#robot kaito kuroba | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lisatelramor · 2 years

Text

In Another World

So for funsies my brain decided it would be hilarious if Robo!Kaito characters met Neighbors!Saguru/Kaito and then this sort of ... happened. It’s probably not going to make a ton of sense without the context of Not Left To Stand Alone or Be a Better Me, but eh. It literally was just playing, posting because someone else might find it funny too.

“I told you that wouldn’t work,” Ayato said to the idiots who’d been doing dubious experiments in the basement. He grimaced and rubbed soot off his face. “Ugh. It had to be something exploding, didn’t it?”

“Apologies,” Hakuba said in the stiff, formal tone that Ayato hated. “But according to the calculations, it should have worked.”

“Back to the drawing board,” Kaito-bot said, pinching singed hair between his fingers.

Ugh. They’d been trying to work out a better lasting core for the robot since they had learned that it started to wear at about the five-year mark, and glitch in the half year it took to re-work the original design. That said, neither Kaito, nor Hakuba were actually an engineer. Even with Agasa and Haibara helping, it was still only in prototyping.

Ayato sighed and glanced around. A mess. A mess that looked a lot worse than the mess that had already been down here, plus new scorch marks! What great re-decorating! Not.

“I’m going up to check on the doves,” he said, “while you two make sure nothing is on fire. If you broke any of dad’s things, I’m kicking you in the shin, Hakuba.”

“Oh no, whatever shall I do,” Hakuba said, deadpan like the bastard he often was.

Ayato still didn’t get what Kaito saw in him sometimes.

“Not kicking me?” the robot asked.

“Hell no, I’d break my toes.” Ayato flashed Hakuba a middle finger for his resulting eye roll, and hurried up the secret passage.

Ayato stepped out into a room that was both abnormally dusty, and way less cluttered than the one he left earlier. He’d say his mother dropped in to clean, except the dust was a clear sign no one had been cleaning here in who knew how long. Unless… “Did the explosion knock dust from the whole house?” he muttered. Weird.

Doves. He needed to make sure that hadn’t scared them half to death. They were used to small explosions, but that hadn’t exactly been small, and if Ayato hadn’t been wearing noise canceling headphones to listen to podcasts while commentating on the sad attempts to improve the core, he probably would still have his ears ringing.

He rounded the familiar turns of his house toward the stairs to the patio he kept the dovecote on… and ran into himself.

Not his robot-clone, and not another teen. This one looked like a cheap knock off of his dad, and for a half second, he actually thought Kuroba Toichi came back for the dead with less style and a bad haircut. If Ayato could come back from death, why not his dad at this point?

“What the fuck,” Ayato said.

“Language,” the not-Toichi old-Kaito said. Then, “What the hell.”

“How is that any better?”

“Please tell me I don’t have another illegitimate child running around. I can’t have another child running around. It’s statistically improbable at best.”

“But not impossible?” Ayato asked, with horrified fascination. Then the rest of that sentence hit. “Another illegitimate child?”

“How old are you? Not old enough to be from the same time as the twins—”

“TWINS?”

Old-maybe-Kaito made a face. “Don’t shout. I have a headache already. Now who are you and why are you in my house?”

Ayato let out an indignant sound. “Your house? This is my house!”

“It really isn’t.”

“And who are you? Why are you here?”

“Kuroba Kaito,” the old-Kaito said, apparently actually another Kaito. (How was this Ayato’s life? How many times was he going to run into people with his face??) “And I’m here because I own the place and need to feed my birds.”

“Doves. They’re doves.”

They stared each other down. “And you are…?” old-Kaito asked after a moment.

“Kuroba Kaito,” Ayato said, “now Kuroba Ayato. And I’m going to check on the doves.”

There was another awkward silence as neither of them backed down. The older Kaito sighed. “Well. Either one of us is lying—” He said it in a way that clearly meant you are lying. “—Or something very strange is going on. Akako-level strange.”

Ayato shuddered. “Please don’t bring her up. She’s awful.”

Other-Kaito shrugged. “Not the worst person to deal with once you reach an agreement. And I’m almost convinced you really are a version of me.”

“Why not you another version of me?”

“How old are you?”

“…Twenty-three.”

“I’m older, so I have seniority. …Does Kudo Shinichi mean anything to you?”

“If you mean is he annoying but fun to mess with, yeah. If you mean is he a child too, also yeah. Or he was.”

“Couldn’t cure you?”

That confirmed that Shinichi existed here and had been turned into Conan at some point. And that this Kaito was also in the know with all of that.

“Can’t. It’d probably kill me to try.” Since his previous state had been dead it really wasn’t worth experimenting.

Other-Kaito’s face scrunched like he wanted to know more and at the same time had never wanted anything less. “Right. So, I’m guessing some sort of world-hopping accident occurred.”

“You don’t look surprised.”

“Oh, I definitely am, but plenty of weird things have happened in my life.”

“Same,” Ayato said with a sigh. It seemed no matter the world, Kaito would attract some kind of chaos. Honestly, Ayato should be more shocked at all of this. But maybe he just wasn’t processing yet.

“Kaito,” a familiar voice said as someone entered the room behind the older Kaito, “I thought I heard—oh.”

Ayato stared at what appeared to be an older Hakuba. Hakuba stared back.

Ayato had spent over half a decade spending time with Kudo Shinichi and (more reluctantly) Hakuba Saguru at this point. He’d never call himself a detective, but observation skills had become even more a survival tool than when he’d been moonlighting as a thief. So Ayato couldn’t help but catch on details immediately. Like the cane. The gray in Hakuba’s hair and the crow’s feet around his eyes. Casual clothing that the Hakuba Ayato knew would never be caught dead in. And then there was a ring on his finger. Ayato zeroed in on it, somehow surprised even though his own Hakuba had been in a relationship with the robot and Aoko for over a year now. On impulse, he glanced at Kaito’s hand.

The rings matched.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Excuse me?” old-Hakuba said, somewhere between confused and insulted. Then, “That isn’t Takumi-kun.”

“Nope,” old-Kaito said, hands sliding into his pockets. He moved stiffly, not like a magician should, like he just couldn’t move the way he should, and ah, there was a real possibility he couldn’t… How many injuries did Ayato accumulate even before he died?

“Takumi?”

“My son,” Kaito said easily.

He said ‘illegitimate child’ earlier, so yes, he probably had children, but it was still like taking a smack in the face. “Is this the illegitimate one?”

“Oh, no, he’s the only legitimate one.”

“Of course,” Ayato said faintly. He kind of wanted to know how many children this other Kaito had. On the other hand, he really didn’t want to know, because that meant thinking about an alternate him having had sex. Ugh. “What is with other versions of me wanting to marry Hakuba?”

“This has happened before then?” Kaito said as Hakuba’s narrowed gaze flicked between them.

“Oh, no. Just… Look, did you ever get kidnapped by a crazy scientist who made a robot with your face?”

Both Hakuba and Kaito’s eyes narrowed warily. “Yes,” Kaito said. “But I got free and killed it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m pretty sure I’d remember tricking a robot into blowing its own brains out,” Kaito said, cold and finite like that ended the whole story. Ayato had already kind of figured there was a difference somewhere around there; robots couldn’t father a child, let alone multiple illegitimate ones.

Hakuba’s eyebrows shot up. “When was this?”

“Mm, back before we met,” Kaito said dismissively. “It’s not important.”

The most defining moment of Ayato’s life, and in another world it was unimportant. That stung.

“In another world,” Ayato said, holding the bitterness in, “you never got away. In another world, there were two robots with Kuroba Kaito’s face, and only one of them knew he wasn’t human.”

“Ah.” The single syllable and carefully neutral expression said old-Kaito understood exactly where this was going. Good, he wouldn’t get senile by age thirty-something. “And what happened to you?”

“It turns out cryogenic stasis is possible under very precise circumstances,” Ayato said. “Also death sucks, stay alive if you can.”

“Kaito?” Hakuba said, two and two making four and a whole new equation.

Kaito sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, ring a flash of gold on his finger. “So, best guess is that this is an alternate version of myself from a different universe. One that sounds like it diverged with the robot mishap.”

Mishap. Ayato felt a weird curl of resentment.

“An alternate universe,” Hakuba said flatly. “Truly.”

“Isn’t that, such and such Holmes quote applicable here?” Kaito said with a wave of his hand.

“There are far more logical explanations than other universes.”

“And yet here we are.” Old-Kaito shrugged. “I believe him. Is this really any stranger than Akako?”

“Yes. With Koizumi-san, there wasn’t a child-shaped version of you.”

“I’d love to know how that happened,” Kaito said in an aside to Ayato. “I thought only Kudo had to deal with that.”

“Reversing stasis has side effects,” Ayato said, not wanting to go into detail. “Lovely as this all is, I think I should go get my companions.”

“Oh, there’s more of you?”

“Yeah… Let’s just…” Ayato turned back to the hidden passage, acutely aware of Kaito and Hakuba at his back. It felt like Hakuba was trying to dissect him with his eyes alone.

“Fair warning,” Ayato called ahead of him, “something has gone really weird and really wrong.”

“We were kind of figuring that out!” the robot called back.

Hakuba and old-Kaito both twitched even though they had to have some idea who he’d been with.

“How are the doves?” his Kaito asked as Ayato returned to the workroom. There was a space cleared on the table now, streaks of dust left on the corner like no one had been using down here for a while.

“Never got that far,” Ayato admitted. “You should know that there’s—” He watched both Kaito and Hakuba’s eyes go huge as they saw behind him, Kaito’s hand instinctively reaching for a card gun. “…Other versions of us,” Ayato finished.

“A bit of warning would have been nice,” the robot said, eying his older double warily. No surprise since the other times he saw someone with the same face, it had been Ayato dead, and a second robot trying to kill him. A glance showed that other-Kaito looked equally wary. Ugh. Only Ayato was allowed to have the trauma of seeing his own face reflected back at him in a stranger.

“I thought you said you were twenty-three,” other-Kaito said, staring down the robot. His Hakuba looked at his double with something between interest and jealousy. Ah, the cane; whatever it had been caused by, clearly it would have happened by Ayato’s (ugh) Hakuba’s age.

“I am.”

“Then this is…?”

“The non-murderous robot.”

The wariness all but doubled, and both parties tensed. For goodness’s sake.

“Oi,” Ayato said. “As the only one who actually died from robot and scientist encounters, I think I claim the robot trauma card, yeah? Kaito’s a life-stealing metal wreck, but he’s not going to kill anyone any more than I assume you or I would.”

