AN: Ok so the first person chapter didn't really work out that well sorry about that I just wanted to try it but I promise I won't do it again lol.
Gemi said that Ran was Aoko-ish in the chapter...and I guess thats sorta true. But please forgive me its necessary for her to act like that for now but don't worry she will be less Aoko-ish as time goes on or at least thats what I plan to happen...
Inspiration for this chapter goes to Gemininus for making me read her angsty new chapter of her story, causing me to feel the need to write something non-angsty.
Go read The Last Night by her if you haven't its really good and suspenseful and dramatic. ^^
Many thanks to xxBakaakki for Beta reading again!
A soft "flip, flap" sound could be heard from inside the office of one Mouri Kogoro. This unusual sound was made by a deck of cards being shuffled back and forth. This continued on for another few minutes until suddenly it was replaced by a rather loud series of "pitter patter" sounds followed by a soft curse as all the cards were suddenly strewn about the room. Again.
"RANNNNN!!"
"I know, I know. I'll clean it up right away, Otou-san." Ran sighed as she got up from the couch and started to pick up the various cards that had scattered from her attempted magic trick.
"Will you just stop trying to do what ever you're doing? This is the fifth time Ran. Give it up, it ain't gonna work and you're distracting me from watching Yoko!" Kogoro grumbled while attempting to peel off the ace of spades that had some how gotten stuck right in the middle of the TV screen.
"It will too work! I've almost got it. The cards just refuse to bend like they're supposed to and they end up flying out of my hands. I have to learn this so quit complaining, or would you rather I fail this year because of all these cases you've been getting, Otou-san?" Defeated, Kogoro turned his attention back to the card that refused to come off the screen.
It had been two days since she had shown up at Kuroba Kaito's house and scared the poor guy half to death. It had taken a total of three hours, two threats to inform certain high school detectives of KID's whereabouts, and one incident involving the Finding Nemo plushie Sonoko had given her a while back to convince him that it was in his best interest to help her with her essay. For fear of accidentally exposing something about KID and his magic tricks that she didn't already know, Kaito decided it would be in his best interest if she learned as many tricks as possible so she could write her essay about that rather than about his occupation as a magician. So, he showed her a few practice exercises to do that would help her in some of the more complicated tricks and showed her how to juggle before all but shoving her out the front door. Ran spent the rest of that day fixing dinner and attempting to juggle. Lets just say that those attempts were not very successful although she did get better after practicing half the night. Poor Conan still had the urge to duck behind the nearest large object when the brightly colored balls started flying through the air.
The day after that, Ran went back to his house and suffered through an incredibly long, boring, and thorough explanation about sleight of hand accompanied by three simple tricks. Of which, she had gotten the hang of the first two very quickly but the third one involved playing cards. Ran and magic tricks involving cards just did not seem to mix. Kaito had noticed the trouble she was having with the playing cards and cheerfully taught her how to do an even more complicated trick with them, thus why cards were now randomly flying about the Mouri Detective Agency.
Watching the cards once again fly out of her hands and onto the various objects near by, Conan decided that if she ever came back from these "magic lessons" with a saw and a box looking for someone small enough to fit inside, he would officially take up permanent residence at Agasa Hakase's. Screw staying at the detective agency, he preferred to stay in one piece.
It was agreed between the two of them that they should meet somewhere other than Kaito's house to continue her lessons. Even though his house was spacious and had plenty of room, it was getting hard to concentrate on the tricks she was trying to learn when his mother, Aya, kept randomly popping in and out of the room often startling Ran and causing her to mess up. Thus they had relocated to a back room of a cafe that Kaito had talked the owner into letting them use. With all the boxes lined up against the wall they had plenty of room to preform the tricks.
"Ne, Kuroba?" Ran asked while attempting a sleight of hand trick involving making a quarter turn into a penny.
"Sheesh what happened to -kun? We have only known each other for three days you know." Taking a quarter out of God knows where, he showed her how to do the trick once again, completing it flawlessly and then repeated it again, only slower, showing her step by step.
"Would you rather I call you KID then? Ah! I did it! Finally!" Grimacing slightly at the name, he pointed out that she didn't do it right. She had made a slight mistake that revealed the secret of the trick and made her do it over again.
