31_days | [Sept. 5: 3AM on a school night] [Detective Conan/Case Closed] Ostentatious Shadows

Title: Ostentatious Shadows
Day/Theme: September 5, 2008: 3AM on a school night
Series: Detective Conan/Case Closed
Character/Pairing: Shinichi – Kaito Kid
Rating: G

-o-

A U T H O R S N O T E

Watched ‘Last Wizard of the Century’ Last night. :) Plan on watching ‘Captured in her Eyes’ next, if I can find it.

:squee!!:

~Ayaia

On days that he didn’t like his situation (moreover, on days it really, really bugged him) he took to walking. The block around the Detective Agency couldn’t hold his frustration, and he’d usually turn his feet in the direction of Agasa-hakase. While it wasn’t wise for ‘Conan Edogawa’ to walk the streets this late at night (or this early in the morning, to be specific), Shinichi Kudo couldn’t care less.

Usually, the walk to the good professor’s house would be enough to calm him down, and he’d enter, usually ending up bickering with Haibara. But today it seemed that even that walk wasn’t enough to hold his frustration. He barreled past Agasa-hakase’s house, past his own house, and kept going.

Heedless of direction, he let his feet carry him, and none was more surprised than he when he reached the gates of Tropical Land.

Figures, he thought savagely, kicking absently at the padlocked gates, closed for the season. He sighed, feeling the chill of the air as his anger ebbed away to self-pity. I should have brought a thicker jacket, he chided himself, watching as his breath rose in foggy clouds before him.

“Three o’clock in the morning, and on a school night? Really, little detective, you should know better.”

Shinichi looked up sharply, eyes narrowing at the flamboyant figure of none other than the Kaito Kid standing atop the gate, tipping his hat in a lavish salute at the miniature detective and smiling playfully.

“Unless, of course, you were lying in wait to capture me? I do love our chases,” Kid continued, tossing an enormous gem carelessly from hand to hand before making it vanish before his eyes in a puff of smoke.

When Shinichi didn’t say anything, Kid put his fingers to his chin, apparently thinking hard. He snapped his fingers, and Shinichi started violently at the large flock of doves that suddenly burst from his own jacket.

“Seems to me like the meitantei needs cheering up. Cheering up waits for no hour of the night, eh?”

“Or morning,” Shinichi corrected, before he could stop himself. His vocalization was rewarded, it seemed, when a large, red paper flower popped out of his mouth.

“So, meitantei,” Kid said, smiling and methodically snapping, making more paper flowers appear on Shinichi’s person, “What’s so important here that it couldn’t wait for the light of day?”

“Would you quit it?” Shinichi said quickly, brushing a paper flower from the button-hole of his blazer. Another snap from Kid made two flowers appear at once – one in either ear.

“Not a fan of flowers?” Kid’s next snap brought forth a single dove, perched contentedly on Shinichi’s shoulder, cooing softly in his ear.

Shinichi impatiently shrugged it off, and it flew away, perching instead on the top of Kid’s top hat.

“Why so glum, little detective? The amusement park will be in operation again when the weather warms up.”

Shinichi rolled his eyes. “No particular reason, really,” he admitted, twirling a paper flower absently in his fingers.

“The trick of my trade relies on the marvel of my poker face,” Kid said nonchalantly, hopping down from the fence and landing smartly on the other side of the fence – within the boundaries of Tropical Land. “Meaning no offense I’m sure, but you don’t have the gift of my poker face,” he continued, grinning and disappearing in a puff of smoke, only to reappear an inch from Shinichi’s nose.

Shinichi jumped back in surprise, and Kid crouched down to his level, winking at him. “It’s all too easy to tell that something’s on your mind, because it’s written all over your face,” he grinned, pulling at Shinichi’s cheeks playfully.

Shinichi swatted him away in annoyance, but it seemed that Kid was determined to be his irritating, flashy shadow unless he started responding to his taunts.

“It’s nothing you can fix,” Shinichi finally said, folding his arms and sighing in long-suffering.

“Well now, a challenge!” Kid exclaimed gleefully, clapping his hands together like a child that had just been given a present. “What is it that you want fixed, tantei-san? Perhaps you wish to be taller?”

Shinichi found himself being lifted up and gracelessly plopped down on a pair of stilts that seemed to appear from nowhere. “I don’t think I wanna know where you were hiding these,” Shinichi deadpanned, waving his arms for balance as he tottered about on the stilts.

“Do you perchance wish for vindication? Proof of the wrongs that have been done to you so that you can be at peace?”

Shinichi blinked in surprise, falling back to lean against the tall gates that guarded the entrance to Tropical Land. Kid appeared atop the gate again, crouching once more to look Shinichi in the eye.

“Because you have a lot of friends on your side who want the same thing, I’m sure, little detective,” Kid said kindly, grinning. “And a dashing rival wishing you well in your pursuit of it,” he added, winking.

Shinichi just grinned back, finally, and nodded. He yelped as the stilts were abruptly gone from under his feet, then, and he slid down the fence, landing inelegantly on his butt at the entance to Tropical Land, where he’d started.

“Don’t let them beat you, meitantei!” Kid called happily as a farewell, jumping into the air-currents, his hang-glider already deployed and carrying him up, away from the park.

Shinichi couldn’t find it in himself to give chase. Instead, he turned and started the long walk home, finally ready for sleep with a new resolve in his mind, courtesy of a friendly rival.