~CHAPTER START~
"What….the hell happened…?" This was said with mixed emotions. Kaito could sense fear, disbelief, rage, and shock among others, in a voice quite possibly several octaves higher than it should have been.
In front of him stood his childhood self. Exactly what he knew he'd find if he decided to flip through any of his old photo albums then and there.
"Well, first, go change your clothes. We can't have you going around in those clothes!" A quick flutter of his cape and the problem was solved, leaving the child in semi-formal to casual little kid's clothes. Hakuba wondered why the magician had bothered to ask whether the detective kept his old things, before realizing that they were, in fact, his own old clothes. The thief must have filched them from his storage earlier…just /how/ long had he been snooping around his house?!
"Hm…Not much more I can do here for you! I'll hack into the police systems and write up a report to cover you. Or maybe I could just go in dis—"
Hakuba cut him off. "I have a few questions for you, Kaito KID-san." He started counting them off on his now minuscule fingers. "A) What in the world were you doing in my house directly after school got out, B) How do you know about these guys, and C) What am I supposed to do now?!" The unmasked rage was a fish out of water in his classmate's normally polite-to-a-fault nature, not to mention on the face of an eight-year-old kid. Kuroba almost stepped back and dropped his practiced poker face.
"You happened to forget that you're now apparently a decade younger than you sho—"
The miniature meitantei interrupted again. "Just answer my questions, will you?"
"Okay, I simply decided to drop by and see how my tantei-san was doing? Is there anything wrong with that?!" KID didn't hide his indignity. In fact, he tried actually did his best to overexpress himself. "You must have the strangest ideas about me." No kidding, thought Saguru, an unimpressed expression on his face. "Well, anyhow, I was hiding up there the entire time, waiting for you so I could pull some obscure prank. Duh. And, well, then those guys walked in, I did a disappearing act minus the smoke, and watched as they ambushed you." The phantom thief shrugged. "Simple."
"Hm…speaking of tantei-san, I can't exactly call you that anymore. BUT I can't call you tantei-kun either!" KID seemed to be pacing in frustration. A lightbulb practically appeared over Kaito's head just then, and the thief opened his mouth as if to say something, before Hakuba was enveloped in pink smoke.
…
He woke up on a bench, somewhere in Tokyo. Strange. He'd never remembered falling asleep…Kaitou KID must have put some anesthetic in that gas he'd sprayed.
To any passerbyer, he would have just looked like a kid taking a nap on the bench. He could guess that after putting him to sleep, KID must've disguised as either a babysitter or his "mother" and carried him to the bench, and apparently simply left him there.
A weight in one of his pockets. Sticking his hand in to observe, he found…his watch…and a Kaitou KID note…?
Sorry! Thought I might as well leave this with you.
I bet you can figure out the rest—I've got some "things" to do.
Kaitou Kid
Well, gee, thanks, Hakuba thought to himself. He almost felt like falling into Nakamori's character and swearing his head off. At what—or whom? Was he angry at KID or was it just those people that had done this to him.
"Well, seeing as we're now against the same organization…" What organization had KID been talking about? Despite all the talking that the thief had done, very little had actually been explained.
The expression on his face must've looked strange, at least for an eight-year-old: People were starting to stare at the little boy, no older than ten, who seemed to be deep in thought. Much deeper than any child should have been. Now that he was looking around, he could recognize the area as Beika.
Beika—now what had KID been talking about? Right before he'd left, he'd said something about his not-so-affectionate nickname. Tantei-san? No, it was what he'd said after. Tantei-kun. If he was tantei-san, then who could be tantei-kun?
The sidewalks were filled with people. From his current height, it was near impossible to see anything, but once he managed to stand up on the bench, he could see reasonably well.
Kid had dropped him off on an average bench on the sidewalk. Not a surprise. He could see a telephone booth nearby. The road itself wasn't very busy, but there were plenty of people. The first building he could see across the street read Café Poirot and above it the windows read Mouri Detective Agency—WHAT?
Well, Kaito had left him there specifically for a reason, he assumed. And, if those were the dots he was supposed to connect, he thought he might as well. Hopping off the bench and crossing the street (quite easy, even in his current state), he made his way over to the Detective Agency.
Then it was a simple matter of…reaching up and ringing the bell. After struggling on his tippy-toes for a good ten minutes, he finally managed to just tap the button.
Ding-dong.
Mouri Kogoro opened the door, in his normal drunk stupor. Not quite seeing who it was, only seen that the height of the person standing in front of him was a height just around a certain little annoying little brat.
"-hic- Conun-kn" he managed, "your frind is here." The elder detective passed out on the floor, leaving Hakuba blinking in surprise. He seemed to be doing that a lot today. ((AN:// pardon my drunk speak—I have zero experience in the matter.))
"HAAI!" came a little kid's shout from somewhere around the corner. It sounded almost bored and worn out from whatever, he noted.
Conan walked out from whatever room he was in.
Hakuba blinked. Conan, that little kid he'd encountered on both of the "gatherings of great detectives"?
That little kid…that little kid with an uncanny brilliance quite nearly surpassing his own.
That little kid he'd only actually seen twice.
Conan stared. And blinked.
Blink.
Blink.
Blinkblink.
It went on for a bit. Hakuba presumed that it was because he wasn't, in fact, Conan's friend and had, technically, never even me—
"Hakuba Saguru-san?!"
~CHAPTER END~
AN://
Okay, Hakuba is officially hard to write as…his canon character's just so…robotic. I need to learn how to think more in character…Oh yeah, what color are his eyes? I've been looking everywhere, and I still can't figure out whether they're blue like every single other person in the DC universe or if they're actually golden-hazelly-brown-to-maybe-red. I've seen pictures where they're green too. Somebody have a definite answer?
AAAND I'm trying to work on making chapters longer.
DISCLAMER:// Well, if I owned these characters, I'd likely be glomped to death by now.
I will love you forever if you review.
