Post-Story Chapter: Introduction to Ran

A/N: For these post-story add-ons, the last chapter in the main story of this AU did not occur, so Kaito's Soul Mark still reads: "What? NO! I don't want YOU as my Soulmate!"

Shinichi and Kaito walked, hand-in-hand, into the little café known as Poirot beneath the Mouri Detective Agency. Kaito appeared to be calm and relaxed, as he always did, shoulders sagging and casual as he strode easily at Shinichi's side, but Shinichi, detective that he was, could see the ever-so-faint furrowing of Kaito's brow, his skin drawn just a slight bit more taught than was natural for him, and the detective knew he was nervous.

"Relax, Kaito, she'll love you because I love you, and she's my best friend. Besides, you're great, so really, there's nothing to worry about."

Kaito chuckled softly. He'd barely met Shinichi a little under a week ago, but after staying with the guy for four days upon his release from the hospital and possibly because Shinichi was a great detective, he could already tell what Kaito was thinking more accurately than anyone else Kaito knew. Maybe it was a testament to the fact they were made for each other, or to how carefully Shinichi observed him at all times, but Kaito found his detective's attentiveness to his feelings endearing.

"I know, Shinichi. I am pretty fantastic." Shinichi rolled his eyes, but didn't reprimand his Soulmate. He knew that Kaito's less humble antics were usually either an attempt to cover up his own lack of confidence, or else his ego was, to Shinichi, justified.

They entered the café and Shinichi quickly spotted Ran sitting in the back corner. Kaito noted her similarities to Aoko physically and visibly relaxed. He knew this girl wasn't, in fact, his childhood friend, but somehow their uncanny resemblance put him at ease. Mouri Ran also had the same kind and understanding eyes Aoko possessed, sparked with a bit of passionate fire, and Kaito felt before even greeting her that they'd get along splendidly. After all, he very much doubted that he wouldn't get along with Shinichi's closest childhood friend. They were practically brother and sister, so Kaito would make sure to do everything he could to appease her and earn her approval.

As it turned out, he'd had her approval long before approaching the table.

"Shinichi!" Ran greeted, springing up from the table to bow politely in greeting to Kaito. "And your Soulmate, oh, finally! You know, Shinichi's been bragging about you since we were little kids, long before he even met you, so it's great that you two finally found each other! My name's Mouri Ran, it's nice to meet you!"

Kaito blinked. "Bragging about me since you were kids?" He sent a lop-sided grin Shinichi's way, making the detective blush slightly and huff.

"Yes, well, even before I met you I knew you'd be polite, and smart, and I knew the color of your eyes at least, so... It felt like enough to be going on at the time, when I was younger, so I'd pretty much made up my mind that you were great by the age of three."

Kaito chuckled and turned his attention back to Ran, snapping his fingers and presenting her with a crisp golden-yellow rose. "The pleasure is mine, Mouri-san. Kuroba Kaito, magician extraordinaire, at your service." He bowed politely and presented her with the rose, which she easily accepted.

"A magician? Wow, I never would have expected an artist to end up with my boring murder-prone little brother, but I'm glad. Shinichi could probably really use a source of magic and brightness in his gloomy life." She laughed and the three of them took their seats. "My best girl-friend Sonoko is going to love you, she's a big magic fan."

A waitress came and took their orders, a coffee for Shinichi, hot chocolate for Kaito, and glass if water for Ran, who'd already had a mocha while she was waiting for them.

Shinichi and Kaito exchanged a look. Kaito was already aware of Suzuki Sonoko, having seen her about at numerous heists, and he wasn't particularly looking forward to meeting her. The only plus-side for him was that she'd already found her Soulmate in the form of one Kyogoku Makoto, and had since stopped obsessing over KID to the degree which she had been before.

"Yes, well, I'm sure I'll meet her eventually," Kaito said politely, angling to change the topic. "So, how much has Shinichi told you about me?"

