Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shinichi Kudo never imagined he would become a suspect in a case.

When he received a call from the Investigation Division, he thought it was to ask for his assistance, as usual. But the voice on the other end wasn’t from any officer he knew.

The young male voice, identifying himself from the Missing Persons Division, spoke with a thousand euphemisms—thanking him for his past assistance in investigations, rambling on for nearly half a minute. But eventually, he got to the point: Shinichi might be required to cooperate with an investigation, and he was asked to come to a certain address.

Puzzled, Shinichi agreed and hung up. After getting dressed, he looked up at the gloomy clouds drifting across the sky, wondering how he could possibly be connected to a missing persons case.

Fortunately, he didn’t have class at university that day—not that it would’ve stopped him.

But as the cumulus clouds gradually filled all the gaps between the buildings, a dull ache began to return to his teeth.

Something was off.

He had sensed it from the moment he stepped inside.

There were ordinary traces of life—normal items, a standard arrangement. Everything looked no different from any other apartment, yet Shinichi couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

As usual, his sharp eyes scanned the surroundings. The unease lingered. The room was especially tidy, trash was sorted regularly, documents were clearly filed. A row of portraits hung on the wall—likely famous actors. He recognized some from the videos his mother used to watch during her acting days. Most were in black and white, giving off a classicist aesthetic that didn’t quite suit a private residence.

"‘Ando Ran’ya’? That’s a pretty modern name. Is she mixed-race?" The detective, already wearing gloves, examined the top of the bookshelf, where four portraits were neatly arranged. They looked ordinary, but quietly drew his attention. This kind of academic display seemed out of place in a rental apartment—especially for a young woman living alone. A row of black portraits staring at you in the dark? That wasn’t anyone’s idea of a beautiful room design. Someone like Ran, who was easily frightened, might scream in the middle of the night.

He found a stool and climbed up to inspect the top of the bookshelf—Holmes’ rule: dust never lies. But unfortunately, the dust pattern showed no signs of recent movement.

After asking how the missing person’s name was written, Shinichi hadn’t even noticed the expressions on the officers behind him. By the time he finished examining the portraits, he realized he had already started investigating the scene out of habit.

"Sorry, but why exactly am I a suspect?" he asked, setting the frame back down. He hadn’t found any hidden photos behind it.

The young officer who had introduced himself as Katsuragi on the phone—someone Shinichi had never met—looked familiar somehow, but he couldn’t place it. He rarely dealt with departments outside the regular investigation division.

"The missing person worked in a theatre troupe. A rising stage actress. She hasn’t been to rehearsals in days, and no one can reach her. Neighbors say they haven’t seen her either. Today, her alarm clock wouldn’t stop ringing. When someone knocked and got no answer, they noticed the mailbox overflowing and called the police."

"What about the alarm?"

"It was on the table, but it wasn’t ringing when we arrived. Probably ran out of battery," Katsuragi said, handing over the simple clock at the entrance. Shinichi inspected it but found nothing unusual.

"If this were just a normal missing person case, it wouldn’t require this level of investigation. But here’s the odd part: that name was never officially registered. In other words, it’s a fake identity."

"A body? Any corpses found recently?"

"None that match, though I only have access to records from the last three years." Katsuragi paused.

Shinichi tilted his head, already starting to piece things together.

"Kudo-san, the reason we called you here… is because in the missing person’s apartment, we found... a large number of photos of you. So, from the date she was last seen until today—can you tell me your whereabouts?"

The detective stared at the young officer’s earnest face, and something about the phrasing made his expression suddenly darken.

What reason would a young stage actress with a passion for classical theatre have to keep a large collection of photos of a private detective at home? Acting wasn’t even his specialty, and the only possible connection—his mother—had retired from show business years ago and rarely returned to Japan. It couldn’t be that she was just some die-hard fan, could it? Would that warrant creating a fake identity? Or worse, could it be Vermouth or someone from Public Security again? But that didn’t fit their usual style—they wouldn’t make such obvious mistakes. This sort of heavy-handed misdirection felt too deliberate. The moment he had an alibi or lack of motive, he could shake off all suspicion. And if she simply admired detectives, there weren’t even any mystery novels in the bookshelf.

—Or had she gotten caught up in something?

If she knew who he was, then why didn’t she come straight to his university or the agency in Beika?

Shinichi ended the call and turned to Katsuragi. “I’ll explain in a moment, but as a related party in this case, may I take a look at the photos in the room?”

As soon as Shinichi opened the bedroom door, he was reminded of a distant memory—Okuda Makoto’s room.

But unlike the shock of seeing his own face frozen in a zoomed-in frame from a random interview, this time the impact came from the overwhelming number of stacked photos. There were just too many. He couldn’t even remember making some of those expressions—yet some stranger had captured them all, from afar.

Shinichi’s gaze fell on a wall covered in photos of himself. There was one of him in his blue high school uniform, turning to smile at a classmate. He couldn’t even recall when that moment had been. The bedroom window had somehow been left open—or maybe the wind had blown it ajar—sending a current of air sweeping through the sparsely decorated room. A gust rustled the white-backed photo cards, flipping one up to cover half of a teenage detective’s smiling face, leaving only a sharp pair of blue eyes exposed.

The wind rearranged the colorful images into neat, chaotic patterns of white. The detective stared at the patchwork frames as if they were a key—one that invited him into a maze-like palace.

—Interesting.

“Who opened the window?”

“No one. It was already open when we got here.”

Shinichi pressed the photo card back onto the wall. When he turned around, the expression on his face had regained its usual confidence—so much so that it nearly matched the expressions on the wall behind him.

“This probably isn’t a missing person case at all. It’s more likely someone’s idea of a twisted joke. I don’t yet know their intent, but I can clear my name soon enough. Officer, my alibi will arrive shortly.”

—If it’s that person, then there must be something hidden here, something intentional. Every part of this place feels designed. The obsessive orderliness of the setup, even the books on the shelves are arranged by spine color. And yet, the photos of himself are slapped on haphazardly. Beyond the obvious signs meant to catch his eye, there had to be more.

But where?

There had been heavy rain in this area three days ago. Yet the missing person had vanished well before that—judging from the overflowing mailbox, it had been at least a week. The way the room was oriented, the wooden floor should have water stains. But there were none. That meant the window had only been opened within the past three days.

Nearby, maybe?

A neatly made bed. Color-coded scripts from recent plays. Awards of uniform size. A full-length mirror, and a coat rack with hats. For someone working as an actress, none of it looked out of place. There weren’t many signs of day-to-day life, but just enough to not raise suspicion.

Could it be the scripts?

Shinichi skimmed the vividly color-coded scripts. They were too flashy to follow any immediate logic. The markings didn’t follow a numbered system. The dashes didn’t form Morse code. Reordering the syllables or reading them aloud produced no meaningful puns. Holding them up to the light didn’t reveal a hidden map or treasure code either.

Then, as he lowered the script away from the lamp, a long slip of paper—tucked tightly at the bottom—came loose and fluttered to the floor like a feather.

Smooth, white, and nearly weightless, it landed silently at the detective’s hand.

Mascara, lipstick, and band-aids from a drugstore; stacks of printing paper, magnets, highlighters, and tape from a convenience store; branded lingerie from a department store; tripod nets and fishing lines and camping gear from an outdoor shop; a Harajuku-style dress from a boutique. For an actress—a profession where almost anything might come in handy—none of these items would have raised the detective’s attention.

—If the receipts hadn’t been dated three days ago.

“How could someone who supposedly disappeared a week ago have receipts dated just three days ago tucked into her script? Just like me, who’s been summoned almost daily this month as a witness in a serial murder investigation, even I couldn’t be involved in the disappearance of a stage actress.”

Shinichi held up the receipt for the others to see. The smudge of black ink was obvious even through the gloves.
“You agree, don’t you, Officer Sato?”

“Sato… you mean…”

“That’s my original surname. Before you came, Katsuragi, everyone used to call me that. These kids still haven’t gotten used to changing it.”
The dull sound of low-heeled shoes striking the floor reached them before her voice did. As Katsuragi turned, the famously beautiful officer from Division One had already entered the room.

“Officer Sato, while we can’t rule out the possibility of a copycat, if it really is him, this would be a case big enough to draw him out of hiding after two years. And, just like his previous heists, it likely involves a priceless gem. The evidence? His signature behind one of the photo cards—and these strange receipts. There was a heavy downpour in this area three days ago, but this bedroom shows no signs of water damage. The window was only opened recently.”

“This may very well be Kaitou Kid’s first crime scene in two years. Even if it’s not him personally, given this is tied to a missing woman, I recommend pulling surveillance from around this apartment and the receipt locations.”

—

The detective listened to himself speak that name again—his real voice this time. No more need for the childish falsetto he used to disguise himself in grade school. No more excuses needed to explain away his obsession with that person as mere professional tenacity.

Now, he had been handed something he always longed for: a legitimate, justifiable reason.

It had been too long since he last heard that name aloud. For a while, he’d convinced himself that maybe he just felt the absence more deeply because so much had happened in those six months of high school. But thinking about it, two years made up a tenth of his life. Long enough for a baby to grow from birth to speaking. Long enough for him to cycle through countless nightmares of shrinking into a child.

Shinichi’s heart was pounding far too fast. He wasn’t even sure whether his voice had trembled and given away his excitement. It was as if simply uttering that name had triggered a full-body adrenaline surge.

It wasn’t until he found himself in the back of a police car, parked in front of surveillance footage, that reality started to pull him back down.

Six days before the disappearance.

Rush hour at a convenience store. People came and went, each staying no more than half a minute. The figures on the screen were blurry, their clothing the only clue to identify them. Fortunately, the receipt gave a timestamp down to the minute. That allowed Shinichi to pick out the flash of vibrant color among a crowd of drab office workers.

She didn’t go straight for the food section, nor did she browse ingredients like a housewife. Her stay was shorter than average—quick and confident from entrance to checkout. It was hard to imagine what kind of person would know exactly where the magnets were in a random convenience store, especially one so far from her home and workplace.

Why would she come all the way out here?

Five days before the disappearance.

The outdoor shop was tucked away in a remote corner. The surrounding area didn’t seem to attract many outdoor enthusiasts, and the store had barely seen customers all day. In fact, she was the only one who had come in. There were no security cameras installed. But the owner remembered her clearly—praised her beauty, said he didn’t expect someone like her to be into such things. Their conversation didn’t go much beyond that. He did recall how she insisted on a white tripod net—an item he had to dig around for because it rarely sold.

Four days before the disappearance.

Shinichi had a headache.

After arriving at the scene that afternoon, it didn’t take him long to find the receipt. The journey there, however, had taken the most time. Looking at a receipt alone hadn’t revealed the precise map location. It was only after physically retracing her steps that he realized: this woman had practically crossed all of Tokyo.

Her home and the theater were almost at opposite ends of the city, and the stores she visited were scattered around the outskirts. Following the sequence of locations based on time had led them to crisscross the city center multiple times. Thankfully, several of the stops were inside the department store in Beika. Unfortunately, they arrived too late, and without a warrant, most shops were already closing.

Beika’s department store was one of the most bustling commercial centers. It would be nearly impossible for clerks to remember a customer from days ago. Fortunately, the building had excellent security coverage—due to past bombings and robberies—and obtaining surveillance footage was relatively straightforward.

She first bought a dress—an eye-catching pink shopping bag. Then she wandered to a corner, seemingly debating sizing, and spent a bit longer selecting a matching set of pink lingerie. After checkout, she quickly picked up her usual cosmetics.

Ordinary errands. Ordinary behavior.

As Shinichi tried to figure out why the previous locations were scattered, but this one overlapped in location, something on the screen caught his attention. The figure, backlit against the dim store lights, paused mid-step.

The officers held their breath, waiting to see what she would do next.

Without warning, she spread her arms wide—as if surrendering herself to the wind.

Then she turned. As though sensing something beyond the screen, she looked directly at the camera. And smiled—not ambiguously, but with purpose. As if smiling at someone in the future.
—He remembered almost instantly who that smile belonged to.
A signal only the two of them could ever truly decode—unchanged by time. That familiar, arrogant smirk that always bordered on flamboyant. It had taunted him effortlessly, again and again, and he had once thrown himself into deciphering it with everything he had.
It cut across codes and years, needing less than half a second to bring him back to that familiar place—that moonlit night when, at seventeen, he had felt his heart come alive again.

The pen in Shinichi Kudo’s hand paused in its circling motion across his notebook. And then, slowly, that exact same smile began to spread across his face.

“Officer, the case is already solved. There’s no need to search further,” he said as he rushed out the door, leaving Sato and Katsuragi behind, thoroughly bewildered.

“I saw him drawing something on the map just now... looked like a pentagon? But where is he going…” Katsuragi blinked. Sato, on the other hand, looked completely unbothered—almost too calm, as if this was all perfectly normal for her.

Maybe I still don’t fully understand what being a detective really means, Katsuragi thought silently.

—

If the photos on the wall hadn’t already convinced him who it was, that smile certainly had.

It wasn’t the content of the photos that mattered—it was the way they were arranged.

The tight clusters and empty gaps mirrored the distribution of receipts. That was why he’d been forced to circle Tokyo: the real clue was hidden in the map.

—Who would deliberately go shopping at a convenience store that’s an hour away by train from both their home and workplace—and seem completely at ease with the layout?

Who would travel the next day to a failing outdoor gear shop in a remote corner of Tokyo and leave just enough of an impression on the owner to be remembered?

And on the final day, go shopping in a department store, spot the security camera ahead of time, and then smile into it—like a challenge?

Overlaying those three locations on a map of Tokyo revealed no immediate pattern. But if you treated the overlapping three points as one, and added the theater and her residence, it formed five points—a pentagon.
But it wasn’t about the shape. There was no defined start or rotation point.
Because what it truly hinted at wasn’t a pentagon—

It was a pentagram.

Shinichi dashed off the train and sprinted into a forgotten corner of the city, into a building buried under years of dust. The door wasn’t even locked—clearly, this place had been abandoned for so long it no longer warranted security.

“It’s the star. It’s Hakodate. If it’s you, there’s only one place in Tokyo that could stand in for Hakodate.”

“When you overlay Tokyo with the shape of a pentagram, this location—on the city’s edge—is the only place that aligns with Mount Hakodate.”

The old wooden door creaked loudly as the detective entered, the sound echoing through the empty space like the grinding of aged joints.

The place had clearly once been a theater. Rows of chairs stood in solemn formation, though it was unclear whether they could still bear any weight. There was no electricity, of course. But as Shinichi stepped closer, a single dim yellow spotlight flickered on over the stage.

There was no one there.

Only a half-body wax statue, carved in the style of a white tuxedo.

And on the stage floor, scattered all around it—

Were burning sunflowers, quietly flickering in the dark.

TBC

Chapter Text

There was no answer.

The half-body wax figure at center stage stood motionless in the flickering firelight. Even after the flames had burned themselves to ash, Shinichi Kudo remained where he was, waiting—for someone who never replied.

He had no idea what trick the man was preparing this time. Luring him here with countless hints and deliberate obstacles, only to say nothing once face to face?

“Hey, don’t tell me you dressed up like a stage actress just to make me watch this. Bluffing? 見せブラフ? After all these years, your cross-dressing habits have gotten even more out of hand.”
He shrugged and stepped down from the modest entrance of the old theater, walking toward the wax figure. The echo of his heels striking wood filled the space.

But before he could climb more than a few steps—before he could properly inspect what illusions might be hiding onstage—the warm yellow spotlight extinguished with a soft hiss. All light, all shapes, were instantly devoured by darkness.
Before he could even process the slightest hint of what might happen, his hand moved to activate the light on his watch—only for his wrist to be firmly held down. A voice, just inches from his ear, spoke. It was the same voice that had so often mock-threatened him, toyed with him, kept its cool high ground, and made him want to punch that smirk right off his face.

“Don’t move.”

Those were the first words he spoke after all this time.

A line he had said many times before—on moonlit rooftops, in crowded plazas. Whether as a warning or a joke, it somehow always worked. It had always managed to get the world’s most stubborn, headstrong, and incorrigible detective—Shinichi Kudo—to do exactly as he said.
The only difference now was that they no longer needed to close the distance by crouching down to speak. Their eye lines were level. But after years apart, Shinichi could no longer tell how much of that voice was teasing, or whether he still held the same toy gun in the shadows.

“Turning on the lights mid-performance is cheating,”
The voice pulled away slightly, lacking the familiar lilt of humor Shinichi remembered so vividly.

And so, Shinichi remained where he was, in darkness. He didn’t turn on the light. He had no idea what the other wanted from him, but allowed the hand pressing on his wrist to linger, then fade.
One thing was certain: this phrase meant something very different from the threats of ordinary criminals. The quiet intensity in his tone was no illusion.

“…Aren’t you going to arrest me?”

After a long silence, the question came—thrown toward him from somewhere distant. It was meaningless, almost casual, and it seemed to come from even farther away than before.

For two people who used to sync with just a glance, this awkward, uncertain exchange after years apart felt more jarring than silence.

“You know,” Shinichi answered calmly, after waiting just long enough to seem like he had truly considered the question, “to me, the motive has always been more interesting than the result.”
He concealed any hint of personal concern behind his measured tone.

