~CHAPTER START~
Ran put down the phone after the call. Sonoko was by her side, at the moment, and otousan was out on some random case, leaving the two girls free to do what they needed for the day.
Earlier
…"Ran, you know he's gotta be somewhere around here, Hattori-kun informed you fo that much when he first came." Both girls sank deep in thought. Hattori Heiji had made a good point as he'd made his entrance, noisily searching for the missing—for the moment—Kudo Shinichi, although the kokosei meitantei appeared out of nowhere in only a few hours. But that really only supported the fact that Shinichi was, in fact, nearby, if he'd been able to come at such short notice in that amount of time.
And Conan-kun disappeared whenever he reappeared, Ran reminded herself.
"Sonoko, I'm sure he's here…but…"
"AW COME ON Ran, you've been moping over his sudden disappearance ever since that date of yours at Tropical Land. If he doesn't come to you then you better go catch him instead!" She had to hand it to Sonoko to know when she needed good, friendly encouragement. "Give him a call. You do have your husband's number, right?"
Ran went deep red at this. "Of COURSE I have his number! But he's not my husband! I've told you that a million times!" And it was hardly an exaggeration. But she obliged anyhow, and soon found herself on the phone with her childhood friend.
Back to the present…
She'd really only wanted to ease her constant suspicions…suspicions that, on multiple occasions, had been clearly proven false in front of her eyes! She'd watched Conan innocently playing as she talked with Shinichi on the phone, not to mention that she'd seen the two of them AT THE SAME TIME, with no mistake. But something always bugged her—these occasions were always perfectly timed, always at that very moment during which she'd been paying the most attention to Conan's actions. And it was undeniable proof put right in front of her face, as if some greater being felt like teasing her in particular with the numerous similarities between her (*coughinsertboyherecough*) friend and her adoptive little brother –slash- said friend's distant relative –slash- said friend's neighbor's probably somewhat more distant relative.
Confusing. And all too coincidental for her comfort.
She had to make sure. This time, she'd watch Conan and Shinichi extremely carefully. Hattori Heiji, once he'd suddenly warmed up to Conan (after two cases of staring at the bright child and even suggesting that he was somehow Kudo shrunken) had disguised as Shinichi before, though not very successfully. She'd have to keep an eye on him. Conan, on the other hand, would be harder; if he really was just a little kid (and her eyes kept telling her he was), then she couldn't just go around pulling his cheek and testing for a disguise.
Back to reality. Sonoko was saying something, but she was just automatically filtering things out. Ran turned the filter off and tried to pay attention again. "…so LUCKY you get to see your husband again…!" And the filter went back on, after all, Sonoko was only exclaiming her excitement of the upcoming date. Ran was only mildly curious why this specific outing was so…abnormal.
And so she started her call to Conan-kun to tell him he could bring his friends. Which she hadn't thought of, but she just couldn't refuse the cheerful group of eager shonen-tantei.
…
They got back to Agasa's house around 5:10, after convincing the kids to not follow them and dropping each on off at their own homes. Conan quickly phoned Ran to tell her that he'd eat dinner at Agasa-hakase's.
Ai didn't wait. The moment they were in the house and somewhere private, she cornered Conan (and he cornered her at the same time) to ask.
"What did you mean by 'Shinichi-niichan will be there'? Kudo-kun, there's a slight kink in these plans." She was using her normal cold, sarcastic humor. Ugh.
"The first phone call, Ran asked me on another date. She was practically threatening me if I didn't come. And she knew I was in Japan."
Haibara folded her arms. "And you're going to accomplish this how?"
"Could you please pretty please give me an antidote for the day? Do you have anything that'll last at least 12 hours for sure?" Conan pleaded. He really hoped she'd agree.
"And what reason do you have? It's a simple date. You could've refused and avoided this whole situation."
Conan took off his glasses and rubbed his temples for a little. "She sounded like she knew."
He heard her sigh. "She's always known at least a little. Or had an idea. What makes now any different?"
He shrugged and paced a little. "Sonoko probably got her to ask me on the date, at least. Ran probably wants to make sure, for the tenth time, that I'm just Conan and Shinichi is Shinichi. Can't we just do what we did that time when I first tested it? You dress up as me and I just take the antidote for the time being?"
"Kudo-kun, you know the more you use the antidote, the shorter it lasts each time."
"Yeah, I know. But I gotta do it, at least for Ran's peace of mind. I can't let her keep worrying about me being Conan like this. Even if peace of mind is only temporary." His voice was quiet, not quite a whisper.
Ai paused, thinking for a moment, eyes closed. "Fine. For Ran then."
Conan blinked. "Really?"
"Kudo-kun, can you really see me joking right now?"
