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Caught on Camera

Photograph: Spotlight

When Shinichi got back from the kitchen with a tray of drinks in hand he was kind of surprised to see Kaito openly glaring at his father who had apprehended the album. The detective set the tray on the table and glanced at the open album to see a photograph of a young man in a white suit and top hat standing on what looked like empty air beneath the night sky with his arms flung out to either side and a sharp-edged grin stretched across his face.

"You didn't honestly think we hadn't noticed what you were up to, did you?" Toichi was asking, his eyebrows raised. "If you really don't want people to know about your plans, don't leave them lying where they can be seen."

Kaito cast his father a flat look. "Indeed." He'd been very careful to store everything he'd worked on for that show behind a hidden panel he'd created in the wall of the space beneath his bed. Unless his father had developed x-ray vision without his knowledge, there was no way he could have seen those plans by accident…

. . . . . . . . .

"You know, you could talk to your father about this," Shinichi said, watching Kaito pouring over the diagrams strewn all over the former's bedroom floor. Shinichi himself was perched on his bed because it was the only spot in his room that wasn't currently being occupied by papers. "He is a professional after all."

"You forget, the whole point is not to talk to him about this," Kaito replied, looking up with a lopsided grin. If possible, his wild, brown hair looked even more of a mess than it usually did. "Hand me that book over there would you?"

Shinichi obliged, not bothering to ask the magician why he refused to consult his father about setting up this show of his. Kaito admired his father greatly—and for good reason, the man wasn't famous for nothing—but he didn't want to be his father's clone. If he was going to make it, it was going to be because he was a brilliant performer in his own right, not because he was Kuroba Toichi's son.

"I take it that's also what the pseudonym and Halloween costume are for?" Shinichi inquired, eyeing the white top hat sitting on his desk. There was a dove sitting on it, preening its feathers. On the table beside it lay a monocle, the lens gleaming in the light pouring in through the window.

"Yep. Besides, it's cool, right? Nobody's going to know who I am."

"I guess… But you're going to want them to know who you are one day, right? So you'll have to tell them eventually."

"Eventually," Kaito agreed. "When I'm famous and no one can say I'm riding on Tou-san's name."

Shinichi nodded in understanding. Lying down on his stomach, he reached over the edge of the bed and picked up one of the papers on the floor. It was covered in a wild scrawl that he couldn't even begin to read, meaning Kaito had probably scribbled whatever it was in even more of a hurry than he had everything else. "Are you sure you don't want to wait a few more years? I mean, we've just started high school. You're setting yourself up for a real mountain of work here."

"Aww, are you worried about me?"

Shinichi blushed on reflex and would have thrown the paper at his friend if he hadn't known it wouldn't make it to its target. "I'm just pointing it out since you're obviously too in love with this whole idea to notice practical problems like time being limited."

"Hmm, says he who solves cases after school and on weekends," the magician laughed. "Really Shin-chan, you should have more faith in me. You're talking to a master here!"

"It seems to me you have enough faith in yourself for the both of us."

"But it means more when it's coming from you~."

"How did you manage to schedule a show with no backing and no reputation anyway?" Shinichi asked hastily, changing the subject.

Kaito grinned, indigo eyes dancing with wicked mischief. "Let's just say I paid the theater manager a visit. He was impressed by my skills and agreed to give me a chance."

"You didn't scare him into it, did you?" Shinichi asked suspiciously.

Kaito widened his eyes in mock horror at the suggestion. "Would I do something like that?"

The detective stared back. "Yes."

Kaito held the wounded look for a moment longer before laughing. "Okay, so maybe I would, but I didn't. He really was impressed. He and his wife have both agreed to help with the advertising too."

"His wife?" Shinichi repeated, incredulous. "What, you mean you visited them at home?" He knew Kaito had a tendency to let himself into places, but surely even he wouldn't waltz into someone else's home uninvited just to chat about scheduling a magic show.

"You don't have to sound so mortified you know," the magician drawled, sounding far too amused. "She was visiting him at the theater. Lucky for me really. Turns out she's one of those radio newscasters so she'll be able to slip a word in about me there."

"That certainly was coincidental," Shinichi agreed, though he wasn't as surprised as some people might have been. Kaito had always been superhumanly lucky. It was why no one who'd known him for more than a little while would play chance based games against him. It just wasn't a good idea.

"I still have to do some promoting though. And get all the setting up done myself. I don't suppose you'd help me?"

Shinichi sighed, lowering the paper he'd been trying to decipher. "All right. Just don't expect me to get up on stage or anything."

A spark lit in the magician's eyes but before he could say anything they both heard the sound of the front door opening downstairs. Kaito cursed quietly and leapt to his feet. With a snap and a whirl of smoke and fluttering papers, all the plans and lists vanished. By the time Yukiko poked her head into her son's room to say hello the two were playing chess.

