Shinichi was having a crisis. He lay sprawled out on the Professor's couch, staring vacantly up at the ceiling. Being trapped indoors in secret while he waited for the antidote to wear off also made it more difficult to hide from his own spiraling emotions. He was so absorbed in whatever thoughts he was trying to avoid that he hadn't even noticed the coffee that someone had placed on the end table for him.

"OW!" he yelped at the sharp jab to his side.

"Oh, it's still alive?" Haibara remarked to herself idly, as if observing a bug in a Petri dish.

"Of course I'm alive!" he sat up then eyed the object in her hand. "Did you just poke me with a stick?"

"That's what one does with dead things. I wouldn't want to contaminate my hands with dirty corpse germs, would I?"

"I am not dead!"

"That's statistically unlikely, given the evidence. It's only eight in the morning and you're awake but haven't had any coffee."

"I have a lot on my mind, ok?" But he did reach out for the mug now and held it close to his chest as if it were a lifeline.

"Such as?"

"'Such as'? What do you think, Haibara? Last night I found out that my rival whom I'd sworn to put in prison is actually just some teenager trying to get justice for his father in the best way he knows how and is really a good person. Oh, and apparently, he thinks we're friends!"

"This disappoints you?"

"Of course it does! I mean, it's a problem for me. I mean, I just don't know what to think anymore! What kind of detective would I be if I gave up trying to arrest him? But then again, what kind of person would I be if I did try to arrest him? What am I supposed to do the next time I see him?"

"The same thing you always do when you see him, I imagine."

"Huh? What does that mean?"

"Oh, don't play innocent Kudou-kun. We both know that you haven't genuinely tried to arrest him for a long time now."

"Excuuuse me?"

She looked at him in surprise and confusion for a long moment, then finally let out a weary sigh. "Ok. So apparently only one of us knows that you haven't genuinely tried to arrest him for a long time now."

"That is not—"

"Your first case with him, the heist of the Black Star pearl. Once you saw through his disguise, you dragged him off to a secluded part of the ship to show off your deductions."

"And?"

"If you had wanted to capture him, you should've darted him from behind before revealing that you'd found him out. I know you had plenty of opportunities to do so."

"I— I underestimated him that time! I was just showing off like always and thought I could do everything myself, but—"

"The second time you met, at the Magic Lover's meeting. At exactly what point did you see through his disguise that time? And what did you do about it? Besides have a friendly conversation with him, I mean."

"There wasn't anything I could do! He—"

"During the Memories Egg case, you knew he was disguised as Shiratori-keibu for most of the investigation yet did nothing about it."

"He was helping solve the case!"

"And afterward, when he showed up at the agency disguised as you, you merely followed him outside and had a friendly conversation with him — while his back was turned, might I add."

"If I'd tried to catch him then, it would've revealed my identity!"

"At the theater, when he came to steal the Jewel of Destiny while disguised as you, you just watched him, conversed with him, and ran around after him."

"The cocky bastard wasn't wearing a mask, Haibara! I said he was a fake but they pinched his face so they didn't believe me. I couldn't reveal how I knew that he was in disguise!"

"And you couldn't go into the other room and use your phone and bowtie to call Mouri-chan or Megure-keibu as yourself?"

"…."

"It's not rocket science, Kudou-kun. I've seen you plan out schemes far more intricate and brilliant than making a simple phone call. I'd always assumed all such missed opportunities were deliberate, but if you really couldn't think of anything yourself, I have to wonder why that is. Perhaps you didn't want to think of a way to actually succeed in capturing him?"

"I…"

"The heist for the Blue Wonder. You knew he was disguised as Suzuki-san from the moment he arrived on his bike without wearing his goggles, yet you continued to interact with him as if everything was normal until you were alone on the highway with him, which was incidentally the only time and place you were not able to receive assistance from anyone or use any of your gadgets. Instead, you had a friendly conversation with him. Are you seriously going to tell me that you were trying your best to arrest him that day?"

"…Where are you even getting all this information? Did the Professor tell you this stuff? Because I—"

"You worked with him and intentionally let him go when we were investigating that mansion in the woods."

"He'd just saved Genta's life and helped all of us several times! It was only fair!"

"You accepted his help when he was disguised as Takagi-keiji in the case about the supposedly stolen paintings and subsequent murder. You once again waited until you were alone with him to have a friendly conversation and fail to capture him."

"Ok, but he wasn't even stealing anything that day, he only came to clear his name so—" Shinichi could be dense at times, but even he noticed that his excuses were rapidly becoming more and more flimsy, and a growing sense of horror gripped his heart.

"The Purple Nail heist. You deduced his teleportation trick, but instead of confronting him at the top or bottom of the tower, you stopped him halfway, the only place where he was out of your reach. After a friendly conversation, he escaped."

"…would you believe that he just outsmarted me that time?"

"No. Next, you worked with him when he was disguised as Hakuba-kun in the case with the bombs at Miracle Land."

"He saved my life that time! Again! And then he saved everyone else's lives too when we were on that roller coaster." Why was Haibara making such a big deal of this? Surely it was not that unusual to temporarily work with people you disagreed with, for the great good?

"You actively worked to help him achieve his goals in the case of Suzuki-san's Tanuki safe and in the Ryoma Treasure heist, had friendly conversations with him both times, and made absolutely no effort to catch him on either occasion."

"Wh— are you saying I should've stopped him from saving Jirokichi-ojisan's dog? Or from exposing the counterfeiters?"

