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His parents do not read him bedtime stories.
Like most children, he has trouble reading complicated kanji, but he enjoys asking questions, looking up phonetic pronunciations whenever he gets stuck. He wants to understand his favorite novels by himself, on his own merit.
He gets swept up in the grand stories of detectives and thieves. Doyle, Ranpo, Leblanc, Christie. He doesn’t take to picture books, splashing in puddles, throwing parties, or making crude jokes.
He’s plays soccer because it’s important to stay active. If he wants to catch criminals, he has to be fast. His reflexes have to be as sharply-honed as his mind.
He revels in the unique and creative ways people describe death. The way that corpses—inelegant, cruel, crude—could be elevated with such illustrative language. It appeals to something in him that he cannot yet name.
Kudo Shin’ichi does not yet know exactly how intimate he and death will become, at age six.
How could he know that it would become something like a friend, haunting his every movement, lurking in his own shadow?
Edogawa Conan is his legal name now; has been for ten years. If, by some miracle, he’s allowed to live for seven more, this name will have outlasted his previous one.
His true identity is no longer a secret to Ran. After the first two years of being a teenager turned child, with brutal incidents happening to him every damn day, he’d been outed. The struggle to take down the Black Organization was, and still is, ongoing, but he’d rooted out the head of the crime ring and Akai shot Gin dead, so his biggest threat is gone.
Besides, he’s an awful liar. She’d had him figured out plenty of times. There’d been a lot of nasty conversations in the aftermath. A lot of why, Shin’ichi?
Haibara, much to her own frustration, hadn’t been able to create a full-blown cure. An antidote that isn’t really an antidote, she’d explained on his eighth-slash-eighteenth birthday. All it does is prevent our cells from attacking themselves and deconstructing. I’m sorry.
He’d laughed. Nothing for you to be sorry for. Hell, we’re lucky to be alive.
His sense of humor became a lot darker after he met Haibara. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice that sounds suspiciously like her says I won’t apologize for that, Kudo.
She only calls him Kudo when they’re alone. She knows, more than anyone else, what it means to be able to say their real names. It’s not fair, the way they have to live, but he has other people to turn to, at least. She doesn’t. Not really. Other people to whom he is Shin’ichi, and not Conan.
There’s always going to be a sense of wariness between them. The sense of your secret is safe with me, but also, your life is in my hands. It’s in that moment that Kudo Shin’ichi stares at himself in the mirror, taking in his long, wavy locks pulled into a lazy bun, and contemplates his own existence.
It’s not absurd to feel haunted. He doesn’t have to keep his guard up like he did before, fearful that everything would give him away, fearful that everyone he loved would be snuffed out in front of him just to prove a point. But still. Behind a flyaway hair, beyond his glasses and his blue eyes, there’s a wisp of something.
Kudo Shin’ichi does not believe in things that don’t exist.
They used to call Mouri Kogoro a harbinger of death. Said moniker transferred to Edogawa Conan once he’d deemed himself old enough to solve cases by himself. Japan’s Finest Detective: A Middle-Schooler? one headline read.
He’d scoffed. There’s nothing exceptional about a twenty-seven year old knowing the things he knows. In fact, if he hadn’t become Edogawa Conan, he has full confidence that the papers would have kicked him to the curb by now.
Kudo Shin’ichi is yesterday’s news. For all they care, he disappeared off the face of the earth. They have someone new to use as a scapegoat, lauding him with titles like the Kid Killer, and the Second Heisei Holmes.
“Go away,” Edogawa Conan whispers to the mirror, eyes glossy behind his glasses. “Nobody’s going to die today.”
This is a lie, of course. In Japan alone, one-percent of the population died every year, give or take.
And, because the unnamed, unnerving thing clinging to him was so determined to push him in front of cars, out of windows, and into the line of fire, it was likely that he would run into a fresh body before the day was out.
“Must be nice,” Haibara muses sardonically, stepping into his study—his sanctuary—in silence. “Having your purpose laid out for you so neatly.”
“Oh, shut up,” he grumbles, grabbing his bag off of the couch, eyes warily flicking down when his phone buzzes.
When he attempts to recall his first memory of this sensation, it eludes him, like fog over the ocean.
