Yeah I know last chapter was pretty... bad. But this one should be better, we'll finally start back into there being something reminiscent of a plot! Oh AND there's a bit of drama if ya know what I mean. Shinji might be a bit too laid back...

I hope you all enjoy and please review.

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14. At this point does my age even matter?

By some convenient twist of fate the only empty seat in the classroom was between Conan and I causing that to be the only possible location for Ai to sit after transferring into the class. Looking at her now I almost couldn't believe that the cute but cool girl beside me was the same as the one I left behind twelve years from now, I must admit knowing how she was in the future made me uneasy seeing her like this.

"I'm Shinji Kudo, it's nice to meet you Ai," I said hopefully with a convincing smile, "I hope we can get along."

She didn't say anything in reply.

"I hope so too, Haibara, I'm Conan Edogawa by the way," Conan introduced himself promptly. Apparently she hadn't met him last night at professor Agasa's house, he probably kept himself out of sight after she showed up because today would be more fun if she hadn't met either of us.

Of course the rest of the shonen tantei had gone into overdrive asking her questions she didn't bother to answer at a speed she couldn't have answered them at even if she had wanted to, they continued this throughout the entire school day as they slowly but surely forced her to join the shonen tantei.

Naturally, that day we got involved with a rather serious case but I'm sure you remember how that went from the original timeline, Conan and I were very careful not to make many changes. Though for our own entertainment we dropped hints about our real identities for Ai, small hints that the normal kids wouldn't have noticed. We even managed to avoid freaking out at the end about the culprit being in the black organization -which she wasn't. Retelling everything would pretty boring so I'll just skip ahead to the three of us walking home.

Ai trailed behind us silently at a distance, still pretending to cry after the case. We were almost to the point where she would likely speak up, both of us ready for whatever she was about to say... but there was a chance she wouldn't say anything with both of us around, she wasn't the type to think that the current situation would even be possible, much less suspect it had happened.

It didn't seem she was going to say anything, with a glance I could tell that Conan had come to the same conclusion. Instead one of us would have to break the silent tension.

"We rescued Akemi Miyano."

Both of us turned around at once. I'll admit the shocked look on her face -still redden and wet from her crocodile tears- was absolutely priceless, she didn't seem to know if she should cry with happiness, accuse us of lying, or just continue to be shocked.

I continued, "I disguised myself as her and suggested to Gin that he should use Apotoxin 4869 to kill me. I didn't actually swallow it at that time though, it probably would have been a disaster if I had."

Conan added, "Don't worry, we left Akemi in the hands of someone that we know can be trusted, the Black organization will -more likely than not- never hear anything about her again."

She stood, tears -happy ones- had began to flood from her eyes, but she didn't speak or move an inch.

"Ah, let's get you home," I suggested, "these days it's not safe for a young lady to be out on the streets alone. We can talk at the professor's house."

I grabbed her hand, which took mine back hesitantly, and began to walk in the direction of the professors house. Conan briefly gave me a questioning look as if to say 'you're holding her hand, are you a pedophile or something?' but he seemed to have decided against saying anything out loud.

I didn't mind very much but his looking at me like that made me wonder how old she actually was, after all she'd never actually told me her real age... Akemi was her older sister she's about twenty-five now, so Ai is definitely younger than that probably between eighteen and twenty-two. Hmmm... doesn't that mean she's actually pretty close to my age?

In the awkward atmosphere it seemed like it was taking forever to reach the professor's house. Each second practically lasted a minute, and when we finally got there her hand was still firmly grasping mine, upon noticing that she was holding my hand after I had relaxed my grip she blushed just slightly (I swear, she really did) and released it.

Meanwhile Conan had already opened the door and shouted inside, "Professor, I'm home! Shinji and Haibara are with me."

Way to ruin the mood, Conan, Ai had the perfect tsundere routine going on there... right, right, age difference. We're both six get your mind out of the gutter you seven year old. Who cares anyway?

The three of us went in and were greeted by the professor.

It took quite a while to explain to Ai that Conan and I already knew of who she was and what her situation was, we tried to play it off that we knew so much because we were just really good detectives but she didn't quite believe that, it was a bit of a stretch to begin with. That's when we got to the matter we'd been waiting for; which of us she suspected of being Shinichi Kudo.

"Kudo-kun..." She started but trailed off. I briefly wondered which of us she meant, so far she seemed to be thinking that Conan was Shinichi so it wasn't really clear who she meant by 'Kudo-kun'.

"Um... Call me 'Shinji' okay? If you say 'Kudo' it's to easy to get me mixed up with Shinichi," I said, maintaining a normal attitude, "Or if you'd like you can call me 'Shin-chan'... really anything's fine, as long as you don't call me 'Ji-chan', I'm not old enough to be a grandpa yet."

"Er..." She seemed to be a bit surprised by my weird speech (If I'm going to have a pun for a name I have to make a joke out of it at some point you know...) but eventually she sighed and said, "Both of you, are a bit too smart for your age."

"I think I'm smart enough for my age, I'd be dead by now if I wasn't, it's not my fault if most people aren't."

She looked annoyed by that comment, she stopped beating around the bush and got straight to the point, "Edogawa-kun is Shinichi Kudo, isn't he?"

Conan had a surprised look for only a moment before his expression turned to normal ready to play along, "How did you guess?"