Work Text:
It’s no secret, to anyone, really, that Kudou Shinichi has an embarrassingly huge crush on one Kuroba Kaito.
In his defense, so does half the student body at Tokyo University. However, as one of Kaito’s close friends and thus a person subjected to the brilliance of his existence on the daily, Shinichi thinks he’s a little more qualified to make that judgement.
It’s a friendship that started, from Shinichi’s point of view, out of pure coincidence. He was at his first criminology course on the first day of his first year at university, and Kaito just happened to be the one to slide into the seat next to him with a murmured “Is this free?” and a friendly smile.
It all falls into place after that, over courses and assignments and late night exam cramming. Before he knows it, his appreciation for all things Kuroba Kaito has morphed into a humiliating fixation.
They keep their friend circles separate because they’ve never seen a point to really blend them together; Shinichi knows vaguely that Kaito has friends and Kaito’s bumped into his own circle of people once or twice, but they’re mostly just friends in isolation.
It is, all things considered, surprisingly comfortable, which is why he’s entirely blind-sided by the reminder that other people in Kaito’s life have just as much of a claim on his time as Shinichi does.
They’ve just wrapped up a particularly gruelling exam, and Kaito is sprawled out on the lecture theatre table as he whines about how half the content he’d studied for hadn’t even ended up being relevant.
Shinichi, internally, isn’t fairing much better, but he keeps most of his turmoil politely contained.
He leans over to nudge Kaito’s elbow with his own. “Drinks at the usual place? My treat.”
It’s a tradition they’d started up at the end of finals in their first year – after every exam, they would meet up at this one out-of-the-way izakaya, tucked into an alley semi-close to the main campus, and celebrate with snacks and drinks. Non-alcoholic, of course, until they’d hit legal drinking age; Shinichi values his brain cells more than most.
Kaito lights up, propping himself up with renewed energy and an agreement already on his lips, until his face abruptly scrunches up and he wilts sideways with a groan.
“Can’t. I have to do something. I promised, so I can’t bail.”
Shinichi’s heart sinks, but he nevertheless tries not to let his disappointment show on his face. Based off the look Kaito gives him, he doesn’t entirely succeed. Kaito winces, genuinely apologetic as he claps his hands in front of himself in a bow.
“Sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I swear. How about we go get dessert after class next week?” Kaito asks, a peace offering extended, and Shinichi smiles at the thoughtfulness of it.
“Sure. I guess I’ll... See you next week?” He’s already packed his things, standing and slinging his own cross-body back over his shoulder. Kaito nods, still looking very much like he’d rather be anywhere else, and Shinichi leaves him to languish in both the emptying lecture theatre and his apparent despair as he heads out.
He briefly considers going back to his apartment and the empty rooms waiting for him there, but it seems a little too early to retire for the weekend, so he settles for heading to the izakaya anyway as a sort of social compromise. The server greets him by name, familiar already from months of occasional patronage, and she even inquires after Kaito to which Shinichi has to fend an awkward apology with an even more awkward smile.
The food and beer are as good as always and the ambience of the place picks up as the hours wear on, but it’s just not the same drinking alone. He ends up paying and leaving hours earlier than he’d planned to with a wave and a promise to definitely bring Kaito with him next time.
Charming people everywhere he goes, it seems. Shinichi sighs through his nose.
The weather’s pleasant enough so he takes the long way home, winding down streets and through the shopping district as he pauses occasionally to browse items. Most shops are still open, it being a Friday night and all, and the night-life’s just getting started as neon signs whir to life in the ambience of the setting sun.
He’s just turning onto the main road, passing by a florist stand that’s packing up shop for the day, when he spies an unexpectedly familiar head of hair through a mess of blue roses.
He pauses, head canting to one side.
Was that...?
He makes to approach, the rhythm of his steps uneven with hesitance, and what he sees makes him stop in his tracks and practically dive behind the nearest pillar.
A nearby couple whispers behind their hands as they pass, casting him furtive glances.
Shinichi doesn’t really care, because just across the way is Kaito.
He's still got his backpack slung over one shoulder, standing with his upper body angled towards a tall blonde guy that Shinichi doesn’t recognise. They’re bickering over something, Kaito waving his hands around in that way he does when he’s really riled up about something, and Shinichi can’t hear what they’re talking about from this distance but he’s not sure he really wants to. The blonde stranger is listening intently, seemingly abashed, as Kaito gesticulates between flowery chocolates with a pink fluffy bear clutched in his hands.
It’s the very picture of domestic familiarity, Shinichi realises, if a little more aggressive and combative than is maybe socially accepted.
