Chapter Text
Shinichi pulled the cloak tighter around his body, ducking his head and drawing his shoulders in, vision unfocused as the brick road rushed past his feet in a blur. He struggled to steady his breathing as he darted between the alleyways of the city, lungs clawing for the damp, petrichor-scented air of the early morning. A faint mist hung in the air still, clinging to the bricks of the houses and swallowing the rays of the sun in a muted glow. It was serene.
To Shinichi, it was suffocating.
Out of the corner of his vision, he caught sight of a puddle of standing water in the road. He flinched, the steady rhythm of his breath faltering, and dragged the hood of his cloak further down around his head. No windows, no reflections. He couldn’t—he couldn’t handle seeing it again just yet.
His breathing picked up, heartbeat hammering in his chest and ringing out in his ears. He didn’t want to see. He was afraid of what he’d see. The sound of his shoes thumping against the road sped up in time with his racing heart.
Maybe he was afraid of what he wouldn’t see.
He realized he had been sprinting when he collided full force into a woman carrying a bag of fresh bread, which scattered into the street along with Shinichi and the woman. Shinichi just barely managed to keep himself from flattening her, knocking his knees against the brickwork of the road and scraping his palms raw as she landed underneath him.
“Sorry, I’m so sorry—” he wheezed as he scrambled backwards. Shinichi realized his hood had fallen back during their collision. He grasped for the edge of it among the tangled folds of his cloak.
“Goodness!” the woman huffed, slowly righting herself while swiping dirt from the elbows of her shirt. “I know it’s early, but you should at least watch where you’re–” she cut herself off with a small gasp.
She’d seen him.
Shinichi struggled for the edge of the hood again and yanked the thing over his head, clawing it as far down as he could, rough fabric rubbing at the scrapes on his palms.
“Sorry,” he croaked as he pushed to his feet. “I’m… I’m sorry,” he said again, this time in a whisper, clutching his hood close as he sprinted away from her and into the deepening fog of the morning.
She’d seen him.
She’d looked at him with shock, with pity.
With horror.
And who wouldn’t, thought Shinichi. He’d had his face stolen, after all.
Shinichi ran his fingers along the grain of the heavy wood door to the curio shop. The copper doorknob was old and oxidized green, while the wood above the knob was worn smooth and shiny. Shinichi placed his hand on the spot, feeling at the gentle ripples of the wood for a moment, and lightly pushed. The door swung open with little resistance and nary a sound, despite its size and heft.
Shinichi entered and let the door swing closed behind him just as soundlessly as it had opened. As his eyes adjusted to the warm, dim light of the shop, he began to make out details in the cramped space.
Trinkets and baubles lined every available surface of the room. Ornaments, lockets, pinned butterflies in frames, a basket of loose dried lizard tails, a vase filled with roses of every color imaginable. Paintings of landscapes in ornate frames rested in a pile against one wall. Votive candles hung from the beams of the ceiling, strung upside-down for no apparent reason. A small taxidermied mammal Shinichi didn’t recognize was affixed vertically to one beam, as though it was climbing. Pocket watches on chains hung from one shelf. A plethora of small, working mechanical objects Shinichi couldn’t identify were scattered about on different shelves and surfaces.
Near the back wall of the small shop, there was a counter with a large, ornate register on it. Shinichi glanced around for the shopkeep, and, failing to find one, looked for a door to a back room of some sort that they might’ve been hiding in. There didn’t seem to be any other rooms to the building aside from the very one he was standing in.
It was quiet, except for the sounds of the trinkets clinking and whirring gently.
Shinichi shrugged to himself and set about more closely inspecting the various wares. Someone else would have to show up eventually, he figured. Whether that would be the owner of the store or a customer who could tell him more about it, he wouldn’t leave without getting at least some information from the best lead he had.
He reached up gingerly and tapped at the dangling sail of a wind chime. It responded to his touch with a perfect pentatonic scale.
“Well, hello there.”
Shinichi startled badly, accidentally knocking his hand against the chime as he jolted his arm down to feel at his hood, still drawn low over his head. The sweet sound turned into a cacophony, and Shinichi awkwardly hovered his hands around the bells, trying to still them.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” the voice chuckled, smooth like water flowing over worn beach glass. “Welcome to my shop.”
Shinichi turned to find that a man of his height had appeared behind the counter, his face covered by an intricately beaded veil. His clothing looked elegant despite its simplicity, a loose shirt with wide flowing sleeves, waist tucked into his pants. He seemed fond of jewelry, his ears and neck adorned with various things that sparkled even in the low light, but while his nails were painted, his hands bore no rings or bracelets.
The man tilted his head, the beads in his veil plinking against one another like a spring rain. “I have a couple guesses as to why you’ve found your way here, but I suppose I should introduce myself first.” He bowed slightly, sweeping his arm out among the trinkets and baubles. “I am Kuroba Kaito, and this is my little shop of curios. Is there anything I can help you find?”
“I heard you trade in faces,” Shinichi said.
“And where did you hear that?” Kuroba asked, no hint of suspicion or stress in his voice.
Shinichi tensed reflexively, unsure how much he could or should give away.
Kuroba laughed. “Don’t worry, detective, I know the rumors about me.”
“... Are they true?”
“Perhaps.”
Shinichi hummed to himself, unconvinced. “How did you know I’m a detective?”
“Just a feeling.” Kuroba shrugged lazily.
