Chapter 21: THe Method of Acting

"Shin-chaaaaan!" the words ripped Conan out of his peaceful sleep in a matter of nano-seconds.

"I'm up! I'm awake!" Conan flailed about him, trying to put some distance between himself and the crazy. Only slowly did his surroundings filter through his sleep addled brain. He was at the Mouri's and... and what was his mother doing here, calling him by his name?

Wait. Why was Kaito on the floor holding his stomach?

… his mother wasn't here.

"You... you ass!" Conan colored and threw his pillow at the thief who scrambled a little to get out of the way but was too busy laughing himself silly to manage it.

"Out! Out!"

"Conan-kun? Is everything alright?" Ran's voice filtered through the door and suddenly Kaito was up and scrambled to climb out of the window, closing it behind him with a rather quiet thud.

Not a moment too soon as the door opened and Ran peaked inside.

"Are you okay? Did you have a nightmare? I heard shouting..."

"Uhm..." crap. "Y-yeah I'm fine!"

After school his mother was waiting for him next to her Harley.

"Seriously? You come to my school like that?" Conan scowled up at her as she swooped down and drew him into a hug that threatened to break his ribs. That was... that was an awful familiar sort of hug.

"Of course! I haven't seen you in such a long time, I missed you!" and only then did Conan realize that there was no amethyst bracelet dangling from the wrist and this was actually his real mother.

"Oh god, you are really here!" he blurted out in horror and struggled in her grip. Of course, she had arrived days ago and had already made good on her promise to help him. He had asked for it after all, asked her to train him how to act. Now he had to suffer the consequences because his mother would put him through hell for her own amusement and to make up for the time when he was a child and had violently rejected even the notion of following in her footsteps.

Who could blame him. He had been, what, five years old? And his mother had looked at him with beseeching doe-like eyes while holding up a monstrosity of a princess dress.

He had refused to leave the wardrobe. He didn't want to be put through the humiliation. He knew his mother would make pictures. He knew his mother would use the pictures against him, if given the chance and she wouldn't mind using them against him ten years or even twenty years later. He had known that even at his small age and had – rightfully – sought to protect himself from that.

It had been a smart decision back then. Conan still held onto that.

But now... now he needed to learn to act and his mother was every bit the she-devil he had predicted back then, if not even worse. He could only hope to reign in the damage. Maybe get a virus into her phone and laptop and hope all evidence would be destroyed. Even if he had to pay for a new laptop and phone after that.

He hoped Kaito never found out about this torture.

"Now, take this and change!" Yukiko beamed down at Conan and held out a rather cute dress. Cute – Conan amended – if you actually were a girl. Which he was not.

Decisive he crossed his arms and frowned.

"No."

At a quelling, dark look from his mother he snatched the dress out of her hand and fled to the bathroom. He dressed himself quickly and only looked into the mirror when absolutely necessary. Why his mother thought this would help him in his acting training... okay, maybe it did, kinda, but he also knew she was doing it for her own evil-spirited amusement as well.

Taking a deep breath he tried to get into his role. His mother would do worse than a dress if he came out and still acted like 'Conan'. No, he had learned in the first one and a half hour that if he wanted this acting training to work, then he would have to live and breathe as the character he was portraying.

"I want you to study the character." She had told him when she had first created a role for him. He had looked at the paper and then stared up at her in quiet bafflement. After all, she hadn't given him lots of information, mostly just writing down some basics. He snorted and quietly thought it couldn't be so hard.

Half an hour later he revised that thought while his mother scowled down at him.

"You haven't thought about who you are at all." she had shaken her head and put her arms over her chest, scowling as she obviously sought the right words to explain it to him.

"What I want you to try is using your own experiences in life, and mold them to fit your character. That is called 'affective memory'. You use the experiences of your life, to give life to the character you want to portrait."

Yukiko turned around towards his wardrobe and begun searching for something in the very back of it.

"You immerse yourself into the character completely. You need to be fully invested, especially emotionally if you want this to work."

She turned around, holding out a small dress that had Conan shrinking back in apprehension.

"Acting is not just saying a dialogue, or remembering the correct lines. You have to get into the role. Into his or her head. What has she experienced before, how would they act due to their upbringing. You have to think of having lived a whole different life, and how your experiences would influence your decisions. You need to think of the environment the character is currently in and how she would react at any given moment!"

She crouched down and tipped a finger against his chest, smiling in what Conan would describe to be in reminisce and passion.

