Sorry this fic is a little later than usual! I got caught up in real life and couldn't post yesterday.

About this fic: I promised myself I was just going to write a thousand words of university!AU with RA!Shinichi and organic-chem-nerd!Kaito and then it grew and I wanted to cry.

But. Anyway. Like I mentioned, this fic contains RA!Shinichi and organic-chem-nerd!Kaito. Also, there's (obviously) shounen-ai, possible grammar mistakes / errors, and really terrible pacing. Yay?

Hope you enjoy! – Luna

Bond Angle

Shinichi was really regretting taking organic chemistry.

He glared down at the (unhelpful) molecular model in front of him. It looked like trigonal bipyramidal now, but Shinichi didn't doubt that the moment he wrote that down, it would turn square pyramidal, because that was what had happened with the last forty-eight models he had identified.

There was a tentative knock on the doorframe as Shinichi pondered whether he could burn a hole through his two-thousand-and-forty-five-page textbook with his eyes alone. He glanced up to find Kuroba Kaito, shuffling around awkwardly with his laptop clutched in his hands, loitering in his doorway.

He jerked his head in a nod when Shinichi raised his eyebrows. "Uh, hey." He pointed at the piece of paper reading OPEN taped to Shinichi's door. "I needed you to, um. You know. My computer's, er. Stuck again."

Occasionally (or possibly every day of his existence), Shinichi despised that he had let Ran convince him to register as a resident assistant for one of Touto University's cramped dorms. Not because he hated dealing with flooded sinks or shutting down parties or any of the usual RA duties, despite how the other RAs complained about drug confiscation and disputes over bathroom usage at the RA meetings. All of that was easy enough.

But if Shinichi was completely honest (which he almost never was, but all the same), the main reason why he didn't entirely like being an RA was because every time he hosted open hours, people liked to walk into his dorm and laugh at his Sherlock Holmes posters. It was ridiculous. The posters were vintage originals. Nobody should laugh at them. Fawn and gape with awe, of course, but laughing was absurd.

Although Kaito wasn't the worst of them, Shinichi thought as he nodded shortly at Kaito and directed him to the uncomfortable plastic chair he had for this occasion. The first time Kaito had shown up, needing Shinichi's help to unfreeze the screen of his ancient laptop, he had stared to laugh at the posters, but then he had quickly stopped himself when he recognized that Shinichi was three seconds away from jamming a pen into the side of his neck. At least Kaito had some self-preservation instincts, unlike Suzuki from 406.

And, also unlike Suzuki, Kaito was kind of (very) cute, what with his cowlicky hair and large indigo eyes, but Shinichi didn't like thinking about that.

Now, Kaito carefully set his clunky, gunmetal gray laptop on an uncluttered portion of Shinichi's desk, opening it gingerly. Shinichi couldn't comprehend why Kaito was still using a laptop that Shinichi suspected had somehow time-traveled from before paper was invented, but he had learned somewhere between the fourth and fifth time he had unfrozen Kaito's computer screen that it was probably better not to ask.

Arching an eyebrow at the webpage displayed (it was a YouTube video titled "Ketchupbot + 20th Century Fox Theme on a Flute"), Shinichi held down the power button until the laptop made a dying squirrel noise and shut off abruptly.

Clicking the laptop shut, Shinichi ordered, "Boot it back up, and it should be fine," and handed the block of metal to Kaito. The issue resolved, he turned back to his textbook to resume his attempts at x-ray vision.

"Why does it never work when I do that?" Kaito grumbled over Shinichi's shoulder. Shinichi paused in his staring, waiting for footsteps to patter away, but Kaito remained unmoving behind him.

With a groan, Shinichi peered over at him. "Was there something else you wanted?" he asked wearily, lifting an eyebrow, and Kaito shook his head. It took Shinichi a moment to notice his gaze was trained on the textbook lying open on the desk.

"You're doing organic chemistry? It looks fun," Kaito commented with a faint smile.