“You didn’t send a dramatic calling card this time. You came back using this method to find me. Did something happen?”

He leaned back against a theater seat, and for a while, said nothing. It was as if something unseen had fallen—slowly sinking into the ink-black air. It drifted down along with the dust, waiting patiently to land.

“I thought you’d stopped being a thief.”

“…Who knows.”
The voice moved again, this time from behind. “Maybe the one meant to be Kaitou Kid was never me at all.”

“Is that why you disappeared?”

“Rather than why I disappeared,” he replied, “shouldn’t a detective be more curious about why I reappeared?”

He snapped his fingers. A flicker of flame sparked between his gloved fingers. It was small, barely illuminating the lower half of his smiling face.
For a moment, Shinichi wondered if the hesitation and sorrow he thought he’d heard earlier had all been a trick of his own mind.

“…”

The detective reached out, trying to catch that flickering ember. But before his hand was halfway there, the flame died—extinguished as if on cue—and darkness reclaimed everything.

“Untouchable, like firelight,”
came the voice.
“Maybe I was just an illusion all along. Even so… will you still chase me?”

Shinichi’s fingers grasped at empty air. And he felt a sudden surge of irritation—at himself. Even after two years, he still fell for the same emotional sleight of hand.

“Romantic metaphors are useless for organizing deduction,” he muttered, pushing himself up from the seat. The old wood groaned beneath him. “But without a hypothesis, no investigation can begin clearly.”

“You could call it a dream, if you like. That would sound more like something you would say.”

—Just like that night speeding down the highway. Cars passing endlessly. Their windows reflecting the urgent faces of people rushing home.
And you, cloaked in the warmth of summer twilight, had turned to look back through the wind.
Just like that time, when I was still Conan… and you said those very words to me.

“Even if this isn’t the kind of murder mystery that you're so good at, Detective—just a thief’s personal, trivial mess. There’s no reward, no client fee. The only prize might be a bit of curiosity—yours, which is just slightly more intense than most.”

“Even a theater actress going missing for a few days can send you circling Tokyo. That insatiable curiosity—the drive to unravel every riddle—isn’t that the ticket that brought you here, Moonlight Magician?”

—But back then, I was too eager to refute the first half of your metaphor about reflection and refraction. Because everything you said about the wickedness of exploiting curiosity—whether in the past or now—I still can’t deny a single word of it.

A nearly imperceptible sigh floated from the darkness, the voice returning to its usual lighthearted rhythm.

“So, will you accept my case, Detective? A commission—about why I disappeared, and why, two years later, I reappeared and led you here in such a roundabout way.
Even if, in the end, all of this turns out to be nothing more than a phantom.”

“Well then, it’s fitting. After all, I—known as the ‘Kid Killer’—have always chased the illusion of a forsaken child of God…
The Phantom Thief.”

Without warning, Shinichi stepped forward and, in the pitch black, reached out to accurately catch the thief’s slender wrist—the point where multiple sounds had overlapped.

No matter how many times he’d held that wrist before, it always struck him: a magician’s fingers, so slim and deft.

Then he heard it—close to his ear, the sound of soft laughter.

“Well then, what shall we name this case? How about—‘The Disappearance of Kaitou Kid’?”

The figure in his grasp gave a subtle twist. A moment later, there was another snap—how he pulled it off, Shinichi didn’t know—but suddenly, the entire theater lit up again.

And there he was—standing alone in the center of the audience section, where crowds should have been.

No wax figure.
No sunflowers.
In his hand was only a hollow wrist-shaped toy.
There was no one here.
No one had spoken to him at all.

“—Uncover the truth behind my disappearance, Great Detective.”

That was his final line.
Then he vanished—like a phantom.

So much effort, just to drag me into this and not even show his face? Seriously.
What if he’s hiding because he got disfigured or something?
Shinichi thought darkly. Looking down, he noticed a layer of dust clinging to the side of his trousers.

The theater’s interior wasn’t exactly stylish. Judging from the design and aging of the seats, it had clearly been abandoned for years. The path leading up to the stage bore only one set of footprints—his own, in the exact same size. Likely no one had entered in a long time.
And yet, for a building to have survived this long in land-scarce Tokyo without being demolished—it was almost a miracle. Was it tax issues? Environmental protections? Property disputes? Who could say?

The front door hadn’t been locked. But upon rechecking, Shinichi noticed a modern electronic lock had been installed—clearly a recent addition. Whether by Kid or someone else, it was definitely new.

Had even the homeless never wandered in here?
Was there something special about this place?

Shinichi continued down the steps, descending until he reached the foot of the stage.

—It was too empty.

Though not a large theater, the seats could easily hold over a hundred. A venue of this size must have had a decent-sized cast and crew. And yet, the stage was barren to an unsettling degree. Even if the troupe had disbanded and sold off props in a dispute, surely they wouldn’t have taken everything.
If it had been cleaned out long ago, the ground wouldn’t still be littered with scraps of paper and dust.

When Shinichi stepped onto the center of the stage, he saw no new footprints. No traces of anyone’s presence.

Strange.
Not just the lack of footprints—what about the wax figure and the sunflower petals from earlier?

There wasn’t enough space to house equipment for full-scale holograms. And Shinichi didn’t believe that current tech could pull off such a vivid illusion without specialized lenses.

How was it done?
Was it part of the case?

He lowered his gaze to inspect the floor structure. The acoustics beneath his steps didn’t change. This wasn’t the kind of hollow platform that hid secret passages.

“Hey, thief—you brought me here to investigate, and all you leave behind is this one spot? No clue at all?”

But of course, there was no reply.
Not that he was expecting one.
Even with some repairs, the stage lighting wasn’t suited for examining fine details.
With a sigh, Shinichi Kudo activated the light on his wristwatch. Its range was just enough to illuminate the ceiling apparatus. He closed his eyes briefly to adjust to the harsh beam, then looked upward.

Several layers of suspended curtains appeared intact—no different from any normal theater. But the innermost layer looked... strange.
He couldn’t say exactly why.
One of the control rods on the side was nearly broken. He searched for a stick or something to reinforce it, but before he could finish, the curtain emitted a creaking sound and slowly descended to the floor.

A cloud of dust immediately rose into the air—like it hadn’t been cleaned in a hundred years.
After a fit of coughing, Shinichi was finally able to see what had felt off through the swirling haze.

The innermost curtain was made of a material different from the others.
Though it shared a similar color, it wasn’t ordinary fabric. When he touched it, it felt more like a wax-coated synthetic material.

And while main stage curtains were typically designed to brush the floor, this one was far too long.

—Long enough to cover part of the track inside the performance space. If left hanging during a rehearsal, it would absolutely interfere with the actors’ movements.

Why the extra length? What was it hiding?

In addition, the inner circular track at center stage looked odd. It resembled a standard mobile platform track used in theater performances—but parts of it were unevenly blackened. Shinichi shone his light down and crouched to inspect it more closely.

He spotted something embedded in the rails that didn’t match the other scattered debris.

Using his handkerchief, he picked up a tiny, irregular piece of blackened residue—pressed into preservation by the track. It had a slightly pink hue, the edges now grayish-white and carbonized. It crumbled to dust with the slightest touch.

Some kind of synthetic material—burned.

Had there been a small fire here?
Was that why the curtain had been replaced with a flame-retardant version?

But if the theater had been cleared out before its closure, even a minor fire would’ve made the news. He pocketed the fragment and took out his phone.

The date range was broad, but the district name hadn’t changed over the years.
Even though the theater didn’t display a nameplate now, if it had once hosted public performances, there should’ve been posters, flyers, or some media coverage.
Even without a developed internet archive, the right keywords in the right circles would eventually lead somewhere.

To his surprise, he didn’t even need to dig through fan sites or obscure theater blogs.
All it took was the location and the keywords "theater" and "fire."

The very first result:

“Japan’s Greatest Magician Kuroba Toichi: A Genius Lost in the Flames.”

TBC

Chapter Text

What counts as “domestic troubles”?
Ask a thousand people, and you’ll get a thousand answers.
But surely none of them would include a world-renowned magician dying during a performance.
Shinichi Kudo, in disbelief, searched theater fan sites again for the location—only to find every result, without exception, pointing toward that single incident.

If an ordinary client had asked him to reinvestigate an old case, hoping to overturn the conclusion, it wouldn’t have been too strange.

But why was it Kid?
Why would Kid go to such great lengths to lead him into reinvestigating this?

Did he suspect it was murder?
Had the impact of that incident driven him to disappear for two years—only to return in such a cryptic way and ask Shinichi to look into it again?

For someone who had never independently solved a case, who had barely any data to refer to—little Shinichi Kudo from primary school had still once been someone “worth asking.”

He didn’t have the answer yet.

But one thing was certain:
This man was connected to Kaitou Kid.

A familiar siren echoed in the distance.

The detective looked up at the open doorway. A bright yellow Beetle had pulled up outside. Only then did he notice that night had fully fallen.

“Officer Sato called the Professor. Your tracker’s been stuck in one spot for ages, so we figured we’d come pick you up, our ever-busy misfortune magnet.”
A chestnut-haired girl leaned against the car window, teasing the dust-covered Shinichi Kudo.

He dusted himself off and climbed in.

“He’s back.”

“Is that so? What awful luck,” the girl replied, turning to gaze at the shadowed theater outside the window.

Shinichi scrolled through articles on his phone.
“He’s asked me to investigate a fire from ten years ago. The reports called it an accident, but something feels… off.”

“And he came to you about it? Alone?”

“Yeah.”

“…Then he must really be at the end of his rope.”
Her face remained turned to the glass. Neon lights flashed across the window in rapid, garish colors, too fast to catch her expression.
The street outside was silent, the only sound that of the car’s engine purring through the dark.

“Haibara?”

“It’s nothing.” Her voice was quiet.
“At the very least, he still trusts you. Even after all these years.”

Trust, huh?
Maybe.
But the guarded tone in his voice earlier had made Shinichi wonder.

“Professor, take the back roads to my house. There’s something I need to pick up.”

“Huh? But what if the person who attacked you last time is still nearby? Are you sure about this, Shinichi?”

“Doesn’t matter. Just go. It’s too dark—I’ll wear a hat and walk the last few blocks. That yellow paint is too conspicuous. There might be records about the ‘accident’ in my study.”

He grabbed a black hat and urged them forward.
As soon as they were close enough, he jumped out from the back seat. The professor’s car, old and worn from being delayed by countless incidents, made an embarrassingly loud thunk when the door shut—far too heavy for the quiet of night.

If he hadn’t regained his adult body, there’s no way he could’ve vaulted his own home’s fence.
But the price of growing up again was becoming the top name on every international criminal syndicate’s watchlist.
Some hunted police collaborators for sport.
Some were deranged copycats.
Others were remnants of that organization.
Even entering his own house had become an act of stealth. He’d been forced to live in rental apartments for safety.

His adult frame wasn’t great for sneaking around. In some ways, it was easier when he’d been a child—he could just say he was running an errand.
Now, everyone knew the truth:
The child detective everyone had relied on... never existed.

“Ten years ago…
Marked as resolved…
It should be this one…
Found it.”
Shinichi sat on the floor, flashlight beaming from his wristwatch as he flipped through the folder.

There weren’t many records—just clippings and event listings.
The contents matched what he’d already seen online.
It had been filed as an accident, with no suspects.
Even his father’s notes were minimal.

Kuroba Toichi… huh?
Back then, he was hailed as Japan’s greatest magician.
So many performance records—it was overwhelming.

But something about him felt oddly familiar.

Maybe it was just because he was so often in the public eye.
Back in grade school, Shinichi had never been particularly into TV, despite what he’d told countless people.

Sometimes, he wondered if his memories were mixed up—if he’d confused what he’d watched with what he’d lived through.

As if that whirlwind year, that life-shattering chain of events…
belonged to someone else he’d seen on TV.

Shinichi Kudo’s tooth was starting to ache again.

This strange, random little ailment had only begun recently. The pain wasn’t frequent enough to warrant a trip to the dentist—
Not that he was that busy, but there was always something more urgent, more important that pushed it further down the list.

He had no choice but to pack his things and head back out into the rainy night.
His current rental, chosen for safety reasons, was far too distant.
So he ended up staying at the Professor’s house again—just like old times.
It worked out well; he could also hand over the theater debris to Haibara for analysis.

It had been a while since he’d come home to find the lights already on.
He hadn’t had that feeling since moving out.

He was back to the days of eating convenience store meals alone—
Except now, when using the Professor’s computer, he had to lower the seat to match his current height.
He no longer needed the elementary school stepstool.

There were plenty of videos about the magician online, but most of the links had gone dead over the past decade.
The remaining footage was mostly fan-made tributes.
Poorly edited, scattered visuals, and almost none where the magician’s face could be clearly seen.

What was this magician’s connection to Kaitou Kid?

“—Kuroba Toichi is still alive!”
“—It was murder! He’d rehearsed his final act for months—he even went off the grid! No way he’d fail with his skill!”
“—I met him in private! He was close to a number of people before the incident. He probably faked his death and vanished!”

…Okay, hold on.
If he’d gone off the grid, how would you see him hanging out with people?
Shinichi propped his head on one hand, scrolling through page after page.
Stage magic had long since lost its novelty, but the conspiracies kept resurfacing—
Obsessive fan theories claiming insider knowledge, leading to increasingly bizarre conclusions.

…

…

…Wait a second.

Kaitou Kid’s first disappearance was also ten years ago.
He reappeared during Shinichi’s second year of high school.
And then stopped again two years ago.

…

…

…No way.

Shinichi stared out into the rain.
Across the street stood the Kudo residence—dark and uninhabited, not a single light glowing on this rainy night.

...You really must be out of options, huh.

Katsuragi’s job was usually pretty uneventful.
Once he finished his tasks, no one really bothered him.
So when his phone rang—and he’d forgotten to silence it—the sudden ringtone nearly scared him out of his chair.

And when he saw who was calling, he nearly dropped the phone.

“…Detective Kudo? What’s the matter?”
He glanced around to make sure no one was near, then straightened up and answered the call.

“You mentioned before that your access to missing bodies only goes back three years, right?
But what about just missing persons? Do you have access to records from ten years ago?”

“Uh… Detective Kudo, didn’t you say the actress’s disappearance was just a prank? You said there weren’t any other leads and it was being treated as such…”

“Listen—Kuroba Toichi, the famous magician from ten years ago, was recorded as having died in a fire.
But at that same time, were there any stage assistants or crew members who also went missing?
Who collected the body?
This woman—Ando—might be someone connected to that incident. She may have reappeared because she’s trying to investigate what really happened.”

Katsuragi ducked low, as if instinctively hiding:
“Even if you say that, I…”

“This person’s goal is likely directly tied to Kuroba Toichi’s so-called accident ten years ago.
It was ruled an accident, so Division One probably doesn’t have detailed records.
But personnel movements? Disappearance logs?
Your division—the Missing Persons Unit—definitely keeps the most complete files.
If we ignore this, he might do something dangerous next.
This isn’t just a harmless prank!”

Kudo’s voice was unusually urgent—
So urgent that Katsuragi almost doubted whether the calm, composed detective he’d met before was the same person on the other end of the line.

Katsuragi was quiet for several seconds.
Then he sighed like someone making a decision.

“…You’re looking for information related to this disappearance case, right, Detective Kudo?
I’m investigating because of the missing actress.
And you’re contacting me because you’re connected to this incident—because you’re trying to find her too, right?”

“—Of course I am.”

“…Then I’ll contact you once I find something.”

Shinichi Kudo ended the call as he wished and returned to the small theater, which hadn’t yet been fully swallowed by the slanted shadows of surrounding buildings.

The man was sitting quietly in the very center of the audience seating. No one knew when he had arrived—he had just been there.

Gone was his signature flamboyant white tuxedo. Instead, he wore a black hoodie, his shoulders no longer held quite so straight as in Shinichi’s memory. The relaxed posture made him look a bit thinner than before.

He sat there, staring at the dim beam of light cast over the empty stage, as though waiting for a performance that would never begin.
There was no audience.
No applause.
No flowers.

He didn’t turn when he heard Shinichi’s approaching footsteps. He merely tilted his head slightly—then returned to watching his solitary show.

Shinichi sat not far behind him, watching his silhouette.

For someone who had always scoffed at spiritualism, Shinichi felt, for the first time, like he might be seeing something like a soul.

This man—who could escape from train cars full of explosives or collapsing underwater caverns without a scratch—
Could his soul be wounded, too?

But then again, what was a soul?
An unseen, untouchable concept that humanity had written millions of words about?

—Soul resonance was something they had achieved with just a glance. Yet others described it in terms of lifetimes, portraying it as the secret ending to an epic saga.

Shinichi found himself almost laughing at his own grandiose thoughts.

“Isn’t it kind of rude to slander someone right in front of them?”
The figure at the center of the audience finally spoke, his tone casual, not even turning around.
“Do you think I’m the kind of client who’d do something outrageous, Detective?”

“You heard that, huh.” Shinichi was a bit embarrassed.
“Well, I had to say something like that to get your cooperation, didn’t I? Since when do you care about stuff like that anyway?”

