hospital gown seemed minimal for someone who'd been in an explosion.

"How are you feeling?" the old professor was asking.

"I'm fine," Shinichi said. His voice sounded raspy and strained. "The doctors said I should be able to leave in a week or two."

"That's great," the professor said, relief evident in his voice.

Shinichi's expression darkened before the emotions were shuttered away behind a blank look.

"Can you…" he started to say, stopped, then started again. "Can you tell me how the others are? The doctors won't tell me."

The professor froze. It was Haibara who eventually answered.

"Ayumi is fine. She has a fractured bone in her arm, but it's nothing a little time won't heal. Mitsuhiko's injuries are worse because he shielded her. He has severe burns all across his back. He also has a concussion and a broken arm. However, his condition is stable, and his life is not in danger."

She stopped.

"And Genta?" Shinichi prompted. There was a barely detectable tremor in his voice.

Haibara looked away. "He's still in the ICU."

There was a long moment of awkward silence. It was broken by the arrival of several police officers.

After the initial pleasantries were over, Megure-keibu cleared his throat. "Conan-kun, we need you to tell us exactly what happened."

"I understand. I'll do my best."

Slowly, Shinichi began recounting the details of the event to the police. The first part of the story was all stuff that Kaito had already heard or guessed for himself.

The Shounan Tantei had been at the department store celebration. When they realized what was happening, they had found their way to the control room near the top of the building where the culprits were hiding. Most of the other hostages and even the police hadn't thought that the culprits would be in the building themselves, but the computer controls could only be manipulated from within, and culprits had planned an escape from the roof.

Long story short, Shinichi had darted the man intent on blowing everyone up. However, it had taken time to deactivate the bomb timers, and the crazy culprit had woken up before Shinichi had finished.

It was Genta who'd first noticed the man wake up. That was when the culprit had pulled a gun. Genta had shouted a warning and tackled the man, taking a bullet through the shoulder but making the man's other shots go wide.

The gunfire had set off the bombs set up to destroy a support beam near the control room though. It really had been sheer bad luck. Mitsuhiko had shielded Ayumi with his body, pushing the both of them away from the blast, but there had been no way to get far enough fast enough. Genta, still struggling to hold the culprit down so that his friends could escape, hadn't been able to run at all.

Shinichi himself had been farther from the blast and partially protected by the back of the chair he'd been sitting in.

In some ways, they were all lucky that there hadn't been more explosives in their area. If there had been, none of them would have made it.

When the story was over, the police asked a few more questions. Then they left. The professor and Haibara lingered a moment after they'd gone, but Shinichi told them that he was tired and asked them to leave.

Once they had gone, he crumpled. His hands clenched into fists in the sheets as he doubled over, eyes squeezed shut.

"Damn it," he cursed under his breath, his voice rough with anguish.

Concerned that Shinichi might inadvertently exacerbate his injuries, Kaito quickly removed the cover of the vent and dropped into the room.

Shinichi was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even notice the new arrival until Kaito placed a hand on his shoulder. He flinched and jerked his head up, wincing at his own sudden movement. Wide blue eyes stared at Kaito. The magician was shocked to see a tear trailing down the side of the detective's face.

Kaito moved without thinking, brushing his thumb over Shinichi's cheek to wipe away the tear.

Shinichi's gaze dropped. "You heard."

It wasn't a question. Kaito nodded anyway. "How are you doing?"

"I'll be out of the hospital in a week or so."

"That's not what I meant." Sitting down on the bed beside Shinichi, he wrapped an arm carefully around the younger boy's slim waist.

"I'm fine," Shinichi insisted, voice cracking.

Kaito frowned. "You know you can't lie to me."

Shinichi forced a smile, but it fell away almost before it had formed. He lowered his head as he seemed to curl in upon himself.

"I—I should have been more careful," he whispered, voice growing hoarse. "If I'd just made sure to restrain him before he woke up… Why didn't I check to see if he was armed? If I'd just…! It was me he was trying to shoot! If the others had died… If—if Genta doesn't make it…"

Kaito could have said a lot of things to that. He could have told Shinichi that he shouldn't be blaming himself when it was the culprit's fault that people had been hurt. He could have pointed out that, by all accounts, Shinichi hadn't had any time to restrain the culprit or check him for weapons. All considered, he'd barely managed to stop the countdown in time. He could also have pointed out the pointlessness of all the what-ifs. There were a lot of things he could have said.

But he knew that Shinichi knew all of that too. There would be time to say it all later, but, for now, nothing anyone else said would change a thing.

So instead he held Shinichi close as the detective began to tremble, aware more than ever of how small the boy really was. It was a fact he often forgot, but, right now, he couldn't help but focus on it. How fragile Shinichi seemed right now. Kaito could feel the tremors running through that small frame. And though he couldn't see Shinichi's face because the boy had hidden it against his shoulder, he could feel the growing dampness of his shirt.

On an impulse, he gathered Shinichi onto his lap and wrapped both his arms securely around the young detective's slender body. And he vowed to himself again that he would protect Shinichi.

"Everything will be okay," he murmured. "I'll be right here with you. No matter what happens. I promise."

They sat together like this long after visiting hours had ended and the sky outside darkened to black. The moon rose. It was a white crescent hanging cold and bright in the sky.

-End of Chapter-