"You have to feel it. If what you feel matches the character's, then nobody will be able to tell it's fake."

Yukiko pressed the dress into his hands and stood up again, adopting her 'teacher's persona' again.

"It's called method acting. Very popular in the USA, and Sharon swore by it."

Conan wouldn't have noticed the falter in his mother's voice on the name if he hadn't been a detective. But Yukiko soldiered on, ignoring her own feelings like the perfect actress.

Conan did his part and didn't mention her slip. But if it was Vermouth's favored acting, it had to be the best one for what he was trying to do.

It had been disconcerting at first but he was getting better. But females were more often than not a mystery to him. He only knew he was doing something wrong when his mother made the small tsk-ing sound in the back of her throat. And since that was his biggest problem, of course his mother had pounced on the weakness like a hungry cat on the crippled bird. He knew it was an excuse for her to force him into dresses, because she had always wanted a daughter too but found it more convenient to simply have Conan fill the role to her satisfaction than to actually get pregnant again. Woman. A mystery. One he would have to at least crack a little to manage female roles.

Besides that: His mother had taken photos of various disguises. She had blackmail material now. He couldn't quit or she would send them to his elementary school. Conan was not desperate enough to humiliate himself like that if it wasn't necessary.

Ariko. Age six. Daughter of a small business-woman. Easily exited, overly curious but shy, especially with strangers. It was his 8th female role he was trying out, over the past five days. Ran knew he was with Yukiko, so she didn't ask where he was all the time.

Conan took a deep breath and nodded to his mirror image, feeling ridiculous in a dress. His mother had given him some hair-extensions as well, so he was staring at a stranger.

But he could do that. Somehow. He thought back to his childhood, and then thought about his friends, his elementary school friends right now and tried to study their behavior from a actors perspective and make use of that knowledge.

Breathing slowly he smiled at the mirror. Not his usual smile but one of Ayumi's sweet smiles when she was exited about something. He pulled a few different expression and watched his face in the mirror, trying to burn them to his memory.

This might just work. After all he had a plethora of experiences, memories and observations to draw from.

Ariko wandered into the nearby park. Most of the morning had passed by riding the train. Her mother would pick her up later, so for now she had to keep herself busy. It was nothing new. Her mother had a meeting, so she had been asked if she wanted to play inside, so long as she stayed quiet and didn't disrupt her work or visit a playground nearby. Being cooped up from traveling here, Ariko had been very eager to get some fresh air, so her mother had brought her to the park, given her a hug and told her to have fun. She would be back in about an hour.

Conan thought that a normal parent shouldn't leave their child alone in a strange park but-

Ariko blinked and shook her head, looking around the playground. A few children were sitting in a sandbox, while some boys played football.

Conan wanted to head over, he could-

Ariko stumbled and came to a stop, flushing at the weird look she got from some of the parents who had been curiously watching her and saw her grind to a halt. She hated attention, shifting uncomfortably on her legs she quickly looked away and tightened her grip on the small bag she carried with her, taking another look around the playground. She wanted to find some playmates. Make some friends, even if she had to leave soon again.

Conan was so bored, he wanted to turn back and-

A rustle in the bushes drew Ariko's attention away. Interest piqued she cautiously made her way over, shifting some of the branches out of the way and sinking down to squat on her haunches.

"Aww." a small cat stared distrustingly back at her, flinching back when Ariko held out her hand. After some time the kitten came closer, sniffing the fingers with caution. Ariko smiled when the kitten decided to nude her hand and carefully scratched the ears. They were very soft.

"Found a friend?"

A voice behind her startled her and she jumped, scaring the cat into running away.

"You scared her!" she told the stranger accusingly, frowning over her shoulder.

Conan nearly choked at the amethyst eyes blinking at her – him – no her. Oh god what was Kaito doing here?! Did he know?! Did he, was he- wait. That was not … where was the disguise? Was that a disguise? That looked terribly similar to Shinichi, but there were differences. Was this some kind of joke?

Scrambling to his feet he nearly stumbled over his own feet and would have crashed to the floor if not for a steadying hand on his upper arm.

"Careful there, little Miss."

Conan nearly choked again. Little what?!

Ariko blinked up at the teenager. He was much bigger than her, but looked friendly enough. Her mother however had told her to stay away from older people, stick to her own age-group.

