Day 37: Arts and Crafts Room
Honey was relieved when breakfast was over. Even though there'd been plenty of sticky-sweet french toast to be had, the company left him feeling a little inadequate. Usually girls fawned all over him, but Callisto had been downright mean. Had he done something wrong? What kind of girl wanted to fight rather than play? It'd only been a few days
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Arts and crafts. Shinichi's nurse was leading him to Arts and crafts. Arts and crafts as in fingerpaints, white glue, and scissors that couldn't cut shit. Arts and crafts as in...first grade.
Shinichi had escaped one hell only to find himself in a very...similar one. It didn't help that the next oldest kids in the room didn't look much older than fifteen or so. Most looked much younger than that. A couple of them couldn't have been much older than nine or ten years old.
Hattori was nowhere in sight.
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That wasn't to say he wasn't nervous about Kudou's presence, however. He still had the nagging feeling that the previously pint-sized brat would take one look at him and just know he was Kid. Since Hattori already knew that Kid was around, he couldn't have his presence as Kid on the board complete ignore Kudou's presence, but... it could wait a little while.
Today was critical to establish the identity of "Kuroba Kaito" in Kudou's mind as a separate entity from the phantom thief. If he played his cards right, maybe Kudou wouldn't connect the dots... Hattori hadn't yet, and that was an encouraging sign.
Of course, if Hakuba were to show up, all his work at establishing himself as being distinct from Kid could get shot to hell in some precise, measured amount of time. Or maybe if Hakuba showed up to ( ... )
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He didn't look up until a...bizarrely familiar voice called his name. "What--oh, yeah, I am." This had to be Kuroba, the guy Hattori had originally mistaken Shinichi for at breakfast. Except for the hair and a few other minor details, they could have been twins. It was a little disturbing, actually. Kuroba looked like him, even kind of sounded like him.
It was...strange.
Shinichi cleared his throat and gave the other boy a polite smile. "Kudou Shinichi, detective. Nice to meet you."
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He flopped into a seat at Kudou's table, and then leaned forward, making a show of studying Kudou's face. "Man, I can really see now why Hattori thought I was you when I met him," he commented. "We do look kind of similar."
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Shinichi grinned, scooting his seat over a little bit to make room. "He though you were me?" He laughed. "Just now, he thought I was you. Oh, and," he cleared his throat, "apparently he told you I'm dead. I'm...not." It was probably a good idea to get that out of the way at the beginning.
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He reached for the paper and safety scissors on the table. Maybe he could make some paper flowers; the overall lack of props for magic tricks was really starting to wear on his nerves...
"Yeah, Hattori told me you were dead. He cleared that up a few days ago, though. Said you were working on some kind of big case and that I shouldn't say anything about you to anyone."
Kaito fiddled with the scissors, trying to cut the paper. "These things really don't cut much of anything, do they?"
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"Oh yeah, I am. Or I was. I guess I'm not working on it here, am I?" It was good that Hattori had cleared it up, at least, but he wasn't very fond of the idea of being killed off in the first place. "I'd really appreciate it if you didn't. It's a big case and I don't want to put anyone in danger." Even random friends of friends that he didn't entirely trust.
"No, they really don't. I feel like I'm in first grade again." Oh, if only Kaito knew.
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Kaito gave up on the scissors, resorting to folding the paper and tearing carefully along the creases. "Yeah, I guess you're not… Hattori's got a couple of cases here that he's been looking into, though. Maybe you could help him out?" Kaito's hands paused in their work, and he looked at Kudou with a blatantly concerned expression. "He's seemed pretty frustrated lately. If you guys could solve a case, it could cheer him up..."
And as for the first grade... Oh, how Kaito knew. Maybe he could solve a little mystery of his own now that Kudou was here: why the detective was in the first grade lately. He hadn't had too much interest in the 'why' before, but now that Kudou was his taller self once more… "For how they treat us during the day, we might as well be first-graders," Kaito said, his expression turning to boredom. "I mean, first grade is okay when you're a kid, but now? Having to go back would ( ... )
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He set aside the paper he was working on momentarily, considering Kudou's question. The last thing he remembered was hearing the little detective's voice above him during his heist, but that wasn't exactly something he could tell Kudou. Kid's heists were still obvious events that he could use to answer. The question, however, was which one to use...
The job to steal Purple Nail would be the honest answer, but maybe he should pretend that he came from a point in time earlier than that? It increased the risk of slipping up and saying the wrong thing, but it also allowed for what would possibly be a more believable gap between the memories of "Kuroba Kaito" and "Kaitou Kid." Between Kaito and Kid, Kid was the one who needed to have the most information. Kudou was going to learn Kid was around one way or another, and he couldn't let a lack of information be used against him. If one of his identities ( ... )
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He considered mentioning the specifics that he did know. He knew that one of Hattori's cases was about Kid. Hattori knew that he knew. If Kudou asked Hattori about cases and found out that Kaito had known about the Kid case and hadn't said anything...
No. It was too early to bring up Kid's presence in the Institute. He hadn't been able to resist baiting the detective about being in the first grade, and in light of that, he couldn't let him know that Kid was there until time had passed and the memory of talking to Kaito had faded...
"A bland hell, indeed," he agreed, nodding slightly as he picked up the paper he'd been using again. "School's dull enough without having to learn the basics for a second time."
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He tapped on, outwardly oblivious to Kaito's inner monologue, but inwardly studying the other boy's reaction. Kid's last heist, huh? "Oh, Purple Nail Pair?" he asked pleasantly. The name was well enough known by now, and Shinichi was supposedly in close contact with Conan anyway. It worked well enough, and it would give him a basis for establishing a timeline. He didn't exactly suspect Kuroba of being Kid--not totally--but the thought was there. They had the same height, the same build, similar voices. There was just enough evidence that he could be Kid, but not enough to start compiling a case. ( ... )
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He had to make a decision about when he came from, and quick. Even though he'd decided that his identity as "Kid" needed to remain the one with the most information, it was difficult to decide to put his knowledge as "Kaito" too far behind. He wondered if the Purple Nail job was really the most recent one for Kudou, or if he was from further in the future and playing at the same game that he was...
Another possibility was that he could tell the truth about when he'd come from, and avoid giving any information about Kid's timeline. As Kid, he had no real obligation to give the detectives any information that he didn't want to; the benefit in sharing any information was solely to create a further distinction between "Kaito" and "Kid."
Of course, if Hakuba showed up next, any distinction he tried to create was going to get shot to hell as soon as he fired off his accusations ( ... )
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He prevented himself from laughing, or even just smirking at Kudou's description of Edogawa. Nice, Kudou, but you forgot the part where he's you. Somehow. "He's related to you? Hattori told me that he had died, too, but I kind of get the feeling he was lying about that. He said it when he said that you were dead, after all, so in light of you being alive..."
Kaito riffled through a nearby stack of paper, making a sound of triumph when he located some brightly-colored tissue paper. He set to work again, nodding. "Yeah, Hijikata too. I don't really know him all that well; he's pretty stoic. Okita-san is much more friendly." And had a nice mischievous streak in him ( ... )
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...Hattori had told Kuroba that Conan was dead, too? "What the hell? Really?" Shinichi couldn't help the look of utter disbelief that registered on his face, but he figured that it would look more like confusion than anything else. "I can understand killing me off to...protect me, but why Conan? He's just a little kid who likes playing detective and is actually kind of good at it." Stick to the story.
"May 4th. So I guess I'm a little older, then."
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