Chapter Thirty-Seven
Reborn
"… But once he gets out of the hospital, he has to stay in an Ekoda Police Station for legal reasons until the trial," Shinichi said dejectedly, hitching his schoolbag up onto his shoulder. He'd been depressed for several days, ever since that major crime ring was taken down by a mass raid by the FBI and the police. Shinichi, according to his own account, had gone into hiding because he was snooping around them, and had started working with Kuroba Kaito as a result, who had been attempting to reveal the criminals' roles in his father's death. He had ended up getting caught by them and locked up in one of their buildings, and Kaito had rescued him. He hadn't explained the part where he and Kaito were evidently more than just investigative partners, blushing furiously whenever Ran or the evilly-grinning Sonoko probed him about it, but his feelings seemed to be for real, which unsettled Ran somewhat. Not because Kaito was a guy- Ran preferred not to think like that- but because, due to Kaito's injuries (what had transpired to be a few fractured ribs and some badly bruised muscles across his body, in addition to a number of bullet wounds which didn't seem to have healed properly), he hadn't gotten away from the police and was thus going to be living under the watch of the law for the foreseeable future.
"And they don't allow conjugal visits, eh?" Sonoko leered. Shinichi flushed again, opening his mouth to yell at her, but all that came out was a yelp of pain as Sonoko nudged the bandaged gun wound on his arm. Ran hurriedly dragged Sonoko away and shoved her towards the street lights before they changed, glad that they were at the point where the three of them tended to split up as Shinichi hissed between his teeth and clutched his damaged arm.
"So you're going there later?" she asked brightly, determined not to disparage Shinichi's new relationship in any way, even if it was to a convicted criminal. Hey, with Shinichi's line of work he didn't meet many other kinds of people, and compared to most of the criminals he caught the Kaitou Kid was practically innocent. Call it a guilt trip.
"Yeah, after I drop my stuff. I decided to drop by to visit him and remind him that driving the police insane is counterproductive at this time," he said, sighing in a longsuffering fashion as he said it but quirking a little grin even so. "I'm sure he'll be behaving, anyway. His mother's visiting him today, and he's been a bit of a momma's boy ever since his father's death…"
"SHIN-CHAAAAN!"
Shinichi screamed as a blur of blonde and pink flew out of his front gate and glomped him at high velocity, spotting the silver car in the driveway too late. Ran clamped a hand over her mouth as she started to giggle. Okay, maybe she was feeling a little guilty about this, too.
"I definitely think we need to visit you more often," Yuusaku said dryly, standing in the gateway and watching his wife drag his son back to his feet, alternately hugging him and babbling and apologizing for bumping various wounds. "Ran-kun gave us the bare bones of the past few weeks…"
"Oh she did, did she?" Shinichi said, glaring over his mother's shoulder at Ran, who just giggled harder.
"… but I think we'd just love to hear the full story from your point of view," he continued, winking at Ran, who took that as an opportunity to wave at Shinichi and start heading for her house. She had a call to make, anyway…
"Especially about your boy-friend!" Yukiko sang, making Shinichi go bright red and slump. "You have a lot of explaining to do, Shin-chan…"
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"… But Nakamori-kun thinks we can plea-bargain your punishment down to nearly nothing, so please don't mess around, Kaito," Minami pleaded. "I don't want anything to happen to you now… Now after…" she pressed her lips tightly together, her eyes brightening, though she refused to shed any more tears after her first outburst upon seeing him. Kaito gave her a hug.
"Don't worry, Kaa-san," he promised, idly kicking his heel against the cell wall. "I've tried "fugitive" for a couple of weeks and it doesn't really suit me. Too far out of the limelight." He grinned brightly and was rewarded when she laughed a little. "Besides, I promised to stay within the law as soon as Pandora was destroyed and Snake arrested… and both have happened. I figure I'll just chill here for a while."
"… As if your presence here is voluntary," Minami said, giggling a little weakly. Kaito grinned.
