And another chapter of TBoK. I'm happy with the reviews, although there were less...
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Onto the chapter!
A boy of eight hastily turned the corner of a street.
Immediately seeing two unwelcome people in the midst of the busy crowds, he zipped back around the corner, poking his head around once his body was covered.
Chapter 3
The perceptive eyes of this child noticed that the two men, wearing dark coats, hats and glasses, were buying something from a street vender.
However, the boy knew well enough that these two wouldn't stay long.
They only dealt with people in their secret organization, and didn't hang around public places for long, as someone may see and recognise their voices. They couldn't endanger the syndicate.
"Conan?"
"Amy?"
"We're at Dr. Agasa's house. Ai's here too. She want's to know what you've gotten yourself into. And you're showing up on the radar fine, so keep it up,"
"Okay. Tell Ai I'm following the twin drinks, and that I'll update soon. Oh, and who's 'we'?"
"Er- the whole class?"
"You took the whole class to Agasa's!"
"Sorry, Conan. Teacher wouldn't-"
"Nevermind," the young boy interrupted.
His men were on the move.
"Edogawa?"
"Haibara!"
"Since the Jr. Detective League badge has a tracker, do you think that you'd be able to get it on one of them?"
"No," Conan said hastily, ducking behind the cart where the men had just been browsing. The vender looked down at him in surprise, but Conan didn't notice. "They've seen my face. They'd know who I was. Not to mention, the badge is too big, one of them'd see it,"
"That's why I'm gonna tell you how to take the tracker out of the badge so you can slip it into one of their pockets or something,"
"I can't lose them, Ai. Stopping for the tracker would take too much time,'
"Then I suppose you'll have to do it on the move, won't you?"
Before Conan could say anything, Ai started giving instructions.
"Pull the front off the badge,"
Conan pulled, surprised at how easily it came off.
"Yep," he said, moving from the cart and ducking behind another. This earned stares from the owner of the first cart, the owner of the second, and the owners of two across the street.
"There's a shiny silver microchip in there. That's the tracking unit. Find the battery, it should be slightly larger than the microchip, and it should be black,"
Searching through the wires inside the badge, Conan found the black battery, leaving the cart he'd just hidden behind, and finding another.
"Alright. Detach the green wire that's linked to the battery on both ends,"
Conan didn't have time to worry if he'd get electrocuted.
"Yes,"
"You can take out the tracking unit now,"
"Alright,"
"The tracking unit will suffice on its own battery power for twenty-four hours. Let's hope that the place these guys are staying is within twenty miles, and doesn't take 24 hours to get to,"
Conan stifled a laugh.
Ducking out again through the street, he was surprised to bump into someone. And being as that someone was bigger than him, it knocked him over.
"I'm so sorry," a female voice said. "I wasn't looking where I was going and I-... Conan?"
Conan rubbed his head and looked up into the face of one Kazuha Toyama.
"Kazuha?"
"Conan! What are you doing out of school?"
"Kazuha! What are you doing here?"
"Well, actually," she looked thoughtful, "I was looking for Harley. He just ran off when he thought he saw Kudo- Hey! I asked you first!"
"Kazuha? I was wrong- Conan?" a voice belonging to the Detective of the West called.
"Harley!" Conan called, putting on his facade of third-grader. 'Thank the lord! He'll get me out of this!'
"So, Conan, what are you doing here?"
Jimmy mentally smacked himself in the head. But before he could answer, Kazuha interrupted.
"He's skipping school, Harley. And I think we should take him back..."
During the next few moments, Kazuha rambled on and turned away from them. Conan took this prime opportunity to nudge Harley in the foot. Harley looked down at him, at which point Conan fixed him with a glare and tossed a look over his shoulder. Harley, looking in that direction now, saw two men in black coats.
'Ha! Men in black. They don't look overly suspicious (reeking of sarcasm). I bet Kudo's tailing them because he thinks they were the ones who- HOLY COW! THEY ARE!'
Harley's eyes widened, and Conan knew he understood.
Looking back at Conan, he nodded for him to follow them, then looking at Kazuha and rolling his eyes. Conan understood that he'd keep her busy, at least until he could come back and hear her sound lashing.
He trapsed away.
"What was that?" a crackle from his badge, it was Amy this time.
"That was Harley Hartwell and his girl- erm- friend, Kazuha,"
"Oh, kinda like you and Rachel, huh?" guessed Ai, who had taken over the badge again.
"WHAAA?"
"Nevermind, Kudo. Just keep it down,"
"YOU IDIOT! YOU LET HIM GET AWAY!" came a shout from behind him.
Conan could tell this was Kazuha.
"WELL EXCUSE ME FOR PAYING RAPT ATTENTION TO YOUR SPEECH ABOUT BEING UPSTANDING CITIZENS OF SOCIETY!" came Harley's retort.