“Does he have arm rockets?”

“…No?” Wait, had the other murder bot had arm rockets?? Why was he only learning this now? “He’s practically human. Even bleeds and needs haircuts. Just with metal bones and a bad habit of breaking.”

“I can’t control the breaking,” Kaito said at the same time the younger Hakuba said, “That’s what we’re attempting to fix.”

“…Right.” Other-Kaito eyed his double. Neither looked happy with this situation. No shit. “So how exactly did two Kaitos and a Saguru end up in my basement room?”

“An unfortunate accident,” Young-Hakuba (Ayato needed a better shorthand. Robot, Mechanic, Kaito, Hakuba. Sure.) said. “An experimental core for Kaito exploded.”

“Injuries?” Hakuba—the old one—asked.

“None besides superficial scratches and some abused eardrums.”

“I see.”

The silence was painfully awkward. They didn’t seem to know how to handle facing other versions of themselves. Ayato glanced at robo-Kaito and raised an eyebrow. If any of them knew how to handle other selves, it was the two of them, even if they both never quite got comfortable with it.

“So,” Ayato said. “This older Kaito has several children and married Hakuba.”

“We’re engaged,” old-Hakuba said at the same time old-Kaito rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t have that many children.”

Robo-Kaito’s face twitched. Was it the ‘married to Hakuba’ bit or the ‘has children’? Both things the robot probably wanted in life eventually.

“Where does Aoko fit into this?” the robot asked.

Raised eyebrows on the other side of things now.

“Aoko… currently isn’t in picture much. We’re working on mending our friendship.”

Friendship. Not romance. “You didn’t marry Aoko?” Ayato asked, because weird taste in men aside, he can’t imagine any version of himself not loving Aoko. He was stuck as a child and still in love with her and even the robot would marry her in a heartbeat.

“Er. Well.” Kaito looked to the side, a tic that was very familiar. Like looking for an escape route. “We’re kind of divorced?”

“You divorced Aoko?” Oh god, it was so much worse in this universe. What was wrong with this Kaito?

“The other way round actually.”

“Aoko divorced you? What the hell did you do to piss her off bad enough for that?” Aoko was, in Ayato’s opinion, one of the most forgiving people he knew. She’d forgiven Kaito for being Kid, forgiven the robot for being a robot, forgiven Ayato for dying and then for being a child and loved him through all of it, all forms of him. She was working on becoming a nurse in part because of how the knowledge intersected with Kaito, Ayato, and the technology Hakuba was investing his life in. Ayato couldn’t imagine a world where she wouldn’t forgive them.

Older Kaito grimaced. “Look. I didn’t mean for things to go the way they did, but things happened so fast and then I was married and had a child and was trying to go to school, raise a baby, work, and be Kid at the same time. The moment to bring it up just… never got there.”

“Oh my god, you had a kid and you never told her about the thief thing.”

“To be fair, we wouldn’t have told her if circumstances hadn’t gone the way they did,” the robot said, all reasonable about it, like it was perfectly believable that it’d happen that way.

“I’d like to think I’d have told her before we’d get married, let alone HAD A CHILD.”

“Look—”

“Excuse me,” the robot’s Hakuba cut in. “Rather than argue over life choices, perhaps we can put our minds toward reversing this?”

“Can’t we just re-do what we just did?” Ayato asked.

“We could try that,” Hakuba said like he was actually talking to a child—it was one of those things Ayato hated, when he got all ‘I know more than you’ at him. “But that, if we can successfully replicate world shifting at all, is more likely to land us in yet another iteration of ourselves rather than return us to our proper world. Another universe might be less kind in its residents.”

“I can’t picture a reality I’d be actually violent with intent to kill,” Ayato said.

“Yes, but sadly, I can picture myself in such a world, and I would rather not meet a murderous version of me,” Hakuba said calmly, like that wasn’t a horrifying thought. Hakuba’s brain harnessed for evil. Noooope. Just as bad if there was an evil Kaito out there. The world would implode or something.

“…Fair enough. I’d pay to see you as a thief though.”

Hakuba, rudely, ignored him to turn to their older counterparts. “I don’t suppose either of you would have any ideas on world-hopping?”

“Koizumi Akako,” both of them said with varying amounts of discomfort on their faces. Weirdly, it was Hakuba who looked the most like he’d bitten into something sour.

“In all honesty, there may be someone else,” old-Hakuba said, “but we don’t have connection to them, nor any knowledge. If Koizumi-san can’t help you, she is also the most likely to know someone who could.”

“At what price though,” old-Kaito said, eyes far away.

Well. That was ominous. But fair enough. Ayato had only met Koizumi the once, and he definitely never wanted to meet her again.

Still, he didn’t want to be in this world too long. “Can we go? I finally have an advanced placement test coming up to let me out of kiddie hell.”

Robo-Kaito and his Hakuba were doing that thing where they communicated with their eyes and micro-expressions. Actually, so were the other pair. Eew. That was one romantic couple thing Ayato was glad he didn’t do. Just use words like everyone else.

“We can go,” Robo-Kaito said finally, “but if the price is too high or she tries anything on us, we’re risking another explosion.”

“That’s fine then,” older Kaito said with a half-shrug. “Maybe show me the schematics and I can see what I can get ahold of just in case.” He grimaced. “I really don’t like having to get in touch with Akako, but she keeps the line open for me, so I guess I can.”

“She does?” Ayato said.

“You’ll see,” Kaito said with another uncomfortable shrug.

Ayato really wasn’t liking this world.

It was strange to see a version of himself still so young, Saguru reflected, watching the three men in the back of the car through the rear mirror as Kaito drove them toward Koizumi’s home. The two versions of Kaito squabbled like siblings, arguing over something in the design that they theorized as the part to fail. His younger self watched, amused and loving. He’d recognize himself in love anywhere.

His other self had fallen for Kuroba Kaito’s consciousness in a robot body. The robot—but no, he was more human than not, android—was calmer than he imagined Kaito had been at this age. Twenty-three, or close to seven if Saguru was counting the time he’d existed correctly. At twenty-three, Kaito had to have been contemplating graduate school, if not already in it, raising Takumi, and soon to end up divorced from Aoko… Kaito must have been constantly on the move, always a bit too tired, a bit too ragged as he spent himself up. The android looked healthier.

Perhaps it was because he was not human, or perhaps it was because unlike the Kaito Saguru knew, this younger Kaito had a strong network of support.

Saguru’s younger self looked happy. Saguru had been happy at twenty-three. Mel had been in his life by then and, bad leg aside, he’d been rediscovering things he’d loved in the world that didn’t involve his previous dreams of active detective work.

It sounded like his younger self had all but taken one look at the android Kaito after his true nature was revealed, and made the split-second decision to dedicate his life to him. Saguru was painfully obvious when he found someone he cared for.

His younger self met his eyes in the mirror, a faint smile on his lips that faded as they watched each other. It must be unnerving to strangers to be looked at this way. To be looked at as if eyes could see down to the soul. It was unnerving for Saguru even though he knew there wasn’t a deeper meaning to it beyond shared curiosity.

“Hey,” the youngest version of Kaito, Ayato said, also meeting Saguru’s eyes in the mirror. “If this Hakuba’s an engineer and robotics expert—”

“And chemist, and surgeon and—” Saguru saw the other Hakuba mutter under his breath.

“—What are you?” Ayato finished.

“A teacher.”

Blank looks all around.

Saguru smirked because it truly was funny to be the shocking one. “A chemistry teacher to be precise. I’ve also taught English and supervised a book club.”

“Who are you?” Ayato said. He was a bit like Kaito without a filter and a less positive outlook. Definitely a lot more childish than his double.

“A man that had to give up most of my detective work due to circumstance,” Saguru said wryly with a pointed lift of his cane.

“Oh… Uh. Is it rude to ask what happened? Just in case?”

“I had my knee shot out shortly before university. After, I had to heal for months, and had physical therapy for long after that; by the time I entered university, I’d given up on ever being as mobile as I was. I consulted sometimes, but ended up in teaching after enjoying tutoring. That said, it sounds as if you’ve moved on toward a field well apart from the policework we intended to grow into. You would have run into the trouble I did by now if you were going to.”

“I see,” the younger Saguru said. “I also consult at times, but learning everything needed to keep Kaito functional and in good repair took over quite a bit of my life…”

“It would do that.” Saguru couldn’t really picture himself in the same position. Perhaps learning a bit of medical information, but not diving head first into engineering something he had no previous knowledge of. “And now you’re dating him.”

“Yes, although it’s a bit more complicated than that…”

“It’s a polyamorous relationship with Aoko as the common point with all of us,” the android-Kaito said.

Kaito twitched, just barely failing to jerk the steering wheel as he looked back at them in the mirror. “You’re in a poly relationship with Aoko?”

“Yes?” The android raised an eyebrow in a way that was channeling Saguru through and through.

“Look, he’s an asexual android, Hakuba’s in love with him and fond of Aoko, Aoko loves all of us, and I still love Aoko even if this body,” Ayato said, and ah, Saguru hadn’t realized he was included in this arrangement. “I don’t want the guy with illegitimate kids running around judging us.”

“…How does that even work?” Kaito asked, the edge of fascinated horror in his voice.

“It’s complicated,” the android said drily. “Very complicated. Like blindfolded juggling.”

“That’s not that hard.”

“But everything is potentially on fire.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. We’re making it work as we go.”

“I believe that is our turn,” Saguru said, cutting into Kaito’s thoughts before they missed their destination.

“Oh. Yeah, thanks.”

Koizumi’s home was unnerving. It looked a bit like something from the Addams Family in all honesty, all Gothic architecture and dark colors. The garden out front clashed with that, a riot of colors and blossoms, though Saguru was certain at least some of those flowers were distinctly poisonous. It was Koizumi, after all.

“You know, I’m glad I never visited my Koizumi’s place,” Ayato said in a tight voice. “You sure she doesn’t have vampires hiding in her draperies or what?”

“No vampires so far as I know, but supposedly she had Lucifer on supernatural speed dial, so take that as you will,” Kaito said with forced cheer. “C’mon. Let’s see if she can get you all home.”

“I wish I could believe you were joking, but I know my own tells too well,” Ayato said, unnerved. His android companion looked less unnerved, but Saguru could chalk that up to him being mortal in a different way than fleshy, easily-broken humans. Or perhaps he had fewer negative associations? But no, the android would have been the one interacting with their Koizumi.

