A/N: AAAAND the series of unfortunate events begins~ *"Another One Bites the Dust" begins to play in the background* Heiji really has the worst luck haha :P
"Eh?!" Ran shrilled into the receiver of her phone.
On the other end of the room, Heiji's loud babbling was seeping through Conan's phone. "Anyway, Kudou-"
Conan winced as he held the device away from his ear to preserve what little hearing he had left. Really, what was it with the people around him and yelling?
"But...wouldn't it be better if you and Hattori-kun...uh...went together? Alone?"
"Oh, you don't need worry about that, Ran-chan! I didn't want to fly alone but Heiji, the ahou, has a competition, and is set to leave a day later, so he can't come with me. Besides, it's much more fun to travel with friends, isn't it?"
The cheer was very obviously false, and Ran could tell from the force with which Kazuha was saying the words that she was less than pleased.
"Uh...I guess…" She chuckled nervously.
"So you'll come? That's great! Make sure to bring your dad and Conan-kun too, the cute little tyke. Heiji's always getting caught up in murders." the inhabitants of the Mouri Detective Agency could physically hear Kazuha gritting her teeth on the other end of the line. "A trip to Paris with only that insensitive ahou for company would ruin the mood."
Ran sweatdropped. "I'm sure Hattori-kun doesn't mean to always run off like that…"
A frustrated huff from the other end of the line.
The other phone call was going more or less just as smoothly.
"I didn't want be on the same flight as that ahou…It would've been too awkward…"
Conan sighed. "Hattori, you goddamn coward."
"Oi, watch it. I'm doing you a favor. Nee-chan was getting all starry-eyed at the very thought of France."
"You're forgetting the bit where I'm stuck in a seven year old body. Dammit, I don't even have a proper passport."
"So go as Kudou. Makes everything a hell of alot easier."
"Hattori, the antidotes don't work like that. They can't just…sustain me indefinitely. Haibara's going to rip my head off if I ask for any more."
"Well, she can give you something for the flights, at least, can't she?"
"That's not the point-"
"You can even come with me rather than stick around Nee-chan and Kazuha. Come on, Kudou." A pause. "I don't think I'm going to survive the trip if I go alone."
Conan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "And if we go together, no one else is going to survive. Nine times out of ten that we're in the same room, someone gets murdered."
"I'm willing to take that chance. See you at the airport!"
The bastard hung up. The bastard actually had the nerve to hang up.
"Say, Conan-kun?"
Conan jumped ten feet into the air.
While he had been busy glaring at his phone, Ran had finished her conversation with Kazuha and was now standing behind him, leaning down with the patient, gentle smile she reserved only for children, hair spilling over her shoulder. "You don't happen to have a break from school next week, do you?"
"Uh…" Conan spluttered, trying to recall his school schedule instead of stare into her ridiculously pretty eyes and think about how good of a mother Ran was going to be one day. "Uh...yes?"
Dammit. Immediately after the word had escaped from his mouth, he regretted it. He should've said no.
"Then it's decided," Kogoro Mouri interrupted, setting down his newspaper. "We could all use a break. Parisian air will do us good." The serious look evaporated and the old man showed his true colors. "Not to mention, Parisian women."
Conan and Ran looked at each other and sweatdropped.
That was how, three days later, Conan-beg pardon, Shinichi Kudou-found himself checking in to an international airport in plain sight, even though he was supposed to be dead. Though most days he was vaguely glad that Hattori found out about the whole Conan thing and he was able to relax and be himself around someone, today was one of those days that he wished Heiji stayed "Heiji-niichan."
"I hate you," he informed the teen in question when they met up at the gate.
"No you don't," Heiji said cheerily.
Shinichi narrowed his eyes and stuck his tongue out rather childishly.
It was a small mercy that nothing went wrong with the antidote during the flight. Haibara hadn't been sure if her prototype would work for the intended amount of time and gave him a few spares, instructing him on pain of death that he was not allowed to take any unless it was an actual emergency.
(To his mind, a crying Ran was an emergency, but not to Haibara's, he guessed.)
Twelve hours were spent doing basically nothing. He watched maybe five movies, and kept his earbuds in at all times because Heiji literally fell asleep the second he sat down and he also sleep-talked, and honestly, Shinichi didn't want to know. Somewhere along the way he dozed off to the murder mystery on the third page of the movie selection, although he'd woken up in time for the landing to notice that Hattori was way too cheerful. Which generally meant that something was getting on his nerves.
