Don't own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito.

Making Plans


"So what am I supposed to do while you guys are having a night out?" Shinichi asked them, bag slung over his chair. They had landed in Spain without issue and, after a night in the hotel, met up to discuss plans.

Lupin shrugged and took a large swig of coffee that smelled far too much of alcohol to actually be coffee-based. "I don't know, kid, what do you want to do?"

Shinichi contemplated for a moment and shrugged back. "Wander, maybe. I don't think anything big is happening here beyond the viewing for the jewel you're after. I might just be a tourist and go find some overpriced shirt to buy."

"That's the spirit!"

As they went their separate ways Shinichi lingered at the table and took a sip of his coffee, hoping the caffeine would help pick him up. He'd spent most of the night before worrying fruitlessly over Kid; the thief hadn't looked very happy from what little the camera managed to catch of him the day before. Normally Kid was grinning his way through a heist as he dodged police officers and soccer balls with a near-unnatural grace. That night he'd only given the barest of smirks, and looked neutral every other time.

Shinichi had to tamp down the instinct to fly back to Japan and check on the thief himself. As lovely as the thought was, Japan was little more than a cage to him now; he wouldn't be able to handle waiting for the next full moon in the country.

Maybe he could go back the day before the next heist and so only be stuck there for two days before leaving again? That could work it would also give him a chance to pick up his phone again.

Shinichi scoffed a little to himself as he finished off his drink and stood. Honestly, planning everything in advance and then forgetting his phone on the day he decided to leave? Sounded like him. He rolled his eyes at the thought and collected his bag and violin case.

Maybe he could play on the street for the day and try and solve a case he'd read about in the paper. That sounded rather fun.


"Kuroba-kun?" Kaito heard to his right, and he looked up with an annoyed face even as he moved his left hand so that it could clench without being noticed.

"Can I help you Hakuba?" he asked, his normal level of aggravation whenever the other was around on his face as the blond watched him with a worry Kaito didn't appreciate in the slightest.

"Are you alright?" The blond looked uncharacteristically nervous. "You seemed quite upset yesterday."

"Can't say I know what you're talking about. I had a bit of a head cold and decided to stay in and sleep it off." His text history with Aoko would back that up due to a clever app he'd gotten made a few months ago that could delay texts. Aoko tended to watch and laugh as he sent complaining texts while he was sick, especially once he insisted he can take care of himself, he didn't need Ahoko butting in, thanks.

He saw irritation flash over Hakuba's face before disappearing again when Kaito moved to look at the board again. He'd tried to maintain his normal level of energy, but after how draining yesterday had been for him he just couldn't. He took out a coin to flip over his fingers on his left hand, forcing it to relax and come back into view. Hopefully returning to his Shinichi research could pick him back up again.

The rest of the day was spent with him and Aoko squabbling about him being sick, lying to Hakuba's face whenever the other teen tried to ask after him, and looking up more attractions in Japan that could have caught Shinichi's attention.

When the final bell went off Kaito sighed in poorly hidden relief and got up to leave, only to be waylaid by Akako. He glanced at her as he pulled his arm from her grasp and shifted his weight to be evenly distributed. "Can I help you?" he asked.

Akako frowned at him. "You're growing frantic," she said.

He snorted. "What are you talking about? School just ended and I made a few plans. I'm not worried in the slightest."

"Aren't you? Ever since you learned about the Devil of Light's escape from his gilded cage you've been losing your enthusiasm. Your last heist was proof of that."

Kaito quirked an eyebrow at her as his arms crossed over his chest. "My last what? I've told you before, I'm not Kid." He paused, trying to think of what else to say. "And what Devil of Light?"

She looked at him like he was being particularly stupid. "The one whose very presence can reveal all but the strongest of deceptions?" She shook her head. "No matter. If you wish to continue living as you are, trapped in a cage as your detective flies free, it is no concern of mine. Stop poisoning the air with your disquiet." And then she shoved a paper at him before turning and walking off, leaving him to scramble to stop it from falling out of his hands.

Paper secure in his hands, Kaito turned and watched her walk away with narrowed eyes. What did she mean by 'trapped in a cage as your detective flies free'? Did she mean Shinichi? Why did she know about his…interest in the other boy?

He cautiously shelved the thought for later and began looking for a trash can for the page of newspaper she'd shoved at him before something on the paper caught his eye. He froze and looked again.