There are a multitude of things that could have caused it to get attached to him. Following his father around to crime scenes as a boy. Falling into his own cases as a teenager. Chasing down the Black Organization. Receiving a phantom while chasing an elusive, practically unheard of entity. It would be poetic, if a bit on the nose.
Kudo Shin’ichi became a mythological figure, fading into obscurity, but Edogawa Conan’s knack for solving crimes was exceptional. The flame in his chest that burned for justice roared to life. Every step he took brought him closer to the deep, dark truth, yet further away. Haibara Ai. Mizunashi Rena. Hondou Eisuke. Akai Shuuichi. Sera Masumi. Gin. Vodka. Vermouth. Bourbon. The FBI, the CIA—truly, how deep down the rabbit hole had he fallen?
“Conan-kun,” Ayumi says, startling him out of his reverie. She places a hand on his elbow, where he’s crouched over the gruesome, mangled corpse of a housewife.
Haibara is nearby, eying him suspiciously, wondering if his wooziness is physical or physiological. Their bodies are stable, mostly, but she acts as his in-house doctor for problems he can’t take to the hospital.
(She suffers through the same things as him, so she knows the symptoms well. They’re both frail, easily prone to illness. And yet, he continues to push himself. The flashy kicks, the daring jumps. Every time, she warns him, and every time, he brushes the warnings off.
“It’s not like I can just let them get away,” he says, wiping sweat off of his brow.)
With each passing year, he keeps expecting them to feel less like…children. They’re already seventeen, the same age as himself and Ran when this who fiasco started. He’d thought himself such an adult at the time.
Shin’ichi had always wanted to be treated like one, always wanted to be taken seriously. When he was their age, the only person who’d cared enough to drag him out of the house when he had no extracurriculars scheduled was Ran.
Even better: Genta, Mitsuhiko, and Ayumi like solving mysteries. Ran had put up with his nonsense ramblings, his love for puzzles and plots, because she liked him, admired his brilliant mind and his starry-eyed gaze whenever he’d sorted something out.
These kids don’t know that he was once Kudo Shin’ichi, don’t know why he acts so mature, why he’s so level-headed in the face of danger. He knows ten ways to break all of their limbs offhand. Knows their dreams and desires, knows how very young they are.
Now, isn’t that interesting, an insidious voice in the back of his head that sounds a bit too much like his own hisses. You’d never treat yourself with the same amount of care.
He can’t afford to. He lives for the thrill, whether he can admit that truth aloud or not. Everyone knows it. His very existence is balanced on the edge of a knife. Edogawa Conan is alive, but at what cost?
Belatedly, he refocuses on Ayumi, who’s been calling his name for so long without an answer that her brow’s furrowed. “Sorry,” he says, unapologetically. It’s a knee-jerk response. Ayumi huffs. He flags Takagi down, preparing to unveil the true killer.
They wonder, sometimes, why the look in his eyes becomes so distant. Why he’s closer to Takagi and Megure than them, kids he’s spent half his life with.
(And isn’t that funny? Half of his life. It hasn’t quite been half for him, but it’s been long enough. It feels like it’s been three lifetimes and no time at all. A strange phenomenon, the passage of time.)
As he talks, walking through his process, he relives the scene. Blood; there’s so much blood. The tendrils of death, cold and dark, curl around him, enveloping him like an old friend.
Wires. Knives. A handkerchief, emblazoned with an ex-lover’s initials. A broken fountain pen. The panel of an electric switch with a screw loose.
All minor things in the big picture. All very relevant details to the case. One thing leads to another, a case of ardor that grew sour. Premeditated murder. Four suspects narrowed down to two—one killer, one accomplice.
It’s a testament to the kids’ bravery and familiarity with these sorts of things that they do not flinch, even as he alludes to the nastier details of this case. Lack of consent. Sexual violence. They’re only teenagers. What he should do is get them the hell away from here, invite them out to a karaoke lounge, tell them to ignore his grandstanding.
But he doesn’t. He and the spectre enjoy having an audience.
It’s never satisfied, and neither is he.
“Ego mors,” Hattori says, cigarette smoke wafting from his lips.
“I don’t think that’s the right conjugation,” Conan replies, blue eyes warily staring at his best friend until Hattori heaves a sigh, crushing the butt in an ashtray. “Or the right order. Mortis ego,” he corrects.
