“Sera Masumi. You know, you’re pretty smart if you got my gender right!” It wasn’t every day that Sera met someone who could get it right first try. Besides, Kuro seemed to have paused a bit before giving his name. He could have just been nervous but…
“What are you doing out here alone?”
Well, of course he’s not going to call her a boy again, considering that’s what had gotten him in trouble last time… Okay, so it might not have been the smartest to say right now, but he can pass it off as just getting a lucky guess or being smart. So he smiles happily at the compliment and his head tilts slightly at the question.
“I was just on my way to the park to meet up with some of my friends. We were planning on hanging out today, and I’m already a bit late…” If there was one thing the thief’s gotten used to coming up with quickly, it would be an excuse, further plans for what he could say being drawn up as he spoke.
“Thanks!” She had to admit, the child seemed a bit familiar, but she couldn’t place where she could have seen him before. Then again, he looked somewhat like Conan. Maybe that was it?
“Hey, what’s your name?”
“You’re welcome, oneesan,” he said, smiling before it faltered a little.
…Right… name… umm…
Obviously he can’t just use his own. That’d be confusing when he returned to normal. …But he hadn’t considered a name yet. Hmm…
A slight pause passed before he grinned again and slipped his arms casually behind his head.
“Maybe if I turn here…no?” Sera had managed to get lost in an unfamiliar part of Tokyo. As nice as the area was, she had other things to do and needed to find a bus stop. She could ask for directions, but the only other person around seemed to be a young boy.
‘Worth a shot’ Sera shrugged as she approached the child.
“Hey, do you know where the bus stop is?”
Kaito looked around, arms crossed over his chest as he tried to figure out what he could do right now. He’d called Aoko to let her know he’d be working on something with Jii for a while, so he didn’t want to draw attention by going home where she might notice he wasn’t actually out…
A vaguely familiar voice drew him from his musings about just staying at the park for a couple of hours or so to look up at the person coming near. Then he blinked once, twice, and his eyes widened slightly.
…Think he’s feeling a phantom pain from the time at that heist, now…
…But wait, he’s a kid. Not the Kid. It was doubtful anything would happen now, so the magician simply smiled disarmingly, even as he took a step back to face her.
“Yeah, it’s just a couple of streets down and to the right. There’s a tree next to it, so it’s sometimes hard to see if you don’t know where it is.”
“I don’t even know how this thing moves.” Kaito’s eyes widened as a tentacle twitched. Every sensation from the lower half of his body was strange and slightly alarming.
“Let me just-” He tried to sit up straight and fell over. “This is stupid,” he groaned.
Okay. One more try, but staying propped up on an arm this time.
“I think I might be able to get it from here. Thanks.” He cupped some water in his free hand and poured it over his lower half. Just that little bit made him feel better, and he inched even closer to the tub.
Lift it up, and twist.
At least the tentacles were in the water now, even though getting the rest of his lower half in the water seemed too difficult to attempt. Kaito flopped back down and tried to enjoy the feel of the water.
That was splashing. He was going to have to learn to control those better, but at least the rest of him was getting moist too.
“Where did you get the water from?”
The smaller Kaito stayed nearby, leaning against a wall, though he wasn’t looking completely at his other self. A couple of glances, but he simply looked off to the side most of the time.
“From the bathhouse close by. It was the quickest thing I could think of, unless we just wanted to try buying some water to throw on you until we could get home or to a pond or something.”
A shrunken thief is still a thief, but it’s not as though he doesn’t plan on returning it. …When they’re done using it and after it’s been cleaned… Lucky it was after closing, or it’d be a bit harder to explain what he needed the water for.
Hattori let out a breath before smiling down at the kid. “Wha’cha doin’ ou’ on yere own so late?” He looked down at the clothes that where much to large for the other. “Are ya los’?” He tilted his head. “Do ya need help gettin’ home?”
“No, I can get home fine, mister. My house isn’t that far, I just…” The boy looked down a little, smiling sheepishly. “…Since it was a full moon, I wanted to pretend I was Kaitou Kid, so I borrowed some of my brother’s clothes… But I guess they’re a bit too big… I kinda tripped…”
Spur of the moment excuses and child mode are now on. Let’s see how well this goes… Just need to keep him from getting too curious, and then he can go home, change, and try to see what he can do about this…
“Oh?~ Try me. Start running and we’ll see how far you get!” He’s grinning.
Kee hee hee!~
“You sure you want to? Because even if you weren’t blind, I doubt you’d be able to catch me~”
Kaito shifted his weight and turned to face more away from his counterpart, a smirk coming up as he got in a position where he could start running, though he isn’t moving away yet.
“The sooner the better.” Kaito was grateful that he still seemed to have lungs, so while he wasn’t comfortable, he could still breathe. He wasn’t going to die from this, at least not immediately. He would just wait here.
It was still unnerving to look at where his legs should be and see something else there instead. To feel something else there instead.
The little magician soon comes back to his other self with a small tub filled with water and sets it down by the other and lets out a breath. Might not seem like much for him normally, but jeeze was it harder to move around with his smaller frame…
“So… do we dump it on you, or… do you just need to put your… lower half in it a bit?”
“Oi, I wasn’t asking for shit!” Grump, grump. “I can see you! Kind of. Just enough to pick you up and hug you mercilessly.”
“You were inviting trouble when you said being a girl would be too boring. And if you can only ‘kind of’ see me, might be a little hard for you to catch me first. Wouldn’t want you to run into anything, now~“
Might not be scaly, but it’s still not the most comfortable to be near, so he’ll just keep his mind off focusing on it to go get some containers of water to help for now, until they can move his other self somewhere better.
Moonlight Archive 