Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito. Let's all be glad that such a great series didn't need to suffer my lack of patience.
Sunday.
The next day, Kaito and Shinichi's study-date was interrupted by a Brit whose name rhymes with Sakuba Haguru.
"Kuroba! How dare you try and-! Oh, hello Kudo-san."
It was Hakuba Suguru, the famous British teen detective, son of the police commissioner, etc, etc, etc.
"Hello Hakuba," replied the teen magician. Suddenly, the room's temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
"Good morning," said Shinichi, a touch of exasperation in his voice.
"Wonderful weather, isn't it?" Hakuba commented, ignoring Kaito.
"Is this about KID again?"
"Still ignoring the evidence? Kudo-san, I really looked up to you, Sempai. Lately, however, you've abandoned all our Holmes principals. Are you going to turn your back to logic, reasoning, and all else of investigation?"
"Kaito told me he's not KID."
"Oh, it's 'Kaito' now? First-name basis? Do you trust him that much?"
Shinichi felt his heartbeat quicken. A testimony was the flimsiest of evidence; he already knew this from years of detective work. So why was he so reluctant to suspect Kaito? There was no hard evidence of guilt, still, Hakuba's words sounded so sane half the time.
"Do you have hard evidence? No? Well, then I'll put my trust in him. If this is the sole reason you decided to pay me a visit today, then I'd like to ask you to leave."
"Kudo-san...! Well, I originally came to ask for your opinion on another case. You have heard of the so-called 'Death on the Files' case in Okinawa, right?"
"It's the bank manager, as you no doubt already know."
"Ah, in that case I'll advise the police to persecute. Thank you. Goodbye, Kudo-san. Kuroba, take good care of the precious Heisei Holmes, would you? We wouldn't want him to be... betrayed, would we?"
With that, Hakuba left.
Shinichi looked over to Kaito. The other boy was trembling, face ashen. Why? Hakuba had only talked about KID. Was it that trust thing, then? Or was that really it? The great detective certainty of anything quite fled him at that point. He just had to ask again.
"Kaito?"
"S-Shinichi...? Sorry about that... I was..."
"Kaito, you're not, you know, KID, right?"
"I... I... no... it's just Hakuba going around... shooting off his mouth... again..."
"Then what's there to worry about?"
"...thanks for believing in me... Shinichi..."
"Well, you've already said you're not KID, so what's there to disbelieve?"
Somehow, it sounded so much like a hopeful worm dangled to fish for confirmation. Since when had he become so weak?
"It's... nothing... just... I wished... I thought that... Sorry about this, Shinichi... I'll be going home... thanks for everything..."
"Kaito...?"
"Bye... Shinichi..."
With that, the other boy tore his eyes away from the detective, practically sprinting.
"Kaito?!"
Why did this remind him of some day? It was like KID's last heist. Shinichi's own recount was hazy from that final bullet wound, but he was pretty sure he could piece it all together from that and the reports...
...he remembered, though, that the final chain of events started with him sprinting up, charging after the phantom theif.
.
.
.
He was sprinting up, charging after that phantom thief.
But today was not an ordinary heist.
As KID ran and ran, as if almost panicked, he abandoned all pretext of confidence. Investing all his engery, instead, into the goal of getting away as fast as possible.
"Damn it!" he cried as Shinichi escaped yet another trap.
"Give up already! I can see your plan, KID!" Shinichi shot back as they scambled up the stairs higher, higher, higher until they nearly found themselves on the roof, scraping the clouds...
...faster, faster, faster as the last door flew open...
"Meitantei-san! Watch out...!"
...followed by the familiar bang! of gunpowder. In a push and a sudder, the game of pursuit ended. All pretenses of alacrity dropped like hundred-pound dumbells in an instant. The detective felt pain spread through his nerves like an unstoppable deluge, inondating his senses as he was falling, falling, falling down. It was already too late to turn back and reconsider.
"MEITANTEI-SAN!"
The pain flowed without any sign of stopping. He wasn't in shock, no where near that, because the detective already knew it could happen. If he could save him, that great phantom, that matchless magician, that scarred soul...
.
.
.
Shinichi couldn't remember who it was behind the mirage of the great KID. He had known, at some point, but it was an on-the-spot deduction, something in his short-term memory, and getting a concussion from going down stairs the wrong way really didn't do wonders for that.
The report detailed a plan he put together as an ambush. Shinichi could barely recall it happening, although Jody said it was brilliant, apart from him getting shot. While assassins were occupied with KID, the FBI and local forces would take them down. The scheme had suceeded, against many odds. One by one, other golden flakes of information came to light, leading investigating down to the motherload, the gold vein of the issues.
KID's Ravens had collapsed upon themselves, as did eventually the Black Organization Shinichi knew and detested.
Still, he had the vaguest impression of whispers from a certain phantom theif pressed into his ear, of a murdered father, of finding the one truth, of how it seemed it would destroy him, and of finding love admist this.
.
.
.
"Meitantei-san... I'm sorry you had to break my policy. Especially that it was you. I'll meet you again in on Valentine's Day... and... if one can hope... perhaps you'll deign to hear me out and maybe we'll even get coffee. I'll make sure you get yours black, okay? Please, don't die now... I can't live with myself if you do, Shinichi... dangsin-eul salanghabnida (love you)..."
AN: Hello, I'm back. Wow, this chapter's really late. I feel terrible about that. I've been a bit down, what with things changing, and I feel almost as if I've had too much energy to do anything at night, including sleep, most times. It's really horrible, because you know you need to sleep, and study, and et cetera, but you really can't seem to relax enough to think about anything. Then I'm really tired during the day time.
It's probably been speculation that I'm a procrastinator, since I write really late... and then later and later and later... I hope you all still like this fic despite its problems and maybe liked this chapter, though I think my writing's horrible when I just start something or restart a project.
I hope I at least got the Korean ("love you"), if not the timing right... I had to use google translate and it's not like Japanese where I've watched so much that I can practically guess at meanings half the time. I think I'm using too much of Kaito from that MK episode with the theme park trip with Aoko for this fic...