Chapter 9: Curae
"I'm going to hazard a guess and say this is related to Hattori-san's phone call earlier," Ai said when after a moment or two neither of the boys spoke.
"You called her?" Shinichi hissed.
"I was worried about ya!" Heiji protested. "It's not like you've ever talked to anyone about it!"
"Would either of you mind telling me what exactly I should or shouldn't be worried about?" Ai asked with a raised eyebrow and barely restrained impatience.
Heiji raised his hands in supplication at the glare Shinichi gave him. "I'm not gonna tell her without your say-so Kudo; this is your problem."
"You seem to have told her enough already," Shinichi muttered, though a little touched.
"Actually he was annoyingly sparse on details," Ai said with a sidelong glare at the Osakan. Heiji shrugged helplessly.
"It's not that important-"
"Considering Hattori-san called me I'd say it is. You interrupted my morning coffee after all." Both boys winced. It was a wonder she hadn't stormed over straight away to wreak vengeance on them.
Shinichi sighed, brow furrowed. "You don't have to pretend to be someone you're not around people you've spent your whole life with, Haibara. The amount of compartmentalization it takes is something I can usually deal with, it just got a little out of hand this time okay?"
"That's why you're in the hospital?" Ai said, disbelieving. "Because you couldn't compartmentalize? Kudo-kun, I have spent the last day and a half fielding Kojima-kun, Tsuburaya-kun, and Yoshida-san's questions and schemes to come visit you in the hospital, not to mention trying to keep them in the dark about what actually happened at the heist, and that was before you interrupted my morning coffee. I believe an explanation is the least of what I am owed."
"They read the paper?" Shinichi groaned.
"Tsuburaya-kun got to the mail before his parents could go through it," Ai told him, lips pursed in annoyance. "They may not have gone into complete detail in the article, but it was enough to give them an idea of what happened."
"Reporters," Heiji growled. "Give 'em a centimeter and they'll take a whole kilometer."
"I'm surprised there aren't any hanging around here," Ai commented, leaning back against the chair and crossing her arms.
"Perks of being a minor; they couldn't explicitly mention me without occhan's approval," Shinichi said with a snort. "He may be an idiot most of the time, but he has his moments."
"Back to the matter at hand. I can understand them keeping you here over night, but a whole two days? That doesn't fit with your story, Kudo-kun."
Shinichi glared at Ai, who was giving back as good as she got. "There was a lot of blood Haibara, not to mention the body parts. It spooked everyone, including me, you happy? I lost my cool and acted like the child I look like, feel free to make fun of me all you want."
Ai's unimpressed glare shifted into a scowl. "Is that what you think of me? I came because Hattori-kun's phone call made me even more worried than I already was, you idiot!" She leaned forward, tiny hands clenching the guard rail of the hospital bed. "Believe it or not you have people who care about you and want to make sure you're all right, and that includes making sure you're healthy in both body and mind. That also includes the person who does your blood work on a weekly basis, who closely monitors your health to make sure you aren't about to go into cardiac arrest, and who has to watch you risk yourself on a near daily basis because you have a ridiculous hero complex!"
The room was silent aside from medical monitors as the detectives blinked in shock - Heiji because he'd never heard her be that loud, Shinichi because she usually only showed affection for him in the context of him being her guinea pig.
Realizing exactly what she'd said and how loud she'd gotten near the end of her rant, Ai sat back in the chair, crossing her arms tightly and looking off to the side, a light blush on her cheeks. "Not to mention Agasa-hakase was worried too."
"Haibara..." Shinichi said, unsure what else to say to his fellow vertically challenged associate.
She slid off the chair, the "tap" of her shoes against tile inexplicably loud to her ears. "I'm going to see what's taking Agasa-hakase so long."
"Kudo," Heiji said quietly after she left the room. "About last night, are you going to tell her?"
The shrunken teen said nothing for a moment. "I don't know. It doesn't happen that often, just sometimes when things get to be too much." He looked up at Heiji with a wry half smile. "Separating everything is difficult."