He clutches the strap of his bag tighter to his chest, daring another peek around the column, and the blonde guy’s snorting, amused at Kaito’s expense, as Kaito tucks the pink bear under his arm to press a palm to his forehead.
Shinichi swallows.
They clearly know each other well.
Well enough that Kaito didn’t want to tell Shinichi about their rendezvous.
Shinichi’s heart immediately crumples inside his chest in a way that makes him think he’s maybe just been shot, and he almost expects blood as he glances down at his chest.
He’d never even considered that Kaito might be remotely interested in guys before, because he’d been too busy trying to ignore the fact that Kaito wouldn’t be interested in him. When he thinks about it, though, of course everyone would like Kaito - he’s funny, and pretty, and good with magic, and---
Shinichi presses a palm flat to his chest. His heart is beating all off-time, and he hates this. His stomach is roiling, and he’d almost think he ate something bad if he didn’t know the izakaya’s food as well as he did, so – why? Why was everything feeling so off, seeing Kaito with someone else?
Another guy, no less?
He blinks.
If he really considers the tumultuous feelings in the pit of his stomach, with the catalyst for such being the sight of Kaito happy with another man... There’s really only one explanation, isn’t there?
Shinichi thought he was a well-read, well-rounded, and generally non-judgemental person, but what he concludes, connecting the dots in the only way he knows how as he stands there in the shadows and watches his friend-turned-crush shopping with another man, induces a truly dawning horror that has his heart plummeting like a stone.
Oh, no. Shinichi thinks, frantic and almost manic as he starts speed-walking away. I can’t believe I hate gay people.
He stews in this new knowledge for the weekend, googling frantically and bemoaning his own moral inferiority, before calling an emergency meeting with Haibara on Monday between classes. He somehow feels like Ran would kick him in the head for what he’s about to reveal, and Hattori would absolutely not take him seriously.
Haibara indulges him, only because he so rarely reaches out for social engagement that whatever it is must be truly catastrophic.
She’s already waiting for him at the campus café, a latte balanced neatly on a matching saucer in front of her, when he sinks into the seat opposite her with a truly solemn air.
“Haibara. I think I’m homophobic.”
The look she levels him with can only be described as infuriatingly disappointed.
“Kudou,” she begins, her tone patient like she’s speaking to an easily startled animal, “your best friend literally has a girlfriend. Who you’ve met. And seen. Multiple times. They’ve even kissed in front of you.”
Shinichi slumps backwards, fingers pinched at the bridge of his nose. “That’s not the point, Haibara, and you know that’s different!”
She lifts her cup to take a sip, measured, calm, and as judgemental as ever. “Enlighten me.”
Shinichi just flails uselessly. “Because it is!”
A pause, as Haibara stirs her coffee. “Mind if I ask what exactly brought this revelation on?”
Shinichi launches into a harried recount of Friday night, starting with how Kaito turned him down for their usual meal (“He was so cryptic about what he was doing, and who he was meeting!”) and ending with how he’d seen Kaito and a stranger shopping together over sweets and pink bears. Haibara sits through it all, patient as a tree, and offers occasional hums and acknowledgements throughout.
Shinichi’s breathless by the time he’s done.
“Okay.” She sets her cup back down on its saucer with a certain finality, hands folding primly on the table in front of her. “So you saw Kuroba with another man, last week, shopping.” Shinichi nods. “Remind me how you felt when you saw them.”
Shinichi frowns. After everything he’s said, she asks about that? Shouldn’t he be getting lectured about the merits of every type of love right now? “Like-- Like I was going to be sick. My stomach was so uncomfortable, and my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my throat.” Things associated with disgust, he notes, all too wearily.
Haibara stares at him expectantly for almost a full minute, sighing when she realises nothing else was going to come out of his mouth. “Kudou. Have you considered that you might just be jealous?”
Shinichi’s face crumples, spectacularly, in response.
“No?” He manages to refrain from scoffing in incredulity, but it’s a near thing. “What do I have to be jealous of?”
Haibara clears her throat, lifting a hand to start counting off on her fingers. “The guy who’s with Kuroba, shopping with Kuroba, getting all of Kuroba’s attention, of the bear Kuroba was holding because it’s Kuroba holding i-“
Shinichi slaps his palm across her mouth, muffling whatever she’s going to say next. Her eyes over his fingers are scathing, and he knows his own ears are red.
“Okay, okay, I get it,” he hisses, and waits until she’s definitely not going to say anything more before taking his hand away. He huffs, sinking back into his own seat. The conversation had somehow tracked down a path he was entirely unready for, and now he’s thrown off balance. “I really don’t know why you’re so fixated on Kaito, though. He doesn’t have anything to do with this.” Really – Kaito’s perfect; it’s Shinichi with the blatant problem here.
