Something in Your Pocket

"Aoko-neechan, there's something in your pocket!"

Aoko was making some rice in the kitchen when Conan bolted up from the counter right next to her to state his observation. She turned away from the rice cooker to face him and felt around her hips. No bulks whatsoever made itself apparent, so she lifted her head to stare curiously at the child. He stared back with an easy grin, small finger wiggling at the right pocket of her shorts.

She slipped two fingers in– pulled them out with a black chip in between them. With crooked brows, she raised it up, fluorescent light giving her easy access to its sublime details. She saw that it had small lens at the upper right side corner, no bigger than three centimeters in diameter. It was blinking red – something that only served to puzzle Aoko even more. The surface of the chip was a smooth plastic. And although the sides were thin, if you squint enough, you could see that there was a small switch there, color camouflaging with the entirety of the black device.

"How did this get in here?" she wondered.

The boy's lips twisted upwards, and then he cocked his head to the side. "Somebody must've put it there," he mused, shrugging.

She didn't think much of his reply. She twirled the chip around her fingers, an involuntary hum leaving her lips. "Is this a memory card?"

No. It can't be. That isn't right. The switches in memory cards are more prominent, and they don't have small lenses blinking red light back at you. Conan stared at the chip in her fingers a little longer. Then the gaze travelled back to her face. He smiled, almost knowingly.

"Leave it there," he whispered. "It must be Ran-neechan's."

"You're right."

The clothes she wore weren't hers. They were merely borrowed from Ran's closet, so things in the clothes – she decided to leave them alone. After all, who knew how important just one little chip could be? She put it back in, carefully, Conan eyeing at he side.

If there's one thing that her stay with Detective Mouri has done, it's made her realize that the little boy was clever. Although the things he points out are the mere wonders of a seven year-old, it doesn't change the fact that they help out a lot in cases. His canny observations, if only he realized how keen they were, could rival that of Kudou Shinichi's and Hakuba-kun's. Maybe even the Kid's. Hence, she knew better than to take that penetrating gaze lightly.

"What is it, Conan-kun?" she asked. He, in turn, blinked, before leaning away just a little bit.

"Ah? It's nothing, Aoko-neechan!"

Maybe she was just overthinking things. Detective Mouri didn't seem to take the child's words seriously. Lawyer Kisaki treated him like a kid. Only Kaito seemed interested in whatever the child had to say, and even then, that was Kaito.

The door squeaked open, and the two swiveled their heads to its direction. Detective Mouri stood by the doorframe, idling, before staggering towards them. Aoko heaved a gasp.

Gods, he looked so bad.

His shoulders had wilted down to a slouch, more curved than yesterday's hunch. His skin had gone pale, untidy rubbles constellating his face. Dark bags have accumulated beneath his eyes, the smell of smoke so, so strong in him. He dropped down on the floor in front of the low-rise dining table, and stared dully ahead.

Where was Lawyer Kisaki?

"U-uncle…?" Conan whispered in a hushed, shaky voice.

The rice cooker clicked, and Aoko scurried to get the bowls. Before she could open the cupboards, however, the Detective stopped him."Nakamori-san," he suddenly said. The voice was soft, gentle, but it froze her up nonetheless. "There should be scarves, a hat and sunglasses in Ran's room. Wear them to hide your face. Your father wants to see you."

"Can I come?" Conan peeped, and the Detective briskly turned to him.

"No!" he said, tone sharp, almost worried. "Stay here with Eri!"

"What's going on, Detective?" It was Aoko's turn to talk, and for some odd reason, Mouri's shoulders stiffened. She watched his form whiz through the office. She watched him pick up the landline on his table and dial a number. The tone of the buttons was familiar. He was renting a car.

"The Inspector will tell you," came the reply, gentle and wavering and soft as snowflake. Conan was silent beside her, spectacles gleaming bright to hide his expression.

And for some odd reason, she suddenly found the fluorescent loud – ringing across her ears like some hovering bee. She looked down at the table, fingers sprawled across it like dead things. Her shoulders almost jumped when Mouri's voice pierced through.

"Get ready. We're leaving in ten minutes."

It was the longest ten minutes of her life. Aoko sat on the passenger's seat when they got the car. There, she got a good glimpse at the man's posture – the stiff shoulders, the distant stare, and somewhere underneath, something strange.

She was no detective nor was she a genius, but she was smart enough to deduce that they did not do anything absolutely dire to his daughter. She's sure that they haven't gotten any major leads either. Otherwise, why would he take her along? If it were up to her father, he'd keep her in the dark – just like how he always does. But he was calling her in himself, and she doubted that he had any good news if Detective Mouri's sour look was anything to go by.

The car swiftly zoomed through the road. She didn't know the man well, but she doubted that he usually drove that fast. It made her realize that as it was, time was a luxury that they could not afford.