The car slid to a stop beside a walkway framed with weeping cherry trees, trimmed into perfect shape. Everything was a bit too neat and precise, but after knowing Koizumi more in the last few years, it wasn’t surprising that it felt a bit unnatural; it likely wasn’t natural at all.

Kaito led the way up the walk, not looking back to see them follow. He looked a bit like he was steeling himself for an unpleasant walk in a downpour or to clean a terrible mess.

The front door—tall, intimidatingly sharp in its carvings—creaked open, seemingly on its own. Ayato took a step behind his counterpart.

“Kuroba,” Koizumi said, materializing out of the shadows of her foyer. “Hakuba.” Her eyes slid to the rest of the group. “Hakuba, Kuroba, Kuroba. What an interesting group.”

“Akako-hime,” Kaito said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “As you can see we have a bit of a dilemma here. I don’t suppose you would know much about pinpointing exact alternate universes or creating paths to them?”

“That isn’t exactly my specialty,” Koizumi said, a bit of humor in the curve of her lips, “but I can give it a try. Congratulations on the engagement.”

“Do I want to know how you know about that?”

“I keep track of your life even when you’re failing to keep up with mine,” she said waving them inside.

The interior was just as gothic and intimidating as the outside. Saguru eyed the various crystals, portraits, and candelabras with a healthy dose of wariness. Knowing magic was real didn’t mean he knew how it worked, and that was more than enough reason to be careful.

“I wouldn’t touch anything,” he said softly as Ayato reached a hand toward a dangling crystal that caught light in a particularly eye-attracting manner.

Ayato snatched his hand back, something between guilt and irritation flashing across his face before it was covered up with Kuroba’s polite-blank mask. “It’s neat,” Ayato said. “I’ve never seen something like it.”

“Spell arrays,” Koizumi said airily. “Mostly harmless, but not all of them are. My daughters made them.”

Ayato tucked his hands surreptitiously into his pockets.

“Are they here today?” Kaito asked. Saguru had yet to properly meet the twins, though he knew a bit about them through proximity to Kaito. From what he did know, they were far more like Koizumi than Kaito, though they had a similar streak of mischief. If a bit more toward the sadistic side than Kaito had.

Saguru distinctly remembered a story about them driving away one of Koizumi’s suitors that they disliked.

“They are both busy with homework at the moment, but perhaps they will have a moment to spare toward the end of your visit. They’re due seeing you.”

“Do they even want to?” Kaito asked, not troubled by the thought that they wouldn’t want to since he was only ever distantly involved with them at best.

“They find you amusing,” Koizumi said, which wasn’t quite an answer, but coming from her was probably a yes.

The younger Saguru’s eyes flicked back and forth between Koizumi and Kaito. Saguru could see the conclusions being drawn on Kuroba and Ayato’s faces. Horror in differing proportions.

“With Akako?!” Ayato screeched, voice reaching octaves only a young Kuroba, voice not yet settled into its post-puberty range could produce.

Kaito winced and rubbed his ear, even as Koizumi smirked like she’d won something valuable—which Saguru supposed she had, technically. “It really isn’t what you think.”

“Then you aren’t the father?”

“I am but—”

“He’s the sperm donor,” Koizumi said, still with her cat-with-cream smile.

“See, not what you think! No sex involved!” Kaito said, hands palm-out in front of his chest.

“I am with Ayato here,” Kuroba said, side-eying his older self. “Why would you even want to?”

“It was a deal,” Koizumi said lightly, “and I believe we have both done quite well from that. And speaking of deals, you three are going to need to make one for me to even hope of getting you back to your proper dimension. It isn’t the sort of thing that can happen without some sort of sacrifice.”

“We got here in one piece,” Ayato complained.

“Yes, but we gave up energy and a prototype,” the younger Saguru said, thoughtful. “There has to be some sort of energy balance to this sort of thing.”

“It’s magic, not physics.”

“Science and magic aren’t nearly so different as you’d like to think,” Koizumi said. She led them into an elaborate sitting room and perched herself in a wing-backed chair. “Take a seat,” she said with a wave at the velvet sofas that made up a loose circle around an intricate rug. It was all very Victorian feeling. Koizumi seemed to be more interested in aesthetics of a room than continuity of a specific era in her decorating.

Saguru sat beside his Kaito, both of them feeling their age and old injuries on the less than comfortable couches; they looked nice, but they weren’t nearly so soft as they looked. The others grouped together on one couch as well, despite how close it made them sit. Saguru was interested to note that Ayato was physically comfortable enough with the android who had replaced his life to practically sit in his lap. He would have thought there would be more discomfort, but he supposed they must have had a few years to get used to each other.

“Well,” Kuroba asked, leaning comfortably against his Saguru, “I’ll ask. What exactly is this going to cost us, and how likely are we going to be to be able to afford what it will cost to get us home? If you can get us home. We’re not paying with our lives.”

“Learning how you got here can pay for my search for a solution. The actual solution…” Koizumi’s eyes narrowed. “Is unlikely to be cheap. I don’t suppose you’d trade away some of your luck?”

“Considering the fact that luck seems to be the only thing keeping us alive,” Kuroba said with a polite smile, “I won’t be paying that, and neither will Ayato.”

“I can speak for myself.”

“Do you disagree?”

“No,” Ayato said with a huff. “But it’s the principle of things.”

“What else could we trade?” the younger Saguru asked. “I assume they must be things of value to us, or something unique.” He seemed to have accepted the possibility of metaphysical trade immediately, though perhaps after ending up in another world entirely, it was easy enough to believe that that sort of thing was possible.

“There are many things you could trade,” Koizumi said. “One of you could trade the chance to return for the sake of the others, or years of your lives. You could trade away special skills or knowledge. I could take your sight or hearing or voice.”

Ayato shifted uncomfortably. “We’re getting a bit ‘Little Mermaid’ here. None of us is staying behind, or sacrificing years of life. What do we specifically have to give?”

Koizumi narrowed her eyes at him. “…Your futures.” She held up a hand as everyone leaned forward to protest. “Not like that. I meant sacrificing the potential for a future. Your Kaito is a thief and magician, Hakuba is a detective and an engineer. You, who were once Kaito, are also a magician, and could one day reclaim the name you once held.”

At Saguru’s side, he felt Kaito tense. Kaito had given up the chance to be a magician once. He knew that it would be painful to watch another version of himself have to grapple with that kind of choice. Saguru set a hand on Kaito’s knee and Kaito snatched it up in a bruising grip.

There was silence for a long moment before Ayato spoke. “I give up my name,” he said. “Specifically, the name ‘Kaito’. We all know by now that I’m not getting a cure for the little problem I have. So.” He shrugged, looking both uncomfortable and determined. Saguru couldn’t imagine giving up his name. Wasn’t entirely sure what the whole ramifications of that would be. Would Ayato be unable to refer to himself as Kaito? Would he be unable to think it, anyone else to think it? The most alarming thing about Koizumi’s magic was that no one would know the full extent, not even Koizumi, until after the deal was made.

“You’re sure?” the android asked.

“You’re not the worst replacement a guy could have,” Ayato said, rolling his eyes. “And I just said I can’t go back anyway. Why hold onto that name?”

Something passed between them, expressed in eyebrows and slight tilts of lips. It must be odd to look yourself in the face and know this was a different person. Well, no, Saguru knew it was weird. His younger self was right there, and very much not him.

“Then the exchange will be made,” Koizumi said before turning her eyes toward the others.

The younger Saguru’s hands tightened on his lap in a nervous tic Saguru could recognize in his own habits before he’d ended up with other outlets to fiddle with. His own hand tightened a bit on the handle of his cane. “I would be willing to give up,” he started only for Kuroba to put a hand over his mouth.

“No.”

“Kait—” Saguru tried to say around the hand.

“No. You were going to give up being a detective.” Kuroba scowled. “You’ve given up enough of yourself for a lifetime. Don’t give up your passion.”

“I already barely consult these days,” younger Saguru said, prying Kuroba’s hand away. “It isn’t as big of a sacrifice as it could be.”

“You enjoy it though,” Kuroba said. “You gave it up as a career because of me already. Don’t give up on what’s left.”

Saguru met eyes with his younger self and could see the thought that if Saguru could handle being a teacher instead of a detective, he could clearly learn to be content in another field. Being an engineer was certainly more intellectually driving on a day-to-day basis.

Still, his younger self took a moment to reflect, lips pursed. “Would I be able to give a skill?” he asked after a moment.

Koizumi hummed. “If it is worth enough, yes.”

“I have been playing violin since I was eight,” Saguru said, “and it is a hobby that I enjoy and am proficient in, but not one that I couldn’t live without. Is fifteen years of developing a skill enough?”

“Saguru,” Kuroba started to protest.

His Saguru gave him a lifted brow in response. Kuroba trailed off, upset. “It needs to hold value,” Saguru said, patient. “This holds value, but is something I will willingly part with.”

Koizumi tilted her head to the side, eyes slightly unfocused like she was feeling something out none of them could observe. “…Fifteen years should be enough, provided the last exchange is of equal worth. A name weighs a bit more than a hobby. A dream would be higher still. Hopefully combined, all three of your sacrifices will balance enough.”

“That leaves me then,” Kuroba said with a wry twist of his mouth. “I’m not quite sure what to offer here. The base of who I am is stolen from someone else, my body is already in constant decline and repair, and there’s always a chance my mind will fail.” It was chilling how calmly he said it, like these were mere facts of life instead of that he was always a step away from death, or at least death as a machine could manage. “I could offer a skill, but much of my skills are linked to what I am. My memory, my speed and control—they’re a bit above human range. If I traded the excess of those abilities, would I break, then, as its cost?”

Koizumi didn’t answer, waiting him out.

Kuroba sighed. “Something of value. Hm. The greatest things I value are my memories because they’re what makes me Kaito. If I gave some of them up, would that be enough?”

“Wait wait wait,” Ayato cut in. “If you give the wrong memories you could change your personality.”

“One specific memory then,” Kuroba said. There was cold determination in his eyes that Saguru had seen in Kaito before. Resolve to see a thing through. “The first trick our father taught us. The memory of him teaching us it.”

“That’s the moment we first loved magic,” Ayato said, somewhere between pained and horrified.

“Yes,” Kuroba said before giving his younger double a brief smile. “It’s one of our most cherished memories, but it isn’t the only one we have of our dad, and it’s not the only moment we loved magic.”

“But it’s the start.”

“It is.”

“What if,” Ayato said, voice trembling the slightest bit. “What if that’s enough to forget?”