Haibara’s staring at him like he’s grown two heads.
“He doesn’t!”
She doesn’t even deign to answer that, which is somehow worse.
Shinichi acquiesces. “Okay, so what if I like him. That doesn’t mean I’m jealous. I didn’t get jealous when Ran got a girlfriend, and I liked her before as well.”
Hah. Defeated by facts and logic. Shinichi is smug.
Neither he nor Ran like to mention the period of time where they were in love with each other, both too nervous and shy to do anything about it. By the time they’d worked it out and finally landed enough on the same page, their love had stumbled straight out of romantic and right back into friendship.
Shinichi considers it a rather formative experience, reinforcing the merits and necessity of forming true platonic connections with other people.
Haibara thinks, all in all, that it’s exhausting, and she refuses to let Shinichi’s stupidity get in the way of his happiness for the second time.
She says as much to him, word for word, and he just blinks at her, confused. She feels like she’s explaining complex mathematics to a toddler.
On second thought, that would probably be simpler.
“I’m going to say this once and once only, Kudou.” She takes another sip of her coffee. “Ask him. Kuroba doesn’t seem like the type to duck around things, and if you want to know he’ll probably tell you. If he really has a boyfriend, then you can congratulate him and start working on getting over this.”
Haibara doesn’t explain what ‘this’ is. Shinichi assumes she means his homophobia.
I should really get paid for this emotional labour, Haibara thinks, leaning chin in palm as she watches Shinichi scurry out of the café and to his next class (with Kaito, if her mental schedule was anything to go by).
Maybe she will, when those two work it out, as a sort of ‘I got you two together’ tax. She’s sure Kaito will be able to cough it up, once he’s recovered from coughing out his lungs laughing at Shinichi’s stupidity.
Really, she muses, that boy.
Now – back to her coffee.
Shinichi waits until he and Kaito are leaving the lecture, Kaito already complaining about how dry the content was and how he desperately needs a drink, to follow Haibara’s advice and confront him about it. He is, after all, a man of action, no matter how dangerous said action might be.
Shinichi slowly ambles to a halt.
Kaito pauses mid-sentence, turning around, and eyes the distance between them warily.
“Shinichi? What’s up?”
Shinichi clears his throat. “I saw you with your boyfriend.” He hadn’t intended to be so direct about it, but he supposes it’s for the better.
Kaito blinks, once, twice, three times, before his eyes narrow in a suspicious squint. “I have a what now?”
“A boyfriend,” Shinichi repeats, blue eyes on blue eyes.
Kaito looks like he’s not sure whether to laugh or cry. “Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong person.” He’s definitely biting back something, if the way his lips are wobbling at the corners is any indication.
Shinichi huffs, gaze trailing to the floor. “You don’t have to lie to me, Kaito. I thought we were friends.” Not for much longer, though, if he doesn’t get his own issues sorted out.
Kaito throws both his hands up in exasperation. “Shinichi. I don’t know who you’re talking to, or what kind of rumour you’ve heard, but I don’t have a boyfriend. Seriously. I’m not lying.” His phone lifts with the movement, clutched in one hand as it is, and fluorescent light catches on the Lupin charm strung through his case – a perfect partner to the Holmes charm on Shinichi’s own.
Shinichi scoffs. He wonders how Kaito’s real perfect partner feels about his boyfriend having matching phone accessories with a random guy. “Well, you looked like you were having fun shopping with that guy last week.” He folds his arms at his chest; if there’s one thing he hates more than not knowing something, it’s being lied to.
Kaito stares at him for long, silent seconds, brows raising higher and higher as he processes what exactly Shinichi is talking about. His eyes blow wide in disbelief. “Hakuba?!” It’s practically a squawk. Kaito looks like he’s going through all five stages of grief in the span of around thirty seconds.
It’s quite interesting to watch, actually.
Shinichi’s brow dips, just the faintest bit. “Is that his name? Well, then I wish you two well.”
Kaito’s beginning to look like he’s being strangled from the inside out. His face is resplendent in its agony, and Shinichi takes a tentative step back to put a little more space between them.
Kaito sighs, rubbing at his temples and muttering to himself about things that sound suspiciously like “Shinichi” and “stupid”.
Shinichi takes offense at this, and he's about to open his mouth and express as such when Kaito speaks up again.
“Shinichi. Buddy, homie, sweetheart, you’re killing me here.” Shinichi does not flinch at the petname. It’s an achievement. The look in Kaito’s eyes is one of dismay. “Hakuba? Really? Do you truly think I would stoop that low?”
“Yeees...?” Shinichi’s beginning to feel like he’s missing something very important here, like maybe all the details on Hakuba’s personality.
