chapter three | i've been talking to outlines

After having an omelet that tasted more like the tangible version of pain and suffering than eggs, Shinichi decided that he needed to go grocery shopping. What he didn't decide was that Kaito should pop up out of literally nowhere while he was bent over the tomato display.

Shinichi narrowly avoided overturning the neat pyramid of tomatoes as he jumped, one hand instinctively reaching for his heart. "Oh my God, what are you doing here," he choked, hand spasming as his pulse skyrocketed, and Kaito looked both bemused and exceedingly pleased as he stretched languorously by the onions. Mostly pleased, though.

"This is the first time I've actually been able to scare you," he beamed when Shinichi gave him a prompting lift of his eyebrows, and Shinichi rolled his eyes and huffed.

"Maybe that's because I wasn't expecting you to show up in the middle of the grocery store, even if it's technically within your range," he grumbled, shoving his shopping cart straight through Kaito's translucent body in retaliation. Kaito made a surprised noise, to which Shinichi smiled grimly. "What if someone sees you?"

Grinning, Kaito trailed after him as they turned into the bread aisle. "Don't worry, I'll be careful to go transparent if someone looks over."

As if on cue, a middle-aged woman at the end of the aisle glanced up from her loaf of pumpernickel, caught sight of Kaito, and screamed loud enough that Shinichi winced visibly and checked for eardrum damage. She then proceeded to chuck the bread through Kaito's head – Kaito coughed an affronted "Rude" – and ran, shrieking, out of the store.

There was an awkward silence.

Kaito rubbed at his head, sheepish. "Oops?" he tried, and Shinichi glared and reached out to smack his shoulder. This time, Kaito was prepared, and his shoulder was semi-solid when Shinichi touched it. It felt cool – not quite cold, but definitely not warm enough to belong to someone living. Shinichi flinched and dropped his hand.

"So why did you come out here, anyway?" he asked as he pushed the cart down the aisle, wheels squeaking against the linoleum. "It's not as if you're going to eat any of the food I buy."

"I get bored when you leave me all alone. You shouldn't do that," Kaito told him, pouting.

Scanning the display for his usual milk bread, Shinichi sighed. "I thought you liked living by yourself. Isn't that why you chased all the tenants out?"

Grinning, Kaito leaned forward until his cheek, strangely tangible yet not entirely solid, brushed against the back of Shinichi's neck, eliciting a full-body shiver from Shinichi. "Sure, but none of the tenants were pretty detectives who never got scared by my pranks and let me set the kitchen on fire for stress relief." His lips grazed the side of Shinichi's ear.

Flushing, Shinichi stumbled and nearly swerved into a selection of various melon breads.

"I – shut up," he mumbled, ears hot, and he had no doubt that if he turned to look, Kaito would be grinning smugly at him, so he plucked several coffee-flavored buns off the shelf for something to do with his hands and resolutely did not look in Kaito's direction.

The rest of the grocery trip passed fairly uneventfully. Kaito barely disappeared in time to avoid freaking out an employee who was restocking the dairy section, and Shinichi couldn't meet Kaito's eyes for a while due to the fact that he was still sort of wired up from Kaito's earlier comment, but everything else went smoothly. Soon enough Shinichi was walking home, arms laden with bags while Kaito sulked alongside him, disgruntled over Shinichi's refusal to let him carry any of the bags because "how could I explain floating bags on the off chance that we run into someone? You could turn invisible, but the bags can't, you know."

It was nearly noon when the two of them got back in. Shinichi immediately set to work preparing lunch (steamed rice, chicken teriyaki, and miso soup) while Kaito idled at the singed kitchen table, swinging his legs and making unnecessary comments on Shinichi's cooking skills ("I think you need more soy sauce," "Not that much soy sauce," "Why are you glaring at me while holding a knife?", etc.).

By the time Shinichi had sat down and was halfway through his bowl of rice, Kaito was tapping his fingers against the table as he heaved an exaggerated sigh. "I'm bored again," he explained when Shinichi lifted his eyebrows at him over a piece of chicken.

Swallowing, Shinichi lowered his chopsticks as he shook his head at Kaito. "You get bored so easily. How did you survive before you met me?"

