Some of you know that once I finish Spark (a dcmk fanfic), I’m going to write another Detective Conan/Magic Kaito fic called A Lovely Day for Murder, aka Hakuba’s life story. I’ve been working on an outline off and on for the past few months, and writing practice snippets. Third person? First? I think it’ll likely be in first person, and written in the style (as best as I can manage) of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. 

We’ll see how that goes. 

In the meantime, here are the 1,300~ words that I wrote tonight as an experiment and distraction from the novel that I SHOULD be finishing but am not. Yet. It’s the setup for a heist, and may or may not end up in the fanfic book.

Crazy sorry to mobile users; it’s long. I got a little carried away and didn’t actually edit it at all (do I ever?), but hopefully Hakuba fans will enjoy it anyway. 

A Game of Chase

The
weather that night was harsh and cold; not altogether unusual for
mid-November, but unpleasant for those members of the police force that
were sequestered to the courtyard outside of the Grande Plaza hotel.
Nakamori-keibu had his men poised like hungry hounds at the end of their
leashes, straining, ready to give chase and attack. Even so, there were
sniffles under rain slickers, and anxious shifting from the chilly air.
An enormous stone lion stood guard on either side of the broad
staircase into the ballroom, staring down at the crowd in impassive
silence. It set the mood. Three minutes left.

The
inspector sneezed, but didn’t let his eyes close, glaring at the triad
of double doors, each french lattice and glass. Inside, the woman with
the Miner’s Emerald necklace stood, smiling, watching the clock. The
pendant wasn’t priceless, but it was worth more than most of the
officers would make over the entirety of their career; cut in the shape
of a heart, glittering pavonine blues, greens, and purples. It sat over
the strip of cleavage exposed by her low-cut evening gown. She touched
the gem, then brought her finger to her lips, biting just the tip of her
glove with her teeth. She was excited. KID was going to steal from her, and he’d have to touch her to get it.

“You
look pleased,” said the young detective who stood next to her. “Do you,
perhaps, have an ulterior motive for taking his challenge?”

The
woman shifted her dark-eyed gaze to him, eyes moving from his
fair-skinned face, down his body, and to his leather shoes. He was
young, she knew, but the square of his jaw and his professional demeanor
made him feel so much older. The cut of fabric served him well,
too; tailored for his lean frame in a way that expressed where his
strengths were- broad shoulders, thick thighs -while giving such a
subtle curve to the slender areas. He was handsome, to be sure, and thus
far, she’d been impressed with his wit and observation- that was why
she’d hired him, after all -but his accusation gave her pause.
Irritation, perhaps? Something of that sort.

Yes, she was
older; forty-three and showing the maturity in her face. But she was
well-endowed in the chest, her body was toned and firm where it should
have been, supple where it wasn’t. She’d spent a fortune on her beauty,
and no young, foreign detective was going to spoil her fun, even if she had
considered taking him to bed before. No, tonight her prey was Kaitou
KID. She wanted him to touch her to take the gem, to get close and
personal, able to take in his scent, feel his hand on her skin, and
then… have the British boy to retrieve it for her.

“No,”
she answered after she’d given herself a moment to consider her
feelings. “Of course not, Hakuba-kun.” Even though he’d not corrected
her on the matter, she knew that he preferred ‘san’ to ‘kun,’ but he was
still a boy and she was his employer. And she loved watching the
little twitch at the corner of his left eye when she did it. For all of
his steel nerves and composure, she could get under his skin, and that
gave her immense pleasure. “I didn’t tell him to steal this, you know. That was his doing. I’m simply complying.”

The
young detective carded long, thin fingers through the fringe of blond
over his forehead and sighed, mouth curving into a faint smirk of
amusement. “If you insist, Miyako-san. But, if you’d like my opinion,”
he said, dropping his voice and leaning  closer to her- just a few
inches, but it was enough that she could feel his breath on her ear when
he spoke. “I hardly think your advertisement in the newspaper was
necessary.” He pulled back with a little wink, but there was a sort of
slow way that he did it… like it wasn’t a suggestion; it was a
warning.