There’s a brief lull in their conversation. He walks around the room, idly fidgeting with things, making sure his meticulously well-kept study is organized exactly the way he likes it. “Also, ego in Latin means I.”
He raises an eyebrow suspiciously. Hattori knows this.
“Humor me,” Hattori hums, looking outside of the window.
He huffs. “I don’t believe in the supernatural.”
“Don’t ya?” His fingers are twitching. His accent’s thicker than usual. Nicotine. Horrible stuff. Stained the fingers, ruined the lungs. Though, Conan can’t be mad. He wishes he had a way to take the edge off too. “Ya brought down an organization that didn’t exist, took poison that turned you into a kid. Yer archnemesis is a magician.”
“All of that has proof in scientific evidence,” he mumbles without much conviction. He sees Hattori’s point. Quietly, downcast, he says, “You really think I have something to do with this? That I’m, what. Some sort of death god?”
“No,” Hattori insists, grabbing his wrist. His wrist—so thin, so small. The burnt umber of Hattori’s skin is like a brand against his own. His palm is warm. Callused. “No, Kudo. Yer not the one who wishes anybody harm. But ya gotta admit. ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.’ How many times this make now?”
He’s run into an incident an average of two-hundred and fifty-five times per year, give or take. It totals out so that in a week, there are only two days when something doesn’t happen.
“We took down the enemy,” Conan mutters. “It’s not like we can sniff out every petty murderer in the country before they commit a crime.”
“Mm,” Hattori agrees. “Don’t ya ever feel like you’re forgetting yourself, though, trying to parse out all these motives? Every day, we step into somebody else’s shit, have to think like ‘em. Call ‘em out before they get away and the case goes cold. It’s our job. Ya could even call it civic duty. Giving our lives to this is a little like dying yerself, and you’ve got it worse than most.”
Conan joins him in staring out of the window. “I didn’t die.” He’d never given up hope. He’d always planned and plotted, working out a hundred different ideas. He’d been determined to win, at any cost, even if he had lost his life in the process. Better him than anyone else.
Hattori reaches in his pocket, handing Conan his lighter and a fresh cigarette. “Didn’t you?”
Kid’s not decked out in his full regalia today, which means this is a friendly visit and not a professional one.
He rarely carried out heists anymore—rather, he rarely pulled them off without letting Conan know first, since the root of their problems had been intrinsically woven together. When the Black Org went down, Pandora had gone down with them.
Conan doesn’t bother to pull the bow off of his violin. “What.”
“No hello?”
“You broke into my house.”
“I break into your house all the time,” Kuroba Kaito says, flopping down on his couch like he lives there.
Seeing as there’s no point in continuing to play, he puts his instrument away, offering the thief his full attention. Their relationship has always been a strange one, close and yet distant. Kid is probably the person who understands him best in the world, given that they’re both always playing make-believe, pretending to be people that they’re not.
“What,” Conan asks again, less accusatory this time, padding into the kitchen to turn on the kettle.
“Can’t I just come and visit an old friend?”
He snorts.
Kuroba sighs, procuring a blue rose out of seemingly nowhere. Sleight of hand, misdirection. Politely, Conan rifles through his cabinets, looking for a vase to put it in. “It’s almost your birthday,” he murmurs, noting the way that his so-called archnemesis tenses up.
“You remembered.”
The thief rolls his eyes. “How could I forget?”
They allow silence to creep between them. Surprisingly, or not-so-surprisingly, it is comfortable. Conan makes tea and studies Kid’s face, unadorned.
“Who will you be celebrating as?” Kuroba asks, eventually, lazily carding his fingers through Conan’s long, wavy locks. Conan should be calling the cops instead of allowing this sort of behavior, but he can’t move. It’s rare for people to see past Edogawa Conan and ask about Kudo Shin’ichi.
“Both? Neither?” He lets out a bitter laugh. “Does it really matter?”
The other man shrugs. “It matters to you in here, doesn’t it?” he asks, pointing to Conan’s heart.
Conan rolls his eyes. “You and I both know that the amygdala is responsible for feelings.”
“Feelings of fear and anger, sure. Fight or flight response. Is that really how you feel about your birthday?”
