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Neither of them signed up for this.
It started with one of those “temporary” situations that turned into something dangerously close to routine. Conan got sick. Ran and Kogoro were out of town. Rei had been the first to scoop him up. Akai, by sheer misfortune—or as Rei called it, “calculated stalking”—had shown up not ten minutes later. Somehow, Rei hadn’t thrown him out. Somehow, Conan had ended up sandwiched between the two most intense men in Tokyo.
And somehow… it kept happening.
-
Rei pressed the thermometer to Conan’s forehead like he was defusing a bomb. Akai stood across the room, arms folded, looking unimpressed.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Akai muttered.
“I am not,” Rei snapped, voice low but sharp. “I’ve raised several undercover agents with colds and food poisoning.”
“Did any of them weigh under thirty kilograms?”
Conan, red-nosed and exhausted, let out a sigh from his cocoon of blankets. “Can’t you both just be quiet…?”
That shut them up. For about a minute.
Rei eventually brought warm tea and honey while Akai adjusted the pillows behind Conan’s back with quiet efficiency. Neither acknowledged the other, but Conan’s blanket was tucked in twice as tightly by the time they were done.
“Thank you,” Conan mumbled.
“Don’t mention it, sweetheart,” Rei said.
“Hn,” Akai replied, setting the tea down. “Rest, kid.”
They sat in silence on either side of the couch. Conan, for once, drifted off in perfect peace.
-
“Lunch, check. Water bottle, check. Mask?” Rei asked, crouching to eye level.
“It’s in my bag,” Conan said, pulling his scarf up higher.
Akai leaned on the doorframe, sipping his coffee. “He’s not infiltrating a black market arms deal. It’s elementary school.”
Rei shot him a look. “Have you seen how many kids are sneezing this week?”
“I am one of the sneezing kids,” Conan muttered, voice muffled.
Akai reached down to fix Conan’s scarf while Rei adjusted the straps on his backpack. The two men somehow danced around each other like magnets flipped the wrong way—snapping to Conan, never each other.
“I’ll be fine,” Conan grumbled, blushing under their fussing.
“You text if anyone so much as breathes on you,” Rei warned.
“And don’t eat anything off the cafeteria floor,” Akai added.
“…Why would I—?”
They walked him to school together anyway. Conan pretended not to notice when they lingered at the gates for a full five minutes watching him go.
-
The baking soda volcano exploded with more enthusiasm than it should have. A full meter-high foam geyser hit the ceiling, followed by screams, gasps, and the loud clatter of a folding table collapsing.
Conan stood at the center of the chaos, goggles askew.
“...Oops.”
Rei and Akai arrived precisely three minutes later.
“Is he bleeding?” Rei asked, crouching immediately.
“No,” Akai said. “Smoke detector’s fine. You owe me dinner.”
“I didn’t tell him to detonate a volcano, Akai.”
Conan winced. “It wasn’t that bad—”
Rei patted his head, wiping foam from his hair with a handkerchief. Akai tossed him a towel.
Later, they stood on either side of him while the teacher gently scolded him for “enthusiasm exceeding caution.”
Rei beamed proudly. Akai smirked behind his coffee. Conan was grounded from vinegar for a week.
-
One case too late, one night too long. Ran was gone for the weekend, and Conan ended up nodding off in Akai’s apartment, curled up on the couch with a hoodie two sizes too big.
Akai watched the kid sleep, then called Rei.
“I’m not waking him up,” he said.
“Then put a blanket over him,” Rei replied, already ringing the doorbell.
An hour later, all three of them were in the apartment. Conan dozed peacefully while Rei fussed with the thermostat and Akai brewed hot cocoa.
“Why does he trust us?” Rei murmured suddenly.
Akai glanced toward the couch. “Because we don’t lie to him.”
Rei nodded. “Strange how that matters more than anything else.”
Neither of them moved to leave.
-
The morning sun filtered into the quiet café. Akai sat at a table with his newspaper. Rei flipped pancakes in the kitchen.
Conan shuffled in, hair messy, eyes bleary.
“Morning,” he mumbled, rubbing one eye.
Rei handed him a plate without comment. Akai poured syrup.
They sat and ate like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“You’ve got crumbs on your face,” Rei said, wiping at Conan’s cheek with a napkin.
“You’re chewing too fast,” Akai added, pushing over a glass of milk.
“I can eat by myself,” Conan muttered, cheeks pink.
They both just smiled, the rare kind—soft, unguarded.
And Conan let himself eat like a kid, warm between two quiet guardians who, for all their bickering, were always there.
Not by plan. Not by duty.
Just because they cared.
-
The room was quiet—too quiet.
Not the quiet of peace, but the kind that settled in right after everything cracked open.
Conan sat on the edge of the couch, unusually still, his small hands clenched in his lap. The television played a soft news report, forgotten in the background.
Across from him, Rei stood by the window, arms folded, jaw tight. Akai leaned against the far wall, unreadable as ever, a cup of untouched coffee in his hand.
No one spoke for a long time.
Then Rei let out a sharp exhale. “Shinichi Kudō.”
Conan winced.
“I didn’t mean for you to find out like this,” he said quietly, voice thinner than it should’ve been—because this wasn’t about being caught, not really. It was about them.
Akai finally moved, setting the mug down on the table with a quiet click. His eyes settled on Conan—not narrowed in judgment, not cold, just…watching. Measuring the boy—the teen, really—he'd come to care about.
“You lied,” Rei said, turning toward him fully. “You lied for so long.”
Conan’s throat tightened. “I had to. It was safer—”
“You were a child.” Rei’s voice rose, but not with anger—with something more painful. “You were seventeen. You nearly died how many times pretending to be a seven-year-old?! Do you have any idea what that does to someone—?”
Akai stepped between them without a word. Not aggressively. Just…there. Buffer. Calm.
“He was protecting people,” Akai said, voice even. “It wasn’t right, but it was brave.”
Rei laughed bitterly. “Brave. Sure. Let’s hand out medals to teenagers playing secret agent with their lives.”
Conan looked down. “I didn’t want you two to find out. I didn’t want to lose—whatever this is.”
That’s what stopped Rei cold.
Because Conan—Shinichi—had never really asked for much. Not help. Not sympathy. Not even rest.
But this? This was a plea.
Don’t stop being my home.
Rei sat down slowly, the weight of it all dragging him forward. He rubbed a hand over his face, then looked at the boy—no, the young man—curled so small on that couch.
“I’m not mad that you lied,” he said at last. “I’m mad that you thought you had to do it all alone.”
Conan blinked. His throat felt too tight to answer.
Akai crouched down, resting one arm on his knee. “You’re not alone anymore. You hear me?”
“Even if I’m… not really a kid?” Conan asked, half a joke, half a flinch.
Rei leaned forward too, eyes gentler now. “You’re still our kid. That doesn’t change.”
“Ever,” Akai added.
Something in Conan crumbled. Not loudly. Just quietly, like snow giving way underfoot.
He pressed his sleeves to his eyes and tried not to cry.
Rei let him lean into his side, wrapping an arm around his back with a soft, “C’mere, baby.”
Akai’s hand settled on his head, fingers running through his hair in that steady, grounding way that never asked questions.
And for the first time in years—maybe ever—Shinichi Kudō let himself be held, not because he was pretending to be small, but because someone finally let him feel small.
Wanted.
Safe.
Home.