Author Notes: This is the promised rewrad for one hundred reviews of Infinite Loop. Chapter twelve from Toichi's POV. Enjoy!

Little Bird

Watching Poirot's newest waiter retreat to the kitchen, Toichi slowly pulled out his phone and entered a text that he thought he'd never have to use.

-Baby birds have to be kept warm. Is it warm or cold?-

Long ago they'd come up with a code to check on their personal files, as They were always poking around. Is the bird coup clean? was Toichi's files, Is the safe locked? was for his Chikage, his last precious jewel, and Is the library in order? was for his partner, the one he was texting at the moment. To any outsider, it would just look like he was texting a friend or perhaps servant about affairs in his house. To cover this he even sent a copy to his other accomplice, who wouldn't be the one to reply but would always go to his house and putter around if he got one, to lend credit to it being a servant. He'd only used them a few times before and never this particular one, all false alarms, which he dearly hoped this one was. After all, the baby bird was...

His cell buzzed with a reply, a bare minute, he must have been on the computer already. Toichi flipped it open and glanced at the message.

-It's warm.-

He felt himself grow cold. That reply should never have come, it should have been a cold baby bird. Baby birds had to be kept warm to live, and he knew this wasn't possible now, not when the baby bird was cold, he knew it, because the baby bird was...

He snapped the cellphone shut. Whatever They were playing at, he wasn't happy. Not at all.

He let his eyes slide over the rest of the cafe as he felt himself slip into work mode. He'd been told to case out Beika today, and he'd stopped by at one of his favorite cafes for a lunch break. Who would have thought he'd find the lead in the last place to look for it?

Everything besides the new waiter seemed in order, except...ah, there was another new face. A young man stood at the coffee counter, someone Toichi had never seen before but seemed achingly familiar, just like the strange waiter who had gone strangely rigid when Toichi had looked at him. If he hadn't been a master actor himself, he probably wouldn't have noticed, as outwardly the waiter had been perfectly fine. But it was like a switch had been flipped, and nothing behind that smile had been real. It was disconcerting, like watching his own Poker Face snap into place, only seeing it instead of feeling it. That boy was a master too. And this was all shaping up to be so very bad.

As his strange, disconcerting waiter wasn't back yet, he contented himself with studying the new coffee boy. About the same age as the waiter, similar face, in fact they could probably pull off as twins, although they weren't as, if Toichi squinted, he could make out that whatever the kanji on the teen's name tag was, it wasn't Kuroba. The second kanji was just a blob from here, a complicated mess, but the first was simple, just three lines which probably read as...

Toichi tensed. He suddenly knew what the name was, and he wasn't reassured. At all. Because while that name wasn't as uncommon as his own, there still should be no males at that certain age with it. They were always cataloging their family names, and the only person near this age was a high school girl in Hokkaido. Definitely not the young man who was now listening intently as the older barista explained something involving the espresso machine. And now that he was looking at his face, he knew why it was familiar now, because it looked so much like his partner, his old friend...but at the same time didn't. The eye color was different, a brighter, more crystalline blue that probably gave him an amazingly intense look when he wanted it. The jawline and cheekbones were wrong, more refined, more, well, pretty, Toichi would bet that the boy was just a talent scout away from being a model with that kind of face. Maybe even already was one, if the way he held himself was any indication, as if a camera could pop out of nowhere and he always had to be prepared for it. Someone very used to being photographed, at least.

In fact, the more he looked at the boy, the less he looked like a carbon copy of his partner and more like someone else, someone he recognized as famous, but couldn't quite place it. It was the hair color that had made him think of his friend first, and he could still see it, but...now the effect was, well...more as if his friend had had a son. Or some other close relative.

Toichi sat for a moment, pondering the wisdom of asking his friend about any...dalliances around eighteen years ago because he knew that he didn't have any official son. He knew the man had never really been romantically-inclined, but a night was all it took...

"Here's your coffee!"

Toichi's attention snapped back to the present, and he turned his attention to the enigma in front of him. The teen's smile was just this side of strained as he delivered Toichi's drink, setting the cup and saucer on the table – there was a glimmer of unusual reflectivity on his fingertips, fingerprint seals. "Did you need anything else?"

"Ah...no, this is fine for now. Thank you." Toichi murmured, and the boy gave him that oddly-perfect smile again, before turning and heading back into the kitchen. He noted that the coffee-boy was watching him with rather looked like concern. Odd...

Toichi looked at his drink. If his suspicions were correct, there was a chance it could be poisoned...but no, that was far too obvious. This was one of the haunts of that little girl detective, wasn't it? And the boy would have made himself a prime suspect being the one to deliver it. Unless he was dealing with an exceptionally dull pair, the drink was safe. Still, Toichi drank it very slowly cautiously.

The coffee-boy had slipped into the kitchen, and Toichi took the opportunity to bring out the fingerprinting kit he'd brought along for today. Just a little dusting, apply the plastic seal and he had a copy of the waiter's fingerprints. This could tell if they really were trying to impersonate...

Toichi gave his head a slight shake, flicking his hand absent-mindedly to file away the fingerprints, stuffed into a small plastic baggy. He turned slightly, and was mildly surprised to see coffee-boy dragging waiter-boy out of the cafe by the arm, a pair of bentou boxes in the other hand. The waiter's face was strangely blank. Even odder.

His usual waitress Kiyoko-chan soon popped up with a smile. "Shirobane-san, good afternoon! Sorry about the waiter change, but Kuroba-kun is having lunch right now."

"Good afternoon, Kiyoko-san." He greeted her. Now was a good time for a little prying. "Kuroba-kun, was it? Is he new?"

"Just started today." She chirped, always ready for gossip. "He and Kudou-kun apparently had a bit of a problem with lodging, so they're now living upstairs. It seems they met Mouri-chan yesterday and she offered them the place if they worked here."

Kudou-kun. He'd been right. "Is that so? How lucky for them." He murmured, inside he was thinking furiously.

Mouri-chan...? That's right, the little girl detective. She used to live here, and still frequented this cafe. In fact, Toichi had chosen this very seat because it was behind her usual one, and he could drop in to keep an eye on her. She was just too close, trying to pry too much, and he couldn't let someone so young and innocent stumble into the darkness she was trying to scrabble at. That two young boys who shouldn't exist had popped up and were getting close to her may mean that it wasn't he and his partner in the crosshairs, but her.

Kiyoko-chan giggled. "We're so lucky to get them, really! Kuroba-kun's so good with the customers, and he picked up everything so fast I barely had to do any training with him! Dad's already letting him handle tables by himself. And Kudou-kun is quiet, but he's doing good." Her giggle turned a little mischievous. "Besides, they're both so cute, it was about time Dad started catering to the girls too and got some cute boys to wait on the customers! And did you know, Kuroba-kun can do magic tricks! I haven't seen any of it, but apparently he made roses appear for Mouri-chan and Azusa-chan yesterday!"

Magic tricks. Pulling roses out of nowhere. A simple trick – the first one, in fact, that his little bird had ever managed, and one he'd always loved performing for the ladies. Toichi kept his smile calm, but felt that if he gripped the porcelain of his coffee cup any harder it was going to fracture.

How dare they. How dare they try to twist his name into something for their use? They'd already stolen him away from Toichi, couldn't they let him rest in peace? Toichi felt a grimness settle over him. He could overlook a lot of things, put himself at a distance, but that ended when they dared try to use anything about his poor lost baby bird, his Kaito...

He was going to find out want these two fake boys wanted, and he was going to make Them regret ever trying to use the name of the son they killed in such a way.