Ran smiled at the fact that the two of them were already on a first-name basis. There was no reason for them not to be, of course, being Soulmates and all, but she found it adorable all the same.

"Actually, Shinichi hasn't told me much. He just told me yesterday that he found his Soulmate and asked if I wanted to meet you, which of course I did. He refused to tell me anything about you though until we could actually meet, which means I have a lot of questions. Like where did you two meet? You look to be about the same age as Shinichi and me, how old are you exactly? Where do you live? If you lived in Beika you two probably would have met before now because you'd probably go to school with us, so I assume you don't live too close by."

Shinichi rolled his eyes. "You spend too much time around me, you're starting to sound like a detective."

Ran huffed at him. "Excuse me, I am the daughter of the great detective Mouri Kogoro! I inherited my few detective skills from him, not from you. And I'm not nearly as much of a nerd about it as you, either. Now answer my questions, please, I want to know everything!"

Shinichi laughed nervously and prepared to stutter out some made-up way in which he and Kaito could have met. "Ah, yes, well, we met at, um-"

"A heist," Kaito supplied, and Shinichi blinked at him, surprised by his candor. "I'm a Kaitou KID fan, and you know Shinichi went to his first KID heist last weekend, right? Well I was there, and that's how we met. I'm actually friends with Nakamori-keibu's daughter, I'm the Nakamori's next-door neighbor, so I get dragged along to heists every now and again."

Shinichi looked surprised. "What, really? You live next to Nakamori-keibu? Isn't that... Hard?" But Kaito only laughed and waved off his concern.

"Nah, makes things interesting~!"

"But wait, you mean you actually like KID?" Ran asked. "Well, I guess as a magician you would, but doesn't it bother you that he's a criminal? And your Soulmate is a detective, so shouldn't you at least be against KID if Shinichi's trying to catch him?"

Shinichi and Kaito looked at each other again, Shinichi searching Kaito's eyes for answers, looking nervous.

Kaito shrugged. "She is an award-winning karate champion so, in the long run, I think maybe the truth is best, don't you agree?" He asked Shinichi.

"Are you sure?"

"She won't do anything, will she?"

Shinichi shook his head. "No, she wouldn't. If she did it would end our friendship in a heartbeat and she wouldn't do something like that."

Kaito shrugged again. "Then we can tell her. I don't mind. It's not as if she'll be the only person to know, and chances are high she'd find out sooner or later anyway."

Ran was watching the whole exchange with skeptical and slightly worried eyes. She tried to relax before butting in. "Whatever's going on, I wouldn't do anything to hurt Kuroba-kun if it'd hurt Shinichi too. Just tell me the truth and I'll try to understand, but if I knew you were lying to me I don't think I'd trust you to be with Shinichi," she admitted. She looked between the two of them and, regarding the facts she'd already learnt, thought she might know where this was going.

"You can call me Kaito," the magician corrected before nodding at Shinichi. "I think it's best you say it. She's less likely to kill you, right?"

"Er, right..." Shinichi agreed before facing Ran. "Well, Ran, you see, the thing is, Kaito may-"

"Or may not be," Kaito intercepted. Telling Ran the truth didn't mean they had to hand over undeniable evidence or anything, right?

Shinichi nodded in agreement. "Yeah, okay. So Kaito may, or may not, be the... Um, you know. He may be the Kaitou KID."

Ran, the understanding and usually calm-headed girl she was, merely hummed. "Well, that's very... interesting... Wow, Sonoko's really going to love you. Maybe we shouldn't tell her about this though," she said, trying to lighten the mood. She could tell both Shinichi and Kaito were really nervous about divulging this information to her, even if the Kuroba did a rather good job of hiding it.

"God, please, don't. I don't think I could survive having that girl's undivided attention without anything to hide behind!"

