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Caught on Camera

Photograph: Hide Me

Two boys were peering down through the leafy boughs of a tree. They looked like they were probably in elementary school. Their expressions however weren't so much curious as stricken.

"When was this?" Kaito asked, puzzled. "I don't remember anything like that."

"I do," Shinichi grumbled. "Mom must have taken that one."

"Guilty as charged," the woman in question laughed…

. . . . . . . . .

Shinichi panted as he ran as fast as he could down the sidewalk. He didn't particularly care where he was going as long as it was away from his house and the woman inside it who called herself his mother. Only ten minutes ago she had come into the library where he'd been reading with that excited smile on her face that meant bad things were about to happen.

And he'd been right.

He shuddered at the recollection of the mountain of clothes his mother had been hovering over. There had to be at least fifty different sets of outfits in there! His mother loved buying clothes, and she especially liked buying what she called 'cute outfits' to try out on her son. The thing was she didn't seem to care whether said outfits were for boys or for girls. She had voiced the opinion that with children so young there really wasn't any difference so it shouldn't matter. And why couldn't she see how her little Shin-chan looked all dressed up? He was her son after all; she had the right to dress him how she pleased!

Personally, Shinichi didn't agree with this line of reasoning one bit. Who could possibly enjoy being forced in and out of dozens upon dozens of different clothes for hours on end? The problem of course was that his opinion didn't matter. He used to run to his father for help when Yukiko got into one of her let's-play-dress-up moods, but his father had a tendency to hide a smile—and hand him back to his mother. Shinichi had theorized that his father was sacrificing him to the gleeful clutches of Kudo Yukiko in order to escape them himself (he didn't find out until he was older that Yuusaku really just found the whole thing amusing).

He wondered sometimes if everyone's parents were so weird or if he was just unlucky that way. And then he'd remember Toichi-san. He was pretty weird too, though it was a different kind of weird (more tricky and mysterious and less flat out insane). So maybe it was just a parent thing.

Stumbling to a stop under a tree in the park, he doubled over with his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. A glance back the way he had come revealed that his mother was nowhere to be seen. He breathed out a sigh of relief. He loved his mother, he really did, but her idea of a good time was just…well, not his idea of a good time.

"Psst! Shin-chan!"

He jumped, spinning around in a circle so quickly he made himself dizzy. He could have sworn he'd heard his mother's favorite nickname for him, though the voice didn't sound like her. Still…had to be careful. But there was no one anywhere in sight. The nearest human beings were an old lady and her two grandchildren about three hundred yards away playing ball near one of the park benches.

"Up here!" the voice said again, and this time Shinichi realized that it was coming from above his head.

Tilting his head back, he found himself looking into a familiar, grinning face looking down at him from the branches of the tree beneath which he was standing. "Kai?"

"Why're you running?" the other boy asked curiously. "Is something chasing you?"

"It's my mom," Shinichi explained, casting another look over his shoulder. Still no sign of her.

"You can come hide up here," Kaito suggested.

Shinichi thought this over for a moment then nodded and began to scramble up the tree. He nearly slipped a few times but eventually he reached the lower branches where Kaito helped pull him up.

That was when a familiar voice rang out.

"Shin-chan~!" it cried.

Both boys froze, staring wide-eyed at each other as the voice drew nearer. Then Kaito grabbed Shinichi's hand and started climbing higher in the tree, carefully pulling the other boy along with him. Finally they had put enough branches between themselves and the ground for said ground to be completely obscured by leaves. Looking down, Shinichi couldn't repress a certain amount of nervousness. If they fell from up here it was definitely going to hurt a lot.

"Shin-chan!" his mother's voice called out again, this time from right below their tree. The boys sat like statues. Glancing over, Kaito would have sworn that Shinichi had even stopped breathing. "Huh, I wonder where he could have gone," Yukiko wondered aloud. "I could have sworn I saw him coming this way." As she talked, her voice grew more and more distant until finally they couldn't hear her anymore.

Shinichi let out a breath of relief, shoulders sagging as he leaned back against the trunk of the tree. "That was close…"

"What did she want this time?" Kaito asked curiously.

Shinichi grimaced. "New clothes."

He didn't elaborate but his companion nodded sagely, knowing exactly what he meant. He'd seen Shinichi get caught a few times for New Clothes Time (and he privately thought it was kind of funny, though the number of said clothes did generally seem a bit excessive).

"So what are you doing here?" Shinichi asked, changing the subject.

"Practicing," Kaito said promptly, face splitting into a grin.

Bright blue eyes blinked back at him. "Practicing for what?"

"My climbing," the other elaborated, waving a hand at the branches all around them. "Then we won't need Tou-san next time we get stuck on the roof!"

Shinichi nodded. He remembered Toichi-san scaling the outside of the Kudo Manor that time he and Kaito had gotten themselves stuck on the roof. Though he couldn't remember how they had gotten onto the roof in the first place… They'd been up there for a whole hour before the adults got home and Toichi-san came up to rescue them.

"So do you think it's safe now?" he asked, peering downward. He couldn't see anything through the leaves below.

"Dunno. Let's go check."

Together, they made their way back down to the lower branches and pushed aside the screen of foliage—to stare right into Kudo Yukiko's smiling face.

"Shin-chan, there you are! I've been looking all over for you!"

. . . . . . . . .

…"Oh, now I remember," Kaito laughed. "Some things never change."

TBC

A.N: Shalyr's got the next one covered, but I probably won't be able to put it up for a few weeks because I'm leaving in a few days on a trip where I won't have internet access ^^ Anyhow, see you all then! I'll put up another chapter of Faces before I go though, and hopefully get more of Travelers written.