Shinichi blinked at him, because wait one second, hold up, had someone just called organic chemistry fun?

He stared hard at Kaito, expecting him to grin uncomfortably and admit he'd been joking, but Kaito was perfectly serious, smiling radiantly down at the textbook as if it were a long-lost childhood friend he had bumped into at the supermarket. He was actually smiling. The corners of his mouth lifted. His eyes were sparkling.

As far as Shinichi knew, Touto University didn't accept deranged people, but here Kaito was. He stared blankly up at Kaito until Kaito started, flushing a little as he backed away from Shinichi.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –"

"You understand organic chemistry?" Shinichi was aware that he was using the same incredulous tone he adopted when people asked him out (a tone which had a disturbing tendency to cause tears and bloodshed, usually the other person's tears and Shinichi's bloodshed), but he couldn't help himself. Someone actually enjoyed organic chemistry?

Looking less and less sure of himself, Kaito stammered, "Uh, well, yes. I'll just be going –" He made a break for the door, but Shinichi surged out of his seat to latch onto Kaito's bicep. Unfortunately, Kaito hadn't been prepared for Shinichi to morph into a flying koala, and he toppled to Shinichi's carpet with a squeak, landing awkwardly on his laptop with Shinichi sprawled over his side in some horrible semblance of a scene from a shoujo manga.

There was a moment of silence.

"…You understand organic chemistry?" Shinichi finally asked, in a very small voice.

Underneath him, Kaito stiffened. "Uh… yes?"

"Can you…" Shinichi coughed. "Teach me? About organic chemistry?"

Kaito twitched wordlessly, his elbow digging into Shinichi's stomach a few times. Shinichi worried for a second that he was going into anaphylactic shock, but eventually Kaito mumbled, "Yes, okay, get off."

Quickly removing himself from Kaito's person, Shinichi returned to his spot at his desk and waited for Kaito to reclaim his position in the plastic chair. Once Kaito was leaning forward, his somehow unharmed laptop lodged in his lap, Shinichi cleared his throat and questioned, "So what molecular geometry is this?"

Squinting, Kaito frowned at the diagram. "Square pyramidal."

"I knew it," Shinichi muttered under his breath as he erased trigonal bipyramidal and printed in square pyramidal. He was aware of Kaito gawking disbelievingly at his cheek, but he steadfastly ignored him until he was done writing.

Blowing out a breath, Shinichi clenched his jaw and looked back at Kaito, who was still staring at him as if he was seeing color for the first time. He cleared his throat, prompting Kaito to startle and go wide-eyed. "Now what are the electron-pair geometries for all of these?"

If you had asked Kaito a week ago what he thought he would spend his afternoons doing, helping his mildly intimidating, very attractive RA with organic chemistry probably would not have been in his top five guesses.

Yet here he was, bent over Kudou Shinichi's disorderly desk, explaining how to draw diethylstilbestrol as Shinichi scowled down at the paper. It was almost a pity to see his face crumpled up like that, Kaito thought absently as Shinichi added another bond.

The first time Kaito's laptop had gotten stuck and his roommate, a smiley, pretty third-year with a freckle underneath one eye, had suggested that he go visit their RA for help, Kaito had been hesitant. Mostly because, despite how a lot of the other students claimed their RA was gorgeous and lived up to the expectations his well-known career as a detective set, there was a guy named Suzuki who insisted that Shinichi had tried to murder him with a pair of scissors and a piece of fishing line. And while that obviously hadn't really matched up with the firmly anti-homicide views Kudou Shinichi broadcasted to the world, Kaito hadn't thought he would ever be able to trust someone who clearly could devise a way to get away with murder.

But in the end, he'd gone, because he had needed to get a paper typed and his laptop had been refusing to work. Shinichi had taken one glance at the laptop, raised his eyebrows in a why the hell do you have a computer from the Jurassic period, and fixed it by smacking his hand against the screen until it buzzed back to life.

