Chapter Two: Situational

Kudo Shinichi had grown up knowing that he was going to be someone great. Not just because of the fact that his parents were both well-known and successful, or because he had a sharp mind. His own Soul Mark was proof to him, and he'd desperately wanted, ever since he was little, to live up to the future reputation that his Soul Mark spoke of.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I've heard many great things about you~!"

His mark was written in a slightly sloppy handwriting, but one that, despite its sloppiness, seemed to speak of vast amounts of energy. It also had a certain elegance to its strokes, the tail end of each one slanting towards the starting tip of the next, as if, though it wasn't in cursive, each stroke could easily be connected, one to the next, by an invisible curving line.

The color, too, was vibrant, so full of energy and life. It almost seemed to sparkle and dance under the light, a wonderful shade of indigo that Shinichi instantly fell in love with the first time he'd laid eyes upon his Soul Mark.

And the words... They promised him a future worth living for. A reputation to live up to. He would be somebody. Even before they met, his Soulmate would know about him, will have heard "many great things"! Shinichi ultimately did live up to those words, gaining a reputation as a world-class detective even as a high school student. The elegance and sophistication behind the words, too, gave Shinichi hope for a Soulmate of equal intelligence to his own.

Shinichi did worry though, sometimes, about his Soul Mark, and his Soulmate, even though he'd never met them. There were a few times in his life when the vivid indigo of his mark seemed to grow duller than before, when the bright glow the words emitted grew dimmer... For the most part it was shining and beautiful and every bit as wonderful as Shinichi imagined his Soulmate would be. But some days it seemed to fade a tad bit... And for a few months, when he was about nine, the color had shifted to being that of a very dull and mellow blue and, where before the words had been so bright he could read them even in the dark, they'd dimmed to barely the light of a dying ember.

When that had happened, Shinichi had panicked. He'd heard before that when a Soulmate dies and leaves their partner behind, the partner's Soul Mark would become as gray as the eyes of a dead person and the glow of life in their mark faded away. Seeing his own mark change color so drastically over the course of a single day and become so dim, though not to a dull gray as those of the dead or to a full-out lackluster, had made him fear that his Soulmate might have died or suffered some great injury and was on the verge of death.

His parents and a specialist assured him that his Soulmate wasn't dead. The specialist was of the opinion that perhaps something bad had happened and his Soulmate was depressed... Shinichi hadn't been pleased to hear that. The specialist his parents hired on Soul Marks told him that just as people's eyes could grow brighter with excitement and hazy with sleep, a Soul Mark could react in kind. If his Soulmate was depressed or had suffered a loss, his eyes, and Shinichi's Soul Mark, could reflect that by growing dimmer in color and losing their shine.

Shinichi kept this in mind as, over the course of several months, his Soul Mark showed no change. Finally, after half a year, it looked as if it was steadily growing back towards being the vibrant hue of indigo it had once been and the light it once emitted began to return. Within two years its color was once again holding steady and he could read the words again even in the dark, only occasionally dulling on what Shinichi deduced were bad days for his Soulmate and brightening on good ones. His Soul Mark never again held the same vibrancy that it once had though. Whatever had happened, Shinichi imagined it must have been pretty bad, and he vowed that one day, when he met his Soulmate, he would do everything in his power to get it back to the vivid shade of luminescent indigo it had once been.

After he met the Kaitou KID, his mark almost disappeared.

Shinichi had gone home that night after returning the jewel, thoughts racing through his mind. How could his Soulmate, the one he'd fantasized about for so long, be a criminal?! Shouldn't his Soulmate at least respect the law, something which Shinichi himself valued above almost all else?! How much could they really get along if his Soulmate wouldn't even do that?

For a while Shinichi sat on his bed, just thinking numbly. It finally occurred to him that, in reality, he didn't know much about KID. He'd been invited to the heist by his childhood friend Ran's best friend, Sonoko, and he'd only been vaguely interested in it at first. When he saw the notice he became much more intrigued, but he still hadn't bothered to actually do research on the Kaitou KID.

