Hello people! As always, thank you for your reviews, follows and favs! :D
So sorry for the late update! It's a bit shorter than the others, I was taking too long on writing so I felt I should give you something.
Happy reading! And reviews!
Disclamer: me no own Conan. Nope. *shakes head vigorously to prove point*
Morning came slower than ever. After returning the jewel to Suzuki and Nakamori keibu, Conan came home and flopped down on his mattress only to find that he couldn't sleep. Adrenaline rushed through his body every time KID's words replayed themselves in his mind, and his heart thumped at the reminder that danger was always lurking in every corner.
Needless to say, next morning found Conan yawning again and again with dark bags under his eyes. He emerged from the bathroom, his head still foggy, to find Ran up and about. Damn his child body(though to be fair, Ran looked rather sleepy as well).
"Oh, good morning, Conan-kun." Ran greeted him. "You're up earlier than I expected."
"Good morning, you're up early too," Conan replied. "Why's that?"
"Oh, I'm going shopping with Kazuha-chan today."
"Kazuha-neechan? Is Heiji-niichan coming too, then?"
Ran shook her head. "She said she didn't ask him, they had a fight a few days ago."
Conan slightly drooped in dissappointment. He needed to tell Hattori of the recent events, then try to get them off his mind. He ran a hand through is rumpled hair, frowning. Come to think of it, he did have a reason for waking up early, though he couldn't remember what..
Oh crap-
His eyes flew open, suddenly wide awake. He had forgotten that he had planned to meet Akai-san at 9! He frantically turned to check the clock. It was half past ten. He groaned. How could he have forgotten? He began to dash to his room to phone Akai when he heard someone knocking the door.
"Come in, it's not locked!" Ran called.
The door opened and Akai walked in, his expression neutral as always. Conan hurried over to him.
"I'm sorry, I overslept-"
Akai shook his head slightly, cutting off his apology.
"It's fine, we're not short of time. I assumed you would be tired and decided to wait downstairs as I had nothing else to do, but the high-schooler downstairs wanted me to fetch you."
Ran stepped a few steps closer.
"Um, hi, Akira-kun," she said rather tentatively. Conan glanced at her, feeling a bit sympathetic. Only one 'child' except for Haibara behaved so differently from the other children, and Akai gave off a natural aura that made people difficult to approach him.
"Hello." Akai replied, and tilted his head slightly, indicating that she should continue.
"Is the high-schooler who asked you to come up here named 'Toyama Kazuha'?" she asked.
"Neither of them gave me their names." Conan perked up. Ran looked surprised.
"'Neither'?"
"Yes, there were two of them, one male and one female. They had an Osakan accent."
Ran brightened and smiled as she started to exclaim, "So they did reconcile with each othe-"
"You go up, you're the one who needs ta do the shoppin'!"
"Why do I have ta go up, you're the one WHO MADE US COME 'ERE EARLY!"
The shouts resounded from downstairs. Akai glanced at the door for a moment. "I had to remind them that I was still there. Twice." Ran laughed awkwardly while Conan glared axe-eyed at the door, mouth twitching.
"Fine, fine! I'm goin' up!"
Conan sighed, preparing his ears for maximum volume. He heard the annoyed footsteps stamping up the staircase, and soon, Hattori Heiji slammed open the already ajar door.
"Oi K- Conan-kun, what's taking you so long?!" he spared a glance at Ran, who had almost punched him in surprise. "Oh hey, big nee-chan. Little nee-chan's not here, I see." he turned back to Conan, his voice turning back on full force. "I called you five times, ya know? The phone was invented ta be answered, NOT IGNORED!"
Conan winced. He must have slept through them all! "I didn't know, sorry-"
Hattori ignored him and went on, this time turning to Akai, "And you, kid, I ordered you ta go and get him!"
Conan almost choked, half in shock and half in laughter.
"You ordered him to get me?"
Akai merely looked up at Hattori with an unimpressed expression while Hattori stopped for a moment, confused and irritated.
"Ordered him, told him, whatever, he's a kid, kids need ta use their expendable energy- What?!" he asked angrily. Conan was trying very hard not to laugh.
"Nothing." he said, still grinning. He could imagine Hattori's face when he found out he'd treated an adult ten years older than him like a kid..!
Hattori was about to question him further, but he was interrupted by Kazuha's shout: "OI, WHAT'S KEEPIN' YOU UP THERE THIS LONG? I ASKED YOU TO CHECK ON RAN-CHAN!" He balled his fists, his face getting reddish, and yelled back, "I'M TRYIN' TA HAVE A CONVERSATION HERE, BAKA!" Conan glared at him. All that shouting was definitely not good for his ears.
"Calm down, kiddo." Akai said, seemingly undisturbed by the noise. Hattori stared down at him, momentarily dumbfounded into silence.
"You? Are calling me? A kiddo?"
Akai looked almost lazily up at him.