The woman brushed her hand over the wisp of dark
hair that had fallen out of place with her detective’s words, and she
turned her head away, indignant. “Say what you like,” she sniffed. “Just
make sure that you’re able to stop that thief from getting away with
this.”

“Of course, Miyako-san.” The teen nodded, then
stepped away from his client to resume his position against the wall.
He’d been away from home for three months, four days, seventeen hours,
thirty-seven minutes, and… well, he snapped his watch shut and slipped
it back into the pocket of his trousers. In that time, he’d received no
shortage of patronizing treatment from strangers and colleagues alike.

Was
it because of his age? At seventeen, he’d clocked over three hundred
hours in the service of Scotland Yard, and far more than that with
private clients. Age shouldn’t have mattered at all. There were plenty
of young people who were brilliant and truly capable in their field, and
more than enough in the older generations that were not only
incompetent, but persistently ignorant, which was a crime in and of
itself. Perhaps it was his mixed heritage. Foreigners still weren’t
entirely trusted in Japan, and being half was regarded, at least by
some, as evidence of utter betrayal. Race didn’t matter to him,
either; nor nationality (unless you were from the States), or the other
‘protected topics’ of religion, sex, political party, etc. What mattered
was motive and intent.

But there were plenty of people who never much liked listening to sense and rational thought…

…which
led him to that evening. Hakuba had come to Japan for several reasons,
the strongest of which was the assassin Spider, who had targeted a very
famous and prolific Japanese thief. The very thief that had sent the
news of the heist, for which Nakamori and his men were prepared for. At
least, as far as that stubborn fool could be prepared.

He checked his watch again. Twenty two seconds. Twenty one. Twenty. Nineteen.

As
far as the media knew, Hakuba Saguru, only child of the Superintendent
General, was in the country for one purpose only: to catch Kaitou KID.
But, true to his word, he’d already caught the ruddy bastard. By their
second interaction, he’d done what no one else had been able to do. He
knew KID’s identity.

Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen.

Further,
he knew his address, his height, his weight, his age, the names of his
family members and closest friends, his grades in school, the marks on
his permanent records, his blood type, his taste in food, his style of
clothing, his scent, his hobbies, the timbre of his voice.

Six. Five. Four.

He
even knew several of Kid’s facial expressions and tells. There was
irrefutable proof. Documentation. And yet, despite all of this, Kid’s
alter-ego had repeatedly refused to confess. Every accusation had been
carelessly tossed aside. Every offer to help, every clue he’d left,
every corner he’d tried to squeeze information from had yielded nothing
but insults, indifference, and irritation. Kuroba Kaito knew that Hakuba
had figured him out. He knew that Hakuba knew that he knew, and yet. And yet.

One.

But
if the detective was anything, it was persistent. There were other ways
to catch a thief, after all, and if Kid refused to cooperate as his
civilian self, Hakuba would approach it during working hours. The risk
was considerably higher for them both, but he needed answers and
cooperation. Kid’s life depended on it.

“Ladies and gentlemen!”

Showtime.

All
at once, the Kid Task Force was in action, and chaos ensued. That was
just the sort of thing that Kid relished; it made it easier for him to
steal his target and make his escape. This was also well and good for
Hakuba, who felt a secret (or not so) satisfaction that the inspector
continually failed, largely in part because he refused to listen to the
young detective. He always offered good advice, reports, and statistics,
but but the keibu wasn’t interested in listening. He never was.
Regardless, it allowed Hakuba to move about in any way that he pleased;
part of the force, technically, but also not. Just as he was Japanese
and not, all at once.

He watched and waited for the
officers to cause their disturbances, and as soon as he saw that flash
of white cape heading for higher ground, Hakuba crept after. There were
plenty of places to hide in such a large hotel, and he wasn’t about to
let him get away. The service hallways were easily the least trafficked
and the best for someone such as Kid to traipse, so he followed the path
that would let him see KID and reach the darkened hallways all at the
same time.