"Anyway Kuroba, I have been wondering how do you manage to disguise yourself so well during a heist? I know that you make those weird masks of people like I've seen Yukiko-san do some times, but when you are at the heist you can't possibly say 'Oh that person looks like a good person to disguise myself as' and then make a mask right then can you?" The quarter trick was put away in order to practice juggling. She had a knack for juggling even though the first attempts were disastrous.
"Your amount of knowledge scares me. How do you know that?"
"You're avoiding the question aren't you? Well, like I said, I've watched Yukiko-san make those masks a few times and she always talked about Kuroba Toichi of her "Seven Knights" she met that taught her how to disguise. So since he is your father he must have taught you."
And this is a nice example of what happens when you spend to much time with a detective, you start deducting things. Note to self: never again underestimate friends of detectives. Especially if they are childhood friends.
"Yukiko... She's that lady that got mad when I called her a pretty oba-chan I think." The juggling balls continued to fly through the air in front of Ran and occasionally behind her as she formed different shapes in the air with them. It was silent except for the sounds of the balls flying up in the air for a few minutes before suddenly the balls changed direction and started bouncing off Kaito's head and back into her hands.
"Ow!" Thunk. "What are you doing?" Thunk. "Stop that already!" Thunk. Thunk thunk. Thunk thunk thu- "OK! I got it already I'll answer your question! Just stop! You're giving me a headache." Evil woman! She sure knows how to get what she wants though. Poor Tantei-kun. I'm surprised she hasn't beaten the truth out of him yet.
The balls changed direction once again and went back to flying around in a circle in front of a grinning Ran.
"Everything is planned out a few days before the heist. I sneak in as a guard, or sometimes even Nakamori-keibu, and scout out the place to figure out who to disguise as or if I even need to disguise. Then I make a general plan and a few hours before the heist I sneak in again to make sure nothing has changed. Happy now? Now lets try another trick shall we? Perhaps something involving cards?"
Grimacing at the prospect of dealing with the uncooperative cards again she put the juggling balls away and got out the pack of playing cards.
"One more thing, before you try to teach me another trick with these evil cards. How do you change your voice? It sounds like it would be a fun and useful skill to use."
"No. Absolutely not! I am not teaching you anything other than magic tricks. There are only four people that I know of that have been taught how to change their voices and disguise themselves and that is Tou-san, myself, Kudou Yukiko, and that other lady Sharon. I will not make that Five people." Did she just twitch when I mentioned Sharon? Hmm strange.
"Aww! Come on why not? What could it hurt? Please?" She pleaded while doing the easy card practice exercises that she always had to do before they started on a new trick.
What could it hurt? My sanity for one thing. But why does she want to learn it? Its not like she's going to take up thievery for a living. Even if she did have that crazy idea in her head Tantei-kun would find out right away. I suppose it would be helpful in confusing criminals at a crime scene. Actually, I don't think I want to know, but if I don't give her a chance to try it she'll bring out the blackmail again. Oh well its not like she will be able to learn it anyway.
"Alright fine I will make you a deal, a week from tomorrow I got roped into doing a magic show for the Junior High school, you will be taking my place. If you can manage to put on a good show using the tricks I have taught you without messing up and keeping the audience entertained, then I'll teach you about disguises and voice changing. If you mess up though, I will not teach you anymore."
Finishing with the card exercises she put all the cards back in the deck and handed it to Kaito.
"Well then, you better start teaching me some more tricks because I doubt I can keep an audience entertained by making a quarter turn into a penny and juggling."
And so the next few days went by uneventfully with Kaito teaching Ran different magic tricks, that is, unless you count all the times the tricks went wrong and the room became covered in confetti or filled with smoke from a misplaced smoke bomb. It wasn't until the fourth day they had been meeting at the cafe that something unexpected happened.
Ran had stayed at the cafe after Kaito left to work on her tricks some more because her father was going to be out late playing mahjong and Conan was staying over at Agasa Hakase's to play some new game. It was just starting to get dark when Ran stepped out of the cafe intending to head home only to be stopped by a teenage girl that looked similar to herself.
"So its you that Kaito has been seeing everyday isn't it? Normal people don't go into cafes and stay for hours at a time. So just what is it that you two have been up to in there?"
AN: Soooo now Aoko has entered into the story. What do you think will happen next? Well I will give you a little hint: Aoko is very mad and she has a mop. Where she got the mop I don't know.
Sorry for those of you that expected an explaination in this chapter. I was really going to explain everything but then I had an idea for something later on and for that to happen I can't explain things now.