The following weeks were hectic. Half their preparations had to be done at unholy hours in some rather strange places lest their horribly nosy parents walk in on them. Three days before the show, Kaito intercepted Shinichi on his way home from a consultation at the police station and dragged him to the busiest shopping district in the city.

Seated by one of the windows on the second floor of a café famous for its cakes, Shinichi idly prodded his slice of strawberry cake with his fork as he watched Kaito all but vibrating in his seat. "You're not going to get arrested for anything you're planning are you? Because if you are, I think I have the right to be warned."

"I doubt it," Kaito said with a careless wave as he downed half his hot chocolate in one go. "The point is to grab people's attention. I'm not out to hurt anyone."

Shinichi opened his mouth to say that that wasn't exactly what he'd been asking about but he found himself unable to speak for the forkful of chocolate cake that had been shoved into his mouth.

"Just wait and watch," Kaito told him as Shinichi glared at him. "You helped put some of this together, remember?"

Shinichi swallowed to clear his mouth. "Yes, but I also remember how you never told me what any of it was for."

"What would be the fun in that?"

Shinichi sighed, taking a long gulp of his coffee. "I'm being serious here."

"Just stop worrying. I've got everything under control."

"If you say so…"

When all the lights in the shopping district simultaneously went out most people's first reaction was that there had been problems at the power plant and they were having a normal blackout. Then the eerie, blue lights had started flickering and dancing through the air like ghosts coming out to play and they'd realized that there was more to it than that. A few people screamed but most were too entranced by the twisting, shimmering streamers of light to do more than watch. And then the lone figure in white had appeared standing far above all their heads like a ghost himself. Shinichi watched the performance unfold through the café window, not at all surprised to discover that Kaito was no longer seated across from him.

When it was over and the usual lights of the area flickered back to life, Shinichi sat back in his seat and looked over to find that Kaito had reappeared in his seat and was just polishing off the rest of his chocolate cake. All around them he could hear the murmur of voices as people discussed what they had seen and speculated over the reality of it all.

"I think it's safe to say that you made an impression," the detective observed.

Kaito grinned and winked at him. "Always do. You know, I'm starting to think I should work this kind of outdoors stuff into my work more in the future. It's fun and adds to the intrigue."

"Just make sure you put anything you change back to the way it was beforehand when you finish," Shinichi reminded him.

"Yeah, I know." Kaito rolled his eyes. "Don't get myself arrested. Really, you don't honestly think they'd even be able to arrest me, do you?"

Shinichi frowned. "That's not the point."

"You worry too much," Kaito said, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm going to see what else they have. Do you want anything?"

"More coffee would be nice."

. . . . . . . . .

…After that the mysterious magician who called himself KID had made quite a stir throughout Tokyo then Japan. Kaito had indeed decided to hold more outdoors shows. When people had grown more familiar with him he had begun to announce his shows through small riddles posted in the papers and any venues who wanted to invite him to perform imitated him and took to printing their invitations in the papers so that he could reply in kind. Sometimes Shinichi wondered if Kaito treated the whole thing a little too much like a game, but he knew that as long as Kaito was having fun he'd do well. He was just that kind of person.

They had officially let their parents in on the scheme a few months after that first show, though Shinichi had always suspected they'd known all along. Now he knew he'd been right. Not, granted, that they had expected any of their parents not to notice once the news of that first show got out, but they'd put a lot of effort into hiding the operation before its official execution. Kaito especially had wanted it to be a surprise. It was a bit daunting to realize all that effort had been for naught. At least the peanut gallery had had the courtesy not to mention it until now.

"It really was a great idea," Toichi said, somewhat mollifying his son.

"I still have all those articles speculating about who the new magician was," Chikage added, eyes twinkling with mirth. "Did you know, they actually approached your father a few times asking if he knew. But of course he always said he had no idea and you could just see them trying to figure out if he meant it or not."

"I remember when they ran that poll about it," Yukiko laughed. "That was when they started going international. You had them running in circles with that French incident."

"I remember that announcement riddle no once could solve," Yuusaku put in. "The one they were going to the detectives over. I think you got a bit carried away there but I believe you picked up some more intellectual followers from it."

Kaito coughed lightly into his hand. "I was afraid no one was going to show up to that one."

"I did warn you it would be too hard for most people," Shinichi pointed out.

"Yeah, I know, but it's no fun if they're all easy. Anyhow, shall we move on?"

TBC

A.N: As promised, a longer one. Should be an actually long one coming up in a few. And that's what we decided to do with KID. Anyhow, I have to get going. See ya!