“Then it’s a good thing you have the memory,” Kuroba said. “But I don’t think giving it up will fundamentally change me. Maybe it will change my relationship to magic some, and maybe something with Oyaji will shift. But one memory isn’t going to destroy a foundation of hundreds of other memories, no matter how much it’s treasured.”

Ayato frowned, but he didn’t protest again. Saguru glanced at his Kaito and saw the same hesitant, unhappy expression on his face. It truly must be a cherished memory.

“Would we be able to help pay their fee?” Saguru asked.

Unhappy noises came from Ayato and Kuroba, but the other Saguru looked back at him with clear understanding.

Koizumi closed her eyes, silent for a moment before shaking her head slowly. “I think there needs to be a clear distinction between you, and adding anything of this world into the mix would risk drawing you to theirs.

Damn. Well, better to have tried than not.

“I believe,” Koizumi said, looking to Kuroba, “that your memory will cover the cost. It holds a deeper weight than a single memory should. You tie a lot of your identity to your father, don’t you?”

Kuroba’s lips quirked up. “For good or bad, he’s defined most of our goals and values.”

“Hm. It seems like that should be enough to trade with. It will take me a bit to figure out the exact method of getting you back, though. It isn’t as if I’m going to create another explosion to blast you back.”

“What a relief, we won’t be blown up today,” Ayato said sarcastically. “It’s not like that doesn’t almost happen literally all the time.”

“It happens significantly less if you avoid Kudo,” Kaito said, probably thinking of his own experiences with explosions.

“I see him all the time. That’s not changing anytime soon,” Ayato sighed. “Could really do with less corpses. Like, why? Why are there so many murderers in Tokyo? In Beika in particular? Is he a magnet? Does he have some aura that incites people to murderous frenzies? We can’t go to the beach without a body washing up.”

“They’re friends,” the younger Saguru said blandly.

“Who is his friend? We’re rivals, get it right!”

Kaito snorted and bit his lip when Ayato glared at him. “I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that he’s hot.”

Ayato went bright red. “I’m not—He’s—Kudo is straight! And annoying as hell! He’s a death magnet that thinks he can actually act like a child when he sticks out as much as his cowlick does! He’s a know-it-all with no social skills that thinks he’s being subtle when everyone with eyes knows he’s suspicious as hell as a child! He has terrible taste—”

“They’re definitely friends,” Kuroba said.

“Fuck you.”

“Sorry, not into sex.” Kuroba shot back, perfectly deadpan. “Kudo might be though.”

“Augh!”

“Is this what having a sibling is like?” Kaito said to Saguru under his breath.

“How would I know? I’m also an only child,” Saguru replied.

“What now?” the younger Saguru cut in, talking over Kuroba and Ayato. “Is there a…spell… you need to do or perhaps you merely yank the metaphysical prices from us and we end up home?”

“Oh it is certainly more complicated than that,” Koizumi said with an amused smile on the edge of her lips. “What you’re asking for me to do is to punch a hole in our reality to another specific reality that all three of you can pass through without harm. It’s the second part that is actually difficult. Realities dip in and out of each other’s borders constantly, but it is far harder to hit the correct world in a kaleidoscope of endless possibilities.”

“But you can do it though,” Ayato said.

“I can. I will need a bit of each of your blood though. Or,” she said eying Kuroba, “whatever passes for blood.”

“Does it have to be blood?” Ayato asked, going a bit pale. “Maybe take some of my hair or something?”

“Blood is preferable,” Koizumi said. “It’s tradition for a reason, and blood holds life and ties to its body that will be necessary.”

“Oh. Okay. Great.” Ayato sunk in his seat.

“Apologies,” younger Saguru said. “There’s some blood and medical phobias between the two of them.”

“An understandable thing,” Koizumi said, rising to her feet like some kind of graceful, deadly predator. “Thankfully we’ll only be needing a few drops each. A small cut or a pin prick will do.”

“Oh thank goodness,” Ayato said.

Kuroba huffed a laugh. “A needle is actually less damaging you know.”

“Yeah, but it’s the associations. I’ve had less people come at me with a knife and intent than a needle. And shush, you get freaked out by scalpels.”

Kuroba shrugged, and Saguru both did and didn’t want to know the context. All the more so when his double gave a little flinch.

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” Koizumi said, “I have a bit of research to do and then I will get everything we should need set up.”

It was interesting, Kaito thought, to see this older Koizumi. The Koizumi Akako he was familiar with was brash, self-absorbed, and had a vicious streak, though she’d occasionally helped him over the years. This Koizumi probably had those negative traits too, but she’d clearly grown up to be a bit less carelessly cruel. He didn’t know from looking at her if she still played with people’s hearts or threatened people, but she was a mother now and maybe that had changed something in her. There was something softer in her than the Koizumi Kaito knew. Either motherhood had settled her in some way, or she was actually fond of his other self in a non-possessive way. As impossible as that felt.

Whatever Koizumi had to do to prepare was taking a while though. They’d been led to a different lounge space by an unsettling butler and had been given refreshments. Kaito didn’t bother trying any of them. His older double might be okay risking it, but Kaito had had one too many love potions slipped into his food over the years to trust anything Koizumi gave him.

He’d have been perfectly comfortable waiting until Koizumi returned. However, a while after they got to the room, they were interrupted by two girls.

Twins, not quite identical though from the way they styled themselves they were trying to appear so. They had Koizumi’s unsettling smile and Kaito’s eyes and cheekbones, though one had more of Koizumi’s bowed lips and the other got Kaito’s thinner ones and a slight dimple on one side of her face. They were objectively pretty, but it was in the way that a cursed china doll looked pretty; a little unnatural and artificial and unsettlingly off.

“Girls,” the older Kaito said, giving them a nod.

The twins looked around the room like they were some fascinating sideshow exhibit. Which kind of fit considering they were iterations of the same people.

“There’s so many of you,” one girl said.

“Someone messed up, huh?” said the other. Then, “That one isn’t another brother, is he?”

“Excuse me?” Ayato yelped. “Heck no!”

“Another alternate,” the older Kaito said. “Has your mother mentioned multiverse theories?”

“No,” the first twin said. “But we’ve seen it in fiction. How did they get here?”

“I hear it involved an explosion.”

“Does that mean there will be another explosion to send them back?” the second twin asked, looking a bit too excited by the thought.

“Akako-hime didn’t mention any explosions, just a bit of blood and a trade.”

“Boring,” the second twin said with a sigh.

“Traditional,” the first said, commiserating.

“Explosions would be more fun.”

“I think we’d rather live to see our own universe again,” Kaito said, drawing two sharp sets of eyes. “But yes, explosions can be fun.”

The twins cocked their heads to the side in eerie synchronization, looking Kaito over in what he thought was true curiosity and not their strange, mirroring act of Koizumi’s unsettling presence. “Something’s different about you,” the first twin said.

“But what?” the other echoed. She darted forward to poke Kaito in the cheek.

Kaito blinked at her. Rude, and surprisingly impulsive. Well, he shouldn’t expect much else from a child with Kaito’s blood and Koizumi’s upbringing.

“It’s not nice to stick your fingers in people’s faces,” the other Kaito said with a sigh.

The one who’d poked him shrugged. “Now I know what someone from another universe feels like.”

Her sister looked like she was considering stepping forward to give poking Kaito a go as well. Thankfully, the older Kaito distracted her.

“Akako-hime said you’re moving on to practical magic?”

The twins turned back to him, though not without another considering look at Kaito’s group like touching all of them would give them some kind of world-explaining knowledge or something. Kaito was half tempted to hold Ayato out like a sacrifice and sneak away with his Saguru while they toyed with their prey. Ayato would probably try to kill him if he did that though.

“We’re past emotional manipulation,” one said, “and have moved on to impacting impulses and thoughts.”

“I’m learning scrying because I’m better at it,” the second said.

There was the first hint of discord between the two as the first sister frowned at her twin. “We’re both learning scrying.”

“And I’m learning it faster. And you’re learning talismans faster.” She shrugged, a practical mirror image of Kaito’s own habitual motion, which was somehow even more unsettling than all the other little ways the girls were trying to be creepy. “There’s no harm in admitting our strengths and weaknesses and covering each other.”

“We don’t have to tell people about them.”

“It’s Kaito-jii.”

Her sister gestures at the group.

A lifted eyebrow and an unimpressed look in response. “Leaving the universe,” she said waving at Kaito, Ayato, and his Saguru. “And soon to be married to Kaito-jii.” A finger pointed rudely at Hakuba who looked resigned rather than offended.

“It’s still the principle of things.” She gave a sniff before turning back to the older Kaito. “Don’t repeat any of that.”

“I won’t breathe a word of it,” he promised.

“Good.” The girls glanced at each other and were back in synch like they hadn’t had a moment of disagreement at all. How unsettling. “Next time you come, bring one of your birds?”

“Why?” older Kaito asked, rightfully uneasy. Kaito had heard his own Koizumi mention sacrifices once or twice.

“Oh, we won’t hurt it,” the other twin said. “We’re looking into familiars and wanted to see if doves qualified. This sort of thing is passed down.”

Against his will, Kaito felt a curl of interest. “What is Koizumi-san’s familiar?”

“Cobras,” the twins said in unison.

Ah. Snakes. How…fitting?

“I’ll bring a dove,” older Kaito said.

They were interrupted by Koizumi at the door. “Girls, I thought I said to wait until later to talk to Kaito.”

The twins turned to her, big, innocent stares on their faces in an instant. Kaito used that face a lot as a child to get candy from unwitting adults. “But when else would we get a chance to see interdimensional travelers?” one said.

“It’s a rare phenomenon,” the other said.

Koizumi rolled her eyes. “You’re both menaces,” she said fondly. “You can observe the spell sending them home so long as you do it from a distance.”

The girls grinned. “Thank you!”

“Shoo,” Koizumi said, waving them out of the room. She huffed exasperatedly as they skipped off. “They get that from you,” she said to older Kaito.

“I don’t know, I think I remember someone literally stalking me at one point, and definitely recall you trying to manipulate situations where we ended up alone.” Older Kaito had a tiny smile on his face, amusement and fondness mingling with remembered stresses.

“Details,” Koizumi said with a dismissive wave.

“Do they really need to see some of my doves or are they trying to get me to lend them a living creature for something sketchy?” he asked.

“It’s sincere. I personally doubt they’ll end up with doves as familiars, but they will probably end up with birds.”

“I’ll bring one next time I visit.”

“You visit so rarely these days,” Koizumi said with a surprisingly sincere pout. “You should have more time in retirement, not less.”

“It’s amazing how much sleep I can catch up on after almost two decades of sleep deprivation.”

