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batsutousaiTitle: Dream of a Stage Curtain
Fandom: Detective Conan/Magic Kaitou
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Kudou Shinichi/Kuroba Kaito
Warnings: post-cure, post-Pandora
Summary: At his final heist, Kaitou Kid leaves Shinichi with a note that will haunt him until the moment they meet again.
A/N: Every winter season, I send out cards to anyone willing to give me their address, and I decided three winters ago to start adding fic to the cards. This year's prompt was coffeeshop.
This ficlet is somewhat loosely based on Sawori/Pinkch!'s doujin, Yume no Makuhiki, and takes its title from the same source. (Sawori's preview can be found here on pixiv, and Shukumei no Rivals has an English translation here on tumblr.
"I'd heard you got your body back," Kid said from where he was standing on the ledge of the roof. He should have had plenty of time to make his escape – Shinichi was still getting used to his longer legs and higher point of view; it was embarrassing how often he misjudged, especially on stairs – but he'd stayed, had waited for Shinichi, same as he'd sometimes done for Conan. "Congratulations."
"Th-thanks," Shinichi replied, more than a little surprised. Not that Kid knew who he was, or even that he'd bring it up, but at the way he'd said the words. Solemn, almost.
"Ah, you'll be wanting this back," Kid said, twisting his upper body just enough to toss Shinichi the jewel of the night, the Heart of Eternity. It caught the reflection of the moon, glinting like Kid's monocle so often seemed to, the fine chain of the necklace trailing behind it.
"Not what you were looking for, again?" Shinichi said in a bit of a mocking tone as he caught the necklace, trying so very desperately to bring back the usual teasing manner they'd always had between them.
Kid smiled, barely visible with the moon lighting him from behind, and it looked sad, somehow. "I didn't come for the jewel this time, Meitantei," he said, quiet and solemn.
And then he stepped off the roof.
Shinichi didn't run forward to watch his escape, all too familiar with the sight of his hanglider popping open under his cape and catching the wind, carrying him away. Instead, he let his attention focus on the jewel in his hand. Or, more specifically, the piece of paper attached to the chain of the necklace.
'I leave you with the care of this heart, as well as my own.
'Have a good life, Meitantei.'
"KID!" Shinichi shouted after the thief, running to the edge of the roof with the note clenched tight in his fist, but the figure was long gone.
And he wouldn't, Shinichi suspected with a strangely heavy heart, be seen again.
It was his client who had insisted on the restaurant, claiming the food was good and the entertainment even better. Shinichi had little interest in entertainment with his meal, especially when they were supposed to be discussing the man's case, but the man was going to be covering the tab, and Shinichi had learnt long ago that he sometimes had to go along with a client's eccentricities to get to the true heart of their case.
Still, when he got to the restaurant and saw the sign about them having a magician serving as the entertainment for the week, he nearly turned around and left.
It wasn't that he hated magic shows, really, they simply all felt flat, after almost two years of watching Kid's performances. They always seemed to lack that particular dramatic flair that Kid had had, and the magicians never seemed to appreciate Shinichi figuring out all of their tricks by the end of the show, not the way Kid had. Too, magic shows always reminded him of the vanished thief; of his final note and the conversation they never got to have.
"Kudou-san!" the client called as he got out of his car just up the street, and Shinichi's chance to escape was gone, so he put on his best professional smile and allowed himself to be ushered inside.
The magician was male, about the same age as Shinichi, and wore a quarter mask, just covering his right eye. The mask would have been unusual, once, but Shinichi had seen a number like it since Kid's final heist, as though magicians everywhere had taken their costume cues from the missing thief. They never used monocles, however, and only rarely paired white suits with the partial covering, as though there was only so close to his likeness that they were willing to get.
The night's entertainment had paired his black and gold mask with a waiter's uniform; the why became more obvious after his initial introduction, as he walked among the tables and performed personalised tricks for guests, using his uniform to blend into the foot traffic just enough that it wasn't always obvious which table he would visit next. Clever, but Shinichi had watched Kid do the same with crowds of police, and with far more flair and ease than this magician.
Shinichi and his client's table was near the back of the room, and they were one of the last ones visited by the magician. Shinichi left it up to his client to request whatever tricks caught his fancy, more interested in looking over the files he'd been passed regarding the case than the magic show.
When cards suddenly blocked his view of the papers, he jerked up to find both his client and the magician looking at him with hurt expressions. Sighing, he closed the folder and set it aside. "Show me something that will impress me, then," he said.
His client laughed. "And how would you expect him to know what that might be, Kudou-san?"
"Something that will impress you?" the magician murmured, and there was something about his voice, something that plucked at Shinichi's mind like he might pluck the strings of his violin. "Ahh~ Unfortunately, I'm not sure I have any tricks that would impress someone who always used to go head-to-head with Kaitou Kid."
Shinichi sighed again, taking in the magician's dejected stance and the wide, pleading eyes of his client. "Your favourite magic trick, then," he suggested.
"Ah, in that case–" The magician twisted his right hand, and a yellow tulip appeared in it, which he held out to Shinichi with a smile that seemed almost sad. "For you, sir."
For some reason, Shinichi's hand shook as he accepted the flower, and he frowned at it, even as he murmured his thanks.
The magician gave them a bow with a flourish, then stepped away, once again seeming to vanish into the staff's traffic.
Shinichi cleared his throat and set the flower gently to the side, turning his attention back to the files his client had passed him; he had a couple of questions before they were done.
He and his client parted ways after another twenty minutes of discussion and paying the cheque. Shinichi almost forgot the flower on the table, his thoughts full of the case, but his client had grabbed it for him and held it out to him when they got outside, saying, "You should put that in water as soon as you get home; it would be impolite to let a gift die."
"Yes, of course," Shinichi agreed as he accepted the flower. Which brought his mind back to the magician. There was something about the tone of his voice, or maybe the way he'd smiled, something that was bothering Shinichi. He didn't think it was anything bad or dangerous, though; those sorts of cues he was quite good at picking up on, after all of the dangerous situations he'd been in as Conan.
Wait. Conan?
Shinichi stopped walking, his eyes going wide as he remembered what the magician had said: "I'm not sure I have any tricks that would impress someone who always used to go head-to-head with Kaitou Kid."
Kudou Shinichi had only attended one of Kid's heists.
He spun in place, nearly dropping both the briefcase with his files and the yellow tulip – one-sided love – and raced back to the restaurant.
And there, just stepping out of the door, was the magician. He looked tired, maybe even a little lonely, for a moment. And then he caught sight of Shinichi and his eyes went wide.
"You!" Shinichi shouted, reaching out with one hand, half thinking to grab him so he couldn't escape, but then he recognised the flower in his hand and he shook it at Kid hard enough that one of the petals came loose and fell lightly to the ground between them. "What sort of gentleman confesses and then runs away?!"
"Ah..." Kid ducked his head and let out a slightly wry laugh. "It seems you've caught me, Meitantei."
Shinichi scoffed and dropped the tulip to the ground, reaching out and catching the front of Kid's coat before he could try a dodge. "You asshole," he said, surprising himself, just a little, with how fond the insult came out.
Judging by the way Kid's head came up, his eyes wide, he wasn't alone in that.
"At least wait to hear a response," Shinichi murmured, then leant in and pressed his lips to Kid's.
Kid's arms came up behind him, pulling Shinichi just a little bit closer, returning the kiss like a man starved.
It seemed that he had finally managed to catch the elusive Kaitou Kid.
.