Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed.

Summary: After failing yet again to find Pandora, Kaito makes a wish to know what life might have been like if his father had never been killed looking for the damned thing. (Sometimes, wishes do come true after all). They say that every time an event occurs that could change the course of the future, another world is created.

Pairings: Kaito x Shinichi (already established)

Warnings: In case you were not aware, the pairing listed above is a boy/boy pairing, you have been warned

To Wish Upon a Star

By V. Shalyr

Chapter 1

Another full moon, another heist, but not quite the same Kaitou KID.

Shinichi frowned as he made his way from the museum, finally free of Inspector Nakamouri and the usual post-heist briefing of the members—both permanent and temporary—of the Kaitou KID Taskforce. The magician thief just hadn't been the same lately. He still wore that cocky, shark's smile of his, still taunted the police and played the gentlemen for his adoring fans, but Shinichi knew him too well by now to be fooled.

The fact was that KID was feeling depressed. And really, if you knew him, you didn't have to be a detective to understand why. It had been a good few years since the Black Organization had fallen, but the search for Pandora was still going on with no end in sight. That in itself wasn't really that surprising. But the idea that all of it—all the bloodshed and the murders and the suffering—might have happened for the sake of something that didn't even exist…

The focus of his worry was already home by the time Shinichi got back to the house. Kaito never snuck in to listen to the briefings after his own heists anymore either. It was like he just wasn't having as much fun as he used to, like his thoughts or doubts or whatever you wanted to call them were weighing him down.

He found the thief sitting on the windowsill in their bedroom, the Wishing Star—that night's heist target—glittering in his white-gloved hand.

"It's not it," Shinichi said rather unnecessarily. Despite the moonlight, the jewel showed no signs of anything unusual, no trace of crimson light within its polished depths.

"No." Without turning his head, Kaito tossed the stone in Shinichi's direction and the detective caught it easily. "You can turn it in to the police tomorrow. I don't have any more use for it."

Shinichi nodded, sitting down on the bed and setting the large diamond upon the nightstand. "You should change out of that. What if one of the neighbors sees you?"

Kaito said nothing, just tugged the brim of his white top hat down so that its shadow completely hid his face for a moment. Then he slid from the window, there was a puff of smoke and he was dressed in casual, everyday clothes with his KID gear nowhere to be seen. He turned off the lights with a snap of his fingers like he always did and joined Shinichi on the bed, wrapping his arms around the detective in the dark.

Shinichi relaxed against him and sighed. "You know you can't change the past. I should know. I wish you'd just let go and move on."

For a long time, the magician didn't reply. Then finally, his voice quiet and wistful, he said, "Sometimes, I just wish it had never happened, you know? I mean, I have to wonder what it would have been like if Tou-san was still around."

If that accident that had been no accident had never happened, or if Kuroba Toichi had somehow managed to survive—to get away like the master escape artist he was.

Of course Shinichi knew. It was human nature to wonder.

Carefully, he turned his head to press a chaste kiss to the magician's lips, glad that the darkness hid the redness in his cheeks. "Let's get some sleep, okay? It's been a long night."

Kaito was sufficiently surprised by his actions to snap out of his dark contemplations and back to something more like his usual self. He chuckled. "You call that a kiss? This is a proper kiss."

And he leaned forward to give his detective just that before the both of them let the weariness of the day take them over.

On the nightstand, the Wishing Star diamond gleamed a sudden silver.

.

The moment Shinichi woke up the next morning he just knew that something was off. For one, he was alone. Kaito was usually an early riser, but he did like to sleep in after heists, especially on days when neither of them had to work or go to class. Even if he had gotten up, he wouldn't have gone out without leaving Shinichi a note—a note which was not on the bedside table despite the empty silence of the manor. Come to think of it, something else that should have been on the table wasn't there either—namely, the Wishing Star diamond.

Frowning, Shinichi sat up, his eyes traveling slowly around the room and taking in every little detail. This was his room all right, but at the same time, it wasn't. There were all these little things that were missing—like the roses in their glass vase upon the desk and the Lupin books that had joined his Holmes novels on the bookshelf after Kaito had moved in. Actually, it looked a lot like how he might have expected his room to look if he and Kaito had never met.

Hold on a second, if he and Kaito…

Frowning, Shinichi snatched up his cell phone and called Kaito's number. On the second ring, someone picked up and Shinichi was relieved to hear Kaito's familiar voice.

"Shinichi?"

"Where are you?"

Kaito sounded just as relieved to be hearing from him. "I was just wondering the same thing. I think I'm in my old room back at Kaa-san's house. So this isn't just some elaborate joke and I'm not going crazy?"

