Chapter Text
With a sigh Conan sank deeper into the couch, putting the manga he was barely reading over his face. It was another utterly boring day at the Mouri detective agency. In fact, the last three weeks had been utterly boring. Kogorou barely got any cases, and the ones he did get were not intellectually challenging at all, as they were mostly about cheating spouses. Something the old man could do by himself.
As if that wasn’t enough, Kaitou Kid had yet to appear again. It was as if he’d just fallen off the face of the Earth; he even ignored two of Suzuki Jirokichi’s challenges. The rumor mill went wild, needless to say.
Conan couldn’t even hang out with the Detective Boys, as it was the summer holidays and somehow all three of them were on vacation somewhere with their families. And even when they were there, they had started to do things on their own, without Conan. He assumed it was because Mitsuhiko and Genta still had that childish crush on Ayumi, while Ayumi was infatuated with Conan, so the boys wanted to drag her away from him. Conan also tried to reign them in during cases, which they always hated. He was sure they would view it differently once they got older, but right now they were angry whenever he told them to stay away from somewhere. So it wasn’t surprising that they went off on their own.
It was all good and well to Conan. He loved the kids, but after two years of being stuck as one, his frustration only kept growing. And the Detective Boys just reminded him of it. It wasn’t their fault, of course, and he didn’t blame them for it. He still was glad for every day he didn’t have to spend with them, even if it was boring.
Haibara was holed up more and more in her lab, working on a permanent antidote to their predicament. She used to say that she wouldn’t mind not being cured and growing up with the kids, but she’d seemingly changed her mind on that. Conan tried not to think about the last day at school before the summer vacation, when their heights had been measured once more; he still hadn’t grown a millimeter ever since he’d woken up in this body, and it was becoming concerning. He tried not to think about the implications and Haibara’s shift in behavior too much, since every time he asked her about it, she just called him an idiot.
So Conan spent most of his days at the detective agency, waiting for an interesting case to come along. Sometimes Ran would drag him with her to meet with Sonoko and Sera, but he felt like the third wheel. Not only because he was a child tagging along to a girl’s day out, but also because it was becoming increasingly obvious that there was something going on between Sera and Ran. And he was glad for it; it had hit Ran pretty hard when he broke up with her. He just couldn’t stand making her wait any longer, lying to her like he had been for the past two years. And, he had to admit, his feelings towards her had also changed. So much so that he couldn’t even say anymore if he was ever even in love with her to begin with.
He was glad for the blossoming romance between Ran and Sera. He just felt like he didn’t belong. He shouldn’t be there, even if Ran didn’t know. Sera did, though, and he could also do without her looks. She seemingly shared the sentiment of him being an intruder.
But today, even Ran had nowhere to be, so it again fell to her to welcome clients, something that more and more annoyed Conan; Kogorou treated her like his live-in maid. The longer he lived with Ran, the more he realized how much unpaid and unappreciated work she did every day. And he remembered how much she’d done for Shinichi on top of that; cooking for him, making sure he ate and rested, even cleaning his house. He felt guilty about it and resolved to make amends, as soon as he figured out how. Cleaning his own house for a start, maybe.
Conan vaguely heard the door open. “Welcome! Please come in—oh? Nakamori-keibu?” He shot up as soon as he heard the name, the manga falling unceremoniously to the floor.
“Keibu!” Conan said excitedly and didn’t care that he sounded like an actual child without meaning to. “Did Kid send a notice?”
Nakamori, still standing by the open door, grimaced. “No, I’m just here to accompany her,” he said and pointed a thumb over his shoulder. Before anyone could anything else, a young woman stormed forward towards Kogorou’s desk and slammed both hands onto it, looking at the man so fiercely that he dropped his newspaper.
“Mouri-tantei! I need you to find a missing person,” she exclaimed.
Kogorou looked at her in shock, although Conan wasn’t sure whether this was because of her action or because she resembled Ran to a frightening degree. They looked so similar that they could’ve been cousins.
Kogorou cleared his throat. “I’ll gladly take the case, but isn’t that more something for the police?” He looked past her towards Nakamori, who’d come in and sat down on the couch opposite Conan, lighting his pipe. He grumbled.
