Chapter 11: Breathing Room
This has become my customary first greeting, but SORRY for the delay! And sorry that this chapter is slightly shorter, but this way I'm at least GETTING a chapter out! Short chapters are better than no chapters at all, right? I hope so...
As always, thank you to my lovely reviewers. You are wonderful. Please let me know what you think about this one, too! Thanks so much!
I do not own Meitantei Conan~
Please R&R~!
oOo
"She's…something else," Shinichi grumbled, rubbing his head.
Nimbly springing up beside him on the couch, Kaito grinned at him. "What did you expect?"
"I guess you're right, and honestly…this does explain a few things."
Kaito smirked at him knowingly, and in the look they shared, he made a silent pledge to once again show off how much he'd learned in all his time avoiding Aoko's rampages on the Moonlight Stage.
"Well, all I can say is, I don't envy ya, Kudou," Hattori said, grinning, as he punted himself up onto one of the Kuroba family couches.
Shinichi frowned slightly as he sat down beside him. "Well, she seems like a good girl, really. If she'd met me as Kudou Shinichi, I'm sure she'd be totally pleasant," he ended this with a pointed glance at Kaito, suggesting more than a little that he blamed him for making a sweet girl into a mop-wielding harbinger…
Kaito smiled sardonically, taking the detective's intimations in stride. "Well, it would have been better if she hadn't popped up behind us like that. I was hoping for a little bit of time to prep you before running into her. Ahoko always has the greatest timing."
"Well, it wasn't so bad."
Kaito looked at him strangely and Shinichi fidgeted a little under the glance. "W-what is it?"
"You did well."
Shinichi blinked, waiting for him to go on...waiting for the punch line he knew was coming. After all, whether as Kaito or Kid, this magician-thief didn't just hand out straight compliments for free. At least, not very often...
"Worthy of being my otouto! Alright, Shin-chan, you may refer to me as ONIISAMA, got it? …hm, that may be slightly problematic when we meet on heists, but, meh, you can just pretend they misheard you saying 'KID-sama,' ne? What do you think?"
"Owww…" Kaito then sat up, rubbing his head, from where he'd landed in the crutch of the couch when Shinichi had shown him just what he thought about that suggestion.
"Barou. It's so painfully obvious who the otouto would be in this situation, it isn't worth mentioning. And that's not counting your stature." He smirked at Kaito and ruffled his hair none-too-gently.
They were then interrupted by a mass flapping of wings as the room was overtaken by a small flock of pure-white doves, most aiming to perch on their downsized master. A few seconds later, Kaito's laughing, muffled voice could be heard from beneath the mass of white animals: "Ack! You guysss, I can't hold you all right now! You'll have to wait your turns! Here, try Shin-chan! He'll make a good perch! Go on!"
The next few minutes had the two detectives struggling to locate their own limbs as Kaito made (per usual) a flamboyant, enthusiastic show of introducing them to his trusty doves…one at a time…
By the time Hattori had, choking on feathers, had to stumble from the room for a taste of air without flocks of animals intercepting his air flow, the two were moderately well-versed in, not just the names, but the favorite foods and tricks of many of the members of Kaito's little feathery battalion.
"…but don't try giving Kaiki any apricots, or he'll go for your thumb instead. He prefers prunes! Oh, and Sekka is particularly fond of golden raisins…yes, I know, she's a quirky one…"
"Kaito," Shinichi sighed exasperatedly, "could you PLEASE take the hint and shut it for one second?"
Kaito turned innocent eyes on the spectacle before him. He noted with a grin that Shinichi's glare and rude gestures would have been a good deal more intimidating had one of his prize female doves, Yuzu, not chosen his hair to nest in… and poor Hattori (Kaito snickered, pausing to take a quick, candid shot with a camera he materialized under his favorite critics' radars) seemed to have resigned himself to his fate, lying on his back on the couch as almost a dozen doves were perched variously on or around him, nibbling affectionately on his cheeks, hair, earlobes, fingers…apparently, the shrunken kansai detective had noticed that any loud noises or movements he made in an attempt to reject the doves only served to make them more 'affectionate' and determined in their attentions…
Kaito couldn't stand it any longer, and collapsed on the floor, rolling around in shrieking, high-pitch laughter. Tears coming to his eyes, he didn't notice as his dove-family (as he collectively referred to them), attracted by the familiar, bird-like sounds he made, had left his captive audience, freeing them up to take retribution…
With an oomph!, Kaito found himself sprawled on the ground in a head-lock at the hands of an evilly-smirking shrunken detective. "Gotcha! Stupid thief!"
