Chapter 20

"Kaito, I'm fairly certain that babysitting me didn't need to involve going to the fanciest restaurant in town."

Glancing over the top of his menu, Kaito pouted. "But this is the only French restaurant I know of," he whined. "I wanted you to feel at home."

Shinichi sighed. The Monet was certainly one of the fancier places he'd been to in the past few months, but he shivered at the side-eyes they were getting from the waiters. Wearing jeans in this type of place tended to be a bad choice, but Kaito didn't seem to mind. "Kaito, I've traveled all over the world and back. I'd be just as comfortable at a ramen shop or eating chocolate covered crickets. Besides, can we even afford this? The Hakubas don't give me an allowance."

Kaito waved away his concerns. "It's not a problem. My mom's a big-shot critic overseas, so I end up with more allowance than I know what to do with sometimes."

"She's a critic? What does she review, movies?"

"Nope!" With a flick of his wrist and a puff of smoke, Kaito transformed his napkin into an origami bird. "Magicians! She travels all over the world just to critic them."

Pausing for a moment, Shinichi cupped his chin. "You… had a second napkin already folded in your lap, and switched it out when I was distracted by your hand wave. I'm right, aren't I?"

He huffed. "No fun at all," he muttered. Shinichi giggled, perking Kaito up. "Though, while I know Aoko didn't give me a part other than keeping you alive, I decided to do a little research of my own." Reaching into his pocket, he puled out a little polaroid photo. "I dug through my father's old files, particularly around the winters of when we'd both be 6. I never found any reference to the… incident that you remember, but I did find this." He handed Shinichi the picture.

Shinichi raised an eyebrow. "These are certainly… infants." The two looked like any other babies, with wispy brown hair and chubby cheeks. The only real thing of note was that, even for babies, the two appeared identical. Shinichi squinted at the picture. "I guess that could be me. Or you had a twin brother that your parents got rid of." He tilted his head. "Maybe we're actually brothers." If Kaito believed that, that would explain why he'd been showering Shinichi with attention lately.

Kaito violently gagged. "GOD, I hope not." He shuddered. "Nope. Nope, that is a bad thought, absolutely not."

Shinichi frowned, a little hurt. Returning his attention to the photograph, he flipped it over. On the back, it had been labeled. "Shin-chan and Kai-chan, 6 and 5 months." He muttered, turning it over again. "I guess that confirms that one of these babies is you… But we still can't make a positive identification that the other one is me." He met Kaito's eyes. "Have you spoken to your mother about this picture."

"I've tried, but she's not answering me." He scratched the back of his head, leaning back in his chair. "I'm not too worried yet though; sometimes she drops off the map for weeks at a time. It just means she's found a new French boy to play with."

He sounded a little bitter about that, so Shinichi directed the conversation to another avenue. "Do you think we should tell the rest of the KID Capture Team about… what your dad did?" Shinichi viciously bit the inside of his mouth; they were dancing around his kidnapping like a pair of kids at a middle school dance! But he couldn't afford to alienate Kaito now. "It would probably make Hakuba's and Nakamori-san's jobs easier if they knew we already had a lead."

Kaito grabbed one of the complimentary bread sticks and absentmindedly broke it to pieces. "I… would prefer if we didn't. I don't want them to think he's a bad person." He closed his eyes. "I don't want to drag his name through the mud, so long after he died."

"I understand, Kaito. I'm sorry, it was cruel of me to ask."

"No, no, I get it. You're just trying to make this as efficient as possible." He huffed. "Of course, that would be easier if Hakuba had allowed you an actual computer to begin with. The amount of monitoring he forced on you is ridiculous."

"Hey, it wasn't Hakuba's idea. It was the Superintendent General's."

"Really?"

"Yeah. According to Hakuba, his father insisted that all my access to communication devices be cut off. Hakuba had originally wanted to give me access to those sorts of things, but monitor all outgoing communications in secret so they could try to catch me contacting my family." Shinichi shrugged. "Which is what I had originally planned they'd do. Hakuba-san's plan was… very tedious to work around."

"Maybe he just didn't want his house's calls being listened to."

"He's the Superintendent General, I'd be surprised if they weren't already being listened to."

The waiter finally returned with their drinks and they gave her their orders in perfect French. Shinichi leaned back in his chair. "I wish this restaurant would prioritize their customer's more. We were waiting, what? 15 minutes for our drinks? What was taking them so long?"

"Don't get mad at them. They probably noticed we were talking and didn't want to interrupt our date."

The word through Shinichi for a loop. "Kaito… do you think this is a date?"

He looked down, fiddling with his hands. "I had wanted this to be one. But… I didn't know how to properly ask you or what people talk about on dates, and then we just started talking business and… I just really wanted this to be special. That's all."

Shinichi reached out across the table and grabbed Kaito's fumbling hands. "I'm flattered, Kaito, I really am. I think I would love to properly go on a date with you." Kaito's head snapped up. "But I don't want to hurt you either."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm probably not going to stay in Japan after I find my birth parents." Shinichi glanced away. "There's a high possibility of them being the type of people you'd rather have in jail than raising someone. They could have abandoned me, or sold me, or lost me and never bothered to look. And if they're those types of people… there'd be nothing for me here. I would prefer returning to my family and traveling the world again."

Kaito looked heart-broken. "But there's a lot of things for you here!" he pleaded. "There's me, and Hakuba, and Aoko, and school! You said you loved being an actual school, do you really want to give that up? And there's no guarantee that your birth parents are evil. There's no solid proof yet, but please… please, give here a chance." Kaito grabbed Shinichi's hands. "Give all of us a chance."

Shinichi bit his lip, glancing away. "I… I can try."

"That's all I ask."