"Uhm…that joke you pulled when you first introduced yourself was pretty cruel. And uncalled for."
He could practically see her smirking. But not openly—the girl never showed emotions. He was always surprised if anything ever showed on her face. Haibara Ai was a statue.
Conan sighed. "Thanks, Haibara-san."
"Tomorrow's the last day of school—I'll call you so we can plan a little and set up whatever safety measures just in case the antidote doesn't work as expected." She left in the direction of the kitchen. Men had an inability to feed themselves. Conan rejoined Hakuba and Agasa-hakase at the TV.
…
Kaito decided he'd drop by the Police Department (aka NAKAMORI'S HEADQUARTERS) and ask whether anyone had seen Hakuba. Getting there was easy enough; it wasn't the first time he'd tagged along when Aoko went to see her dad "at work." Not that he was actually doing anything when a KID heist wasn't underway.
It was a short walk after school, though he and Aoko stopped by a café for a snack.
"Afternoon, Nakamori-keibu!" he cheerfully called out to the inspector as he walked in behind his childhood friend.
"How was your day, tousan?"
"Hello, Kaito-kun, Aoko-chan." The inspector didn't seem worried at all. After all, there hadn't been a KID heist note for a while. He mentally noted that he should find another jewel to check soon. If he didn't, everyone (including himself) would probably go crazy wondering why there hadn't been a heist for so long. And Kuroba Kaito was not one to disappoint.
"Hey, have you seen Hakuba-san lately?" he inquired curiously. Lying and faking expression came as second nature to the disguise artist.
Nakamori looked up at the question, then looked back and paused. "No, actually, I haven't. Usually he'd be all over the place trying to convince us we should be investigating KID even when there isn't a heist. He's been awfully quiet since Monday." Well, that was expected. "But it's odd," continued Nakamori. "I haven't seen nor heard from him at all, and he wasn't sick on Sunday either."
"Well, I dropped by his house earlier and he wasn't there then either. And I had a good prank planned too!" He feigned frustration. Okay, maybe the frustration wasn't all that fake. "He wasn't at school today, so I thought he was sick and I went over to see if I could try and cheer him up! But the annoying bird was the only living thing there…" Right. He rubbed at a still-red nip on his finger. His punishment for poking unprotected apendages into a bird cage. The hawk was probably starved by now and thought his finger was food. Either that, or it remembered him from Kaitou KID heists. Neither was appealing.
"Hm, even if this is highly unusual for Hakuba-kun, there's no need to worry, not unless he doesn't show up anywhere for another day or so. It's impossible to even file a missing persons report unless the person has been gone for at least 24 hours." Nakamori-keibu was unusually calm today. Or maybe it was simply the lack of a KID heist that had muffled the normal outbursts of words preferably left out of text. All the more reason to have a heist soon. Apparently people started going insane when faced with abnormal behaviors.
Okay, screw it all. Kaitou KID needed a heist, bad. Hakuba's little police report could wait at least a little. "Okay, Nakamori-keibu, Aoko, see you later." He hardly waited for Aoko to react to him leaving out any sort of suffix. The mop was not something he wanted right now.
The walk home was short enough, thank goodness, and helped calm his nerves. This heistless…ness was making him…restless. (Hey, that rhymed! …I really need to do SOMETHING.) And his friend's troubles weren't helping at all. Ugh.
…
Conan, by now, had left, and Ai was down in the lab…doing whatever it was she did down there. Probably working on an antidote.
Leaving Hakuba to think. About everything that was going on. Mostly about Edogawa-kun. He put together everything he knew about the boy in his head:
-Edogawa Conan is a pseudonym, similar to his Hirai Akechi. There's no way someone with the family name Edogawa (just like writer Edogawa Rampo—also unlikely) would name their child after the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Or at least the chances were very, very slim.
-He knew most of the information currently available about this Organization that they were up against. He was not surprised at all that Hakuba was a decade younger than he should have been. He also knew exactly what measures needed to be taken for disguises.
-He was somehow related to Kudo Shinichi, the famous kokosei tantei. Agasa-hakase, Kudo Shinichi's neighbor, did not hesitate at all to take Conan to Shinichi's house and trusted him enough to leave without explaination.
-He was quite mature for a seven-year-old, and had deductive skills equal to or greater than Hakuba and many detectives much older.
-It was in fact possible for a person to shrink.
From this, the most he could deduce was that Conan may, in fact, be another victim of the apotoxin, possibly even Kudo Shinichi himself, but…he had his doubts. More information was necessary. Granted, he could look at Conan whenever he was in the middle of a case, or in a serious mood, and he couldn't see any bit of a seven-year-old in his face, but, as was his nature, he needed evidence. Conclusive, hard evidence.