Shinichi rolled his eyes but grinned as the two continued to roll on the ground together, pinning one another down in alternating rhythms. With a yawn, he stretched out his feet from where he was lounging on the couch with the doves (who had now, thankfully, decided to sit obediently beside him to enjoy the show) to set them none-too-gently on Kaito's back as he was mid-cheer at having once again pinned Hattori down below him.
Kaito looked back to glare at him, but then all three met eyes and burst out in laughter, the two on the ground sprawling out, stretching their limbs luxuriously.
It was nice, Shinichi thought, to laugh this way. To feel so free. Even though the reality of their situation was pretty messed-up, all things considered, the fact that they could joke around, and be so utterly, fantastically stupid…and enjoy themselves this way, really struck him. Stifling a yawn, he stood up and grinned down at his friends before reaching down and plucking a squawking Kaito from the ground, bringing him up to eye level.
"So? Are we just going to lie around all day?"
"Sounds fine to me," Hattori muttered into the carpet.
Kaito grinned mischievously at Shinichi and gently brushed his hand down the detective's cheek. "Are you suggesting you'd like to lie around here with us, Meitantei?"
Sputtering incomprehensibly and blushing slightly at the suggestiveness of the magician's words, Shinichi tossed Kaito onto the couch and plopped down himself beside him, arms crossed and glaring.
"Oh, fine! Mr. grouchy pants…you seriously need to relax!" Kaito looked at him mock-seriously. "And when I say that, I'm just looking out for you, Meitantei~" and he winked. "But…I suppose I should show you around a little before we need get going again, ne?"
"Oh," Shinichi blinked, having once again found himself slipping into the carefree atmosphere of the last few moments. "Yeah, let's do that…"
Kaito then went on to introduce the two detectives to each successive room, making the kind of ruckus of exploding pops, bangs, glitter and confetti upon each entrance the others expected of him. He seemed to grow increasingly excited as they continued along, too, at times impatiently grabbing on to Shinichi and Heiji's hands and dragging them after him.
Shinichi and Heiji exchanged a slightly exasperated, but more than that they shared their amusement as Kaito sprung happily into his bedroom, so messy and covered in various gadgets and gizmos (whether for pranking or for either of his 'lines of work' was hard to say) that the floor was not easily identifiable. With a grin, however, Kaito snapped his fingers and a pink cloud of smoke rose up around them, flooding the room.
When things cleared, the room was…not spotless…but markedly better.
Hattori blinked. "Uh…could ya teach me how to do that?"
Kaito beamed at him, and gave him a little hug around the middle. "Oh, Hei-chan! I think that's the first time you've really expressed interest in learning magic!"
Shinichi rolled his eyes. "Hattori's just a lazy bum, and you know that Kaito. Anything to avoid picking up after himself." He grinned at Hattori's dangerous glare, not backing down in the slightest. "Once he learns how much work it is to learn the trick, though, he'll probably just run back to the vacuum cleaner, so don't get your hopes up, Kaito."
"Kudou! You traitor, you!"
"Traitor? You've always been on my side, Hei-chan!" Kaito informed him with all (un)due seriousness.
"Ah, I see," Hattori replied shortly, before laughing himself.
"H-hold on. Kaito. My clothes…when?…" Eyes widening in harrassed understanding, Shinichi blushed a little again, crouching to glare Kaito straight in the eye. "Funny. You think you're so damn clever, don't you?…Don't answer that," he added quickly, making Kaito shut his mouth in a pout.
The magician then shrugged. "If you're going around Ekoda, you might as well look the part, and you should know, Meitantei. We may share certain similarities…but wardrobe is not one of them."
"Point taken," Shinichi answered as he examined himself in the mirror, pulling at the casually loose-fitting grey jacket over black t-shirt (with a skull and cross bones on front). He then reached up to touch his hair. The magician seemed to have spared some fragment of the absurdly short time it had apparently taken him to change Shinichi's outfit and clean up his own room to also mess the detective's hair up to a passably-Kaito state.