The old, worn-out seats groaned beneath their weight.

The figure said nothing for a while.

“…I thought you might go into the police.”

Shinichi relaxed at the shift in topic.
“I got too close. Ended up losing interest.
Still want to be a detective. Driven by curiosity. As long as I can uncover the truth, I don’t care how. That’s what a detective is, isn’t it?”

—And that’s why detectives, who operate in the gray area beyond police protocol, and phantom thieves, who steal treasures only to return them, always seem to meet in the blurred line between black and white.
He didn’t say this part aloud.

“You came quickly today. Does that mean you’ve found something?”
The figure turned his head slightly.

“Not yet. I just guessed you might be here.
If not, I figured I could investigate other leads.”

“I know who you’re asking me to find,” Shinichi said, flipping open the file in his hand. He didn’t bother looking at the man’s face as he spoke—he was already deep in deduction mode.
“Assuming your theory is right—that the accident was actually murder—there are three suspicious points.”

“First, after the fire ten years ago, the theater was abandoned. No one would have gone out of their way to install a new fireproof curtain after the fact. So if the original fire protection was intact and someone still died, that’s already suspicious.
Especially here—the fire curtain was almost twice the normal length. It was tucked up unusually high, almost as if someone didn’t want it to be noticed.”

“Second, the theater has remained untouched for years. No signs of trespass. Yet it hasn’t been demolished either.
In Tokyo, where every square meter counts, that’s… unnatural.”

“Third, I reviewed every fire report from ten years ago to now. The incident was widely reported.
But there’s an inconsistency.
Several websites have conflicting numbers for the injured and those who escaped.
Most of them were quoting the first report by Mikacho TV—known for being the fastest.
That initial number was 235 evacuees.
Many secondary sites quoted it directly.
But the network later revised it to 234.
And the link… disappeared a few years later.”

“Maybe it was a journalist’s mistake.
But a lot of conspiracy theories trace back to that number.
Which suggests—”

“The number of people who escaped was actually one more than reported.”

Shinichi looked up after speaking.

The man let out a faint exhale. It was hard to tell whether it was a laugh or a sigh.

He sank slightly in his seat, his face lost in the shadow of his hood.
Then he tilted his head back and stared at the dark ceiling, riddled with beams and light fixtures.

“…You’ve gotten this far already?
I’m impressed, Detective.”

It had been a while since Shinichi had heard him refer to him that way.
And for a moment, he wasn’t sure whether the distance between them had become closer… or farther.

The kind of distance where, if you noticed the blood beneath his clothes in moonlight, he’d flee in silence.
The distance of two people staying in the same hotel, separated only by a nightstand.
Or the distance of a few rows of empty seats in a deserted theater.

Which was farther?

“…What’s your relationship with this magician?” Shinichi couldn’t stop himself. He asked the question, looking at the man’s back.

“…How should I put it…”
The voice answered quietly.
“I guess you could say… I’m a complicated kind of ‘fan.’”

Before they had the chance to talk further, an untimely ringtone pierced the silence.

Shinichi Kudo glanced at the screen—Katsuragi.
Most likely, there had been a development in the case.

The man in the seat ahead stood up with his back still turned to him, raising a hand in farewell.

“You two talk.”

He walked toward the exit.
Shinichi wasn’t sure whether chasing after him would be too abrupt—
And it had been raining nonstop these past few days.

The phone kept ringing.
Shinichi turned back toward the stage, sat down on the ground beside it, close to the light, pulled out his notebook, and pressed the answer button.

“Detective Kudo, I found the data from ten years ago.
Nothing stands out… but that’s exactly what’s strange.”

“Normally, in any given year, there are always a few irregularities—people fleeing the country, or being placed under FBI witness protection. But for that entire year… nothing. Not a single anomaly.”

The rustling of paper was loud through the phone.

“I had actually applied for that year’s data once before,” Katsuragi continued.
“But because it was so old, it was never approved.
This time, I only got access because it was tied to an active investigation.”

“…But the truth is, something did happen.
Because someone I used to know—someone I personally knew—
Disappeared completely.
In Tokyo.
In that exact year.”

TBC

Chapter Text

When Shinichi Kudo left the theater, he was already gone.
The endless rain of Tokyo blurred the fast-moving figures into a summer haze.

So, for several days in a row, every time Shinichi discovered a new lead, he returned to the same place to look for him.
The detective, uncertain of his own motives, only realized after the first visit that he had always worked alone—reporting his progress to someone else was never his habit.
But fortunately, they never needed appointments, and neither of them cared for unnecessary explanations.
He was always there waiting in the same spot—whether he knew Shinichi would come or simply planned to stay permanently, it was unclear.
As always, the phantom thief left the detective with an elusive silhouette, keeping a distance of precisely three rows of empty seats.

Other than reporting progress on the case, Shinichi had little he could say to him.
The question he once asked—why didn’t he become a police officer—might have been his biggest attempt at reaching out, yet it still sounded like nothing more than casual small talk.
He didn’t seem to truly care what Shinichi said, either—offering only silence in response to any updates that weren’t questions.
Only when he decided to take a step forward could Shinichi seize the moment to follow, half willingly—just like it had always been.

Eventually, Shinichi could no longer bear his silence.
But the man’s seat in the center of the theater was too exposed; Shinichi could only see him, not reach him.
Just like those countless high platforms shrouded in emptiness, or in the raging fires and floods that had once engulfed their paths—there was always only one hand, silhouetted against the moonlight, reaching for him.

—But what truly unsettled Shinichi was the fact that he, hopelessly, found joy in all of this.

Frustrated—whether by the man’s attitude or his own—Shinichi stood up, intending to confront this thief and figure out what he was really thinking.
Was it possible this was all an act, that he had swapped himself with a mannequin playing a recording, while the real one had long fled?

“There’s nowhere else?” Shinichi asked sharply. “No witnesses, no survivors from back then? It’s been ten years—physical evidence is likely contaminated or gone. We can’t even be sure how far back we can trace things... You know that, don’t you?”

He didn’t want to ask directly what this man was thinking.
It felt like cheating—taking a shortcut in solving the client’s case.
The man seemed desperate for Shinichi to prove something beyond doubt.
What exactly that was, he still didn’t know.
But what was with this vague attitude?
You’re the one who asked me to investigate, so why are you silent about the case?

He was starting to get genuinely angry.

“Hey—you used to be looking for some jewel, right? Have you given up now? Doesn’t matter if you don’t find it? You vanished for two years and came back just to ask me to investigate a case from a decade ago—because of that, right? Don’t you want the culprit to pay? You sure don’t sound like a crazed fan still obsessed with the magician’s death after ten years!”

Shinichi moved toward the edge of the stage.
Somewhere offstage came the creaking of gears.
From the back, a wax figure dressed in a pure white tuxedo slowly rotated into view, its back to the light as if shrouded in moonlight.

“The floor patterns are really something,” Shinichi muttered. “Without aligning all the lights just right, you’d never notice the difference. No wonder he was already a legend in Japan ten years ago.”

The black flat-brimmed hat on the figure below was nudged askew by a tilt of the head.
From between longer bangs peeked a pair of blue eyes—eyes nearly identical to Shinichi Kudo’s own.

But unlike any expression Shinichi had ever seen before—even in the direst moments, those eyes had always held a kind of unwavering resolve—this time, through lenses unfiltered by any disguise, they shimmered with a complexity he had never seen.
With sadness.

In that moment, Shinichi almost doubted every gaze he had ever felt in crowded rooms—
How many layers of masks and restraint must this man have worn, to always appear so effortlessly composed?

It was as if, unnoticed, he had let old wounds scab over again and again—ripping them open, hardening further each time—until the armor around him was so dense, not a breath could reach inside.

And Shinichi Kudo now stood outside that armor, unsure of what position he held in this man’s eyes—
Was he a comrade standing side by side in battle, or an enemy he’d one day have to confront?

"…It’s not the right time yet."
He said this after a moment of silence. Then those eyes, once again calm, turned toward the center of his vision—toward Shinichi Kudo.
"…Do you really not know anything?"

"Know what?"
The detective sensed he was hiding something even bigger. The feeling of being led away from the truth was making him restless.
But that silent look just now had already wordlessly declared—
This wasn’t something he was ready to say yet.
…Was it that he couldn’t? Or simply that he didn’t want to?
Shinichi didn’t ask. The nature of that question felt too out of place between them.

He let it go. That creeping insecurity—of crossing a line he wasn’t meant to—was more maddening than the unknown truth itself.
He stood up and left the theater without another word. There was nothing new to share with him anyway.

The setting sun cast its glow along the road home.
Once again surrounded by footsteps, murmurs, and the occasional hiss of tires or a blaring horn, Shinichi found comfort in the ordinary chaos of city life—a sharp contrast to the dust-choked accident site.
Yes, he told himself, it’s only because I haven’t seen the whole truth yet that I’m being pulled along like this.
It’s just that his curiosity was too strong.

This obsessive chase after the truth—its alternating fatigue and exhilaration—was his version of a drawn-out love affair.
Every breakthrough left him boiling with adrenaline—more so than the passionate, messy teenage romances he’d never really had.
Deducing the truth under someone's gaze felt like a declaration of marriage to the case itself.

—Yes. From the beginning, he’d always been addicted to this chemically induced high.
Who the client was, what the case involved—ultimately, it didn’t make a difference to him.
Whoever came to him, he would give it his all, every single time.

…Why are there so many scaffolds around here? Are they demolishing this many buildings at once?
Shinichi looked up, spotting a low-rise building not far ahead. The decorations on the exterior had been stripped completely—clearly prepped for renovation.
As he approached, the view of the first floor was obscured by a corner wall—he couldn’t see how far along the demolition was.

It was probably true that fewer people came to this area now.
What was once a lively part of the city had grown quiet with shifting urban plans. The remaining residents were mostly young tenants drawn by cheap rent.
Not everyone could afford to keep an unused building locked away for ten years, like the owner of that theater.

Speaking of which, what was the owner's name again…? He didn’t recognize it when he looked it up. Couldn't contact them either...
What was that name…?

Shinichi was just about to plunge into his memory palace in search of that long string of syllables—

—when, a split second before he turned the corner, something hit him.
A gut feeling. A warning.
He knew he was being watched.

His steps halted instantly.
He stood still, holding his breath, scanning for the source of that chilling gaze.

A car with mirrored windows?
No—too dusty, no signs of recent movement.
Behind the vending machine?
No shadows, no shape shifting—too close for a ranged weapon.
A pile of rebar and pipes?
No—that would risk a collapse, dangerous even for the attacker.

Then he looked up—and caught the faint glint of reflected light between two abandoned buildings.

He dove right, instinctively aiming for the shadow.
But before he could hit the ground, something slammed into him from behind—knocking him flat and sending him tumbling into the dead space beside the wall.

A second later, he heard the unmistakable clang of metal hitting pavement.

For someone who had danced with death and crime syndicates more times than he could count—
that sound haunted even his dreams.
Gunfire.

“…Kaito?” Shinichi gasped, staring up from the pavement, seeing who had thrown himself over him.

“…It was the mirrors. They’d set them up in advance. It wasn’t that side—it was the building opposite.”
The figure in the black hoodie was already trying to ease away from him, voice weakening.

Shinichi immediately grabbed his glasses, scanning the opposite building—
And sure enough, the sniper was retreating, weapon already stowed.
All that remained was a blurred silhouette. Unidentifiable.

He was ready to chase.

But a hand gripped his forearm tightly.

“…Don’t,” Kaito whispered. “They’ve got guns. We don’t know how many.”

Shinichi opened his mouth to argue—Do you have any idea how many people they’ve killed? If we don’t act now, it’ll only get worse!
Since when do you stop me just because something’s dangerous?!

But then he saw it.
Blood.
On the spot where Kaito’s hand gripped his skin.

Because of his dark clothing, he hadn’t noticed the injury until now.

“Where are you hurt?! Ribs? Did one break?!”
Shinichi scrambled to lower him, already reaching for the buttons on his coat, trying to check if it was a penetrating wound—
Only to be stopped by a hand.

Kaito coughed softly, lips pale beneath the brim of his cap.
“Nothing serious. Just my shoulder… I’ll take care of it myself, Detective.”

“…But I may need you to take me somewhere quiet first.”
He nodded toward the rising voices around them.

Only now did Shinichi realize—people were coming.
The sound of the shot had drawn attention. A patrol car was already heading this way.

There was no way this man wanted to be seen by the police.
First things first—find shelter. Stop the bleeding. See if surgery would be needed.

Shinichi shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around Kaito.
While calling the Professor, he helped him stumble into the narrow alley.

Surprisingly light.
Shinichi found the thought popping up in his mind even as they half-fell their way forward.
Lighter than he looked.

At that moment, Kaito seemed to whisper something into his ear.
But Shinichi didn’t quite catch it.

It felt as though summer would never end.

Shinichi Kudo sat by the bed, not far from him, reflecting on how this man only ever behaved quietly when injured and asleep.
He couldn’t help but recall their time in Singapore, when the only thing separating them had been half a bed's width—and how back then, all he’d done was complain about how much this guy tossed and turned in his sleep. He hadn’t wanted to speak to him at all.

It wasn’t until Haibara sedated him that afternoon for disinfection that Shinichi finally saw the mess of injuries on this man’s body—some old, some he’d never seen before.
He had never once complained of pain in front of him. Like a bullet-ridden machine that no longer had parts left to break, he’d simply kept going.
“These are the medals of a warrior,” he would always say, so adept at romanticizing danger, regardless of timing or company.
They’d argued over that mindset more times than he could count.

Now those so-called “honors” ran across his body from the base of his neck to his scalp, suffocating even his breathing—nearly erasing his expression completely.

…Expression. What kind of face did he make when he was simply asleep?

He seemed slightly taller than Shinichi, but more slender—probably to suit his own twisted preferences.
This was the closest they’d ever been.
No longer separated by rows of theater seats.
No longer distanced by the gulf between thief and detective.

Shinichi suddenly found himself wanting—selfishly, irrationally—to see what this person truly looked like.
He hesitated. It felt wrong to indulge such curiosity when the man had saved his life.
The last time he’d looked beneath that cap, all he could make out were messy curls—his actual hairstyle had been obscured.
Now, with the cap removed, long bangs still shielded his features.

Well… if it’s just to put glasses on him…

… …

Shinichi rose, stepping closer with a not-quite-clear purpose in his heart.
His breathing felt too loud, too sharp, compared to the steady rise and fall of the figure on the bed.
He leaned in carefully, not wanting to wake him, and used the leg of a spare pair of glasses to lift the fringe from his forehead.

…What the hell…
Up close, they didn’t look that similar at all.

He slid the glasses into place.
Letting gravity guide them down the bridge of his nose.

Maybe it was the gentle bump of the frame that stirred him.
Kaito stirred and opened his eyes groggily, vision swimming, only to find the detective in front of him—fiddling with the glasses on his face.

Instinctively, and despite the pain, he grabbed Shinichi’s wrist—pulling at his wounded shoulder and forcing him to pause.

That was when he realized.
The glasses were Shinichi’s—his signature black-rimmed pair.
And he was no longer the monocle-wearing Phantom Thief, Kaito Kid.

“…Sorry. I’m okay now,” he said quietly, sitting up with his head lowered.
The lenses disappeared into the shadow of his hair.

“You don’t look okay,” Shinichi sighed, resigned.
And for the first time, he thought he might finally understand how others felt watching him act like this.

“You took a bullet for me. Just stay here for now—someone can help treat you.
You don’t have anywhere to go in this state anyway. If you step outside, they’ll create a medical record.”

“You’ve impersonated me so many times, you should be able to wear my clothes, right?
There’s not much here, but I can go home and get more.”

The man on the bed didn’t argue.
So Shinichi took it as agreement.

Thus began their temporary ceasefire—half-acknowledged by both sides.
A reluctant arrangement laced with secrecy and ulterior motives.

Shinichi wasn’t sure how to describe the feeling of having this troublesome figure in such close proximity.
He wasn’t just worried about what he might do—
but when he might vanish without a word, like a rain-drenched dove disappearing into the night.

That uneasy feeling only grew stronger as time passed.
Especially the moment he walked into the room and found Kaito wearing his glasses, sipping a drink like it was the most natural thing in the world.

—The Phantom Thief Kaito Kid was currently living at the Professor’s house.

Fortunately, Shinichi only stopped by occasionally, and the Professor was often away on business trips.
Most of the time, it was Haibara who interacted with him.

At first, she’d chewed him out for dragging someone home like she was his personal on-call physician.
But now, she’d mellowed enough to occasionally speak with the thief.

Her words had been, “He’s one of the few people who actually saved my life. So let’s call it even. Just don’t ask me again.”

Of course, she wasn’t one to waste time.
Their interactions looked more like polite hellos before diving into medical check-ups.

Days and nights stitched together like healing threads.
Kaito, perhaps because of the injury, had started speaking more.
He was still guarded, but sometimes shared personal bits—his picky food habits, his favorite fashion magazines, his favorite magicians.

Shinichi found himself oddly grateful for how slow nerve damage healed.
It gave him a legitimate excuse to talk about things unrelated to their roles as thief and detective.

