So now Sakura will have a meeting with Aoko. I wonder how this'll go...

Chapter Eleven

'Let's see, I think this is the place,' Sakura thought as she approached the sandwich shop. Even without knowing the name, she knew exactly which place the girl had been talking about; Ran and Sonoko had been talking about it constantly for the last week. She'd arrived about five minutes early, so she didn't expect her contact to have arrived yet.

When Sakura got inside, she looked around for the other girl, but she wasn't there. She took a seat in a booth and picked up the menu to order something. "Are you alone today, miss?" the waitress asked.

"Oh, I'm meeting a friend," Sakura told her. "If another girl comes in asking about a 'Sakura-san', could you send her over here?"

"Oh, sure," said the waitress. "Would you like a drink while you wait?"

"Iced coffee for now," Sakura replied.

She didn't wait long. After about two minutes, Aoko walked in the door. Sakura waved, which led to her nervously walking over. Aoko sat down across from her, looking incredibly anxious about something. "So, you're Sakura-san?" she said at last, in almost a whisper. She might've looked like Ran, but she was acting so differently it was actually kind of eerie. Ran was rarely this bashful.

"Oh, yes. And you must be Aoko-san," Sakura replied. There was a lot of awkwardness in the air that neither of them seemed willing to break.

To break the tension, Aoko ordered a sandwich and a drink while Sakura just got a sandwich. Once her drink had arrived, a small tea, Aoko took a sip before saying, "This may sound a bit weird, but could you hear me out?"

"Of course," said Sakura. She had a good idea what was going on, but she wasn't about to force the girl into spilling her guts.

Aoko took a big sigh before she said, "OK then. Well, a little over a week ago, a friend of mine had a picture of you as his phone wallpaper, but he kept brushing me off whenever I asked about it. Then he pulled this stupid prank on me with a bunch of red roses, which was incredibly insulting since I, uh, kind of like him. But since we're childhood friends, he's so dense he can't even see it. So I kind of got worried about whether there was some other girl he was into. He gave me some silly note the other day to try and apologize, but it may just be him being nice. Akako-chan thought that if there was another girl it would be you, so that's why I asked you out here."

"Don't worry, I don't have a boyfriend," said Sakura.

But Aoko shook her head. "That's not what I'm asking. I know Kaito doesn't have a girlfriend, but I'm pretty sure he's into a girl of some kind. Plus, even if you two were going out, I thought you might lie in order to not hurt my feelings. So I devised a test."

That took Sakura off guard. "What do you mean a test?" Before she could respond, the door to the sandwich shop opened and a teenage boy walked in. He looked a LOT like Shinichi, just with a different hairstyle. 'No way, a clone of me and a clone of Ran? What are the odds?' she thought.

"Kaito, over here!" Aoko called, waving at the boy. Sakura, whose seat was facing away from the door, quickly withdrew her head so the guy wouldn't see her.

"What is this about, Aoko?" the boy asked as he approached. "You were awful insistent I meet you for lunch. What's going on?" He still hadn't seen Sakura, who was busy drinking her drink and pretending to not pay attention.

"Oh, I just wanted you to meet a friend of mine!" she said cheerfully, gesturing for him to sit next to her. The boy did, glancing at Sakura but apparently not recognizing her.

'Does he really not recognize me?' Sakura thought in surprise. 'No, he's Kid; he's really good at being overconfident and hiding his thoughts.' To him, she said, "Nice to meet you, Kaito-san."

"Uh, thanks," Kaito replied, offering his hand for her to shake. "So, who are you?"

"Oh, I'm Kudo Sakura, a detective," she said cheerfully. Instantly a look of surprise and/or horror flashed across his face. He quickly let go after the handshake was done and sat back down next to Aoko.

"So what are you two talking about?" Kaito asked Aoko.

"Oh, just girl things," she replied vaguely. "Anyways, I saw you looking at Sakura-chan's picture a while ago, so I thought I'd get you two a meeting."

Sakura looked at Aoko with newfound respect. She'd just laid her heart bare, but now she was trying to pair the two of them up. Or maybe it really was just a test to see how her friend Kaito would react. She was apparently a lot smarter than she'd initially let on. "A meeting? About what?" Kaito asked her rudely.

"Well, you're a magician and she's a detective, so it's like Kaitou Kid and Hakuba-kun meeting up, right? You can talk about that."

'They know Hakuba?' Sakura thought. She'd met the detective before as Conan, but it had been brief each time.

Kaito sighed silently before turning to Sakura and asking, "So you're a detective? Does that mean you're smarter than Aoko over here?" He jabbed a thumb in Aoko's direction, making her instantly angry.

"Are you saying I'm stupid Kaito?" Aoko shouted at once, making Kaito cringe from the noise.

"Not if she's really smart," he teased.

The two continued arguing, and Sakura was struck by just how much they reminded her of how Heiji and Kazuha were always arguing. 'Yeah, these two would be perfect for each other,' she thought. And it would give her the perfect excuse to pair Kid up with his closest friend and get her to quit thinking about him. "So, are you two a couple or something?" she asked, feigning innocence.

