I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed, Magic Kaito, Sherlock Holmes, or Arsène Lupin.

Meitantei

Chapter 2: Introspection

"Meitantei..."

Shinichi jolted up in bed at the whispered use of his title. His eyes darted around his bedroom, looking for the owner of the voice, only to realize that it was merely a dream – or perhaps his mind playing tricks on him. The sudden rush of adrenaline began to ebb as he lowered himself back into bed, but the numerous bird chirps indicating early morning would no doubt keep him awake.

Not that his thoughts wouldn't do that on their own.

He was imagining Kaitou Kid's voice in his dreams now...he was either more desperate for stimulating cases than he would admit to himself, or he truly was developing a Kid complex.

Looking at the facts – as Shinichi generally did – he was developing a Kid complex.

For the past few weeks his thoughts had been on Kid. Initially, during the first month of Kid's absence, Shinichi hadn't dwelled too much over it. But then, as more time passed, Shinichi had begun to notice the lack of Kid heists. Not that Shinichi was a stickler for routine, but there was something rather miffing about not attending heists. Since Kid seemed to stick to a schedule, warning bells had begun to go off in Shinichi's head. Something was off. And unfortunately for Shinichi, he hadn't been able to obtain enough evidence to figure out what. Those scenarios frustrated him. Waiting for something to happen in order for him to be able to further his deductions left Shinichi stir crazy.

It didn't help that only a few months prior Shinichi had helped put several would-be Kid snipers behind bars. The thought that there could have been more people after Kid's life that Shinichi had not apprehended left him feeling sick to his stomach.

He had spent a good time wondering if and when Kid's next heist would take place. Then there had been three in the last week. It had relieved Shinichi to a degree, but really, Kid still had yet to show. Now that he had finally talked to the assistant, Shinichi's thoughts had been solely focused on Kid. Having finally heard from the assistant that Kid seemed to be in trouble, Shinichi couldn't help but feel excited at the prospect of figuring out a way to become involved in the case. This new clue was like a drink of salt water after being thirsty for so long; it only made him thirstier.

Plus, Shinichi liked when he could predict certain parts of his life. It was the detective in him. If he couldn't speculate with reasonable certainty what was likely to happen, he didn't feel comfortable.

It had been nearly a year since Kaitou Kid and he had first met face to face as Kid and Shinichi, not Kid and Conan, at a heist. It had been almost a year since the thief's teasing yet somehow respectful murmur of his title "Meitantei" had helped to ground Shinichi back to a pseudo state of normalcy after the fall of (most of) the black organization.

As Conan, he had gone to a fair amount of Kaitou Kid heists, but generally they were the ones that took place in Beika or the ones in which Suzuki Jirokichi orchestrated. Having been known for deterring Kid, the elder Suzuki had constantly enlisted Conan's help. Even Nakamori-keibu had not entirely discouraged his presence. Ironic how, as a child, he was more welcomed to Kid heists than as an adult.

Upon returning to his high-school body, he had been more than able to go to heists on his own without needing to worry about bedtime or having Ran or Kogorou-occhan follow him around. Very rarely did he deal with murders during Kid heists. Instead, he could actually enjoy someone else's intellect and creative prowess.

Shinichi put a hand to his face, embarrassed to even admit to himself that over the past two months he'd missed not only the thrill and chase of Kid heists, but the challenge his heist notes could bring. Remembering the past riddles, and especially the first one that he'd solved back in his own body, made him only want to encounter more puzzles.

The first heist that Shinichi had attended as himself, he'd been almost as lost as he had when he'd first turned into Conan. Coming back to himself and figuring out what was and wasn't normal…well, chasing Kid: that seemed normal. Shinichi liked normal. Well, he supposed continuity was a more apt description. There was nothing normal about Kid – or Shinichi for that matter.

When the heists had stopped happening, Shinichi had hoped and prayed for the thief's return. He'd admitted it to Haibara ages ago, as Conan, that he enjoyed Kaitou Kid's heists. They were as challenging, if not more so, than some of the murders he solved. The fact that he was (unofficially) invited to battle wits without someone dying, well, he had started to miss that.