"Not unless we both are."

"Wait, I think I hear someone moving about in the kitchen downstairs. I guess she's up. Maybe she can explain…explain…"

Kaito trailed off into stunned silence.

"Kaito?" Shinichi asked, worried. "Kaito, what's going on?"

But the only thing he heard was the magician's cell phone clattering to the floor.

Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Kaito gaped at the man currently standing by the stove. He knew who it was. Of course he knew. How could he not know? But this—this was impossible.

"T—Tou-san?"

The man turned and smiled at him. "Good morning, Kaito. You're up later than I expected. I thought you wanted an early start on rehearsals."

Kaito stared, blinked, then stared some more. Finally, he crouched without taking his eyes off the man and picked up his phone again.

"Shinichi?"

"Kaito! What's going on, are you all right? What happened?"

"You know, Shin-chan," Kaito said cheerfully, "I've officially gone insane. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, though I was rather hoping for later rather than sooner. I'm starting to hallucinate because there's no way this is happening. I saw him die, and all the reports agree. I would have known if it was just a trick. Or maybe this is someone's idea of a prank, in which case whoever it is had better be ready for one hell of a terrible time when I find out their names and where they live and work and—"

As he talked, his insanely cheerful tone began to take on a hint of desperation. The man in the kitchen who looked just like Kuroba Toichi but couldn't be because his father had died more than a decade ago was giving him the most concerned look—one he was pretty sure would be mirrored on Shinichi's face if he could see him. Only he couldn't because he was going mad and had woken up in a house that looked a lot like his old house but couldn't be because he didn't live there anymore and most of this stuff was supposed to be at the Kudou manor.

"Kaito?" Not-Toichi asked worriedly, stepping up to Kaito and resting a hand on his shoulder. His frown deepened when Kaito flinched.

On the other end of the phone, Shinichi had grabbed his wallet and keys and was running down the street towards the train station, his phone still pressed to his ear though Kaito's babbling had long since stopped making sense. "Kaito, calm down—I can't understand a word you're saying. I'm on my way over right now, okay?"

It was just so out of character for Kaito to be honestly freaking out to such an extent that he was starting to make Shinichi feel panicked. And then—then it wasn't Kaito on the other end of the phone anymore.

"Hello?"

Shinichi didn't know that voice, but it had to be the person that had sent the magician on his current tirade. He responded after a moment's hesitation with a cautious, "Who is this?"

The man on the other end of the phone coughed. "I was going to ask you the same thing actually. My name's Kuroba Toichi. I wasn't aware my son knew anyone called Shinichi."

The detective almost tripped over his own feet. Kuroba Toichi? But wasn't that—that—that was impossible. Resisting the urge to ask the man if he was sure, he cleared his throat and asked instead, "The famous magician, right?"

"The magician, certainly," the man replied, bemused. "I was wondering if you could tell me what's wrong with my son. He's…not acting like himself."

Shinichi stepped onto the train in a daze. It felt oddly surreal for the two of them to be talking so calmly when they were both obviously far from it and probably in moods more akin to the hysterics still going on in the background. "It's funny you should ask that. I was just trying to figure that out myself, though I think I've got a pretty good idea now."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, just give me one moment to confirm it. Then I'm sure everything will make a lot more…sense."

Toichi raised an eyebrow and glanced back at Kaito who was standing frozen still in the kitchen doorway, staring blankly ahead of him. He'd been told countless times by his wife and others that he was more than a bit eccentric and maybe just a little mad, and that his son was growing up to be just like him, but he doubted that this was what they meant. Pulling the phone away from his ear, he asked again, "Kaito?" But again, the younger man didn't respond.

Abruptly, the doorbell rang and Toichi reluctantly left his son to go answer it. He opened the door and paused, blinking in surprise at the person who now stood on his doorstep.

"Kudou Shinichi?"

What was the young detective doing at his house? He was pretty sure Kudou only handled homicide cases and had no interest in thieves.

His questions ground to a halt in his head, however, when the detective nodded politely to him and said "excuse me" before hurrying past him into his house and up to Kaito. Wait, Shinichi. Of course, this was the voice on the other end of the phone. But how did his son know Kudou Shinichi? As far as Toichi was aware, the two of them had never met, even back when the boy's mother Yukiko was still his student.

"Kaito? Kaito!" The Kudou boy stood anxiously in front of his son, giving him a gentle shake by the shoulders. "Snap out of it, you're starting to scare me."

And me, Toichi thought ruefully. And to be sure, that wasn't an easy thing to do.