"Well, you did say that kids had the expendable energy..." he said. He glanced at Conan. A slight upward lift of his eyebrows was enough to tell Conan that Akai was amused as well, though probably not as much as he was. He once again failed to keep a straight face and sniggered. Hattori gave him a look, so he replied with a smug smile that said 'tell you lateeer~'. The Osakan huffed, disgruntled, but complied and backed down.
"Fine," he grunted. "Big neechan, I'll take these two out to, ehh.. play, while you go and do whatever girls do with the idiot downstairs." Conan was silently glad Kazuha hadn't heard the insult. Ran, who had been dazed out of her mind with the noise and trying to follow the conversation, hurriedly put her senses back together.
"Ah right, it shouldn't take me long to finish preparing, please tell her I'll be downstairs soon." she faltered for a moment, then said, "Um, actually, can you do it, Conan-kun?"
"Okay!" Conan said in his cheery kid voice, then sprinted downstairs, Hattori and Akai following him from behind. He quickly relayed Ran's message to Kazuha and ran down the rest of the stairs. Once outside, all kiddy energy left him and he stopped, put his hands in his pockets and waited for the others.
"So, where are we going?" Hattori asked, the irritation still remaining in his voice.
"My house," Conan replied. "We have something important to tell you."
"'We'? But of course, he's in it too." Hattori said, gesturing to Akai. "Shoulda guessed sooner. Is he like you, then?"
"Yep!" Conan said merrily, but didn't divulge anything else. Akai noticed this and glanced at him. Conan gave him a conspiratorial wink, successfully getting the message through. Akai raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't say anything. That was enough to tell Conan of his approval(or more like confirmation that he would allow Conan to scheme on while he simply kept quiet about it). The detective grinned- with the way Hattori was talking to the ex-FBI agent, he was sure to die of embarrassment by the time Conan told Hattori the full truth.
"So, which high school are you fro-" Hattori was asking Akai, but Conan cut him off.
"I'll tell you the recent updates at my house," he said. "It's the safest place for us right now."
A few minutes later they reached the house. Conan opened the gates(with some help from Hattori), and they were in.
Kuroba was freaking out.
He gnawed at his thumbnail, pacing furiously. One of his doves tilted her head and cooed at him softly.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine." he told her. In fact he was anything but. Should he tell everything? Should he not? What would happen? What if he messed up everything?
"Arrgghh! Why did I ever do that? I could have refused the offer, then choose to join after I thought it through, but nooo, you just had to say yeess! Bakaito!" he yelled at his reflection in the mirror. He whisked away from it and threw his hands up in frustration. "Oh, I'm using Aoko's insults at me now, how wonderful!"
His doves were now all looking at him concernedly.
"Don't look at me like that!" he snapped at them. His frayed nerves were not doing him any good. After a moment he sighed, taking deep breaths to calm himself down.
"Sorry about that." he apologised. They all cooed back at him. One of them flew down to him and perched on his shoulder.
"Hey Raphael." Kaito greeted the pure white dove. "What do you think I should do?"
Raphael cocked his head at him, staring at him as if to say, don't you have a message for me to carry?
"You want me to send the note, like, now?" Kaito asked him incredulously. Raphael tilted his head the other way. "And you want me to tell him everything?" Raphael straightened his tilted head. Kaito blanched.
"Nonono, that is a very rash decision! I can't risk something like that, what if I get sent to jail or something?" he ranted. He jabbed a finger at the bird accusingly. "You're not really having a conversation with me, either. It's just me talking and you acting whatever way you want!"
Said bird parted his beak slightly and waited.
After a short intense staring contest, Kaito sighed and relented, his shoulders sagging.
"Fine, I'll tell you in a minute."
His expression turned serious as he began to contemplate. Telling them his real identity could leave him in jail, or lead to a higher chance of exposure. However, when he thought about the drawbacks of not revealing himself.. meeting would be less easier, and having to be in full costume would be tiring and had a danger of drawing attention, not to mention the added labour of avoiding Tantei-kun's attempts to find out who he was. And would telling them really lead to exposure? He thought not, Tantei-kun had a secret of his own which he was protecting well from enemies...
Raphael flapped his wings impatiently.
"Yeah, all right, I've decided!" Kaito snapped at him. "I'll write the note and you can be off."
The bird looked rather smug. Kaito glared at him as he rummaged around for a pen and paper. "No thanks to you, you impatient git." he muttered.
The bird somehow looked even smugger. Kaito pouted.
"..I admit it, you helped, thanks." he said reluctantly. He finished the note and tied it to Rapahel's leg. Raphael let out a coo of excitement as Kaito opened the window for him.
"You know where this goes to, right?" he asked. The dove gave him a look, then took off. Kaito grinned for a second, but his expression soon turned to worry. He shook his head, trying to shake off his worries with it. Worrying didn't do anything. It was bad for him too. He should just wait for the reply and everything would be fine.
At least, he hoped so.
And so it really begins..
Did I write in-character? What did you like? What would you like to see later on in the story? Reviews are very welcome! Those and the faves/alerts guilted me into writing more of this story xD