As a result, Kaito firmly clung to the belief that Shinichi was magical. He had tried the hit-the-screen-until-it-works method, obviously, but it hadn't worked for him.

And somehow, Kaito thought despondently as Shinichi drew an extra bond and stared daggers down at his notebook, he had ended up doing this, after several more rounds of getting Shinichi to fix his computer. He was helping Shinichi with organic chemistry, because for all Shinichi's mystery-solving prowess and photogenic good looks, he couldn't master nomenclature and toluene.

Funny, that.

Kaito was pulled from his thoughts when Shinichi calmly swiveled around in his desk chair, stood up, and threw his pencil across the room. It hit the far wall with a resounding crack and broke in two, falling in sad halves to the ground.

"I," Shinichi said emphatically, "am going to kill myself."

"Uh…" Kaito blinked. "Can you wait until I leave?"

Ignoring him, Shinichi collapsed melodramatically on his bed, burrowing into his pillow. "That's not how you're supposed to treat suicidal people, Kuroba," he mumbled sullenly against his comforter, and Kaito rubbed at his face.

"Okay, what am I supposed to say?" he grumbled, glaring at the blob Shinichi made against the bedspread. Shinichi rolled onto his side, cracking open one eye to stare blearily at where Kaito was slumped in his uncomfortable plastic chair.

"'I'll dress up as you and take your organic chemistry final for you,'" Shinichi told him, and Kaito squinted at him.

"Is the great Kudou Shinichi really suggesting what I think he's suggesting?"

"No," Shinichi admitted, and flailed around until he was in a sitting position, bracketed by pillows and ripples of cotton. In this moment, he looked less like the pretty, untouchable, possibly homicidal RA he had been touted as and more like a depressed university student wearing a threadbare Night Baron T-shirt and staring glumly at the Sherlock Holmes posters tacked up all around his room.

Not to say that he wasn't pretty, though, Kaito thought a little dazedly. Kind of the opposite, really.

Kaito flinched when Shinichi turned his doleful azure gaze on him, the thought of did he hear me thinking that zipping through his mind at top speed. But all Shinichi did was beckon him over with a flick of his chin.

Peeling himself off the chair, Kaito staggered awkwardly over to the bed. "Uh… yes?" he asked once his knees bumped the edge of the mattress. He lifted his eyebrows at Shinichi, bewildered by the sudden intensity that flickered to life in Shinichi's eyes. It was both captivating and disconcerting to have that much fierceness focused entirely on Kaito.

Regarding him carefully, Shinichi leaned forward and said, conspiratorially, "Do you want to watch Sherlock with me?"

Mouth opening, Kaito made a weak sort of sound that Shinichi construed as agreement, and that was how he ended up perched on the corner of Shinichi's bed watching Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman putter around a crime scene as Shinichi made snarky comments at the TV screen. Instead of doing organic chemistry or anything productive.

Things had never been stranger, but Kaito found it was hard to mind.

There was a surplus of coffee shops on campus sprinkled throughout the hodgepodge of buildings. Shinichi's favorite was one tucked behind the humanities block – it had marginally (but only marginally) less terrible coffee than the one near the criminal justice lecture halls, and it was only a few minutes from his dorm.

It was an overcast Thursday afternoon, the sky dreadfully heavy with clouds that had been threatening rain since early in the morning, and Shinichi was one of three people sitting in The Last Drop. He had long since finished the borderline battery acid-like latte he had ordered – the paper cup now sat emptily at his elbow – and he was currently scanning through a reading that his criminal psychology professor had assigned.

He was drawn out of his studying when a shadow fell across the corner of his page. Blinking, Shinichi looked up to find Kaito hovering beside him, his prehistoric laptop tucked underneath his arm and a sad-looking mocha in one hand.

"Kuroba." Shinichi stared. Kaito appeared supremely uncomfortable, mouth twisting a bit as he nodded jerkily. Well, Shinichi didn't blame him – the last time they'd met, Shinichi had been ranting frantically about the outcome of the last Sherlock episode while Kaito cowered and tried to look as unassuming as possible for fear of igniting Shinichi's wrath.

