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How strangely easy it was to adjust to adversity.
It only took Kuroba Kaito three weeks to wake up one day and realize some semblance of a routine in his new life as Edogawa Akechi, Conan’s older ‘twin’ brother. The day would start with him waking in the Mouri’s house, then Ran would make them breakfast, and then he’d go to school with Conan and the detective boys as they blabbered about the Yaiba episode or whatever they saw on television, when they were done with school they’d then go and play soccer or video games with the detective boys, then they’d usually encounter some sort of murder which Conan would solve it, (yay!) then Conan and him would go home and have dinner with the Mouris. (Unless they ate out and nine out of ten times another murder would occur- yay again!) Super easy routine but also super weird.
Maybe it was all those years as Kaito Kid that got him used to ‘weird’ situations, or maybe the Apotoxin that a bunch of men in black shoved in his mouth (which made him shrink and become a nine-year-old) did something absolutely irreversible to his brain chemistry. He liked to think it was the latter rather than the former, just one more reason to blame these men in black for all they had taken away from him.
When he told Ai- or Shiho (even though she did not like being called Shiho by him)- this theory, the other day, she just shrugged and said. “No, I think you were already kind of weird to begin with.”
He liked Shiho, she was one of his favorite people in this new and weird life. She was sarcastic, said stuff that freaked adults out, and if she was part of a horror movie, she’d be that weird kid that would talk to her ‘imaginary’ friend, which at the end of the movie would turn out to be some vindictive ghost. She was also probably the sanest one out of all the detective boys just because she was the only other person not jumping for joy at crime scenes… The standards were, frankly, really low.
Edogawa Conan, or originally, Kudo Shinichi, naturally had the most fun at a crime scene. Crime scenes used to make Kaito nervous. One, because as Kaito Kid he usually was the prime suspect. Two, because it gathered so many police officers in one place. And three, because there was- in case it wasn’t obvious- a dead body and some unhinged killer on the loose… But people tend to dismiss the third problem. But, as Akechi, he was a dumb nine-year-old child that no one would suspect or even think of killing (He hoped.) He could easily walk away, but he was hopelessly involved in each case because his ‘twin’ brother was a magnet to crime and a hopeless addict to solving them.
“He was strangled to death; the stab wound is just to deceive us.” Explained Shinichi to him. “Notice how there is so little blood around the wound.”
“Uh-huh.”
The detective boys were running around doing their own sort of ‘investigation’ somewhat rowdily (they didn’t touch anything though, Conan trained them well. ) Shiho stood on the other side of the body and had just put her phone down after she called the police. Weirdly, Kaito noticed, while Shinichi investigated the stabbed-slash-strangled man covered in blood, that maybe, just maybe , he was getting used to seeing so many murders! It kind of felt… normal? Weird but hey! The Kaito of two weeks ago would have been absolutely terrified- all progress was great progress!
…What the fuck was wrong with him?
“But what could have strangled him, there was no-“
“Akechi doesn’t like focusing on details about murders.” Shiho reminded him. And yes, that was what Kaito usually meant from his ‘uh huh’ but this time… he was just busy …. accepting the murder? Not that they needed to know.
Shinichi sighed. “Sorry- bad habits. You don’t have to be here if you can’t handle it- it’s okay.”
“All good- Do what you do best! Let us wrap this murder up quickly.” exclaimed Kaito, poker face plastered on- his other thoughts omitted: ‘I’ve just seen more murders in these three weeks than I’ve seen in my entire life! And I’m optimistically getting used to dead people as a nine-year-old!’
Both Shiho and Shinichi exchanged glances at his all too enthusiastic comment but systematically got back to work and ignored him. So, he just walked about the poor dead man's apartment. Before he became Akechi, he had only visited Beika city a few times for shopping. The only thing he remembered was seeing some advertisement of how dirt cheap the rent in Beika city was. But it was only now that he understood why that was, this was the third dead man in an apartment all week and it was just Wednesday, which was a lot fewer than last week but also the week had just started. He mentally noted that it was lowkey illegal not to disclose the potential threat that ‘living’ in Beika possessed in those advertisements.
Like all the other thirty or so crimes he has seen in the last few weeks, it was wrapped up pretty quickly (surprise! It was the ex-girlfriend who did it.) Conclusion: no one should buy apartments in Beika or date someone in Beika.
He had to give every single murderer an ‘A+’ on creativity, every single one of them had more unique crimes than the last. (Maybe he could understand why Shinichi took the cases, kept the boy's brain working when otherwise every single challenge thrown at a nine-year-old was dull- oh no- was this what ‘Stockholm syndrome’ to a thief was? Understanding and empathizing with detectives? Yuck.) But he could almost have sworn that the fact they hadn’t plagiarized one another's murders meant there was some secret society of murderers. Maybe it was like online forums? Or maybe they met once a week in a random coffee shop? Some crime convention that happens once a year where they bounce off ideas? If there was a crime convention, it must be taking place in some Beika cheap apartment…It had to. He, kind of, wanted to go to one now.
The next day he also told that theory to Shinichi, oh, yeah, Hattori Heiji too, the weird detective from Osaka. Heiji and Shinichi had been laughing so hard, they teared up. (It was an important concern but these guys were just laughing?) Heiji had visited to see him, the ‘new Edogawa twin’, who only after he laughed so hard, went: “Oi Kudo, this your cousin or somethin’?”
Shinichi nearly spit his drink out. “What?! No, you idiot! That’s Kaito kid!”
