UGH? How on Earth did this story turn so serious? It was originally meant to be a comedy, but somehow... you know that I don't even want to know how it became serious, it's still funny and that's what counts.

In this chapter: Shinichi lies to Ran again, Heiji helps him lie, Hakuba is a surprisingly good actor, and Kaito is disturbed

Disclaimer: If there's in change in weather or not I own it... I'll let you guys know

Please review or else~

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Upon seeing another Kudo Shinichi in the house my mind went on autopilot, I grabbed his shirt and dragged him off to some remote corner of the house.

"Hattori?" I asked, though it wasn't really a question, he only had enough time to nod before I continued, "What on Earth are you doing here like That! ?"

I wasn't sure which I should be more concerned about, the fact that he was there as Kudo Shinichi rather than Conan, or that fact that both he and I were there as Kudo Shinichi.

It was while I was harshly questioning him that I realized that he didn't seem to be in very good condition.

"Had a cold... drank some alcohol..." He responded.

Do... do I always look this weak when I return to my original body? I pushed the thought aside, hoping it wasn't true. Nah, he probably just drank a bit too much Paikaru, my tolerance for alcohol is pretty low...

"What are we going to do now? I can hardly explain how there can be two Kudo Shinichi's in a place at once!"

Hattori smirked, it look all too natural on my body, "One a' us'll jus' have ta be someone a'sides Kudo Shinichi... Kuroba Kaito maybe?"

I couldn't stop a small laugh from escaping my mouth, "This is so messed up..."

Me in Kuroba's body disguised as myself, Hattori in my body having transformed into my original self he's probably going to disguise as Kaito so I can get off the hook because Ran's already seen us both. Yeah... definitely messed up.

Quickly I messed up Hattori's hair to look like Kaito's, it would be fine to not give him any colored contacts because Ran's never met Kaito before so she wouldn't realize that the eye color was strange. Still, it felt stupid and half-hearted to be doing a disguise halfway.

With the disguise completed we went back to the room where Ran was waiting for us to explain how it was possible for there to be two Kudo Shinichi in one place at the same time.

...

Kudo disguised me as Kuroba, but somehow he didn't seem happy with it -maybe I was just seeing things.

I couldn't help but think how strange it was that he was disguising me as the person that he was supposed to be, but I decided that there wouldn't be any point in mentioning it.

As we walking into the room where Neechan was waiting for us I realized that it'd be best if I spoke up first and introduced myself, "Oh, ya mus' be Mouri-san, Shinichi's told me a lot 'bout ya. Ah... I'm Kuroba Kaito by de way."

She seemed a bit surprised, "Oh, nice to meet you...Kuroba-san."

"He's a magician," Kudo explained, making as little of it a lie as possible, "He's involved with one of the cases I'm working on, actually his life's been endangered because of the case... so because we look kind of similar I've been letting him pretend to be me."

"S'rry if I startled ya," I added with a sincere nod.

"Ah, it's fine... I just wasn't expecting to see someone that looked so similar to Shinichi..." Neechan said, she turned to Kudo, "What kind of case is he involved in?"

"Um... he's really sensitive about it," Kudo explained to her, "you see... his father -also a magician- was died years ago in a 'stage accident' but it was really a murder, he's taken over something his father used to handle and now his father's murders are after him."

I tried to act appropriately for having just been reminded that my 'father' had been murdered as I wondered whether he was summarizing Kuroba's real back story and adding a few lies or if he was just making it up on the spot; either way it was a pretty good dramatic back story, if it's real it explains a few things.

Unfortunately it was at that moment that one of Kudo's colored contacts fell out -I hadn't even noticed that he was wearing any but it would be impossible for him to continue pretending to be himself now.

The Neechan looked angry as she seemed to realize, at least to some degree, what was going on and misconstrued the rest.

I cleared my throat and tried my hardest to speak in Tokyo-ben, "As he said before, I've been letting him pretend ta be me. He just didn't mention that I've also been pretending ta be him to lure out the murderers."

"Shinichi!" She shouted, I could sense that I was about to be punched or kicked as she approached me and gripped the collar of my shirt as though I'd just said I was cheating on her. Then she suddenly let go and spoke quietly enough that Kudo (or maybe I should say Kuroba) couldn't hear it, "You'd better not let yourself get killed."

I'd seen how Kudo acts around her enough that I had a pretty good idea how I thought he'd respond to that, "'course I won't, you're still waitin' on me."

Fine, so Kudo probably wouldn't have said that out loud, but we all know he'd be thinking it.

...

It was ridiculous in itself that Kuroba had asked me to pretend to be him, but I find it even more so that he was pretending to be me so well that were I not aware that he was indeed not me that I would have began to question whether or not I was me.

Seeing his acting made me feel bad for how horribly I'd been acting as Hattori up until now. But it's not as though I really knew that much about Hattori to begin with, Kuroba on the other hand is so flashy an noticeable that I'd have to be blind to be in the same class as him and not have caught on to his personality traits. So I should be able to at least do a passable job of acting as Kuroba, I'd feel bad if I didn't having seen his dedication in acting like me.

Kuroba had used his skills to make Hattori's face and hair appear to his own with frightening realism in preparation for school.

Kuroba will never let me live this down, will he? I mentally sighed before I began talking to Aoko, "So how did you like Kid's heist the other day Ahoko? I heard you went with Shinichi."

She blushed cutely, and tried to play it off, "Of course I didn't like the heist! Kid got away!"

"Of course he got away, your father really is no good at his job," I said with a disturbingly Kaito-ish smile, "And I bet Hakuba didn't even give Kid a challenge."

Considering that the thief that night had been him...

"Hakuba didn't go to the heist that night... I'm not sure why tough."

"Oh right I forgot, he was actually checking up on me that night, making sure that I was fine after switching with Shinichi," I said, making up an alibi for myself that would fit with the ludicrous lie that Kuroba and Kudo had told Aoko.

Somehow the day went by relatively peacefully despite the ridiculous situation.

...

It was almost creepy how good Hakuba was at pretending to be me, I made a mental note to myself that out of all the detectives I knew he was the greatest actor. Thinking about it now, he's British, he came from the land of Shakespeare so I guess acting skills should be expected.

I'd made this remark when I saw him flip Aoko's skirt -and while he didn't mention what color it was aloud- during the mop chase that ensued he let on that her panties for the day had been something he hadn't expected. I can only take that to mean that not all high school detectives can do as Shinichi can, perhaps it's a skill that Shinichi developed after being stuck at the perfect height to obtain such information without seeming suspicious.

Ever since the body swapping thing had started it had become a daily thing for me to come talk to Akako at lunch -you know typical 'get well soon' sort of thing only a bit more whiny.

"No, I'm not feeling any better yet Kuroba," Akako said as I approached.

"Come on, can't you just heal yourself with magic or something?" I asked, not for the first time, but maybe asking more than once would change the answer.

Akako sighed, "I told you before *cough* it doesn't work that way... a cold *cough* is one of the few things that cannot *cough* be fazed by magic... much like your heart."

She'd said the last bit very quietly as if she didn't really want me to hear it so I did the gentlemanly thing to do and ignored it, keeping up my poker face. It had creeped me out anyway.

She continued, "You'll just have to live *cough* with it until I get better. *cough* or would you rather I *cough* try to do something as I am *cough* now?"

Tempted as I was to just let her try and fix things now I remembered that she'd mentioned it possibly backfiring if she tried to use magic in her current condition. I sighed, "Get well soon."

As I walked back to my (well, it's actually Hakuba's) desk I defeatedly muttered some choice words that would have either made Nakamori-keibu proud or put him to shame.