"Well, it is me…" Kaito said with a cheeky grin, which made her laugh again. It was a good sound to hear. He'd had enough of making her cry. "I promise I'll be good in court. Shinichi already threatened to find me and fill my hat with fish if I didn't." He shivered violently, a not entirely hammed-up gesture, at the mere mention of the hated creatures.
"Yes, about this "Shinichi"… why don't you tell me all about him?" his mother said with an evil grin. To his mortification, Kaito felt a blush trying to slip past his Poker Face.
"Ah… well…" he was saved by an officer opening the door and nodding to him. He recognized the guy; all of his guards were Task Force only. They didn't trust normal cops to be able to handle him, not without reason. Not that he was trying to escape or anything, but guarding Kaito involved being able to handle finding odd things in your pockets when you got home and not freaking out about how he was getting doves and juggling balls into his cell.
"Kuroba-kun, call for you," he said. "It's a lawyer offering to defend you."
"Can you repeat that again?" Kaito said, blinking at the guy. "I think I went briefly deaf… did you just say someone's offering to defend me? Like, actually say I'm innocent?"
"I don't know, but she did say to get on the line before she changes her mind," the officer said, rolling his eyes and holding the phone out to Kaito. Kaito darted forward to grab the phone, before returning to his mother's side as he brought the phone to his ear. "Bengoshi-san? Tell me this isn't a prank call."
"More like a guilt trip," a woman's voice said dryly. "I severely doubt we can plead you innocent, and I don't want to look like an idiot at this stage of my career. However, I'm offering to be the one in charge of plea bargaining your sentence down to as little as possible. Your role in bringing down this criminal syndicate will be a pivotal bargaining chip, as well as the fact that you never actually kept anything you stole, and took down several murderers and a major counterfeiter in the process. For one of the world's most wanted criminals, you have quite a bit going for you. By the way, my name's Kisaki Eri, but you will call me Kisaki-bengoshi or bengoshi-san. If you try your famous "ojou-san" schtick with me, you'll find out just how jaded about men my separation has made me. Also, I'll stop defending you, and trust me when I say that, good guy though you seem to be, you'll be in trouble if all you have is a government defence lawyer."
"Well, thank you," Kaito said, carefully calculating the charm level. "It will be a pleasure to be defended by you, I'm sure, Kisaki-bengoshi. If you don't mind my asking… why are you defending me? You're a very reputable lawyer, yet you haven't quoted a price…"
"She's doing it for free because my guilt trip's piggybacking on hers," a much younger and more familiar female voice said over the phone, "so when you get out of there you sure as hell better go straight and give Shinichi no more grief, got it?"
"Yes ma'am, Ran-san," Kaito said promptly, trying not to choke in surprise.
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"Remember, no jokes, no tricks, no flirting because I won't be able to testify in your favour if they find out we're involved," Shinichi muttered as he and Kaito waited in the group outside the courtroom. "No confetti, no jam, no feathers…"
"Want to strip-search me?" Kaito leered. Shinichi flushed, and Hakuba slapped the thief across the ear. "Ahh! Prisoner abuse!" Kaito screamed, exaggeratedly clutching his "wound" with both handcuffed hands. The police officers, who had begged Shinichi and Hakuba to take a guard shift for the sake of their sanities, all rolled their eyes, one promising Hakuba that he hadn't seen that, nor would he see anything else that happened to the prisoner. Eri just shot Shinichi a disturbingly familiar glare, which indicated that she wasn't going to defend someone who wouldn't behave. Shinichi leaned over to Kaito.
"Kaito," he said levelly. "I know the way Eri-san is glaring at you. She used to glare at me like that when I was five years old. That glare promises instant death. And this woman's a good enough lawyer to get herself off on murder charges, so please don't tempt her. For a few hours of your life, for your sake, for your kaa-san's sake, for our sake, please, behave." He caught Kaito's eyes- deep, sparkling blue, bordering on violet, leaping with life once more, and saw them grow serious. Kaito nodded.
