Some of you know that once I finish Spark<\/i>\u00a0(a dcmk fanfic), I\u2019m going to write another Detective Conan\/Magic Kaito fic called A Lovely Day for Murder, <\/i>aka Hakuba\u2019s life story.\u00a0<\/i>I\u2019ve been working on an outline off and on for the past few months, and writing practice snippets. Third person? First? I think it\u2019ll likely be in first person, and written in the style (as best as I can manage) of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
We\u2019ll see how that goes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019s the setup for a heist, and may or may not end up in the fanfic book.<\/p>\n
Crazy sorry to mobile users; it\u2019s long. I got a little carried away and didn\u2019t actually edit it at all (do I ever?), but hopefully Hakuba fans will enjoy it anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Game of Chase<\/b><\/p>\n
\nThe
\n weather that night was harsh and cold; not altogether unusual for
\nmid-November, but unpleasant for those members of the police force that
\nwere sequestered to the courtyard outside of the Grande Plaza hotel.
\nNakamori-keibu had his men poised like hungry hounds at the end of their
\n leashes, straining, ready to give chase and attack. Even so, there were
\n sniffles under rain slickers, and anxious shifting from the chilly air.
\n An enormous stone lion stood guard on either side of the broad
\nstaircase into the ballroom, staring down at the crowd in impassive
\nsilence. It set the mood. Three minutes left. <\/p>\n
The
\ninspector sneezed, but didn’t let his eyes close, glaring at the triad
\nof double doors, each french lattice and glass. Inside, the woman with
\nthe Miner’s Emerald necklace stood, smiling, watching the clock. The
\npendant wasn’t priceless, but it was worth more than most of the
\nofficers would make over the entirety of their career; cut in the shape
\nof a heart, glittering pavonine blues, greens, and purples. It sat over
\nthe strip of cleavage exposed by her low-cut evening gown. She touched
\nthe gem, then brought her finger to her lips, biting just the tip of her
\n glove with her teeth. She was excited. KID was going to steal from her, <\/i>and he’d have to touch her to get it. <\/p>\n
“You
\n look pleased,” said the young detective who stood next to her. “Do you,
\n perhaps, have an ulterior motive for taking his challenge?”<\/p>\n
The
\n woman shifted her dark-eyed gaze to him, eyes moving from his
\nfair-skinned face, down his body, and to his leather shoes. He was
\nyoung, she knew, but the square of his jaw and his professional demeanor
\n made him feel<\/i> so much older. The cut of fabric served him well,
\ntoo; tailored for his lean frame in a way that expressed where his
\nstrengths were- broad shoulders, thick thighs -while giving such a
\nsubtle curve to the slender areas. He was handsome, to be sure, and thus
\n far, she’d been impressed with his wit and observation- that was why
\nshe’d hired him, after all -but his accusation gave her pause.
\nIrritation, perhaps? Something of that sort. <\/p>\n
Yes, she was
\nolder; forty-three and showing the maturity in her face. But she was
\nwell-endowed in the chest, her body was toned and firm where it should
\nhave been, supple where it wasn’t. She’d spent a fortune on her beauty,
\nand no young, foreign detective was going to spoil her fun, even if she had<\/i>
\n considered taking him to bed before. No, tonight her prey was Kaitou
\nKID. She wanted him to touch her to take the gem, to get close and
\npersonal, able to take in his scent, feel his hand on her skin, and
\nthen… have the British boy to retrieve it for her. <\/p>\n
“No,”
\n she answered after she’d given herself a moment to consider her
\nfeelings. “Of course not, Hakuba-kun.” Even though he’d not corrected
\nher on the matter, she knew that he preferred ‘san’ to ‘kun,’ but he was
\n still a boy<\/i> and she was his employer. And she loved watching the
\n little twitch at the corner of his left eye when she did it. For all of
\n his steel nerves and composure, she could get under his skin, and that
\ngave her immense pleasure. “I<\/i> didn’t tell him to steal this, you know. That was his doing. I’m simply complying.”<\/p>\n
The
\n young detective carded long, thin fingers through the fringe of blond
\nover his forehead and sighed, mouth curving into a faint smirk of
\namusement. “If you insist, Miyako-san. But, if you’d like my opinion,”
\nhe said, dropping his voice and leaning \u00a0closer to her- just a few
\ninches, but it was enough that she could feel his breath on her ear when
\n he spoke. “I hardly think your advertisement in the newspaper was
\nnecessary.” He pulled back with a little wink, but there was a sort of
\nslow way that he did it… like it wasn’t a suggestion; it was a
\nwarning.<\/p>\n
The woman brushed her hand over the wisp of dark
\nhair that had fallen out of place with her detective’s words, and she
\nturned her head away, indignant. “Say what you like,” she sniffed. “Just
\n make sure that you’re able to stop that thief from getting away with
\nthis.”<\/p>\n
“Of course, Miyako-san.” The teen nodded, then
\nstepped away from his client to resume his position against the wall.
