Post by Mikauzoran on Mar 21, 2015 2:49:33 GMT
Summary: Set in the A Light in the Darkness timeline. Pairing: none, but it could be KaiShin if you squint a little bit. There's a shoe sale at Haido City Shopping Mall. Kaito is hoping to find the perfect pair of stilettos, only he comes face to face with a murder instead. Surrounded by police with no ID and wearing a face that is not his own, Kaito is in serious trouble. And will Edogawa Conan's arrival on the scene spell Kaito's destruction or salvation? Will the detective help the thief out or put the final nail in his coffin?
Distress Flare Kaito didn’t know why he had such a bad feeling when he rolled out of bed that Saturday morning. Okay, so the whole week had been crap what with the continued deterioration of his relationship with Aoko, woman that he loved, but…today was supposed to be the day that he went out there and changed his recent string of bad luck.
Today, Kaito was going shopping.
His favorite shoe store over at the Haido City Shopping Mall was having a sale, and he planned to buy at least eight new pairs. Though, honestly, the list was quickly growing as he thought of item after item currently missing from his wardrobe.
Some people ate their feelings. Kaito bought women’s shoes.
…Yes. He was well aware that he should probably see someone about that. Thank you.
And yet…he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen as he made a quick breakfast out of the leftover rice.
After he’d finished his omraisu, Kaito hopped in the shower, and then it was off to the guestroom where he kept his…well, his other closet.
Part of the fun of going shoe shopping was getting dressed up for it. Kaito was seriously looking forward to donning his little mini skirt and scandalous halter-top.
Half an hour of primping and perfecting his disguise later, he was ready to go, indistinguishable from an actual woman. Today he was playing the role of Candy Jones, an American here for summer vacation. She was twenty-two, blonde, and had the most beautiful navy blue eyes that colored contacts could provide. Her IQ was negligible, and her hobbies included partying and dancing on tables. She currently had three boyfriends.
Kaito really enjoyed dressing up as a slut because it was a true test of his skill. Either he pulled it off or he failed miserably. With such skimpy clothing, there was nothing for him to hide behind. He liked feeling vulnerable and exposed like that. He liked the thrill of danger. And he felt the most sense of accomplishment when he saw that look on other men’s faces, the look that read, “That is the hottest chick I have ever seen.” Pulling off “skank” made Kaito feel victorious.
One last time, Kaito adjusted his cleavage to keep it from popping out all over the place, tugged his skirt down just a bit to keep his lacey thong from showing too much, checked his cherry red lipstick in the mirror, and then he was ready to go.
Action.
...
It was better than Kaito ever could have hoped. The selection was magnificent! They had dozens of styles in at least fifty different colors!!! And the prices were reasonable! And they were all buy one get one half off!
Kaito almost cried tears of joy, but that would have been out of character for Candy. Instead he gave a little happy squeal and sauntered off to get down to the business of shopping.
It was still early, and the store wasn’t quite busy yet. Kaito had about an hour before the rush would come, and that was just enough time to get in, luxuriate in the sight, smell, and feel of new shoes, and then get out before the crowd came.
As it stood, there were only about ten other people there at the little shop, not including the staff. The aisles were tiny, and the store wasn’t laid out very well, so Kaito had to squeeze by the other customers in order to get to his section. Kaito automatically counted them out of habit as he passed. He was used to counting cops while in disguise, so…
There was a little old couple, bickering lovingly. The wife was trying to convince her husband to get a bigger size since his feet swelled, but he wouldn’t hear of it. There was a young woman just a few years older than Candy there by herself, picking out low heels, presumably for work. A little gaggle of teenage girls was in aisle three, kya-kya-ing over some boots that Kaito really hoped they had in his size. There was a weird, creeper-looking guy over in the men’s section dressed all in black and having a serious internal debate over a pair of oxfords. He couldn’t decide if he wanted the mahogany pair or the tan. Go for mahogany, Bro. And then there was a pair of young women, again, somewhere around twenty-seven, trying to find a pair of wedges in the skinnier of the two’s size. Kaito crossed his fingers for a pair that fit him as well. Those were super cute and just perfect for the dress he’d bought the other day.
