Detective Conan - Magic Kaito oneshots

As long as I'm here no one can hurt you

I guess this could be read as sequel to "The pain of knowing your own failure" since both are written to be mostly canon compliant. More sadness awaits you.

He sprung up in bed like a spring being released after it had been pulled down. But he never screamed. As much as it might've been the most logical reaction, the sound died in his throat before it made it to his mouth. Shinichi sat in silence for a minute before he shoved the covers off of him and clambered out of bed.

The room was pitch black, but he knew his way around and got out of the door without even stubbing his toe. His pupils blown wide, trying to catch as much light as possible, an impossible task in the narrow hallway without windows, stared unseeingly into the darkness ahead as he walked down the dark hallway. The darkness didn't scare him.

But tonight, the figures from his dreams, lurking in the back of his mind, made it unsettling. His logical mind pushed the panic down that wanted to well up in his chest. It was stupid and he knew it.

He was much more familiar with the logical side of things; he knew how to solve a puzzle. But his genius mind stuttered to a halt when it came to feelings. His own as well as those of others.

He had a guess as to why things that had never scared him before, criminals and horrible people with even worse intentions, the corpses they left in their wake, the danger they could pose to his young life, suddenly gave him nightmares every single night when they had never done so before.

He had a guess, but it seemed absolutely dumb. He had had nightmares every single night ever since his parents had left. It was highly illogical, but without their presence in the house it felt as if the bad guys could get him now. Which was a stupid thought, he repeated to himself.

If a highly skilled killer managed to break in despite the highly developed security system to finish him off, it wouldn't matter if his parents were living in the house with him or not, he'd die either way if he wasn't alert enough to defend himself. It was just like a silly child thinking that the imaginary serial killer in the corner of its room couldn't see it if it hid under the blanket when it woke up in the middle of the night.

The fourteen year old boy descended the stairs in complete darkness without falling or even having to reach for the handrail.

The absence of his parents shouldn't have this effect on him. He was fully capable of protecting and taking care of himself, he didn't need them, and he truly didn't miss them. His father was always working, and his mother was so silly, it was nothing but annoying. And still their absence hurt.

Maybe because he hadn't even been surprised when they'd announced that they were moving to America. His mother had seemed bored with her life here ever since he could remember, and his father had always jumped at every opportunity to be able to run away from a deadline. He could've gone with them. That had even been their original plan.

But he'd refused... Because of Ran. Which was another case of those bloody feelings that he didn't understand. He didn't know why it felt impossible for him to move to another country and leave her behind, but it did.

So, he'd decided to stay in Japan and his parents hadn't even protested. They'd just accepted it after a moment of bewilderment and left without him, leaving him behind like another piece of furniture that they'd left to collect dust in this mansion of theirs.

Shinichi wandered into the living room and switched on the TV, never bothering to turn on any lights. The Professor might still be working, but then again, the guy probably wouldn't care if Shinichi was asleep at this hour or not. The darkness was a welcome cover for the teen.

He watched a family interacting on TV without any emotion taking form inside his chest. Something was different in the way those parents interacted with their children in comparison to how his parents interacted with him, but he didn't know what it was and frankly couldn't be bothered to care. He switched the channels.

An American horror movie came on, a guy with a mask sliced a beautiful young blond woman in two with a chainsaw. Shinichi didn't even blink. His mind came up with seventeen other ways the killer could've been more discreet. This way it would be easy to find him for any detective who even had half a brain.

The teen knew he'd probably be a good serial killer with all of the studying of them he'd done but that wasn't his goal. Instead Shinichi wanted to be a detective as soon as possible, and a famous one at that. He was the smartest person his age that he knew; it would be easy once he found a case that got him enough attention.

His mind suddenly made him stumble in his thinking process by sending the question his way why he wanted to be a detective so bad. Because he wanted to be like his idol Sherlock Holmes of course. Because he wanted to be famous as himself and not only as the son of his parents. Because he wanted to show the world what he was capable of. Maybe also because he wanted to help people.

But then again, murders interested him the most and the dead didn't need help anymore. Just the police, and they could solve cases on their own, just a lot slower than him. So, he wasn't really helping them, but stealing their jobs. Didn't matter.

A treacherous voice in the back of his mind muttered that that was still helping, despite what he was trying to tell himself, and that he wanted to be a detective because he wanted to be useful, to be adored by fans, to just be noticed by anyone really.

Suddenly the darkness seemed to press down on him, the boy curled himself up into a ball on the couch. That feeling that was making him feel cold and threatened to push those godawful tears into his eyes that only a weakling cried, was loneliness.

On TV the chainsaw killer beheaded a black woman. Shinichi wasn't watching anymore.

Maybe it was because nobody had been there to comfort him when he awoke from his nightmare that he was so out of it. His parents hadn't comforted him since he'd been a little boy, but their presence, a glance into their bedroom alone to see them sleeping peacefully, had always been enough to calm him down.

If he opened that door now their bed would be empty and he'd feel as if he'd stepped right into that horror movie with the killer appearing behind him with his chainsaw, ready to strike him down. And Shinichi wouldn't even make a move to defend himself if such a thing were to happen that night.

Ran would arrive in the morning to find his body instead of finding him asleep somewhere in the house with dark circles under his eyes, because he'd needed hours to go back to sleep after his usual nightmare and rudely shake him awake to herd him to school, threatening him with physical violence.

He'd stayed behind for her instead of going with his parents. Maybe that feeling he had for her was love. But how stupid would that be, that he should love her who threatened him with borderline abuse, pushed, pulled and dragged him around however she saw fit, never seemed to notice or care when he was vulnerable. Maybe he was messed up like that.

On TV a spree of bullets fired by police officers mowed down the killer. Shinichi reached for the remote and switched it off, uncurled himself and got up from the couch to make his way into the kitchen.

He downed a glass of water there and placed it in the sink before he sat down at the kitchen table. His mind was pulling him down into a dark abyss and he allowed the pull to drag his head down, resting it on his arms that he'd crossed on the smooth surface of the table.

If the chainsaw killer escaped the TV or if he went out for a walk right now in the middle of the night and walked off a bridge- nobody would notice. Nobody would care.

Sure, his parents and Ran, maybe the Professor, would be bothered that he was missing from their lives so suddenly, but they'd go on with them and forget about him some day. That made it even more important that he became a famous detective, nobody would forget about him.

A single tear rolled down his cheek as he blinked before sleep eventually caught up with the teen.