Chapter 7: Contrariis in Probationem
Kaito hummed aimlessly to himself as he waited for the questions he knew would come once Hakuba had sorted through his own musings. He had to admit, he was, dare he say it, amused by how protective Hattori had seemed over Conan. It was like he was his knight in shining armor or something. Kaito snickered at the thought of tantei-kun dressed in a pink princess outfit while a dragon chased tantei-han around.
Meanwhile, a less amusing scene was going through Saguru's mind. While the Osakan's behavior had fit what he already knew of him, as well as what he'd observed before, it seemed as though when it came to Edogawa-kun that Hattori was… almost possessive of the boy. Combined with how chummy the two seemed the previous times that Saguru had interacted with them, and an unsavory picture had begun painting itself in the British detective's mind.
True, Conan was a highly precocious child, and he seemed well into becoming a kokosei-tantei himself in the future, and perhaps Hattori was more childish than he gave him credit for, but… Simply put, their close friendship did not make sense.
It was one thing during the Tantei Koshien when they'd paired the two together (and he had to admit, it was slightly disturbing how well Edogawa-kun had taken the crime scene in, dead body and all), supposedly to give Hattori a handicap. But the scene at the hospital… Saguru had only seen such behavior before in those romance flicks his bayaa liked to watch. He supposed it was possible it was all in his head, just Freudian slips and such wreaking havoc with his mind, and granted, it was possible with how much he'd been seeing Koizumi-san lately-
Saguru rubbed his temples at the oncoming headache.
"Careful there Hakuba, you might hurt yourself thinking!" Kuroba chuckled, and Saguru spared him a glare and pursed lips to show what he thought of the magician's juvenile insult.
"That would be more up your alley Kuroba, or perhaps Hattori's."
"Hey now, he didn't seem like that bad a guy," Kuroba protested. "Sure he was kind of a dick to you, but you're a dick to pretty much everybody, so it all evens out in the end!"
Saguru simply stared as Kuroba grinned widely, unable to think of a proper response to that. Finally he settled for, "You boggle me sometimes Kuroba."
"Good to know I'm succeeding in my quest." He winked, and Saguru felt the sudden and intense urge to facepalm. Or strangle him. Strangling sounded like a nice option too.
"They're just… strange," Saguru huffed. "I mean, there's nearly a ten year difference in age, yet the two of them seem quite comfortable with each other."
"So?" Kaito wondered. "Kid that smart, only worthwhile company he's probably got is Hattori-san."
"Hmm," Saguru hummed slightly. "Not KID?"
"I just met Conan-kun; I'm not a Holmes obsessed nerd like you so I'm not automatically going to know what's going on inside his head," Kuroba drawled. "Although I'd guess that a kid who chases around a thief like KID has either got serious issues with the justice system or is an adrenaline junkie. What?" he asked at the strange look Hakuba was giving him. "The reason you brought me along was to get my opinion, right? Well, you've got it."
"Yes," Hakuba muttered softly. "I do…"
The sound of a cell phone buzzing broke the silence between them.
"Ah, lemme get that." Kaito fished his phone from his pocket. "Moshi moshi? Ahh!" Saguru could clearly hear Aoko shouting at the other end, though he couldn't make out quite what she was saying. "Stop shouting you idiot!" Kuroba barked. "What? Ah, crap, I forgot. Sorry, sorry, but Hakuba kidnapped me – you know him and his crazy theories. Yeah, I'll be back soon. Okay, okay. Bye."
"Nakamori-san?" Saguru questioned rather pointlessly.
"Yeah," Kuroba grumbled. "We were supposed to work on that project for English today but I forgot in favor of you kidnapping me."
"My apologies."
"Yeah, yeah, save 'em for Aoko," Kaito chuckled as their bus pulled up at the corner.
Haibara Ai was on her second cup of coffee of the morning when the phone rang. She set her mug down with an irritated sigh. "Hello," she answered in a bored tone. "Agasa-hakase's residence, who is calling?"
"Hey, chiisai-neesan."
"Hattori-san," Ai acknowledged, rather surprised. "Why are you calling?" A sudden jolt of terror seized her. "Has something happened to Kudo-kun?"
"…sort of," Hattori replied. "He's all right, physically anyway. Listen, has he ever acted… strange around ya?"
"You're going to have to be much more specific," Ai drawled, relieved that her compatriot hadn't died during the night.
"Like, has he ever acted like 'Conan' when no one else is around? Or acted childish when there wasn't any reason to?"
"No," the scientist answered. "At least… I don't think so. I mean, there have been times where he's acted very childish when I thought there was no reason, but it usually turned out to be some ploy to get someone to drop their guard or something." She paused a moment. "Hattori-san, what exactly happened last night?"
"…it'd probably be best if we didn't talk about this over the phone, or at least not when I'm at the hospital. Besides, I promised Conan I wouldn't talk about it, so I should probably ask him about talking to you."
"You promised… Edogawa-kun?" Ai asked. "Hattori-san, what exactly are you talking about?"