Darn his enormous feet. Well, they were actually a little small for a Japanese male, but they were on the large size for a Japanese woman, and since he was buying women’s shoes… He just wished he could wear a smaller size, is all.
At least he had the section pretty much to himself. And it was nice to have full use of that cramped aisle so that he could strut and prance, trying out the new shoes before deciding that they were worthy of adding to his collection.
Kaito did a little turn, checking out the cute pair of pumps in the small mirror on the side of the bench. It was really only tall enough to give him a good view of his ankles and calves, not a full body shot, but…man. He had some seriously sexy ankles and calves.
Kaito held in a chortle at this revelation. Instead he giggled in character. It kind of came out sounding like Akako’s signature “Hohoho”, but he could live with that. Man, he was hot!
Kaito paused his egocentric narcissism fest as the perfect pair of stilettos came into sight. They were harlot scarlet and unreasonably, break-your-neck-falling-off-of-these tall, and he had to have them. Only they seemed to run a bit big. He’d need a smaller size, which meant he had to go back to the previous aisle.
He turned the corner just in time to see the OL who had been searching for shoes she could work in crumpling on the ground not three feet in front of Kaito, blood soaking the front of her blouse. There was a knife sticking out of her chest at an odd angle, probably piercing one of her lungs. Her eyes were wide in shock and pain, and she reached out to Kaito, making a small, strangled rasping sound before she stopped moving all together.
Several things happened at around the same time. Kaito wasn’t really sure of the order, but he fell. He probably took a step back first. That would make more sense because he remembered taking a step back, and it would be unnatural to fall first and then take the step back. And one of the heels broke off of his shoes. They were super tall, and the heel was very skinny, so when he stepped back...
Okay, so the order was probably: Kaito took a startled step back, and the heel of his shoe snapped, sending him falling to the ground…where the blood was beginning to pool. Where the young woman’s corpse was lying, staring sightlessly at him, face contorted in…fear…pain…anger?
Suddenly images of a theatre aflame played before his eyes. The smell of smoke and ash filled his lungs, making them burn. The theatre was collapsing. He was eight years old, and his mother was beside him shrieking, face twisted in fear, pain, anger. Flames engulfed the stage, gorging themselves on his father’s props, his father’s body buried under the fallen beams. The audience, now a mob much like a frightened, stampeding herd, pressed on all sides, and Kaito was afraid he’d be crushed. People were screaming.
Kaito was the one screaming.
And who should come running but Edogawa Conan? The detective took one look at the scene and cursed under his breath. He turned to Kaito and said something.
But Kaito’s ears were still ringing with the sinister sounds of lapping, laughing flames, and he couldn’t hear. He tried to read the other boy’s lips, but he couldn’t focus.
Suddenly Tantei-kun was gone, probably off to order around the cashiers and the mall security to ensure that no one got in or out.
And then Kaito wasn’t entirely sure what happened. He’d probably fainted. The next thing he knew, he was sitting on one of the benches with a cool towel on the back of his neck, and the police were swarming the place.
Kaito mentally cursed. He’d been totally off guard, and that was why the sight of the…well, it wasn’t even a corpse. Corpses were still hard for him to handle, but he could handle it through sheer willpower and poker face. What he’d seen was a woman die. That…that was a hundred times more traumatic, watching the life drain away from her, watching as it faded from her eyes. That…was going to haunt him for a few months…if not longer. Kaito was really, really bad with death.
Still. He was angry with himself for letting it affect him so much that he had completely blacked out. He was in disguise. True, he wasn’t doing anything wrong this time, but…he was in disguise, and he had to be more vigilant.
I mean, just look at the mess he was in. There were police officers in droves, and they were going to start asking questions. Like, “Who are you?”
Well, Kaito was Candy Jones right now. Only she didn’t actually exist. He had no ID, and they were going to ask for it, and they were going to get suspicious because they were going to find out “Candy Jones” didn’t exist. And suspicious people that weren’t actually who they were pretending to be often got blamed for crimes. Especially when they had been the ones to find the body.
