I had just settled in to watch the new Kamen Yaiba (so I could keep up with the legitimate grade schoolers, even though I had already expressed a marked preference for Sailor Moon) when the doorbell rang. I snagged the remote from its place on the coffee table, set the show to record and muted the TV before answering the door. It turned out to be Conan, who was looking rather stressed.

"Ah, Conan-kun!" I greeted, ushering him inside in case of prying eyes. "What's up?" Conan slid his glasses off, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. After a moment, he slid the glasses back on and turned to face me.

"I need your help," he said, without any preamble. "I think Ran is getting suspicious of me, and I need you to call with my voice to throw her off." I nodded solemnly.

"I'll help." I looked him squarely in the eyes. "After all, if you're found out, it's probably only a matter of time until I am. So, around how long do you need to get back?" Conan blinked, apparently having expected the need to persuade me, but quickly collected himself.

"From here, the agency is only about a 15 minute walk, but I'll also need some time for Ran to get home from running errands, so about half an hour," he said, and I nodded again, glancing at the clock, which read 7:15

"So I'll call around 7:45 then. You had better start heading back so that timeframe works out for us." I said, moving him towards the door. He nodded and, with a final goodbye, took off in the direction of the agency.

The next half hour was the painfully slow yet unbearably fast of mixed anticipation and apprehension that one feels before a speech or event, though my uncle did help to lessen the tension. After Conan had left, I had heard a faint, plaintive call of 'Mizu-chan' from his room, and when I entered, I found him tangled up in yarn, with Kari batting at his hair.

"What did you do this time?" I said, sighing and rolling my eyes. I knelt down and started to untangle him as he explained. Apparently, he had wanted to surprise me with a sweater in my favourite colour, to make up for treating me like some random brat when I had first been shrunk. The only problem being that he had no idea how to knit, so he had dug one of Aunt Hitomi's knitting books out of the attic and dove right in. I still had no idea how he got so thoroughly tangled in the yarn after the explanation, but I finished untangling him and glanced up at the clock again. The clock read 7:42.

I raced out of my uncle's room and snatched the phone up. I spent about a minute fiddling with my pendant to make absolutely sure it was set correctly, and dialled the number. The phone rang for a moment before the call was answered.

"This is the Mouri Detective Agency," Ran said tersely.

"Yo, Ran, it's been a while," I said in Kudo's voice, easily imitating his usual devil-may-care tones. Ran stumbled over her words for a moment before she apparently dropped her suspicions of Conan's identity and cheerfully chattered with me about a few different topics, though thankfully avoiding anything too deep. While I hated having to lie on principle, I didn't want anyone else falling prey to those black-clad jerks.

"You're sounding rather girly today, Shinichi," Ran said after a couple of topics had come and gone.

"Oh, really," I said smoothly, mentally calculating an excuse for if she pushed the issue, though she didn't in the end. The phone call ended on a decent note, with Ran's suspicions dissolved for the moment and her taking note of the time, saying something about getting Conan up to bed. She hung up first, and I sighed in relief before switching the pendant back to it's usual setting of my own adult voice. The call with Ran had made me realize that I hadn't called my own boyfriend since I had 'left', and I winced. I compared the timezones, then dialled a long-familiar number, holding the pendant up again.

"'Lo," my boyfriend answered after a couple of rings.

"Hope I didn't wake you up or anything, Ryousuke." I said teasingly. I could her him scramble on the other end of the line, and he responded a few seconds later sounding much more awake.

"Zuki-chan? Damn, I thought you forgot about me and ran off with some suave French guy. What took you so long to call?" I grinned into the phone. He was using his usual nickname for me, which meant he wasn't too annoyed by me taking so long to call.

"Sorry, Ryou-kun," I said, switching over to using his nickname. "Got caught up in Ojii-san's business, then a couple cases. Still on a case in fact. And besides, those 'suave' French guys have pickup lines worse than yours." I heard a deep sigh from the other end of the line.

"You and your cases. You're such a nerd. And oi! I am the king of pickup lines you know," he said, and his fond tone took any bite out of the words. The two of us talked for another 10 minutes before I found an excuse to hang up, much to Ryousuke's annoyance, though he did extract a promise for an at least weekly text from me. With a practiced motion, I switched on the recording I had taken of the latest Kamen Yaiba, and shifted Kari from where she had settled on my lap during the phone calls, thankful she hadn't meowed during them. All in all, this was a rather productive evening, though I did sigh when I heard my uncle call my name again, having retangled himself in deep teal yarn.

EDITED: 1/6/18