\nHe’d been away from home for three months, four days, seventeen hours,
\nthirty-seven minutes, and… well, he snapped his watch shut and slipped
\n it back into the pocket of his trousers. In that time, he’d received no
\n shortage of patronizing treatment from strangers and colleagues alike. <\/p>\n
Was
\n it because of his age? At seventeen, he’d clocked over three hundred
\nhours in the service of Scotland Yard, and far more than that with
\nprivate clients. Age shouldn’t have mattered at all. There were plenty
\nof young people who were brilliant and truly capable in their field, and
\n more than enough in the older generations that were not only
\nincompetent, but persistently ignorant, which was a crime in and of
\nitself. Perhaps it was his mixed heritage. Foreigners still weren’t
\nentirely trusted in Japan, and being half was regarded, at least by
\nsome, as evidence of utter betrayal.<\/i> Race didn’t matter to him,
\neither; nor nationality (unless you were from the States), or the other
\n‘protected topics’ of religion, sex, political party, etc. What mattered
\n was motive and intent. <\/p>\n
But there were plenty of people who never much liked listening to sense and rational thought…<\/p>\n
…which
\n led him to that evening. Hakuba had come to Japan for several reasons,
\nthe strongest of which was the assassin Spider, who had targeted a very
\nfamous and prolific Japanese thief. The very thief that had sent the
\nnews of the heist, for which Nakamori and his men were prepared for. At
\nleast, as far as that stubborn fool could<\/i> be prepared. <\/p>\n
He checked his watch again. Twenty two seconds. Twenty one. Twenty. Nineteen. <\/p>\n
As
\n far as the media knew, Hakuba Saguru, only child of the Superintendent
\nGeneral, was in the country for one purpose only: to catch Kaitou KID.
\nBut, true to his word, he’d already caught the ruddy bastard. By their
\nsecond interaction, he’d done what no one else had been able to do. He
\nknew KID’s identity. <\/p>\n
Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. <\/p>\n
Further,
\n he knew his address, his height, his weight, his age, the names of his
\nfamily members and closest friends, his grades in school, the marks on
\nhis permanent records, his blood type, his taste in food, his style of
\nclothing, his scent, his hobbies, the timbre of his voice. <\/p>\n
Six. Five. Four.<\/p>\n
He
\n even knew several of Kid’s facial expressions and tells. There was
\nirrefutable proof. Documentation. And yet, despite all of this, Kid’s
\nalter-ego had repeatedly refused to confess. Every accusation had been
\ncarelessly tossed aside. Every offer to help, every clue he’d left,
\nevery corner he’d tried to squeeze information from had yielded nothing
\nbut insults, indifference, and irritation. Kuroba Kaito knew that Hakuba
\n had figured him out. He knew<\/i> that Hakuba knew that he knew, and yet. And yet.<\/i> <\/p>\n
One. <\/p>\n
But
\n if the detective was anything, it was persistent. There were other ways
\n to catch a thief, after all, and if Kid refused to cooperate as his
\ncivilian self, Hakuba would approach it during working hours. The risk
\nwas considerably higher for them both, but he needed answers and
\ncooperation. Kid’s life depended on it. <\/p>\n
“Ladies and gentlemen!”<\/p>\n
Showtime. <\/p>\n
All
\n at once, the Kid Task Force was in action, and chaos ensued. That was
\njust the sort of thing that Kid relished; it made it easier for him to
\nsteal his target and make his escape. This was also well and good for
\nHakuba, who felt a secret (or not so) satisfaction that the inspector
\ncontinually failed, largely in part because he refused to listen to the
\nyoung detective. He always offered good advice, reports, and statistics,
\n but but the keibu wasn’t interested in listening. He never was.
\nRegardless, it allowed Hakuba to move about in any way that he pleased;
\npart of the force, technically, but also not. Just as he was Japanese
\nand not, all at once. <\/p>\n
He watched and waited for the
\nofficers to cause their disturbances, and as soon as he saw that flash
\nof white cape heading for higher ground, Hakuba crept after. There were
\nplenty of places to hide in such a large hotel, and he wasn’t about to
\nlet him get away. The service hallways were easily the least trafficked
\nand the best for someone such as Kid to traipse, so he followed the path
\n that would let him see KID and reach the darkened hallways all at the
\nsame time. \u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of you know that once I finish Spark\u00a0(a dcmk fanfic), I\u2019m going to write another Detective Conan\/Magic Kaito fic called A Lovely Day for Murder, aka Hakuba\u2019s life story.\u00a0I\u2019ve been working on an outline off and on for the past few months, and writing practice snippets. Third person? First? I think it\u2019ll likely be … Continue reading A Game of Chase<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[866,295,294,82,264,12,313,83],"class_list":["post-1725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aldfm","tag-dcmk","tag-detective-conan","tag-fanfic","tag-hakuba","tag-long-post","tag-magic-kaito","tag-prose","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}