"Er- lover's quarrel?" Haibara guessed at the end of the line.
"Yeah, something like that," Conan replied, dodging in and out of people to make his way toward the men in black, in order to slip the tracker into one of their suits.
He passed a meat stand and a vegetable stand, finally coming upon the men, who were stopped at a stand with expensive watches.
'Piece of Cake,' he thought, scrutinizing, from a safe distance, for the best place to put the tracker.
'Pocket would be too easy, they could empty those...Brow of the hat? No, it could slip off...' he thought, then finally decided on the cuff of the one named Gin's pants.
He reached forward, but was bowled over by a teen in the crowd.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "This book is- Conan?"
"R-R-Rachel?" he said timidly, trying to wriggle away.
"Conan? Are you following me?" she asked.
"What? No! Why would I be doing that!" he said.
Finding he'd moved the distance required. He slipped the object into the desired place. 'Gotcha,' Jimmy thought.
"Conan, even if you were worried about me being sent home from school, that's no reasen to make an excuse to leave your school,"
'Worried?... Oh, that's a good one,' he thought, thanking Rachel for making up an excuse for him. "Sorry, Rachel. I couldn't help it. You worry all the time about me and Jimmy Kudo, I just wanted- I wanted to-"
"That's alright, Conan. And thank you. Jimmy would never have done that for me,"
"I'm sure he would, Rachel!" Conan said, protecting the thoughtfulness of his other identity.
"THERE HE IS!" Kazuha shouted, her eyes on the boy.
Conan stepped back, alarmed.
"You have a lot of explaining to do, mister!" she shouted at him. He looked toward Harley, who was rubbing his head that had a tinge of red. Conan guessed this was from a sound thump that Kazuha would have given him.
"Kazuha?"
"Why did you-... Rachel?"
"Oh, wow, Kazuha! I didn't know you and Harley were coming to visit!"
While the girls chatted, Harley found his way over to Conan.
"Kudo," Haibara said from across the line. "The tracker's moving fast. Is it you?"
"No," Conan replied, looking at Harley sympathetically as he rubbed his cheek. "The tracker was put on the hem of Gin's pants. We should get hideout details soon,"
"Good, because I don't think you would have slipped away from Moore, even with Hartwell's help,"
"... And you're probably right," Conan replied. "See you at Dr. Agasa's, Ai. Oh, and tell everyone to go back to school!" he said, switching the radio off.
"... came looking for me after he found out I was sent home from school. Isn't that sweet?" Rachel was talking animatedly with Kazuha.
"Oh, that's so cute!" she said. "Now if only Jimmy would do that to you," she said.
At the mention of Jimmy, Rachel looked down. The current situation and the land of the book had definately made her forget about her situation with Jimmy.
"Rachel?" Kazuha asked. "You don't look so hot, are you really sick? Or is it something to do with Jimmy?"
"...You got me," Rachel said, faking a smile.
"Pssst, Harley?" Conan whispered, holding out a set of keys. "Take the keys and invite everyone to my house. Tell them I sent them to you for you and Kazuha to use in case you wanted to come down here,"
"Right," he whispered back. "Well, since everyone's here, why don't we go to Kudo's house? He gave me the keys for Kazuha and me to use in case we ever wanted to visit!"
"He did?" both girls asked simultaneously.
"THAT'S SOOO KAWAII!" came a shout from Kazuha that was heard throughout the Kudo mansion.
Harley and Conan rolled their eyes. Rachel was no doubt currently telling Kazuha about her encounter with Jimmy. Harley and Conan were currently upstairs in Jimmy's bedroom. Conan had just finished telling Harley the whole story, too.
"Well, Kudo, you finally got the courage to tell her. That's great, but not what I wanted to talk to you about,"
"And what would that be?"
"That book your dad wrote,"
Conan groaned.
"Oh, so you're sick of it, too?" Harley continued. "Not only is it potentially dangerous, it's ruining my reputation with the fangirls,"
"The dangerous part is the one I'm worried about- not your fangirly reputation. But as you can plainly see, the BO is obviously starting to think that this is true. They came to my school today, Harley. I was following them afterward, trying to get a tracker on them. But now, they know about Rachel, because she happened to see them when she was walking by. They recognised her, Harley, and she recognised them,"
"How did that happen?"
"They were on the roller coaster during that murder-"
"Oh, right,"
"But don't you see how dangerous that is?"
"I see it, Kudo, but I don't think there's a way out of it anymore. You can't keep on protecting her- they know about her now,"
"But I can't let them get to her, Harley, I just can't,"
The two detectives sat in silence for a while, each thinking of a way to get out of the situation they were- or rather Jimmy was- currently in.