About a week before the assistant had held the most recent heists, Shinichi had started looking into all of Kaitou Kid's past activities to see if he could make a connection to the man behind the moonlight magician. Not long into starting the investigation, Shinichi had come to the tentative conclusion that the thief had likely ceased activities because he had found what he was looking for. He couldn't help but hope his deduction was wrong and that Kaitou Kid would one day reappear. Ironically enough, it was one of the rare times he was glad he'd been wrong.

If more time had passed with no sign of Kid, Shinichi would have taken up the mantle and done his best to figure out who Kaitou Kid really was. There had always been an unofficial rule about the Kaitou Kid heists that seemed to prevent him from doing too much research outside of each individual situation. Not that he hadn't on occasion, but there was something more satisfying about matching wits head to head than behind the scenes.

Realistically, Shinichi was sure that both he and Kaitou Kid knew that if Shinichi had really wanted to, the thief would be behind bars. But they had helped each other out enough that it was more interesting to Shinichi to stop the thief from stealing at heists rather than to permanently put the klepto behind bars. After all, Kid had helped him out with the black organization (not necessarily willingly), and Shinichi had helped put several snipers aiming to take Kid's life in jail several months ago.

If the thief had retired, then Shinichi might have to take a professional interest outside of heists: even if it was just to show Kid that he had him figured out. He was a detective after all; it was his job to get to the truth of the matter.

But the snipers had him worried. If there had been people after Kid's life once, it didn't necessarily mean that there weren't people out to kill him again. When Kid had stopped appearing, Shinichi had feared the worst.

"What are you thinking, Kudou?" Shinichi murmured to himself. That didn't matter now; that was a past scenario. Kid's assistant had appeared with far more intriguing details. What mattered now was figuring out how he was going to help solve this new puzzle that Kaitou Kid had somehow gotten tangled in.

While Shinichi wouldn't consider Kid a friend, per se, he did believe that there was something friendly in their well known rivalry. Despite his thievery, Shinichi respected the man. With a mind as brilliant as Kid's, it would be impossible for him not to. Even if Kid was a thief, helping show the truth in situations where someone else was the culprit was what he did. And in some strange way, Shinichi felt he owed Kid.

After the fall of the black organization, things had not panned out the way that Shinichi had expected them to. He had assumed that he would be able to find a way to return to a semblance of his former life. He would return to school, continue to solve cases, and he and Ran would end up together as a couple. Shinichi was not an idiot; he knew his time as Conan would have changed things, but it didn't necessarily make dealing with it any easier.

In all honestly, Shinichi had been surprised at how much his life hadn't changed.

Shinichi had returned to school, if only briefly. He'd practically missed half of his time in high-school. At first, he was afraid he'd have to repeat a grade, but he had managed to test out of having to do so. Instead, Shinichi was only in school for several months before he'd graduated. It was as though his time away had meant nothing. People had welcomed him back as though he'd never left.

Now attending Touto University, the classes which he had hoped to be stimulating and intriguing were not holding his attention as he'd expected. Somehow, after attending classes as an elementary student, one would think university classes would provide more of a challenge. Of course the content was harder, but there was something horribly less fun about them. Idly Shinichi wondered about creating university courses that incorporated more components of elementary pedagogy.

He was passing everything with flying colors, but he just couldn't connect to most of his classmates as he had in high school. Without soccer, there was little that he felt linked him to the other students. When he was younger he'd found his boon in playing soccer to amalgamate with kids his own age since most people (especially in his age group) didn't go around solving crimes. With soccer, he'd always been part of a team, part of a group. He may have stood out due to his skills, but he was still part of something.

Shinichi definitely missed his camaraderie with the Shounen-tantei-dan. Helping the Detective Boys Group with investigations had been a way for him to act as himself, and he'd enjoyed showing the kids how to become better detectives. Things had changed when "Conan" had left and Shinichi had returned. While there were times when he was still able to interact with the kids, it wasn't the same.