Now that she was steady again he had released her and she took a cautious step to the side. She didn't like how he cut her off from the rest of the playground, however unintentional. It seemed like he realized it too, for he gave her a sheepish grin and shuffled further out of the way, until she relaxed again.

"Sorry for scaring you and your friend." the young man crouched down to be at the same level as her. He held out his hand to her and in the next moment there was a rose popping up to her face.

Conan was nearly frothing at the mouth. He knew that trick but still! How could-

"You okay?"

"U-uhm... y-yeah..." hesitatingly she reached out and took the offered rose, offering a shy, uncertain smile. Kaito returned it with one of his own, nearly blinding ones.

"That's good. Well, if you are interested, I'm going to do a small performance later on. Stick around, yeah? And tell me if you think it was good or totally terrible!" with that Kaito rose to his feet and winked and then walked away.

Ariko stood still where she was and watched the teen go. Conan was undecided what he wanted to do now. For one: He never wanted Kaito to realize this was him. Ever. For another? This was not how he wanted to find KID. It was something different to catch him at a heist but to stumble upon his identity on accident while he pretended to be someone else, that just sat wrong with him.

It took Conan a moment to realize he was staring at Kaito intently enough to make the teen twitch. If that wasn't confirmation enough, Conan did not know what. He could see Kaito raise his head from whatever he had brought to the playground to make his magic show and quickly averted his gaze.

He looked towards the gate, then let his eyes trail over the playground in indecision.

Finally he took a few unconvinced steps in Kaito's general direction. Despite the risk he was too curious about the show, because if there was one thing Kaito KID knew about, it was how to make a performance. And while Conan thought about magicians as tricksters and con artists, he couldn't help himself for actually wanting to see Kaito in his element, without the police and drama added to the show. It was a silly notion, and if he had been 'Conan', he would have turned around on principle and scoffed, if only to pretend he wasn't interested in the going ons.

But right now... he was Ariko. A curious little girl that could sit back and watch the magic unfold in awe, while Conan and Shinichi took a backseat and dissected the tricks presented to them.

Just in case he left a little distance between them. He didn't want to draw attention, so he couldn't be too far away, but sitting in the back between two other kids was fine. Close enough to see, yet far enough to not be drawn into the action.

It was halfway through the show that his mother in her own disguise showed up and put a hand on his shoulder. A quick look up made him pause, as she watched Kaito with a strangely fond look, but then again one of her teachers in disguise had been a magician too, so maybe Kaito reminded her of that time.

After the show his mother took his hand and drew him away. Conan cast a last glance over his shoulder and watched as Kaito mingled with the kids and gave a few flowers to some of the girls. It was kinda cute.

Hastily he looked away and tried to get back into being Ariko before his mother commented on it.

"Hey dad." Conan stumbled into the kitchen, finally allowed to slip back into his own clothes after an exhausting day with his mother. They had went shopping for other disguises and Conan had begged his mother to not put any of the female stuff into his wardrobe. For all he knew Kaito would visit and the last thing Conan wanted to explain was when and why he had acquired woman articles. Or what for.

"Evening, son." Yusaku evenly replied and just as smoothly moved his cup of coffee out of Conan's reach, much to his son's displeasure. Grumpily Conan went to the fridge to get some juice before settling into his own chair.

"So...?" he asked when his father finally put down the newspaper – an English one – to questioningly look over the rims of his glasses.

"So, what?" His father needled back, despite knowing exactly what Conan wanted to know.

"How is the project with Professor Agasa coming along?" Cona felt an exited spark nearly explode when he saw the smug satisfaction crossing his fathers face.

"Splendid. We are almost finished." then his father turned and looked at Conan with his I'm-serious-about-this-don't-you-dare-argue expression "I won't give it to you until your mother agrees that you are ready. You understand, right?"

In this Conan reluctantly agreed. It wouldn't do to get hasty and let his chance to finally get the antidote slip past him.

A/N:

Omg. I am SO sorry it took so long and even more sorry that I can't promise the next chapter will be out at some point in the near future.

Let's just say I had a massive writers block and then got distracted by another story I am currently writing and then I needed to find back into this one. I am quite happy how it turned out, even if I didn't put everything I had originally planned into this chapter. But I thought you might appreciate a sign of life.

Many thanks to so many reviewers who reminded me regularly of this story and encouraged me to continue, as well as SeleneMoon who came out of her self-imposed exile and gave me the last push to finish this chapter that has been sitting half ready for an eternity.