The Osakan sighed. "It's complicated, and I really don't have all the facts yet, but maybe you could drop by later so we could talk about it. Probably be best to have Kudo's input anyway."
Ai sighed, slightly frustrated with the cryptic manner in which the detective was speaking. "All right, I'll ask the professor if he can drive me to the hospital later."
"All right," Hattori agreed. "Try not to let the kids tag along; this isn't exactly somethin' they should hear."
"Isn't it always?" Ai deadpanned. "Tell Kudo-kun I'll be by later so he had better not pretend to be asleep to get out of it."
Hattori chuckled somewhat nervously. "All right, gotcha. See ya later then."
Ai huffed a little at how quickly the Osakan had hung up on her. "Boys," she muttered. A pensive expression crossed her face as she turned back to her coffee. What exactly could be wrong with Kudo-kun?
Heiji gave a sigh as he hung up. It had taken him a minute to calm down and get his red face under control. Only once his normal thinking faculties had returned had he thought of calling Haibara. After all, she would be the one most likely to have noticed any strange behavior about Kudo lately – or at all, hopefully.
He frowned slightly as he saw he had two messages in his inbox, both from his mother. The Osakan closed his phone. She's probably just nagging about Oton. It's not like he's ever really home anyway. Heiji firmly put the thought of his parents out of his head. Coffee. That's what I came out here for before I got distracted.
Shinichi looked up from the intense stare down he was having with the bedspread to see Hattori return with two cups of hot coffee.
"Better drink this before the nurses come and threaten ta take it away," the Osakan advised.
Shinichi rolled his eyes as he accepted the cup. "Yeah. Thanks," he muttered.
"Oh yeah," Hattori said after a moment of shared coffee worship. "The little scientist – she's gonna be droppin' by this afternoon ta check on ya."
Shinichi had to work very hard not to spit-take. "Great," he grumbled after he succeeded in not choking to death. "Well, at least she can't kill me here. Too many witnesses."
"Ha ha, good one," Hattori chuckled. "Oh wait, you were serious." There was a short, awkward silence. "How long have you been… you know."
The shrunken detective sighed. "Look, could we just drop the subject please? It's really not important-"
"Not important?" Hattori spluttered.
"And it's not like you can help," Shinichi finished.
"I'd say it's important," Hattori almost growled. "Yer my friend, and I wanna at least try ta help ya! You've already got so many secrets, Kudo; if you take too many more you're liable to crack under the pressure – if you haven't already."
"I'm not crazy," Shinichi hissed.
"No, you just talk about yerself in the third person more than ya need to. While acting like someone else," Hattori deadpanned. "It's not healthy, havin' all this weight on your shoulders an' not sharin' it with anyone. Don't gimme that look. We're alike, you an' I, and while you've got Agasa-hakase an' Haibara-san, they don't quite understand things the way we do, do they?"
Shinichi pointedly avoided eye contact. "Just because I don't spill my heart to everyone doesn't mean-"
"I'm not talking about that!" Hattori exclaimed. He sighed. "Look. I know I'm not the best at this – feelings an' stuff, you know, but Kudo – you're my best friend. I want to help you, I want to be there for ya, because that's what friends do for each other, and even if ya aren't really sure of what exactly's goin' on – you can talk to me."
Shinichi shook his head. "It's not that I don't want help, Hattori, it's just – My whole life is one lie after another right now, and there are more important things at stake than me." He smiled wanly at the other teen. "Once this all blows over, maybe-" He stopped himself mid-sentence. "But not now, Hattori. It's not the right time. I just can't."
Hattori frowned at his refusal to talk about something that clearly needed to be dealt with, but it wasn't like he could force him to talk... "All right. But later, when Haibara-san comes, you're gonna have ta tell her something."
Chapter title translation: Contradicting Evidence
A/N: Hey, I'm not dead! Ahaha, yeah... Long story short, writer's block, life, and Rise of the Guardians (particularly BlackIce) taking control of my soul. Well, not exactly control, but let's just say that if you like Pitch x Jack, I've got a couple fanfics in the works...
Also, I would like to say that all of the detectives need to get a room and not come out until they are debauched/have loosened up because it was so. fucking. hard. to write feelings with these guys i mena aj;lskdjfa;lsdf ARGHHHH
Okey, got that out of my system. BTW, this may look familiar to some of you because I updated this story on AO3 but not here on FF, so if you've been following me on AO3 sorry but this isn't new for you guys ^^;;;;; Apologies.
Also, if anyone could tell me what Heiji calls Haibara in canon, I would very much appreciate it. I've had him switch between calling her "lil neechan" (cause she's older than them but she's shrunk so yeah) and "Haibara-san" (cause she sure as hell wouldn't let him call her "-chan"), and he doesn't know her that well to call her "demon spawn" (Shinichi/Conan's special nickname for her that I use in a lot of my stories), so yeah. If he addresses her in canon some other way, I'd appreciate if someone could fill me in on that.
Edit: Thank you to Krista Perry, who informed me that Heiji does call Ai "chiisai-neesan" in movie 17 (which I haven't seen yet because of college and other shit).