Nevertheless, there were still, thankfully, some people his age who enjoyed mysteries, like the detective club he'd joined at his university. Grudgingly realizing how much he'd enjoyed working with the Detective Boys Group, Shinichi decided to see how a college age detective group would work. Yet the detective club at Touto University had not been exactly what he was hoping for. There were six other members besides himself. Two of the male club members (one sophomore and one senior) were very enthusiastic about solving cases but were not very good at it. One of the girls in the group, a senior, was extremely incompetent, and Shinichi had a feeling she was more his fangirl than anything else. The only thing she ever did when discussing cases or when they were actually at a crime scene was to sit back and tell him how amazing he was.

There was one guy (a sophomore) who was decent, but he did his best to try and outsmart and outshine Shinichi that his input ended up making the cases unnecessarily distracting to solve. The last two were a duo of very smart and talented freshmen girls, but they spent more time looking to Shinichi's lead than to actually feel confident in voicing their own opinions. At their high-school, they had been in a detective group, and Shinichi felt they would be far more competent if they believed in themselves. Instead, they eagerly watched what he did, excitedly pointing out any clues they thought relevant, but always seemed too timid to voice their own thoughts. On the bright side, the two girls were Sherlockians who loved talking about Sherlock Holmes almost as much as he did.

While there was still a fair number of his fellow university students who were up to par with him academically, he had become too well known beforehand to find the same camaraderie he had had with his former classmates. It seemed that half of the people who were capable of keeping a conversation with him wanted to either try and one up him or to pick his brain about his not-so-secret investigation with the black organization.

The other half wanted him to come to parties and outings with them. While Shinichi had gone to said parties and outings, they weren't as enjoyable. Either someone was trying to set him up with their sister/friend/daughter/third cousin twice removed or trying to grab his attention if they were female themselves. Not to mention, many of the outings he went on were frequently cut short due to some sort of mishap. Either he would stumble upon a case or he would be called in order to help with police investigations. In fact, Shinichi found himself being invited to more gatherings involving police detectives than anything else since he seemed to spend so much time around them.

Since his return, the police had called upon Kudou Shinichi less due to the fact that "Sleeping Kogorou" was still around to help. However, not only was Shinichi getting called in to help with the Sleeping Kogorou cases and for the cases when they asked for Shinichi by name, but he was still helping solve more mysteries than what the police knew about.

On occasion, he was involved in F.B.I. and C.I.A. cases when requested. Those investigations were far more involved and tended to take longer. Usually he had a few heads to work with through those other branches, and it meant that he was never long without a stimulating case, but those cases tended to be few and far between.

Despite the fact that he was now solving more mysteries than ever, he wasn't getting credit for quite a number of them. Obviously his involvement with the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. cases remained (usually) unknown. But in addition to those cases, he was still acting as the brain power behind "Sleeping Kogorou." Ran had found out that he had been using a sleeping dart and his bowtie voice changer to solve crimes as "Sleeping Kogorou." With Conan's quite obvious absence, having Occhan return to the bumbling detective he had been would have raised too many questions. It only made sense to keep up some sort of pretense in order to help Occhan save face while also avoiding anyone making connections between who Conan had been. That piece of information was still relatively unknown to the populace.

Ran had gone to Agasa-hakase and received her own watch with built in sleeping gun and a voice changer in order to keep up appearances. She had discussed it with Shinichi, and Ran had begged him not to tell her father that he hadn't actually been solving the cases. Instead, Ran would call or text Shinichi and tell him about what was going on and he would tell her what to say – and she would solve it in her father's voice.

That had taken some time and practice as she had a harder time imitating her father's gruffer and more masculine inflections. When possible, she would place a speaker on her father and Shinichi would still act as the mouthpiece. The bowtie was still set up to the speaker, but depending on how far away they were meant that he was sometimes too far out of range to be the mouthpiece.