“That’s my daughter Aoko. She hasn’t seen her friend in two days and—”
“Otou-san! You know it’s not like Kaito to just disappear. And he’s not answering his phone either,” Aoko said sternly, facing her father with her hands on her hips. She might have looked like Ran, but her energy resembled Sonoko. Conan briefly thought that he really didn’t want to be on the receiving end of her anger.
“His parents are gone as well; they probably went on vacation on a whim.” Nakamori waved a hand dismissively. “The whole family is insane after all,” he muttered under his breath.
“Or they left to go looking for him.” Aoko angrily narrowed her eyes at him before turning back to Kogorou. “Tantei-san, please look into this! I know something happened! Kaito would never just vanish like that without telling Aoko!”
Kogorou sat up and cleared his throat again, seemingly uncomfortable. “Well, I’m sorry to say, but I don’t do pro bono work.” Conan gave him a flat look; he absolutely did, at least for Okino Yooko and similarly famous and beautiful women.
“Otou-san is paying,” Aoko said matter-of-factly. Nakamori only grumbled in response.
“Okay, then I will happily look into your friend’s disappearance,” Kogorou said, casting a smirk at Nakamori, who angrily puffed his pipe.
“Thank you, Mouri-tantei! Here, I’ve already written all the relevant information down. And there’s also a photo of him.” Aoko reached into the bag hanging from her shoulder and pulled out a paper folder, which she handed to Kogorou.
Ran had just finished serving everyone tea and was quietly standing behind her father. When he opened the folder and she saw the photo of Kaito, she gasped in surprise. She put a hand over her mouth in embarrassment when everyone turned to look at her.
“Do you know him?” Kogorou asked her.
She shook her head. “No, sorry. It’s just... at first glance, he looks a lot like Shinichi.” Kogorou frowned and went back to the folder, now reading the information Aoko had written out.
Meanwhile Conan had joined Ran and tried to get a look at the folder and picture, annoyed by her comment. Sure, she hadn’t seen Shinichi in a while, but did she just forgot what he looked like so quickly?
Except, he had to give her a pass when he saw the photo for himself; this guy really did look like him a lot, at least if you didn’t pay attention too much. Something tugged at the back of his mind when he saw the grin on the guy’s face and those deep blue eyes, but Conan couldn’t grasp it right now. He pushed it away for the time being to focus on the case. A missing person was a tad more interesting than unfaithful husbands.
“His father came back unexpectedly?” Conan piped up when he read the info. The name rang some distant bell as well, he could swear he’d heard it before; Kuroba Touichi.
“Mh,” Aoko nodded, “he was presumed dead about ten years ago and recently came back to the surprise of everyone. I don’t know what happened exactly, Kaito didn’t want to talk about it.”
“What happened back then?” Dodging the swing of the old man, Conan walked around the desk to stand next to the couch Aoko was now sitting on.
“Magic trick gone wrong,” Nakamori answered instead, voice grim. “Everything burned. It was assumed that he burned as well.”
“Magic?” That was it! Now he remembered where he’d heard the name before; Kuroba Touichi used to be a famous magician back in the day. He’d heard the name from multiple people. One was his mother: she mentioned she’d gotten lessons in acting and disguising from him. Another was Kaitou Kid, oddly enough: Conan was sure he’d once mentioned that Kuroba was his favorite magician, back at the magician’s gathering, when he was disguised as med student Doitou Katsuki.
Kaitou Kid? That couldn’t be...
Ignoring his protests, Conan ripped the folder out of Kogorou’s hands and took another look at Kuroba Kaito’s photo.
A magician that was skilled in the art of disguise with a connection to Kaitou Kid? That was odd enough already, but it could’ve been a coincidence; Kid was a magician himself, he was bound to have a favorite, right?
But this guy... No, Conan was sure of it. He’d seen this face so many times, and the resemblance to Shinichi did the rest: He was looking at Kaitou Kid’s civilian identity.
He barely registered Kogorou picking him up and shoving him away, and cared even less. He absent-mindedly walked away and pulled out his phone. After cross-referencing Touichi’s supposed date of death and the time when the first Kaitou Kid disappeared, he had no doubt about who he was as well. But why had he been gone for ten years? Had he faked his own death? Hid somewhere? But why? Or had the accident somehow left him with amnesia? Unrecognizable maybe?
Conan could feel his fingertips tingling with the intrigue of a new mystery.