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The question surprises Shinichi, but that's not saying much, seeing who asks it. Kaito isn't exactly known for being unsurprising. Still, he has to double take, staring at the thief with one eyebrow raised.
"Can you repeat your question?"
Kaito pouts from his spot upside down on Shinichi's bed before huffing and righting himself to look down at the detective sitting on the floor. "I said, what do you think would have happened if we never met?"
Shinichi puts down his book - an American crime novel that he had deduced the culprit of by chapter four - and pretends to think for a second, before deadpanning, "If we had never met, then I'd probably have a few more years to live." Kaito sticks his tongue out at him but says nothing, giving Shinichi a chance to think seriously for a moment.
"Well," he starts slowly, "admittedly, I would probably be dead if you weren't around. Let's see...there was the Faberge incident-"
"Which would never have happened if I hadn't held my heist in the first place," Kaito interjects.
"Well, yes, but that's beside the point." Shinichi's more irritated at Kaito interrupting than at his rebuttal. "How about the Miracle Land case? Or the incident with Red Siamese when I was thrown out the window?"
"The only reason those ever happened were because of my heists, indirectly or not." Shinichi frowns, but tries once more.
"The train."
He doesn't even have to explain which train, because they both know it well. Kaito huffs something about Shinichi still owing him, but doesn't try to explain it away. Shinichi counts it as a win. "Is that it, though?" Kaito prods, and Shinichi frowns at his stubbornness.
"I guess if you weren't around, things wouldn't be as..." Fun? He's never admitted to thinking KID's heists are fun, and he's not about to. Still, Shinichi had always found excitement in the battle of wits, of chasing KID, of chasing Kaito- he cuts off his thoughts before coughing into his fist, trying to will down a blush. "...hectic," he finally decides on an appropriate word. "You're probably the most chaotic person in my life. Hell, even crime scenes are more organized than you."
"Yeah, but you wouldn't have me any other way," Kaito comments, and Shinichi snorts slightly. He tries to turn his head to nonchalantly hide the red staining his cheeks, and Kaito either doesn't notice or doesn't comment on it. Either way, Shinichi is grateful (and maybe a little mortified). "Ne ne, tell me one more. One more thing that would change if we had never met."
There are about a million things that Shinichi can say, a million things that have popped into his mind before anything else, but he's not willing to say them out loud. He's not going to tell Kaito that he's the reason Shinichi decided to return from being Conan, that Kaito was the rock that was there when Ran and him decided to break it off a year before Haibara finished the antidote, that Kaito had been there for him, really, since day one when they met on April Fool's all those years ago, be him in his phantom thief role or even just as plain Kuroba Kaito.
He's not going to tell Kaito that he's more important to him than he could ever imagine.
Shinichi releases a shuddering breath he didn't know he was holding, playing it off as an exasperated sigh. "If we had never met," he says finally, and hopes that Kaito doesn't ask and even if he does ask, that he's willing to take no for an answer, "then I wouldn't be Kudo Shinichi."
Kaito is quiet for a few moments, and Shinichi can hear his own heartbeat in the silence, wondering if he's said too much and if he has the capacity to pick his book back up as if he hadn't said anything.
His fingers barely touch the spine before Kaito speaks again. "Ne, Shinichi."
"What is it now, Kaito?" He forces nonchalance into his voice, raising an eyebrow at the man who's now staring at him intently.
"Ask me now."
He frowns slightly, but obliges. "Well then, Kuroba Kaito, what do you think would have happened if we had never met?"
"Well, Kudo Shinichi," Kaito returns the full name, but he's grinning instead of frowning, eyes sparkling as he stares into Shinichi's own. They seem closer than before, and Shinichi wonders if it's his own imagination, but no, he can feel the inches between them lessening. "If we had never met..."
His voice lowers, and suddenly it's not a grin but a small smile, and Shinichi almost thinks that his ears are mistaken because his heart is beating too loud, but there's no mistake as Kaito speaks deliberately, his mouth forming the same syllables that Shinichi hears.
"Then I would never have fallen for you."