They were so lost in thought, they didn't hear the door open behind them.
The two teen girls were astounded at the quiet inside the room, and the fact that no one was paying attention to the fact that they were there.
"Ahem," Kazuha coughed, recieving no reaction from either of the two boys.
Looking around, Rachel was startled at the look on Conan's face. It bore striking resemblance to the one Jimmy would wear when he was thinking very hard about a case.
"IDIOT!" Kazuha then shouted, breaking the concentration of both the boys, and making the look disappear off Conan's face. "COULDN'T YOU AT LEAST BE A GOOD ENOUGH DETECTIVE TO NOTICE WHEN SOMEONE HAS ENTERED THE ROOM?" she shouted mercilessly at Harley. "ESPECIALLY IF THAT SOMEONE IS YOUR BEST FRIEND?"
"AND COULDN'T YOU BE A GOOD ENOUGH PERSON TO KNOW YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO INTERRUPT SOMEONE WHEN THEY'RE THINKING?" Harley fired back.
"IDIOT!"
"MORON!"
"JERK!"
"DOOFUS!"
During this time, Rachel and Conan simply slipped out of the room with an unheard, "Bye, we're leaving!"
"I hope they'll be alright," Rachel said thoughtfully, coming out of the house.
"Sure they will, Rachel, this happens all the time," Conan said nonchalantly, starting to walk away from the house, both hands behind his head.
Rachel looked at him oddly, but followed.
"Rachel Moore!" a very angry Serena Sebastian came up to Rachel the day after their encounter with Harley and Kazuha. "You have had your nose stuck in that book for all day! You didn't even call me yesterday, or even bothered to tell me that Kazuha and Harley are here!"
Rachel, who was currently on the last page of the book she happened to be reading, was very angry when Serena snatched the book away.
"Serena! Give it back!"
"Rachel! It's not even a romance novel! It's some children's story!"
"I'm on the last page!"
"It's not high-school reading material!"
"It's about Jimmy!" she said, snatching the book away.
Serena wore a very surprised and hurt look on her face. She quieted.
"It's about Jimmy," Rachel repeated, hugging the book to her chest, "... and I'm very... confused about Jimmy right now," she said, tears coming to her eyes.
"Rach, I-"
"It's fine, Serena. I just- I haven't talked to anyone about the whole thing yet, not Dad, Conan, or Kazuha, and..."
"Take your time," Serena said, for once being considerate. The conversation had once again captured the attention of everyone sitting in the classroom before their English class.
Serena walked back to her seat.
That night, at the Moore detective Agency, the unshed tears of the morning began to fall as the girl cried at the window ledge in her room.
The small boy that was inadvertantly the cause of all this commotion and tears, watched them begin to fall from the face of his Angel.
He couldn't stand it.
He'd told her what he'd wanted to tell her for so long, and here she was, still crying.
"Neechan?" Conan asked, slipping into the room.
"Conan?" she sniffed, wiping the tears away. "What are you doing up? It's past your bedtime,"
"I'm sorry," he said, abruptly.
"What?"
"I'm sorry... whatever I did- to make you cry- I'm sorry for it,"
"Oh, Conan," she said, sweeping the young boy into an embrace. "It's not you- that made me cry,"
"Then I'm sorry from Jimmy-niichan,"
"Huh?"
"It's him, right? He's making you cry?"
"... Sort of," she said, glancing back out the window.
"I'm sure he's sorry," Conan said, speaking for his other self.
"I don't know, Conan, I just don't know," she said, returning her gaze to him.
"What happened with Jimmy?" Conan asked, wiping a tear that had fallen despite Rachel's attempt at holding it back.
"...Conan," she started, looking away again and wiping another tear, "When I first met you, you said girls are icky, and I told you that someday you'd think differently,"
Conan nodded. "It's happened, neechan... the thinking differently,"
"...Well, I've been thinking in that new way, Conan, for quite some time. And it was always toward this certain boy,"
"Jimmy, right?"
"Can't get anything past you," she laughed, then wiped her face. "Yes, Jimmy... And that feeling has grown very strongly ever since I started to feel it, and now it's so strong it might burst... do you know what I'm talking about?"
Conan nodded vigorously, forgetting that he was only supposed to be a grade-schooler and not have these emotions yet.
"I thought you might," she said fondly, "You always know what I'm talking about... Well, no one really knows, but I think it's love,"
"Love, neechan?"
"Yes, Conan, love. Not the kind of love you have for a parent or a friend, this one's different," she paused. "Jimmy-niichan came to visit a few days ago, but you knew that,"
He nodded slowly.
