Did yesterday really happen? was the main question plaguing Shinichi's mind when he woke the next morning. It would have been easy to write off as a dream if he didn't have such a clear distinction between dream and reality. It had been real.

It wasn't such a shock that KID had known where to find him; KID's notes proved he was smart, and Shinichi didn't exactly hide his love of mystery novels, so KID had easily found him at a book signing. Of course, despite playing buddy-buddy, Shinichi had no way to contact him. He didn't have the business card KID had been using, which was probably full of lies anyway. The name Kuroba Kaito was most definitely a fake; KID wasn't that stupid, probably. It would be easy to verify, but there was no point. They weren't friends. KID said he had been... worried. If the thief got that worked up over it - and there wouldn't have been a point in putting on an act; he had. Was trying to outsmart each other that great an ice breaker? Was he really that attached to someone on the other side? He was crazy. Definitely crazy to trust him that much. He didn't seem bad crazy, Shinichi supposed. He'd had fun, in a way. A stuck in a haze of disbelief sort of way.

How far gone was he, really? The memories of that night were vague, distant, yet he knew that it had happened. He knew because he'd wonder what would have happened if he hadn't reached out. Would KID have caught him regardless? He wondered if it would have been so bad if he had just fallen - even while his logical side told him to stop his train of thought. He could imagine precisely what his tiny, mangled body would look like in gross detail. He knew how people would cry and yell and scream of the unjustness purely because he was a child. But people would probably have found a way to blame KID. They liked jumping to conclusions like that. ... Would KID have blamed himself too? Also, if there was the tiniest possibility that he would have lived, he would have been severely injured. So he'd be useless and a bigger burden on the Mouris. No matter which way he thought about it, in the end, he was glad to have been saved - for all of the possible negative outcomes if not for his own sake.

Shinichi's thoughts were interrupted by muffled coughs. "Oi, brat! Everything's burning!"

Burnt meats and smoke came into focus. He didn't move, merely stared as the smoke burned his eyes, the hot tears blurring his focus. How long had he been spaced out? A hand shoved him backward violently. Nearly stumbling, Shinichi watched with wide eyes as Kogoro threw the pans into the sink and flipped on the water.

Kogoro turned his head with an accusatory glare. "Brat, what's wrong with you!?"

Shinichi's mouth made no sound. He was still trying to process how scenario A, throwing everything in the pans, had gone to scenario B, smoke. He subconsciously averted his eyes, not even wiping away the tears that had spilled over from the smoke.

"Jeez," Kogoro scoffed, running a hand down his face. "Get out of here. Go to school." Kogoro turned back to the sink to clean up the mess the boy had made.

"H-Hai..." Shinichi turned on his heel numbly and dragged himself out of the kitchen. He wiped his eyes roughly, threw his bag over his shoulder, and heaved himself out the door. His stomach rolled and roared in vain.

His feet moved him forward out of habit. He didn't even see where he was going - he couldn't seem to pick his eyes up off the ground.

What's wrong with you?

Shinichi sighed through his nostrils. You have no idea.

A nineteen year old and certified genius wasn't supposed to spend his mornings walking to his elementary school school while the rest of the world moved without him. He could chant his passionate justifications ad nauseum and it didn't change that fact. It couldn't stop the gaping hole ripping open in his chest.

He'd abhorred being a child the first time around. Not the same way he did now; the people truly in his life were fine, it was just the others. Outside of his parents, outside of his peers, there were the adults who patronized him with their assumptions, their fake grins, their looking down on him, calling him cute as though that was his entire identity. As though he had no worth of his own.

He'd been in a rush to grow up. He didn't complain. He didn't cry. He made himself better, stronger, someone who couldn't be underestimated. He'd made a reputation for himself. He'd earned it.

So one would think that he would hate returning to that state where everyone looked down on him, where he had to encourage it. He was endlessly bitter about it, but "hate" wasn't the right word. He couldn't let himself "hate" or he might snap back, might say something he would regret. Instead, he got to sink it all in. He had to make it a part of him - part of his act, because he couldn't be too smart, too cocky, too him. He couldn't be too angry, too bitter, too unlike a child. The "hate" was internalized, became part of the heart of him that stored every comment he didn't make, every screaming-raw outburst he didn't have, redirected every bitter thought back at himself. It didn't bounce off; it gathered, swarmed, and pulsed viciously within him.

It was his old friend, his old, rotten scab. The tip of the needle that bit at his innards violently, plowing deep, rupturing veins. It tore the skin, but never finished him off. It grew over, but never healed. It festered, left a rank aroma creeping through the air, invading his lungs. He pushed forward, trying desperately to ignore the sharp pain shooting through him. But it hurt.

It cut deep. He could feel the thick, throbbing pain ooze through his innocent facade against his pleas for it not to break through. His vision was marred once more by a wall of hot tears. He turned - he couldn't let anyone see him like that. He had to run, had to hide.

Sometimes, denial didn't cut it. Refusing to acknowledge pain didn't make it go away. Some days, his limbs were too crumbled to carry him and his mind too numb to think.

It was on those days that he snuck into the Kudo manor. Snuck was too strong a word, perhaps, for walking around the back and making sure no one was looking.

The door was old and had begun to creak without regular maintenance. His small feet carried him to the common room, his pink-stained blue eyes soaking in the sights he used to see daily. The dust didn't bother him terribly. It was familiar now. The dust had settled on his old life and his old home. Despite that, he had never given up. When the dust was so thick one couldn't breathe, he would polish his most treasured belongings. He would keep that part of him alive. Even as his nose burned, the smell of old books and the sight of that too-expensive lounge and that tacky chandelier revived in him what Kudo pride he had left. Even when that small voice in his mind told him it was futile, that he shouldn't be there, he let himself drift to the one place that was truly his.

He picked up a dusty old book and felt a feather-light smile touch the edges of his lips for the first time in his recent memory. He hadn't the mind to read it, merely flipped it open and traced a finger over the delicate page. A long-lost thrill ran through him at the mere thought of actually sitting in his old chair and reading one of his valuable first-editions.

He let himself go on like that, dreaming in vain like a true child until the pounding dust headache was too much. In spite of needing time away from the dust, he didn't feel quite ready to leave yet. He slipped over to his once-bedroom. The bed, made perfectly like it never had been, looked too inviting. The curtains were shut and he soon found himself climbing up to his bed for a small nap. His limbs instantly sunk down into the too-expensive mattress. Shinichi almost drooled. But upon his perfect, puffy pillow laid something that hadn't been there before: another pink rose with a note laid next to it. Shinichi picked it up with raised eyebrows.

Kudo-kun, I enjoyed our date! We totally have a lot in common. We'll just have to find out what. So I'm coming next Wednesday whether you like it or not. See you then!

-Kuroba Kaito

Shinichi laughed. Really laughed, deep and incredulous. What was that guy bugging him for? What did he want? There was nothing he could really expect out of him, right? Yet now he was trying to force a friendship on him? That idiot...

Shinichi pushed aside the rose and note, his eyes settling on the pink standing out like a sore thumb on his white bedding. Kuroba... As his eyes dropped closed, his heart stung. He couldn't think of the last time someone had been that thoughtful for him uncalled for, so it looked like he had no choice but to accept his new nuisance, at least for the time being. Jeez... It was a little scary, felt like it could be so easily destroyed, but what did he really have to lose if he took the thief's hand? He chuckled mirthlessly. He had nothing to lose. He hated himself for being a little bit happy at that guy's silly little gesture.