“I’ll send you my schedule,” Koizumi said like it was a done deal that Kaito would visit the next time their schedules lined up from Kaito’s eye roll, she was right in that assumption. “Now. The spell. I have it set up, I’ll just need some blood.”

Wow, that sure was a sentence Kaito never wanted to hear again. He shared a grimace with Ayato.

Koizumi pulled out a few small, wickedly-sharp silver knives. “Just a small cut. It doesn’t have to be bigger than a papercut, just enough to bleed a few drops.”

He should be relieved that it wasn’t a scalpel or needle, but Kaito didn’t really want to cut himself on a knife either. At least, he thought as he examined the edge of the one he was handed, it should be fairly painless; something as sharp as this could cut almost before he could feel the pressure.

Just a small cut. That was nothing compared to having his arm vivisected to fix it. It wouldn’t even take as long as Ayato or Saguru’s cuts to heal.

Before he could overthink it anymore, Kaito stuck the tip of the knife into synthetic skin. The feedback was instant pain-pressure awareness. When he pulled the blade back, dark red synthetic blood rose to the surface. Kaito watched it bead, something uncomfortable twisting in his gut.

Koizumi appeared next to him in a flash, a tiny glass vial in her hand. “Just a few drops. Enough to coat the bottom.”

Kaito felt the cut sting and he squeezed around it, forcing the blood to spill over and drip. Four drops to coat the bottom. One more to be sure. He pulled his hand away and the vial was stoppered. Koizumi moved toward Ayato next.

Ayato had made an incision on the heel of his palm. He let blood drip into his vial with a grimace of distaste. Saguru didn’t even hesitate as he nicked the side of his pinkie finger.

“Look at you, avoiding anywhere you’re going to immediately use,” Kaito said.

“One of us has to be sensible, and I would think you both would have been more conscious about preserving your hands.”

“I was saving my fingers,” Ayato said.

“And I have more scars than nerves,” Kaito added. “At least in my hands.”

Saguru winced, poorly hidden guilt on his face even though it wasn’t his fault that Kaito needed repairs so often. Kaito nudged him with his shoulder; he hadn’t meant to make him feel bad. It was a fact that he had less sensation on parts of his hands at this point.

Koizumi held up the vials to the light once they were all stoppered. She examined them like she was looking for impurities or something before giving a satisfied hum. “Wonderful. Now follow me.”

He would think, Kaito mused as Koizumi took them on a meandering route through her mansion, that with how brisk she was being, Koizumi dealt with interdimensional travelers on the regular. Maybe this had happened before for her. Maybe she’d met another version of them, or another of herself, or maybe after summoning Lucifer, the whole alternate reality thing didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Either way, it was surprisingly calming. One of them was at least in control. Yes, it was Koizumi Akako, but Koizumi Akako was knee deep in strange magical bullshit that Kaito did his best to avoid. She really was the only one they could have turned to in this situation.

Kaito couldn’t help thinking that this Koizumi was a lot more cooperative than his own Koizumi would have been. If he’d approached his Koizumi, she’d have tried to place half a dozen spells on him for entering her house let alone asking for favors. Somehow this world’s Kaito had screwed up so badly that he’d alienated Aoko, his closest friend, and become friendly with Koizumi who was about as nice as a viper.

Go figure.

Kaito was so glad for his own reality with Aoko and Saguru at his side and Ayato and Conan running around. Even if he was a robot and not human, he’d lucked out in having so much support and love. From the sound of it, this Kaito had missed out on a lot of that for a long time.

Koizumi led them to a small room with a concrete floor that had been painted with blackboard paint. In the center was a complicated chalk circle full of symbols Kaito only tangentially recognized from alchemic texts while looking for information about stones that granted immortality. Kaito was quite sure this did nothing related to immortality though.

“It’s like a cheap rip off from Fullmetal Alchemist,” he said, knowing it would make her annoyed.

Koizumi frowned. “It’s a far better diagram than anything you’ll find in a manga,” she snapped. “You should feel grateful that I know how to draw this sort of thing. Without my skills you’d probably have to try and blow yourselves up again.”

“We weren’t trying to blow ourselves up,” Ayato muttered.

“Now get in the center,” Koizumi said with an imperious hand wave. “For all we know, the longer you’re here, the greater the chance of destabilizing our universes.”

“Is that likely?” both Sagurus asked at the same time. They looked at each other uncomfortably.

“It’s not exactly a common study,” Koizumi said, “but at least things didn’t implode when you came face to face with other versions of yourself, so that’s one possible catastrophe averted.”

“Yay?” Kaito said.

“Circle,” Koizumi demanded.

They stepped into the circle. Older Kaito and Hakuba watched from the edge of the room. Their bodies were relaxed, but Kaito could see their tells in the edges of their eyes and the way Kaito’s smile was just the slightest bit too stiff to be true. Worry. As touching as it was to be worried about, it didn’t exactly fill him with confidence that this would work.

“Now what?” Ayato asked, crossing his arms and staying carefully away from the lines surrounding them.

“Now,” Koizumi said, bending to place a vial on blood into a little loop in the drawn design, “you say any last words to your alternates before I activate this and send you back.”

“And something will just, what, scoop memories and knowledge from our brains?” Ayato said skeptically.

“It will be like you never had what is missing,” Koizumi said.

“That’s not as reassuring as you meant it to be,” Kaito muttered.

“It will happen the moment the deal is complete,” Kaito’s double said unexpectedly. “It won’t hurt, but you will feel a little like something is missing. That fades. Going forward, you’ll notice changes where the absence of your skill or memory effect little things, but it won’t be jarring for long.”

“Ayato will not be able to use Kaito as his name, nor think of it as his own,” older Hakuba said. “Saguru will have to relearn violin from scratch. Kaito will never access the memory he is giving up again. It doesn’t erase the past. Ayato will remember being Kaito. Saguru will remember learning to play but all the details will likely be gone. Kaito will remember he gave up a memory. At least,” he added, fingers tight around his cane, “that is essentially how things worked for Kaito and myself.”

Good to know that all of them had the poor judgement to make deals with witches. It was a universal constant or something.

“Right,” Kaito said because someone had to. “It was nice meeting you both, but I think there’s a universe missing us.”

“You as well,” Hakuba said with a deep nod. “Best of luck on reaching your goal.”

“Oh. Yeah, did you ever find…?”

“Yes,” his older self said. Both Kaito and Ayato looked at him expectantly. They got an eye roll in return. “You don’t even know if it’s the same stone.”

“It can’t hurt to check.”

Another eye roll before older Kaito pulled out a note pad and started scribbling on it. Dates, numbers, names. “I have no idea what year it is for you, or where this thing is right now, but here’s what I know and which gem it was in my universe. Maybe you’ll get lucky.” He folded it in quick motions before tossing it into the circle.

Kaito caught it and tucked it away into his pocket. “Thank you.”

“Whatever, just don’t die, okay? I came way too close too many times.”

“Anything else?” Koizumi asked, fingernails tapping impatiently on her arm.

“One thing,” older Hakuba said, glancing at his Kaito before looking at them in the circle. “I hope you can have a happy life. It likely doesn’t seem like it now, but you have a future ahead of you, and if you put in the effort to seek it out, you can find joy in the smallest of things.”

“We intend to try for that,” Kaito’s Saguru said with the hint of a smile. He met Kaito’s eyes and Kaito couldn’t wait to be home and drag him and Aoko into a cuddle pile. He was so lucky to have them both.

“I have nothing to say,” Ayato piped up, “except that I want to go home. This universe is weird.”

“Oi, having a brain clone and being turned into a kid is way weirder than growing older.”

“You’re a divorcee with who knows how many children running around,” Ayato snarked. “It’s weird.”

“Anything else?” Koizumi asked again, pointed. “No? Lovely.” Her hands reached out into the air and there was a spark, something red and glowing, and then Kaito didn’t have time for more than a moment of alarm as the array lit up in crimson before his vision went red, then black.

When Ayato opened his eyes, they were still in a creepy mansion room. The only difference was that the lights were off, a thick carpet covered the floor, and everything in the room had storage covers over them. Ayato sat up and groaned, feeling a little like something hit him between the eyes. Ow? Ow. Most disconcertingly, it wasn’t purely a physical sensation.

Beside him, Hakuba was starting to stir and his robo-double was completely still.

Hakuba was clearly still alive, so Ayato crawled over to Kaito. The faint stir of breath came from his lips as his lungs kept working, and when Ayato reached for a pulse, he found it, though it was just the slightest tic off. Hmm. Hopefully that was temporary and not a consequence of dimension travel. Ayato didn’t know if Hakuba would be up for heart surgery.

“Oi.” Ayato poked Kaito’s cheek. “Wakey-wakey Sleeping Beauty.”

Kaito’s nose wrinkled slightly. Okay, he was probably going to be fine too.

Ayato got to his feet, swaying the slightest bit as it felt like the blood rushed from his head. Noted, magic had side effects. They were probably still in Koizumi’s home, just in a part she didn’t use. …Or this place currently belonged to someone else and they’d have to sneak out. Ayato turned and kicked Hakuba lightly in the hip. “Hey. Get up.”

Hakuba groaned. A hand shot up to cover his eyes as his teeth bared in a grimace. “My head is killing me,” Hakuba mumbled.

“Same, Hakuba, same.” Ayato glanced around again. He didn’t like how still everything was. How…deep… the shadows were. “Not to rush you or anything, but I have the feeling we shouldn’t stick around here.”

“Of course.” Hakuba rolled to his knees, hissing in pain. “Well. Now I can say I know how it feels to have a decade’s worth of skill-memory ripped from my head while hopping dimensions. It’s a terrible experience; let’s never do it again.”

“Maybe use a bit more care when working with prototypes?”

“Bugger off.” His blindly-groping hands found Kaito’s ankle and quickly followed it up to his chest and neck. “…His heart is off.”

“Damn, I hoped that was just me.”

“We’re alive. If we’re alive, we can find a way to fix it,” Hakuba said with the heaviness of someone who had had to figure out how to fix a great deal of glitches in the last few years. Hakuba opened his eyes into slits and shook Kaito carefully. “Kaito. We need to leave.”

Kaito’s face twitched, brows drawing together. It looked like he could be having a bad dream. More likely, whatever had happened was affecting his synthetic nerves the same as their nervous systems were in haywire.

Ayato could swear the darkness in the corners of the room was expanding. “Oh for frick’s sake.” He shook Kaito hard by the shoulders, ignoring Hakuba’s reprimand. “Up!” he commanded.

