Chapter Text
Conan couldn't sleep.
This, in itself, was admittedly not exactly peculiar. He'd had trouble falling asleep even before he had become Conan in the first place, and since, it hadn't gotten any better for him. It didn't even help that his tiny body still fatigued faster than he liked, and did, indeed, need more sleep.
What was peculiar, however, even to him, was what he was losing sleep over.
Kaitou KID's last heist had been two days ago, and it had been too easy. The note, delivered to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police HQ by a personal courier that had left as quickly as they had appeared, had been so obvious, even Mouri had figured it out correctly by himself: The heist had taken place fairly close by the detective agency, at eight pm, on a Saturday, aimed at some small diamond in the possession of a local jewelry.
It had felt suspiciously much like KID had done everything he could to ensure Conan could and would be there. He had missed the previous heist only a few weeks prior, due to it taking place at midnight in the middle of the week. Ran had spent the entire night around Conan to make sure he wouldn’t be able to sneak out.
The heist itself had felt rushed; KID had appeared, taken the diamond from the severely underprepared owner of the jewelry, and had disappeared again, without any grand schemes, almost no flourishes. No pranks.
And when Conan had found KID in an empty storage room on the second floor of the building, rather than on the roof where Nakamori had expected him, KID had seemed uncharacteristically serious.
Not that KID wasn't always serious; but he was so with a smirk, a playful tease on his lips, and a seemingly relaxed posture. Usually with his cape whirling behind him dramatically, just for the theatrics of it.
When Conan had found KID that day, he'd been in dark street clothes, with a baseball cap shadowing his face as he sat on the windowsill to read through several documents in the sparse light the almost set sun provided.
KID had held up a hand, then, when Conan had entered, as though to say, give me a second. And Conan had stopped.
"Meitantei," KID had said, quietly, somewhat distracted, as he had dropped his empty hand to hold the papers in place. He had scribbled something on the bottom of the documents, had rolled them together, and had put them on the inside pocket of his plain jacket before finally turning to face Conan.
"I have a question," he had continued, and against the dim light coming through the window behind him, with the baseball cap pulled low into his face, Conan hadn't been able to make out any expression KID may have given.
"Say, is it true you know sign language?"
Conan had honestly startled. KID's own hands had been in the pockets of his dark jeans as he asked, and hadn't moved from there, and Conan had instantly tried to recall every other moment of the night's heist. He tried to recall what KID's hands had done the few moments around when the diamond was stolen; he hadn't signed something, had he? Conan had had his eyes on KID most of the time, until he had determined where KID would escape to, and he hadn't seen anyone else--
KID had let out something like a faint chuckle that had sounded more like a tired sigh, and Conan had focused on him again.
"Can I take that as a yes?" he had asked, and Conan still didn't know what had compelled him to reply. To say yes, but why, like he had actually expected to get an answer.
He hadn't gotten one. In a gush of wind, the window behind KID had opened, and he had fallen backwards out of it and had disappeared, just like that.
Conan had known there'd be no use, but he'd run up to the window anyway, had pulled himself onto the sill, and had stared out after him.
There had been, of course, no trace.
It had been two days, and Conan was still mulling it over.
He had seen no one making even vague signs with their hands at the heist, neither KID himself nor any potential accomplices. So he started going back. Pulled memories of past heists, past times he had encountered KID even outside of the specific settings the thief had set. Anything. But he couldn't recall a time any kind of sign language might have been involved, neither Japanese nor any other one Conan would be able to recognize.
Conan sighed to himself, inaudible over Kogoro's snoring in the bed next to his, and resigned himself to another night spent thinking over past cases, trying to remember anything he might have missed.
This went on for another week, and Conan was so tired.
Ran picked up on it first, her protective instincts ever honed on him. She offered to make him tea, made Kogoro sleep on the couch in the office downstairs, and tried to talk to him several times when nothing seemed to help. She asked about nightmares, about school, about his friends. Conan, of course, couldn't give any useful replies. No one knew he had let KID go that night, despite having had a chance to try and stop him; no one even knew they had met.
