Detective Conan - Magic Kaito oneshots

Leader of the pack

The door was flung open with all the subtlety of a raging bull in a glassware store, smacking into the wall with a loud bang and vibrating a bit from the impact as it ambled back towards its frame.

The young man's head had snapped up from his book at the first sign of movement from that direction and there'd been a minuscule flinch and subsequent tensing to his shoulders at the loud sound, though he hid it well. His attention latched onto the short figure of a preteen rushing into the room, almost in a blur.

The girl raced across the floor at a probably unnecessarily concerning speed, but she was upset and pre puberty hormones weren't exactly helping with one's grip on reason. Right in that moment she needed to vent to someone who'd listen and truly take her seriously, no matter what they personally thought about the importance of her troubles. And there was only one person who was well practiced in that and also willing to do it.

She threw herself at the man with only the smallest hint of hesitation to her last few steps before she reached him. His appearance still threw her off at every first glance she got of him when entering a room, even though it had been months, nearly a year. For that split second, when she registered all the similarities and differences, he always still seemed like an unrecognizable stranger, before her brain caught up and realized that he wasn't.

The young man might not be the small boy she got to know him as anymore, but he was still the same person, still her good friend. It was easier to mentally understand that than to actually feel the truth of the fact though, if she gave herself too much time to linger. So she didn't.

The shorter form forcefully collided with his side, a brief spark of pain shooting throughout his torso, and then firmly attached itself there. Smaller hands bunching up his dress shirt in their tight grip. Shinichi sighed as he automatically and instinctively wrapped an arm around the girl, placing his book out of the potential danger zone with the other.

His hand was rubbing slow, comforting circles into the small back before he consciously thought to do it. Experience aplenty had wired the motion into his muscle memory. A furious sniffle went only halfway muffled by his shirt where he could feel a damp patch growing.

As puberty drew nearer, the detective boys had been dealing with a lot more inner conflict in their group and individual emotional breakdowns. That he was overjoyed at them seeming to have unanimously decided that he was the one they came to with their troubles didn't make it any less exhausting.

"What's wrong, Ayumi?", his voice had long been drenched in endless gentle patience when it came to the children he'd basically helped to raise for a good part of their childhood during the last few years, up to the current day.

She shifted and the next second had a flushed face staring up at him that was slowly but continuously losing its childish roundness, sending a slight stab to his heart at not having noticed before, he hadn't seen her for almost a month.

He really wanted to continue being a significant part of the kids lives, but with all the time spent on catching up to finally graduate, even for an above average mind like his and with school material that was basically beneath him, it was a challenge.

Shinichi's thoughts screeched to a halt at noticing the downright angry tears spilling down Ayumi's reddened cheeks, accentuated by a fierce frown and, most notably, a very much busted lip. Alarm bells started ringing very loudly in the detective's head.

For all that the detective boys had diligently soaked up his crime solving knowledge and the accompanying lectures like sponges, they still got in over their heads way too often and put off pulling him in on it until the last possible moment. He could swear he was starting to go grey already because of them.