The argument quit instantly as the two stared at her. "No, of course not!" the two protested at once, simultaneously with similarly red faces.

"Of course you aren't," said Sakura, now thoroughly enjoying the situation. 'Pairing these two up will be easy,' she thought. Just as she was about to open her mouth again, Kaito was suddenly distracted by the door opening to the shop. The blood drained from his face and he quickly took cover under the table.

"Kaito, are you OK?" Aoko asked, looking at Kaito under the table. Sakura glanced at the door and saw that Ran, Sonoko, and Sera of all people had just walked in.

'Oh this is BAD,' Sakura thought. If Ran saw her, she'd never hear the end of it.

"What's going on, Kaito?" Aoko asked, looking at the trio. "Do you know those people?"

"I look like the long-haired girl's boyfriend, so she always chases me thinking I'm him," Kaito explained. "He's been away from Tokyo for almost a year now and he hardly ever calls her."

'Yep, he's Kid,' Sakura thought. There was no way a normal civilian would know that much about Shinichi and Ran. Plus, she knew perfectly well that Kid could disguise as Shinichi without a disguise, and Kaito looked very like Shinichi. 'And I call her more often than that!'

"Oh, where did your friend go?" the waitress asked, approaching them with two plates of food, the main portion of Sakura and Aoko's lunches. "Does he not want anything?"

"He saw an ex-girlfriend and ran to hide," Aoko said, trying hard not to laugh. "Since he's gone, I'll order for him. How about some mixed fruit juice, a fried salmon sandwich, and a vanilla parfait?"

Sakura had to try very hard not to laugh at that ridiculous order. But then again, the guy deserved it for being so rude the whole time. "Right away, miss," the waitress said, also trying hard not to laugh. "Tell him to call me if he wants the order changed."

"Yeah, make the sandwich chicken or ham or something!" Kaito said, poking his head out from under the table. "Take off the parfait and make the drink a coffee! And make it all to go!" Done with that, he hid back under the table as the waitress went away, smiling into her hand. Sakura glanced back at Ran and her friends, but they were sitting in such a position that they couldn't see into their booth. Unfortunately, that also meant that Sakura and company couldn't get out the door without being spotted.

'I guess we're both stuck in here until they leave,' Sakura thought, glancing down at Kaito. At least neither she or Aoko were wearing a skirt; that would've made his position incredibly awkward. With the waitress gone, Sakura started chowing down on her sandwich, which was just as good as people had claimed.

It was when she was half done that a scream echoed through the restaurant from the kitchen in the back. Sakura, forgetting about staying hidden, immediately jumped up and ran for the back.

XXX

Masumi Sera had jumped up at once when she'd heard the scream and had been the first one on the scene. She'd asked Ran and Sonoko to guard the door leading out so nobody could flee. Now she was examining the body in the kitchen, one of the chefs. A waitress had found him when she'd come in with a new order. The chef had been stabbed in the back while cooking at the stove with a large knife and then stuffed into a closet. The waitress had been disposing of a ridiculous-sounding order slip than had fruit juice, a sandwich, and a parfait on it when she'd found him.

"He died instantly," Sera announced, after clearing everyone away and examining the body. "You, call the police," she said, pointing at another chef. The chef quickly ran to the phone and complied.

"All right, everyone needs to go into the restaurant until the police get here," a new voice said. Sera looked around to see Sakura Kudo of all people examining the body.

"Sakura-chan? What are you doing here?" Sera asked in surprise.

"Oh, I was having lunch with a friend," she replied, checking the body for signs of rigor mortis. "Oh, and I'd appreciate you not telling Ran I'm here; I heard she's really mad at me right now after I lied about going home to Hokkaido."

"Uh, sure, I guess," said Sera, confused.

It took about ten minutes for the police to arrive, led this time by Megure, with Takagi and Sato assisting him. "So let's get this straight," said Megure, looking at a notebook. "The head chef, Tsubayoshi Takeo, was busy cooking lunch for the patrons when somebody stabbed him in the back. Then that someone stuffed him in the closet. At the time, nobody saw what was going on because the corner of the kitchen he was in was blocked from view by a stack of boxes."

The employees all looked around at each other with looks of suspicion. 'So the murderer could be anybody with access to the kitchen,' Sera thought. 'Nobody saw a thing and I'd be willing to bet at least three people here have a strong motive to kill him. Interesting.' She smirked at this last part. "Sakura-chan, any ideas?" she asked, ready for the challenge.

Aoko ordered Kaito a fish sandwich because he was being a jerk. No wonder he flipped. XD

So, in the vein of Conan, there's always a mystery no matter whey they go, and this time's no exception. It won't be anything elaborate, though, so don't expect anything like that. I also wrote out the first draft of the final chapter earlier today, so I can now tell you for certain there'll be fourteen chapters total, with no epilogue.

The next chapter will feature the rest of the murder (which wasn't premeditated and left plenty of evidence) as well as the rest of the Sakura-Kid conversation.

I also would like to thank everyone that's still reading, since I know a KaiShin story that doesn't really have much KaiShin in it is more than a little weird. So thanks for sticking with it. And leave a favorite and a review if you'd like! :)