Somehow managing to rub at the back of his neck without dropping his laptop or drink, Kaito smiled awkwardly down at Shinichi. "I saw you when I came in. Though I'd drop by to say hello." Awkward pause. "…Hello."

"Er." Shinichi coughed. "Hello."

Interpreting Shinichi's unease as judgment, Kaito made a strange, whale-like noise and turned quickly. "I'll see you later, then," he tried, and Shinichi fought back a smirk as he noticed the pink spreading from underneath the neckline of Kaito's shirt. The man was oddly adorable.

"Hold on," Shinichi quickly hurried to say, grabbing at Kaito's shoulder so abruptly that Kaito nearly spilled his mocha on his laptop. When Kaito swiveled to scowl at him, Shinichi just grinned. "Sit down." Unceremoniously, he shoved Kaito into the unoccupied seat across from him.

Eyebrows attempting to merge with his hairline, Kaito let his laptop drop onto the tabletop with a clank. "Is this really okay?" he asked as Shinichi settled back into his own chair.

"Unless you're planning on exploiting my friendship in the event that I have to give you a punishment for something, it's fine to be friends with your RA," Shinichi answered, glancing up at Kaito through his bangs.

"I…" Kaito cleared his throat. "I see. I guess I have to call off my plans of smuggling a family of ducks into my dorm."

Head jerking up, Shinichi shot Kaito a stern glare. "What's this about ducks in the dorm?"

Startled, Kaito shook his head. His hands lifted, clearly trying to soothe Shinichi. "I was just –"

"Ducks," Shinichi said, severely, "are my niece's favorite animal, and if you're planning on starting an illegal duck farm, I'll buy one off of you. Her birthday's in April."

There was a short silence.

"…I was joking."

"How unfortunate." Letting out a long sigh, Shinichi returned his gaze to the printout in front of him. "Ayumi will be devastated."

"Right." Accompanied by some brief rustling, Kaito got himself settled in, opening the lid of his laptop carefully. Shinichi eyed the contraption warily, surprised when the whole thing didn't fall apart. Judging from the model, design, and bulk, it had to be at least ten years old. Yet from what he had deduced about Kaito's clothes, phone, and general manner, Shinichi doubted he couldn't afford a new laptop.

Leaning on one hand to watch as Kaito navigated around the screen with the creaky mouse pad, Shinichi offhandedly questioned, "How old is that thing?"

"Hm?" Kaito glanced at him briefly over the top edge of the laptop, fingers clacking loudly against the keyboard. "Eleven years? Ten years? Around there, I guess." He clicked on something, and the dusty fans immediately began to blow, sounding like the beginnings of a tornado.

"Why haven't you gotten a new computer?" Shinichi asked curiously as Kaito tried to quiet the fans.

He wasn't prepared for Kaito to blanch and avert his eyes, all of his old discomfort flooding his body language as he curled in on himself. "It has…" Kaito cleared his throat, thumbing at the angular line of his jaw. His gaze shifted to the shifting patterns of dim light that danced across the tiled floor. "Sentimental value, I guess."

For possibly the first time in his life, Shinichi didn't know how to proceed. Judging from the way Kaito wouldn't look him straight in the face anymore and kept moving farther and farther from him, Kaito didn't want him to push. And considering the haunted, pleading cast that suddenly shadowed Kaito's eyes, Shinichi was certain he himself didn't want to push either.

So Shinichi carefully rearranged himself in his seat, picked up his reading, and said, "Okay."

The grateful look Kaito angled him was enough to make him believe he'd done the right thing.

Several minutes passed, during which Kaito resumed typing and Shinichi went back to his reading. Shinichi was nearly done with all fourteen assigned pages when Kaito swallowed audibly and murmured, "It was my father's."

"Hm?" Shinichi looked up to find Kaito eyeing him hesitantly from across the table. His eyes were darkly unreadable, his lips trembling.