Shinichi grabbed his laptop and carried it over to his bed. He searched a few things, reading whatever he could find... It wasn't much to go on. The Kaitou KID was an enigma. Nobody knew who he really was, or how old he was. Shinichi managed to deduce by what little he found that the current KID was, in fact, KID the Second, not the original KID that disappeared eight years ago, so there was still hope that his Soulmate wasn't some old man.

Shinichi was also reminded of the fact that KID never kept anything that he stole, which meant that his motives were unknown, at best, and speculative, at worst. Some people (particularly one Inspector Nakamori, head of the Kaitou KID Task Force), seemed to think that he did it all for fun. Something about that didn't sit quite right with Shinichi.

By the time he'd researched everything he could on KID, it was nearly six in the morning. Shinichi sighed and closed his laptop, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. He glanced to his side and spotted the full-body length mirror on his closet door. He walked over to it, flipping on a light atop his bedside table as he went, and lifted his shirt, looking down at the words on his torso as he had many times before.

His heart nearly stopped beating.

They'd never gotten back to the hue they had been before Shinichi was nine and some tragedy had supposedly stricken his Soulmate, but now the words on his skin were an even duller, nearly gray color, more faded than they had been that night eight years ago, and suddenly something clicked.

It was about eight years ago that the color of his Soul Mark had faded, and the original Kaitou KID disappeared eight years ago as well. Many people had speculated at the time that KID had died... Knowing now what he did, Shinichi couldn't help but wonder if the two events had anything to do with each other. Chances were high, actually, that they did, given who he now knew his Soulmate to be.

So maybe being KID was something personal and important to his Soulmate, and even if it wasn't, Shinichi was now reminded of the fact that his Soulmate had seen some hardships in life which had permanently affected him. Even if his Soulmate was a criminal, and if he did it just for fun and not some grander reason, his heists never hurt anyone. So, Shinichi could look past this one possible flaw, couldn't he? KID didn't seem like an altogether bad person. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was charming, and as Shinichi had known his whole life, even his first words to the detective had been kind and respectful and maybe even admiring.

And Shinichi had responded by saying that he didn't want him. The memory of his own words and the faded color of the words across his hip suddenly had Shinichi feeling sick. His Soulmate was out there suffering, possibly due to him, probably because of him, maybe even dying if the still fading color was anything to go by, and for what? Because Shinichi had been surprised to find out that his Soulmate was a criminal?

Shinichi frowned, a look of hard determination settling on his features as he tugged the bottom hem of his shirt back down. He'd met Hakuba Saguru thrice before, and based on the articles he'd just read, the half-British detective seemed to think he might know the true identity of the Kaitou KID, though he wouldn't say anything more without some form of evidence or proof.

Shinichi searched his contacts on his phone as he exited his house, starting at a brisk walking pace towards the nearest train station. He found Hakuba's number saved amongst his contacts and pressed the call button.

He had to call a few times. Possibly, he belatedly realized, because it wasn't yet even six-thirty in the morning on a Sunday after a KID heist (meaning that Hakuba had no doubt been up most of the night too), but eventually the call went through. "Hakuba-kun?"

The blond on the other end of the line replied in the affirmative. "It's good to hear from you, Kudo-kun, though I must say that I wasn't expecting a call from you. Does this have something to do with you storming off after the KID heist last night?"

Shinichi didn't respond at first. How much should he say? Surely, he couldn't just come out and say that he and KID were Soulmates, especially not if Shinichi ever wanted to be involved with KID, seeing as the thief obviously had to have a day-time persona. "I... Well, yes. Something like that. Listen, Hakuba, I'm really sorry to ask this, but I'd appreciate any information you have on KID. You have a suspect, right? What's his name? Where does he live?"