And then there was Ran. It seemed like so long ago since he'd confessed to her in London. Yet despite that, she had never given him a true response. He was sure that she had feelings for him. But instead of admitting it to him, she had told him it was hard to think of him that way as she kept seeing Conan, her cute little brother when she looked at him. She said she needed time.

They still hung out on a regular basis, and she seemed affectionate enough. From everything he had observed, she still loved him, and really just needed time.

So he had waited. And waited. Was still waiting.

It was one of the things that had returned to normal that he was hoping wouldn't. He and Ran were back to being best friends. Just friends. They were still very close. With Ran helping maintain the Sleeping Kogorou front, they shared more secrets than ever before. But the way that Ran had been acting around him had made in rather clear that she was having a hard time seeing him as Shinichi without also seeing Conan. Really, Shinichi couldn't blame her. It would be awkward to realize that the person who you fell in love with was actually masquerading as a little kid who you looked at like a little brother.

Shinichi knew that if he found out Ayumi was actually Ran in shrunken disguise, he would have a hard time blending the two personalities together. He viewed Haibara differently since he'd known the whole time that she wasn't really a little girl making Shinichi wonder how Ran would view him now if she'd known from the beginning that he'd been shrunk. Except Shinichi could not bring himself to regret deciding not to tell her from the beginning; he would not risk her life at any cost. She had waited for him, and now she asked for him to wait.

And he knew that he should wait longer for her because of all the waiting that Ran had done for him. She was there for him and he was there for her. They still talked all the time. She had waited for him to return: not for him to make a decision. Hattori Heiji, while he thought highly of Ran, had suggested that Shinichi move on. Ran seemed like she would never get over the fact that he had been Conan.

Even though he knew he should move on and let her go, Shinichi couldn't. He loved her. It wasn't like he could just stop doing that. As much as he admired Sherlock Holmes, the Heisei Holmes didn't want his "Irene Adler" to marry someone else, while he ended up alone.

Still, Shinichi didn't quite miss her the same way he had when he'd been Conan. Now that he was himself again, he still spent a good bit of time with her. The best part was that he was able to be open about what he did. He'd felt guilty for lying to her as Conan. It had been a barrier for him then, and because he lied, it was still a barrier for him now. The guilt he felt now, though, was a bit different. Instead of missing her, he found that there was someone else who he found himself missing more and more.

Instead of waking up and thinking of Ran, he spent time thinking of another voice whispering his name – his title.

After all, it wasn't that unusual that a sleuth become intrigued by a thief.

Ran had noticed, and seemed quite delighted by it. She called Kid his "man crush." Really, whose side was she on, anyway? Quite honestly, he felt hurt by her teasing. It was hard to read her intentions. Was she encouraging him to move onto someone else…?

But that was the thing. He didn't want to move on from Ran, especially not with a guy. It was more like he wanted to pull Kid further into his circle. Circle of friends, acquaintances, the like, he wasn't sure. Still, there was something he felt he should be able to put his finger on with this connection he felt to Kid.

It was stupid. He was sure that Kid didn't think of him as anything other than a rival to be outdone. Shinichi knew that he felt something different for the thief than he did for Ran. A pull? It definitely wasn't romantic love. He loved Ran. Yet he did feel a fondness for Kid. An attraction wasn't the right word either as he didn't even know what the thief really looked like. Infatuated or intrigued seemed the best way to label it as he couldn't quite stomach the term "man crush." He didn't think of himself as obsessed, but he definitely held more than a passing curiosity in regards to the thief.

Cliché as it was, Kaitou Kid was the yin to his yang. They were alike in many regards and their differing skill sets complimented each other when it mattered. At times, Shinichi had wondered if their relationship wasn't like that of competitive brothers, always trying to outdo each other yet still supportive when necessary.

If Shinichi believed in long lost twins (with one of them being "evil"), he would say that Kid was his long lost evilish twin. But of course, that thought was absurd. There was no way he had a long lost twin brother.