Ran chuckled. "Yeah, she can be a bit extreme from time to time. But, Kuro-I mean, Kaito-kun," she reached forward, cupping her hands gently around Kaito's left hand which was resting lightly on the table. "You're Shinichi's Soulmate, so I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. If Shinichi doesn't want to turn you in, then I won't do anything either." Kaito smiled and was about to say something, when Ran's grip on his hand began to tighten. She wasn't doing any serious damage, of course, but damn that girl had a strong grip! "But if you hurt Shinichi, all bets are off, and the police are the last thing you'll have to worry about, okay?"

Kaito's eyes widened and he hastily nodded. "Yes, of course, definitely. Wouldn't dream of it!" He promised, and Ran, still smiling sweetly, let go of his hand. Kaito instantly pulled it back, flexing his fingers, looking slightly terrified, but also highly impressed. "I guess I should be concerned for my own safety, but I'm really just glad that Shinichi has a protective sister like you looking after him, Mouri-san."

"Good!" Ran agreed. "And if I have to call you Kaito-kun then you can call me Ran, okay? Since you two are Soulmates, you're practically my brother too now. We should definitely be on a first-name basis." Ran looked over at Shinichi. "As long as Shinichi's okay with it all, I mean." Shinichi knew that Ran wasn't asking if he was okay with them being on a first-name basis, she was wondering how Shinichi felt about his new Soulmate.

She knew what his answer would be before he gave it though. Since they first entered the café she'd noticed that Shinichi's attention hardly ever left Kaito, and Kaito was likewise trying not to glance at Shinichi every ten seconds and failing. They had that natural attraction of Soulmates that Ran had both seen and experienced first-hand before. Criminal or not, she could already tell that her brother was smitten for Kuroba Kaito and wouldn't be letting him go anytime soon.

And as Suzuki Sonoko's best friend, Ran also didn't mind that Kaito was apparently KID. Her best friend had long since convinced her that KID was, at the very least, not among the worst criminals. Maybe she didn't necessarily think KID was a great or even good person like Sonoko was prone to claiming, but she easily knew that KID was at least nothing like the murderers Shinichi dealt with on a near-daily basis. She supposed Shinichi could have done worse, could have been Soul-Bound to a really nasty criminal because wouldn't that just be his type of luck? To be bound to a murderer or drug-dealer or something? Being bound to KID, she could live with, and Kuroba Kaito seemed nice enough so-far. At the very least, he was equally as head-over-heels for Shinichi as Shinichi was for him, even if he did a better job of at least trying to hide it.

During Ran's inner musings, a period of a few seconds had passed and she realized that Shinichi and Kaito were now apparently quite distracted studying the way their hands fit together under the table. Shinichi was blushing, and Kaito smirked, doing a little wiggly thing with his eyebrows. Shinichi tried to frown, and failed miserably, chuckling instead at the magician's quirky antics and flirtations.

"So," Ran interrupted, dragging them back out of the little world they'd fallen into where only the two of them seemed to exist. As much as she loved seeing her best friend happy and interacting with his Soulmate, she still had questions she wanted to ask. "So you live next to the Inspector who chases you and are best friends with his daughter. That's funny. But you never did answer my question about where you live. Is it far?"

Kaito shook his head. "Not terribly. About an hour's drive away, maybe two by bus, but I have ways of crossing the distance faster."

"Of course you do," Shinichi mumbled under his breath, but Kaito ignored him.

"I live in Ekoda, still in Tokyo, so it's not as if distance will be a real issue for us. And who knows, maybe when we go to University next year I'll just apply wherever Shinichi wants to go? If I even go to college, that is. It's not like I really have much use for it, being the fantastic magician that I am and all. As for how old I am – that was one of the questions you asked right – I'm seventeen, only about half a year younger than the two of you."

"Can you cook?" Kaito had to blink at that question. "Because Shinichi can't cook at all, and he doesn't eat properly if I don't cook and force-feed him, so as his Soulmate I expect you to take over and do that for me."

Kaito laughed and Shinichi blushed, embarrassed. "Ran-!" He would later deny it, but he was whining.

