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Caught on Camera

Photograph: Handkerchief

"I've been meaning to ask you two about this one," Toichi said when they turned to the next page. "I never thought a son of mine would treat a gift with so little respect in front of its giver."

Kaito glanced at the picture in question and turned to cough into his hand. "Yeah, well…"…

"Shin-chan! You have to help me!"

Shinichi staggered as a weight landed on his back, nearly knocking him off his feet. He would have fallen if it wasn't for the arms that caught him around the middle and steadied him. Once he'd gotten his balance back, he dislodged said arms and turned around so he could look his assailant in the face.

"What is it?" he asked, noting how Kaito looked a little frazzled. Still, he knew from experience that you should always wait for the whole story before deciding how to react to the magician's pleas for aid. Otherwise you might find yourself doing something either really stupid or really embarrassing or both.

"There's this girl in my class. Her name's Koizumi Akako and she's trying to put a spell on me!" Kaito explained, waving his arms around for emphasis and earning them strange looks from the passersby on the street around them.

"That's ridiculous Kaito," Shinichi pointed out in what he thought was a very reasonable tone. "There's no such thing as a spell."

"You say that because you haven't seen what she's done to half my school! They're like zombies! They're always following her around and asking what she wants and trying to give her things."

Shinichi rolled his eyes, wondering if this was Kaito's idea of a fun new make believe game. "It sounds to me like they're just trying to impress her."

"But it's not like that," Kaito insisted. "It's too extreme to be normal! I wasn't kidding when I said it was half the school. The male half to be exact. They're all being controlled I tell you!"

To Shinichi, it still sounded like Kaito had decided for some reason or other only he would ever understand to freak out about this girl being extremely popular. "So what does this have to do with me exactly? Or you for that matter?"

Kaito gave him a look that said the answer should be obvious. "She's after me! She wants to turn me into one of her zombie servants!"

"…You're kidding, right?" Because surely Kaito knew no amount of good acting on his part was going to make something like that sound believable.

"I'm serious! She's been giving me the evil eye all week."

"Did you do anything to make her mad?" Shinichi asked. They had only been in high school for a few weeks but he knew Kaito could do a lot in that time that might annoy someone.

"Of course not." The magician produced a wounded look. "Why would you even ask me that?"

"You were the one who just said she's been glaring at you all week," Shinichi pointed out.

"Not that kind of evil eye. It's more like a…well, a 'I am going to make you another one of my zombie slaves' kind of evil eye. And just the other day she took one of the handkerchiefs I used when I was—helping everyone de-stress after our Japanese test."

"If you insist on playing pranks in school, you can't expect not to lose a few props."

Kaito rolled his eyes. "I know that. I give away souvenirs all the time."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Don't you know anything?" the magician demanded. "Witches can use things that belonged to a person to bewitch them. Everyone knows that."

"I thought that was supposed to be more like hair and that kind of thing. You know, biological."

"Usually," Kaito conceded reluctantly, "but she must have taken it for a reason."

"And so based on that somewhat baseless assumption, you want to…?"

"Get it back—and it isn't baseless!"

Shinichi just shook his head slowly. "Why do you need me then? Just ask her to give it back. Or did you want me to ask for you?"

"That's too risky," Kaito declared. "By that point she could have done anything with it. We have to get it back before that without her knowledge. We just need to find out her address."

Realization dawned and Shinichi scowled. "You want us to break into her house? For a handkerchief? Have you lost your mind? Why are you so determined to believe this Koizumi girl is a witch and coming after you anyway? I'm sure there are better ways to amuse yourself if you're really that bored."

"Because she is! Why won't you believe me?" Now Kaito was actually shaking him back and forth by the shoulders as though he could physically shake the doubt out of Shinichi's head. The detective fought to pull himself out of the frenzied shaking with only mild success. He was rescued however by a smooth, female voice which spoke up from somewhere to his right.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Kaito froze then turned his head slowly towards the source of the interruption. Taking a moment to steady himself, Shinichi followed his gaze to see a tall, slender girl with dark red hair regarding them with interest. Her poise was that of someone who knew everyone was watching her. But while she was indeed beautiful, Shinichi couldn't help but feel like there was something about her that made him want to keep his distance.

"Ah, Koizumi-san," Kaito said after a moment's pause, letting go of Shinichi and straightening out his clothes. It was only because he knew the magician so well that Shinichi could tell he was nervous. "I didn't realize you frequented Beika."

"I do not," the girl replied with a graceful flick of her hand to dismiss the issue as irrelevant. "I have something for you." She reached into her purse and pulled out a blue handkerchief. "You forgot this," she said coolly, holding it out. The corners of her mouth were quirked slightly upward as though she was laughing at some joke only she understood.

Looking at that expression on her face, Shinichi had to admit Kaito might have a point, the girl really was creepy. But he still didn't believe in zombies. Or witches for that matter.

Kaito hesitated a moment, eyeing the handkerchief warily as though it might bite him, before reaching out a reluctant hand and taking it gingerly from her grasp.

There was a pause before Shinichi discretely poked the magician in the side. Kaito started out of his suspicious contemplation of the handkerchief.

"Did you come all this way just to return this?" he asked in a tone that sounded like mere curiosity but which to Shinichi carried a certain undertone of horror.

The redhead nodded, her smile widening the barest of fractions.

"Well…thank you then, but you really didn't need to go to all the trouble."

"It wasn't any trouble. I will see you in class then." That said, the girl turned and walked away, her crimson hair flowing about her in just the right way to emphasize the motion. The two teens watched her go in silence.

"So what are you going to do with that?" Shinichi asked when the girl had disappeared from sight, glancing at the handkerchief Kaito was still holding like a dirty rag. Or maybe a dead animal.

"Burn it," the magician said immediately.

…"To be fair, it was mine to begin with, so you can't really call it a gift. She was just…giving it back."

Their parents continued to look at him expectantly but Kaito just stared back with a smile that said absolutely nothing. Shinichi watched the staring contest for a moment before settling down to wait it out.

TBC [To be Continued]

A.N: ^^ Kind of silly, but since Halloween's coming up and all... Anyhow, I'm not sure when the next one will be up since I'm going to be gone for a while after this week, but I'll see you guys when I get back. Hope you enjoyed!

Oh, and Nightpounce, one of your ideas was something I actually already started writing, it's like you read my mind!