Shinichi tried to justify it as an interest in someone he couldn't have a normal type of friendship with. Still, he supposed it was a safe "infatuation" to have. It wasn't like he would or could act on it. Yamaguchi Minami and Tama Minori, the two competent freshmen girls in his detective club, had actually compared Kaitou Kid as the "Irene Adler" to his Sherlock Holmes. They advocated that Adler was the only person who had slipped out of Holmes' grasp and was known for having masqueraded as a man and thus tricking Holmes into finding out his plans, rather like Kaitou Kid who occasionally dressed up as a woman or other disguises to figure out Shinichi's plans.

When Shinichi had brought up Arsène Lupin as a more likely character, both Minami-san and Minori-san insisted that Lupin was an unacceptable comparison since he had not been created by Doyle and was therefore not part of the true Sherlock Holmes world. In Lupin's world, there were things like radioactive "god-stones" and people who believed in the Fountain of Youth. It was too unrealistic for Holmes. Since Kid was realistic, he had to be more like one of their Arthur Conan Doyle's beloved characters, like Adler.

They also pointed out that Holmes had only ever been fond of Adler, and that while inferences could be read between the lines, they didn't think that Holmes ever had romantic feelings toward Adler. The two girls argued that the evidence was too inconclusive. Shinichi always thought of himself as a hardcore Sherlockian, but Minori-san and Minami-san took it to the extreme. In fact, the two timid girls had only ever disagreed with him on one topic: who the Holmes' counterparts would be if they were real people.

After hearing their insistence that Kid was not the Lupin to his Holmes, and having met a man who called himself Arsène Lupin III, Shinichi supposed that that particular thief could be the "Lupin" to his "Holmes." Still, he decided not to tell Minori-san and Minami-san about it.

Shaking his head, thinking about comparing himself to Holmes, he was glad that he wasn't actually living out his life like completely like the literary detective. While he'd had to pretend to be dead for his safety for some time, he had still had contact with his friends and family. Not to mention, Holmes had ended up alone. Shinichi was not about to dismiss romantic interests as "distractions." He would never do anything foolish like that to hurt Ran.

Thinking about relating real people to fictional ones, Shinichi's mind drifted to Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin. Despite Minami-san and Minori-san's objections, Shinichi thought about correlating Kid as the "real life" Lupin. Doing so made him think about the fictional thief's romantic relationships and some of the issues that he had. Really, Shinichi hoped Kid wasn't living his life like Lupin and didn't have that many complications in his love life. Reflecting on it, Kid probably had a woman – or perhaps multiple women – to keep his mind occupied. The thief was extremely flirtatious after all. A random image of Kaitou Kid (looking a lot like Shinichi) being chased by an angry woman (looking a lot like Ran) who was infuriated over him flirting with others popped into his head. The thought made Shinichi give a half chuckle.

Perhaps that was the problem? Kid was having woman troubles? Marital issues? The thought of Kid being married somehow seemed wrong though. From what Shinichi could tell, the current Kid was too young. Idly he wondered if Kid's assistant was his grandfather. He could see it, considering Shinichi's deductions left him believing the original Kid – that is to say, the Kid who he'd first met and "dueled" with at Teitan Elementary School all those years ago – was the current Kid's father. It would make sense that it was a family business. After all, Kid had all but told him that his mother was the Phantom Lady.

Nonetheless, it made him wonder. Since Kid was known to flirt with women, it wasn't too farfetched to believe his regular, everyday persona likewise flirted with women. With his suave voice, it would definitely make other men jealous. Filing this thought away for later, Shinichi turned over in bed.

Whatever the case was, Shinichi would investigate the matter. He would make a few phone calls to see if his initial gut reaction to what might be going on was true or not. He really hoped it wasn't a love triangle gone wrong with some raving jealous lunatic. Those never ended well.

Shinichi grunted in disgust at his own thoughts and turned in his bed again, trying to concentrate on identifying the bird calls in order to distract him from his current thoughts.

A single bird call caught his ear.

