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Chapter 2
Conan woke slowly, blinking sleep-fogged vision clear as he looked around his room. His room, not Kogoro's, and he deliberately dropped a mask that he'd worn so long that he called on it even in sleep. Kind of a depressing prospect.
He sighed, rolling upright with his feet dangling off the edge of the bed, trying to wrangle order from his exhaustion-jumbled thoughts.
Kaito!
He bolted to his feet, scanning the room—he knew the difference between dreams (nightmares) and reality, and last night had been real. Terribly, terrifyingly real. Was he gone? Had the morning light dispersed Kaito back into some untouchable realm like so many legends claimed it ought?
Please, no. Because even if Kaito was haunting him, it was better than him being gone. Dead was bad enough (horrifying, heartbreaking; they'd been parts of each others' lives for years even before they'd properly met), but gone entirely was… Gods, please, no. Not him.
Not that he'd be able to tell by sight, but he'd felt the (warm) weight settle on the mattress between him and the wall, and it had been gone when he'd woken. There was no convenient condensation left on the windows and writing in the dust was probably a bad idea.
Wait. Shinichi tilted his head slightly, sniffing the air. Coffee?
Coffee, from downstairs—his mother or both his parents could have pulled another unannounced visit, but he wanted it to be Kaito.
Hesitantly hopeful, Shinichi made his way down to the kitchen.
Well. Not his parents. "Kaito?"
An empty cookie tray thrummed against the counter and a coffee mug removed itself from the drain-board, glistening damply as drops of water wicked away onto invisible fingers. The carafe removed itself from the coffee maker and tilted steaming dark liquid into the mug, then the carafe returned to its rightful place and the mug presented its handle to him.
He couldn't see them, but he felt fingers brush against his as he accepted the beverage, cool compared to the heat radiating from the ceramic but feeling as warm and alive as Kaito ever had. "Thanks."
Morse Code tapped out 'welcome' on his shoulder.
Shinichi hummed, fighting back the urge to either rage or cry, and sat himself at the counter. He didn't want Kaito to see him cry, hear him scream—Kaito was here for a reason, but the lack of focus on vengeance said Kaito's ever-caring personality had not changed with… whatever had happened. Carrying him to bed, telling him to sleep, checking to make sure he was safe—Kaito was, for whatever reason, looking out for him.
It could break Kaito to see Shinichi break over it.
He startled as a pad of paper slid in front of him, Kaito's neater 'Kid' handwriting stark against white.
'As long as I don't try to say anything about what happened, I don't end up writing everything like a heist note. Something won't let me communicate clearly about the night before last, and I can't make sound. If I move something against something else, the objects can still make noise, but nothing I do or try to say is in any way audible.
I already know you can't see me. I can barely see me. Mirrors seem to, but not other reflective surfaces. Anyway, Tantei-kun, I need a way to communicate with you when passing notes would be too obvious.'
Shinichi frowned, thinking. "Hang on. I'll be right back."
The pad tugged away from him and tapped against the counter once. As there was no attempt at restraint, Shinichi took that as an 'okay' and hopped down from the chair to head back upstairs. Less than five minutes later, he made his way back into the kitchen with two cell-phones and a grey-backed cosmetics mirror... and paused in bemusement.
"Are you—making breakfast?"
A spatula waved at him.
Well, that was… another point in the 'Kid looking out for Tantei-kun' column. He opened the small mirror and tilted it towards the active stove, then huffed out a relieved breath. Kid indeed, back in full regalia, reflected in the tiny round mirror. Cooking.
Kind of a strange image, actually, even without the 'only visible in the mirror' part, and if he weren't trying so hard to stay calm he'd laugh. Right now, though, he was pretty sure if he laughed, he'd end up crying, and that wasn't exactly on the top of his list of things to do this morning, no matter how surreal a morning it was.
Gods , what was he going to tell Hakuba? The Nakamoris? Jii and Chikage?