Until one day, Shinichi returned to the Professor’s house—
And found the thief standing in the middle of the living room, no longer wearing his glasses.
As if he had been waiting.

Slightly curled hair. Eyes the same color as his own. An eerily familiar face.
Slightly taller, but far more slender.

Shinichi didn’t know how long he had been standing there.
He walked over and tried to start a conversation—
But the thief didn’t respond.
He just started speaking, all on his own.

"Kaito Kuroba. That’s my name. Does it ring a bell?"

Shinichi Kudo suspected he was joking—who in their right mind would use the name of a phantom thief as their real name?

But then he saw his expression—
and knew he was serious.

—Just like that moment in the theater, a flash of hesitation and sorrow that seemed to fall outside the bounds of any script.

"I’m not just a ‘fan’ of Toichi Kuroba. He was my… father."

"His faked death—your father, Yusaku Kudo, was involved."

"…Did you know that?"

Shinichi stood still, locking eyes with him.
Behind them, the daylight stretched endlessly into the horizon.

And truly—
summer was far too long.

TBC

Chapter Text

What does summer taste like?
Is it the salt of white waves from the sea,
the sticky sweetness of ice cream melting onto concrete,
or the metallic tinge left behind by tea leaves steeped too long?

The temperature had risen just enough that a cup of instant noodles, once perfectly seasoned, now soaked up all the broth in seconds.
What was meant to be a quick meal had, in the briefest hesitation, turned into bitter, soggy waste—too unappetizing to eat, but somehow too reluctant to throw away.
The receding tide left behind fish that had struggled and died in the shallows, turning the air acrid with the stench of salt and decay.
Sunlight scorched the pavement until the stones nearly melted into it, and slightly raised edges embedded themselves into your soles, scraping skin raw.
A fly landed on the rim of an unfinished tea cup left out overnight.

To some people, that’s what summer is.

For example—right now—for Shinichi Kudo.

⸻

“I really love blood…”
The man on screen, with his small mustache and unsettling grin, muttered solemnly into the camera.
His features bore an uncanny resemblance to Shinichi’s father—but the styling, the mannerisms, and the words were completely different.
Like a man possessed.
The entire performance carried a surreal dissonance that, even now, felt hard to reconcile.

He hadn’t been on screen for long—
Just enough to fool six-year-old Shinichi Kudo, who at the time had mistaken him for his actual father.

Right after that chilling line, the “skin” on the man’s face peeled away.

Beneath it, his mother’s radiant smile appeared in the lens.

“Happy birthday, Shin-chan! Sorry, both Papa and I were too busy this year to celebrate with you.”

“This was Mommy’s first try at disguise—what do you think? The teacher we met recently looks a lot like your dad, right?”

“And the teacher’s son… looks a lot like you too. He already knows some magic tricks, even though he’s about your age. When I saw him, I thought: Will Shin-chan grow up and make roses appear for me someday~? The girls at school will love that!”

“When you grow up and watch this again, you’ll remember the days Mommy made birthday videos just for you. You’ll feel so happy! You’ll think, ‘Wow, my mom was such a beauty when she was young!’”

“Happy birthday, Shin-chan! Mommy and Daddy are always with you~!”

⸻

In the quiet study, the not-so-large computer screen kept replaying that footage—
a birthday message, dug up from first grade, twelve years late and now looping endlessly.
A delayed wish—uninvited—reconstructed a fragment of memory Shinichi hadn’t meant to recover.

That man’s face…
So like his father’s,
yet so utterly unlike him.

Even back then, young Shinichi had dismissed it as one of his mother’s over-the-top jokes.
He’d shut off the tape halfway through, annoyed, tossing it into the corner before she could even finish the first sentence.

⸻

“Don’t you think you’re the kind of person who reads just the prologue of a novel and assumes you’ve grasped the whole plot?”
“This world is deeper than you think. There are riddles you may never understand.”

Twelve years ago, the same man—who claimed to “love the color of blood”—
stood in the back of a classroom and said those words to him.

“We share the same father.
So I suppose you could say…
I’m your younger brother, too.”

That barbed splinter he had thrown away in childhood had continued to grow—quietly, exponentially—in some forgotten corner.

And now, twelve years later, it had returned.

Not as a thorn.

But as a spear.

…
The novelist who turned the international criminal “No. 1412” into the name “Kaitou KID” based on a scribbled note.
The phantom thief magician who vanished after a fire ten years ago.
The strangely young face under the monocle two years ago—too young for someone who had supposedly been active for over a decade.
…

And just like that, Shinichi Kudo had been drawn into a game woven from lies—each one ensnaring the clueless even tighter.
It was, in some ways, worse than the lies he’d once told her.

—Spring arrives late.
—But summer always comes suddenly, and cuts spring short.
—It is summer that kills spring.

Shinichi Kudo burst out of his own archive room.

He’d imagined a hundred conspiracy theories.
Fake death had always been one of the possibilities.
The questionable physical evidence, the hidden police records Katsuragi uncovered, the chemical analysis of the remaining materials…
He was certain—he was this close to the truth.
A few more days and he might know who managed the theater.
A few more leads and he might know why the magician chose—voluntarily or not—to disappear this way.
Maybe, with just a few more conversations, he could learn what kind of life would leave Kaito with scars like that.

What he didn’t calculate for—was himself.

That unheard tone of disappointment.
That fleeting sadness.
The sharp change in demeanor.

All of it… because of doubt.
And worse—it had nothing to do with anything Shinichi had done.

It had been hours since he’d run out of the room with a sudden realization.
He didn’t know whether Kaito was still waiting.
For a child who had once been everyone’s chosen object of deceit,
for the second-generation Kaitou Kid who walked into crime without knowing the full story,
for a boy named Kaito Kuroba, who had been forced to seek help, wounded and desperate—
every second he was left waiting was a cruelty too great to bear.

“But he still trusts you… doesn’t he?”
Haibara had said that to him once.

He now had another name for this person—separate from “KID.”
But was that name a test? Or a rare show of sincerity?
He couldn’t tell.
If this person wanted, he could wear his poker face like a second skin—
a magician who had mastered the art of emotional invisibility.

So when Shinichi opened the door and saw that he was still there,
without hiding his face,
still standing in the professor’s house,
even wearing his shirt—

—he found himself momentarily too stunned to think.

What did Kaito Kuroba mean by saying something like that, so suddenly?

“If I say I had no idea… would you believe me?”
Shinichi leaned against the doorway, looking at him—and the endless, sun-drenched summer behind him.

Words spoken in pursuit of truth always sounded weak.
No one knew that better than he did.
Even someone who had told countless lies like himself—was still no good at defending his own innocence.

Kaito stared at him in silence for a long moment.
Then turned away.

“…I’m just… disappointed.”
The judge’s gavel fell softly—not with the thunder Shinichi had feared.
He tilted his head slightly toward the window.

The collar of Shinichi’s shirt hung loosely from his slender neck, and as he spoke, his Adam’s apple moved with each quiet word.

“Anyone else would’ve been fine.
Why… did it have to be you?”

“…Why you, of all people?”

This time, Shinichi heard the second part clearly—
though Kaito hadn’t meant for him to.

It hit like a thorn straight to the spine.

Shinichi caught the flash of a terrifying thought.
Was he thinking the same thing I am?
And fearing that hesitation would be noticed by the ever-perceptive thief, he rushed to speak first:

“If the suspect were someone close to me, I’d do everything I could to prove their innocence.
And now that I’m the one you suspect, I’ll do the same—for myself.”

“I’ll prove it to you.
The method behind the case, your thoughts, the reason you vanished…
and the fact that I truly didn’t know anything.”

“So help me.
Tell me what you know.”

—He couldn’t conjure a rose from thin air.
But he could pull off the escape act someone else designed,
even if it meant giving everything he had.
Before the final chime of the countdown.

Kaito turned back toward him—
Shinichi standing there, backlit by the summer light, eyes steady and unwavering.

For a moment, something unreadable crossed Kaito’s face.
Then he returned to his usual expression.

“…I’ll take you to meet someone.”

That was why he had come to this place now.

Kaito Kuroba didn’t come with him. So Shinichi Kudo followed the address he’d left behind and arrived alone at a bar tucked away in Ekoda, Tokyo.

It was nighttime—normally the hour when bars came alive with neon lights and the clink of glasses. But this place was quiet, with only a few customers scattered about. The atmosphere felt laid-back, almost indifferent.

Shinichi headed toward the counter, only to be stopped for an age check. Awkwardly, he took out his ID. “I’m over twenty,” he muttered.

“…Is that the Kudo…?”

The bar wasn’t noisy. Classical music floated gently in the background. The security guard’s voice drew more attention than intended.

Several faces turned toward him—only mildly tipsy, but suddenly sharp with curiosity.

…What is this feeling?

Like the hush before a crime scene breaks.

“Ah, so you’re Kudo-kun. You really helped us last time with the stolen wine case.”
A man he didn’t recognize stepped into his line of sight. Judging from his greying hair, he was probably in his sixties, but he stood straight and tall.

Shinichi didn’t recall ever seeing him.

“…Come with me,” the man said quietly, leaning in as if to greet him.

That’s him, Shinichi thought.
The man he was here to meet.

He followed the elder through the main hall to a quiet back room.
As the door shut behind them, the music cut off completely.

“Would you like something to drink? I only have the basics here.”

“Coffee, please.”

Shinichi studied the man as he moved. Despite his age, his movements were surprisingly light.
That profile… familiar. Too familiar.
From a rooftop where cables had once snapped.
From a high-rise rescue he nearly botched.
From a silent figure in a wheelchair on the Suzuki Express.
And…

“Quite different from what the young master usually orders,” the man said, setting the cup in front of Shinichi.

—Kōnosuke Jii.
The man Katsuragi had tracked down but failed to contact.
The true owner of the theater.

Kaito had once said: “Though his name’s written Terai, it’s pronounced more like Jii, like a name you’d only use for family.”

“Is that so? What does he like?”

“Soda. Hot chocolate. Apple juice, things like that.
But it’s been years—I don’t know if his tastes have changed.
Maybe he’s grown up and prefers things like you do now.”

He hasn’t, Shinichi thought silently.

“You haven’t seen him in years?”

“Two years ago, he stopped going to school and cut all contact.
When the young master sets his mind to something, no one can stop him.”
Jii folded his hands.
“You being here means he’s already told you everything, hasn’t he?”

“Not yet. But I intend to find out everything myself.
Especially the part about my father—how he was involved in Toichi Kuroba’s death.
Can we talk about what happened ten years ago?”

Jii hesitated.
After dealing with Kaito’s masterful acting so many times, Shinichi had developed a sharper eye.
He could recognize the expression now: conflict, guarded reluctance.

The ice in his glass began to melt.
Foam rose silently into the air.
He sighed.

“In vanishing suddenly and making people worry, the young master and Lord Toichi are definitely cut from the same cloth.”

Shinichi took a sip of his tea, saying nothing.

Across from him, the man swirled his glass. The ice clinked softly against it.

“But sadly, I wasn’t involved in what happened that day.”
The dim bar light flickered across the glass, casting faint reflections.
The fan overhead turned slowly, stirring only the edge of his sleeve.

“It was like he knew something ahead of time. For days before it happened, he secluded himself.
Not unusual for him—especially before big performances.”

The recollection was short.
Too clear for something a decade old.
He’s been waiting to share this, Shinichi thought.

“If anything was strange, it was that he stopped letting me inspect his props. Normally I did that, as his assistant.
That time, he insisted on handling it all himself. I thought it was just because he cared so deeply about this new show.”

“He really did prepare for it…
He said he wanted to create a performance that would echo through time.”

Shinichi raised an eyebrow.
Dramatic much. Definitely runs in the family.

“He handled all the checks before going on stage. I was just the stage assistant.
After a flawless opening act, I went backstage to change…
And when I returned, the main act had already begun.
By the time I realized what was happening, the fire had engulfed the entire stage.”

Jii fell silent.
The bar, too, seemed to pause.
The ice finally settled at the bottom of the glass with a near-imperceptible clink.

“After that… there was never any word from him.”

“No word,” Shinichi echoed.
“So why didn’t you believe he died in the fire?”

“The man I saw on stage—
I only glimpsed him for a moment.
The fire spread too fast. I was ordered to evacuate.
He was wearing the right costume, but…
To think someone like him, who had rehearsed so meticulously, could die just like that?”

**“And most importantly—
when I requested to identify the body, the police refused.”

“Even though several witnesses swore they saw his face,
no one knew his escape tricks better than I did.
So I contacted his wife, hoping she could confirm the body’s identity.”

“She said, ‘It was definitely him.’”
His wife—that must be the one he called the “lady thief who gave up on your mom.”

“Of course, now I know that was a lie.
I searched for years. Took risks I shouldn’t have.
But I’m sure of this much:
His magic—was strong enough to escape even that fire.”

Shinichi watched him finally take a sip of his drink—ice long since melted.

“So… how did you hear from him again?”

“…It wasn’t him.
It was the young master.
Not long ago.”

“We didn’t meet. But he left me a letter.”

‘If the famous detective from Tokyo—Shinichi Kudo—comes to find you,
tell him everything you know.’

TBC

Chapter Text

The detective’s notebook was already filled to the brim with scribbles.

He stared intently at the clues, sketching lines while biting his lower lip—completely unaware that outside his world of deductions, Kaito Kuroba was watching him with a tilted head and an amused gaze.

That expression—he knew it all too well.
The look of chasing after something, of a thrill just within reach, was more addictive than any forbidden drug.
He’d seen it often on Shinichi’s face, and occasionally caught it on his own when glancing in the mirror while practicing tricks.

It had been a few hours since the detective had spoken on the phone with someone.
Compared to the heavy, puzzled look he wore back then, Kaito much preferred this version of Shinichi—focused, energized.
At least this version felt familiar, as though they'd never left that unsolved case at seventeen, frozen in time and untouched by all the years in between.

But that expression didn’t last long.
Suddenly, Shinichi seemed to recall something, and was dialing again—talking to someone he clearly trusted.

Then his brows, which had been furrowed, slowly relaxed.
He began speaking with obvious excitement, leaning into the call, a smile playing on his lips.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he was half a hallway away from Kaito, and his voice didn’t carry clearly.

That inexplicable wave of irritation struck.

Kaito didn’t know what possessed him.
Without any clear justification—without even knowing what role he was supposed to be playing—he walked over and, without waiting for Shinichi to finish speaking, ended the call himself.

He saw the detective's confused expression. It was one he had seen before, and somehow, it made him feel... safe.

“Take it easy. Let’s take the day off.”

He forgot that he had been the one to drag Shinichi into this whole mess in the first place.
Or perhaps, as the client, he was simply exercising his right to pause the investigation.
He set the phone down on the table and tried to drag Shinichi toward the door.

“Hey, where are we going?”

“Anywhere. City Hall. Rooftop. Cruise ship. Airship. Spaceship.”

The detective was being pulled along by the wrist, trailing behind him.
The other didn’t look back; Shinichi could only see Kaito’s retreating figure.

He had no idea what Kaito was talking about—those locations didn’t connect in any logical way.
But from experience, he could tell: this person was probably angry.

Not that he knew why.

…Fine then.
They’d take a day off.
After all, Katsuragi had just called and said that the next stage of the investigation would need time anyway.

In the end, for reasons that were all too obvious, they didn’t go to the amusement park or the aquarium.
Although Kaito brushed off those reasons with his usual smoothness, thankfully, Shinichi didn’t press him for details.

It became clear that Kaito had made no real plans for an outing.
They wandered the streets aimlessly for a while before circling back and settling on something simple—a movie at the mall.

Shinichi had assumed Kaito would be a sci-fi fan, but the film turned out to be an adaptation of a mystery novel.
Now that he thought about it, the final work of one of his favorite authors—who had recently retired—had just hit theaters too.
Though the director’s technical execution left much to be desired, and some of the case details felt divorced from reality, the strength of the screenplay pulled it through. Overall, it wasn’t bad.

He glanced to the side, about to comment that he hadn’t expected Kaito to be a fan of that particular author—maybe after discovering the Red-Jacketed Detective, he’d moved on to novels now?
But the dim theater lighting made it hard to read Kaito’s expression.
All he could see was his motionless profile, occasionally illuminated by flickers from the screen.

It reminded him of certain moonlit nights—when he, too, had watched that silhouette from an angle, trying to read the contours of his face in the half-light.
Back then, he'd been desperate to glean the thief’s age, identity, anything, from the faintest shadow that peeked out from beneath that single-lens monocle.

He’d seen that face so many times, stared at it so hard, he could almost sketch it from memory now—even without any real drawing skill.
And now that those two faces overlapped, he noticed instantly how Kaito’s features had subtly matured, hardened with time.

It was rare for Shinichi to enjoy such a quiet, uncomplicated moment.
Something—or someone—was usually murdered by now, especially now that he was no longer living as a primary-schooler.

Spontaneous cases and formal requests were threatening to bury him alive.
Even attending school was still as much of a logistical nightmare as ever.

But today it hadn’t rained.
And thankfully, Kaito had decided—on a sudden whim—to yank him away from the domino chain of events before it collapsed again.