Kaito’s eyes opened and his head lolled to one side before he got control of his body. “Did. Did we get struck by lightning or is that just in my head?”

“I didn’t see any lightning,” Ayato said. “But you need to get up. We’re in the same place as before in our universe—hopefully our universe,” he corrected, because they didn’t really have a way of knowing for sure yet, did they? “We need to leave before something tries to curse us or something and make sure we still have a house standing after an explosion that literally sent us to another universe.”

It was clear that something was still glitching in Kaito because it took a moment for him to process the words when usually he was faster than everyone. “Right.” He tried to stand and failed.

Ayato tried to hold him up, but Kaito was made of fricking metal—not too much heavier than human, but he was heavier than Hakuba and Ayato did not have the body to hold up that kind of weight. “Hakuba. A little help?”

Between the two of them, they managed to get Kaito on his feet and moving. Well, more like a drunkenly shuffle than anything else, but Ayato would take it. Nothing ate them on the way out of the mansion. In fact, the whole place had an unnerving abandoned feeling that reminded Ayato of the setting of a horror movie.

Thankfully, they got out in one piece and no one showed up to murder them from the shadows. From there, Hakuba at least had his phone to call for a ride.

Ayato let himself doze as the car took them back toward their homes in Ekoda. In the back of his mind his brain kept skipping over the bit that was missing. I am [Ayato]. I am [Ayato]. I am not Kaito. I am- I am- I am-

He fell asleep to the sound of old J-rock over the radio and Hakuba’s hushed conversation with Kaito, Kaito’s words less slurred already.

“Do you think they’re okay?” Saguru asked as they stood before the empty circle. The blinding light of it was still seared into his retinas, leaving him blinking spots from his vision.

“They’ll be fine,” Koizumi said. She collapsed on a nearby box with a groan. “That was taxing. I’m never doing a favor for either of you again.”

“Oh, so the next time we have interdimensional travelers show up we just leave it to them to figure their own way back?” Kaito asked. He didn’t seem to be having the same vision problem Saguru was. Perhaps because he’d had the sense to close his eyes moments before the spell triggered.

“There’d better be no next time,” Koizumi grumbled. “I know your threads of fate are fascinating, Kuroba, but this was strange even for you.”

“Maybe it was my alternate reality self’s luck and not mine, this time?” Kaito shrugged. “Seems like he—they—had a lot stranger time than I did.”

“Truly?” Saguru asked, doubtful.

“One is a robot, one died, came back to life, de-aged, and then they both traveled to this dimension. I’m really thinking they were the weird ones here.”

“Meanwhile you have made repeated deals with a witch, changed how probability and healing affects you, survived more than a decade against people trying to kill you, and found a stone of immortality.” Saguru raised an eyebrow. “Honestly, both of you have strange, improbable lives.”

“I still say a robot and defying-death-via-chibification is weirder,” Kaito said, “but fair enough. All versions of me are fated to have strange lives. And apparently we drag you into it whether you want to be there or not.”

“Oh, we wanted to be there.”

“Can you flirt somewhere else?” Koizumi said tiredly. “Perhaps not in my home? I have a migraine starting and you need to leave.”

Kaito gave her a theatrical bow. “Of course, Akako-hime. We’re eternally grateful for the assistance in getting them home.”

Koizumi rolled her eyes. “Stop. Just go.” One hand came up over her eyes. The other waved imperiously toward the door.

Kaito caught Saguru’s hand and tugged. “We’re going then. I’ll make sure to visit sometime in the future with a dove, yeah?”

Koizumi gave them another tired wave and then they were heading back through the dizzying sprawl of hallways that made up Koizumi’s home.

Saguru half expected to find the twins waiting to ambush them again, but they reached the front door without even spying Koizumi’s unsettling servant.

“So,” Kaito said as they headed back toward the car. “Now what?”

“So now we head back to your family home and tend to the doves properly,” Saguru said, “because we rushed things earlier. And then we can relax like we had intended.”

“We’re going to need to pick up groceries for later, you know.”

Saguru sighed. The last thing he wanted was to deal with crowds and the irritating process of getting groceries. “Can that be put off until tomorrow?”

“You tell me. I thought you were the one that wanted ingredients to make that cake for your mother.”

Saguru pursed his lips. “…a quick stop at the store, doves, then home.”

“Doves, store, home? You’re getting perishables, right?”

“Fine, fine.” Maybe feeding the doves would give him a bit more energy back. It was a peaceful enough activity.

“Hey, Saguru?” Kaito said as they got into the car.

“Hm?”

“What do you think they’re doing now?”

Saguru didn’t have to ask who he meant. If Saguru’s alternate self was anything like him—and he was, that was clear—then he’d be exhausted as well. “Going home,” Saguru said after a moment. “We’re all going home and craving a nap.”

Kaito laughed. “Yeah, that sounds fair. For the record, I’m completely happy to take a nap with you when we get home.”

“And actually sleep?” Saguru joked, though at their age if they ended up in a bed together outside of regular sleeping hours—and honestly most times in those regular hours—it was just to catch up on sleep. They both had a lifetime of letting their heads and goals get the better of their sleep schedule and Kaito especially took advantage of having the opportunity to finally rest.

“Hm, maybe,” Kaito said with a grin. “Maybe not.” He caught Saguru’s hand. “You know I think in every world we must meet and affect each other. Maybe sometimes we’re lovers, and maybe sometimes we’re friends or enemies or something in between. I can’t imagine a world where you didn’t affect my life in some way.”

Saguru fought a blush. Kaito could still make him flustered like he was falling for the first time all over again. “The other versions of me are very lucky to have you then,” Saguru managed after a moment. He had the pleasure of seeing Kaito flush slightly as well. “Ready to go?”

Kaito nodded. “Yeah, let’s hurry so we can get home.”

Kaito felt off. That was definitely from the world hopping—technology and magic, it seemed, didn’t coexist perfectly. But the longer they were in this world—hopefully their world, nothing had been off so far—the closer to normal he felt. Ayato drowsed nearby and Saguru had his concentration-face on. Probably already going through things to fix Kaito again. Kaito sighed a little. He always worked too hard and Kaito always had too many glitches.

Kaito leaned his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder. Saguru’s driver pulled onto Kaito’s road. There was his home, and Aoko’s, and the front looked just how they’d left it, complete with one of Agasa’s prototype toys stuck in a bush out front where Ayato had crashed it.

Something in him settled. Home.

When the car rolled to a stop, the front door opened to a concerned Aoko. Kaito felt his heart skip a beat, like it kept doing since they were back, then, remarkably, stabilize. It was like seeing her clicked everything into place, the slight unreality in him fixed by her mere presence. Kaito felt his lips curving to a smile.

“Saguru,” he said, catching Saguru’s hand in his own, the crisscross of careful scars on his fingers contrasting against Saguru’s whole ones. “We’re home.”

Saguru looked up and saw Aoko as well and he smiled. “Aoko.”

“She’s probably worried,” Kaito said under his breath. He clicked off his seatbelt. Undid Ayato’s as Ayato stirred sleepily.

“We did have an explosion,” Saguru reasoned, undoing his own seatbelt.

“Let’s reassure her we’re okay?”

“Are you?”

“Okay?” Kaito tilted his head. He should feel different with a memory missing, but Kaito felt like Kaito. He loved Saguru and Aoko, cared for Ayato like he was the brother neither of them ever had. He loved his birds, his mother, Agasa and Haibara’s contrasting lab presences and even Kudo’s nipping at his heels. He loved making a crowd smile with a trick or making his loved ones smile with the flick of a wrist to reveal a rose. Kaito nodded with a hum. “I’m okay.”

Aoko tugged the car door open before they could reach for the handle and threw herself on them. “Where have you been?! I’ve been worried sick!”

Kaito wrapped arms around her and felt Saguru and Ayato right there with him. Everything condensed into a feeling of correctness he couldn’t explain if he wanted to, hadn’t realized was missing in the other world.

“Sorry we worried you,” he said, “but we’re back now.”

#magic kaito #robo!kaito #nltsa #fanfiction #my writing #the crossover from out of nowhere #au of an au/ crossover of the aus #sometimes your brain fixates on something it finds funny and then weird stuff happens

1 note · View note

artoile · 2 years

Text

Per aspera ad astra

“Does the name PN G054.203.4 mean anything to you, Kuroba-kun?” Hakuba asks.

Hello @angelicsentinel !!!!!! I feel as though I've run a marathon over the course of the past 72 hours with all the inconveniences that have come up but I'm here!!!! This is your Secret Santa!!!

I really couldn't pick whether I wanted to draw or write a fic, so I went with a short story with a couple of simple illustrations to go with it. After ou said the scene with Chat Noir made Hakukai an OTP, I wanted to try doing something that had a similar feel to it, haha. I don't want to say how in advance as to now spoil it, but hopefully it comes through. I also tried to do a different spin on a rooftop scene and star motifs!

I really enjoyed working on this, so I really hope you like it too. Thank you again for all of your patience.

✦✦✦

If Kaito were to ask what Hakuba Laboratories' focus is specifically, he’s certain the answer would be a vague “yes.”

As far as he can tell, it dabbles in all sorts of fields —something something biochemistry something something robotics— and boasts a vast collection of researchers, each more eccentric than the last.

So eccentric in fact, that Kaito wouldn’t be surprised if they had a vat of radioactive chemicals tucked away in a basement somewhere, considering Hakuba’s family background reads exactly like that of a tacky comic book villain. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, really, and not getting involved is for the best.

There's no use in asking anyway, because Kaito doesn’t care about what Hakuba gets up to during after-school hours in the first place.

(As long as it doesn’t interfere with KID, of course— and maybe that’s often the case, Kaito thinks, but that isn’t the point.)

What Hakuba does is none of his business, so Kaito definitely doesn’t care when Hakuba begins looking into astrophysics, of all things.

He doesn't take notice of the theoretical textbooks Hakuba starts bringing to class for the purpose of his own twisted version of ‘light reading.’ He doesn't peek at Hakuba as he leafs through them between classes and during lunch break. He doesn't commit the long strings of numbers that Hakuba jots down to memory.

He most definitely doesn’t think about the fact that Hakuba’s sudden interest in distant nebulas and orbits is all too coincidental.

Becoming immersed in a topic until depleting all available information is standard Hakuba behaviour, and exploiting his family’s resources is only a means to achieving that end.