And they were going to take him to the station and fingerprint him and put him in jail and find out about the whole cross-dressing thing and discover his true identity, and…
Dammit. He was going to get put away for life all because it was socially unacceptable for Kuroba Kaito to buy women’s shoes. He was being discriminated against. There needed to be a social movement or something. He was being deprived of his rights.
Kaito forced his mind to slow down and focus. He shoved all of the useless chatter out of his head and concentrated on forming a plan. How was he going to get out of this? How was he going to escape without rousing the suspicion of the police…along with the added challenge of dodging Tantei-kun as well?
He sighed. All he could think was, “Crap. I’m completely and utterly screwed.”
And now the police were looking at him. They kept glancing at him and talking.
That wasn’t good.
And then Megure-keibu cleared his throat and called out, “Is there anyone here that speaks English? Anyone who could translate?”
Kaito blinked. He spoke English, but he didn’t really want to draw more attention to himself by volunteering, but if they really needed a translator…if some poor foreigner was hurt or in trouble and needed help understanding…
Luckily, Tantei-kun raised his hand and reported that he’d spent a lot of his fictional childhood in the states.
Megure blinked but quickly accepted Conan’s services, asking the kid to go over and see what that young lady had to say about what happened. They’d go themselves, but they didn’t want to crowd her since she seemed to be recovering from a pretty advanced stage of shock.
And Kaito was a little confused. What young lady? Megure had pointed over in Kaito’s direction, but…Oh. OH. Haha. Right. Candy Jones. Get it together and get into character, Kuroba.
The shrunken detective approached, all soft, disarming smiles. He greeted Kaito in a gentle voice. “Hi, Miss. How are you feeling?”
“Frankly? Sick. Dizzy and kind of like I need to go throw up. You?” Kaito replied honestly in Candy’s voice.
“I’m okay. Thanks,” Conan replied in his childish, slightly accented English. “Miss, the police want to know what you saw. Did you just find the body, or…she was still warm when I got there not even a minute after I heard you scream, so…it couldn’t have been long. Could you tell me what you saw?”
Kaito opened his mouth to reply, but then he thought better of it. If he were a key witness, he’d have to appear in court. They’d do a background check on him and…once again, he’d be locked away just because he couldn’t resist a sale.
It wasn’t like Kaito had seen anything of importance anyway.
Scrunching his eyes closed as the scene of the OL writhing and dying on the floor, blood seeping into the carpet, played once more on his eyelids. He shook his head and insisted, “I didn’t see anything.”
Conan’s face hardened, and he scanned Kaito: the body language, the tone of voice, every micro-expression, all the little details that a normal person would miss. He looked at Kaito and read him like a neon sign screaming “LIAR!”
And yet he didn’t press. He simply replied, “Okay. Well, let me know if you remember anything, Miss, and I’ll tell the police. You never know what could be helpful. Even if it doesn’t seem important to you, it could be the key to solving the murder and getting closure for that girl’s family.”
And that was all Conan had to say to set his hook in Kaito’s heart.
Because that OL had a family that deserved to know who killed their daughter, their sister, their wife, their mother. That family deserved to know what happened, and Kaito had seen the Meitantei put the whole puzzle together going off of nothing more than a speck of dust before. Maybe Kaito had seen something after all. It might not seem like anything of importance to him, but…he had long ago accepted that Kudo Shinichi saw things that other people didn’t.
At that point, having said his peace, Conan turned to leave, off to give a brief report to Megure before beginning his own investigation.
“W-Wait,” Kaito whispered, reaching out and catching Conan by the shoulder. “Tantei-kun…wait.”
Conan froze, slowly turning to face “Candy” once more. His eyes widened in recognition this time, and he hissed under his breath, “KID?! What the hell are you doing here?!”
“In English,” Kaito whispered back, still in Candy’s voice in case they were overheard. “I don’t speak Japanese.” Kaito looked at his shrunken rival mournfully. “And I was shoe shopping. There was a sale.”
Conan frowned disapprovingly.