Perhaps at the unusual stress in his partner's voice, Kaito finally shook off his shocked daze and turned a suspicious glare upon the man who simply could not be his father. "Who are you and what are you doing in this house?"

Toichi blinked again, this time in a different kind of confusion. This morning was just turning out to be way too…peculiar, and this coming from a magician! "Kaito, are you sick? I'm your father, remember? I live here."

"You can't be my father. He was killed years ago."

Toichi's second eyebrow rose to join the first. "I assure you that I'm very much alive. And if we keep this up, we're going to wake your mother."

Kaito scowled. He wanted to believe the man, but he just couldn't let himself. Not without proof.

"How about this," Shinichi said, stepping between the two and eyeing Toichi with more than a hint of his own wariness. "We'll tell you what we think has happened in the past ten years or so, and then you tell us your side of the story. I'm sure we can find some…reasonable explanation for all this."

"A logical proposal," Toichi agreed, his curiosity growing by the second.

"Just one question first," Shinichi continued, taking a deep breath. "Are you Kaitou KID?"

"What? What are you talking about?" No obvious change occurred in Toichi's expression, even as his masks slammed down into place.

If Shinichi hadn't known Kaito so well, he probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. Both Kurobas had earned reputations for their impeccable Poker Faces. But he did know Kaito and all the little things that were more a feeling than any actual signs were the same. Like father like son, he supposed, but if that were the case… Then somehow, this had to be the real Kuroba Toichi.

The Wishing Star diamond, why had it been called that again? He seemed to recall Kaito mentioning something about the gem having a history of being with its owners at moments in their lives where their fortunes changed for better or for worse—moments when their dreams came true. Kaito only ever went after gemstones with stories of magic behind them. And Kaito had said that he wished his father had never been murdered.

His brain reeled at the only possible conclusion. But that just couldn't be. Magic didn't really exist, not that kind of magic. Yet there was all the evidence right in front of him, most definitely alive and well.

"Shinichi?" It was Kaito's turn to be worried as the detective's face paled. Taking his hand, he steered him hurriedly to a chair at the kitchen table, all the while watching Toichi out of the corner of his eye. "Shin-chan, are you okay?"

Shinichi shook his head slowly. "Kaito, I think—I think the Wishing Star sent us to another world."

"Huh?" Was Shinichi coming down with something? That didn't sound like a solution he'd ever come up with.

"When you made that wish," Shinichi clarified, "a world where it didn't happen."

A world where his father had never died.

Kaito sank into the chair next to his detective and stared at Toichi. If what Shinichi said was true, and what Shinichi said usually was, then that would mean…

Toichi was, by now, beyond bewildered. But most of his anxiety and nervousness turned to concern when his son's eyes suddenly began to water.

Catching the expression on his father's face, Kaito blinked rapidly and forced himself to pick up the pieces of his broken mask. They all had a hell of a lot of explaining to do, especially if he was going to pass for this world's Kaito before his mother woke up and decided to join them downstairs. Good thing it was Saturday. His mother always slept in late on Saturdays.

Over the next hour, Toichi heard the most incredible story he had ever been told, beginning with his own death upon stage at the hands of a huge criminal organization. And the return of Kaitou KID eight years later with his son's discovery of his father's past. Working from both sides of the law along with detectives, police, and FBI agents to take down that same organization, the continued search for Pandora and its bloody promise, and finally the night of the Wishing Star heist. It was all a lot to wrap his mind around, but then Toichi had always believed deep down that there was real magic out there somewhere.

There was, however, one thing he still didn't quite understand, and Kudou seemed to be skirting around the point all throughout his narrative.

"So you're still a detective in your world, right?" At his nod, Toichi indicated Kaito with a tilt of his head, "And you know my son is KID but you haven't arrested him and, in fact, live in the same house?"

Getting the gist of his questions, Kaito suddenly grinned—his first actual grin since that morning, fiercely amused and maybe just a bit evil, "if we're here in this world, do you think the Shinichi and Kaito from this world are in ours?"

.

Back in their world…

"Ah! Who are you and WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY BED?"

"I DON'T KNOW! I WAS GOING TO ASK YOU THE SAME THING!"

"BUT THIS IS MY HOUSE!"

"I'VE NEVER BEEN HERE BEFORE IN MY LIFE! Though now that I think about it, you do look kind of familiar. Have I seen you in the papers before?"

TBC…

AN: This is going to be a pretty short story. I'm currently working on two different stories based on the idea of worlds where Toichi wasn't killed and the longer one is a lot darker (and longer), but I couldn't resist doing something more lighthearted at the same time. So this is it.