It was a picture of an orchestra that had apparently played a month and a half ago, judging from the date of the newspaper. It was a number of people, most of them in their thirties and older.

With the exception of the wanly smiling Kudo Shinichi that Kaito spied in the violin section.

Kaito's eyes zeroed in on the article itself before a frown crossed his face. It was a different language, words contained harder consonants than Italian or Spanish. He would have to do some research to try and figure out where the newspaper was from.

As he started making his way home, Kaito felt his chest get lighter. He loved traveling Japan, trying to figure out what Shinichi did when he was there, where he'd gone, but he had been looking too far into the past and not enough into the present or future. It may have been because of Akako, but he just got his first lead on Shinichi. He probably wasn't in the papers every day, but it didn't look like he was avoiding them either.

Maybe Kaito had a chance of catching him sooner than he'd anticipated.


Shinichi was in the middle of a song he'd been winging when someone walked in front of him, placing money in the top hat at Shinichi's feet – he hadn't even put the hat there, someone else had, but people kept putting money into it for him – and holding out a hand as if to shake one of Shinichi's.

He let the song slowly trail away and shook the man's hand amidst the polite applause of the people around him. "Can I help you, sir?"

"You can, actually," the man said with a small, interested smile. "How would feel about making a bit more money than this way?"

Shinichi let his smile appear good-natured rather than suspicious. "Depends on how I'd be making it, sir."

The man laughed at his supposed joke. "I'm part of a talent-finding agency, and I think I could help you find some work with the local music troupes and theaters if you'd like."

Shinichi hid his reservations and started putting away his violin, checking the phone Lupin's group had acquired for him. No messages, as he expected. With the violin tucked away Shinichi put case under one arm, handed the top hat of money to a beggar that had moved to be near him and turned to face the man. "Please tell me more," he said, eyes wide with false-interest.

He thought he saw something like victory flash in the man's eyes, but wasn't sure if that was the case or he was projecting.


His mom was watching him from one laptop as he typed on another. He'd developed a simple search pattern, looking first for either of Shinichi's names and then looking for anything about a young Japanese man helping out in an area or event. It got him a number of false positives at times but they were easy to filter through on his own.

"Kaito, your last heist…" she started, sounding worried, and Kaito looked up from his computer and twirled the pen in his hand absently.

"What about my last heist?" he asked, lost in thought. So far he found possible evidence of Shinichi in Austria, Romania, and Italy. Was he only sticking to Europe at the moment?

"You seemed upset," she said gently. "Not even your Poker Face was hiding that."

"It's nothing," he first said, as an automatic response to the gentle prodding, "I just…" he trailed of before deflating a little. "Yeah, I was upset. I'm still upset."

"What happened?"

"You know Kudo Shinichi?" She should, certainly. Even if she hadn't been in the country for years, his detective has solved cases big enough to appear in foreign newspapers.

"Of course," she said. "He's Yuki-chan and Yuusaku-kun's kid, isn't he?"

That stopped Kaito short. "Um, yes? I think so?"

His mom read the confusion he wasn't bothering to hide and laughed into her hand. She looked to be by herself, relaxing in a café in Paris. "Do you not remember? Your father trained Yuki-chan and had quite the rivalry going between himself and Yuusaku-kun, much like you and their son as I understand."

Kaito coughed a little and tried to keep his face from heating. "I hope it's not like me and Shini- Meitantei." He took a breath to center himself, feeling his mom's eyes on him as she watches curiously. "He left a few months ago."

His mom raised an eyebrow. "What does that have to do with your heist last night?"

"…I may have found out that the reason Shi- Meitantei left was possibly because he was banned from attending my heists," Kaito admitted to his twirling pen, and the silence that followed was confused.

"Kaito, I think you're going to need to explain this to me better."

"Apparently Shinichi has wanderlust like his parents," Kaito began, and a nod from his mom let him know that she was rather familiar with that condition of theirs. "And the only reason he stayed in Japan was that he felt needed. I guess he thought I was last person left that needed him." Kaito shrugged; he wasn't quite sure of the logic, and the near frantic way the little miss, professor and Osakan detective acted when they found out kind of showed that Shinichi at the very least wasn't unwanted. "And then he caught Snake and was banned from my heists, so I guess he assumed…" Kaito trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

His mom hummed thoughtfully. "I actually know the feeling. Kaito. I'm sure you've already guessed, but I have wanderlust too." He nodded at the rather obvious observation. "So did your father, actually. We both loved traveling, going on world tours to steal gems wherever we went, it was such a rush." She sighed a little at the thought, lost to happy memories, and Kaito felt bad even as he cleared his throat to wake her up. "Right. And then, when we had you, we suddenly were perfectly fine staying in Japan. We knew you needed us, and you as a baby needed to stay in one place to feel safest."

