hahaha I love taking a nice sledgehammer to the forth wall every now and then, don't you?

In this chapter; Shinichi returns... kinda, Heiji can't keep a secret, Hakuba does something he will never be proud of, and Kaito weaves a big lie

Disclaimer: If I owned it why on Earth would I be writing this on fanfiction? Wouldn't I put it in the actual story, or a side story at least?

Please review or else~

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You would not believe the ridiculous lie we told Aoko to prevent both of our secrets from being revealed. As we realized that telling the truth that we had been body-swapped would only lead to her questioning when and we would have to say 'at the Kid heist three days ago' then she would point out that Kaito wasn't there and that would endanger his identity as Kid, of course she would also question who I was which if I answered 'Edogawa Conan' she would wonder about my maturity (especially after those skirt flips I'd had to do to keep in character) but if I answered 'Kudo Shinichi' that would lead to more questions.

So it was decided that an appropriate lie was in order, and man did Kaito know how to spin a lie... but I'm sure he'll explain that to you when it get's to be his turn, I have other things to tell.

It was the day after Kaito and I had lied to Aoko; I was able to happily return to Tokyo the next day disguised as myself. I know, it's sad, the simple fact that I was in such a situation that I had to use a disguise to appear as myself is ridiculous on it's own, but the fact that Kaito had clothing for disguising as me already prepared in his house seemed to be much more so.

I decided to surprise Ran by showing up at school. Having no forewarning she -and all of our classmates especially Sonoko- seemed pretty shocked when I walked in the room and sat down at my usual desk within the last moment before the bell rang. Despite looking like she really wanted to she wasn't able to actually say anything to me until lunchtime.

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming back Shinichi?" Ran asked, her tone made her sound angry, but she seemed more worried.

"I hadn't been expecting to come back... As it is I'm not sure how long I can stay" I replied. It was the truth at least, I'd have never in a million years predicted that I would be body-swapped with someone that just happened to look almost exactly like my teenaged self, and I had absolutely no idea how long I'd be staying in this body.

She still looked a bit upset, probably because I was answering so vaguely, "But you could have at least sent me a text or something to let me know you would be at school today..."

She trailed off.

The look on her face made me worry she may have noticed one of the miniscule details that physically set me apart from Kaito.

"Did you do something new with your hair, Shinichi?"

Crap, she had to ask about the hair... sure, I had fixed it to look like mine but Kaito's hair was too unruly to control completely and the length was a bit different so it had been impossible to get it to look exactly like my hair always did.

I tried to sound casual as I replied, Kaito's body did the perfect jod of providing me with a calm poker face, "Of course not, you just haven't seen me in a while so maybe you're seeing things..."

"I guess so..."

...

Those kids were content to hang out with me and play with me despite seeming to believe that I was someone that just happened to look like Conan that was attempting to replace Conan for some sinister reason. Just how messed up are these kids after all the crime they've faced alongside Kudo? They really need to get some therapy.

Of course while they played with me they would every now and then ask some kind of accusitional question like 'where did you hide Conan?' or 'What do you plan to do once you've taken Conan's place?' - it was really annoying. Naturally, anytime they confronted me with such a question I would deny that I'd taken 'Conan' anywhere and claim that I really was Conan, unfortunately any time I talked it served to only solidify their suspicions.

After a while it was beginning to get so annoying that I decided to just tell them the truth -not all of it mind you- so they would stop asking and I wouldn't have to worry about anyone overhearing them.

"Listen up, if I tell ya somethin' secret... kin ya promise dat ya ain't gonna tell ne'one?" I asked, feeling defeated.

"We promise," All three kids chimed creepily at the same time, their expressions held the seriousness of a child in a candy store. The mad scientist Haibara only gaped at me, no doubt wondering how much I intended to tell them, either that or cursing that I wasn't as good at lying about my identity as Kudo.

"A'ight. Yer right, I'm not really ku-Conan... not technically neway," I said, trying to find the right words as I continued but it was difficult to explain it so that the kids would understand, "Ya see... at Kid's heist de otha day somethin' real weird happened an' fer some reason Ku-Conan, Hakuba (dat stuck up British detective), Kid, an' I wound up swappin' bodies."

There was a confused murmur of things like 'wow', 'that's really cool', and 'whoa Kaitou Kid used real magic!' I found it a bit strange that they were so willing to believe such a ridiculous story, but kids will be kids.

Mitsuhiko was the first to speak up, "Who are you then?"

I sighed, knowing that what I was about to say would sound weird in Conan's voice, "Ya've met me before, I'm Hattori Heiji de great high school detective of de west."

"Oh you're that weird detective that Conan's always beating..."

...

"Would ya jus' stop already?" 'Kazuha' asked, once again seeming uncomfortable with my language, "I don' care what ya bet Kudo-kun it's jus' plain weird hearin' ya talk in Tokyo-ben all de time!"

"I can't. If I quit now then Kudo is going to win," I replied in a complaining tone. From what I knew of Hattori it sounded like something he would say.

Kazuha looked at me with an angry expression, "Winnin' don' matter! It's not like 'e kin hear ya neway, 'e has no way of knowin' if yer speakin' Osaka-ben er Tokyo-ben!"

Good point, I'd been hoping no one would pick up on that fact when I made up that lie... I guess it's time to try a different approach...

"Ahou!" The angry words slipped out of my -no, Hattori's- mouth so naturally, "I'd know! An' it wouldn't feel right ta be cheatin' in a bet wit' Kudo! ...Kuso, look what ya made me do..."

Eh? Did I just... in Osaka-ben? What the...

'Kazuha' looked a bit surprised, clearly having not expected my outburst, "Don' worry I won' tell Kudo-kun about yer li'l slip up jus' now."

"Good, I'd hate to lose that bet..." I replied. Still thinking about how I'd spoken just before.

Maybe being in this body is starting to have an effect on me...

...

Okay, fine, be that way Shinichi. Leave me the duty of retelling the lies we told my childhood friend while you go on and on about how your childhood friend caught on to the wrong part of your lie. I'd sigh, but that's awfully hard to do in narration, so you'll have to make do with me tsking. Tsk, tsk, Shinichi, really lying is no good.

It was simple we just waited until she confronted us after school, during class while I was diligently taking notes as Hakuba I made up an appropriate lie.

She was very direct in her confrontation, "Who are you?"

"Ku-" Shinichi stared but I cut him off.

"He's the high school detective Kudo Shinichi, He's here right now because of a case," I answered. Well, it's not even entirely a lie, actually... is that much even a lie at all?

At this point Shinichi tried to fashion my hair into his usual cowlick to make it seem more believable that he'd just been in disguise.

"Eh? Why is he pretending to be Kaito then?" She asked, looking a bit confused.

"For the case he's working on it would complicate things if the culprits realized that someone of his -or my- caliber was on the case, so because his face just happens to look like Kuroba's he's pretending to be him in order to keep from being noticed by the criminals," I said, perfectly mimicking Hakuba's proud nature as I added, "Honestly I'd have taken on the case myself, it is occurring in our school after all, but the culprit would have been keeping an eye out for me so I had to decline."

"But then where is Kaito?" Aoko asked, she seemed to be concerned, probably wondering if 'Kaito' was involved in the case Shinichi was pursuing.

This time Shinichi spoke up to answer, "He's going to my school for me..."

Idiot, that means that if you leave Kuroba Kaito has to show up...