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Caught on Camera

Photograph: A Budding Escape Artist

"Toichi has one like this next one from when he was little," Chikage said with a rather mischievous look in her eyes.

The man in question coughed lightly. "Well, what can I say?"

"Now I've got to see this," Kaito remarked, flipping the page. He stared at the picture for a minute then burst out laughing. Shinichi eyed him strangely for a moment before leaning over to see what all the fuss was about.

A little Kaito stood balanced on top of what looked like the railings of a baby pen. It looked terribly unsafe but the toddler didn't seem bothered in the slightest if the huge grin on his face was anything to go by…

. . . . . . . . .

The Kuroba house, being home to a magician, was filled with a king's ransom's worth of tools ranging from the apparently mundane to the nameless contraptions no one in their right minds would want to know the uses for. As such, the Kurobas had deemed it safer to get a baby pen when their son had started crawling. He was, by nature, a very curious child, and Chikage shuddered to imagine all the terrible things that could happen to an unsuspecting toddler coming across some of her husband's more explosive tools. So they bought the biggest baby pen that would fit inside their living room and all the nice, safe baby toys went inside while the not so safe magician's toys (Toichi protested to this terminology but the protests died under his wife's pointed look) went outside.

The plan worked for a while until one fateful afternoon. Chikage had left Toichi to watch their son as she made a quick trip to the grocery store. The magician himself had a big show coming up so he'd brought his work to the living room. He was going over the stage setup for the show when the sound of happy burbling drew his attention away from the papers to his son. He blinked in surprise when he saw that some time in the last ten minutes or so the boy had managed to climb up the side of the pen and was now balanced on top of the railing, smiling happily.

He laughed and applauded. "That's very good Kaito. I see your sense of balance is certainly good."

Little Kaito burbled in excitement and Toichi smiled.

"So can you get down too?"

The toddler seemed to give this question a moment of serious consideration and it looked like he had just made up his mind when there was a gasp from the living room entrance.

"Kaito! Get down from there!" There was a series of thumps as Chikage dropped her grocery bags and made a beeline for the toddler. She scooped him up off of the rails and turned to glare at her husband.

"Why were you just sitting there?"

"Uh, well…" The magician offered her a placating smile as his mind raced. Somehow he didn't think 'I was just letting him practice' would go over too well at the moment. "He seemed to be having so much fun. Besides, I could've caught him if he fell."

Chikage continued to give him a rather disapproving look for several minutes before she turned to put Kaito back among the baby toys.

. . . . . . . . .

…"But after that he just kept climbing out. We tried all sorts of things but every time we turned around he'd be gone. The only time he'd stay put was when we put Shin-chan in with him, and I think that was because he couldn't climb out with him." Chikage grinned, remembering the first time she'd put the two toddlers in the pen together after Kaito had learned how to get out of it. She'd been making dinner in the kitchen and glanced through the door into the living room to find little Kaito halfway up the pen wall. She'd opened her mouth to scold him but paused when Kaito suddenly stopped and looked back at his pen mate. Shinichi just sat in the middle of a collection of puzzle blocks, watching. Kaito had hesitated for a moment then made his way back down without being told and went back to join his favorite playmate in his game. "Sometimes I really thought he liked disappearing just to make us look for him."

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised," Shinichi mused. "No wonder I remember being put in there so often. I guess that proves some tendencies are genetic."

"You mean talents," both magicians said in unison before sharing identically wide grins. Everyone else in the room felt a sudden, inexplicable chill.

TBC

A.N: I'm working on something a little more serious, but it's also a little longer than these average at so there'll probably be another short one or two between. Anyhow, see you next time! Again, suggestions are welcome.