So all Conan could offer Ran were excuses that grew weaker by the day, about how he had just gotten to think about a lot lately, or the like.
It all came down on him on Monday morning, a bit over a week after KID's last heist.
Conan's patience was wearing thin; the Shounen Tantei-dan, of course, had picked up on his ever-growing weariness, and were just as worried as Ran about it. They prodded him all the way to school, with Ayumi offering hugs, Mitsuhiko trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for his lack of sleep and what might help him, and Genta offering to have a stern talk with whichever classmate was giving him a hard time.
Conan was about to snap when Haibara, as they swapped their street shoes for their school shoes, leaned in, saying Kudou-kun not as a question, but in that conspiring tone of hers as though she already knew everything that was going on.
He all but glared at Haibara, though, and hurried into their classroom, to get to his seat and wait for his blissfully boring class to start; except he barely even got as much as through the door.
Ayumi bumped into him when he stopped in his tracks, but he didn't care too much and didn’t reply to her worried “Conan-kun…?” behind him; his eyes caught on the teenager standing in front of the blackboard, dressed in Teitan High School's uniform, with a polite smile on his face as he exchanged some words with their teacher. The teenager's eyes, halfway hidden behind an unruly mess of dark hair, snapped over to Conan the moment he appeared in the doorway. And Conan just stopped.
He had never actually seen KID's face completely unobstructed before, but a monocle or the shadow of a base cap could only hide so much.
Still, somehow, the instant recognition that flickered through him didn't quite feel right.
What would KID even be doing here, in Conan's elementary school; his class, even? What kind of plot was this going to be?
"Good morning, Conan-kun," his teacher said, then, pulling him out of his thoughts, when she noticed him. "Come here for a moment, please."
Conan could feel Haibara's eyes boring into the back of his head when he took a deep breath, put on a carefully neutral face, and went to join his teacher.
Around her desk, hidden as much as he could behind the teenager's - KID's - legs, Conan was surprised to find yet another, this time completely unknown face. A boy, roughly his height and the age to fit in with the rest of the class, with black hair as messy as the teenager's and bright green eyes wet with unshed tears, was clinging to KID's uniform pants with all his might, looking at him like a deer caught in headlights.
Conan frowned.
"Conan-kun," his teacher said then, smiling down at him with that strained, somewhat forced smile she often seemed to wear when she had to deal with one of her strangely mature-acting and scarily smart top students. "Conan-kun, this is Kuroba Kenichi," she continued, gesturing at the terrified boy, "He will join our class from today on. And his brother Kaito-kun here" - she waved a hand at KID, who was still wearing that politely fake smile himself - "says you know sign language? You see, Kenichi-kun here can't speak, so he needs someone to translate."
Conan blinked, dumbfounded. He looked from the boy, up at KID, and back at the boy. Something in his brain clicked together.
Ah.
"Conan-kun?" his teacher asked carefully after a few seconds. Conan turned to look at her.
"...ah," he voiced his eloquent thoughts as he had to hold back a sarcastic bite at KID, and added with an all-too cheery laugh in his voice, "Yes, I do. Know sign language. I can translate."
Kenichi's hands seemed to relax around KID's leg, and when Conan looked up at him, KID himself let out a sigh that seemed all too relieved. Still, his laugh died as quickly as it had come, and Conan asked, "How did you know?"
KID eyed him for barely a moment, before he dislodged Kenichi completely from his leg and crouched down to their height.
"You probably don't remember me," he said with a smirk only for Conan to see, but loud enough for the teacher to hear. Conan glared at him, just as hidden, but paused for a moment.
From up close, KID looked nothing but tired; the dark bags under his eyes were barely concealed, and even his smirk seemed like it took effort. There was no actual bite in it, no playfulness, and no arrogance. "We've met a few years ago when you were still just a toddler; my mother is a friend of your parents'. They let us know where to enroll Ken-chan. You've grown quite a bit since then, haven't you."