“Hey! I’m a legitimate customer!” Kaito whined, thoroughly insulted. “Did I send a heist notice? No. I wasn’t stealing anything. I was just…I needed some new high heels to go with some outfits I just bought, so…and I can’t very well go shopping for women’s shoes as a man, can I? So…here I am, parading around in hooker-wear, pretending to be someone I’m not with no ID at the scene of a murder to which I’m probably the primary suspect.”
“But you didn’t do it,” Conan replied calmly, and it was a statement, not a question.
“No, I didn’t,” Kaito confirmed in a small voice, squeezing his legs together, rounding his shoulders and making himself as small as he could.
He felt weak—physically and mentally. He was tired, drained. All of his confidence had gone out from him, and he was scared. His poker face was cracking. He knew he shouldn’t show his distress in front of his…whatever Tantei-kun was, but…he felt lost and alone, the images from those terrible flashbacks of his father’s death still playing in his mind.
For once his disguise made him feel defenseless. He felt naked, and he just wanted to cover himself up so that Tantei-kun couldn’t see him. He had nothing to work with, no tools, no plan. He tried to fight back this defeatist attitude that had overtaken him, but he found himself drowning in the waves of despair. It was all over. He was lost. He had lost.
“I’m going to prove it,” Conan stated with all the confidence that Kaito just wasn’t feeling right now.
Kaito blinked, false eyelashes inadvertently batting. “What?”
“I’m going to prove that you didn’t do it,” Conan announced in his funny-sounding English.
Kaito, mind still addled, stared at the detective, utterly nonplussed. “How?”
“I’m going to find the real culprit,” he responded matter-of-factly, as if he did this every Saturday.
“H-How?” The situation seemed so hopeless.
“You’re going to tell me everything you saw, heard, smelled, and tasted since you entered that shop, and then I’m going to put the clues together,” Conan reported.
The way he said it, how could Kaito help but believe in him? But…
Kaito winced as the memories of the dying girl, the fire at the theatre came rushing back at him with all the intensity of the blaze that had stolen his father from him that night.
Trembling, he screwed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I-I can’t. I can’t. I didn’t see anything.”
“Of course you did.” Conan rolled his eyes, thinking nothing of Kid’s theatrics, assuming that the thief was only playing the part. “You have an eidetic memory. You’re the best witness I could ever ask for; you saw everything. Now stop play acting and tell me what you saw.”
“I-I…I didn’t…it happened so fast. I knew something was wrong, and I tried to tell my mom. I had seen that trick hundreds of times, but…something wasn’t right, and there was an explosion,” Kaito muttered, eyes wide in terror as the events of that night unfolded right before them yet again. He didn’t even see Conan anymore. “And Dad…the beams fell. They crashed on top of him, and everything was on fire, and the screaming…the screaming…the crowd was…and I thought I was going to be trampled, but—”
Finally realizing that something was seriously wrong, Conan tried to snap Kaito out of it.
“—H-Hey. Hey, Kid. Hey, look at me.” He took the thief’s face in his hands and made what he hopped where soothing noises. “Kid, you’re alright. You’re okay,” he tried while Kaito continued to blather almost incoherently, shaking violently.
Conan got up on the bench beside the thief and patted him on the back, continuing the shushing noises while making calming circles with the palm of his hand.
Kaito seemed to respond to that, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths, coming back into awareness of the present.
“Okay?” Conan hesitantly inquired when it looked like Kaito had settled down from his panic attack…number two of the day.
Kaito shook his head, ashamed that he had let his rival see him fall to pieces. He was supposed to be the indomitable Kaitou Kid, but…he was acting more like “Candy Jones” at the moment.
Conan bit his lip as he awkwardly withdrew, hopping down from the bench and giving Kid some space. This investigation wasn’t going to go anywhere quickly without Kid’s input, though, so he needed the thief to talk. The police had already scoured the scene, and they hadn’t found much. Conan himself had taken a look, but with such heavy foot traffic in the mall…the security cameras in the shop weren’t even real, and there hadn’t been physical evidence beyond the knife left behind. The suspects, if you could call them suspects, had nothing in common with the victim. They didn’t have much to go on, so if Kid could just tell him what he had seen—something! Anything! The slightest clue would be welcome. Only…Kid didn’t appear able to talk at the moment.
