I don't own Detective Conan, Magic Kaitou, or their characters.

I suppose the timeline in this is sometime after my Rebirth series...basics are that the Black Organization is gone, Shinichi is back to normal, and he and Kaitou became friends during it.

This was written for a challenge from the ManyCases1Truth LJ community. The challenge was "Trick or Treat". I chose "trick".

Pumpkin Pranks

Ran somewhat wished that Kazuha could have come over, but she and Heiji were a bit busy in Osaka, preparing for Halloween. So, Ran and Shinichi invited Aoko and Kaitou over to do some pumpkin carving and general decorating.

It was Ran's idea to have a Halloween party, and Shinichi had the space for it, so he volunteered the house.

Thus, Ran and Aoko sat in the living room as they prepared invitations. Decorations would be put up closer to the actual party, itself, but invitations were a must-have.

Shinichi and Kaitou had been in the kitchen, carving pumpkins and making the decorations.

Aoko had all but dragged Ran away from them when the girls heard that, since Kaitou was a master of party sense. That, and she'd caught him with that look on his face that promised trouble.

"Honestly…if there's a holiday that was made for Kaitou, it's Halloween," Aoko stated as she sealed another invitation.

Ran giggled. "Shinichi, too! What with all the dead bodies that follows him…"

Aoko shook her head. "I don't know how you do it…I really don't. Kaitou is a handful, but I don't know what I'd do if I was dragged along to murder cases with him."

"More like being in the wrong place at the wrong time…" Ran mumbled.

"I'm a bit worried, though…Kaitou hasn't pulled any major pranks, yet. Like I said, Halloween is practically his holiday…and every year, we get a prank a day leading up to it. This year, he's been fairly tame."

"Maybe it had something to do with taking down a nasty organization a few months ago…"

Aoko shrugged. "Could be…"

"So, do we have all the invitations set, then?" Ran looked at her pile.

Aoko nodded. "I added one in for Hakuba-kun, as well. Kaitou didn't put him on the list, the idiot."

Ran giggled, then nodded. "Hattori-kun and Kazuha-chan know about it, but I got them invitations, anyway. I figured we would also invite the kids that hang out with Ai-chan, and her, of course…Agasa-hakase, too. I don't know about tousan, though…"

"I'm not inviting my father. Knowing Kaitou, he'd dress up as the Kid if he knew that my father was invited, just to watch him twitch."

Ran laughed. "Our boys, right?"

"Yep. Our boys." Aoko rolled her eyes.

Ran got a sly grin. "So…exactly how have you been getting along with Kuroba-kun, anyway?"

The reaction was immediate.

Aoko turned bright red and stammered in her defense.

Ran laughed. She did the same with Kazuha, though at least Kazuha was a little more in touch with her feelings when it came to Heiji. Aoko seemed to subconsciously know that she saw Kaitou as more than a friend, but didn't consciously realize it.

"Anyway…" Aoko decided to turn the conversation away from that topic of confusion for her. "What are you going as for the party? I haven't decided, yet."

"Me, neither…honestly, I don't like ghosts or scary stuff."

"I'm not a big fan of it, myself, either. But, it's not like I've actually seen a ghost, and one gets a bit desensitized to Kaitou's Halloween pranks after a while," Aoko admitted.

Before Ran could comment on it, or verbally wonder how the boys were doing, there was a curse from the direction of the kitchen, then a bit of banging.

Ran and Aoko exchanged looks.

"Do we want to know?" Aoko asked.

Ran sighed and stood up. "Might as well check. Those two have a strange relationship. I don't think they'd kill each other, but…"

"Yea…good point. Kaitou sometimes doesn't know when to stop teasing someone…and that curse didn't sound good."

"It was creative, I'll admit." Ran shook her head as the two girls headed to the kitchen.

When they got there, they had to stop and stare for a moment.

Then, both burst out into laughter and all but fell over each other.

"What's so funny!?" the teen with the full-head pumpkin mask on his shoulders whined.

The messy haired teen next to him grinned cheekily. "I'd think that was obvious."

"Shut it, Kuroba…this is all your fault!" a finger was jabbed accusingly to the one that didn't have the pumpkin mask stuck on his head.

"My fault? You said 'okay' when I asked if you wanted to try it!"

"Yea, because I figured that nothing could go wrong with a mask! Even one that covers the entire head!"

"Alright, so I made a few miscalculations…"

"A few?!"

When the girls finally got their laughter under control, they turned back to the boys.

"Okay, not that is isn't a bit obvious, but what happened?" Ran wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.

