Cold

"So do you want to go out today?" Kaito asked, leaning over Shinichi's desk in their shared dormitory with a grin in place. "It is your birthday after all." He tapped a pen lightly against Shinichi's arm before setting it back down. "Are you listening?"

The detective, who was flipping through a packet of papers with a rather scary scowl on his face, spared him half a glance. "Of course. Um… sorry, but today's not really good for me. It's… Sorry." His grimace deepened as he positively glared down at the text on the page, seemingly frustrated. He turned it over, eyes flickering over the backside.

Kaito, about to protest, paused to peer down curiously at the papers. "What's that?"

"Case file," Shinichi grunted. "Hey, you've got your debut magic show tonight, right?"

"Yes, at eight." Kaito raked back his hair, feeling a wave of irritation wash over him. He'd been planning to finally get some alone time with Shinichi on Shinichi's birthday, a few hours, even, but it appeared the detective himself was going to foil that. "How is that related to right now? It's only," he checked his watch, "one in the afternoon. Come on, Kudou."

Shinichi waved him off, glaring down hard at the case file. "This isn't going to work," he muttered darkly to himself before rising and snapping the folder shut. "Look, I'm sorry, Kuroba, but this case is really, really important. You understand, right? I'll make it up to you sometime, okay?"

"Kudou…" Kaito glared as Shinichi nearly ran from the room with the file tucked under his arm. "Damn bastard," he swore under his breath, nettled, as he sat down on his bed with a thump. "Does he think cases are more important than people or something?"

Only later did Kaito find out that Shinichi's case had involved a serial killer who targeted aspiring magicians at their debut shows.

Welcome, everyone I managed to ensnare, to Ficlet February! Basically, I will be posting a ficlet (not a drabble, because as I've been corrected many, many times, drabbles are exactly 100 words. Although technically, these aren't actually ficlets either. OTL) every day of February, to celebrate the "month of love." (Ha ha, as if.)

This is the project I've mentioned before and the reason I haven't been updating quite as much recently. I've been writing 28 ficlets over the course of a veeery busy couple of weeks. /sigh

Anyway, these will range anywhere from 300-800 words with a variety of styles and categories. There's one two-part story, I think, about three or four all-dialogue ones, a couple of introspective little bits, the like.

They also vary in relationship – there's, like, one where they haven't met, but the majority of them are "in love but not saying anything" or established. Just about all of them are at least vaguely fluffy, as that's just about all I can write, but there are some very T-rated ones and, gasp!, even a few hurt/comfort ones. I got pretty close to angst about twice as well.

Well, hopefully this will be entertaining. Stick around! - Luna