"Alright, we've finally gotten through the damn journalists and fangirls," Nakamori-keibu growled, stomping down the hall with some members of his Task Force and his daughter in tow. She nodded cordially to Kaito, who offered her a soft, apologetic smile in response. She strode past him to stand next to Hakuba. Kaito sighed sadly.
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The second he walked out of the courtroom, Kaito leapt approximately fifteen feet in the air, whooping loudly, and immediately proceeded to turn the media frenzy outside of the courtroom into a full-on party. Journalists found their notebooks and cameras replaced with rubber chickens and living doves, fangirls found roses in their hair and hands, and all a manner of confetti and smoke popped up everywhere.
"Keep it legal, Kaito," his mother called warningly, grinning broadly nevertheless. He popped next to her and wiped a happy tear off her cheek, providing her with a real red rose. "We're not coming back here."
"Hell, no," Kaito promised. "I'll keep it legal, but you can't make me promise not to be annoying."
"That would certainly be too much to hope for," Hakuba sighed. He was banging his head rhythmically against the wall just inside the courtroom. "Just like I suppose it was too much to hope that, given the number of Kaitou Kid fans in this country, there wouldn't be a single one on his jury? Let alone five? Two of them judges, for pity's sake!" He started murmuring a number of expletives under his breath in English.
"Well, the fans weren't all of it," Shinichi reassured him. "Eri-san put together a brilliant defence. Bargaining the assistance that Kaito's rendered the law enforcement against the relatively negligible weight of his crimes was a good touch, as well as pointing out that only about a sixth of the total heists were actually committed by Kaito."
"I can't believe that that moron leading the offense hadn't noticed that he was charging the boy with crimes that he would have committed two years before he was born," Eri groaned, rolling her eyes and flipping through her file again before placing it back inside her briefcase. "Something about the Kaitou Kid makes everyone a little silly. Like they forget he's merely human."
"He does help to cultivate that image," Shinichi agreed, watching several children in the cheering crowd acquire painted faces at the same time.
"Well, at least you'll be there to keep him on the straight and narrow," Eri sighed, making Shinichi flush a little. "Good luck with that, Kudo-kun. Responsible though I'm sure you are, I can't help but remember that is children, you were the one always getting Ran into trouble, not vice-versa…" Shinichi flushed even darker.
"Shin-chan!" Kaito cheered, sweeping back into the room and sweeping up Shinichi, who squawked in surprise. "Shall we blow this joint? I'm a free man now, baby!"
"Kuroba Kaito!" Shinichi yelled. "You moron, if you don't put me down within the next five-"
Nobody else heard the rest of his words, however, because in a puff of smoke, the boys vanished. Kaito's mother just giggled, smiling softly and happily.
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Hours later, anyone wandering past the Ekoda clock tower might have been able to make out two figures leaning over the balcony several stories up, arms around each other's shoulders and leaning against each other in an almost twincestual manner. They looked tired, a contrast to Kaito's usual cheery and hyperactive demeanour, and Shinichi's usual unruffled manner. They'd dropped the masks entirely.
"Y'know, we first met here," Kaito mused. "Always happens that way with me."
"Well, we didn't exactly meet," Shinichi pointed out. "You annoyed the police, I shot at you, you escaped. I never even saw your face. But…" he frowned a little. "I did see your father. From that point I was curious. A ghost jarred with the carefree nature of the thief in front of me, and always left me wondering just how far you took your masks…"
"You always saw him?" Kaito said in an unusually small voice. "He was always there?"
"Always," Shinichi replied softly. "He was always watching over you." Then he grinned. "Made it a helluva lot easier to find you sometimes, though he wised up and developed a tendency to hover in ambiguous places. I could've ordered him to tell me, but I hate giving ghosts orders. It… detracts from them somehow. They're so fragile, it's hard enough as it is for them to hold on to what they are…"
"Thank you," Kaito said softly. "Are they all gone now?"