With a sigh, Conan mumbled, “You really do have an eidetic memory, huh?”
“Yeah. Lucky me,” Kaito sighed, more tired than ever. One thing was for certain: he was too weak to escape now.
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Conan was silent in thought for a moment. He needed Kid to get it together. He needed the thief to tell him what he knew, but that wasn’t going to happen with the phantom in this condition.
“Your English has improved dramatically since the last time I heard you use it,” he remarked off-handedly, catching Kaito by surprise. “You sound really natural. Sort of British, but…”
“Thanks. I’ve had private lessons.” Kaito smiled softly at the memories of England and Saguru’s family.
“You have an excellent tutor, then,” Conan continued, trying to draw Kaito’s attention away from present events, get him to calm down.
“Her Grace, Charlotte Griffin, 12th Baroness FitzHerbert of Eastwell and the world-renown fashion mogul Helen Griffin; two of the best, I’d say,” Kaito chuckled proudly.
Conan’s jaw came crashing to the hideous brown/orange/yellow/green (puke-colored) carpet. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
Kaito shook his head. “Haku-chan’s been taking me to England with him on weekends and holidays, so I learn from his gran and his mum respectively.”
The look of incredulity on Conan’s face morphed slightly into exasperated suspicion. “He takes you home to visit his family?”
Kaito nodded, thinking nothing of it.
“…Are you two…? You know…?” The thought of his colleague shacking up with the thief they were chasing made Conan’s hair stand on end.
“We’re in love!” Kaito teased, giggling.
Conan tried to contain a whole-body-shiver, but he was not successful.
And Kaito laughed some more. “No. But seriously. We’re close, but…he’s my long-lost brother. Nothing kinky. You have such a dirty mind, Tantei-kun.”
Conan’s expression soured, but he then realized that his companion was laughing and smiling again, acting more or less normal…as far as Kid went.
Now might be a good time to try again with the questioning…or maybe he’d just send the thief into another panic attack, but…
“Hey,” he called softly, getting Kid’s attention. “Look, I need you to do something for me.”
Kaito cocked his head to the side.
“I want to get you out of here, but I need your help to do that, okay?” Conan cast him a serious look, meeting his eyes. “I’m not going to ask you anything about the victim, okay? So don’t even think about that.”
Kid’s face started to turn blue.
“Stay right here with me, okay?” Conan instructed in a voice that demanded attention and obedience. “Stay here, and focus. I just need you to look over there at the suspects. Over there by the police. See those nine people? Can you tell me, did you see them before in the shop?”
Kaito glanced at them and nodded, recounting how he had passed each one of them, what they had been doing, what they’d been saying.
At parts Conan frowned, focusing on the facts in evidence, sorting through them to see what might be important. After a minute of reflection, when he had cemented the scene before the murder in his mind, he asked, “Do they look any different now than they did then? Has anything changed?”
Kaito took a deep breath before setting about the task at hand. He scanned the suspects: the elderly couple, the gaggle of high school girls, the pair of young women…
And then it occurred to him: “The man in black is missing.”
Conan froze as if the air had been knocked out of him. “What did he look like?!”
Kaito jumped at the sudden desperation and ferocity with which his prospective savior was questioning him. “Uh…I…” Kaito tried to call up a mental image, but it was all fuzzy. “I don’t know. He was just a creeper. You know. Black shades, upturned collar, black hat. He was probably thirty. Pretty slender but wearing bulky clothes despite the fact that it’s the beginning of August. He was debating over which pair of oxfords to buy, but…he didn’t look suspicious or anything. He didn’t have a weapon on him. He was just your garden variety creeper.”
“You’re sure? How could you tell?” Conan demanded, not ready to let go of this possible link to the Organization yet.
Kaito’s expression slowly turned grim. “Believe me. You learn how to tell. It’s something I subconsciously check for. He wasn’t suspicious, and he didn’t have a weapon.”
Conan pursed his lips for a minute and then let them go with a pop. “Okay. Anything else?”