“Hakuba, that asshole, is not my boyfriend.” Kaito doesn't even attempt to suppress his shudder, acting like even the mere concept of him being associated with this Hakuba person is enough to make him want to rewrite history. “He is, unfortunately, my best friend’s boyfriend, and I was helping him pick out a birthday present because he’s useless and he’d probably buy her something stupid like the whole Sherlock Holmes Anthology,” Shinichi tactfully doesn’t point out that that sounds like a fine present, “and she’s sweet and lovely and definitely deserves better than him and his shitty gifts. I didn’t tell you because I detest being around him. Viscerally.” Kaito scowls. “There’s no way I’d spend my afternoon-- Canoodling with him when I could spend it with you.”
Shinichi blinks, cogs winding, unwinding, and then falling apart in his brain. “So. You’re not dating Hakuba?”
“No!”
“Oh.” Shinichi’s quiet, now, contemplative.
Kaito drags both hands down his face, a wounded groan leaving his mouth. “Listen, Shinichi, I’ve been head over heels for you since we met!”
Shinichi gapes at him, like a fish. Kaito hates it, but powers through for the sake of true love.
“Why didn’t you say anything, then?” Shinichi notes that he probably looks sulky in the way the corners of his mouth angle down, but he’s too busy feeling things to fix it.
“Me?! I thought you were straight!”
Kaito’s gesticulating so wildly that his fingers are probably in jeopardy.
Shinichi furrows his brow. Had he... Never actually said anything about his own sexuality over the whole course of their friendship? He can’t remember. “Well, I’m bisexual, by the way. Just for future reference. In case it ever comes up.”
Kaito calms down marginally. He looks and sounds exhausted. “So am I.”
“Oh,” Shinichi says again, intelligently.
Kaito sighs at the ceiling. “Yes, oh, you dumbass. You’re lucky I love you.” He mutters the second part, but Shinichi’s eyes still shoot up at the admission from where they’d been resolutely fixed on Kaito’s shoes.
“You... Love me?”
Kaito apparently only realises that he said it out loud when Shinichi repeats it, turning a startling shade of red with a flush that reaches all the way to the collar of his shirt. Whether he’s going pink out of frustration or embarrassment is difficult to say, but it seems he’s so wound up that he can’t be bothered to retract whatever emotional outburst he’s having. “Yes!”
He practically shouts it, loud and echoing in the sudden silence of the hallway.
Someone passes by, head ducked low like they’re desperately trying not to be seen.
Shinichi relates.
“Oh,” he says, for the third time in as many minutes.
Every bit of tension and discomfort he’d been feeling over the past couple of days magically bleeds out of his body, his heart and stomach settling like those words were what he’d been waiting to hear for however long. Kaito’s fidgeting, glancing this way and that, and Shinichi registers that he should probably return the confession with one of his own.
The sentiment is, unsurprisingly, more than matched.
“I love you too,” he says, quiet, as some things just don’t really need to be loud.
Kaito’s smile is radiant when his gaze whips up to Shinichi’s own soft grin, looking at him like he’d just personally hung the stars in the sky.
“Really?!”
“Yes.”
They stare at each other for a couple of seconds, just basking in the joy that is reciprocated feelings, before Kaito starts – laughing. It starts off as these soft, quiet, gentle little giggles, but he’s soon doubled over with the force of his own cackling and Shinichi’s joining in. He doesn’t even know why he’s laughing, or why Kaito’s laughing, but he can’t seem to stop.
By the time they recover, they both have tears in their eyes.
Shinichi hasn’t felt this happy in a long time.
“So, are we boyfriends now?” he asks, hesitant, the reality of it all making him a little shy.
Kaito steps closer. “If you’d like to be. Just so you know, though - I’m not planning on letting you get swept up by anyone else.”
Shinichi feels warm, and like he’s so light he could probably fly. “Okay. Good. Me neither.”
Kaito beams at him, whipped as cream, and offers a hand. Shinichi smiles back, reaching out his own to link their fingers together. It feels, poetically, like they were always meant to fit.
“Now, enough with the sap!” Kaito tugs their newly joined hands into his own hoodie pocket, already heading for the exit of the building. “You, mister, have to shout me hot chocolate for the emotional torment that you just put me through. I’ve aged seven years today and I expect returns.”
Shinichi just nods dreamily, lost in the cottony happiness of his own head as he savours the lovely feeling of Kaito’s hand in his own.
They’re halfway to the café when Kaito freezes, dragging Shinichi to a stop with him. “Wait, you like men and you still thought you were homophobic?!”
Kaito, after laughing so hard he nearly chokes out a lung, vows to never let him live it down.
Shinichi finds that he doesn’t really mind.