Shinichi waited. He didn't know what to say.

Eventually, Kaito ducked his head a little. "The laptop. It was my father's, and he passed away a while ago, so I use it because of that," he clarified, and everything immediately made sense to Shinichi.

"Okay," was all he said, though, and Kaito's relief was plain as he nodded at Shinichi and threw back the dregs of his mocha.

The sun finally burst through the clouds, and Shinichi couldn't help but notice the way the light caught and refracted in Kaito's desperately indigo eyes.

Kaito was typing up an eleven-page paper for Japanese literature and listening to his "Relaxing Piano Music" playlist when the door to his room flew open and Shinichi stormed in, a mass of windswept hair and rumpled button-down.

The first thought that entered Kaito's mind was that something was on fire, but seeing as the fire alarm wasn't going off and he didn't smell smoke, that option was quickly eliminated. His second was that Shinichi had just accidentally murdered someone and wanted to seek shelter from Kaito, and Kaito… would probably do that, just because.

There were several valid reasons why he shouldn't be so unconcerned about the fact that he was willing to harbor a fugitive (provided Shinichi was the fugitive), but Kaito couldn't bring himself to care about them. All he knew was that Shinichi was a) an endearingly idiotic genius and b) possibly the best person he'd ever met, so.

Before Kaito could ask how long Shinichi would be running from the police (he was going to need to restock his water supply if the answer was over a week), Shinichi shoved a stack of papers at Kaito. It took Kaito a moment to recognize that the manic glint in his eyes was excitement rather than adrenaline from killing someone.

"Look at it," the RA demanded, and Kaito looked.

The papers, as it turned out, were Shinichi's organic chemistry final. And he had gotten a perfect score.

All Kaito could do was gape and flip through the test as Shinichi babbled on and on about how he was going to pass the class now and how much Kaito had helped him by tutoring him. Once Kaito had affirmed that yes, Shinichi had actually gotten a perfect score, he let himself grin up at Shinichi.

"Good job, Kudou."

"It's really all thanks to you," Shinichi quickly countered, beaming at him with so much uncharacteristic exuberance that Kaito was momentarily blinded. He leaned forward, still grinning gorgeously. "You're the best, Kuroba."

You're the best.

Kaito watched as Shinichi bounced around, talking about how great of a teacher Kaito was and how thankful he was and Kaito was a certifiable genius, and realized that he was such a goner.

He was even more of a goner after Shinichi insisted on taking him out for dinner. They ended up spending three hours discussing the merits of putting seaweed in ramen (Shinichi was firmly for it, Kaito was against), and once they had finished that, Shinichi bought him a gigantic cup of chocolate ice cream without Kaito even having to hint at wanting any.

There was no turning back after that.

It wasn't every day that Kaito drank his weight in alcohol, but it wasn't Aoko's twentieth birthday every day, so Kaito figured that made cents. Sense. It made sense.

Although. Today was Aoko's twentieth birthday, right? He kind of remembered something like that, something with Hakuba and Aoko and Akako that involved meeting at Hakuba's favorite bar (which was, in true Hakuba-like fashion, named something pretentious like Pensée or Esprit, but Kaito couldn't remember) and doing enough shots to possibly ruin several million livers. And then they'd all split up, Hakuba and Aoko presumably off to do something Kaito didn't want to think about and Akako headed out to find one of her usual victims to prey on. Kaito had headed back to campus, because reasons.

Something like that had happened, possibly. It was Aoko's birthday. Right. No?

"Is it Aoko's birthday?" Kaito surreptitiously asked a passerby, squinting through the dimly lit two a.m. darkness. When he didn't get a response, he frowned fiercely and kicked halfheartedly at the person. "You don't have to be so rude, God. I was just asking."

It took Kaito a moment to realize that he was talking to a lamppost.