When Kaito tries to make an off-handed jab at that, sometime during lunch, Hakuba closes his book. He bears that gentle and infuriating smile of his —one that emits a much needed warmth at the cusp of midwinter— and looks at Kaito in a way that could be mistaken with an almost reverential affection before saying, tone overwhelmingly cloying:

‘There are topics that can never be exhausted.’

And what makes Kaito's chest soar and his mind race at the words must be revulsion.

✦✦✦

If Kaito were to look into Hakuba's maternal side of the family, he’d be sure to find either some intelligence agency, secret royalty, some ancient templar cult, if not all of the above.

From time to time, he’ll admit to feeling morbidly curious, but that’s only natural when you consider everything about the guy is ridiculous; it’d be weirder for him not to wonder at all.

He casts the thought away, however. Knowing one Hakuba is already one too many, and Kaito wants nothing to do with the lot of them.

Whatever the case, Kaito should thank them; at least for tonight, they've made his life easier by getting Hakuba away from him.

KID is performing for the last time this year, and Hakuba is nowhere in sight.

After a lengthy phone call with London, Hakuba had left for Haneda airport in a hurry; this is what Aoko had told Kaito, just a couple of hours before the heist.

He had been overjoyed, delighted to find that out. After all, why wouldn't he be?

Common sense dictates that one less meddling detective would make for an easier heist.

—So why the hell is he having such a hard time right now?!?

Kaito had struggled as soon as the heist began. In a strange way, too; much unlike times when Hakuba or Meitantei, or even Nakamori-keibu on a really good day, are being a thorn at his side.

No. Tonight, it is as if all motivation had been sucked from him before the heist had even begun.

His every movement feels sluggish, and he’s lagging behind.

With the entire Task Force on his heels, Kaito runs.

✦✦✦

His phone buzzes in his pocket during the middle of his getaway. It must be Aoko, he believes, trying to find him after he had snuck away earlier that night.

Nakamori-keibu is trailing close behind, but there’s enough distance between them for him to answer, if only to stop her from worrying. He takes his phone out, and answers.

“Yo, Aoko!” He says in reflex, jumping down another flight of stairs and taking cover in the corner. “Now’s not a great ti—”

“Kuroba-kun.”

In face of the unmistakable tone of voice coming from the receiver. Kaito slides to a complete halt, mind running a thousand times faster than his legs would ever allow.

“Huh—Hakuba?! What are you— Where are you—?!"

“The heist's live transmission on board hasn't been as smooth as I would have hoped,” Hakuba explains. There's a mechanical whirr in the background that doesn't subside. Is he calling from the plane?! “But if my guesses were correct, I suspect you should be headed into the vent system on the eighteenth floor—”

He’s briefly interrupted by the shouts coming from the upper floor, and Kaito once again breaks into a run.

“Oh? You're still in the stairway? It appears the transmission is not at fault for the three minute delay, after all.”

“Shut up you—”

“There is another viable point of entry in the hallway to your left, six meters in,” Hakuba says at once. “Far less conspicuous. Go.”

In spite of himself, Kaito listens; sure enough, Hakuba is right. All of this borders on fantastical, with how absurd it is, but his body acts on instinct, despite his complete and utter disbelief.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” Kaito hisses as he crawls into the vent and away from sight. “I'm not KID.”

Hakuba only laughs.

✦✦✦

By the time Kaito’s completely slipped the police’s grasp, he stands at the rooftop, watching as the Task Force chases the wrong lead into the distance, their sirens slowly fading away into the regular urban blur.

Hakuba, inexplicably, remains on the line.

“If you wanted to see KID so bad, you should've just stayed,” Kaito grouses.

“I'm sorry,” Hakuba apologises. He sounds genuinely remorseful, and it tugs at Kaito’s heartstrings. “An acquaintance offered valuable leads on an important matter, but she’ll only be in London until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh,” Kaito utters simply. A matter more important than KID – he thinks sullenly – if it made Hakuba drop the heist.

Hakuba must read his thoughts, because he is quick to elaborate, speaking in a tone so soothing it can only be an attempt to pacify him.

“It’s about the orbit of a certain comet.”

Kaito’s pulse races at the sudden realization.

A comet. Of course. Of course Hakubastard would put his time and effort into something like this.

“Oh,” he repeats in a stunning display of eloquence.

“Does the name PN G054.203.4 mean anything to you, Kuroba-kun?” Hakuba asks.

“Hah? What are you going on about now?”

“The Necklace Nebula,” Hakuba explains. “It came to be roughly 10,000 years ago, when a large star engulfed a smaller one.”

“Trapped it,” Kaito interjects.

“Enveloped it,” Hakuba corrects him. “The smaller star remained intact inside it, and continued its orbit. The rotation sent fragments of the larger star into space, like an escaping circle of debris, creating the impression of a bright ring surrounding them.”

“...And the stars?”

“Remain close to each other, orbiting each other daily. From a distance, they appear as one.”

A doublet, Kaito realises, shining like a single gem somewhere out in a distant sky.

“Little one should’ve ran away.”

“Well,” Hakuba chuckles. “I'd like to believe it was given reason enough to stay.”

Leave it to this guy to be able to spin something like this into some sappy metaphor. Despite the winter chill, Kaito feels heat rise to his cheeks.

“Kuroba-kun?”

“What?”

“Considering you’re KID—”

“I’m not,” Kaito snaps.

“—’s greatest fan,” Hakuba adds, “would you care to share your thoughts on what he’d think, if his goal lied in a gem of such cosmic proportions?”

Kaito pauses. What would he do if it came down to that?

It’d be an impossible, outrageous situation. If he came to that, he’d just cross that bridge when it came to it.

For now, however, he feels himself grin widely.

“There is nothing I cannot steal, tantei-san,” he starts, voice low but clear, “be it sun, moon or stars.” Kaito speaks with all of KID’s playful poise, and his grin only continues to spread when he hears Hakuba’s breath hitch. “—That’s what he’d probably say.”

Hakuba stops for a moment as well, seemingly collecting his thoughts, and Kaito steels himself in anticipation.

“Know then that I'd continue to chase him,” Hakuba says at last, “regardless of how far it may take me.”

“Even millions of light years away?” Kaito asks.

“And beyond,” Hakuba avows, with all the conviction in the world.

Kaito snorts, shaking his head. “You're ridiculous.”

“It's the truth.”

When he glances at the night sky, Kaito doesn’t find much. This tracks, considering he’s surrounded by a plethora of bright city lights. He raises tonight’s heist to the moonlight, and is unsurprised that there’s nothing. Still, his gaze remains fixed above, childishly picturing Hakuba flying overhead.

It should be the other way around, Kaito thinks. It’s so unfair that this hopeless detective always gets everything wrong.

“Say Hakuba,” he says, voice almost a whisper. “Any stars up there?”

“Yes,” Hakuba replies, appearing slightly surprised by the question. “Though not quite the one I’d like most to see.”

“What does it look like? Can you tell me?”

“Is that what you’d like?”

“What, is the young master too busy?” Kaito teases, and he can perfectly envision Hakuba’s mirthful eyes when he replies.

“I can make time.”

As Hakuba begins his description, Kaito sits by the edge of the rooftop, suddenly unaware of the cold he hates so much, and simply listens.

OMAKE:

A couple of weeks later, Kaito happens to overhear a conversation between Aoko and Hakuba in the hallway.

“So, Aoko was wondering about the kind of research Hakuba-kun’s family’s lab does.”

“Hm,” Hakuba tilts his head and holds his chin. For some reason, he looks genuinely pensive. “A good question, really.”

And it really is so completely ridiculous, Kaito can’t control himself when he shrieks out:

“You don’t know either?!”

#dcmksecretsanta #magic kaito #hakukai #sagukai #hakuba saguru #kuroba kaito #kaitou kid #art.oile #my writing

72 notes · View notes

balancingdiet · 5 years

Text

Tabula Rasa

Detective Conan & Magic Kaito Characters: Shinichi/Kaito Words: 2400 ish Chapter: (1) … (20) (END) (Extras)

Shinichi always finds his neighbour weird. But he didn’t expect to find his neighbour lying on a patch of grass and donned in Kaitou Kid’s costume, too.

Hate seemed like a strong word, but Kaito wasn’t sure what else to term his feelings towards Hakuba when all he wanted to do was to put laxative in his tea every day.

And amazingly, even when Hakuba was thousand over miles away, Kaito still stayed true to his feelings, and he considered the cost-benefits analysis of flying to London to spike the very tea Hakuba was sipping now.

Then, on the top of Kaito’s phone screen, Hakuba made a show of placing his porcelain cup on a round and exquisite-looking table before shifting his front camera back to his face.

“Do you like my coffee table? You can only find this design in Britain,” Hakuba said, flicking his (stupid) fringe aside. ”I can send one over to you as a house-warming gift.”

Kaito gritted his teeth. “No.”

“What about a mirror?” Akako suggested on the bottom of Kaito’s phone screen. “I know places that can do special customization.”

“I don’t need anything from the both of you.”

“Clearly.” Akako scoffed, narrowing her eyes. “Seeing that your birds are taking up most of the spaces in your house.”

Kaito glanced over his shoulder, checking what Akako saw to make the statement. And it was true. His doves were all over the living room, standing on everything that was possible for them to perch on; he should probably only let the few obedient ones out if he didn’t want his neighbours to think he was planning a coup d'état with his doves.

Saying nothing to Akako’s comment, Kaito returned to his front door. He was still in the midst of moving his things inside his house before the three-way video call happened, and the two pesky non-humans (one devil and one witch) called him and demanded a house tour inside.

“Ok. I’m ending the call—”

“Wait.”

“What now.” Kaito scowled at Hakuba on the screen.

“So… Are you sure about this?”

Kaito sighed. “For the hundredth time, I’ve already said I will honour the bet—”

“Not that.” Hakuba waved a hand. “I’m asking if you’re sure you don’t want a coffee table—”

Kaito cut the video call and headed out of the house.

Pushing his phone in his back pocket, he walked to his mailbox, where the delivery guys kindly left his moving boxes. He was about to lift one up when a voice called out from behind.

“Hello.”

Kaito placed the box back on the ground and turned.

When their eyes met, the middle-age woman smiled as she approached to Kaito’s side. “I heard the truck pulled over and figured today’s the day,” the woman said, before handing a pack of cookies to Kaito. “Here’s a little welcome gift for you; I baked them this morning.”

“Oh, wow thanks.” Kaito bowed, accepting the bag. He hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon so this would definitely come in handy... “After I unpack my stuff, I’ll be sure to pop by with a gift,” he said.