Hakuba seemed to consider. "I'd really like to help, Kudo-kun, but I do have my concerns..." Hakuba was too polite to say it, but Shinichi knew what he was thinking. 'If I share this information with you, Kudo, will you use it to swoop in and catch KID before me, thus claiming the glory and right to say you caught him that I've been working on for so long?' Detectives didn't always work together, after all, and it had happened in the past; one detective stealing the right to claim they'd solved the case from another detective using the swindled detective's own information. Shinichi had never done that though and didn't plan to ever do something so dishonorable either. He wasn't in it for the fame, after all. He didn't care who got credit as long as the criminal was always caught in the end...

Except for today. Today, he thought it best to let the criminal go free, so... "I promise, Hakuba-kun, I'm not looking to steal the KID case from you. I just really need to find him, to talk to him. Please, it's important."

Hakuba considered again before sighing into the phone. "Alright, Kudo-kun. My suspect, of whom I have no evidence against, is a boy who goes by the name of Kuroba Kaito." Shinichi shivered upon hearing the name. "He's a young magician, and his father as well was a world-class magician until his death in a magic accident eight years ago." Shinichi almost stopped at that, his face twisting as more pieces to the puzzle fell into place. He forced himself to keep moving though, if only because he could see the train station up ahead now and he desperately wanted to find his Soulmate as quickly as possible. Checking the street around him and finding it devoid of life, he lifted his shirt and glanced down at his Soul Mark again, concerned to see that it was still steadily and slowly fading in coloration. He quickened his pace. "He lives in Ekoda and attends Ekoda High School, where in which I have myself been attending school for the purpose of keeping an eye on him. I can text you his address and phone number if you'd like," Hakuba added as he heard a train horn over the line, deducing that Shinichi must already be at a train station waiting to catch a train to Ekoda. Whatever the problem was, the half-Brit figured it must be pretty serious for Kudo Shinichi to be catching a train at six-thirty in the morning.

"Yes, please. Thank you, Hakuba-kun. I owe you big time. I mean it."

Hakuba gave a polite sound of dismissal. "It's fine, Kudo-kun. As long as I don't read in the papers tomorrow that you've captured the Kaitou KID. You'd come to me before making an arrest, wouldn't you?" 'Especially since my information will have led to it' went unsaid.

"Of course," Shinichi instantly promised, having no intention of arresting KID... Or Kuroba Kaito.

They said their final pleasantries and Shinichi hung up as he stepped onto the train to Ekoda. A few minutes later he received a text with a phone number and address. He called the number. Once, twice, three, ten times. No answer at any point.

'He's fine. He's just sleeping. He had a heist last night, he's tired. He's just asleep...' Shinichi didn't believe his own thoughts for a second. If the dull purple words on his skin were anything to go by, only a few shades away from being a pale gray, barely still glowing when he shielded them from the light around him, then everything was most definitely not okay.

Shinichi spent his time on the train looking up directions to the Kuroba household on his phone, memorizing the fastest rout there from the Ekoda train station, pausing intermitenly to call his Soulmate's number again without success. As soon as the doors to the train opened, he was shooting out like a bullet, racing as fast as he could through the streets. It was several long minutes before he made it to his destination, panting hard from exertion and thankful that he was a sports star and, thus, a quick runner.

He rang the doorbell a few times before trying to catch his breath. When there was no answer for ten seconds, he rang it again, this time also knocking on the door.

'What am I doing? My Soul Mark is evidence to suggest he could be in trouble. I should just go in!' He hesitated only a moment longer, wondering if a Soul Mark's fading was enough evidence to claim probable cause or if this was technically breaking and entering, before deciding that he didn't care and shoving the door open. It was unlocked (cocky thief), and Shinichi stormed inside, pausing very briefly to take off his shoes.

"Kuroba?" He called to the quiet home. Nothing was out of place, so far as he could tell... He would have begun searching the rooms, but something pulled him towards the stairs. Standard police search patterns would have suggested he start with all the rooms on the bottom floor, but his very soul seemed to be calling him upwards. He'd heard that Soulmates were naturally drawn to each other after their initial meeting, so he followed his intuition, going straight for a bedroom down the upstairs hallway. "Kuroba-kun?" When there was no answer, he opened the door.

A/N: Thanks so much for all the reviews this story has already generated, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! (=^ω^=)ノ