A finger once again shot accusingly at the one without the new headgear. "Kuroba, here, came up with a brilliant idea to scare everyone at the party with some headless horseman gig. He brought over some of the items, but needed help, so I agreed to it. Why, I don't know…"

"Watch it, Kudou…"

"It's your fault, let me remind you!"

Aoko sighed. "What did he do, this time?"

"The mask won't come off. It's stuck. And it's Kuroba's fault."

"Hey, it's not completely my fault, Kudou! You're the one that did agree to help me with the prank!"

"You assured me that you had all the kinks worked out!"

"It was only a slight error…"

"Slight?!"

Ran clapped a couple times. "Okay, break it up, boys."

"Ran…help get it off?" came the whine from the teen stuck with a fake pumpkin on his head.

"If it had happened to Kaitou, I would have thought it to be a joke, but…" Aoko shook her head with a grin. "Wow. I'm never going to let you live this down, Kaitou. One of your pranks failed."

Aforementioned teen pouted.

Ran, meanwhile, had gone over to help pull the pumpkin mask off.

Tug once…

Nothing.

Tug again…

Still nothing.

"Wow…you weren't kidding!" Ran grunted.

"No, I wasn't! Ow! That hurts!"

"Hold still, Shinichi!" Ran rolled her eyes.

The stuck teen settled down.

"Alright…" Ran struggled again, but nothing.

"I'll help. That fake pumpkin is big enough for another set of hands," Aoko offered after she sent another glare at the sulking teen.

"Thanks, Aoko-chan! Ready?"

"Yep!"

"One…two…PULL!"

This time, the fake pumpkin came clean off with a popping noise and an odd slurping sound.

The girls fell back onto their backsides, then blew out their breaths.

"We got it!" Ran cheered.

"Uh…Aoko? Ran-san?"

"What, Kaitou?" Aoko looked up, then blanched.

After all, word weren't necessary, nor was the finger that indicated to the problem.

There was the body…but no head.

The body felt around its neck for the head, then put its hands on its hips in a gesture of annoyance.

Ran and Aoko looked from one to the other, faces pale.

"Does this count as murder? Kudou's the detective…" said the shaky teen that still had his head intact.

"It's…it's got to be a trick!" Aoko trembled.

"But…but it's Shinichi! Not Kuroba-kun!"

The two girls exchanged frightened looks.

There was a sigh, then Shinichi's voice came from the room. "Hey…can I have my head back, please?"

Faces paled even further.

Especially when they realized that what had spoken was the fake pumpkin head in their hands.

Trick or no, that did it for the girls that were easily spooked by ghosts.

The fake pumpkin head went flying into the air as both girls ran from the room as fast as they could.

The 'thump' of the fake pumpkin hitting the ground was only second to the loud SLAM of a door from upstairs in whatever room the girls had taken refuge in.

There was a long pause of silence in the kitchen.

Then, snickers went up.

Snickers became laughter, and soon, both boys were clutching their midsections out of mirth.

When they could breathe again, the headless teen retrieved the pumpkin head on the ground, then pulled the extra layer of his shirt/fake neck down to reveal his real head.

"Okay…I'll admit…that was a good one."

"Told ya it'd be awesome! Nice acting, by the way."

"Thanks. But, it's a good thing I talked you into switching places. Aoko-san wasn't too fooled at first."

The teen with the messy hair started to attempt to tame it. "We should thank kaasan. She was the one that idly mentioned to me in the hospital that we looked alike. By the way, your hair style eats combs, Kuroba."

Kaitou, who was checking the pumpkin head for damage, shrugged. "It's cool that way. At least it doesn't have a cowlick. I'm ruffling my hair as soon as I take out the voice transmitter from this thing."

Shinichi rolled his eyes as he finally managed to get his hair into some semblance of its usual look. "Bit of an old trick, the headless bit…but the fake neck was a nice touch."

"I'm a magician, remember!"

"Yea, yea…mister ego." Shinichi snickered.

"You're really one to talk," Kaitou drawled as he messed up his hair back into its usual wild look.

The two chuckled again after a small glare at the other.

"When do you think the girls will realize they've been duped?" Kaitou questioned.

"I don't know, but I really don't plan on sticking around to find out. I'm up for personally delivering some of these invitations. What do you think?"

Kaitou was about to call his friend a coward, when he heard another bang from upstairs, and some shouting about payback that included some very creative terminology from Aoko.

Both teens exchanged wide eyed looks, then all but scrambled for the front door.

"I'll take a ghost over angry females, any day!"

"Know what, Kuroba? I completely agree."

THE END