“Please don’t worry about it.” The woman laughed. “Anyway, my name is Chiyo, and—”

“Good afternoon, Chiyo-san,” a lady across Kaito’s house called out, one hand holding onto a little girl while the other hand was in the air, ready to give a wave. But she stopped and tilted her head instead when she spotted Kaito.

“Good afternoon,” Chiyo greeted back before gesturing to Kaito. “He’s the new neighbour.”

Realization dawned upon the other lady’s face as she and the little girl crossed over to Kaito’s house. “Hello."

“Hi.” Kaito smiled. And when Chiyo casted him a curious look, he remembered he hadn’t introduced himself, and added, “My name is Kuroba Kaito.”

“I’m Mizuno Kyoko.” Kyoko then gestured to the little girl, who was standing behind her. “This is my daughter, Sakura.”

The girl hid even further behind her mother when Kaito glanced at her.

“Sorry about that, she’s shy around new people,” Kyoko said apologetically.

“That’s alright.” Kaito slowly bent forward and showed an encouraging smile. “Hello Sakura-chan, nice to meet you.”

Then, with a flick of a wrist and a snap later, a lollipop appeared in between his fingers.

Sakura gasped in awe and unconsciously stepped towards Kaito’s hand. She glanced hopefully at Kyoko, seemingly to ask for permission, and when Kyoko nodded, Sakura gleefully took the lollipop from Kaito’s hand.

“Thank you,” Sakura said bashfully.

Kaito smiled. And at the exact moment after he straightened up, Kyoko suddenly waved at whatever was over Kaito’s shoulder.

“Oh, Kudo-san.”

Kaito blinked.

Kudo?

Sakura’s face lit up, a complete change from her timid demeanour. “Shinichi nii-san!” she exclaimed.

Kaito blinked again.

Kudo and Shinichi?

KUDO SHINICHI?!

Kaito robotically turned, and he barely managed to stop his eyes from widening too much and rolling out of his sockets.

There, in the damn flesh, was indeed the Kudo Shinichi he wasn't hoping to be.

Before deciding to purchase his house in this area, Kaito had checked every resident’s information, like knowing Chiyo was now living alone after her second daughter recently married off, and that Kyoko’s ex-husband and Sakura’s father was an alcoholic and serving a long and deserving time in prison.

And as for the house next to his, Kaito was sure it would be empty, given the fact he knew the family who owned it had migrated to Australia.

Kaito closed his eyes briefly, but when he opened them, Shinichi was still standing there, his hand hovering over his mailbox’s latch.

Great. Another nightmare I can’t wake up from.

With the lack of news coverage about the detective’s Shinigami ability, Kaito thought Shinichi had gone undercover in Africa or something after he defeated the Black Organization. But who knew he was still in Japan, and living right next to him—

Chiyo waved, bidding Shinichi over. “Shinichi boy, come and introduce yourself to the new neighbour.”

Shinichi boy? Well, I'll be damned.

Leaving his mailbox, Shinichi trudged over to Kaito and the little crowd. He greeted everyone—while patting Sakura’s head—before acknowledging Kaito with a look.

An observing look, to be exact.

Then, to Kaito’s surprise, Shinichi raised a hand, but rather than pulling Kaito’s cheek or pointing his tranquilliser watch, his hand stopped at their waists' level.

“Hi, I’m Kudo Shinichi,” Shinichi said.

“Uh, um, hi, my name is Ta—” Kaito pursed his lips, glancing at the witnesses that would definitely expose the fake name he was about to use. Groaning inwardly, he mustered a smile, and tentatively reached out for Shinichi’s hand. “My name is Kuroba Kaito.”

“Well,” Shinichi said, dropping his hand to his side after the handshake (which was the most awkward one Kaito ever had in his life). “Hope you’ll enjoy staying here.”

Barely an hour had passed since he moved in and Kaito was already wondering if it was even remotely possible… But nonetheless, he showed a grin and a thumbs up, hoping it was enough as a facade.

“Thanks, neighbour; I’ll count on you for that.”

Shinichi didn’t return the smile, but he gave a nod back in the end.

“I’ll try to do what I can.”

Kaito groaned and put a hand over his eyes.

When it didn't help to reduce the intensity of the glaring sunlight on his eyelids, he kicked his legs around, trying find his blanket and hide underneath it. But then he remembered it was still hanging outside to dry since yesterday afternoon...

Kaito groaned again, already losing the drowsiness in him to get back the sleep he wanted. He peeled open his eyes and stared at the ceiling in frustration.

There were two things Kaito could blame for his current predicament: One, the sun’s existence, or two, his laziness for not drawing the curtain close last night—

“Ow.” Kaito sat up, swatting a hand over Yoshi who just pecked his forehead. The three jabs were a lot more painful than the morning greetings it usually gave, until Kaito realized it wasn’t really morning now. The clock on his wall showed half past noon.

Rubbing his forehead, Kaito climbed out of his bed. He figured the aggressiveness might be linked to the, perhaps, empty bird feeder bowl in the backyard, until he saw where Yoshi had flown off after pecking Kaito.

It was standing next to the closed balcony window, and on the other side of the glass was its comrade, Tamago—who didn’t return when Kaito did roll-call last night.

“Wow.” Kaito scoffed before shuffling towards the glass and squatted down. “So you’re finally back. And I thought you’ve eloped or something—"

Then Kaito frowned, eyes squinting at the note he found tied to Tamago’s leg. Sighing, he pushed the balcony door open, and Tamago flew right in, landing on his bed.

Kaito whistled, signalling Tamgo back as it flew to his wrist. He untied the string and unrolled the note.

Come to my house once you see this. - Kudo Shinichi

“Huh. Did you stay over at Shinichi’s house?” Kaito cast Tamago a scandalised look. "So is he your new owner now? Are you his messenger too?”

Tamago cooed.

“First was Aoko, and now—” Kaito sighed. “Why did I waste so much money on sunflower seeds for you...”

Looking at the paper one last time, Kaito rolled it up and kept it pressed under a stationary holder on his desk (it was too cute(?) to be thrown away, but he wasn’t sure what to do with it at the moment either). The meeting didn’t sound urgent, and even if it was, he believed Shinichi wouldn’t send it via a note like this. So he spent some time in the bathroom to freshen himself, top up the bird feeder bowl, and water his rose plantations (including Aoko's blue roses), before heading over to Shinichi’s home.

While walking the short distance, Kaito wondered what the meeting could be about. He already briefed Shinichi about the things they needed to do for their next volunteering session, and when he checked the Shinichi’s mailbox, it was clear from shit too—

Kaito sucked a breath through his teeth at a new thought. Could it be that Tamago shit inside his house? Damn, he hoped it was anything but the sofa. Knowing the material, it would take ages for him to rub it off.

Reaching outside Shinichi’s door, Kaito raised a hand and prepared to knock, but his arm fell back to his side when he read the note that was pasted on it.

The door isn’t lock.

Kaito raised an eyebrow. Am I in some Alice in Wonderland dream or something... Shrugging to himself, he twisted the door knob and entered.

“Uh, yo?” Kaito said into the seemingly empty house—

“Just in time,” Shinichi called out from where Kaito knew was the direction of the kitchen. “Come here.”

Taking in a breath, Kaito widened his eyes.

“What on earth...?” he muttered, before mindlessly taking the first step towards the kitchen, and another, and another—

Standing by the dining table in the weirdest-looking apron Kaito ever seen, Shinichi closed the cap of the squeeze bottle. He then turned, smiling expectedly at Kaito before showing the plate of omelette rice with squiggly red lines made out of tomato sauce.

“Happy Birthday, Kaito,” Shinichi said.

Kaito blinked. Then, stupidly, he fished out the phone in his pocket, which he hadn’t gotten around to checking after waking up. Below the date that stated June 21, there were multiple birthday texts and missed calls from different people: his mother, Jii, Hakuba, Akako, Keiko and even... Aoko’s dad.

He had completely forgotten about his birthday.

“How did you—” Kaito raised his head, but stopped when he realized Shinichi knew it from one of Aoko’s diary entries.

Shinichi didn’t respond to Kaito's unfinished question, probably knowing Kaito already figured it out himself.

“I don’t know what to do or give you, too, so I figured this,” Shinichi said, awkwardly glancing at the kitchen—where Kaito also spotted a new frying pan—and then at the omelette rice. “You said you craved for omelette rice.”

Kaito frowned. “When did I ever say that?”

“You did,” Shinichi said firmly as he untied the apron’s ribbon around his neck and placed it on the back of a chair. “Remember that volunteer session when Rina’s mom brought omelette rice for lunch and you saw it? You said that back then.”

“Wha— That’s months ago.”

“You know how to speed read and I have a good memory. Life’s fair and equal.”

“Um, actually I also have a good memory—”

Shinichi narrowed his eyes. “This is not a competition.”

Chortling, Kaito walked towards the edge of the dining table. He stared at the omelette rice, the same scent that hit him when he first stepped into the house was still strong and lingering.

“The rice isn’t any kind of rice,” Shinichi said, as if reading Kaito’s thoughts. “It’s the fried rice that Aoko taught you to cook.”

Kaito slowly nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

Though the yearning had toned down comparatively, this was still the greatest gift Kaito ever received; he thought he only missed Aoko’s cooking, who knew he would miss something as silly as the smell too—cooking on his own had deprived him the ability to take in the strong scent of the fried rice at one go...

“Just a disclaimer, though,” Shinichi began as he passed a spoon to Kaito. “I used mostly my gut-feelings and observations—from when you were cooking—to make the rice. As for the omelette, I asked Rina’s mother for advice, and also looked up video tutorials online.”

Kaito mutely nodded.

“It may not taste the best, but it’s the best I can do.” Shinichi nervously scratched the side of his cheek before looking back at Kaito. “So, yeah. Happy Birthday.”

Kaito twiddled with the spoon, feeling the weight of the utensil and the words he hadn’t figured out to say.

Thanks felt too much of an understatement for all the things Shinichi had done for Kaito—and it wasn't including this or his birthday wish. He got to admit he wasn’t good at expressing his feelings all that outwardly or verbally besides showing grins and smiles, be it fake or real, but this time, Kaito thought Shinichi should know.

Shinichi should know.

Kaito placed the spoon back on the table, which earned him a questionable look from Shinichi.

This might not be the best way, but it was the best Kaito could do too.

Walking around the dining table and closing the distance between them, Kaito pulled Shinichi in for a hug.

#dcmk #kaishin #kudo shinichi #kuroba kaito #detective conan #THIS IS THE END!!#thank you all for reading!#tabula rasa

22 notes · View notes