Well, Dad's frustrated and tired all the time, but he is getting visibly better. Even if he doesn't feel like it—which has more to do with subjective view than anything else, because even the on-staff doctor at the rehabilitation center has pointed out vast progress. Still, I'm spending a lot of time trying to keep him from getting too bored or down on himself, so updates will probably come with a lot more errors. If you spot some, do please feel welcome to point them out.

Chapter 2

When Kuroba introduced his young cousin-by-marriage, Hakuba was struck by the eerie likeness to both Kudo and Kuroba himself. While little Conan's hair was more like Kudo's—overall tamed with a cowlick or two—his general facial structure really did make him look like he could be a younger Kuroba with glasses.

But then, Kudo and Kuroba had always looked just as eerily alike, and the way the boy clung to Kuroba's hand and half-hid behind Kuroba's legs showed that this child was very much out of his element. Kuroba murmured to him in quiet English and the boy consented to sitting in Kudo's desk, casting occasional worried glances over his shoulder but slowly relaxing as first period went on.

Hakuba kept an eye on the boy, but it didn't seem necessary. Kuroba was doing the same, and Conan seemed uncomfortable but not incapable with Japanese. He seemed to be resigned to not understanding very well, but if something caught his attention he would ask Kuroba to translate more clearly.

The accent was definitely American—Kuroba's, too, though his was more Japanese-learning-American-English than actual American, but significantly better than anyone else in the class.

Then again, Kaitou KID. He should be better than anyone else in the class… except the missing Kudo, who hadn't had a noticeable Japanese accent to his English at all. Which probably had something to do with the American relatives, come to think.

Hakuba shook his head, trying to dislodge scrambling thoughts. Kuroba had seemed far more himself, actually pulling a prank—a class-wide prank, at that—for the first time since Kudo had gone missing, but whether the cheer was genuine or an attempt to distract his young charge was debatable.

Still, he was doing something aside from… well, brooding, which was a relief either way.

Conan tapped his fingers on his desk in a restless but familiar pattern and Kuroba blinked, straightening up a bit.

So the codes were inter-family? Hakuba was starting to regret not asking to be taught, but inter-family communication methods might not be acceptable to share with outsiders. How did that tap-code work, anyway? He'd assumed it was based on Japanese, but if Conan was using it—either sound-based or English-based?

"Hakuba," Kuroba asked suddenly, voice low and words English. "Can you come over after school? I could stand some English-speaking backup."

Hakuba blinked, derailed from his musings. "Ah, yes, of course," he replied in kind. "I have time."

xxxx

It was going to be an interesting conversation, Kaito decided as he closed the door behind Hakuba. Whether the 'interesting' would be good, bad, or neutral was yet to be seen, but it would definitely be interesting.

Conan produced a white-noise generator (that one had been upstairs—was it a good idea for him to use mahou with his body compromised?) and switched it on, out of Hakuba's direct line-of-sight more by incident than intent.

"Kuroba? Is there any news on Senpai?"

Well. That answered whether or not he had suspicions. Although Shinichi was a good actor, now, far better than he'd been the first time around, and… well, shrunk. Hakuba might know of true magic, but the rules precluded something like that in a living form. To try and regress in age or even just make physically smaller would kill almost invariably, magic or no. (Shinichi hadn't gotten younger, merely smaller and child-proportioned.)

"Shinichi is…" he hesitated, trying to pick his words carefully, and Shinichi himself huffed, taking off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Standing right here," he interjected, apparently not caring to be nice about it.

Kaito winced slightly as Hakuba spun, eyes widening as they landed on 'Conan'.

"W-wha…" he trailed off, completely at a loss for words in evidence that he trusted Kaito not to joke about this.

Conan, he wouldn't be sure of even if he trusted Shinichi but he apparently trusted Kaito not to pull a prank in such poor taste.

"More like 'how'," Shinichi informed dryly. "Hakuba-kun, we've never lied to you—but we were judicious in withholding some truths. While complete disclosure is still somewhat untenable, this deserves a proper explanation since we're deliberately letting you in on it."

"Senpai?" Hakuba asked weakly.

Shinichi nodded, suddenly looking his actual age instead of either his Conan-claimed age or the age the timeline put him at.

Kaito agreed on that front, though. Hakuba had learned enough that telling him the truth of why he and Shinichi were so inseparable, why they were married, was only fair.

"Have a seat, Hakuba," Kaito herded him into the sitting room. "I'll make tea—this will take a while."

Shinichi snorted, "I'll make tea," he informed, prodding Kaito's thigh pointedly. "You always complain that yours is terrible and want me to make it anyway."

Kaito grinned, tipping his head in acknowledgement. "You okay with the stove, or shall I…?"

"You put the kettle on," Shinichi told him. "I'm short again."

Kaito closed his eyes for a long moment, "I know," he said finally, ignoring how Hakuba eyed them both in concern. "It won't be for as long, this time."