When KID turned to the little boy with him, then, his grin melted into something softer, much more genuine, Conan noted in honest surprise. "So," he said, tilting his head. "Will you be okay, Ken-chan? I'll come get you after school, okay?"
The little boy looked unsure for a few moments. He was holding onto the straps of his backpack as though for dear life, but he finally nodded his head in determined confirmation.
"Good," KID smiled, and got back up. He said his goodbyes to the teacher, Conan and finally Kenichi, and then, rather hurriedly, left the classroom.
Conan hesitated for all but three seconds, before hastily giving a haphazard apology and running back out into the corridor.
To his surprise, KID was still there.
"Wait," Conan called, and KID stilled. He sighed, and turned around to face him.
He looked so very tired.
"What are you planning?" Conan asked, his voice low as he caught up the few steps KID had made it down the hallway. There were only a handful of other children still around, and none of them spared them more than a curious glance. "A generic given name and the family name of a famous magician don't exactly make for the best disguise, you know. I would've expected more of you."
There was a pause. KID stared at him blankly, and Conan stared back.
And then, KID visibly deflated. He sighed again.
"I'll let my mother know you disapprove of her choice of my generic name," he said, resigned, and turned to leave again.
Conan frowned. That... wasn't exactly what he had expected.
He quickly caught up to KID again, rounded him, and came to a stop in front of him.
"What do you want from me? Why plant a spy in my class?"
"By God," KID muttered to himself before Conan had even finished, exasperatedly running a hand down his face. Abruptly, he was leaning down to Conan's height again. His voice was low when he continued, nothing more than a dangerous whisper that Conan had never heard from him before. "Listen. I will admit I could've found a better way to ask for your help, but it wasn't like I had any time to spare to figure out how to contact you properly. He’s just a child; one that doesn't have any friends, so you and those other children you surround yourself with, you’re my only chance, okay?
"I'm not asking you to help me, specifically, here. I'm asking you to give a lonely child a chance. So please.”
Conan could only stare as KID huffed then, and got up. “And now, if you’ll excuse me,” he continued, his voice going back to a normal volume. “I have my own class to join, too."
KID stepped around Conan and down the corridor without another look back. This time, Conan chose not to follow.
None of this made any sense to him.
Conan made it back to class shortly before the lesson started. Haibara raised an eyebrow at him from her seat next to Genta, and Conan needed a few moments to put together why she was sitting there. In her previous place, next to his own, sat Kenichi, miserably staring down at his hands in his lap. He jumped when Conan slumped down on his chair next to him, but didn't even look up then.
Class began, and it was very much as boring as Conan had anticipated. Only that now, with his mind off the wonderings why KID had asked him for his ability to read sign, he was now free to try and figure out what exactly it was KID was trying to do.
By midday, Conan had not figured out anything helpful. For all intents and purposes, Kenichi seemed very much like a perfectly normal, albeit quiet, 7-year-old. His reading and writing abilities seemed more advanced than usual, but, as Haibara pointed out with a quiet huff over lunch, so were Mitsuhiko's. Who had, lacking knowledge of sign language, held an entire written, albeit short, conversation with Kenichi, even though he was aware that the boy's hearing was fine.
"It's good exercise," he argued, and Conan couldn't even really fault him for it. Not while he was still trying to find anything acceptably suspicious about Kenichi other than the fact that the boy was determinedly not looking at him at all.
What advanced knowledge Kenichi had in Japanese, he lacked in math, Conan found out during their last class for the day. After he had half-heartedly filled out his worksheet in the manner of minutes, he had turned back to watch his new neighbor, and had found the boy struggling over the second problem in front of him.
Conan watched him for almost a minute before taking pity. He sighed to himself, and scooted his chair closer to Kenichi's. Kenichi startled badly, and looked at him with those big, terrified eyes.
"You need help?" Conan asked in a way he hoped sounded friendly. He figured that he had been acceptable enough when Kenichi hesitantly nodded his head.