"Oh," he muttered, leaning heavily against the lamppost. It let him, remaining firm and inanimate underneath his weight. Smiling, Kaito gave it a few gentle pats on the side. "Sorry about that, I thought you were someone else. You're a nice lamppost. I'm sorry to keep you out so late when I'm sure you have a family waiting at home. A pretty wife or something." He scowled pensively off into the distance, positive he looked like the soulfully gazing subject of some perfume ad. "I want a pretty wife."

Or a pretty Shinichi, several voices chirped at the base of his skull, and Kaito shook his head irritably. He had to dislodge that kind of thought. What if he ended up saying that to Shinichi or something?

Although he did want a pretty Shinichi. How could he get a pretty Shinichi, he wondered? Did they rent those?

Digging through his pocket, Kaito pulled out his phone and thumbed at the screen lock until he dropped it onto the sidewalk. The screen almost cracked, and Kaito scowled down at it before picking it back up and scrolling through his contacts.

He tapped call: Kudou Shinichi and waited. And waited. And waited. What was Shinichi doing, Kaito wondered? It was only, like, two fifteen in the morning.

Finally, the call went through, and a sleepy, muffled voice demanded, "What do you want, Kuroba?"

"Can I rent a Shinichi?" Kaito questioned enthusiastically, because hey, he was really close to getting his own Shinichi. Wow. He stumbled a little at the overwhelming thought, but caught himself on the lamppost. What a good lamppost it was. It deserved an award.

Over the line, Shinichi coughed. There was a long pause, then, "Excuse me?"

"I want a Shinichi," Kaito told him plaintively, making soft crying noises. "I want a Shiiiiniiiichiii. A pretty Shinichi. You."

Shinichi made a low sound in his throat. "Um."

"But I know you prob'ly don't want me to keep you, so," continued Kaito, tracing patterns on the lamppost behind him, "so, so I'll just rent you. That's okay, right? Right?" He tacked on a smile, though Shinichi couldn't see him.

"Uh…" The sound of rustling, and then Shinichi's voice, a little more clear. "Uh, Kuroba, are you drunk?"

"Drunk? Me? Never," Kaito shouted, offended that anyone would think he was drunk. Not him. He was totally responsible. He never got into drinking contests with Hakuba and ended up taking fifteen shots at once.

Or maybe he did. Kaito couldn't remember.

"Well." Shinichi didn't say anything for a bit before he asked, "Where are you?"

Kaito brightened. "With Lamppost! He's my best friend now!" He stopped, though, to think. What if Shinichi got jealous? "But don't worry, he's just a friend. You're the only one I want, y'know. Only Shinichi."

"Right," Shinichi soothed, though he sounded strained, at least in Kaito's opinion. Maybe he was jealous. Kaito didn't get a chance to voice this thought, however, because Shinichi went on, "What color is the lamppost, Kuroba?"

Whirling around (and nearly bonking his head on the lamppost), Kaito hurried to reply, "It's blue. Like a nice blue." He squinted at it. "Like – like your eyes, blue. Pretty blue. The best blue in the entire world. My favorite color –"

"Okay, okay," Shinichi cut him off, coughing uncontrollably. Kaito worried for his health. "Enough about the blue. What else can you see?"

Glancing around, Kaito narrowed his eyes at a blob in the distance. It looked a bit like a volcano, and for a moment, Kaito worried for his safety, but then he realized it was the oddly-shaped theater department. "I can see the volcano-theater! The theater, Shinichi, can you imagine. I would take you on so many dates there. So many dates. If I rented you, I mean."

"Oh," Shinichi stammered, so faintly Kaito almost missed it. "Okay, uh, I know where you are. I'll come to pick you up."

Kaito perked up. He tried to clap, but ended up more just smacking his phone with his hand. It sort of hurt, but he was too excited to care. "You'll let me rent you, Shinichi? I can rent my Shinichi? I can have a pretty Shinichi all to myself?"

There was a squeaking sound, which made Kaito frown. He didn't think Shinichi had a mouse, so what was that noise?

"Yes," Shinichi said, fast enough that Kaito almost missed it, and then the line went dead.