“WHA- REALLY? THE KAITO KID?! YA LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME.”
“NO! WE DON’T!?”
With all that screaming, Kaito wondered how these two were not a hazard in public, but thankfully this was all done and said in the confines of the Mouri’s home… when both Ran and Kogoro were already out. (Whilst he also hoped the downstairs neighbors of Café Poriot hadn't heard anything.) This did not stop Heiji who, five minutes later, said ‘Ki-‘ in public before he stopped himself and said some other weird word to disguise his blatant attempt to call him ‘Kid.’
Already, Kaito could sense that if Shinichi attracted the usual number of murders, Heiji quadrupled them. A very deadly combination, and although he got used to murders, he did not want to feed into his newly found ‘detective Stockholm syndrome.’ The last thing he needed was to walk out of this as a second Hakuba… he shuddered at the thought of that.
Kaito decided to run away before any murder occurred and spend the day with his next favorite person: Shiho.
When he managed to make his way to her place, she did not look as pleased to see him. So, the feeling wasn’t mutual, so what? She was still his favorite person. She listened to him ramble and didn't kick him out. Ok, maybe she was a little weird, didn’t talk much, and drank her coffee black- ew - but faults aside, she didn’t treat him like a nine-year-old child. The only other two people who did that were the professor (who was a really nice guy, so Kaito felt genuinely bad for bothering him) and Shinichi (he sees him all day, every day, and any discussion with Shinichi meant he had to pay a bit of murder investigation tax) Besides, Shiho had great snacks!
So, he followed her to her secret layer, (her basement bedroom) where she spent all day typing on her computer as he talked to her. So this time he started off with the theory of detective Stockholm syndrome.
All she had to say were very non-reassuring words: “Yeah, hanging out with the kids and Kudo does that to you.”
And then he told her a new weird topic: the emu war in Australia, and the victory of the emus over the Australians. While he talked, he had rummaged through her snack drawer and eaten up some of her potato chips and his favorite little blue candy stored in the corner of that drawer in an unlabeled box.
Look, in hindsight, he did not question why a candy would be hidden in an unlabeled box, or why those candies looked suspiciously like pills. And also why the one person he knows who drank her coffee black would even have candy. But, in his defense, he liked sweet stuff a bit too much to really care and also the snack market of Beika had to be as weird as its people- right?
It was when Shiho stood up to get something that she stopped and asked Kaito who lounged on the chair near her as he talked her ear off (occasionally shoving a handful of ‘candy’ in his mouth.) “…What are you eating?”
“Your candy.”
“I… don’t have candy? I don’t really like sweet stuff.”
“No, you do!” Kaito carried the small box in the air to show her. “The blue ones!”
Shiho blinked. “Drop the box. Don’t eat anything. How much have you eaten?”
…Not the greatest question to be asked, he quickly decided to downplay it. “Uh… I don’t know- like twenty?”
“TWENTY?!” Uh oh. So twenty was not good, he should have said ten. She cleared her throat. “...How do you feel?"
“Uh- great actually- better than I’ve ever been?” He answered, there was something oddly refreshing about the candy and ever since he last took it he kind of started to crave it…. Oh. “What… is it supposed to be?”
“…A working Apotoxin antidote?”
“There is an antidote?!” Kaito perked up. “What the- I thought we were friends, Haibara! How could you not tell me about this?!”
Here he was, telling her about the Emu war on the other side of the world in a whole different century (useless but very fun facts!) They have bonded on random topics! Or so he thought until he discovered she couldn't even tell him there were weird drugs in this very basement?! Those were very exciting facts!
“Because I didn’t finish it.” Shiho's eyes did not leave his face. “Did it even remotely work on you? Did you turn back to Kaito?”
“No?!” Kaito blinked, looked at the box- the supposed cure to his condition- and then back at Shiho who was as puzzled as him. “Was it supposed to?!”
“Yes? Well, my working theory was that anyway, but it seems to be rejected by your body… and instead…Are you… actually okay? Was this your first time taking it?”
“I’m fine, I took it earlier this week… right when-“ Right when he told Shiho his theory about his brain chemistry being altered by the Apotoxin. Right… so maybe they were both wrong, it wasn’t that he was already weird, it might have been the Apotoxin’s antidote doing all along. So he was onto something! And he was also on some drug made in the basement of a teenager in the body of a child… but he was onto something!
“Right when?”
“The last time I visited and told you the Apotoxin made me kind of weird and you told me it was just me?”
“… And then what happened? Did you feel off after that?”
“Maybe…” Maybe it made him wake up the next day and accept his new form as Akechi, readily accept murders and detectives more easily, reflect on the housing market in Beika, consider visiting Beika’s yearly crime convention, and maybe almost transformed into a tiny little Hakuba. Huh. “Maybe it kept me a little off all week.” Shiho raised a brow at the ‘little’. “Is the drug supposed to do that?”
“I have no clue. But you are so, so lucky. We’re going to the hospital for a checkup, I’m calling Kudo to come meet us there.”
“No! Please, don’t tell him! He’s with Heiji, a murder might happen in the hospital if he comes...” Kaito groaned, this was exactly what he was running away from.
“You’re very lucky a murder didn’t just happen here. I can’t believe this Kid- I turn away for one minute and this is what you do-“ and off she kept going and going until Conan picked up on the other end and left the room as she told him the situation. From the basement, he heard her call on the professor to get the beetle so they could drag him to the hospital.
Kaito sighed, so okay, maybe it wasn’t really that easy to adjust to adversity without the help of some weird drug.