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Caught on Camera

Photograph: Untimely Arrivals

Peels of laughter greeted the unveiling of the next photo. Shinichi himself had to stare. It was an image of Kaito pulling him off somewhere—or rather trying to pull him off somewhere—while Shinichi clung to the frame of the Kudo library door with his free hand like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline. Well, he had to admit, albeit grudgingly, that it was kind of funny…

. . . . . . . . .

"Shin-chan! You have to do something about that guy!"

Shinichi looked up from the new book he'd just begun to read (the newest installment in a series of detective novels he'd been eagerly awaiting for ages) to blink in shock as Kaito came bursting into the Kudo library. At the magician's vehement declaration however he found himself taking a look around the room, but he and Kaito were the only people there. He turned back to the magician with a puzzled look.

"What are you talking about?"

"This guy from Osaka just showed up downtown," Kaito explained, indigo eyes narrowing in recollection. "Claims he's a detective. He's been going around saying he's better than you!"

"…So…what does that have to do with me, exactly?" Shinichi asked, nonplused. It wasn't really any of his business what kinds of people from what kinds of places went around saying what kinds of things. Unless they were planning some kind of crime anyway, in which case he'd care a lot, but this certainly wasn't the case. If bragging was a crime, most of the world would have to be arrested. And the first offender would probably be Kaito anyway so the magician really had no room to talk in the matter.

"Prove him wrong, of course," Kaito replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

The detective awarded him a flat look. "You're kidding right?"

"Absolutely not," Kaito declared without hesitation. "You can't just sit around reading and let some total stranger look down on you!"

"Why should I care if a total stranger wants to brag?" Shinichi asked in what he thought was a perfectly reasonable way. His grip tightened reflexively on his book. Which he reeeeaaally wanted to get back to reading (frankly right now he didn't care if the sky was falling as long as he got to finish the book first). "It's not as though it affects me one way or another."

But Kaito obviously wasn't listening anymore. Bounding forward, he snatched Shinichi's new book out of his hands, dropped it on the nearest table, then commandeered one of said detective's arms and began to haul him bodily out of the library without a backward glance.

"H—hey! Wait! Kaito!" Shinichi protested, but his exclamations fell on deaf ears. The magician was entirely focused on hauling his best friend downtown to give this visiting upstart from Osaka a run for his money. In a last ditch attempt to keep from being dragged away to meet this new detective he couldn't care less about Shinichi grabbed the edge of the library doorframe with his free hand. For an instant he thought he might actually be able to hang on, but then his fingers slipped and he was being towed down the hall.

Heaving an internal sigh, he silently bid his new book a mournful farewell.

. . . . . . . . .

…"Ah, so that was the first time you two met Hattori-kun then," Yuusaku mused. "I wondered where you two were off to in such a hurry."

"Yep, and Shin-chan showed him not to go around making false claims about other people," Kaito said, sounding rather smug.

Shinichi rolled his eyes. "Hattori just missed a few things because he was so focused on the idea of winning what shouldn't have been a competition to begin with." What he found weird was that someone had turned up dead right when they'd located Hattori. Now that had felt like a bit of a freaky coincidence.

TBC

A.N: And that's when they met Heiji in this universe. ^^ Sorry this one's so short, but to be fair the last one was quote long.