They landed at night. Kogoro Mouri was supposed to come pick them up, but he probably got waylaid somewhere, which wasn't altogether too bad, since Shinichi had to, again, hide in the bathroom to wait for the antidote to stop working.
"Honestly, it gives me the creeps when I start thinking that you're the same person," Heiji remarked as Conan, once again in child form, stepped out of the stall.
"...I am the same person, baka."
"I know, but I just can't reconcile this cute little face with your usual stupid, smartass self-"
Despite knowing from experience that Hattori was absolutely insufferable when he was nervous about anything, Conan rolled his eyes.
"You squeeze my cheeks again, I will kick you in the shin. With my shoes on."
"Ok, ok-jeez, Kudou, I was just kidding."
"Oi! You two brats! Where the hell have you been?"
Kogoro Mouri was standing in the waiting area, red faced and smelling very distinctly like expensive wine.
"Jeez," Conan facepalmed. "Already?"
"Don't know what we were expecting," Heiji agreed. "Taxi?"
"Taxi."
It took some coaxing to get everyone settled in the taxi (Heiji….really sucked at french, and Conan's english only got them so far), and by the time they actually got to the hotel, it was very, very late.
"Jeez, Tou-san," Ran had come down to the lobby to help them. "Did you have to drink so much?" She turned with an apologetic smile to the boys, "Sorry, Hattori-kun...I hope he didn't give you too much trouble…"
"It was alright. Besides, this little kid," Heiji emphasized his words by tousling Conan's already messy hair. "Was a great help."
Conan glared up at him.
"You too, Conan-kun. You must be absolutely exhausted." Ran extended a hand toward him. "So why don't we go upstairs and order some room service? Then you can go to bed quickly." She threw a conspiratorial glance at Heiji. "Kazuha-chan's waiting in the restaurant by the ballroom. You go on ahead. I don't think she'll miss us much."
"Oi-Ran-what the hell?" Kogoro was, however, not cooperating. "We come all the way out to Paris-and you want to order room service?"
"Dad-Conan-kun must be really tired and-"
"Tch. To hell with that brat. We can put him to bed and then come back down-"
"Dad-we just-can't-because-ugh!"
Needless to say, Ran had a very hard time trying to wrestle her father upstairs while holding on to Conan's hand.
Which was why, twenty minutes later, Kazuha, hiding her face behind her menu, glanced over her shoulder at Kogoro (who was sitting, singing drunkenly, an arm slung over his increasingly pissed off daughter, across from an apathetic first grader in a corner booth), blushed, and raised an eyebrow at Heiji.
Heiji groaned and sat down. "Don't ask."
Looked like the whole "romantic candlelight dinner" idea wasn't going to work out too well today. The candle was there, of course, but oji-san had all together ruined the mood. Besides, he'd forgotten to buy roses.
The dinner part, on the other hand...he was hungry. So, might as well make use of it.
They ordered and the waiter had just gone when Kazuha leaned her chin against her palm and turned her eyes to him. "So. How'd the match go?"
He grinned. "We beat 'em."
"...Course you did," she said softly. Her gaze flickered away and fixed on the shadows on the wall, watching it dance, matching the movements of the flame on the candlewick. She seemed distant, like she was physically sitting there, across from him, but her mind was far away.
Heiji caught himself staring, and flushed, swallowing.
Silence.
And then, slowly: "You're...not still mad...that I couldn't fly with you, are you?" He scratched his head, not looking at her.
She turned slowly to look at him, face blank for an entire, nerve-wracking minute. And then she grinned and reached across the table to slug him in the arm. "Ahou! Who needs your company? Ran-chan was much more entertaining."
Heiji wasn't sure if he ought to feel insulted or relieved she wasn't pissed.
"Still. I'm glad you're here now."
"I mean, it is your seventeenth birthday. As your...best friend...I had to be here for that."
She smiled and looked away again. He couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what the expression on her face meant.
If she wasn't pissed off, then what was it? Why was everything so...off?
She'd flushed. It couldn't be his imagination, could it? Or was it all an illusion created by the candle, the way the light seemed to catch in her emerald eyes, and her cheeks glowed a rosy red?
His breath caught in his throat. Was she on to him? Did Nee-chan….?
"Say, Heiji," Kazuha said, after a long pause.
He held his breath.
"Why did you-"
An ear-piercing scream cut through the air and she swallowed the rest of her sentence with a gasp, eyes widening with horror as she lifted a hand to point at something behind him.
Almost automatically, Heiji turned around.