"...yeah," Heiji agreed, not quite buying it. Sure he may not be in exactly Kudo's position, but he's had his fair share of gruesome cases, of gore and viscera and gut wrenching crime scenes and nothing has ever made him act like a completely different person.
He may not be in Kudo's exact position, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to help.
Saguru didn't often curse, but he felt that this situation warranted it.
He'd used his father's login information to gain access to the fingerprints that had been taken from the... victim, and instated an algorithm to alert him to the results of the search to find a match. Someone in Division Two had friends in high places, since he wasn't completely sure how they were able to put the prints through the Interpol database otherwise. The results linked the victim to several suspicious deaths in Japan, as well as a couple in England and one in America.
Saguru sat back in his computer chair, tenting his fingers and staring at the computer as though it were a criminal refusing to talk. People didn't just drop dead, yet it seemed that that was just what these people had done, all within the last two years. Was the victim some kind of assassin? No prints had been found on the bodies, just one or two on or near the scene, in mostly innocuous places. How did you kill someone without a trace? Some kind of poison most likely, but nothing indicating that had been found in any of the victims.
An untraceable poison? Saguru thought with a mental shudder before he sent Kuroba a text about the fingerprints being linked to the unsolved murders, for that's what they were, all plausible deniability aside.
Speaking of plausible deniability, there was still that whole mess with Koizumi-san and Kuroba, not to mention Edogawa-kun. Thinking back on the negotiations (because it was hardly a civil conversation), he could remember things a bit clearer than he had experienced them at the time. There was something about Koizumi-san that fogged his head and made simply thinking about something other than her very difficult, not without it going places a gentleman had no right thinking about.
But the fact that both Koizumi-san and Kuroba claimed she was a witch of all things... The existence of magic notwithstanding, this actually explained a couple things, like the day Kuroba had a cold that he had mentioned earlier, and the one KID heist where the thief had departed on a broom of all things! If Koizumi-san was a witch who wanted Kuroba for herself, it made sense to keep the authorities from catching him. Maybe that was why he kept slipping through the Task Force's fingers; a spell to keep him safe.
Then there was the other thing Koizumi-san had said, about Kudo Shinichi. Visiting Edogawa-kun had turned up no leads on the case, especially with his overprotective guard dog, and Saguru couldn't think of anyone else who he could possibly contact the other detective through if not the boy who spoke of him so familiarly and who bore a strong family resemblance to him. Kudo-san had been the darling of the media right up until his disappearance.
Wait a minute.
Saguru thought back to how on edge Hattori had been when he mentioned Kudo, and how he physically stood between Saguru and Edogawa-kun, as if shielding the boy. Add the familiar way the Osakan treated the boy, and how he and Kudo were the Detectives of the West and East respectively...
Something had happened to Kudo Shinichi, something that made him go into hiding or had endangered him and possibly his family, judging by Hattori's protectiveness of Edogawa-kun (then again, the boy did seem to get into a lot of trouble on his own). Add to that the facts the body parts found at the KID heist belonged to someone who possibly committed untraceable murders and the blood itself had been dumped on Edogawa-kun, and Saguru had the feeling that Koizumi-san had been speaking literally when she said that Kudo Shinichi's life was tied to this case.
Chapter title translation: Care
A/N: Hey everyone, new chapter! I'm currently focusing my efforts on this story, Shadow Bride, and AWW. The plan is to do one chapter a week for one story, then move onto one of the other stories for the next week, rinse and repeat. Last week I updated Shadow Bride, this week it's Schismatic, so next week will be AWW before we repeat the cycle.
Ai bby you're so tsundere x3 Also, we will be leaving the hospital next chapter. FINALLY.
Remember that reviews/con crit are heavily welcomed, and also go check out my Etsy shop where I sell SU-inspired bracelets, SPN-inspired bracelets, Hogwarts House bracelets, and other cool jewelry :)
Anon review reply to Spade: Yes, the pairing is going to be KaiShinHei :) It's sort of a slow burn ^^;;