"Well, I'm pretty good at baking," Kaito supplied, "and I'm sure I could learn how to cook properly. Most of the meals I eat are simple, I usually just snack on various fruits and vegetables through-out the day, but I'm sure I can pick up some culinary skills. I just have to follow a recipe, right?"

Ran shook her head. "Yeah, you'd think so, but Shinichi can't cook, even though he can read perfectly fine. I honestly don't know how he ends up burning everything."

Kaito sent Shinichi a mischievous look. "Maybe he does it so you'll have to cook for him."

Shinichi sputtered. "What?! Absolutely not! I wouldn't do that!" Shinichi denied vehemently.

"Could be subconscious," Kaito disagreed, making Shinichi glare daggers at him and Ran laugh.

"Okay, so, you met at one of his heists," she motioned to Kaito subtly with a small wave of her hand, "and Kaito-kun swept Shinichi off his feet with his magic tricks and the charming first-words I know are written as Shinichi's Soul Mark. What was it like for you, Kaito-kun? Was it his snarky personality or something? What'd he say to you?"

Shinichi tensed and frowned, eyes casting downward, but Kaito only smiled, pulling out his best Poker Face and subconsciously pulling a bit at the left sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt. "Oh, I'd pretty much already fallen for him before we even met. There's plenty about him on the internet, you know, and I'd already researched him because I'd heard he was going to be there that night, and I wanted to know how much of a challenge he'd be. Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed that night. I'm definitely the kind of person who can appreciate the intellectual types. He knows how to keep me on my toes, makes life interesting, things like that." To Shinichi's surprise, Kaito then pulled up the left sleeve of his shirt, revealing his Soul Mark only... smaller.

"As for my Soul Mark, as you can see, it just says 'What?'" Shinichi stared at the expanse of Kaito's left-arm's skin, where he'd covered over the majority of his mark and the scars left by his attempt to cut it off that first night with make-up, leaving only clean-looking skin and one word, the first word, from the original mark: "What?"

"Shinichi was surprised to find me that night, hadn't been expecting to hear the words of his Soul Mark being spoken aloud, especially not by me, so I'd kinda dumbfounded him."

Ran rolled her eyes. "Really? He gave you a nice mark and all you gave him was 'What?'" She asked in fond exasperation while Shinichi violently cringed at her words.

Kaito barely reacted though, letting out a light laugh that only Shinichi knew was forced. If Shinichi had to guess, he'd say Kaito had been practicing for this. "No, I actually like my mark. It's not easy to dumfound Shinichi, after all, so I'm kinda proud of the moment."

Shinichi's frown deepened, if that was possible, and while Ran was saying "Oh, that's nice," Shinichi was grabbing Kaito by the arm and pulling him up out of his chair.

"Can you excuse us for a moment, Ran? I've got to talk to Kaito about something alone for a minute." He didn't wait for a response before dragging Kaito out the back door of the café and into the alley that stretched along between the buildings around them.

"Shinichi, I'm sorry, I didn't think it-" Kaito instantly began, speaking quickly and sounding slightly hysterical, but Shinichi shook his head.

"No, it's okay, I just…. I wish you'd told me beforehand, you know? I thought we were going to tell Ran the truth is all. I mean, what your Soul Mark says is hardly a bigger secret than your night activities, is it? But, if you don't want to show it to her, that's totally okay. I just…. Can I ask why you don't want to show it to her? I mean, I'll understand if you're just ashamed or you don't want her to think differently of you because of it…."

Kaito jumped to reassure him. "No, no, it's not that. I mean, there are certainly people in the past I've hidden my mark from because I didn't want them to pity me or something, but Ran-chan seems nice enough, and she's practically family to you, so it's okay if you want to show her. I was…. really just more concerned what she'd think of you, I guess. I don't want her to get mad at you." Shinichi cringed. "Not, not that she should, or anything!" Kaito assured. "I just know you feel bad enough about it already without your friends and family also knowing about it. I know you're ashamed of what you said, Shinichi, so I just figured you wouldn't want people to know. We can just pretend it never happened…."