Glaring down at his phone, Kaito shoved it into his pocket. The theatricality of the movement was ruined by the way he had to try three times to get it in, but only Lamppost was watching, and Lamppost wasn't one to judge.

"You'll get to meet Shinichi," Kaito told the lamppost conspiratorially. "He's wonderful. You'll like him, I bet."

The lamppost remained silent, but Kaito didn't doubt that it was pondering the joys of meeting Kaito's favorite person.

It didn't have to wait long. Shinichi appeared by the theater within a few moments, wearing a tattered T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, and a second later he was standing in front of Kaito, eyebrows raised and hair ruffled into a mess rivaling Kaito's own. He was gorgeous, obviously. Shinichi was always gorgeous.

"Look," Kaito told Lamppost reverently, "it's my Shinichi."

For some reason, Shinichi flushed at that. He didn't let Kaito ask why, though, he just growled, "You're so stupid," and grabbed Kaito by the wrist.

Kaito allowed himself to be dragged along. He spent the entire walk back to the dorms marveling at how soft and strong Shinichi's fingers felt around his wrist, like silk-wrapped steel or something poetic. Shinichi had beautiful hands, he thought a little absently as he stared down at where Shinichi's fingertips pressed lightly into his veins. Long and slender and artistic, almost. He had hands that Kaito could teach to do magic.

And wasn't that a thought, Shinichi doing magic?

"I like your hands," Kaito told Shinichi as Shinichi yanked him down the hallway. They were almost at his room. "I like your hands, and I love you."

Shinichi, who had been mumbling swearwords under his breath, drew to an abrupt halt at that. They were two doors from Kaito's room. "What?" His gaze flickered to Kaito's face, sharply azure and dangerous underneath those long eyelashes. The dim, fluorescent lightning in the dorm tended to wash out colors, but it didn't affect the blue of Shinichi's eyes in the slightest, Kaito thought weakly to himself.

He grinned at Shinichi. "You're my favorite, Shinichi." Leaning in close, he added lowly, "I like you the best. I love you the best."

Surprisingly, Shinichi went violently pink, color spreading up to his ears from underneath his shirt. "Oh," he mumbled, suddenly awkwardly, and he took a step back. "You can… you have your keys, right?"

"Mmhm," Kaito nodded, digging around in his coat pocket for the keys. It took him several attempts to get them out, and by the time he had, Shinichi had fled down the hallway, back to his own room.

For the most part, Shinichi had lived a fairly drama-free life, for which he was eternally grateful. He'd never wanted to be a part of those needless "she slept with my boyfriend and my boyfriend slept with her brother" sorts of conflicts, and he hadn't had to in all his years.

Until now, of course.

Ever since the morning after Kaito's drunk confessions, Kaito physically ran away from Shinichi every time they happened to cross paths. Physically ran. Just yesterday, Shinichi had watched Kaito careen frantically through a crowded food court just to avoid bumping into Shinichi at the soda fountain. While it had been impressive, Shinichi frankly hated Kaito's dodging so much.

So much that Shinichi had actually abused his RA privileges and looked up Kaito's schedule. And then almost intruded on Kaito's Japanese literature lecture before he stopped and asked himself what, exactly, he was even doing. Stalking was creepy, no matter how you sliced it.

But, Shinichi reflected as he gloomily leaned back in his desk chair, he was still, you know. Pining. After Kaito. Because Kaito was a little strange and occasionally annoying and excellent at organic chemistry and beautiful at every single angle Shinichi had ever seen him in, and having that part of his life actively trying to avoid him was a bit devastating.

Read: very devastating.

And now Shinichi was left alone, glaring down at his textbooks and revisiting his old tries to burn holes through his textbooks with his eyes alone. He was no more successful than he'd been the first time, disappointingly enough.

Shinichi was contemplating taking down the OPEN sign on his door and taking a long nap when there was a tentative tap on the door. He tore his gaze from his desk just in time to see Kaito shuffle in, clearly uncomfortable and gripping his laptop so tightly that his fingers were completely white.