Blinking a little, Kaito considered him and nodded. "You'll do," he decided.
Shinichi was still looking at himself in the mirror, and then raised an eyebrow as he turned back to Kaito. "Is this really how you look?" He asked softly.
Kaito tilted his head in slight confusion.
Hattori seemed to have understood however, and grabbed a frame to hold it up to Shinichi, and the two compared the two images: the photograph and Shinichi's image in the mirror.
"We've never seen ya as yourself as an adult, Kuroba," Hattori explained, though the thief had already seemed to have figured this out, and just gave him a little nod to indicate that he'd been listening.
"Weird, Kaito," Shinichi said, staring at the picture in his hand of the magician grinning with his arm around (while giving bunny-ears to) an embarrassed-looking Aoko. "We really could be…"
"Twins?" Hattori supplied. "Just as I've been saying."
Shinichi grimaced a little but then waved lightly, saying, "Not like I don't already know this, but it's just different seeing a picture of you and me dressed up as you at the same time. It kind of drives the whole thing home."
"I know what you mean, Shin-chan," Kaito said soberly…but then his face broke into a wide grin…something which made the other inhabitants of the room understandably nervous.
With an angelic smile, the magician climbed over his twin-bed to grab a paper and pen and started to work scribbling determinedly, likely plotting something…
oOo
Shinichi stared at the list his diminutive 'counterpart' had handed him with a cheeky grin. The detective's face growing increasingly tight and horrified the further he read, he finally thrust it aside, giving Kaito a look which clearly suggested that he dearly wished the shrunken magician-thief was pulling his leg. Unfortunately, however, he knew better than to think his rival and look-alike was above such things…
"What's wrong, Shin-chan?" Kaito asked, grinning so widely that Hattori instinctively moved a hand to his own face to make sure it wasn't under threat of stretching apart in empathy.
Shinichi fixed him with a cold, hard deadpan. "You," he growled, "expect me to-" grabbing the paper back up off of the bed where he'd thrown it a second before, he poked at it angrily to indicate the objectionable list. "Dying people's hair? Smoke bombs and shit? Look. Those don't sit well with me, but I'm ready to grit my teeth about them because I understand that you have to keep up your usual (but NOT NORMAL) behavior to a certain point or else it'll look suspicious…but…oh, why is Hakuba-san's name starred?" Noticing this last, momentarily stealing his attention away, he tilted an eyebrow and fixed the now happily-whistling little magician with a knowing and fierce glare which suggested he had a pretty good idea already.
"Aw, that silly, stuck-up ninny deserves it, Shin-chan, trust me."
"Kudou, sorry to say, but I've gotta agree with the thief, here. That tight-assed bastard could do with some serious prankin." Meeting Kaito's grin, Hattori gave him a look which clearly expressed his interest in the idea.
"Oh, Hei-chan! Just as I thought, you have wonderful taste in people~" Hattori then had to struggle to wrench Kaito's clingy arms from around his neck.
"Erhm-HEM. I don't believe I was finished talking…" Shinichi glared at them.
"Oh, we didn't mean to leave you out, Shin-chan!" Kaito beamed at him, leaping to sit beside him on the bed, lounging with his short legs draping on the detective's lap.
Promptly throwing Kaito's legs off, Shinichi fixed him with an even fiercer glare, indicating a note at the bottom of the page. "You really think I'm going to…" He blushed a little but pushed on. "I am NOT flipping Aoko-san's skirt. What the hell? Why would you be okay with that anyway? Aren't you in love with her for god's sakes?"
At this, Kaito paled, his poker-face smug grin wiped clear from his eyes, lips and voice.
"Wha-wha-l-love?" He squeaked. Shinichi and Hattori met surprised glances as they noticed a slight, telling pink tinge stain the magician's cheeks before the color was just as suddenly drained away.