"And while he was here, we were at the park, and Jimmy was acting strangely, like he wanted to tell me something. And then some people came and saw us there," she paused, "Now, these people like Jimmy, but not in the way I do, although they think they do-... that's confusing-"
"They think they love Jimmy, but they're wrong, because you know you love Jimmy, and the way you feel is different than the way they feel,"
"...Exactly. How did you know that?- Nevermind-. But then, these girls started to chase us, because that's how..."
"Obsessed?"
"Obsessed, good word... how obsessed with Jimmy they are," she said. "And so we ran away, as any person would with a mob chasing you,"
Conan giggled, as did Rachel.
"Well, after about an hour we were getting tired, but the mob was still chasing us- now this is where I get confused- Jimmy shouted something to me a few times, but I couldn't hear him. Then, all of a sudden, he turned around, told me he loved me, and kissed me. This stopped the mob short. But then, he turned around and ran, saying he had to leave again, and left me standing there!"
"What's so confusing?" Conan asked, "Jimmy said he loved you, shouldn't you be happy?"
"Yes Conan, but- I'll never know if it was really a confession, or whether it was just to stop that horde of fangirls. And I'll also never know if the feeling he feels is really the same one I feel, and we can both call it love,"
'But it is, Rach, it is," Jimmy prodded in his mind. "I think it is," Conan said, comforting the crying teen.
"Thank you, Conan, but I just don't know," she said. "There's so many questions. If he loves me, why didn't he wait for me to tell him I loved him? Maybe because he was using it as a distraction and didn't really want me to confess I returned the feeling because that would make 'us' awkward. And if he loves me, why did he have to leave again?... Do you see my problem?"
Conan nodded solemnly, cursing himself for making her feel this way.
"Not to mention I don't know if I'll ever see him again. He never tells me where he's leaving to, and doesn't leave a number, and-" she stopped short. "There's too many possible questions and answers, Conan. Im just... confused," she said, then smiled, "But enough about that! You should be in bed! You have school tomorrow!"
Conan could tell she was smiling falsely, but smiled back up at her anyway, and went along with what she was saying.
"Okay, Rachel!" he said happily, and left the room. But he paused before shutting the door, leaving it open a little and peering inside.
Rachel opened a drawer and pulled out a picture. It was of her and him. He remembered the day vividly, but he hadn't know someone had taken a picture.
It was the day Richard and Eva announced their split up. Eva took Rachel to her temporary apartment and got her settled, but that night, Rachel snuck out. At midnight, Vivian Kudo revieced a call from a desperate Eva Kaden, trying to find her daughter and see if she was at the Kudo's. Vivian didn't know, but Jimmy had been awake at the time of the call, hearing every word. Immediately, Jimmy put on his raincoat and set out to find Rachel, in his pajamas. He had a pretty good idea where she'd be.
The rock cave was a land mass that Jimmy and Rachel had discovered together. Far into the woods, the place served as a perfect hideout. This was where Jimmy found her, amidst the drizzle.
"Go away," she'd said.
"Rach-"
"I said go!" she shouted at him.
"Rach!" Jimmy fired back, making the terrified Rachel back into a corner. "Rach," he said softer, coming over to her and giving her a hug. "It's not the end of the world,"
"It's the end of mine!" she shot back, hugging him fiercely.
"Your parents split up. You'll have two places to live, big deal? No. They just need to sort out their problems, Rach. I'll bet they'll even get back together soon," he said.
"Really?" Rachel looked up at him with her tearstained face.
"Yeah," he said. "Come on, I'll take you home,"
Unfortunately, that's when it started to downpour.
"Or not," Jimmy finished, searching the ground of the cave.
"Jimmy?" she asked, apparently forgetting her earlier troubles, "What are you doing?"
"There we go!" Jimmy said as he blew on the little flame he'd made, increasing it's size. "Come on," he said to Rachel, giving her his raincoat. "If we're gonna stay here, it may as well be warm,"
The rain stopped about an hour later, although Rachel had fallen asleep during that time. Jimmy immediately picked her up, and brought her back to her mother's apartment, sneaking inside by using a creditcard to unlock the door.
"Jimmy?" a very sleepy Rachel said, "Stay with me tonight, please?" she said, a blush rising to his face, "I can't do this alone,"
She didn't have to ask. He'd have fallen asleep on her bed anyway, which is where Eva and Vivian found them the next morning, covered in dirt. However, they apparently took a picture.
'I'm so sorry, Rach,' Jimmy thought, as Rachel put down the picture.
TBC!
YAYNESS! I thought I'd add in that little flashback, I couldn't help it! It just came to me!
Oh, I hope I didn't do Kazuha too OOC. I've never seen an episode with her in it, I've only read fanfiction, so I hope that went well.
SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE!
REVIEW PLEASE!
Next Chapter: Rachel recieves a gift, and Conan finds a hideout.
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