The pad of paper smacked him lightly over the head and he blinked, jerking his gaze upward towards—blank space between a plate and the paper-pad, both being set on the counter. The plate pointedly slid in front of him while the pad settled at his elbow.
"This is…" Shinichi shook his head, "Disconcerting, I guess. I don't like not being able to see or hear you." Hated that Kaito was—had been—murdered. It had to have been murder, because there had been a cryptic answer to 'who', and the only relief was 'not gone'.
The pad wiggled, new writing appearing on it without a visible writing implement.
I don't like it, either. I can't
A slight pause, and a line drew through the fragment of a sentence-start. I don't want to go anywhere else. Can you imagine if I started following Hakuba like this? He'd check himself into the nearest psyche-ward!
And any of the others would react even worse.
Also, eat your breakfast.
Shinichi quirked an eyebrow at the incongruous sentence. "Are you seriously mothering me now?"
Scrambled eggs get all gross when they're cold. I didn't cook that so you could ruin it before it even gets eaten. One of three pieces of toast whisked off the plate.
Okay, fine. Shinichi huffed and plucked the chopsticks up to take a bite, humoring his invisible companion. The toast waved at him and he swallowed to ask the first thing that popped into his head. "Can you even eat like that?"
A bite defiantly disappeared from the corner of the piece of toast in lieu of a written reply.
"Right." Food and drink were offered to the dead by cultures all over the world. The widespread custom had to come from something, after all.
The bitten corner of the toast pointed back at the admonition to eat.
Shinichi huffed and obeyed, watching out of the corner of his eye as the toast disappeared one bite at a time before a second piece lifted off his plate. Several minutes later, Shinichi sat back, "So, you're—invisible and essentially inaudible, but solid. Also, I'm pretty sure you at least have a pen, considering the fact that you've been writing in ink this morning and were using a finger to write on the window last night."
Ooooh, traced onto the paper. Very nice, Tantei-kun. What else have you deduced?
And there was Kid, still as snarky as ever. That was a comfort, if a small one, and Shinichi allowed himself to roll his eyes as he would have if it had been sniped aloud. He continued his former thought, not directly replying to the question. "So, I'm going to assume you can somehow get things you have on your person to go invisible as well."
Only if I pocket them, Kaito wrote back, no longer snarking. Of course he could see that Shinichi was heading somewhere with this.
"You can hack, right? Make phone signals untraceable?"
Kaitou Kid, here. You have met me, right?
"Okay. Here," Shinichi held out his phone—his phone, not the one he'd gotten to use as Conan, but the one that held one of his few links to his former life. "I've already programmed my information into it—wait. You can see yourself, right?"
I'm see-through, but visible. I look kind of like a reflection in a window, really—a little dull and not all there. I don't like it.
Shinichi rubbed his forehead, sighing quietly. "I'm sorry. But it's the only thing I can think of—I have one of Kaa-san's compact mirrors I can use if you get my attention and you know Morse Code. If you get that to be untraceable, you can text me. It's set to vibrate."
Not your fault, Kaito returned, You're handling this better than… well. Than I would if our positions were reversed.
"Go ahead and start working on this," Shinichi waved the phone in the direction that Kaito had been in last time he'd been holding something visible. A familiar suede glove brushed against his fingers as the Kaitou (gods, that wasn't supposed to be literal) lifted the object away. "I'll do the dishes." He hopped down from the counter and made his way over to the footstool.
An instant after he'd climbed onto the stool and turned on the tap, a stray paper airplane landed neatly beside the sink. It fell open on its own, a courtesy notice blatantly visible inside.
I will follow you to the place where young minds grow and older minds wither.
Shinichi shook his head, "You know, I'm not entirely sure whether or not that was intentional, but that has got to be the weirdest way of saying 'I'm heading to kiddie school with you today' that I've ever seen."
xxxx
Conan (out of the Kudo mansion, back in the layered masks) hadn't even entertained the thought as to telling Kaito 'no' on following him to school. The idea of leaving him behind, alone after whatever had happened… it was abhorrent to the point that his mind shied away from even a passing glimmer.
