Chapter Text
Despite being the first time they’ve ever talked let alone see each other, they instantly knew that they probably wouldn’t get along well. Why? Because as soon as they met they knew that the other had a huge ego, and lo and behold, their gigantic egos clashed horribly with each other. Bare to their childhood best friends’ eyes it was very obvious they were anything but fond of each other, they agreed they would never meet like this again; or at the least they’d have to be alone first.
It was a very beautiful day outside, summer air blowing through their hair and a jovial atmosphere from all around, people were smiling, laughing, or just generally having a relaxing day at the mall. She smiled up at him, a very relaxed and very small smile that made him blush, trying to hide it he side eyed her in annoyance. Being dragged there wasn’t a pleasant experience, but if it meant spending what little time he could with her was always worth the hassle. He lifted his arms and positioned them around the back of his head, he looked at her and said.
“soooo, what did you say the reason we are stuck here at the mall was again?”
“well, I met this girl at a case my dad was working on, apparently her dad was working on the same case; in fact, he was the inspector in charge! We were really similar to each other so we hit it off immediately, we agreed to meet up here for more girl talk.” she beamed up at him, and she looked adorable. He blushed even more and looked up and away.
“I’m not a girl” he objected
“I know, but I wasn’t about to let you spend all day reading books” she pointed out, and pouted at him from where she was sitting on a bench they found near the wall at the mall. He was standing beside her. He dropped his arms and folded them in front of his chest as he leaned back against the wall. He decided to change the subject, he didn’t want to argue with her as of the moment.
“what was the case about?” he asked
“it was robbery!” she answered enthusiastically
“oh” of course it was a robbery, Mouri Kogoro wouldn’t be called to a case unless it required minimal deductive effort. He wasn’t surprised
“I know what you’re thinking Shinichi, and unless you want me to use you as my personal punching bag, you better stop” she said sickeningly sweet, looking up at him with one of the gentlest expressions he had ever seen on her (also the expression she saved for situations like this). He visibly paled, and looked the other way “s-sorry” he apologized.
“anyway, she’s bringing her friend with her as well so you better behave” she sentenced.
“huh? What do you mean you better behave?” he looked at her clearly annoyed.
“don’t let your ego get ahead of your manners, nobody likes self-important pricks” she gave him a stern look and harrumphed at that, which annoyed him even more. He might have a big ego for his age, but that didn’t mean he was an asshole (shut up).
“excuse you!?” he exclaimed, clearly offended, and about to snap back as well.
Cue a very loud yell, which sounded like his best friend-turned-not-so-secret-crush’s name (BTNSC for short), he knew that whoever yelled that had some very healthy lungs. It kinda made his hurt a little. Of course, everyone started staring at her, her friend just smiled apologetically at the audience she had created; They went on with whatever they were doing before being interrupted by an unholy scream.
As they got closer to them, he could notice how similar she was to Ran, he expected them maybe like the same thing, but he didn’t expect her to be talking so literal. Leave it to Ran to meet her doppelganger on a robbery case. And he wasn’t very far off either, her companion could have been his long lost twin. If he hadn’t known that his mother only gave birth to one baby he might have believed it too.
“Ran-chan!” the new girl beamed at his best friend. His crush stood up and gripped her hands and they both started squealing. The boy came close to the pair; he watched him carefully, trying to deduce his intentions. The boy made a low whistle.
“Wow ahoko, I knew we were going to meet someone, but I didn’t know we would be meeting your twin sister, I would have come prepared” he said very obviously amused by the turn of events. He didn’t like him, at all. He could see he was a self-important asshole from a mile away. He was plotting something.
“She’s not my twin sister, bakaito!” the girl ‘ahoko’ (something told him that wasn’t her real name) looked up at her companion with an annoyed look on her face.
“Aoko’s name isn’t ahoko, bakaito!” wait, why is she talking in third person?
“I could say the same to you. It’s Kaito-“ he dragged out the syllables.