Kaito grinned at Shinichi, though a sharp glint of annoyance in his eyes made Shinichi start slightly. It was gone almost as soon as it had appeared, though. Smiling, Kaito waved casually and said, "Aoko's just a friend, and a nosy one at that…if you couldn't tell…and she's bound to notice any sudden changes in my behavior towards her. Unfortunately for all parties involved, skirt-flipping is one such tradition which I am SURE she will miss, whether she would ever admit to it or not…"
As Shinichi watched Kaito, he felt a little twinge. So that was it. It wasn't that he didn't care. He wasn't thrilled by the prospect at all, clear not only from his tone, sudden agitation, momentary expression and wording, but also from how he had added it last on his list, as if he'd been debating adding it until the last second…but he was right, really. Something the prank-loving magician did as often as he seemed to do this whole skirt-flipping bull-crap would definitely be missed (well, maybe not MISSED missed, but its absence would be noticed), and so…Shinchi sighed.
"Fine, Kaito. But only once per trip. And I'm only going to pretend to look. My eyes are staying closed."
"How will you know what color they are, then?"
"Uh…" Shinichi planted his head in his palm. "Fine. I'll glance. Or you can tell me. Whatever. I don't care…"
He frowned, noticing the forced positivity on Kaito's face, and crouched down to look at him more closely. "Hey, Kaito. I'm-sorry about this, you know. If only-"
Kaito shook his head, and stepped forward a little, placing a hand on the currently larger young man's shoulder. "Not your fault, Shinichi. Just remember, what we do, we do to stay alive…and to keep our loved ones safe," he said quietly. "To get back at those bastard crows, and to finally take them down. We can do it, and we will…so please. Don't feel sorry for me. I can't…" He smiled, but his smile was weak and more of a ghost of an expression, a sad, faint thing. "I don't do so well opening up," he said, almost imperceptibly, as if talking to himself… "But this hasn't been all hell yet, right? Maybe we'll even have fun tonight!"
Shinichi smiled at the magician's never-ceasing attempts to keep things upbeat, to lead them all away from dark thoughts. If Kaito really felt that way, then it was all he could do not to let him down, right?
Taking Shinichi's smile as marking the subject closed, Kaito then grinned conspiratorially between the other two. "Back to business. We have an hour left. Ready to show me what you can do, my magician-in-training?"
Kaito, having taken the bed to himself at some point, and Shinichi having moved to the ground, the shrunken magician did look the part of a kind of absurd teacher as he instructed and helped Shinichi to rehearse what he'd been practicing in his high-pitched voice from above.
oOo
It was about time for the boys to meet up with Aoko again, and Shinichi felt a good deal better at having at least succeeded in learning to pull off several simple coin tricks-and materializing a paper rose-to Kaito's satisfaction. He also, after listening to the magician's super-speed chatter, felt he knew much more about the part he was playing, and had been listening attentively as Kaito gave him tips on mannerisms, important memories his child-hood friend liked to bring up, Aoko's favorite foods and music…all in all, Shinichi's head was buzzing pleasantly with information.
But there was one thing, he was quite aware of, that was missing from his impromptu tour into Kaito's world. Something yet to be seen. And he was insanely curious, despite himself. "Where do you keep all of your Kid stuff, Kaito?" Shinichi asked, unable to hold it in any longer.
"Well, Meitantei, you DO realize a certain keibu's daughter will be here any minute, now, and I would…prefer… that this not get out to her…" Kaito's face once again became uncharacteristically serious, and Shinichi frowned suddenly, nodding.
"I understand, Kaito. Sorry about that…"
The magician grinned at him, shaking his head. "No apologies needed, Shinichi. I'm just a little…heh…" He shook his head somewhat roughly and his more Kid-like grin slapped back on. "How about we deal with that after we survive this evening, ne?"
"Yeah, Kudou," Hattori put in. "After all, ya hafta learn to play this idiot Kaito, first. Better to leave his criminal alter ego for later, yanno?"
"I can deal with that…" Remembering the dreaded list (and what he'd already promised he'd go through with), Shinichi grimaced. "On second thought…ugh. Yeah, only one crazy personality at a time. If I get through tonight, then I'll deal with the thief stuff."
Kaito winked. "You'll be great, Shin-chan~"
Shinichi sighed, but grinned when Hattori's commiserating glance turned to an expression which clearly said 'how the hell did we get strapped to such a loon?'
Then, the doorbell rang, and Kaito quickly climbed Shinichi like a monkey to put some finishing touches to his "not messy enough for me!" hair before the three sobered up slightly, slapped on game faces, and went to answer it.
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it! I know it was short, but I hope it was enjoyable anyway! Thanks so much!
I"ll be seeing you again soon!
tess4aria