So Conan did help him; explaining very basic math with a patience he didn't actually know he still possessed while Kenichi listened with a thoughtful frown on his young face. By the end of class, the boy carefully nodded his newfound understanding, and slowly signed out thank you at him.
Conan blinked dumbly at him, saying "no problem" without even thinking about it, and for the first time, Kenichi smiled a small smile at him.
Reluctantly, Conan's view shifted from he's definitely some kind of spy to he may actually just be a child.
The Shounen Tantei-dan, unsurprisingly and minus Haibara, who had spent most of her time glaring at the back of Kenichi's head as though he had some deep dark secrets written there only for her to see, had taken an instant liking to Kenichi over the course of only this one day. They did like to collect unusual friends, after all, and with Kenichi more or less bound to Conan (as the only one who knew sign) or Mitsuhiko (as the most advanced reader in class other than Conan and Haibara) to communicate, there didn't seem to be much question of whether or not they would spend the afternoon together.
That was, at least, until Conan stopped in the middle of the school's door as all six of them stepped out and spotted a familiar teenager standing by the yard's gate.
"Oh!" Ayumi called, recognizing the tall figure as the one that had brought Kenichi to school that day. She turned to the boy in question. "Is he your big brother?"
Kenichi looked at her for a moment, and opened his mouth as though to answer. Conan frowned, and watched him close his mouth and nod his head.
Ayumi didn't hesitate to excitedly bound over to where KID was standing, followed closely by Genta, Mitsuhiko and Kenichi himself.
"So, who is that guy? You know him, right?" Haibara's voice came from Conan's side, where she had stopped next to him. She didn't look at him, but at their friends and the teenager instead; she looked like she knew she was trying to figure out a puzzle she didn't have all the parts to.
Conan heaved a heavy sigh. He watched KID lower himself to one knee, watched him grin as he conjured up a pink rose from nowhere, and watched him handing it to a visibly excited Ayumi.
"I do, but it's not my secret to tell," Conan muttered, defeated, and slowly made to join his friends.
Halfway across the yard, Ayumi suddenly ran up to him, waving her rose at him excitedly. Conan realized that it had its thorns carefully trimmed off. "Look!" she called, grabbing Conan's hand with her free one and pulled him towards where KID was still kneeling. Conan didn't fight back. "Kenichi-kun's brother is a magician!" she explained, waving her rose again for good measure. "He just, poof! Had a rose in his hand! And he gave it to me!"
They came to a stop next to Genta, who had just picked a card from KID's hands.
"Did he now," Conan said, and he didn't have it in him to even try to sound surprised.
"Okay," Genta was saying, staring intently at the card he held as close to his face as possible. "Okay, I got it." He put his card back between the rest of the deck between KID's hands. KID pushed them together, and the cards disappeared.
Both Genta and Mitsuhiko let out a startled gasp; Conan raised an eyebrow as he looked at KID's now empty hands. He barely caught KID beaming at him, specifically, before he turned back to the children in front of him.
"How?" Genta asked in a whisper, before Ayumi caught their attention again.
"They're in your sleeve, right?" she asked, staring at KID's hands with a frown on her tiny face. KID smiled at her and held out both of them out to her.
"Do you want to check?" he said, and Ayumi blinked at him. She hesitated, but then nodded and KID waited patiently for her to put her rose behind her ear, and get to work on his sleeves. She patted them up and down first, almost methodically, before pushing her small hands into the space between KID's shirt and his bare arms. She hummed thoughtfully when she withdrew again, and went to push up his sleeves anyway.
"Huh," Ayumi said to herself, not finding anything.
By her side, Conan sighed. "They're in his pocket," he said flatly, stepped forward, and unceremoniously pushed his hand into the pocket of KID's blazer. KID laughed, sounding surprised, and feigned almost getting knocked out of balance, but let it happen when Conan pulled a perfect stack of cards from his pocket.