“Come one say it with me, Kaito” he repeated
It was bemusing to watch, they reminded him of him and Ran. He didn’t know if he should be creeped out by this.
“You two are really close huh?” Ran cut in, the girl- Aoko looked away in embarrassment and… something else, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he had an idea of what it was. This was getting creepier and creepier by the minute.
The boy- Kaito just grinned down at her. That was when he bent down, showman style (so dramatic) as he twisted his wrist clock wise… and a rose appeared on his hand as he offered it to her. Shinichi frowned.
“Kuroba Kaito, amateur magician at your service! What would such a lovely lady like you be doing associating herself with the feral that is my friend” he winked at her. Shinichi snorted sarcastically and rolled his eyes. She visibly blushed at this, and slowly and hesitantly reached for the flower. He beat her to the punch. He quickly snatched the flower out of his hand before she could reach it.
He lifted the flower to his face and examined it, the Kuroba boy started glaring daggers at his direction; however, he remained unmoved. “I can see why you’d call yourself an amateur” He mumbled.
“pardon?” Kuroba said a bit baffled and a bit offended.
“well, using underhanded tricks are worthy of an amateur, and the flower is a bit squished, probably from when you kept it inside your sleeve, Kuroba-san” that seemed to have hit home, as the boy flinched back a little, invisible to unobservant eye, he must be good at controlling his expressions. Too bad Shinichi was too observant to not notice it. A smug smirk tugged at his lips as he side eyed the boy.
“Aren’t you getting too full of yourself?” he asked, frowning.
“Am I? I could say the same about you, after all, we were only getting started” he glared back.
“You little-“
“Hello! I’m Nakamori Aoko, nice to meet you” the girl (Nakamori-san) said. Beaming up at him.
“Nice to meet you Nakamori-san, my name is Kudo Shinichi” he smiled politely at her.
“you mean the Kudo Shinichi? The Great Detective of the East? The Heisei Holmes?” she asked getting more excited and less surprised by each question she muttered. She was getting closer to him.
“well, yes those are the nicknames I have been given” he said as he lifted his hand to the back of his head and started rubbing it. He wanted to hide the fact that he was super smug about it, it seemed to work good enough on her. He wasn’t so sure it worked on the Kuroba guy though, seeing as he glared harder at him from a distance. If looks could kill, he’d be buried 10 feet under, good thing they couldn’t.
“Anyway!” Ran broke the moment, looking a bit too agitated. “Aoko-chan, why don’t we go visit that cute coffee shop you told me about the other day!” she quickly turned around and grabbed his arm, and bodily dragged him further inside the mall.
Kaito quickly fell in step beside Aoko as they tried their best to keep up with the other pair. “hey Aoko?”
She side eyed him in question. He continued, “you shouldn’t get close to that guy, I an tell he’s a snake”
“That’s kind of a rude accusation” she frowned at him.
“Rude accusatio- did you see how rude he was to me after I gave your friend the flower?” he asked in disbelief.
“Well, wouldn’t you do the same if someone started shamelessly flirting with your girlfriend?” she asked.
“Still” he wasn’t about to admit he was in any way similar to that asshole, even though they both knew she was right.
They finally made it to the café. It wasn’t terribly big but it was decent size, or at least decent enough to fit about fifty customers , two to five customers each. It was decorated with a very beautiful pastel combination, it was very cutesy, something he knew Aoko loved.
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They picked a table and the war began, it all started with revenge on Kaito’s part, or… well, petty revenge is a better name for it (Hey!). let’s just say, Shinichi didn’t remember ordering an explosive tea, now he was soaked in scalding hot remains of the tea he didn’t get to drink at all, and by the smug look on someone’s face, he already had the culprit.
Unfortunately for everyone in the table, they were seated in front of each other. Shinichi gave Kaito a powerful kick in the shin, in retaliation for the tea. “Were you not satisfied with taking jabs at my magic skills? This is just childish you know?” Kaito smiled at him sweetly, his eyebrow ticking in annoyance.