Tomorrow, he decided, he would spend gathering information on the boy wonder while he was at school. He could talk to Agasa-hakase, even if the professor wouldn't reveal the truth, not directly, that is, he could probably worm some information out. Hm…he should probably stop by the Mouri Detective Agency too—apparently Conan was very close to Mouri Ran, and was currently living with her and her father.
He'd hopefully just look like a curious little kid that was visiting his friends for the summer.
…
"Tadaima, Ran-neechan, Ojisan!" announced Conan as he walked in, putting his bag down and taking out the first of his homework.
"How was school, Conan-kun?" asked Ran, hesitantly. Her suspicions still stood, but as she struggled to keep from revealing anything, she found it hard to ask anything…personal. But she still felt silly, seeing as said suspicions had only just been aroused once more by Sonoko's prodding and "deductions."
Conan cheerfully answered, "It was fun, Ran-neechan! We helped the Kobayashi-sensei plain the party for tomorrow!" Right. The elementary school kids had parties on the last day of school. But Conan had sounded almost too cheeful. She shook the thought out of her head. She was overthinking it—of course he was cheeful, he was just a little kid. Right?
The "little boy" had his pencil out, breezing through some math problems. It was another example of Conan's…unchildlike behavior. He was clearly a brilliant kid, he got great grades. The homework was usually done in about five minutes, leaving Conan to do whatever all day long. Whenever she was watching, he worked slowly, like he had to think, but she knew that if she turned her back or failed to pay attention for a few minutes, it would be done quickly and efficiently, just to get it out of the way.
Then again, it was his last homework assignment of the year. Of course the teachers wouldn't give him a lot on the last day. Right?
She leaned on the counter and rubbed her head in confusion.
"Are you alright, Ran-neechan?" asked Conan, concerned, in that adorable innocent voice of his. It was one of…numerous things that seemed to always push her thoughts relating Conan to Shinichi far back in her head and see only her adorable adoptive little brother.
"Oh…yeah, I'm fine, Conan-kun." She might as well just enjoy the idea of simply having a little brother…
…
I will come against the greatest black tide
And return the Forest Song by home
Kaitou KID
~CHAPTER END~
AN://
XD Thought I'd leave you with a little KID note! A heist makes everyone's day better! And geez the things are hard to come up with…how the heck does Aoyama do it? And forget about coming up with murders! If the guy wanted to go homocidal, he'd probably need his own fictional detective in order to get caught.
Well, I'm gone for the next four days or so, so here I leave you. XD I'll be waiting for updates on plenty of fanfics when I get back! And chap 700! Which will hopefully be up by the time I'm home for the day again. And then I'm off once more on a road trip, so you won't be seeing much of me.
A Midsummer Night's Dream—Eh…-chuckles to self- Nothing! …right…
Pretztailfan95—Hm…I'll have to bring Heiji in sometime, so…that should be interesting. HAKUBA VS. HEIJI IS ALWAYS FUN. And I guess Conan is Yugi when you think about it. They can both instantly gain three feet vertically! XD But Conan vs. Hakuba doesn't have the same feel as Yugi vs. Kaiba. –shrug- Who knows?
AngelRoy—Hakuba: D8!!! Well, we'll see! I'm not spilling anything! I think I'm not spilling anything…And I guess Kaito is annoying as hell to Hakuba. Personally, I don't think anyone's quite…innocent enough to be Yugi. –shrug- But then again I'm not Yugioh expert.
xxBakaAkki—No, no! Criticism is good! It makes the world go around! I need more of it! Keep going, PLEASE! Make sure I'm aware that I'm as horrible as I am or else my ego will burst like Shinichi in epi 1!! Not a pretty picture!
goodness there were a lot of reviews for this chapter…
Kayla Edogawa—My Hakuba doesn't do anything! He's practically…just…watching everything that's going on. He NEVER talks! But, lol, glad you like it.
Helen the 2nd—He could…
Mel72000—You're welcome! Glad I could…goodify your week? Or help to do so? XD
Marie Ravenclaw--*cough* I never said anything of the like! –shiftyeyes- Ehehe… (Kaito: Ahem…) WELL ANYHOW… Watson's probably starved already. Poor bird. Probably stuck in the cage still too.
THAT WAS A LOT OF REVIEWS.
If I owned DC/MK, I would have been married to the voice actor for the main character of my anime. That voice actor is a girl. So am I. I'm pretty sure she's also easily twice to three times my age and I'm also not lesbian. I think. No offense intended. Oh, and I'd also have divorced her by now too, which is impossible seeing as I was never married in the first place. Common sense? Fanfic? Emphasis on FAN? Right.