“... Right.” said Shinichi. It seemed like Kuroba had heard of the “mysterious shopkeep” archetype from his bedtime stories as a kid and decided on his career path then and there. Pulling a straight answer out of this man might be worse than pulling teeth, but that had never stopped Shinichi before. “Why don’t you keep the place locked? Not worried about thieves at all?”
Kuroba tilted his head back slightly, crossed his arms. “Well, detective, it’d be awfully weird of me to keep my shop locked during business hours, wouldn’t you say?”
“No,” Shinichi shook his head, “I mean you don’t seem to lock the store, ever. The doorknob is rarely touched, if at all. There are no scratches or wear around the keyhole that suggest frequent use. Furthermore, the copper on the knob is oxidized all the way around, but if anyone used the handle, either to unlock the door or simply to enter, the contact and oils from their hand would polish and protect the metal from oxidation. The wood above the knob is worn smooth, though, like someone touches the spot frequently; such as to push the door open. Customers would likely try to enter using the doorknob, so whoever is using that spot to open the door is familiar with the shop, and knows that the latch was installed backwards so the door is easily pushed open from the outside. Someone like, say, the shopkeep.”
“Oh?” Kuroba said, uncrossing his arms and resting his elbows on the counter. It seemed like Shinichi had caught his interest.
”This shop doesn’t get customers frequently, if at all. You’re the only one going in and out here, and the lock is unused and oxidized to the point that I’m not sure the cylinder will even turn. I’ll ask again; not worried about thieves?”
Kuroba simply hummed to himself, settling his head in his hand. Shinichi caught a flash of teeth behind the veil as it swayed with the motion. “Very impressive, detective.”
Shinichi sighed, frustrated, and crossed his arms. Kuroba seemed allergic to giving even a simple answer. He wished he had his face so he could glare.
“Oh, don’t give me that, my dear. I’m not doing this simply to spite you, and besides, you’ve already answered one of your earlier questions yourself.”
“And what’s that?” Shinichi perked up somewhat.
“A normal customer would try to enter using the doorknob, no? You saw the clues and pushed my door open instead. Very detective-like of you.”
“How do you know that? Were you watching me?” Shinichi asked.
“Hmm. I wonder~? It’s not as if there’s any other way that I could have known you’d specifically pushed the door open without having seen it, is there~?” Kuroba lilted, twirling one of the strings of beads from his veil around a lithe finger.
“... I see,” Shinichi said. The door had been booby trapped, then. He turned away from Kuroba, taking in the visual static of the shop again. There was a portion of a wall holding an army of cuckoo clocks that he’d missed on first inspection. The bodies of the clocks all looked hand-carved with different floral arrangements. There was a clock that held a bouquet that spoke, in flower language, of love at first sight, one with wildflowers that spoke of living authentically, and one bouquet that spelled out grief and heartache. As he watched, each clock simultaneously whirred and clunked open a tiny door and cuckooed at precisely the same time, just once for the half hour, before the little birds quieted and plunked back into their homes. “Do you create the things you sell here?” he asked, and looked back to the shopkeep.
Kuroba stilled. Shinichi hadn’t noticed how the man seemed to flow with movement at all times until he’d stopped. It was unsettling, like hearing a usually lively forest fall dead silent. He found himself feeling grateful it only lasted a moment. “Not everything,” Kuroba said, fingers beginning to gently tip-tap on the countertop. “Why do you ask?”
“Your hands.” Shinichi said. “You wear jewelry, but nothing on your hands. Someone is likely to keep their hands unburdened if they use them for delicate work a lot, so I wondered if you made the things here. And the paint on your nails is slightly chipped, as well.”
Kuroba tsked and held his hand up. “Just did them last night, too.”
Shinichi watched as Kuroba pulled some nail polish out of seemingly nowhere and set about fixing his nails. He stood for a long minute, simply watching Kuroba remove the paint on the chipped nails before delicately reapplying the midnight blue color, and when it became glaringly obvious that he would be happy to while the day away with the art project on his fingers completely regardless of Shinichi’s presence, Shinichi sighed and spoke.
“So, do you?”
Kuroba only hummed absently in response, turning his nails in the warm light as he painted a white flower on his thumb.
“Have faces, I mean.” Shinichi continued. “Do you actually have any faces, or have you come across any lost ones?”
“So you believe the rumors?” Kuroba asked, voice bereft of the breezy tone it’d had until then. “That I’m a face stealer? That I’m to blame for the recent rash of thefts? That I take what does not belong to me and hold it hostage here in my shop for prices no one should be asked to pay?”
Shinichi cocked his head. “Well, not all of them, at least. I do think you’re exactly as strange as they say, though. Maybe even a little weirder.”
Kuroba paused, the veil obscuring his face leaving Shinichi unsure if he was being stared down or not. Eventually, Kuroba huffed a laugh. “Well, my dear, I’m not usually in the habit of giving away my secrets, especially not to detectives. But, I will tell you this,” he said, unpinning the beaded veil from in front of his face.
As the veil lowered and Shinichi caught sight of the shopkeep’s face for the first time, his breath hitched in his chest.
“I—” Kuroba began, but Shinichi was already grabbing at the collar of his shirt and dragging him forward, almost over the counter.
His vision swam and flickered. The whirrs and plunks of the shop faded away as his blood roared in his ears. He grabbed Kuroba around the chin none too gently, lifting his head to get a better look.
“Why do you have my face? ”