Even though Kaito was, in fact, one of the threads tangled in that very chain.

Shinichi hadn’t realized until now that Kaito had a surprisingly childish side.
He cleared out the entire row of animal plushies in the claw machine on the first floor.

The massive transparent case was packed with creatures more varied than an actual zoo—land animals, marine creatures, birds—all living in unlikely harmony, thanks only to the whimsical rules of an acrylic fantasy world.

“Which one do you want?” Kaito suddenly turned and asked.

“Aren’t they all just stuffed with cotton? Same size, too.”

“Wow. You really don’t have any dreams, huh?”

…And that was that.

Shinichi hadn’t corrected him last time, and he wasn’t going to let it slide now.
Not wanting Kaito to write him off again, he casually pointed to the orange-yellow fox nestled deep in the center, surrounded by a crowd of birds. “That fox.”

Kaito apparently didn’t have much change left.
With the pile packed this tight, if he couldn’t get it in three tries, it would be game over.

Shinichi heard the clatter of coins dropping into the machine.
With a flashy sound effect, the claw moved—and promptly spat out a squinty-eyed, grinning fox plush straight into the prize chute.

It lay there perfectly still, as if it were mocking him.

The one who got his way raised a brow at him, unsurprisingly pleased with himself. But before Shinichi could say anything, Kaito had already gone to exchange the rest of his coins.
It didn’t take long before his arms were overflowing with an entire menagerie of stuffed creatures.

“If this place loses money today, it’s entirely on you,” Shinichi muttered, holding an armful of plushies.

He wasn’t at all surprised by how skilled Kaito was at claw machines. He just couldn’t help silently grumbling over how most of the animals only differed by color—and made a mental note to never, under any circumstances, play rock-paper-scissors against this terrifying man.

The neon lights of Tokyo’s commercial district never seemed to dim.
Even deep into the night, the streets remained lively and packed.
Shinichi and Kaito walked through the crowd, each with an armful of plush toys, blending into the chaos where everyone else looked equally tipsy or distracted.
It was only in a place like this that they wouldn’t draw unwanted attention.

Still, the sheer absurdity of walking around with another guy, arms full of stuffed animals, made Shinichi feel incredibly awkward.
Especially because… well, it wasn’t Valentine’s Day or anything.

…Which would actually make it worse, now that he thought about it.
Just imagining someone wondering whether the toys were meant for his girlfriend or Kaito’s was already enough to make him feel vaguely uncomfortable.

“What are you thinking about?”
No nickname, no honorific. Just a sudden question.

Shinichi looked up, startled to see Kaito watching him.
He couldn’t tell what, exactly, separated them in that moment—maybe it was just the summer haze rising off the pavement between them.

“You really like these, huh?” Shinichi deflected, not answering the question. “Where are you going to put all of them? The professor’s house doesn’t have that much space.”

“Throw them away? But then the fox would be so lonely.”
The squinty-eyed fox plush smiled cheerfully from the crook of Kaito’s arm, no longer looking quite so mocking.
The line sent a chill down Shinichi’s spine—it was too sentimental, too familiar.
He’d heard something like that before, in some hazy, heavy dream… but the memory wouldn’t surface.

“What about you, detective?”
“Why’d you choose the fox?”

Their sneakers fell in step across the stone pavement, the paper bags rustling faintly with every movement.

—Who said it had to be a rose?
No one made that rule. A fox was fine, too.

Maybe it was just the way its tail curled up so brightly from the middle of the pile, or the way he was immediately punished for mocking someone’s dreams—
chased by orange fire blooming behind the overpass.

He’d faced so many life-and-death choices by now, Shinichi couldn’t possibly fit them all into a hypothetical slideshow of his life.
But that one night—standing on the highway, watching the flames—was one of the few he could recall instantly, with perfect clarity.

The city noise carried on around them, washing over the unfinished reply he hadn’t quite formed in his head.

But just as the foot traffic began to thin, Shinichi’s wandering thoughts sharpened.
He slowed his pace, immediately aware of a gaze—one that wasn’t Kaito’s—trailing them from the shadows.

Their eyes met. Without speaking, they veered off the main road and stuck close to the wall, slipping into a quieter side street.

The sound of footsteps hadn’t stopped.
But Shinichi had long since gotten used to being followed ever since regaining his body. It wasn’t new.

Uncertain of how many people were behind them, or from where, he came to a full stop and called out into the empty night:

“If you’re here for me, come out already. Following me around all day like this—what is it you want to say?”

They hesitated for about ten seconds.
Shinichi caught the faint glint at the street corner ahead and froze, instinctively reaching back to push Kaito behind him—only to brush against the arm Kaito had already extended toward him.

The glint wasn’t high off the ground. It didn’t match the type of gun used with the bullets he’d recovered before. Shinichi wasn’t sure what kind of opponent they were facing this time.

“Here, in a commercial district? You want to do it here? The police have probably passed by a few times already.”

His tone was calm, laced with a hint of a smile. But Kaito, trained by years of stage magic, could see right through him. The tightness of the muscles along Shinichi’s jaw betrayed him completely.

“—You’re right. That’s why you’re both going to back away, into the alley.”

“The kid with you just got dragged into something dangerous for no reason. Shame.”

Male voice.

Tall frame.

Unremarkable tone.

Dark clothing.

The light at his arm was half-covered by a suit jacket. His face—only half visible—remained buried under the brim of his hat.
If it were two-on-two, maybe they had a chance. But they couldn’t be sure how many more lurked farther back. Several cars had been sitting unmoved for a long time.

Shinichi backed up, raising his hands, unable to read Kaito’s expression beside him. If they only wanted him dead, perhaps he was cornered, but… Kaito was here. And somehow, that gave him confidence—an irrational certainty that together, they were untouchable.

—Besides.

—He couldn’t show this man a cowardly side.

“If you just wanted me dead, you wouldn’t need to make such a show of it.” Shinichi stopped retreating at the wall.

“If the goal was to kill me, I’d already be a corpse in that blind spot at the corner.”

“—So what are you waiting for? Or is there some reason I have to stay alive?”

The man in the shadows said nothing.
Then, after a pause, he smiled.

“So this is Shinichi Kudo?”

“…That’s right. Before we kill you, you’re coming with me.”

Shinichi lowered his hands and put his confident smile back on.
“I’ll go. But you let my friend walk free.”

Kaito wanted to grab him by the collar and ask if he’d lost his mind—tell him that going alone was worse than dying here together.
But before he could speak, a shadow flickered at his back. His body reacted first, moving to intercept—

—and then his shoulder went numb.

It was impossible to tell whether the metallic clatter of a bullet hitting the ground came first, or the sound of the detective being struck from behind and collapsing — but he himself had already taken the shot, solid and real.

“—What a shame. This isn’t your stage.”
The figure in the dark with the smoking gun sighs towards the fallen detective.

“—And of course, it’s not yours either.”

The pistol swung toward Kaito, who was clutching the unconscious Shinichi. Half his body was stained with blood, but his face was eerily calm.

“Dragging an unrelated person into this conversation is a hassle. So you can stay here.”
The muzzle shifted slightly. Kaito didn’t need words to know where it was aimed.

"Blame yourself for picking the worst possible day to go out with that detective… Still, looks like you had your fun. Pick a toy to take with you — I’ll make sure it joins you on your way"

Kaito Kuroba fell silent for three seconds.
He let out a sigh, shrugged, and gently lowered the unconscious detective to the ground.

In a perfect world, this guy would now be shaken by fear—pressed by an inescapable trap. He’d pick the brightest toy from the pile, maybe that eye-catching orange one that stood out so clearly in the dark.
Most people would go for the brightest, after all.
Still, taking a few extras wouldn’t hurt—He was in a good mood tonight. After all, he’d caught Shinichi Kudo.

What he didn’t expect… was that the man staring down the barrel of a gun would show not even a flicker of fear.
As if this wasn’t his first time.
As if this was… routine.
Terrifyingly routine.

Kaito stepped forward, slowly, toward the figure in black.
A narrow alley, dimly lit. Just enough light to show the curve of his grin.

Without saying a word, the young man who had been silent all this time reached up and slowly pulled off his hat.

And for a split second—just as the light from a passing car flared across the alley—

The face underneath came into full view.

It was nearly identical to Shinichi Kudo’s.

“…And what makes you so sure,” he said, voice calm as ever, “that the one you’re trying to take… is actually Shinichi Kudo?”

TBC

Chapter Text

He didn't know how much time had passed before the detective's consciousness finally emerged from a distant haze.
The dull ache at the back of his neck made him almost suspect he'd been decapitated. The only consolation was that, this time, after being struck from behind, his body still seemed to have maintained its adult form.

…Where was this…? Where was Kuroba Kaito…? What had happened to him?

He tried again to see where he was, but the texture of fabric against his nose made it clear—
It wasn’t that it was too dark around him; his eyes seemed to be blindfolded, and his mouth gagged. When he turned over, he realized his hands and feet were also bound.
The only sense he could still rely on was hearing.

He waited half a minute without hearing any sound around him, then began testing whether any part of the restraints on his body could be loosened.
Fortunately, the cloth over his eyes wasn’t tied too tightly. Using his barely conscious shoulder to rub from side to side, Kudou Shinichi finally managed to remove the blindfold.

No light leaked in to tell him where he was.
Everything he kicked against felt like metal cans and cardboard boxes.
He couldn't tell whether this was some sort of factory or just a warehouse.

If he had passed out, that likely meant Kaito wasn’t in much better condition either—
But he wasn’t here.
Had he escaped?

Or…

Something worse—

No.
He immediately rejected that dangerous thought.
—That guy had even escaped from a bomb-loaded train set up by the Black Organization. There’s no way he’d die from this.

Kudou Shinichi lifted a leg to check if his detective badge was still in his pocket, only to find his clothes completely empty.
Only then did he realize not only had he been searched, but the phone Kaito had taken that morning and left at Professor Agasa’s house also wasn't on him.

“You’re awake?”

The sudden burst of light was blinding, but unlike the radiant savior entrances in movies, this voice didn’t belong to Kuroba Kaito.

When he was dragged, half-falling, to the only source of backlit illumination, only then did he see who the male voice belonged to.
Still wearing a hat, face obscured—
If someone passed him on the street, they wouldn’t remember a thing about him—unless he, like now, was holding a stick.

Kudou Shinichi instantly realized where the splitting pain in his head had come from.
The man tore the tape from his mouth and then stepped aside, revealing another person under the distant light behind him.

Taller.
Though quite far away, the sharpness of his facial features was striking.
Kudou Shinichi felt a strange sense of familiarity, but with what felt like a concussion brewing in his head, he just couldn’t place where he’d seen that face before.

"You… what did you do… to the person who came with me…"
The man in the distance seemed to think he still hadn't grasped the situation. His voice rose, clear and mocking:
"How could I possibly be stupid enough to keep both of you in the same place? I’m not that dumb, keeping Kudou Shinichi…"

"…and Kaito Kid."

—There was nothing worse than this.
He had never felt that name to be so distant before.
A few simple syllables, yet they felt like permafrost that would never thaw.

That codename had been spoken by strangers so many times.
But this time, it wasn’t in joy or admiration.
Nor was it shouted in anger or blame.
This time, it was something far more dangerous—
As if it had become a legal indictment read out in court, certifying how much damage that person had caused—
Or like the final death knell, a black ritual that pronounced the end of a life.

—He was the one whose identity had been exposed, so why was it that he felt like his whole body had gone cold?

"So he actually followed along and offered his life for you, huh?
In return, why don’t you say something useful?"

The figure seated on the stool remained motionless, stripping Kudou Shinichi of any chance to gather more information.

"So, you'd better just tell me directly—where’s the file?"
That man asked.

—

The sealed room made it difficult to judge the passage of time.
After what felt like three rounds of ringing in his ears, Kudou Shinichi—who had been relentlessly interrogated—was dragged back to the deeper chamber.
Sure enough, his mouth and limbs were once again bound.

The only good news was that before his legs were tied again, he had already hidden something:
He’d tucked into the gap at his ankles a crushed soda can top, picked up from the surrounding debris, the same color as his pants.
So this time the rope wasn't as tight.

This process of setting traps for each other and trying to extract more information through layered deceptions had worn both sides out—
But it seemed his own mental endurance was slightly better.
The interrogator appeared ready to give up on him and instead turned to question someone in another room through a side door.

At least, that let him confirm one piece of critical information—Kuroba Kaito was still alive.
These split-second lapses at the end of conversations always proved most fatal for arrogant criminals.

The man kept mocking the tactic of separating them for questioning—saying it was a trick learned from the Public Security Bureau—
Yet forgot that not knowing your companion’s fate was the most terrifying leverage of all.

As long as that person was still alive…
Then the two of them would definitely find a way to escape.

Before the door fully closed, he counted the number of footsteps in dress shoes and estimated the number of people here—
And where Kuroba Kaito was likely being held in this abandoned warehouse.

Only then did the detective collapse in a corner, where no one could see.

—If someone could survive every life-or-death fifty-fifty scenario,
It was probably because the number of times they had touched the patterns carved on the door to hell
Was already more familiar to them than the door to their own bedroom.

Kudou Shinichi didn’t understand what exactly this man was referring to when he mentioned the "file."
But what mattered more was—why assume he had it in the first place?
Could it be that the group who broke into the Kudou residence months ago was the same as this one?
Maybe they had even been in contact with Public Security…

…Then, is the file they're after actually at my house?
…Which means, what Dad said on the phone this morning—

The door slammed open.
The light only outlined the silhouette of a figure—but that alone was more than enough for him.
He had seen that silhouette countless times, standing on rooftops under the moonlight with its back to him.
No amount of distraction would dull the certainty.
…Even if the figure seemed to be swaying a little now.

“What a shame. I’ve changed my mind.”
The man behind Kuroba Kaito shoved him inside. The next thing visible was a gun pointed at the both of them.
“A useless mouth like his is better off shut—for good.”

Perhaps this was their only chance to lock eyes at such close range.
Kudou Shinichi looked past Kuroba’s slumped figure to get a better look at the man’s face.

Sharp. Authoritative. Familiar.
There was a sense of recognition.
He had definitely seen this person somewhere before—
But not among any of the criminals or fugitives he’d encountered in recent years.

If only he had a little more time…
He stared at the dark muzzle aimed at him—
That olive branch from hell once again extended in his direction.

“…Do you really mean to go through with this?”
Kuroba Kaito’s hoarse voice finally cut through the silence.

That tone—he knew it far too well.
It was exactly like the one he’d used when injured during an ambush.

The detective tried to rise to his knees and ask him something,
But the man never turned around.
He just stood in the shadows, staring straight at him with unwavering determination.

—So much so, that for a moment, Kudou Shinichi almost believed it:
That this person had truly transcended the rules and laws of physics—
That he was some immortal being who could survive fire and explosions,
Break through destruction and carve open the world like a sword,
And, just like every time before, arrive exactly on time—
Never late—to reach out a hand and pull him back from the gates of hell.

“With the mess we left behind, it won’t take long for the police to swarm this place once someone finds out.”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer questions about our current location.”
The man casually lifted one finger from the trigger—
And Kudou Shinichi caught a glimpse of a faint scar across his ring finger.

“But burning the whole place down—now that’s a good idea.”

He exchanged a look with the man behind him, whispered something,
And not long after, the silent one returned—
Tossing ropes and a few chairs onto the floor, surrounding them with haphazard chaos.
Then came the scent of gasoline, freshly splashed around the area, soaking everything.

What caught Kudou off guard the most, though—
Was the fox plushie thrown down among the mess.

Kuroba Kaito caught the fleeting flicker of confusion in Kudou Shinichi’s eyes.
He lowered his gaze to the plush toy, then looked back at Kudou.
And Kudou understood what he meant.

"Well, any last words? I’ll allow you to take his tape off.
Your time together hasn’t exactly been harmonious—
but for the sake of that other person, I’ll make an exception."

In a matter of seconds, that other person’s identity had been narrowed down to a certain circle of acquaintances.
A lightning-bolt sense of foreboding struck Kudou, though he wasn’t entirely certain yet.

Then suddenly—
Kuroba Kaito’s lips touched his.

Kudou Shinichi hadn’t expected him to comply so obediently.

With both hands bound, the position was awkward.
Warmth spread from one side of his face along the tape to the other,
followed by a sharp sting as the tape was peeled off in a swift motion.

The leftover pain was duller than a toothache,
blunted but tinged with something sharp.

In any other situation, this gesture might have carried an entirely different meaning—
and for a brief moment, the detective hesitated,
caught in a flicker of guilt that was immediately shattered by what came next.

“Ahh, I think I’ve changed my mind too,” said Kuroba Kaito.

By the time anyone realized, he had already undone the ropes around him.
Perhaps they had never truly restrained him at all—just part of his sleight of hand.
—After all, how could the world-famous escape artist be bound by such amateur handiwork?

He turned his back and raised his hands in a show of surrender,
leaving Kudou Shinichi only with a view of his narrow shoulders.

“I suddenly think it’s more important to stay alive now.”

“I don’t care about your organization’s secrets—
but I do know where Pandora is.”

—It was the first time Kudou Shinichi heard the name of the gem he’d been searching for in full.