He rubs the handle of the mug with his thumb. “Some people know. Some people don’t need to know.” The kids. The police. Companions, accomplices; he’d bartered different bits of the truth in return for knowledge.To deceive one’s enemies, one had to first deceive their friends. “Guess you could say my age is catching up to me.” Now, there are consequences for his actions. For the lies. The machinations.
Kuroba chortles. “You’ll only be twenty-eight.”
Conan barks back a humorless laugh. “Don’t you read the papers? I’m turning eighteen.”
Ran knows how much Shin’ichi likes to read.
He’d had his head stuck in a book the first time they met, introduced to each other as playmates. He learned to read long before Ran did, going so far as to teach her some characters.
She’d known him better than anyone else for a long, long time. Knew his characteristic periods of long, lonesome silences, followed by the frantic energy to look things up. He was a show-off, but only when it came to his vast and incomparable knowledge. Look at how smart and cool and clever I am, everything about him said.
He’d been so cocky. So arrogant. But only when other people were looking.
When he was alone, he was a little boy with small but powerful legs and a hunger for knowledge.
Conan is different.
He’s sharp. Scary, sometimes. He cares. God, she knows he cares, that he never stopped caring. She never doubted that. But, it was insane, pretending that they didn’t know each other, that she wasn’t familiar with his every tic. Putting on that sugary-sweet baby voice to disguise his true intentions.
However, Conan couldn’t be Shin’ichi. Who’d ever heard of someone turning back into a child? She had to be delusional. And he made her think she was over and over again. But, no. Her gut instinct had been right.
It hurt, that he’d pulled away and let her believe he was gone—gone for a few weeks? Gone forever?—Whilst being right under her nose.
All Ran had ever wanted was for her best friend to be safe.
When he closes his book, some sort of academic write-up on bacteria and mold, she sucks in a deep, steadying breath. “Your birthday is tomorrow.”
Shin’ichi—Conan—pulls off his glasses. Shakes his hair loose of its long ponytail. It suits him as much as it doesn’t. She’d never known him to sport anything other than his trademark bangs, cropped close to his face.
“Yeah,” he says, eyes flicking over to her father’s empty desk chair. Most of the work that comes to the office these days is for Conan rather than The Sleeping Kogoro.
Her tongue feels thick in her mouth. Will you let me forgive you?
She forgave him years ago, but he revels in self-loathing, guilt continuing to eat him alive. Furthermore, he’s still a teenager in body, if not in age and experience. Even though she knows the truth now, what are they supposed to do about their feelings, yet unresolved?
He’s been slipping away from her, these past ten years, despite the two of them living under the same roof. What is she supposed to do, when there’s always a string of murders, when there are always other people he wants to talk to first?
They’ve been rebuilding their trust for so long that she doesn’t know where to start.
“Ran,” Shin’ichi says, initiating for the first time in ages. “Do you ever wonder if I’m really alive anymore?”
Her heart leaps into her throat. “Kudo Shin’ichi, if you’re feeling suicidal, I’ll take you to the hospital right now, I swear—”
“I’m not,” he murmurs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not, I promise. I’d never do that to you.” He pauses for a moment, then speaks again. “I just. It’s been so long. And I forget. Which one I’m supposed to be. And all this talk about death and it following me. I just. Wonder, I guess. If I’m supposed to be alive. If I am. If I ever was.”
Ran can name a hundred memories, if he needs her to. Memories of Shin’ichi. Memories of Conan. Hundreds of murders solved, hundreds of criminals in jail. The Japanese police could fall apart without him.
But, he has to trust in that reality himself.
Before she can second guess herself, she bundles Shin’ichi—Conan—in her arms. He’s always been shorter than her; that hasn’t changed. It likely never will. Genetics. His fucked up system after being poisoned with the APTX-4869.
“There’s a heart beating in your chest,” she says, pulling his hand up so he can feel it. “That’s proof enough, isn’t it?”
Please let it be enough, she thinks, watching some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders, watching as he clings to her like a lifeline, the boy who she loved—loves—and something like her little brother in one breath.
Another mystery solved. A suicide, trussed up to look like a murder.
“When does it end?” Edogawa Conan asks, pulled away from his birthday dinner to stare at a dead body, wondering if the spectre knew that he’d rather be here, away from his parents, away from Ran, away from his friends, inspecting a crime scene.
Never, the spectre whispers in his ear. Never.
Happy birthday, it says, and he opens his mouth to deduce.