A/N: I know that the movies and OVAs and such aren't canon, but I include them in my mind, so just about anything goes.
Slash: This story was written with little-to-no intended pairing (hints at Shinichi/Ran and Kaito/Aoko), but feel free to read it however you'd like, with whatever pairs you see fit.
Warnings: Rated a somewhat mild-ish T for violence, obsession, attempted suicide, and sort-of child abuse. (It really depends on your point of view. Conan isn't exactly a child, but it's up to the reader to decide if it counts as child abuse or not.) Also, some very mild language.
Disclaimer: I do not own Case Closed/Detective Conan or Magic Kaito/Magic Kaito 1412, nor did I draw the cover art for this story (I plan replace it later with one of my own works... eventually).
-.-.-.-
No matter how much we love them,
Alas,
The stars cannot be ours to hold.
No amount of obsession nor effort
May alter this.
-.-.-.-
Chapter 1: Obsessed
The front of every Sunday paper had the same equivalent headline. "KID KILLER DOES IT AGAIN!" In bold, defiant lettering. It was a story that had run so many times that it could almost cause Déjà Vu, yet it was still the height of excitement, the talk of the town, and the topic on everyone's mind: The boy named Edogawa Conan, a house guest of the great Detective Mouri Kogoro, had once again defeated the Moonlight Magician, Kaitou Kid! Time after time the newspapers printed story after story and it was always roughly the same, with interesting details and surprises to go along. Kid always gave notice of his crime, Conan figured out what Kid was planning, and at the end of it all the targeted jewels were always safe in the hands of their owners and the Phantom Thief was always gone, scattered unto the wind, hidden until the next time he planned to make an appearance.
Lightly-tanned hands clenched at the Sunday paper, wrinkling the edges and causing little tears in the material. Tears welled in dull hazel eyes...
"How dare he?" She whispered, the paper trembling in her shaking grasp. She always loathed these headlines. "KID KILLER" they said, glaring up at her from the page. She knew that the nickname was an exaggeration, that this little bespeckled boy of course never actually killed the object of her obsession, yet still, every time she saw these headlines she feared that one day the text would speak of her precious Kaitou Kid's capture, or worse, his death...
"That boy..." She glared daggers at the picture displayed on the front of the newspaper, the grinning child motionless on the page. Her straight grey locks fell about her shoulders, set into constant motion by the shivers coursing through her taut spine as tears continued to stream slowly down her cheeks.
A thought suddenly occurred to her, and the tension in her body eased away like the light after sunset. She smiled, her lips curling upward. "For my precious Kaitou Kid!" She thought aloud, fondly running her finger over the picture centered lower on the page, a clear depiction of the Magician Under the Moonlight, clad in his usual flashy white. "I'll do this for him, and he'll be so grateful to me that he'll whisk me away with him! Maybe even make me his accomplice!" She grinned, picked up her car keys from the countertop, snatched up her purse, and in a quick procession of movements was out the door.
"I'm going out," she called to her father upstairs, who she knew was likely already passed out in his study, or at the very least was in a drunken stupor. He never paid attention to her, and her mother was never home, working long hours at the local bar. She wouldn't be missed.
Mai smiled as she swiftly slid into her car and drove off.