“Sorry, detective. I still have unfinished business. I can’t die here today.”

Kuroba’s fingers spread open. He didn’t glance back.
And Kudou knew—he didn’t have a smoke bomb hidden this time.

“Let’s make a deal, shall we? —But maybe you should put your gun down first.
In a room this small, if there’s a misfire, none of us are making it out alive.”
Kaito shrugged. The movement was slightly uneven—his injury making one shoulder lag behind the other.

“I know you probably have backup ready to shoot from afar,
but I have no intention of attacking you.
Besides, I don’t have any weapons on me right now.”

He didn’t take another step forward.
He stopped right where he was.

“How about this: I trade the location of Pandora for my freedom.
If I want to get away, no one can stop me.
This was a mistake. Coming here with him—
I realize now just how stupid that was.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, detective.
We were never meant to be on the same side.
At best, we’re just client and contractor.

I’m not like your gentle childhood friend.
I’m not kind enough to die for you.”

The long sliver of light cut between them,
casting a sharp divide.
Kuroba Kaito’s back blocked Kudou Shinichi entirely.
Not a single gesture gave away his expression.

“In other words—
to get what I want, I’m willing to abandon anyone.
I’m the kind of thief who’ll leave you behind when things go south.
You, of all people, should’ve known that by now.”

The man before them didn’t budge.
“I don’t care about your little emotional drama. So—where’s the gem?”

“Aren’t you curious?” Kuroba Kaito’s voice remained smooth, controlled — as if everyone’s reactions were within his calculations. “Why Kaitou Kid disappeared for eight years, resurfaced for one, and then vanished again?”

“It’s because I already got the gem. But it’s not on me now.
If I die, you’ll never know where it is.”

The gun remained pointed at him. “Take me there. Prove it. Where’s the gem?”

Kuroba fell silent for several seconds, as if testing the limits of the man’s patience.
Time thickened, every sound seeping back up through his veins like cold mercury.

“Detective!”

“Vatican Cameos—!!”

The words hadn’t even fully hit the air before Kuroba dove backward—
hurling himself toward Kudou Shinichi, who hadn’t yet found cover.

The soda can — stuffed with dry cell batteries — sparked into flame mid-air as its short-circuited wires collided,
igniting a violent burst of powder inside.
The explosion boomed just as the gunshots began outside —
so loud, so simultaneous, it was impossible to tell which sound had triggered the others’ ringing ears.

Flames surged upward, set off by the gasoline scattered earlier.
In an instant, the entire abandoned factory, packed with flammable materials, was engulfed in a sea of roaring red-orange.

In a far corner —
the smiling fox plush that once lay beside Kudou Shinichi now sat slumped, its zipper torn open, its stuffing spilling out.
Licking flames had caught it too, consuming its once-sly grin.

In the end, like all the honored or the fallen,
even the smug little fox would be judged by fire — reduced to ash without name or memory.

That day, the wail of sirens echoed across the wards of Tokyo.

TBC

Chapter Text

Why does Kaito Kid always appear only on nights of the full moon?
The inspector once discussed this question with him, saying it was probably to establish a personal style — but he didn’t think that was the right answer.
It was almost funny, really. Everyone’s impression of him should have been one that blended seamlessly with the moonlight, and yet all of Kudou Shinichi’s memories of him burned so fiercely they could shatter him, setting his whole world ablaze.

When he fixed his eyes on the toy and then met Kudou’s gaze, placing it behind him in the dim light.
When he suddenly leaned forward, tilting his head to tear the tape from Kudou’s body with his teeth, and his breath grazed Shinichi’s skin like a cut.
When he abruptly turned his back, shielding him in shadow, and chose to play the final wild card before the safe one.

All Shinichi could do was, under the tension sharper than a ticking bomb, silently work to loosen the rope around his legs.
He tore apart the toy’s battery mechanism with his hands, praying—faster, just a little faster—if he lacked the magician’s artistry to create illusions, then he would wager everything on the one thing he had: the unwavering determination to save him.

Kudou Shinichi had dreamed many times on that boat by the river.
His body, carrying the weight of too many memories, was so heavy it could barely keep afloat with the current.
All it would take was one nod to the ferryman, and all those chains would fall away, his soul drifting freely with the wind.
—But what he least wanted to forget were those eyes, the ones that, after ducking low, turned back through the fire and ran toward him again.

“Awake, Detective Kudou?”
Everything before his eyes was still a blur of white, but judging by the voice, it must have been Katsuragi.
He tried to speak, to ask about Kuroba Kaito’s whereabouts, but his throat hurt so badly no sound came out—only a fit of harsh coughing.
“They haven’t caught him yet, but Officer Takagi and the others are pursuing. When I arrived, the fire was enormous—they couldn’t have gotten far.”

No, that wasn’t it.
What he really wanted to ask was—how was Kuroba Kaito?
The man had been on the outer edge of the blast, and there had been gunfire—he didn’t know if he had been hit, or where. In such a small room, even a ricochet could be deadly.
He raised his hand to signal but froze halfway, uncertain what kind of position he had to define what they were to each other.
He didn’t know if Kuroba’s appearance here was safe for his identity; would those people, like they had with the FBI, track him through medical records?
But if no one treated his wounds, it would be too dangerous—and Haibara couldn’t possibly carry him home now.
How was he supposed to explain it to Katsuragi?
That the person staying with him, who happened to look remarkably similar, was his housemate…?
His client…?
Kaito Kid…?
…
There were too many words in the world that could be used to describe him, and Shinichi wasn’t sure which one he could use.

“Oh, Detective Kudou, your friend next door just came out of surgery. He’s not out of danger yet, so if you’re looking for him, you’ll have to wait a little longer.”

As if reading the hesitation on his face, Katsuragi said this to Kudou Shinichi.

First came a breath of relief, but then that strange sense of uncertainty — of not knowing how to explain anything to anyone — swept over him completely.

“It might be a little cruel to ask for information so soon from someone who’s just woken up, but you’re probably the best person we’ve got, Detective Kudou. You spent the most time around them. Do you still remember anything about the suspects’ faces or how many there were?”

Katsuragi didn’t seem interested in questioning the mysterious friend any further. He handed over a worn notebook, the kind that had been popular a decade ago — though the paper inside was new.

The pressure with which Kudou Shinichi gripped the pen was only enough to leave a faint, scar-like black mark on the page. A white bandage was taped over the back of his hand from an IV drip.

He held up his hand and gestured numbers instead, unsure of the exact count — but at least three.

As Katsuragi questioned him, Kudou nodded or shook his head in reply. The scene felt oddly familiar, reminiscent of his earlier encounters with Takagi.

It had to be said — Katsuragi seemed to have a knack for sketching. After a few questions, he could reproduce a fairly accurate version of the suspect’s face based on memory. But the upper half of that man’s face remained vague — mostly hidden in shadow during the whole encounter.

When asked if he remembered any distinguishing features, Kudou Shinichi thought long and hard. Eventually, he recalled that when the man raised the gun, there had been a scar on the back of his right hand.

Suddenly, Katsuragi’s calm demeanor cracked — a sense of urgency flashing across his face. He stood up and asked if Kudou was certain — which exact position? Kudou raised his own hand and demonstrated the motion again with his other index finger, mimicking a scrape.

Then, without another word, Katsuragi dashed out the door.

——

It wasn’t until several days later, after Kuroba Kaito had safely made it through surgery, that Kudou Shinichi still hadn’t seen him again.

He turned away all visitors and only spoke briefly with his father on the phone. There wasn’t a good opportunity to ask about the "file" while still in the hospital — not to mention, he wasn’t in the right mindset to leave Kuroba Kaito behind and return home just yet.

"Every time, it's me who ends up by your bedside."

He sat down next to Kuroba Kaito’s hospital bed. The other still hadn’t woken up.

The nurse had told him that the man had been shot again — the injury could only have happened at the warehouse — and had sustained some burns as well. Thankfully, the burns were on his back and weren’t too extensive.

But because of the through-and-through gunshot wound, his entire arm was wrapped in bandages. It looked so serious that Kudou Shinichi began to wonder whether Kuroba had even thought about whether he could still be a magician after diving in like that.

Apparently, during emergency treatment, someone had caught sight of all the new and old injuries on Kuroba’s body and suspected him of being some kind of gangster. But since it was the police who’d brought him in, no one made too much of a fuss. When he finally woke up, the nurse — looking worried — had asked Kudou Shinichi about his identity. He mumbled something about Kaito being his assistant on a case, which was why the two of them always ended up risking their lives together.

As for the name, he'd given them Kuroba's real one. It was too hard to lie in front of the police, especially with Katsuragi around, who was in charge of missing persons.

And so — with a touch of selfishness — Kudou kept glancing at the nameplate beside the bed: "Kuroba Kaito." That's how he unwillingly learned Kaito had once studied in Ekoda, that his family lived nearby, and that he had a childhood friend who, as it turned out, was none other than the daughter of Inspector Nakamori, someone Kudou had met before.

She’d visited a few times, but Kuroba hadn’t woken up. Kudou, as the one arguably responsible for getting him hurt, didn’t really have the face to talk to her. He’d only caught a glimpse of her from the far end of the hallway.

She looked a little different than a few years ago. Her hair was still long, but her style had changed — no longer the cute look from before. Her figure, now more mature, was outlined gracefully by the tailored fit of her clothes.

This sharp line of time always made him recall the first time they’d met — when she had said with surprise how much he resembled Kaito as a child. Back then, he had racked his brain trying to lie his way through it. Now, looking at the sleeping face on the bed — a face so eerily similar to his own even now in their twenties — he no longer knew whether it was fate’s kindness for erasing the sins around this man, or a punishment for the arrogance carried in the name of “savior.”

— When did I start thinking in terms of karmic consequence?

Kudou Shinichi stared at Kuroba Kaito on the bed — Have your delusions started rubbing off on me, too?

He ended up skipping all his university classes. He wasn’t sure whether having a public figure like him at school was a blessing or a curse for the university.

But honestly, he wasn’t doing much at the hospital either. He had no real talent for taking care of people — in fact, after so many days, the only conclusion he’d come to was that the convenience store near the hospital definitely had better food than the one near the professor’s house.

He looked at Kuroba Kaito’s sleeping profile and couldn’t help but think — No wonder he could fool anyone when crossdressing. Lying there like this, he really does look like a princess who’s eaten a poisoned apple. Then, not a second later, the thought disgusted him and he ran a hand through his hair to shake it off.

Every time he fell asleep beside him, he ended up with a sore back. But Kuroba never seemed to change his habit. The blanket on the hospital bed — maybe a blend of polyester and cotton — was oddly soft, and always lulled Kudou Shinichi into dreams in the middle of his calculations and pondering.

He hadn’t dreamed about that boat again. He wondered if Kuroba Kaito had ever dreamed about the same boat.

Was he there on that boat too? Or was it just the river ferrymen and the seductive waters of forgetting?

That would be far too cold.
As soon as he thought of a place of warmth, the only images that came to Kudou Shinichi’s mind were of blazing fire — sunflowers, an old century’s castle and its portraits, and that squinting, smiling fox plushie in the warehouse.

Right — what had Kuroba Kaito been thinking when he suddenly handed him that toy? If he'd already freed himself from the ropes, why lean in with his mouth to tear off the tape? Wouldn't it have been faster just to use his hands?

The detective buried his face into that thin polyester-cotton blended dreamscape.

It felt a lot like that fleeting touch of lips from before — completely beyond his control, impossible to resist. It wouldn’t vanish at any moment like he always seemed to. It didn’t need any proper excuse to stay just a little longer.

Totally within his grasp…

And warm enough to be claimed by his own body heat…

He really did feel a touch of warmth brush across his face. Lost in the haze of half-sleep, Kudou Shinichi didn’t realise what it was at first. But then, alarm bells went off in his subconscious — and he jolted awake, only to see Kuroba Kaito’s hand hovering just beside his face.

He practically sprang up like a kid caught bringing home a love letter by his mum, cheeks flushed red. He blurted out, “It’s not—” but couldn’t explain what exactly he was denying.

— And the worst part was that Kuroba didn’t even ask.

“You’re awake! I’ll go get the doctor!”

The other turned to leave like he was trying to cover something up, but Kudou caught him by the wrist. Maybe it tugged at Kuroba’s wound — a pained grunt slipped out.

“…Don’t go.”

Then Kudou turned to see those blue eyes — soft, pleading — looking at him in a way completely unlike any time before.

He couldn’t remember how much they ended up talking that night, nor why Kuroba suddenly decided to wax poetic like that — casting aside the distance between client and detective, or whatever else had been separating them. For that one evening, they were just two mischievous boys messing around before the morning check-ins from nurses and doctors. Like they’d been granted one extra day off school due to an unexpected earthquake drill.

— But he also knew: magical nights like this always melted at first light, just like countless others before.

The only difference was: this time, Kudou Shinichi had no intention of pretending nothing had happened the next morning. He wouldn’t pretend he hadn’t seen Kuroba lower his guard after removing his glasses. Wouldn’t pretend he didn’t know his full name and address from the hospital record. Wouldn’t pretend he hadn’t heard all those things Kuroba had said — pieces of a life Kudou himself had never been part of — or that strange, cryptic phrase:

— “But even now, I still feel like I’m in that theatre.”

So on the very first day the doctor cleared Kuroba Kaito for discharge, Kudou dragged him out without explanation. He bundled him into a borrowed car — no clue where it came from. Kuroba asked, and Kudou replied, “Friend of an FBI agent. You almost impersonated him once.” Kuroba, sitting in the passenger seat, visibly grimaced.

They’d come to this broken, abandoned theatre more times than either of them could count.

From being mere thief and detective, to client and investigator, to comrades who’d lived through life-and-death and knew each other’s real names — and finally, to someone who could share everything with the other under the cover of night.

Kuroba had guessed where they were headed just from the view out the car window. But he wasn’t sure what Kudou had figured out — or what he intended to say.

He stepped out, stopping a little distance away from the entrance.

Suddenly, he regretted how good Kudou’s memory was. What if he really did remember every single weakness Kuroba had carelessly revealed? Back then, he’d been the kind to spout half-truths and misleads to distract his enemies. But now, laying everything bare felt unbearably awkward.

— “I stopped liking fantasy stories later on.” He remembered saying that once.

Everyone has magic — saving the world, destroying the world — as if they only exist to prove someone else’s brilliance, like prey on a grassland, living or dying at the whim of the protagonist’s emotions.

— “But people don’t have magic. Neither do I. Neither did my father, who couldn’t escape the fire.”

And yet, compared to hating those distant, fantastical works, it’s always easier to hate oneself.

I hated the seven-year-old me who insisted on going to the aquarium that day because of a fairy tale I liked. Maybe I really believed back then that my dad’s magic shows would always be there — that he could perform just for me, anytime he promised.

I hated myself for not facing reality. For clinging to that fantasy. For asking why I hadn’t predicted something terrible and gone back to save him.

But after ten years of blaming myself, I finally realized — that wasn’t possible.
— Because you can’t save someone who didn’t die in the first place.

— “Compared to the fantasy stories I used to love, I now prefer those where people come to understand the limits of their fragile, mortal bodies — yet still give everything to pursue their dreams and live the life they want. That’s why I like magic.”

— “It’s just that now, no one will perform for me anymore. Not even the one who used to. I no longer want to be his audience.”

— “But I’ll never lose in an escape trick inside a burning building again.”

That night, when he said all this, he hadn’t been waiting for Kudou Shinichi’s response. That dangerous, long dream had made him realise how rare it was to be alive. When he breathed in fresh air instead of smoke again, he suddenly remembered just how much he’d wanted to protect this person.

He wanted someone — anyone — to hear the confession he hadn’t spoken aloud in twenty years. He hoped someone might truly understand every version of himself, whether with or without the cape. And if God did exist, maybe — just maybe — He could pity him, just this once. Because after all these years, he hadn’t truly hurt anyone. And if he ever woke up again… could he see that person’s face first?

And then Kudou Shinichi simply grabbed his hand — and ran.

The theatre doors seemed to open just for him. The lights too. Even though only he knew where the control switch was, the entire place lit up as if expecting him.

Not only was the white tuxedo statue he’d carved for himself still there, surrounded by sunflowers — there was also Kudou Shinichi, holding a violin.

“Dear My Mr. Kuroba—”

That violin looked like it had been made just for him — proud, yet graceful. The polished wood shone with a glossy elegance.

The melody flowed effortlessly from Kudou Shinichi’s hands. He’d never seen him play before. Kuroba had always thought of him as calm and arrogant during deductions, but never imagined he had such a hobby. He’d even wondered whether the violin at Kudou’s house was just for show.

Yet now, in the spotlight, he played with ease — the tone restrained but full of breath and life, effortlessly drawing every eye. It was as if he were the one who deserved to be called the magician under the moonlight.

— “Irene’s Theme.”
A melody that rises then falls slightly, clever and dangerous.
His trick.

At the centre of the small theatre stage, Kudou Shinichi stood surrounded by a faint glow. As the lingering notes echoed, he lifted his gaze toward Kuroba Kaito — a look sharp enough to pierce through him.