Shinichi nodded, "With any luck, the damage won't be permanent—but even if it is, it won't be as severe. Relax a little, will you?"

Kaito laughed, thready and just a little broken, "And even then it took three assassins and five bullets, huh?"

"Six," Shinichi murmured, eyes suddenly blank. "You took one for me."

That was true, wasn't it? Shinichi had actually been forced to watch him die where he'd only had the sickening knowledge that Shinichi would, and no doubt watching had been made worse by knowing the killing shot had been meant for him.

"Enough of this for now," Kaito swallowed, trying to shake the memories. They'd been cornered anyway, and if Shinichi had gone down first, Kaito wouldn't have taken long to follow. "Tea. Then we can worry about explaining." And after, he was carting tiny Conan-bodied Shinichi upstairs and cuddling him for hours. He needed a good cuddle, and by the end of the explanation, he doubted Shinichi would protest.

First, though. Tea.

xxxx

Hours later, Hakuba managed to somehow end up at home—he suspected that Kuroba and Baaya had something to do with it, because he certainly didn't remember how and Baaya was pushing a teacup into his hands.

He raised it to his lips more on instinct than anything and choked on the first swallow, coughing as what he'd expected to be tea or even coffee turned out to be brandy. "Baaya!" he protested, the surprise dragging him back out of his thoughts quite effectively. "I'm underage!"

She snorted at him, "I'll thank you not to make a habit of it, but that, you will drink. You've had a shock, it seems, and the brandy will take the edge off. There's not enough there to get you drunk."

He weighed his options briefly and nodded once, downing the rest of the cup in two swallows, suppressing the urge to cough again at the burn in his throat.

His housekeeper nodded and took the cup back. "I'll leave you to your thoughts," she informed, "but if I don't see you by ten tomorrow, I'm calling a doctor."

That was quite the threat, and Hakuba nodded slightly. "Thank you, Baaya," he offered quietly, truly grateful for her brand of stern caring. Sometimes she surprised him, but she was always there.

Twenty minutes later, he'd managed to accept the dual concepts of 'shrunk' and 'time-travel' at least enough to be grateful that Kudo was alive and… reasonably safe, if on a time limit for how long the relative safety would last. (Kuroba said they had a cure, but it would take time to make. He'd had a dark look in his eyes when he'd said it, and Hakuba had been afraid to ask why. Kudo had told him anyway.)

The 'shrunk' part had irrefutable proof. Once he'd dropped the act, Kudo was scarily Kudo, even at the general appearance of a five-year-old. The time-travel… not 'proof', exactly, but it fit. It made so many things make sense about Kudo and Kuroba both.

They hadn't gone into detail, really, but he was pretty sure they'd outlined most of what they'd been through. Even without detail, Hakuba could see why they were so close, why they clung to each other so tightly. To be with only one person to rely on for so long, and then to be tossed into a situation where every familiar face was too young and scarcely knowing them… well. Hakuba knew he wouldn't have come out of something like that near so well.

(He didn't think about the rest of it. They'd said they'd died.)

He sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair and ignoring the mess he made of it by doing so. Enough. What was, was, and considering the existence of magic, Hakuba wasn't able to be certain there weren't some kind of governing metaphysics laws around this kind of thing. There was probably some kind of logic to it somewhere; he just didn't know what it was.

He also wasn't too interested in finding out. There were some mysteries—not many, mind, but some—that really were better off remaining mysteries.

(Anything to do with sorcery was generally on that list.)

xxxx

"Is he going to be all right?" Shinichi asked, eying the door after Hakuba's housekeeper had herded his fellow detective out to her car.

Kaito shrugged, "It may take him a day or two to get his head around it, but yeah. He'll be fine."

Shinichi looked down at his too-small hands and nodded, taking Kaito's word on that. Kaito had always known Hakuba better than Shinichi had, and if Shinichi hadn't had to deal with shrinkage and magic for years before being dumped eighteen years in the past, he might have had some trouble wrapping his head around it, too.

At least Hakuba had already been given a few months to get used to the 'magic is real' part.

Shinichi shook off that thought and turned his attention to his husband (who now had to pretend to be his older distant-cousin-by-marriage. How was this their lives?), frowning at a few subtle tells. "Are you all right?"

Kaito blinked, glanced down at him, and huffed; offering a wry smile. "Never can get anything past you, huh? Yeah, this whole thing's bothering me, but… as long as you're okay, I will be."

Fair enough. "It won't even be for a full year this time if we manage to get the equipment in a timely manner, and I have no intention of bouncing sizes unless there is literally no other choice. If there is permanent damage, it won't be nearly as bad as last time."

Kaito breathed out, closing his eyes briefly as some of the tension drained out of his shoulders. "Right. You're right," he agreed. "So long as we're careful, it's going to be okay."

xxxx