Eventually, they stopped at a café at a far and desolated part of the city. It was small, with bricks for walls, barely any windows to show her what was inside. She paused, momentarily, suddenly wondering if she could trust the Detective. After all, before he was a great asset to the police, he was a father – and a father would do anything to get his little girl back. He could probably even trade another child with the culprits, she decided, but one look at his face stopped those thoughts – the half of her mind that yearned for her dad winning. After all, in some ways, Detective Mouri was not too far from the Inspector.

She followed him in, eyes immediately darting all over the café in search for her father. She found him at the far corner, just beside the square window, and what she saw shocked her.

He has aged tremendously since the last time he saw her, not in the sense of loose skin and grey hair; more in the sense of losing his usual vigor – eyes wide and in a dull-like state. He looked absolutely worse than the Detective at that moment, shoulders drooping like they carried heavy weight. He did, in fact, look like someone who just lost something of great importance, and Aoko decided that that was not good.

"Inspector," Mouri greeted, and her dad jumped in his seat. He looked at the Detective, and then at Aoko. She did not miss the flicker of devastation come and go.

"Dad, what's going on?"

He motioned for her to sit, and she quickly obliged. Refusing the offer would only take more time, and time, it seemed, was something her father was desperate to get his hands on. She didn't want to give him that opportunity. She wanted to know what was happening now.

The Inspector waited for the Detective to take a seat beside his daughter. Then he spoke – in the tone, Aoko realized, that he used long ago to explain her mother's situation. "Aoko, do you remember your aunt in Thailand?" She did. Aunty Kimiko was her mother's younger sister, and they used to see each other frequently before her mother…

"Yeah, I do."

Nakamori inhaled, and then, "I packed up for you, and I booked you a flight for tomorrow. I want you to stay there with her until I say that you can return."

She drew back a little, shocked. He wouldn't send her away just like that. Not unless something was going on – something dangerous. "Dad, what's going on?"

Maybe it was because her senses were being stretched to the extreme that she easily noticed the very subtle show of tension – his jaw tightening. "They took Kaito-kun," he whispered, voice soft. "They're getting more hostages to ensure that we work to find the Kid. Aoko, it's no longer safe."

She only got the first sentence. Her brain immediately froze afterwards, unable to perceive and understand what else her father had to say.

"No…" she whispered, but she knew that they weren't lying because her father would never do that to her. She knew that it was true – knew exactly that it was true – just as well as she knew the table of two, and that the moon orbited the Earth. She knew, but she couldn't exactly accept it because that was Kaito, goddamn it! He was her carefree, bright-eyed Kaito, and he was probably chained up, unable to move at that very moment in their grubby little lair!

And Kaito didn't belong there.

Mouri and Nakamori were silent, not refuting her denial. They waited for her to piece the information together, and to her, doing just that felt like hours.

"Kaitou Kid will help us," she eventually said, meaning to make her voice sound strong; it came out as a shaky, involuntary gasp.

Never in her life did she ever think that she would have to depend on the man who took her father away for anything. However, no matter how much her pride denied it, at that moment, she needed it. Having someone like that on a case that danced around her best friend's life gave her a strange sense of comfort that she couldn't seem to stomp down.

Because even if he was a cocky, arrogant bastard, he was still the Kid. And he never fails.

"No," Mouri replied, all stone and ice. "He didn't appear like he said he would earlier, according to the Inspector. And he hasn't made a call since."

"I think that it would be best if we didn't depend on him in this case," Nakamori said in an odd tone.

Aoko took a breath, sharply, and fell against her chair. Her nose was tingling, and even amidst her bleary sight, she saw her father's eyes widen. Quickly, almost hastily, he stood up from his seat. He rounded the table and appeared beside her, hand awkwardly hovering over her back. And she, in absolute horror, grabbed his arm and pressed her face against his chest. The material of his coat was thick, so she's sure that her tears couldn't go through. However, she was sure that he knew that she was crying. Her shoulders shook violently, sobs hysterical but repressed, yet echoing across the café nonetheless. That's how she realized how silent it had been; they were probably the only customers there.

And the staff, not wanting to disturb anything, didn't even take their orders.

Amidst the breakdown, she briefly thought about what Kaito would say if he were there with her: "Idiot. It's not over still. You've got three more days, so don't cry!"

Aoko spent most of the fourth day in the car, staring blankly at the windows while the Inspector drove her to the airport. Horrifying scenes replayed themselves in the theatre of her mind – scenes of Kaito tied up, of him injured, bleeding, killed. And for the millionth time, she shook her head, trying very hard to shoo those vivid images away. No, she wasn't going to think that.

"Aoko," her father suddenly whispered. She glanced at him, and he was staring ahead. If she judged him by his expression, she would think that he was absolutely calm about the whole thing. However, his hands clasped tight around the steering wheel, and she knew that Kaito has been around with them far too long for him to not have a place in the man's heart. "I'll do my best."