“—Then let me perform for you,” he said.
“—Andou Ranya (アンドウ・ランヤ)... or should I say, Irene Adler (アイリーン・アドラー), Miss.”
“—Be my audience. Watch only me. Never... ever look away.”

The moment your eyes meet mine will be the scene you never forget for the rest of your life — and I’m confident enough in that.

— And then, he reached out his hand to me.

TBC

Chapter Text

After being missing for many days, Kudou Shinichi finally got through to Katsuragi on the phone.

No one at the Metropolitan Police Department had been able to reach him—strangely, the detective could.

After rushing between several locations, Katsuragi stopped in one of the rooms in the current building. Finally, after being exhausted from waiting, he returned the call to Kudou Shinichi, who had left over a dozen missed calls.

It seemed like he already knew what Kudou Shinichi was going to say. His tone had lost its usual politeness, especially when Kudou described the suspect as “a person who couldn’t possibly exist.”

He’d heard that kind of statement too many times.

He had long understood better than anyone what those words truly meant.

How could someone who had been missing for years and officially declared dead by everyone suddenly reappear, kidnap a famous detective and his friend, and do it all for a jewel?

But he didn’t want to believe that. As long as he hadn’t died in front of him, as long as he hadn’t seen the body with his own eyes, then maybe—just maybe—he had simply disappeared, decided to settle in some unknown city, carrying secrets he couldn’t share.

While working with Kudou to reconstruct the suspect’s face, he felt an uncanny sense of familiarity. He had pictured this scene too many times before, but now that it was real, it felt too perfect, almost distorted.

Especially when the detective, lying in his hospital bed, used his left hand to slowly outline the shape of a scar—it was only a few centimeters long, yet it felt like a journey of a lifetime.

No one would care what he had to say. After all, one of the reasons he joined the missing persons unit in the first place was because of this. In the early days, when he insisted the man wasn’t dead, his colleagues questioned him so much that turning off his phone became his default response.

If he could find that person, he wouldn’t hesitate for even a second to accept punishment, suspension, or even never work as a police officer again.

He visited every possible place the person might have gone—former residences, archive rooms from their experiments, parks he used to frequent. All of them were empty.

The final place was his former office, which hadn’t been used in years due to a murder case. No one would go near it anymore. Some of the files hadn’t even been destroyed.

Yes, someone had once told him that the victim was the very person he was looking for.

But how could that be possible without a body? For someone who had supposedly been killed, no body was found. Or perhaps he was still alive, just missing—and somehow the entire Metropolitan Police had no record of him at all.

How likely was that?

He had clung to finding a clue in the archives for years, pushing forward relentlessly, then doubting himself, and finally continuing purely out of habit. And in the end, all he discovered was a statistical anomaly—an inconsistency in the number of missing persons for that year.

Maybe, after all, he really wasn’t cut out to be a detective—just like his father had always told him.

Detectives were just people who liked to play clever games, and he hadn’t even been gifted with that kind of cleverness.

He didn’t really want to hear what Kudou Shinichi had to say anymore—or rather, it was all just the same information again and again, exactly like what the veterans had said when he first joined the force.

He stayed silent for a long time, on the verge of hanging up, until he heard Kudou Shinichi say:

“—I’ll help you find him. So come with me now.”

—

The nurse at the hospital reception desk looked slightly surprised. The patient named Kuroba had clearly been discharged earlier that morning by a family member—so why had they returned in the evening? Had the injury reopened from too much movement?

But the patient refused her offer to examine him, and the detective who had taken him home earlier simply echoed: “Well, it’s a gunshot wound. I figured it’d be safer to stay in the hospital a little longer, where someone can keep an eye on him.”

Contradictory statements—no way to tell which one was true.

Hospitals rarely take in gunshot patients, and there had been very few patients recently. It was only due to a request from the police that this particular patient was allowed to move back into his original room, without even needing a new name tag.

"If there's any unusual noise, don't go into that room" — that was the only instruction she received afterward.
How are we supposed to know if something happens to your body? she wanted to ask, but when she saw Kudou Shinichi’s serious expression, she swallowed the words back down.

In the following days, the detective did not return to the hospital again. The days repeated themselves one after another; the new skin growing over his wounds eventually came, just like a bird hatching in its nest. Even if the inside was completely different, as long as the appearance was similar, it was enough to trigger that familiar sense of happiness in most people.

Until that night arrived.

Above the leather shoes was a worn-out white hospital gown. The sounds of night patrols in the hospital had practically become white noise for sleep. The doctor at the end of the corridor paused briefly at the first three doors before turning around and heading back toward Kuroba Kaito’s room.

The boy on the bed, with curling hair at the ends, lay with his back to the door, breathing steadily like a bell that rings every Friday on schedule.

The door opened without resistance. Footsteps and the creak of the door were nothing unusual in a summer night filled with cicada song.

The doctor stood by the bed for about half a minute. The person lying there showed no signs of waking. In the dim blue light, he pulled out a syringe and injected it into the IV drip that was quietly ticking down.

"You just couldn’t wait any longer, could you?"

The door was pulled halfway open. A silhouette, always dressed in a form-fitting shirt, leaned casually against the doorframe — no one could tell how long he’d been standing there.

The figure in white by the bed tried to draw a gun, but in the blink of an eye, their wrist was cuffed — the other end of the handcuff attached to the very boy who had appeared to be asleep on the bed.

"Oh, right. When it comes to handcuffing someone before they can even draw their gun — he’s quite familiar with that trick." Kudou Shinichi glanced back from the doorway into the room.

The person on the bed had at some point rolled over and thrown off the covers to look at the intruder. But underneath the curling hair, it wasn’t Kuroba Kaito’s face that stared back.

"Who are you?"

"That’s what I should be asking. Why... why are you using his face to do this?"

Katsuragi stared at the person he’d cuffed. He had seen the contours of that face countless times since he was a child — in moments of gentleness and anger. That face had been his salvation during adolescence, only to completely vanish later, declared dead by others with no grave to mark the loss, no chance for him to recall even a single clear feature. The official files danced around the truth, hidden for so many years. Now, finally appearing in front of him again, the face felt utterly unfamiliar.

"…Kashimura Tadaaki. The man you’re using as a mask… where is he?"

Katsuragi hesitated for a long time before he spoke the name, but the reaction it drew was thick with unease — and oddly enough, this figure, now cornered, seemed unconcerned by the handcuffs or their predicament. Instead, they broke into an amused smile.

"Who would’ve thought he had an illegitimate child?"

"He’s the person I respected most! That word would never be associated with him!"
The handcuffs clattered against the bedframe, the sound of steel echoing in the quiet hospital room.

"You’re... Vermouth, aren’t you?"
The detective at the door spoke the name aloud.
A name so distant it might as well have belonged to the last century — touching the surface like a ripple across water, only to stir up an endless nightmare.

"If I’m not mistaken, the ‘file’ you’re looking for—or rather, the gem—has something to do with this, doesn’t it?"

Kudou Shinichi straightened from the doorway and walked toward the figure now pointing a gun at him. Except, unlike last time, their roles had reversed. This time, he knew the other had nowhere left to retreat.

"The organization’s files must have recorded that prolonged use of the drug that reverses aging inevitably causes physical side effects—whether to lifespan, function, or form... we both know this all too well."

"To come here in search of Kuroba Kaito’s whereabouts so soon after escaping that explosion—you must not have much time left."

The detective stood with his back to the light. The dimness in the room mirrored the warehouse, hiding his expression.

"Even if your organization deleted all systems matching age to facial identity, the police will eventually develop their own version. And once they do, everyone will know that the missing ‘master of disguise, Vermouth,’ and ‘Chris Vineyard’ share identical biological data. That identity will never be usable again."

"That’s why you’re desperate to locate the ‘file’—because it might contain a solution, or the process for creating an antidote. If the organization still existed, this wouldn’t matter to you. But the fact that you came here alone means none of the others can help you anymore."

"And now, cuffed here—even with a gun—you can’t escape. So how about you tell me the contents of this ‘file’ right here? Or would you rather save that for the police?"
Kudou had already raised his watch, aimed and ready. The figure in the dark was hard to track, but this was a scenario he and Kuroba Kaito had rehearsed countless times. No one in the world could surpass his reflexes—and of that, he was certain.

"...Is that so?"
The shadowy figure neither confirmed nor denied, responding with deliberate ambiguity.

But the tone—Shinichi knew it too well. His body reacted before his brain could catch up.

"Cutting off a dead man's hand is easier than peeling fruit."

The bullet struck the handcuffs with a deafening blast. Katsuragi grabbed the figure’s wrist with a quick reversal—but a second shot followed immediately.

He had been too close. Or maybe not forceful enough. In the end, he was left with just a scratch across his fingers—after years of chasing.

Shinichi's tranquilizer dart had flown true—he saw the figure in the dark stumble from the impact.

—What he didn’t expect was that the woman would still be that ruthless toward herself.
And then came the third shot of the night.
—This time, it was aimed at herself.

"The dead are the safest—only the dead can never reveal secrets."

Then came the sound of hospital glass shattering, like breaking bones. In the piercing beauty of that summer night sky, the woman’s body cut through the building like a sword, a rain of glass falling around her as if from a bouquet.

"Let’s hope this is our final meeting... Silver Bullet."

Amid the crashing of glass and hallway chaos, he vaguely heard her last words. But he would never be able to confirm them.

No one saw her again after she fell from the window that night. No body was found. No trace of accomplices.

Vermouth disappeared from the world.
And so did Kashimura Tadaaki—who should have died three years ago, and perhaps never should have existed to begin with.

Shinichi never saw her shadow again.

But his curiosity about the file only grew. He turned his home upside down but found nothing suspicious. Not wanting to bother Kuroba Kaito—who had already gotten injured twice because of him—with moving heavy boxes, he finally called Kudou Yuusaku out of sheer frustration.

He had prepared for many possibilities: secrets of the organization, drugs like APTX-4869, reasons why the gem was being pursued, records of its location—or even worse scenarios.

What he didn’t expect was for his father, usually so generous and patient, to fall silent for a full minute before confirming if he truly wanted to know.

If any famous detective were to have a unique kind of trouble, it would be Kudou Shinichi—the kind of man whose intuition for the truth was matched only by his premonition of bad news.

What he never expected…
Was that the file…
Was about Kuroba Kaito.

TBC

Chapter Text

“Pandora” was probably the most fitting name for it. Once the gears of fate began to turn, it became just like the mythical box—bringing endless calamities upon the world, never to stop again.
Paper as light as the lid of Pandora’s jar, yet when it descended upon the human world, it stirred a thunderous force.
The sparse strokes of ink in the file eventually bled into tens of thousands of names.

“I think I’ve completed your commission.”
“Why you disappeared, Why you came back and made me investigate a case from ten years ago—and the escape trick used ten years ago.”
Kudou Shinichi closed the folder in his hands, with the colourless light of summer still behind him.
He wasn’t sure whether Kuroba Kaito still had any curiosity left to hear the rest of the truth. Not long ago, he’d stood on stage and vowed to always perform for him—could he still be trusted to believe him again from where they stood now?

“Let’s go.”
Kuroba Kaito always seemed to see through his moments of hesitation a step ahead. His tone wasn’t as heavy as Shinichi had expected—it was as if he had already guessed his answer on some unknown night.
“Come tell me at my place.”

And just like that, he naturally walked out, side by side with Kudou Shinichi. They passed the convenience store in front of Professor Agasa’s house—the one they’d once said didn’t taste very good—passed the claw machines in the city’s busy shopping mall, and the school route Kuroba had walked countless times years ago.

Perhaps Kudou Shinichi was distracted—he didn’t even notice the cars passing at the intersection, until Kuroba Kaito turned back and grabbed his wrist.
“There’s a lot of traffic here. Didn’t expect that after all these years, they still haven’t put up any warning signs.”
Pulled back slightly by Kaito’s motion, Shinichi couldn’t quite explain what he had been thinking so deeply about that he hadn’t seen the road.

Maybe, every time they were together, Kaito was always the one in control of the direction. All he had to do was say the destination, and those white wings would carry him perfectly to where he wanted to go—or help him accomplish anything. That kind of gentleness was far too lethal for him. Letting his guard down even a little, he could fall right into his trap.
The mechanical roar of traffic gradually faded into the distance, and the fingers on his wrist showed no intention of letting go.
Kudou Shinichi tacitly chose not to ask, but didn’t step any closer either.
Just as he was thinking how he hadn’t returned in years, Kuroba Kaito naturally slipped his fingers down the skin of Shinichi’s wrist and intertwined their hands together in his palm, without saying another word.
And from that moment on, the only thing he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat.

Kuroba Kaito walked like that with him, hand in hand, along this path in Ekoda that he could recognize even with his eyes closed—the road he used to take after school. Their long shadows overlapped on the buildings around them, just like all the silhouettes beneath the moonlight in the past. The only difference now was that he no longer needed to disguise himself to stand at Kaito’s side as an equal.
The light angled across them, blending their two shadows into one—like all the darkness in life had been outlined by the sun and merged into him, etched into the streets of Ekoda, where nothing could separate them.

His house didn’t look as run-down as expected. After all, it had only been a few years, and perhaps someone had been coming by occasionally to clean.
Then, just like any afternoon coming home from school, Kaito opened the door to the empty house. It was so natural, like a high schooler sneaking a lover home while the parents were away—and that image left Kudou Shinichi completely flustered.

Naturally, no one came to greet them, and there were no lights on. Thankfully, someone seemed to have kept paying the electricity bill, because the room glowed soft amber as the lights turned on. Kudou Shinichi internally complained: So he still has the habit of turning on lights during the day, huh.

Kuroba Kaito, as if he’d been prepared for this, moved without hesitation once he returned. He set the food they’d just bought at the convenience store onto the table, finally letting go of Shinichi’s hand.
“Make yourself at home. Might be a little dusty, though.”

Kudou Shinichi didn’t rush to break the silence. Saying his deductions out loud in this atmosphere would be cruel—it was like the birdsong that always sounded extra sweet before a storm arrived.

Kaito began tidying up a little and preparing something to drink. Shinichi took off his shoes and wandered through a few rooms.
It was a rather ordinary interior—not like the apartment he had rented before. It was clear someone had been maintaining the place. The dust wasn’t thick enough to suggest no one had lived here for three years. Dust never lies. But Shinichi couldn’t tell who the person responsible was.

He pushed open a random door and found a bedroom. Just as he was about to apologize and close it, his attention was caught by a striking portrait at the center of the bed.

In the frame was a mustached man in a black suit, caught mid-performance in a dazzling moment of magic, forever basking in the surrounding applause.
No doubt, the person in the portrait was Kuroba Toichi.

The height of the frame matched that of an adult. The edges of the silver frame were worn white from use, and along the wall, there were pencil marks showing height measurements.
Shinichi remembered how, as a child, he could never reach the top shelf of mystery novels in his father’s study. Now that he thought about it, he probably could have reached them by simply stretching his hand—it hadn’t been as impossible as he remembered.

Kaito had likely spent countless springs like this, facing a silent, ever-smiling portrait, until now when he could look it in the eye.

He stared at the portrait in a daze, when Kuroba Kaito walked in with coffee already made and looked at him standing in the room.
“What are you thinking about?”

Kudou Shinichi took the cup—it was exactly the temperature he liked.
“…This picture frame looks familiar. Is it the same as the black one you had in your room before?”
He meant the one for Andou Ranya.

Kuroba Kaito chuckled. “You noticed something?”

“No, I got interrupted by Katsuragi back then, so I didn’t get the chance to check the back of the frame. I just thought the dust didn’t seem quite right.”
He took a sip of coffee, thinking that even if he went to check the dust again now, time and weather might have already ruined the clues.

“What was behind the frame?”

“Nothing,” Kaito replied. “I really do keep portraits at home. It’s just that I once kept a portrait of another person. But before I carried out my plan, I threw it away.”

The detective fell silent for a while.
He figured the person Kaito referred to must have been Kuroba Toichi.

“If you have anything to ask me, I’ll answer everything.”
No longer keeping silent as he had long ago, the Kuroba Kaito standing here now felt much closer to the one in Kudou Shinichi’s memory. Beneath the sharp appearance, beneath all the dazzling performances and mischief, there was a gentle nature cleverly hidden yet always revealed in unguarded moments.

"So… do you know where he is now?"

Kaito glanced at the portrait once, then turned his gaze back to Shinichi.

"Probably still in the States. I asked my mom about him once, but I haven’t really planned on visiting lately. Living with a certain famous detective is a lot more fun, after all."

He gave a crooked smile, that familiar hint of mischief glinting in his eyes.

Shinichi didn’t comment.

“Do you live here? It doesn’t look like there’s much stuff.”
Kuroba Kaito paused. “I used to. But I also have other rooms I could stay in. I remember when I was little, the place where the bed is now used to be a display stand, full of trophies and such. Later I moved them all and turned it into a bed.”
“Looking at those things always made me feel sad. But strangely, looking at the portrait didn’t.”
“I convinced myself that this was just a portrait of the magician I admired the most. That I had just been lucky enough to be chosen by him and spend some time with him.”
“Telling yourself you were lucky is always easier than telling yourself you were just an unfortunate kid.” He looked at the portrait, then turned to leave the room. “But it doesn’t really matter anymore. Let’s talk about something else.”