However, the nonchalance he was met with after the comment was what pissed him off the most. “I should say the same to you. An exploding drink, how original” the detective of the two said the last part with every bit of venom he had in himself. “I am an artist after all” no matter the amount of smugness he put into that comment, he couldn’t hide the fact that a vein was about to visibly pop in front all of them. They frowned darkly at each other for a minute, Shinichi decided to break the not so pleasant silence between them “artist my a-“ “Shinichi! Watch what comes out of your mouth!” Ran; who a moment ago was having a pleasant conversation with her friend, ignoring both boys in an attempt to save what little she could of this rather sour evening, cut him off before he could complete that sentence. She was very visibly annoyed.
Aoko watched in silence. Meanwhile Kaito was very smug about this “aww, perhaps you should have behaved, maybe then you wouldn’t have been scolded by your girlfriend” he said in mock pity, bottom lip stuck out in a pout. “she’s not my girlfriend, and that’s none of your business!” he exclaimed, glaring darkly at him. “Bakaito would you cut it off!? Seriously, you win nothing by being a prick!” Aoko, tired of their continued bickering, scolded her friend. Shinichi just stuck his tongue out in retaliation. Kaito was not about to let himself fall behind, and did the same. The girls rolled their eyes.
“Aoko-chan, maybe we should pick this up again some other time when… you know” Aoko looked at her with understanding, and started picking up her stuff. When a scream was heard in the café, and Shinichi being Shinichi, he couldn’t ignore the cry for help, even though he just started showing up to murder mysteries with the police about 8 months ago. He quickly ran over where the cry was heard and got to work. Aoko, as startled and sick as she was from this development, decided to stick close to Shinichi, she was curious Shinichi would solve the case. She was also a bit scared so she stuck at a close distance to him, she knew she was the safest near him if she was to leave her place close to her friends and follow him near the body.
Kaito, of course, wasn’t okay with this. However he wasn’t about to get close to the body either, he’d freeze on the spot and be a liability to the investigation. The death of his father might have been years ago, but it left a deep scar he probably wasn’t going to be able to recover from. Now every time he came close to a dead body, it reminded him so much of the day he lost his idol, and he’d freeze on the spot, he didn’t know how Shinichi did it, but he wasn’t about to find out either.
Ran, being the sweetheart that she was, decided to talk to him, to try and distract him. She had noticed a troubled look deep inside his eyes. Nothing in his attitude, body language, or facial expression said he was in any way bothered or traumatized by this, all he showed was worry like everybody in the room. Something inside her told her that it was best to try and distract him from this. “Kuroba-kun, are you perhaps Aoko-chan’s boyfriend?” she asked. Kaito did a small movement that could have been anything, but she was most certain that it was a flinch. Whether it was in embarrassment or something else, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“Ahoko’s boyfriend? No way!” he grinned at her, even if I really want to be was left unsaid. He looked at him in an understanding fashion, it looked like he didn’t want to talk further about the topic so she decided to change the topic.
“You know, Shinichi may seem rude, but he’s actually really nice, although oblivious and egotistical, on the inside. Please don’t think lowly of him” she smiled apologetically up at him.
“Nice? I’d like to see that” he said sarcastically, he could see he was anything but nice from a mile away. He didn’t know how someone as beautiful and kind as Mouri-san could be friends with, let alone have a mutual crush on, someone like him. She should really reconsider, maybe start looking for someone more humble and understanding.
They started talking about other random things as first division officers started pouring in and helping out with the case. Almost an hour later Shinichi and Aoko started heading back. Kaito didn’t like the way she was fawning over him.