Tzruuu, tzrutzrutzrutzru tzru tzruu. Tzrutzrutzrutzru tzruuuu. Shinichi's eyes darted opened, intrigued at the bird call. It was one he recognized as a Yellow Bunting, but it was strange to hear it in Tokyo this time of year as the birds were usually found at a higher level altitude. It was, however, their mating season, and Shinichi felt a strange sense of loneliness for the bird. It wasn't uncommon for the birds to occasionally travel through Tokyo, but the bird was unlikely to find another of its kind in this part of Beika-chou.

Shinichi berated himself, feeling strangely put-out as he found himself relating to the lonely bird far from home. Eyes darting toward the clock, he knew that Ran would be waking up soon for an early morning karate practice at her university. While being back in his regular sized body was wonderful, there were many times he missed living with Ran. For instance, Ran, even though she would have been leaving early, would have made sure to have a warm breakfast and an even warmer smile ready for him before she left.

Heart aching, Shinichi knew why he did his best not to dwell on Ran. Wracking his brain for less lonely thoughts, something else he hoped to be able to focus on and sort out, he idly wondered how Kid was doing.

Some miles away in another part of Tokyo, Kuroba Kaito's eyelids fluttered opened. He tried to stretch and roll over before he realized that he wasn't at his house, and that the bright light streaming in through the window would make it difficult to go back to sleep. Instead he grunted and threw his arm over his eyes, wishing for the umpteenth time that he was home, sleeping in his own bed.

Really, the beds in jail cells were placed in just the right way so that the sunlight would wake up the prisoners as the sun rose.

As he grumbled to himself, he heard a soft fluttering sound at the window. Slightly interested, he wondered if it was one of his doves. Jii had sent his doves a few times with messages that he had been able to read through the window. The print was small enough on the attached messages that it was hard to see from afar and encoded in such a way that it would be difficult for others to know who it was meant for, but sending doves to his window too often would definitely attract attention. Still, he longed for information from his friends.

Squinting to allow his eyes to adjust to the light, he looked out the barred window. For a moment he wondered if Jii had trained another bird to fly messages as it wasn't a dove; it was a Yellow Bunting. With a cursory glance outside his cell window, he flipped over to see if the bird had a message for him. Sadly, it just seemed to be a normal Yellow Bunting coming to perch on his window cell. Kaito chuckled to himself as he wondered if the bird could be considered a "jail bird." Losing interest, Kaito turned back over and put his pillow over his head for good measure, hoping to get a few more minutes of sleep before the day began.

Continued in Chapter 3: Naming the Suspect…

Sorry that it took so long to post this chapter. I kept going back to make sure I put in little clues here and there for things to come later, and this chapter I had to revamp a bunch of times to make sure everything flowed for later chapters.

A few questions for avid fanfic readers and anime/manga enthusiasts. Does anyone know if the Kaitou Kid manga specifically mentions that Pandora has to be held up to the full moon to see the hidden jewel? From what I have found, it's never mentioned in the manga. In fact, there are many times in the manga where Kid holds up jewels to the moon on non full nights. The only place I've seen it mentioned that it has to be a full moon is in the description about the anime on websites like gogoanime or the like. Suzuki Jirokichi mentions that Kid always seems to fly away with the full moon at his back, but that is the only reference in either the Detective Conan or Magic Kaito manga where I have been able to find the connection between the full moon and Kid.

Also, does anyone know if Kid actually ever calls Hakuba, "Tantei-san?" I've never heard him say that in the anime adaptations or found it in the Magic Kaito manga. He just seems to call him Hakuba. Speaking on names, I've seen people in fanfics say Kid calls Conan "Tantei-kun" and Shinichi, "Meitantei," but I know that isn't true as Kid has called Conan, "Meitantei" multiple times in the manga. Additionally, I've never seen Kid and Hattori interact, so I've never seen/heard Kid call him, "Tantei-han" as many people write in fanfics. Is this just a fanfic thing or does anyone have evidence of it in the anime/manga series?

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter! ~ Jelp