Chapter Text
“Conan-kun~!” Ayumi shouted across the schoolyard. Conan winced at the loud cry, putting a hand over his ears to stop the ringing. Why were children always so loud? Why couldn’t they speak in normal tones or, even better, whisper?
“Did you remember to take your medicine?” Haibara asked as the other Shounen Tantei ran across the schoolyard towards them.
“Yeah, that’s not the problem,” Conan sighed, massaging his temples with the palms of his hands. “It’s the times where I can’t take it that’s been driving me nuts.”
“Ah, at night?” Haibara raised an eyebrow. “I had not thought it would be particularly taxing.”
“Except that’s the time I need to sleep,” Conan hissed, lowering his voice as the other three drew nearer. “And I can’t exactly do that with Kogoro snoring in my ear or the smells from the bathroom filling the air or my own pajamas trying to skin me alive.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Haibara sniffed and looked away.
“Why don’t you try being a 5-S, then?” Conan grumbled. Somehow, despite also shrinking, Haibara had not come online as either Guide or Sentinel. She said that his status was due to his own blood, not Apotoxin. Conan begrudgingly agreed that she was probably right in her assessment. It still didn’t make him feel better.
“Being a what, Conan-kun?” Ayumi asked right into his ear. The sound reverberated in his skull, smacking around his brain as he squeezed his eyes shut to try and ignore it. “Conan-kun? Are you okay?”
“Yea-!”
“Edogawa-kun was telling me he wasn’t feeling well,” Haibara said instead. “I think it’s best if he rests tonight instead of playing soccer.”
Conan shot her a grateful look, but Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko let out sibling whines, “Heeeeeh?”
“But Conan promised to teach us those cool soccer tricks!” Genta complained, waving the ball in his hands around as if to prove his point.
“And he skipped out on club activities two days last week!” Mitsuhiko added. Ah, right, Conan forgot they made the Shounen Tantei an actual club.
Well, it wasn’t like he’d signed up for it. More like he got dragged into it.
“How about I join you today?” Haibara bargained, knowing she wouldn’t get far with the kids without some sort of haggling.
“Really join us?” Mitsuhiko clarified after a brief bout of silence. “Not just sit on the side and read a book, right?”
Haibara sighed but nodded.
The three true kids looked at each other, having some kind of silent conversation before pulling back and giving a nod at her.
“But Conan comes to play with us tomorrow!” Ayumi demanded.
“If Edogawa-kun isn’t feeling too sick,” Haibara agreed, leaving Conan the out he so desperately needed. He nodded, thankful, but he knew he wouldn’t get off scot-free. That was her ‘you owe me’ look.
No doubt she’d want another designer purse.
Waving to his friends, Conan started on his way home, albeit at a slow, tired pace. Every sound was grinding on his mind today, the cars, the bikes, the pedestrians. Every sound was wearing on his sleep-deprived mind. It was everything he could do to keep his feet moving in the right direction.
Until he heard it.
“That’s right folks. Kaitou KID has sent out another notice for a heist at nine o’clock tonight. The location is the Old World’s Theatre and the object tonight is-!”
Conan was torn. He really needed to go back and try to get as much sleep as possible before his Senes-5 wore off, but… he also really wanted to catch KID. The thief had even been polite enough to make the heist at a time earlier than midnight. It was practically an invitation.
But his head hurt, going on 72 hours without sleep.
But that theatre was in Beika, so close to home!
But… well… he could take some pain medication, sneak it in behind Ran’s back. Despite being kid-sized, he knew how to open the child-proof lids. And he could always take a Senes-5 before bed. It wouldn’t be the first time.
He tried his best to follow Agasa’s warning, but after a week where he’d gotten no sleep at all, he’d been weak and taken a pill before bed. He’d slept better than he had in months. Since then he tried to keep it down to one a week and only if it was bad, but… it was just so hard to be awake so long and just so easy to take a pill and finally get some sleep.
Conan felt guilty, but he didn’t have another choice. Not if he wanted to keep no one the wiser.
Plan decided, Conan picked up his pace, in a hurry to get back to the detective agency. The sooner he knocked off this headache, the sooner he could be at the top of his game to capture KID.
That thief wasn’t getting away this time!
* * * * *
The theatre was a mess of Taskforce members and actual actors for the play. Nakamori was doing his typical yelling routine and Conan had already been caught by the paparazzi looking to interview the KID-Killer. Conan dreaded the complaints of the Shounen Tantei the next day and Haibara’s disappointed looks.
But what’s done was done.
“Five minutes!” Nakamori called out over the din, voice actually loud enough to clear the volume. It made Conan’s ears ring again and his head throb.
If he didn’t knew better, Conan would almost say that the headache was caused by his Sentinel senses acting up, but that couldn’t be. He’d taken his latest pill at 2:00pm sharp. He still had at least another hour before the effects wore off. By then, he expected to be home and popping another pill down.
The intermission drew to a close as the lights dimmed. The first scene up after the break would be where KID had his window of opportunity to steal the necklace being used as a prop. In the play, the necklace held a curse that the wearer would watch all of their loved ones die before it could be removed. In reality, it was just a really shiny gem, as far as Conan knew.
With all lights but the spotlight gone, Conan moved into position at the back of the theatre, close to the doors that led to the emergency rooftop stairs. The theatre was only the first two floors of the building; The rest of the seven stories were office spaces for various companies. In a tall building like this, KID would head towards the roof and use his hang glider to get away.
Suddenly, the room filled with smoke and familiar cackles of laughter. Instead of the lights cutting out like Nakamori-keibu expected, they brightened, causing the reflection on the smoke particles to turn blindingly bright. Conan hissed and covered his stinging eyes.
Just as he did so, he felt the air stir around him, and the cackles rush past his side. The door slammed open and then slammed back closed.
Dammit! The thief had slipped past him while his guard was down!
Conan wouldn’t give up!
He quickly ducked into the stairwell and gave chase, turning the first platform just to see the tail end of KID’s signature white cape disappear up two flights ahead of him. Conan gritted his teeth and ran faster, taking the steps one at a time as fast as his short legs could carry him. Slowly but surely, he started to catch up.
As the thief dashed up the stairs, the boy kept stride as best he could, eyes tacked to that white suit and flowing cape. His field of vision blurred at the edges. The white wall to his right and the silver railing to his left started to fade together. Tunnel-vision something in the back of his mind noted, but he was too single-minded to pay it much attention. Slowly, his vision narrowed without him realizing, growing smaller and smaller until the only thing he could see was the bobbing white figure before him.
A part of him was amused to be able to see the individual threads of the thief’s cape and the tiny holes in-between the weave. So many holes, so many threads… it looked so soft and flexible. A door briefly cut him off, but he pushed it aside, eager to follow the flowing, entrancing designs. There were words and sounds, but they were muffled, near silent.
The white threads weren't too thick, so the material they made up was probably pretty light –like the way the light reflected off the strings and refracted in the air, shooting every which way and dancing around and around as the cloth shifted and billowed in the wind…
Conan didn't even realize he was approaching the edge of the building, not even when he ran right under the rail.