“How about your deduction? Isn’t that why you came?”

Kudou Shinichi pulled himself away from this unexpected glimpse into Kaito’s life, trying to detach from the emotional whirlwind.

“Then let’s start from the escape trick—that was the origin of your request. I’ve included the doubts I had about some details in that file.”
He sat back down on the sofa in the living room. The moment a case was mentioned, he could easily switch into the state where his mind functioned at full speed, orbiting around deduction.

“As I said before, the conspiracy theory that circulated years ago can be considered one of the suspicious points in the case. On the day of the fire at the theatre, the number of people who escaped was actually one more than expected.”

“But the reason it remained a conspiracy theory and never became evidence-backed was because they didn’t have any eyewitness or physical clues. After contacting Katsuragi to access the missing persons search records and speaking with Jii, whom you referred me to, about the events of that day—combined with what I learned from the documents Vermouth was after—it’s actually not that difficult to guess the method.”

He recalled the scene when he was first summoned to the theatre—it was also from this kind of not-too-close, not-too-far distance. But now, it seemed the positions they each stood in had changed completely.

“There were burnt scraps pressed beneath the prop rails in front of the stage. They were likely remnants from the fire ten years ago. I asked Haibara to analyse the composition. The results matched those human-skin masks you always leave at crime scenes—silicone.”

“Silicone remains aren’t strange in themselves, especially in a theatre, particularly during a magic performance.”

“But according to Jii’s testimony, the performer’s behaviour on the eve of the show was unusual. Even though he insisted on thoroughly checking every prop as usual, the equipment had been tampered with, and that triggered the fire during the escape act.”

Kuroba Kaito and Kudou Shinichi were seated not far from each other. Hearing him carefully avoid saying the performer’s name, Kaito’s hand paused slightly, then he resumed opening a bag of marshmallows from the convenience store.

The rustling of the plastic was soft and drawn-out. The colourful candies spilled from the bag danced between his fingers before being folded into a flower.

“I don’t believe someone so cautious—someone who would seclude himself and refuse even his assistant’s help checking props—could’ve been caught off guard. So I believe he allowed it to happen.”

In moments of crisis, people often resort to desperate measures. That kind of radical, reckless spirit felt just like him. Kudou Shinichi fixed his gaze on Kaito’s outline beside him. He interrupted his own thoughts but said nothing aloud.

“He must have predicted that someone would attempt to kill him during the show. But there were too many potential scenarios to face alone. So he had to find a helper to aid his escape—someone who looked very similar to him, and someone who couldn’t be the magician’s assistant. Because the assistant’s reactions were also part of the deception to mislead the killers afterwards.”

—Thus, he needed someone no one knew about, someone who could help him escape in secret, and afterwards wouldn’t be tracked. Ideally, someone with influence in the media and police…

—That’s why, on the eve of the performance, he was seen by an overly enthusiastic fan. But the one being spotted was not him—yet that person was just as essential to the act.

—That key figure in the performance was none other than Kudou Yuusaku.

This was the first time Kuroba Kaito had ever questioned something about his own past. Only after all these months had he come to truly understand the meaning. Upon hearing that name, Kaito wasn’t surprised. He simply switched the near-spinning candy flower from one hand to the other.

“If another person is added to the act, the escape trick becomes simple. What first made me suspicious was—how could a theatre where a major fire broke out ten years ago have such an enormous fire curtain? And why was it left hanging so high after the fire, as if to block people from seeing something? —Because it was part of the fire’s design. In other words, the fireproof curtain was there to ensure that even in a fire, someone would have a safe place to hide.”

“The double-layered stage structure was part of it too. The pattern on the floor is difficult to notice—just like in your own performances.”

“Combining Katsuragi’s data with the use of silicone… then the method becomes clear.”

On that night ten years ago, the magician—who had already received intel and rehearsed every possible scenario with his helper—performed as scheduled at the theatre.
As applause erupted, the curtain opened early. The magician’s assistant, sent away beforehand, didn’t expect the next act to start sooner than planned, and thus didn’t witness what followed.
The escape trick began. As expected, the props malfunctioned. Flames surged. Panic swept the audience. The emergency curtain dropped suddenly, shielding their view.

—And behind the curtain, the real escape act began.

Kudou Yuusaku, who had entered the backstage area from the audience early on, helped the man tied at the heart of the fire loosen his ropes. Covered in flames, the magician used that moment to dash behind the fire curtain, discard his costume, and switch into Yuusaku’s likeness—then return to the audience at once. Since they couldn’t predict how the silicone would melt in the fire, disguising Yuusaku to resemble the magician was the optimal solution.

Then the mechanism activated, and the corpse at the back of the stage, now wearing a magician’s silicone mask, was rotated to the front and placed into the escape box, which had already had its flames extinguished. Kudou Yuusaku, having completed all of this, changed his clothes, blended back into the rotating platform, and waited for the right moment to re-enter the audience.

This process required highly accurate predictions about which props might go wrong. It had to be the magician himself who inspected them. It also demanded deep familiarity with the scene, so the two of them had rehearsed all possible scenarios in secret countless times.

So that before anyone noticed—or more precisely, before the killers could reach the stage and spot any inconsistencies—the two men could complete their costume switch and escape.

The rest was just waiting for Jii to discover the fire and rush onto the stage to confirm that the escape box had been tampered with, and that the corpse lying in the fire bore the magician’s mask.

Finally, the magician’s assistant’s wailing before the corpse would become the toll of a successful escape.

The marshmallow had stopped spinning. Kudou Shinichi did not continue. Explaining the trick that had deceived him in such detail now felt a little too cruel.

Besides, Kaito’s silence said everything.

The sun had begun to dip low, peeling back layers of orange afterglow that spilled easily across the ground, vivid as if burning up all the sunflowers in the world.

Even the noise outside had the decency to fall quiet, hiding within the approaching, lengthening night, awaiting some divine judgment to split it open.

Kuroba Kaito’s mask had sealed him into a new wax figure. If not for the occasional blink, it would’ve been impossible to read any expression from him at all.

“...Double Lift Double Turnover.”

Kudou Shinichi heard the name of that sleight of hand once more from his lips. It had been over two years since the last time—when Kaito had disguised himself as a street performer and taunted Public Security in a plaza—but for some reason, the scene was still vividly burned into his memory.

“Thinking it’s one card when in fact you’ve picked up two. If that’s the final trick you’re going to show me...”

“That really is such a KID move. Like coaxing a child.”

Kudou Shinichi didn’t try to read his expression anymore. In fact, he turned away—it felt safer. He lowered his head and sipped his coffee. The ice had shrunk into tiny islands floating on the surface.

There was the sound of plastic being torn open again, mixed faintly with a quiet sigh. Kaito stuffed the candy he’d grown bored of playing with into his mouth.

—The truth would fall impartially upon everyone. Even those lives that looked completely different would kneel and wail alike under judgment, exhausted and helpless, letting out the same cries.

The sighs of victims were always written with the same tone after the fact, yet when truly listened to, they all held different, unspeakable complexities. Only after hearing thousands of such cries could one begin to tell them apart.

—So sometimes, he wondered: aren't all the carefully unearthed truths, in the end, just blood-soaked corpses that never managed to hatch? When he spoke the truth, was it even crueler to the victims than to the criminals?

—He used to believe that cornering criminals was no different from being a murderer. But what about the victims?

He wasn’t sure of the answer. Most of the time, his role as a detective meant delivering justice through truth. But if he were just someone by Kaito’s side, he wasn’t sure whether it would be better to make things easier for him.

—Especially since this time, he himself had been one of the people who hurt Kaito.

“...Do you still want to hear it? The information in the file, the clues about you and Pandora. That’s the gem you’ve been trying to find, right?”

The only thing beside him he could feel was Kaito’s breathing. Every slight movement was unusually noticeable.

Kuroba Kaito still said nothing, chewing candy with colourful wrappers scattered across the table.

He was still taking in all that sugar so carelessly. This time, Kudou Shinichi didn’t stop him or complain—if it helped him feel better, even just a little.

“Ah… I should’ve bought that pack of white chocolate too.” He wiped the crumbs from his fingers with a napkin, sounding casual.

“I don’t have a choice anymore, do I?”

He stood up from the sofa with his back to Kudou Shinichi. Behind him, the seat cushion sagged in the shape of a person. There was only one cushion’s distance between them.

“But at least... once I’ve heard it, things can’t get any worse.”

Kudou Shinichi turned slightly, staring at the pile of empty candy wrappers on the table, and began to vaguely understand why he had come to like eating sweets.

“…Just as its name suggests, using this gem brings disaster. Its effect is as deadly as APTX-4869, but it’s the reverse version of that drug — it accelerates aging instantly and leaves no trace, just like the mythical jar that released all the world’s calamities and fears. That’s why the criminal organization was so obsessed with it.”

“But just as it reverses APTX-4869, this effect only works on certain individuals. And for someone who has already taken APTX-4869, if they ingest a drug made from this gem’s components again, all the effects of APTX would reverse — returning the user’s age, appearance, and even the physiological side effects of the drug back to what they were before ingestion.”

“It’s like the jar that only left behind ‘hope’ — this gem is the only true regret remedy, something that can turn back time in a dire situation, allowing someone to escape danger using the identity of someone who’s already dead. If the police don’t know about this file or the gem’s effects, it allows a person to vanish from the world without a trace.”

—Just like Chris Vineyard.

The detective paused, hesitating before continuing, “As for the current location of Pandora, perhaps you know better than I do. It’s currently believed to have been stolen by Kaitou Kid, but since you came to me to investigate the case, that means it might actually be…”

Kudou Shinichi didn’t finish the name.

Even as someone merely speaking the truth, the weight of it was too heavy.

This declaration — this verdict that declared his life-risking performance completely futile — could crush anyone to dust.

He turned to try to hug him, and what he met was a hand just slightly cooler than his own. Kaito left him standing there. In Shinichi’s peripheral vision, the only answer he received was that slender back dyed in the blooming colours of the sunset.

“…Then, what about the reason Kaitou disappeared?” After a long time, Kuroba Kaito finally replied.

“Why did I vanish for two years, and why did I come back to find you?”

Being the first to strike was always his style. Just a few words pulled Kudou Shinichi right back into that shared time only the two of them could understand.

He immediately grasped the other meaning behind that question. He had prepared dozens of answers for it but could never settle on which one was the most appropriate.

This kind of psychological gamble was still too hard for him. He was terrible at poker faces, and his remaining chips were too few — easily exposed.

He tilted his head slightly, letting the ends of his hair brush against the warmth of the back leaning against him, just to confirm that he wouldn’t suddenly walk away in the middle of the conversation.

“Since you’re asking me so directly, then yes — your disappearance was because you discovered he was still alive. You went to find that magician again, investigated all the suspicious points of the case, but ran into some problems and couldn’t solve them all. You came back because I’m the one most likely to hold the key. I have no stake in this but stand at the center of the case — the one most likely to help you.”

The words fell to the floor, and the person behind him didn’t pick them up.

It was as if they were both waiting to see who would speak next. After a long pause, that person finally asked the one question Shinichi most wanted to hear:

“…And?”

Because he wanted to hear it, Kudō Shinichi gave him the answer.

He didn’t turn around. The tension before he spoke was no less than the moment before announcing a deduction — a breath held at the edge of truth. His fingers overlapped with Kaito’s hand resting on his shoulder, a quiet declaration of all the courage he could offer.

“…You found out the truth, so you decided to disappear. You came back because… you wanted to hear me defend my innocence in this case. You wanted to tell me the truth — and about… what’s between us.”

The detective lowered his eyelashes, and then — as if the moonlight itself had come running to meet him — a voice, trembling, reached his ear.

“I haven’t talked this much to anyone in a very long time.”

“Who am I to blame you, really… when I’ve helped you build so many lies myself?”

“What’s strange is, even though you’re the very heart of the mess I’m in… when I think of trusting someone, your name still comes up first.”

“Sometimes I hate it — does it really have to be you? But no matter how many times I ask myself… there’s only ever one answer.”

He turned to face him, and their fingers wove together.

“…My principle has always been to only perform magic for people I like.”

Kuroba Kaito said each word like a vow.

“Detective Kudō Shinichi… I like you. I really, really like you.”

“It’s not just because you took my case. It started earlier — back when you sat in that helicopter, grinning smugly as you fired at me. Just a high schooler, and already more outrageous than the world’s most infamous thief. That’s when I started paying attention.”

“When I started falling for someone so arrogant, so merciless toward me… yet more devoted to the truth than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“That was the only time I was ever seen from above.”

“And since then, every time fireworks lit up the sky, I couldn’t help but think of your name.”

Shinichi leaned back against him, the rush of his own blood the only thing he could hear. He turned his head and kissed him — reckless and certain — giving his answer without waiting.

He half-knelt on the sofa, turned back to him. In his world now there was only this face — so eerily similar to his own, yet sharper, fiercer. At last, he could properly feel those lips — warmer than a winter den, sweeter than honey newly brewed — Kuroba Kaito, who, in this moment, belonged to no one else but him.

Suddenly, he didn’t care about the tilt of the sun or the rhythm of the trains anymore. If Pandora’s box really existed, then let it be where they hid each other. Let it be the place left with only “hope” — the two of them slipping inside, sealing the lid, no sun or moon, no one left to open it again.

Kaito held him, facing him. The way they stood made him appear taller, enough that he had to stoop a little to meet him.

The light in the room had been on this whole time, but the breathlessness of their kiss made everything spin. When Kaito finally pulled back, Shinichi’s vision was stolen as two hands gently covered his eyes.

“…But why does it have to be you? Why only you?”

“I was already helplessly in love with you — long before any of this ever happened.”

His voice trembled, and that head with its slightly curled bangs leaned down and came to rest on Shinichi’s shoulder. Through the fabric of his shirt, he felt lips press gently. Warmth followed — soft, damp.

“My last request… just for now. Don’t look at me, detective.”

Kudō Shinichi stood still, letting Kaito’s tears soak into his shoulder in silence.

He knew he was crying.
And he also knew the reason — the one that remained unspoken.

But fortunately, this time, he no longer had to worry about whether he would fail someone again.
No longer needed to bear the weight of someone else's life.
No longer had to be reminded, again and again, how powerless he once was.
He didn’t need to use a voice changer to pretend to be someone else — every word of comfort that left his lips now carried the voice of an adult.
This time, he was no longer that seven-year-old boy who couldn’t do anything.
His shoulders were finally broad enough to carry the weight of someone else’s tears.

Kudō Shinichi let his vision remain cloaked in darkness, because he knew that one step forward would land him in the lines of his palm.
He placed his hand through Kaito’s lowered hair, then silently embraced the body that stood tall and unyielding like a mountain.

— No one knew better than he did how easily two people with blood ties who didn’t grow up together could fall in love upon reuniting.

Will fate forgive us?
He wasn’t sure.
But since fate had never forgiven them — they would never forgive fate either.

As for the information about the corpse from the fire that year, he had deduced it from Katsuragi and that file, but he never told Kuroba Kaito.

“Only the dead are truly safe” — that was what Vermouth had said.
He didn’t understand it at the time, not until he reread that file.

Why had the police prevented Jii from identifying the body?
It was tied to secrets involving the Public Security Bureau’s upper echelons and the Organization.

Regarding the “Cocoon” case from three years ago, the high-ranking police officers present already knew that the culprit’s motive stemmed from being a descendant of Jack the Ripper.
As a result, although the genetic lineage detection system created by Cocoon’s producer, Kachimura Tadaaki, was never publicly released, it was secretly absorbed into the Public Security Bureau — used to verify the family histories of potential criminals.

Due to concerns about potential social uproar over ethical issues, Public Security and police leadership chose to remain silent.
Coincidentally, all those who knew were either members of society’s elite or their children — none of whom wanted their kids’ foolish games to become gossip fodder for those of “less noble blood.”

Thus, the case became a “nonexistent case”, and everyone involved was ordered to stay silent.
Kachimura Tadaaki, who was killed, had to become a person who “shouldn’t have existed.”
His body was handed over to Public Security.
The top brass in the police were all too happy to get rid of this hot potato, and allowed anyone to slip a fake skin over it and push it quietly down the stream.

But something went wrong.
No one could guarantee that everyone present during the incident was a friendly or allied party.
So once that information fell into the hands of the Black Organization, who had prior ties to law enforcement, the consequences were beyond anyone’s expectations.

What better false identity could there be than that of a person who was supposed to be alive — but was actually dead?
And since Public Security and all the high-level officers were too afraid of public exposure to make any official objections,
as long as one was careful enough,
the person playing that identity would always have a trump card — a guaranteed escape route from this world.

No one knew where Vermouth had gone.
Had she used Pandora and turned back into the long-dead Sharon Vineyard, whose data had completely disappeared?
Or had she died in the fall, a bullet wound ending her life?
Or… had she continued living as Kachimura Tadaaki, until APTX-4869’s side effects brought on the third and final countdown of her life?

A secret makes a woman woman.
A secret makes Vermouth Vermouth.

That… might just be the ending she desired most.

TBC