Conan muttered "I thought you'd be above petty card tricks" under his breath, but it went largely unheard over the Shounen Tantei-dan's sounds of amazement, and he chose to outright ignore the bright smile KID gave them for it.
"Looks like I was found out," KID was saying- laughing, really, and Conan realized that this wasn't what KID usually sounded like. KID laughed a lot, sure enough, at the police, or at him, or just to himself because he could, but he never sounded like this. Conan couldn't quite put a finger on the difference, though. He was too caught up wondering why KID would put on a pretend laugh in front of an audience of elementary schoolers, and it made his stomach turn.
"Hey, maybe you should check your pocket too, Genta-kun," KID said, then, winking at the boy, and Genta did - and pulled out the card he had held up earlier from the front pocket of his pants. Genta almost dropped it in surprise, sputtering as both Mitsuhiko and Ayumi attached themselves to either of his sides to look at the card, too. Reflexively, Conan turned over the deck of cards he still held in his hands, and started looking through them. The Eight of Diamonds Genta was holding was, indeed, missing from it.
"How did you do that!" Ayumi called, amazed, and it wasn't quite a question, so KID didn't quite answer.
"Magic," he simply said, still smiling at his tiny audience. He got up, then, and, dusting his pants off, turned to Kenichi, who had a small smile on his face too. "We should be going now."
The Shounen Tantei-dan, instantly and in unison, broke into protest.
"Already?" Ayumi whined, the same moment Mitsuhiko said "But we wanted to spend the day with Kenichi-kun!"
KID, Conan noted with a kind of smug satisfaction, startled at that, and raised his hands in defense.
"Ah, I'm sorry," he offered mildly, "Kenichi and I have an appointment today, we can't skip that. But how about this: Tomorrow after school, I'll invite all of you to some ice cream, hm?"
The children’s faces, including Kenichi's, lit up at that, while Conan could barely hold back a sigh. The thought of having to spend an afternoon with KID of all people was wrenching something in his chest, but he was too tired to think up a valid reason that would convince the Shounen Tantei-dan to decline. And he would absolutely not leave them alone with the Kaitou KID if he could help it.
They went their separate ways, then. KID and Kenichi waved their goodbyes and left after Genta made KID promise to definitely keep that offer up, and the rest of them went to the nearby park.
When Conan made it home that afternoon, he found Kogoro reading through the newspaper over a can of beer while Ran was preparing dinner for them.
"So, how was your day?" Ran asked carefully when Conan joined her in the kitchen. When Conan sighed, she turned to him, a worried frown on her face that she had been wearing for a few days now.
"We got a new classmate," Conan said, not looking back at her. He rubbed at his tired eyes under his glasses. "He's nice, so far, but he can't speak, so Kobayashi-sensei has me translate his sign language." Not that he had needed to translate anything all day; Kenichi hadn't said anything at all, except for that one, hesitant, thank you.
"Oh," Ran said, as though in thought, and Conan felt like he heard her unsaid I didn't know you knew sign, too.
(In a stray thought he wondered whether Ran knew that Shinichi knew sign language.)
In the silence that followed, only broken by Ran stirring in the pot she turned back to, Conan could see her trying to find the right words to ask him, once again, what was going on with him. He could feel the worry that stiffened her entire posture almost radiate off her, and Conan felt terrible about it. He hated worrying her, but what was he to say.
Ran paused, then, for a second stilling her hand as she looked up. "Oh!" she said again, but this time in realization. She turned to Conan, who blinked at her in surprise. "The boy's name, is it Kuroba?"
Conan blinked again.
"...yes?" he said carefully, "How did you--"
Realization struck again, and Conan stopped. Oh no.
KID had been in a Teitan High uniform. He looked to be about his and Ran's age. He had mentioned going to his own class.
Oh no.
"His brother Kaito transferred to my class today!" Ran said in that sort of forced bright tone she had adopted lately in an attempt to cheer him up, and confirmed Conan's terrible suspicion with it. "What are the odds!"
What indeed, Conan didn't say, and buried his face in his hands.