Shinichi sighed. "Remember when you offered to dress as a girl so I could save face and I refused? The same applies here. I don't want to keep secrets any more than necessary. I'd understand if you didn't want to show people, but if your reason for keeping a secret is me then I'd rather just tell people the truth. Especially the people I care about. Yes, they'll probably be mad at me and wonder how I could be such an idiot, but they're not wrong, and in the long run I'll probably need their moral support to remind me that, yeah, it was a mistake, but that I can push past it. I think it's better if we just tell her, and the other people I'm close to, what your mark really says. And I certainly don't want to try to pretend it didn't happen. That would be wrong on a number of levels, so…."

Kaito studied him and, just as Shinichi had always done before, he found that the detective was holding nothing back, making no attempt at hiding his emotions or thoughts. Kaito nodded, sensing the honesty in Shinichi's words. "Okay, we'll tell her, if you think we should."

They went back inside, Kaito no longer pretending to be perfectly happy and charming. He wore a rather neutral expression, Shinichi squeezing his right hand lightly in reassurance as they approached the table and sat down.

Kaito rolled up his left sleeve once more before reaching for one of the napkins that had been delivered with their drinks. He dipped the tip of it into Ran's water, muttering a quiet apology as he did so, before taking the damp cloth to his skin, beginning to rub off the concealer he'd meticulously applied that morning before leaving the house.

Ran looked on in confusion, remaining quiet. Her eyes widened as more words became visible on Kaito's skin, shiny and blue like the first and stretching along towards his wrist. Beneath the glimmering, faintly glowing azure cursive was a litter of alarming white and slightly pink lines, crisscrossing along the skin and paling it, some places leaving it a bit red, and Ran knew they were yet-to-heal cuts that would no doubt leave behind white scars for years to come. The clearly brutal damage to Kaito's skin made her brow furrow in concern. Not comprehending yet the scope of what had happened, she began to read the words which were still clearly legible and neatly written over the expanse of somewhat jagged and puffy skin.

"What? NO! I don't want YOU as my Soulmate!"

Ran's mouth opened in a silent gasp and she covered it with one hand, her eyes going wide. She looked up at Kaito, who was pointedly staring at a spot on the wall which met their table, off to their side. Next, she turned her gaze to Shinichi, who was peering forlornly at Kaito's Soul Mark and the litter of healing cuts and jabs around it.

"It's, really not a big deal," Kaito said after several moments of silence, still pointedly staring at the wall, refusing to risk meeting either of their gazes. Shinichi hadn't seen the wound yet either since the morning he found Kaito and called an ambulance. Kaito had taken it upon himself to clean and dress the wound since leaving the hospital and had partially been planning to never let Shinichi see the now ugly and scarred skin, though he knew from the beginning that Shinichi would likely see it someday. "The cuts don't hurt anymore," he didn't mention that they still itched, "and those were really my doing anyway. And I don't care about the words anymore, since I know now that they aren't true." He wished they said something else, of course, but at the very least he told himself vehemently that he didn't care about his mark anymore. He was trying, most of the time, to forget it even existed.

Ran managed to work her mouth closed, dropping her hand and clasping them together in her lap under the table. She stared at Kaito until his eyes finally met hers, and Kaito wasn't sure what he was seeing on her face. A bit of pity, yes, which was to be expected. An apology, it looked like, as if she had to apologize for her spiritual brother's actions. And something else. Concern, maybe? Like she was searching him, trying to see if he was really okay with it all.

Kaito's right hand wove its way into Shinichi's left one, their fingers intertwining, and Shinichi finally looked up from the blue Soul Mark on his Soulmate's skin, glancing between Kaito and Ran's expressions. "I'm fine," Kaito said, and after a moment both Shinichi and Ran seemed to relax a bit. Kaito was damaged, maybe, and hurt, but he did appear to be doing a pretty spectacular job getting over what had happened, and he seemed to be fairly happy with his current status as Shinichi's active Soulmate and love.