It was only when Kaito's eyes widened and he smirked suggestively in Shinichi's direction that Shinichi realized how he had sounded. Floundering a bit (and nearly falling out of his chair in his panic), he spluttered, "No, I – I meant, like, how did you survive being alone? Not – you know!"

"I know," Kaito agreed smugly, leaning forward to balance his face in his hands. Shinichi scowled, about to demand an explanation for his ridiculous level of self-satisfaction, but Kaito continued on. "But anyway. When I first died, it took me a while to figure out how to control being transparent and learn how to solidify myself so I could hold stuff. And after I did that, I started practicing magic tricks."

"Magic tricks?" Shinichi asked around a mouthful of rice, and Kaito nodded, his eyes adopting a longing gleam.

"You know how I was Kaitou Kid before I died?" he asked, and when Shinichi nodded, he smiled, fragile and nostalgic and heartbreakingly pretty enough that Shinichi almost choked on his rice. "I used to make my heists like magic shows – I'd turn escaping from the police into a performance. There used to be crowds. The heists would be televised." He sighed, dropping his hands into his lap as he slouched back in his chair. All traces of a smile vanished from his face, and if Shinichi looked closely, he could detect a slight desaturation in the color of Kaito's eyes. "I guess I missed that. That's why I'd practice tricks, even if there was nobody to perform for."

For a long second, Shinichi felt something so confusingly complex that he could hardly breathe. There was sympathy, of course, first and foremost, but there was also respect for Kaito's strength and desperation to fix the problem somehow and a sort of pained appreciation of the raw, visceral beauty of seeing Kaito so vulnerable, head bowed and shoulders hunched. It was such a strange tangle of emotions that Shinichi found himself staring, transfixed, at Kaito for long enough that Kaito noticed.

"Oh, come on. You don't need to feel bad for me," he grinned, rolling his eyes as he sat up straight and perceptibly gathered himself. "I've gotten over it. I mean, sure, it kind of sucks that I have a bunch of heist plans and tricks that I can never use, but –"

"I should've gone to one of your heists," Shinichi blurted out. His chopsticks clattered against the table when he set them down. "I should've – I wish I could've seen you, just once." Regret hit him in an overwhelming wave, and he gritted his teeth against it.

Kaito, openmouthed, didn't say anything for a minute, but when he did, he sounded fondly chastising. "It's not a big deal. I understand that you were probably busy with your dead bodies and murder. And at the time, I probably wouldn't have appreciated another detective showing up to one of my heists."

"That's – I mean, I just… it's so…" Shinichi sighed and ran a hand through his bangs. It seemed so unsatisfying, the thought that he wasn't familiar with such a big part of Kaito's personality. He stared down into his half-empty bowl, gnawing contemplatively on his bottom lip, until he lifted his face and met Kaito's gaze. "Would you – would you show me your magic tricks? Everything you've come up with, I mean?"

Apparently that was not what Kaito had been expecting him to say, because Kaito went round-eyed and sort of gaped at Shinichi. "You – what? You want me to show you my…?"

"Yes," Shinichi said decisively, nodding, and Kaito gave a surprised laugh. He suddenly seemed a little less grayscale.

"Oh – well, uh, sure," he stammered out, cheeks vaguely pink. "When do you want to – when should I show you?"

"Whenever you want," Shinichi replied with determination, and the smile Kaito gave him was blindingly bright. Shinichi clutched feebly at his retinas.

"I'll be ready in a few hours, then," Kaito told him, and Shinichi watched as he fairly bounced out of the room, walking through the table and a few chairs in his haste.

Shinichi spent the next few minutes wondering when he had gotten so emotionally attached to a borderline pyromaniac, ex-phantom-thief-slash-magician ghost who had almost killed him multiple times. He eventually came to the conclusion that it must've been around the time he allowed (and participated) in arson, and, satisfied, went back to eating lunch, which had long since gone cold.

A few hours later, Shinichi rubbed at the bridge of his nose, yawning widely. The case file he was reading – an account of the "Blush Mermaid heist" written by Inspector Nakamori Ginzou – wasn't yielding any clues about the mysterious organization. Still, it contained a lot of information on Kid himself, although the majority of this information was told through expletives and angry caps lock. Shinichi absently contemplated whether Inspector Nakamori, whoever he was, needed to take a course in anger management.

