Detective Conan - Magic Kaito oneshots

Torn to pieces

Saguru stared at the retreating form of his classmate (friend?) and tried to tell himself that he'd not intentionally sounded so disregarding and uncaring about something of which he was very well aware that Saguru had invested so much of his time and energy on. That he was publicly passionate about.

Which left only two options obviously, detective work and Sherlock Holmes. Kuroba had just invalidated his love for both in a single sentence. (And there was KID, but obviously the thief wouldn't drag himself through the mud.)

Not that that kind of behavior was anything new. The two of them almost had a routine of hurting each other's feelings in varying ways and intensity. It was the kind of struggle that naturally resulted from two wildly different teenagers, who only stepped outside with at least one mask in place for social interactions, trying to communicate in a possibly friendly or just civil manner. (They even failed at the latter on some days.)

Kuroba and himself never were and never would be able to see eye to eye, they just didn't understand each other enough to prevent someone from getting hurt. And quite a few times they couldn't even be bothered to care if they hurt the other, or did it intentionally.

Yet Aoko insisted that they were friends. And what did Saguru know? Maybe they were? He'd never had many friendships over the course of his young life that could help him compare, some of them had ended pretty brutally, abruptly, others had slowly succumbed to similar problems, to the point where he was asking himself if he was the problem.

Did he expect too much? Was he subconsciously clinging to the idea of a perfect friendship so that the real deal paled in comparison? Maybe he was just too sensitive. Too critical. Maybe he was too damaged for Aoko's seemingly temporary and Kuroba's flippant, borderline uncaring, friendship (?) to work with him.

Or maybe it just didn't work with them because they were all damaged, in the family related childhood trauma kind of way. Or because he was unconsciously chasing a dream. Baaya had said maybe their share of trauma was what had brought on and held their friendship together. Saguru didn't know. If it was true he wasn't sure if it was enough to hold them together much longer. But he wasn't fully sold on getting on a plane and going back to England for good either.

It was like dancing on a knife's edge, they were connected, by trauma, similarities, some likes, some interests, and yet still pushed too far apart by dissimilarities to meet his expectations (?) of a proper healthy friendship. Sometimes he thought he could do without them and not feel any different upon losing them.

Only to then, of course, be proven wrong when either of them had a vulnerable moment where they emotionally connected for a while, and he'd briefly feel needed, just as he was also unexpectedly hurt by seeing them hurting.

The truth was that he'd always lived in another's world and never fit. He didn't really fit into his mother's world back in England, he didn't fully fit into his father's world here in Japan. He'd even outgrown fitting the simple togetherness he'd always shared with Baaya as a child. He also didn't seamlessly fit in at KID heists.

But it was the most like fitting he'd ever felt. Now if he could only keep holding onto that feeling, for he had nothing else. Now if he could only convince himself that it didn't have to be perfect to be considered worthwhile. If only he was able to determine for himself if it was more hurting or healing to him, this balancing act of interpersonal relationships.

And then KID disappeared without a trace after a heist. Which, of course, always happened, the thief had to flee the scene or risk getting arrested, obviously, but that wasn't what was meant in that instance. The point that was worrying was that Kuroba disappeared after the heist as well as his alter ego.