Kaito nodded. “Nothing much. I don’t think it’s significant, but…those two women. The skinny one had a handkerchief hanging out of her bag before. I don’t remember the shade exactly, but it was dark. And then the less skinny one was wearing different shoes. They look practically the same, but the ones she was wearing before didn’t have bows on them.”
Conan’s ears seemed to prick up at this, but before Kaito could ask what was up, the schoolyard sleuth was off like a bottle rocket, on the scent.
Twenty minutes later, Conan had led the police by their noses through the investigation without them suspecting a thing…or perhaps they were used to it by now and were merely playing their role without question so long as the murder got solved. The two women were arrested. The shoes and handkerchief had been found in a nearby trashcan, covered in blood.
And apparently Kaito was free to go. Conan had resolutely proclaimed that “Candy” had seen nothing, knew nothing. She wasn’t a witness, merely the unlucky girl who had found the body.
And they believed the shrunken sleuth. Despite the fact that Conan had been talking to Candy for nearly fifteen minutes. Conan maintained that Candy had nothing to do with the case. No one questioned Conan. No one tried to question Candy either.
The crowd slowly dispersed, and Kaito was left alone on his little bench, staring unseeing at a wall of shoes that just didn’t excite him the way they had an hour ago.
Kaito sat there for a while, drained and without the desire to move. He wished for the ability to teleport. He just wanted to go home and curl up in his bed. Shadows of the past were still flickering at the edges of his mind, and he wanted to go home and drug himself to sleep to make it all go away, keep himself from the bad dreams that were sure to plague him for this and many of the following nights to come.
A jacket hit him in the face.
Kaito blinked, jerking back to life at the assault.
Tantei-kun was standing in front of him looking…tsundere.
“I bought you a jacket. Put it on,” he commanded, looking away and blushing as if now that the case was over, for the first time he was realizing and taking into account what Kaito was wearing.... More his lack of coverage than anything.
“Does my sex appeal bother you, Tantei-kun?” Kaito laughed, causing the detective to bristle like a cat faced with the bathtub.
“What s-sex appeal?” Conan stumbled over the word in his embarrassment, pointedly not looking at Kaito’s overflowing bosom or plainly visible thong. “You’re dressed like a prostitute. Don’t you have any self-respect? I mean, do you really want guys ogling you like a piece of meat? You don’t have to walk around half naked to get people to look at you and think you’re attractive. If it’s attention you want, you’re asking for the wrong kind, and I know you can take care of yourself, but bad things happen to young women who walk around alone dressed like that. You’re inviting trouble, whether it’s just punks harassing you, gropers on trains, or even rapists.” Conan stuck his hands in his pockets, still looking off to the side as he lectured. “If you want attention, cover up a little and save something for the imagination. Inner beauty is more attractive than your slutty outfit, so…put that jacket on already.”
Kaito stared solemnly at his rival, taking in the words—the admonishment along with the concern. “Inner beauty, huh?” he mumbled, looking down at the jacket in his lap before deciding to put it on.
He held his tongue as the thought, “…But I’m ugly on the inside” came to mind.
“Come on.” Once again, Conan’s voice pulled him from his morose thoughts. “You look like hell. There’s a café about six shops down and around the corner. For today only I won’t arrest you, and I’ll buy you…a hot chocolate…and a pastry. Whatever you want, so come on.” Conan turned and began to walk away, leaving Kaito without a lot of time to determine what he wanted to do.
Thoughts of “Why are you being so nice to me? This is about my mental breakdown earlier, isn’t it? You’re just doing this out of pity, aren’t you?” and “Kuroba, you shouldn’t let your guard down around your rival. He could change his mind and have you arrested in a second. You’re in danger. Why do you trust him so much? You’re a fool, Kuroba.” flooded Kaito’s mind, but he pushed them aside. He didn’t have the energy for sorting through that mess at the moment.
Instead, he stood up to follow because he knew that he could really use that cup of hot chocolate and a sympathetic ear. He wasn’t ready to go home and be alone yet, and it looked like Tantei-kun was feeling merciful today. Kaito decided to take advantage of his…friendly rival’s charitable mood.
The
End
End