Shinichi's brow furrowed. "That's the odd thing. Several are still around, claiming that their murderers weren't caught. I know there must still be some members out there… Vermouth, for one. I never saw ghosts around her before, so I never knew that she was like me. I never knew that anyone was like me."
"From what she said," Kaito said thoughtfully, "she knows lots of people like you."
"And if there are others like me," Shinichi said, "there must be information about us somewhere. Records. Stories. Myths. Anything."
"Well then, it's decided!" Kaito said brightly. Shinichi arched an eyebrow questioningly as he glanced at his now-official boyfriend (the internet connection on his phone told him that at least three newspapers had caught snaps of Kaito sweeping him up into his arms). Kaito just grinned. "Well, lots of people take a year out before university, right? So let's do that! We graduate next week- you did pass your catch-up tests, right?" he added thoughtfully. Shinichi nodded with a "duh" roll of his eyes. "So let's take a year out! Travel the world! Look for stuff! I refuse to believe you can't afford it."
"You know, that's not a bad idea," Shinichi mused. "It might be good to get away from everything for a while…"
"Tell me about it," Kaito suddenly sighed heavily, flopping down onto the railing. "I've tried to make up with Aoko, but she's still mad. I think maybe I need to give her some time. And space. Like the planet. Being on the other side of the planet might just be enough space. Hakuba doesn't help."
"Hey, don't worry," Shinichi said, patting Kaito's shoulder consolingly. "I've seen Aoko-san's temper. She'll have to swing a mop at somebody in your absence." That made Kaito laugh. "Besides, I might be in the same boat. Ran's making me meet her for lunch and gossip tomorrow, and I promised to tell her what I've really been doing the past couple of years…"
"Geez, Shinichi, there are better ways to find out who you are than asking Izanami personally," Kaito said, rolling his eyes. That made Shinichi laugh too.
"I'm not sure if Ran'll kill me outright," he chuckled, "or just stop preventing Sonoko and her Kid fanclub from hunting me down…"
If someone had passed the entry to the clock tower about midnight, they might have seen two identical boys sneaking away, still laughing. They still hadn't put the masks back on.
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This is the final chapter of this fic; next week is the epilogue, with an extra note…
Sonoko is our in-universe fangirl, Marie Ravenclaw :D However, once she realized that Shinichi was stealing her Kid-sama… XDXD
All of us thinking "about time", eh, Reighost? XDXD
He definitely would, Desperatembrace. Hmm, the KaiShin kiss seems to have been the most popular moment of the last chapter. I wonder why…? XDXD
Arigatou, kittenn1011 :)
You haven't reviewed before, BelieveInFairytales, so no, but thank you! Making plot and shipping coincide is a Herculanean task, so I'm glad I managed it :) Everybody loves Fangirl Sonoko XDXD
Thanks, SecondtoNon! :)
This is indeed the last chapter, Ivan's Kitsune, just the epilogue left… in this fic…
We just have to convert more writers to the cause, Kayla Edogawa! XD Everybody's back where they should be… mostly…
I take it you liked the update, OnlyIntuition? XDXDXD
Did you think I would really kill Kaito off, Eyeinthesky? ;)
Yep, now they both see ghosts, FallenAngelYamiHikari, though there aren't a lot left to see…
Glad you enjoyed it, Dragon's Hitokiri :) Sonoko is our fangirl on deck!
I'm back, Cat! With chapters of win and kissing! :) Glad I've made you like Sonoko, I like her too, as a fellow Kid fangirl XD Everything's good and chipper again :)
Everyone loves Sonoko and that scene, Teldra :)
Sonoko just HAD to be in that scene, simply anonymous XDXD Writing the gods was fun too :)
Of course, Mesonoxian! :)
Glad you love it, Renkin-chan! :)
Hope you manage to find time for your fics soon, Madame of All Manga! All is fluff and happiness here :D
Kissing is all good now, . ;)
I do not own or claim to own Meitantei Conan/Case Closed. If I did, I would be luxuriating in my royalties, not writing fanfic in the back of old maths jotters instead of doing homework. -_-