“Wow Kudo-kun! You are so smart, how did you figure out who it was before anyone else?” she asked him as they got closer to the other pair. “well it wasn’t that hard really…” he went on to explain how he deduced who was the killer and the method of murder. He tuned them out as he wasn’t interested in that kind of stuff. He focused on Aoko’s expression while she was listening to Shinichi… very attentively, it felt like something was pricking his chest on the inside, he didn’t know if it was jealousy or sadness but he didn’t like it at all.
As they walked to the entrance of the mall, he decided he would make his problems known to the cause of them. This, of course, ended horribly for everyone.
“Hey Kudo-san” he spat the last two words, as if they were poisonous. The other looked over at him questioningly, as well as a bit disgruntled. They were at the entrance of the mall, they were supposed to walk their own different paths but the girls decided to stall so they could plan another meeting (BTNSC free, of course) elsewhere. Kaito took the opportunity to have a chat with the dubbed ‘Self-Important Bitch Face™’ in Kaito’s mind (not that this development wasn’t mutual, just a little different in the name department, but they both have similar meaning. Shinichi likes to call him ‘Selfish Fucknut’. You see, they like each other enough to give each other very creative nicknames haha…ha) not that he would tell him that, he was more mature than that (yeah! very mature for a 3 year old, you act like a 5 year old!).
“I’m gonna be honest with you-“
“wow, how surprising” Shinichi mumbled sarcastically, which only earned him a harder glare from Kaito. Not, he thought, that that wasn’t the whole point or anything.
“I don’t like you, at all. I’m just being tolerant because I’m mindful of Aoko-“
“oh that’s rich, since when did pranks equate to being tolerant? That ‘s more childishness than anything, don’t you think? You are being anything but considerate Kuroba-san” he glared over at his companion.
“if you would stop interrupting me, then you wouldn’t sound that much of a hypocrite”
“How am I the hypocrite? You’ve been contradicting yourself for the past 10 minutes!” Shinichi argued.
“Contradicting myself? I’ve been saying nothing but the truth!”
“Truth my ass! What do you know about truth anyway?” Shinichi sized him up, as if judging him.
“I know a lot about truth, and the truth is you are an ass!” he glared.
“I could say the same to you! Seriously, you magicians just can’t keep your hands to yourself, that’s what gets you killed in the first place!” the last part was muttered, it wasn’t supposed to hurt this much, to hear those words was just… it hit too close to home.
“as if your nosiness and ego wouldn’t get you killed too” He muttered in spite.
“what was that?” the detective said, glaring over at him.
“forget it, I don’t want to see you ever again!”
“Fine! Me neither,” Shinichi sentenced.
“Fine!” the magician repeated.
A bit away from where the commotion started, were their friends. Looking at each other awkwardly, they didn’t know what to do. They wanted to though, they wanted to break them apart somehow but they didn’t know how to approach them. They seemed so invested in the argument that it seemed like they wouldn’t stop even if they physically dragged them off.
It seemed like they didn’t need to, as they just finished arguing. They looked over at their respective partner, walked over and dragged the girls on opposite directions, even if they were going the wrong way. They just wanted to get away from each other.
After spending sometime wondering around the streets for a while with their companion in silence (they both were very worried for the boys) they managed to gather themselves enough to head back to the station.
They bought a ticket not too far from each other, but not close enough to spot each other. The station was filled with people, so spotting them was a little hard for them.
Any how, they made it out of the cluster of people and hopped on the train with the sea of people going in and out of the train. They never crossed paths while in the train, and had different destinations as well, so it was safe to say they wouldn’t see each other for the rest of the day.
The Nakamori and Kuroba pair had finally made it to Ekoda without further incident. They went their separate ways after reaching the neighborhood, not that the distance from each others was astronomical. They were neighbors after all.
The Kudo and Mouri pair, too, made it safely to their respective homes, though they did separate earlier than the other pair, since they did quite away from each other.
Kudo and Kuroba made their way to their bedroom and flopped on the bed, too tired to do anything else. Though they did think something before they took a dip into deep slumber, no, more like vowed something.
I never want to see him again.