Ran nodded a little. "Well, that's good," she commented almost absent-mindedly before standing and walking around to their side of the table.

"What are you-" Shinichi began, looking back over his left shoulder as she came up behind them, sweating nervously. In the blink of an eye he was on the ground, Kaito blinking rapidly in surprise from where he was looking down at his Soulmate, who had just been rather spectacularly flipped through the air to land on his back on the ground, the chair he'd been sitting in toppled over on the ground next to him. Shinichi sucked in a gasp of breath as the air was knocked out of him on the impact before lifting a hand to rub at the back of his head where it'd collided with the linoleum floors of the café.

"Shin-chan!" Kaito gasped, reaching down to help Shinichi back up, the three teens ignoring the other patrons of the café who were now openly staring at them. There were only a couple of other people there anyway, minus the staff on duty, and everyone there was a regular of Poirot's, which meant they knew of the karate champion Mouri Ran who lived upstairs, as well as of her best friend the famous high-school detective, so they were surprised by the scene which had just unfolded before them, but not alarmed.

Ran bowed deeply towards Kaito even as the magician helped his Soulmate back into his chair. "I'm sorry for Shinichi's complete idiocy. Thank you for accepting him as a Soulmate despite the fact that he's a stupid jerk-wad."

"Er, it's fine Ran-chan, really," Kaito assured while Shinichi pulled himself out of his dazed state. "Could you maybe refrain from hurting my Soulmate though?" Kaito asked, looping a protective arm around Shinichi's waist and pulling him close.

Shinichi brushed off Kaito's concern with a wave of his hand, finally catching his lost breath. "No, it's fine, Kaito, I'm not really hurt. Mostly just knocked the wind out of me, and I deserved it."

Ran nodded as she reclaimed her own seat. "Damn straight you did. Honestly Shinichi, I knew you were hopeless, but that's a horrible thing to say when you first meet your Soulmate, no matter who they are!" Shinichi ducked his head in shame, his eyes dropping and refusing to meet her gaze.

"In his defense, he wasn't really thinking at the time," Kaito interrupted, pulling Shinichi close again. "He was surprised is all, and he's really, really sorry. I know he is." Shinichi huffed and blinked because, honestly, now his wronged Soulmate was the one making excuses for him against his best friend? How ridiculous was that?

Ran hummed. "If you say so, Kaito-kun. I'm sure Shinichi really didn't mean what he said, but if he ever says anything stupid like that again just come to me and I'll beat some sense into him for you, okay? I meant what I said when I told you that you'd regret it deeply if you hurt Shinichi, but if he's the one who hurts you it's okay to come to me for help and I'll make sure to set him straight, alright?"

Kaito blinked. He knew she was a nice girl, but honestly, now he was starting to think her a Saint. A scary, martial-arts-wielding Saint, but an angel none-the-less.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Kaito agreed, and Ran smiled.

"Good." She looked down at her phone. "Well, I've got to meet up with my parents and Tomoaki soon, so I've gotta go, but we'll talk more about this later, okay? I still want to know everything about you two, I've got more questions, and I'll make sure we can go on a double-date some time with you two and me and my Soulmate."

Shinichi and Kaito stood to see her out of the café and up to her front door, Shinichi paying for their beverages by leaving a few bills on the table as they went. They parted ways with her at her front door, Kaito and Shinichi beginning the walk back to the Kudo Manner.

"Well, I think that went well," Kaito said cheerily. "Nice girl. A lot like Aoko... Which means..." Kaito fell silent, smirking slightly but also looking to be a bit concerned.

"What?" Shinichi asked.

"Oh, it's nothing. Just... Aoko already knows what my Soul Mark says. If Ran wasn't happy with you, Aoko's really not going to be pleased... How good are you at dodging mops? We should practice before I introduce you."

Shinichi paled.

A/N: Extra-long chapter for ya~! Don't know how it got so long, just kinda happened... Oh well. I hope you enjoyed it! Drop me a review if you did? ^^