That's the softest he's spoken since she was just a little girl, and the fact that it reverberated loudly across the car made her realize just how silent the whole ride had been. She followed his stance and looked ahead. The sky had an orange hue to it. It was beautiful, but she couldn't hate the sunset any less now. It meant that another day was about to pass, and they were edging towards the deadline. They didn't have the Kid, and their leads were right next to nothing. To top it all of, their brightest beacon of hope – stupid, selfish Kid – chickened out like the coward Aoko suspected him to be.

But 'how' was the question Aoko wanted to know the answer to.

"Dad?" She didn't bother to look at the Inspector. She kept her gaze fixated on the windshield – the world beyond it passing, not waiting. "What happened, exactly, for you to realize that Kid ditched us?" Ditched Kaito. Left them alone to retrieve her best friend, even if that was right next to impossible to do so without his help. This…this was all Kid's fault.

She wasn't looking at the Inspector, but she could imagine him flinching and looking down at her. There was a certain tinge of venom when she asked the question, and it just happened involuntarily.

"He was supposed to come to the office dressed as you. He was going to remove the disguise, pretending to be busted by me, and then leave. Everyone will take it as nothing more than preparations for a heist, and infiltrators would think that the you that came last time was actually the Kid. They wouldn't question the hostage that they had with them."

"But it's late now, and he didn't come."

She heard her father sigh, and that was that. The rest of the night passed like a blur. Aoko all along had been trying to suppress her thoughts, the scenes, and the terror. She could tell that he father – stiff in the shoulder and white with fear – wasn't entirely composed and steady either. It made her wonder how the culprits proved they had Kaito in their possession.

With Mouri Ran, it was the voice. Was it the same with Kaito? If so, what did he say? And did his voice shake? Did it tremble?

No, that wasn't like him. If anything, he'll keep quiet – let the criminals find their own way to prove that they had him. He was stubborn, like the jokester that he was, and he'll play a trick whenever an opportunity presented itself. She cursed that side of him – now more than ever – because in that case, it's what could get him hurt.

Or killed.

It was only when her nose became stuffy that she realized that she had subconsciously turned on the waterworks again.

They got to the airport late that evening, and she barely got to sleep a wink. It's not that the benches were hard; she was comfortable. Her father had packed some blankets for her, and the staff even offered them some pillows. It's the silence around them that was too overwhelming. It gave her imagination the freedom to play up her fears, the scenarios, and she couldn't seem to stop it. Time that she could've spent sleeping, she spent sniveling and awake. And beside her, not once did even her father snore.

At approximately six thirty the next day, she needed to board the plane. Her eyes were dry, streaks adorning both sides of her cheek, and she'd rather not be seen by anyone like that. It didn't stop her, however, from turning around – just as she was about to board – to stare at her father with a serious look on her face. "You've got to save him," she breathed. "Please."

She guessed that he must've gone out for a smoke in the time that she managed to reach the tip of her sub consciousness at around midnight, because he smelled of tobacco. He also looked absolutely tired, yet he still smiled – a pained, distant smile – mustache quirking upward. "I'll do my best."

She entered the plane, heart heavy, because she absolutely, absolutely did not want to go. She really didn't. She wanted to help out with the case as much as she could – to be there when the seventh day came, when Kaito is either retrieved or not – because a letter about the results from her father was going to be a lot harder to take in. She'd want to be there when everything happens, to be there to see Kaito. To see that he is bruised, a little pale, but alright and smiling up at her to say, "Sorry to have worried you, Ahoko!"

Her father wouldn't allow it though, no matter how much she argued. Besides, say she does manage to convince him. He wouldn't allow her anywhere close to the danger zone, meaning she wouldn't even get to see Kaito until everything was settled. Still, she supposed that it was only sane of him to do that. After all, if she stayed, what could she do? Bang a mop into the culprit's head? Present them with a bucket of fish and hope that they had ichthyophobia? Be the bait?

She staggered into the plane, the cold air inside causing her to pull the scarf up to her nose. Her movements were instinctive, mind too occupied and dazed to take note of her surroundings – such as the person who was looking sharply up at her from the seat right behind hers.

She collapsed into her place, and a few seconds later – ten minutes before takeoff – her seat was violently kicked from behind. She closed her eyes.

Then kick.

Ignore it, Aoko.

Kick. Kick kick kick. Kickkickkickkickkickkickkickkickkickkick

Years of dealing with Kaito suddenly kicked in, and she whirled around with a heated glare. She opened her mouth, intent of giving him a piece of something that would make even her brash-mouthed father flinch when she froze, blue eyes wide within her pale face.

Author's Note:

Hi, everyone! So we reached chapter ten. Ooh, two numbers! Anyway, THANK YOU SO MUCH for the support! Chapter 11 might take a while (SORRY!) because I decided to interchange some chapters, and the second part of it is still being...well...made. Anyway, I hope to see you again! Thank you! Here's a digital Kid stuffed toy for all of you:

/(_)\ - Kaitou Kid (those lines beside him's his cape flying)