"You and I both know that that's not how the criminal justice system works. Good deeds do not simply erase past crimes, and whether or not somebody is currently helping a dog does not grant them immunity from the law. What would you say if one of the murderers you encounter so often said that you shouldn't arrest them because they once helped a dog?"

"That's different! Murder is always inexcusable, but Kid's not a murderer!"

"So if a regular non-murdering burglar helped a dog, you'd let him go?"

"Of course not! Kid is different!"

"Because…?"

"…"

"The Lady Sky heist, you actively worked together with him for an extended period of time and even asked him to pose as you so that you two could get back on the airship together. Friendly conversations abounded."

"I needed his help…" Shinichi noticed his voice had become a lot quieter, his protests now coming out on reflex rather than conviction.

"You also made no attempt to learn his identity or arrest him during that time."

"He… he'd just saved my life. Again."

"The Kirin Horn heist. Despite seeing through his disguise, you again waited until you were alone to have a friendly conversation and make a half-hearted attempt to stop him."

"Why do you keep describing our conversations as friendly anyway…?"

"The Bell Tree Express. You approached him and asked for his help."

"Which ended up saving your life you know—"

"Blush Mermaid heist, you explicitly let him go, after a friendly conversation. The Green Emperor heist, you had a friendly conversion then let Makoto-san fight him off while making no attempt to catch him. The Sunflower paintings, you passed up countless opportunities to dart him or reveal his disguise and instead sought him out, had friendly conversations with him, and worked alongside him. The Trick Box heist, you deduced his disguise, cornered him, then had a friendly conversation while making no attempt to capture him. He even loaned you his phone, because you asked to erase some of the surveillance photos he'd taken, which you somehow did without looking for any clues or fingerprints on the phone at all? And you left the phone there for him to recover instead of handing it over as evidence?"

"I'm sure that was just a burner phone anyway!"

"So you did check it to make sure?"

"Ah… well, uh…" He couldn't even make up flimsy excuses at this point. How embarrassing.

"The Fairy's Lip heist. You knew he was disguised as a guard when he delivered the notice yet you made no attempt to look for him. You knew immediately when he disguised as Toyama-chan and even pointed it out to a few others yet did absolutely nothing about it."

"Ok, that's not true, I actually did do something about it that time!"

"You did?"

"Of course! I made sure to stop Hattori in time before he accidentally kissed him!"

He fixed her with a defiant look, beyond relieved that he'd finally gotten a point in this argument. She stared back with an expression somehow both incredulous and bored.

"But you didn't dart him."

"Now that's an overreaction — Hattori's a total idiot and it was disgusting, but that doesn't mean—"

"You didn't dart Kid."

"…oh. Right. Well…"

"No, you didn't dart him. Instead you napped together all night, let him take the jewel, had a friendly conversation, and then let him escape."

He fidgeted and stared down into his mug of still untouched coffee, at a loss for words.

"And then there's my personal favorite, the Blue Sapphire heist in Singapore.'

Shinichi groaned. He knew this one wasn't going to look good for him.

"How in the world have you been justifying that to yourself, Kudou-kun? Not having your passport is such a transparent excuse. You were kidnapped, nobody would expect you to have a passport. Or, if you'd so much as mentioned the situation to me or Agasa-hakase, we could've sent you a replacement copy of your real passport along with an antidote. Or literally anyone else could've taken you back via that suitcase if you preferred. Don't tell me that none of those options occurred to you? Or did you just not want to leave? Even as you were actively helping him escape the police and supporting his disguises and spending that much time with him — even sharing a bed! — without once attempting to arrest him or even find his identity? Tell me again how you've always tried your best to arrest him, meitantei-san?"

"That's enough." Shinichi had buried his burning red face in his hands, the coffee returned to the end table having failed its job as a lifeline. His face was twisted into a painful grimace and his arms shook slightly.

"You're wrong," he told her in a small unsteady voice. "I can't… exactly explain my actions at the moment, nor how I got so careless without realizing it, but I know that you're wrong. He's a criminal and I'm supposed to arrest him and I've been trying to, so you're wrong."

"I didn't say it was a bad—"

"Can we please just drop it already? Please?!" he snapped at her, and stood up on reflex. He paced a moment, then announced "I'm going to my room!" Then he paced around to the back of the living room, idled by the kitchen for a few moments, gradually realized that he didn't have a room at Agasa's house, and returned to the couch. Haibara had mercifully retreated to the basement, having understood his desire to be alone.

He buried his face in a pillow and groaned like a dying animal. The conversation with Haibara had left him feeling much much much worse than before, and that was really saying something. Letting Haibara comfort you or talk to you about your problems usually had this effect, which is something he wouldn't have been surprised by if he'd been able to think clearly. Instead, his brain currently seemed incapable of producing any intelligible thoughts whatsoever. He stared mournfully at a stain on the floor until he passed into a restless sleep, dreaming about sparkling gems and white-clad thieves mocking him for his pathetic indecision.

Author's Notes:

I consider the movies canon, and set them to occur roughly by order of publish date. If anyone wants to review a list of Kid's appearances in DC episodes and movies, it can be found at detectiveconanworld dot com /wiki/Kaitou_Kid_Appearances

Next Up: Conan comes up with a plan to prove Haibara wrong. It backfires. The next chapter will also feature Kaitou Kid at a heist, and Conan's interactions with him.