Flipping the report closed, Shinichi rifled through the slowly dwindling stack of folders for a hopefully more helpful file. So far, he'd combed through about four or so reports on various Kid heists, looking for any sign of the organization interfering. To his understanding, Kaito had run into them during multiple heists, and Shinichi figured he may be able to learn something about the syndicate if he started by looking for clues in heist reports.

Unfortunately, Shinichi had no idea which heists had involved the organization, and it wasn't as if he could ask Kaito, since he wanted to keep his investigation quiet. He was doomed to reading through all the heist reports, it seemed.

Although, Shinichi allowed as he opened the report for the "Blue Birthday" heist, the reading itself wasn't entirely horrible. Even though Inspector Nakamori's acerbic writing and overuse of "bastard" weren't enough to diminish the ridiculous skill with which Kaito had performed heists. Shinichi had to admire the intricacy and planning put into each of them, not to mention how the tricks he used to evade capture were works of art.

Settling into a more comfortable position on his bed, Shinichi began to read the next report. It started out much like the others he had read; Inspector Nakamori described the set up and preventive measures that had been instituted prior to the heist and then complained about how Kid had gotten past the defenses. Shinichi was about to close the report and move on to another when he caught sight of a short note at the end of the report.

Additional note(s): I didn't hear it myself, but a few of my men said that they heard something like a gunshot after the heist. Dunno if it's anything important, because we didn't find any bodies or wounded people, but thought it might be worth mentioning.

Eyebrows flying up, Shinichi reread the note again. That was certainly suspicious. Standing up, Shinichi picked his phone up from his desk, dialed Takagi's number, and waited.

Takagi answered after a few rings. "It's Takagi."

"Takagi? It's me."

"Oh, Kudou-kun? What's up?"

"I was looking through these case files, and I was wondering – do you think you could put me through to the inspector from division two? Uh… I think his name is Nakamori Ginzou?"

"Inspector Nakamori? Of course I could, but why…?"

"Just…" Shinichi stared down at the report. Gunshot glared back at him in bold lettering. "It's about one of the files you gave it. That's all. Can you do it?"

"Kudou-kun, what in the world are you doing with those files?" Takagi groaned, but he only sounded resigned as he gave Shinichi the number. "Don't get into anything dangerous, Kudou-kun," was all he said before hanging up.

Shinichi called Inspector Nakamori next. The inspector didn't pick up, and Shinichi frowned as an automated female voice asked him to leave a message after the beep. Clearing his throat, he began in a low tone, "Hey, um, this is Kudou Shinichi. I don't know if you've heard of me or – anyway. I'm looking into the disappearance of Kaitou Kid, and I'm reading through some of the reports you filed on his heists. I have a question about something you said on the Blue Birthday file, so if you could –"

"Kudou?"

At the sound of Kaito's voice, Shinichi panicked and smacked the "end call" button on the phone so hard his finger came away throbbing. Whirling, Shinichi stared at Kaito, who was standing in his doorway with the oddest expression on his face.

"You startled me," Shinichi mumbled in the silence that followed. "I – don't do that."

"Uh, sorry." Kaito was staring at the phone in his hand, and Shinichi frantically wondered if he'd heard what Shinichi had been saying. "Who – who were you talking to?"

"I – nobody, it's nothing, don't worry about it," Shinichi responded, probably too quickly, because Kaito's expression just turned stranger. He looked as if someone had just told him he had a chocolate allergy or something equally horrific.

"Right," he said after a beat. "Uh, well, I've gotten everything set up in the living room, if you want to come see…?"

"I do," Shinichi quickly agreed, and tucked his phone in his pocket before hurrying out of the room. He could feel Kaito's gaze burning a hole into his back as he thumped down the stairs, cringing all the way. He really needed to work on his subtlety.

I think we can all see where this is going.

Apologies that this chapter turned out less lighthearted than the last two. I didn't realize how heavy this had gotten until I reached the end.

As always, please leave me a review if you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you all soon! (Not sure if it'll be another chapter of this or a oneshot, but we'll see. Yay, surprises?) - Luna