For a long moment, Shinichi just stared. He had to be dreaming, right? Kaito, after a ridiculously long time of literally sprinting away whenever they made eye contact, was standing in his doorway.

Finally, Shinichi cleared his throat. "Kuroba." He smiled awkwardly. "Well, uh, what can I do for you?"

Strangely enough, the question made Kaito go mildly pink. "I – my laptop froze," he muttered, turning his head and giving Shinichi an alluring view of his pink-dusted neck.

Swallowing, Shinichi nodded. Of course. Kaito wouldn't come to his room for any reason other than needing help.

He beckoned Kaito forward. "Come here, I'll unfreeze it."

Kaito didn't move, shifting his weight from one foot to another. "I… don't…" When Shinichi scowled at him in confused, he shook his head quickly. "I mean – it got frozen on a…" Insert cough here. "A weird page. A – something personal. Don't… think about it too much. Or anything."

Oh great, Shinichi was probably going to get to read Kaito's latest email to whatever other RA he'd managed to seduce. Great. Just what he wanted and needed.

"I'm sure it's nothing too strange," was all Shinichi said aloud, though, and Kaito, biting his bottom lip in a way that was nervous but still enticing, hesitatingly handed his laptop to Shinichi.

Shinichi flipped the bulky machine open, cursorily scanning the webpage the screen was stuck on – but then he froze.

Kaito had been on a love advice forum, looking at a post by "anonymous," that read, "I'm in love with this guy, but I don't think he returns my feelings. I accidentally confessed to him that I was in love with him when I was drunk. After that, I started to avoid him because I really don't want to see his reaction to what I told him. But at the same time, I still think that I need closure or something, because otherwise I'm going to be stuck in love with him forever. Advice?"

Slowly, Shinichi turned to look at Kaito. Kaito was tugging at his shirt and doing everything in his power not to meet Shinichi's gaze, studying Shinichi's posters and his TV set and his bedspread. His cheeks were bright pink, practically glowing, as he stuttered, "I didn't – like I said, that's nothing, I just... it wasn't me, I mean... Ignore it."

Inhaling carefully, Shinichi smacked the laptop screen a few times until it unfroze with a flicker. He was aware of Kaito's eyes suddenly landing on him as he scrolled down and opened a new response to anonymous' original post. The keys clacked underneath his fingers as he typed, just a single line, and then hit the "post" button.

Shinichi was hyperaware of Kaito taking a few steps forward to read what he had posted.

Stop avoiding him so he can tell you that he loves you too.

Before Kaito was done reading, Shinichi had snatched the OPEN sign off his door, tossed it onto his desk, and shut and locked his door. He leaned against the now-closed door, studying the slow widening of Kaito's eyes and the growing pink of his skin as realization dawned on him.

Kaito turned on him, ten million questions in his eyes and the lift of his eyebrows, but Shinichi surged forward and kissed him hard, effectively delaying any comments he could try to make. They ended up in a messy, uncoordinated tangle on Shinichi's bed, Kaito pressing Shinichi into the duvet and stealing the air straight from his lungs as his hands casually divested Shinichi of his clothes, and Shinichi vaguely thought to himself that he was rather glad he had signed up to be an RA, really.

Later, in the dim, golden light of early evening, they watched Sherlock together. Kaito clutched Shinichi to his chest and sifted through Shinichi's hair and hummed along with the theme song at the start of every episode, and Shinichi made snarky comments at the TV screen and burrowed back into Kaito's chest and traced nonsense words on the top of Kaito's thigh, and maybe it was kind of completely perfect.

I got to the end of this and realized that I hadn't really mentioned Kaito's magic or whether he was Kid or if the whole Conan thing ever happened, so let's just say this was a non-Kid/non-Conan AU. Too lazy to go back and add any explanations.

Anyway, I, uh, hope you enjoyed this (if you did, please consider dropping me a review!), and I'll see you all soon, okay? Mwah! - Luna