That he didn't know what had happened beyond the effect—that rankled. He'd never taken more than a few hours on even the most obscure of the individual cases he'd worked on, some of which he'd had to piece together from latent photographs—but he didn't even know where to start with Kaito.
He closed his eyes tightly, brow furrowing. He'd tuned out the lessons almost as soon as they'd started, puzzling circles around what to do with almost nothing to go on. He'd worked with as little before, but not with a victim still watching.
He barely heard Ayumi ask what was wrong and startled when a hand rested on his forehead—not Haibara, too large, and the pervading unease that had him flinching back meant not Kaito, either. His eyes snapped open to meet Kobayashi-sensei's worried frown.
"Are you all right, Conan-kun? Do you need to see the nurse?"
He considered the question. 'All right'? No. Nurse?
Well. He hadn't really noticed the headache through his deliberate avoidance of dwelling on what everything meant, not just what it was. Bare, cold facts were easy enough to deal with, and it was rare that he had to deal with cases that hit him on a personal level. (Literal) passing acquaintances often became victims in murders around him, but people he was close to…
A sharp poke between the shoulder-blades reminded him that this particular victim wasn't planning on leaving him behind no matter what reality had to say about it. Typical Kaito(u), Kid or otherwise.
Conan jerked away as Kobayashi shook his shoulder gently, breaking her grasp. The sudden movement made him realize just how bad the headache had gotten and he winced, eyes snapping shut as he pressed one hand to his temple. "Hurts," he muttered.
Ayumi's voice cut under the sudden babble of children's voices, worry underscoring her tone. "Conan-kun hasn't said that before."
"He just told me to move faster that time in the cave when I thought I'd hurt him more," Genta added, sounding just as concerned.
"Ano… wasn't that when Conan-kun had been shot?"
Apparently Conan wasn't the only one who was able to hear that particular conversation, because Kobayashi tensed, "Conan-kun? I'm taking you to the nurse, all right?"
His first instinct was to shy back, his thoughts scattering away with a spike of pain that informed him that this was a migraine, not a headache, and he wasn't going to be doing anything for the day if he didn't want to knock himself unconscious for the next three. A gloved palm pressed firmly against his back, calming him. The pattern tapped out by fingers was familiar, but he couldn't quite untangle the meaning.
Kid was here, and Kid was one of the few people he'd trusted completely even before he'd learned his name. He could deal with Kobayashi so long as Kid was still watching out for him. How hadn't the woman noticed the presence of a white-clad international criminal?
No. No, that was what had stressed him to this point, wasn't it? Kid was there and real, but he wasn't—wasn't—
White flashed behind his eyes as unfamiliar arms scooped him out of his seat, the change in position sparking nerves in ways they really weren't supposed to work.
Soothing fingers carded through his hair, glove gone, and Conan wondered vaguely how the first-grade teacher didn't notice the way his hair was ruffling in response to the contact. The brief tightening of said teacher's arms informed him that she had noticed, and he half-expected Kaito to stop, but the magician (ghost) didn't.
Conan heard Kobayashi's throat click as she swallowed, meaning her mouth had gone dry. Fear, probably, as he'd heard rumors (started by Megure, of all people) that Kogoro had a Shinigami following him.
The smarter officers had tracked the beginning of the 'stumble on every murder' streak to Conan's moving into the Agency and further realized that Conan was party to even more murders than Kogoro. Obviously, Kobayashi had heard some of those rumors, and Kaito had just granted that story enough figurative fuel to run the rumor mill for weeks.
His consciousness wavered. Right. Being carried. Movement + migraine + thinking = shutdown, especially in this tiny body with only a child's endurance, nevermind that he wasn't on his own feet.
He couldn't stop thinking.
Kobayashi slipped, stumbling forward several steps in an attempt to recover without dropping him, and everything blinked out as something (Kaito) braced her.
Pain hammered him into unconsciousness.
xxxx