She shrugged a little and her gaze flicked down. "After your father…passed, and you grew up enough to take care of yourself, I didn't feel needed anymore and it felt like Japan would suffocate me if I stayed any longer, so I left. I'm sure Shinichi-kun felt something similar."

Kaito blinked a little at the sudden deluge of information. "You've never told me this before," he accused, and she shot him an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, Kaito, but I was afraid that talking about it would…I don't know…make you realize you felt the same."

"What do you mean?" Kaito asked, apprehension about this talk stirring for the first time.

"Well, what do you plan to do after you graduate?"

"Look for Pandora and Shinichi," he answered immediately, and she nodded even as she raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"And what will you do after you find Shinichi-kun and destroy Pandora? Go back to Japan?"

"Why would I do that?" He asked, confused.

"Because you miss Aoko-chan and you can continue to be Kid and keep your fans happy. You can always video chat with Shinichi-kun once you've found him."

Kaito, who'd been reluctantly nodding along for most of her logic, balked at the last part. "What? He wouldn't come back?"

His mom shook her head. "Maybe in a few years, but going back to a place you felt stuck in for most of your life…I can't imagine he'd want to go back for more than a few days at most."

Kaito thought about it, thought about Shinichi coming to see him and looking like he was being chased by the Organization again, staring at the sky like he had on that roof months ago, disappearing for who knows how long again, and spoke without thinking. "I don't want to stay in Japan."

She blinked a little at that before a thoughtful look crossed her face. "I'll ask you about that later, once you've thought more about it. Let's go back to what we were talking about before. So Shinichi-kun left when he was banned from your heists, and then what? You found out, clearly."

"It took me a month to figure it out," Kaito admitted, and crossing his arms a little and leaning back in his chair. "When Meitantei didn't attend the heist after that I went to his place to talk to him and found out he'd left the month before. His parents said he must not have felt needed anymore but that didn't make any sense."

His mom looked at him, somewhat confused. "Why would that not make sense?"

Kaito coughed at the question and looked away, fighting down the heat growing in his cheeks. "I may have implied to him that I still needed him." His blush only grew worse as his mom cooed at him in delight. "Mom, please!"

"Alright, alright," she giggled and subsided. For the time being. "And then you found out he was banned from the heists?"

He nodded glumly. "Nakamori-keibu said that Hakuba had told him to do it, so I wanted to confirm that was what happened, but…"

"But Shinichi-kun not being there makes it all less fun now," she finished for him, and he nodded again. She sighed in understanding. "Keep at it if you can, Kaito," she encouraged. "If you can finish school you'll be able to travel more freely to find Pandora, and who knows, maybe you'll find Shinichi-kun while you're looking."

"Maybe," Kaito agreed, and felt his spirits rise a little at the thought. If the only thing keeping Shinichi from going to his heists was the Inspector and Japan, removing those from the equation should entice him back into attending.


"You okay, kid?" Jigen asked him, and Shinichi blinked at the man for a moment, caught off guard.

"Of course. I'm rather happy I managed to find the serial killer that had been targeting street musicians while you guys were off stealing The Nova." It had been near frighteningly easy, if Shinichi were honest. Once the man had led him to an abandoned warehouse and tried to drug Shinichi with chloroform, it had been child's play to get the guy with an anesthetic needle. After that he'd called the police, still a bit woozy from the bits of the drug he'd inhaled, and the rest of the day was spent talking with them.

"I wish you'd told us that was your plan." The man grumbled, but Shinichi just relaxed further into his own chair with a sigh.

"I didn't really have a plan until about half an hour after you guys left. Sorry." He shrugged candidly as he said that and didn't acknowledge the frustrated look Jigen was shooting him. "So we're going to Paris now, right?"

Jigen grunted, seeing his diversion for what it was, but let it go. "Yup. Have you found the one you want to gun for this time?"

"I think so. There's a display being hosted by one of the wealthiest in the country, which is showing off a bunch of the gems he keeps hidden away most of the time. There's a star sapphire on display there called Starlight Symphony, and it sounded rather…eye-catching."


Thanks for reading and please review.