Chapter 14

Shinichi awoke irritated by the constant beeping noise.

Vision swimming in and out of blurriness, he tried to swat at the source of the noise only from something to pull painfully in his hand. Well, it was less of a pain and more of a dull tingle, but Shinichi's been on painkillers often enough to know what was what. Like how the throbbing in his wrists and leg indicated a lot of damage. Shinichi groaned and tried to sit up, only for his back to protest, leaving him unable to look away from the plain white hospital ceiling.

A hand pressed down on his chest to keep him from trying again. "Don't do that, Shinichi." A brown head of hair came into view. At least, Shinichi thought it was a head. His eyes kept forgetting to focus. "Your doctors will kill me if I let you hurt yourself. Hell, they nearly killed me when they saw the damage I caused to your wrist."

Not your fault, Shinichi wanted to tell Kaito, but his mouth and brain couldn't connect and he had to sit in silence as Hakuba asked, "Why did you call him that?"

"Call him what?"

"Shinichi."

"Shinichi? Oh, he asked me to call him that. Apparently, it's what his family calls him."

"Hmm…" Shinichi couldn't see it, but he was sure Hakuba was making his "deduction face," cupping his chin and frowning like he was mildly constipated.

Licking his lips, Shinichi blinked the sparkles from his eyes and tried to speak again, only for a groan to escape. "What… What hap—" A body-wracking cough cut him off, pain shooting through his body despite the morphine. Kuroba hovered him fretfully, unsure about what to do. He settled for grabbing Shinichi's least injured hand and squeezing.

"Valentine attempted to stab Kuroba as you passed out," Hakuba answered. "I shot her in the shoulder; currently, she's undergoing surgery in another hospital."

Despite all she'd done to him, kidnapping him twice, nearly killing him several times, causing life-long trauma to his psyche, Shinichi still sighed in relief at hearing of her survival. But wait, Hakuba had said…

"S-Shot?"

He blushed, covering his mouth with his hand. "Interpol gave me a gun. It… was meant to be used if you ever became a danger to others. Just as a precaution!" He hurriedly reassured. "I was never actually going to use it on you, I swear!"

Shinichi nodded the best he could—of course Hakuba would never shoot him, the blond despised hurting people, even criminals. They were much the same in that.

Kaito opened his mouth to speak, but a high-pitched voice cut him off. "Hakuba-niisan? Is that you?"

Flopping his head to the side, Shinichi watched a small blob enter his hospital room. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear up his vision, only for a tiny cross between himself and Kaito wearing glasses to look up at him. Shinichi stared in shock. Damn, this morphine was stronger than he thought…

"Conan-kun? What are you doing here?"

Oh, yeah. Conan. Conan Kudo. That… kid with KID. Shinichi smothered a laugh.

"Mouri-tantei hit his head and is in the hospital again, so Ran-neechan made me visit him with her." Conan-kun peered over the bedside. "Is this your friend?"

"This is Lupin-kun. You met him at KID's last heist, remember!"

Conan-kun's mouth dropped into a cute little 'o' shape. "Oh, yeah! Is he alright? What happened!?"

"Electrocuted." That was Shinichi's first words since the kid had entered the room. Oddly enough, Kaito was being silent for once.

It wasn't worth the horrified expression that crossed Conan-kun's face though. "What!? You're going to be okay, right Lupin-niisan? Are you hurting!? Do I need to call a doctor!?"

Shinichi smiled at that, despite everything. Such a cute kid… "Better now. Go—" His voice broke. "Go find your neechan."

Conan-kun bit his lip, looking unsure. Hakuba added, "I'm sure Ran-san is looking for you after you ran off again. Don't worry about Lupin-kun; I'll keep him safe."

That seemed to reassure the boy so, with one last "get well soon," Conan-kun ran off to find his big sister or whoever "Ran-san" was. Shinichi turned his head towards the other side of the room, towards Kaito. He wasn't jealous. No, it was the morphine making him feel this way. Hell, Shinichi had never yearned for a sibling, even considering himself lucky with how much teasing went on between Dad and Auntie, so why would he want one now!? Preposterous.

While Shinichi was busy debating the merits of siblings, not that he wanted any, Kaito had leaned close. Unreasonably close. Close enough that Shinichi, head fuzzy from all the pain killers pumped into his system, decided to count his individual eyelashes instead of paying attention, only realizing that he's probably been asked something once Kaito's lips stopped moving. "Sorry; what did you…?"

"I said, I want to talk about the reason you left my house."

Shinichi suddenly felt like he'd swallowed a liter of gravel. "No."

Kaito looked frustrated, which was weird considering how he rarely did anything without either a smile or a bored look. Briefly considering the possibility of this Kaito being an imposter of some sort (either a robot or a hallucination), Shinichi almost missed his next words. "I wanted to let you know… I believe you."

The words took a few seconds to process. "…What?"

"I… I don't know why. But people don't fake panic attacks. And your statement of events matches things you'd never know about. So it stands to reason that you were telling the truth."

"But… your dad…"

"He was a good person to me," Kaito cut him off, glancing back over at Hakuba who was steadily looking more and more confused. "But if he hurt you… I want to figure out why. If that's okay with you."

"More than okay," Shinichi said with a small smile. "Let me know too."

Kaito smiled back at him, dispelling any further thoughts of an imposter with the single thought that Kaito was… rather pretty. Before Shinichi could dwell on that, Kaito answered, "I will. Thank you."