Negative and Positive

Seq. to "Externalities" After Conan's aggressive attempt at a friendship with Kaito succeeds, KID announces a hiatus. However, mistaken for Shinichi AGAIN, this time Vodka accidentally "murders" him. Barely escaping with his life, he gets rescued by Conan. Now that Kaito Kuroba should be dead, Conan and Ai come up with an… idea on how to keep him hidden in plain sight. Crack fic.

Ch. 1 The negative externality of looking like Shinichi Kudo

Kaito really appreciated the new friendship he had formed with his favorite critic, he really did, but he would be remiss to not admit that it had come with its own set of inconveniences. He knew the shrunken detective did not exactly approve of Kaitou KID's way of handling things, and was determined to get the thief to find a different way of sorting out his problems.

Additionally, in the past the pipsqueak had only been an occasional audience member in his heists, only showing up when the target's owner called up the Mouris. However, now that the detective was personal friends with the performer, Kaito wasn't sure how much more frequent the attendance would become. Sure, Tantei-kun was good at unearthing criminals and clues that don't want to be seen, and may be able to gather more information on the organization that killed his father, but Tantei-kun wasn't good at keeping himself safe.

Kaito wasn't about to risk his new friend sticking his head into Kaitou KID's dangerous side of life. So, Kaito decided he would change tactics for a while to investigate quietly to avoid Tantei-kun's curiosity. It wasn't as if his ability to disguise himself and infiltrate places would disappear due to KID's performances going on hiatus after all.

Some people though, had strong feelings regarding KID's decision to lay low for a while. Notably-

"ARGHH! That stupid thief!" Aoko screamed, throwing up her hands in frustration as she noticed the news article Kaito was reading. "Why is he going on hiatus? Is he getting scared of the police now? Is he rethinking his ways? Is he finally thinking that maybe it's a bad thing to be a criminal?!"

"Aoko." Kaito sighed, looking over at his friend. "Shouldn't you be glad KID is going to stop his heists for a while? Your old man can catch a break too."

"My dad's work does not consist 100% of KID." Aoko responded, slamming her hands down on Kaito's desk. "And less heists mean less chances to catch him! What if he decides to become smart and starts stealing things the normal way? It will become so much harder to protect things from being stolen from him…" She sighed, as she finally slumped down on her chair. "Aren't you disappointed? You won't be able to see your stupid idol's shows anymore either."

"Not really." Kaito responded, scrolling through the news article again, reading through the comments of disappointed and speculating fans. "It's not like he's going to be gone forever. And besides" he looked up to face Aoko. "Maybe KID needs a break from your old man too. Who knows?"

"Who cares about what that stupid KID needs?" Aoko huffed, turning around and crossing her arms.

Kaito sighed, if only she knew. Wait… scratch that. She never needs to know.

"Kuroba-kun." Kaito jumped, snapped out of his momentary reverie as he heard the one voice among his classmates he was never happy to hear address him. "Are you going on a long vacation?" Akako asked curiously, while she looked at him coolly. "Where are you going?"

"Uh, no plans to go anywhere at the moment." Kaito responded, leaning back instinctively. "Why?"

"I just… wondered." She replied, raising an eyebrow elegantly, "I just felt your presence getting ready for a long departure, is all."

"What?" Kaito stated, confused as ever by the witch's mumbo jumbo. No wonder magicians and real sorcerers never got along. These people, although they were the real deal, lived in different plane of reality after all. He frowned as he saw the classmate he was unhappy being addressed by most of the time wander over to his desk as well. Geez, don't I ever get a break?

"Are you going somewhere, Kuroba-kun?" Hakuba addressed him with the same question as soon as he got within earshot.

"No." Kaito said, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms. Now Aoko was looking at them curiously, having heard two classmates ask her friend the same question. "Unless you two know something about my plans of going somewhere that I don't."

"Well in that case, I'd like to ask you a completely different question." Hakuba responded, not fazed at all by the unfriendly response of his classmate. "Are you related to Shinichi Kudo at all?"

Kaito sputtered as Aoko gasped, and Akako gave the detective a blank look. "What?"

"Well, I heard you got mistaken for him before, and I looked up a picture of him." Hakuba continued on, ignoring the surprised reactions of his classmates as he referenced the recent attack on Kaito. He pulled out an old news article clipping. "I have never had the pleasure of meeting him personally, but look."

"Oh my god!" Aoko exclaimed in awe, and then laughed as she looked between her friend and the picture of the famous detective. "You look so much like him! And yet, you turned out so dumb!"

Kaito pouted as he frowned and glared at the girl. I have outsmarted this Kudo SO. MANY. TIMES. "No I don't! And it's not fair to compare me to a genius freak like him!"

"So you're not related?" Hakuba asked again, putting away the article. "I've looked into his family tree, as I have yours, and found no connection whatsoever. However, I wanted to double check with a primary source." He continued with a shrug. "I wanted to check with Kudo-san himself, but he is apparently impossible to reach nowadays so I had to come to you."

"No. We're not." And I can reach that other 'primary resource' Kaito inwardly added on smugly, before sighing. "If we are, I don't know."

"Ah" Akako started, looking surprised as if she had noticed something. "He's the one."

"What?" Kaito said to Akako again, and then regretted it. Why did he keep responding to her mystical phrases again?

"He's the one that was at the clock tower." Akako elaborated as Kaito blinked. "When the bell tolled the 20 thousandth time, he was the one that appeared."

"Him?!" the magician sputtered, before composing himself. "I mean, you mean the clock tower heist where KID left a weird message on the clock right?"

"Yes."

"Oh, you two are talking about that clock tower heist where KID said something stupid like 'he'll steal the clock', and failed." Aoko exclaimed, finally realizing what the other two were talking about. "I remember dad saying something about a 'stupid detective boy and Megure getting in the way' or something." She tapped her finger on her chin at the memory. "So he was talking about Shinichi Kudo."

Flashing Kaito an amused look, Hakuba smiled before he excused himself from the small gathering. "Well, seems like you and the Heisei Sherlock Holmes are nothing alike, save for looks."

Kaito sighed again as all of his classmates meandered over to their seats to get ready for class. So it was you. He thought with a tinge of amusement and a little bit of nostalgia. We HAD interacted before, in a way. He put his chin on his hands, looking at the back of Aoko's head absentmindedly. What if we had been classmates? What if we were still the same age? Would we have been best friends? Enemies? Just… classmates? Or like brothers?

Little did Kaito know he would beat himself over his head later for those absentminded thoughts. He didn't think fate, with her bad sense of humor, had been listening.

000

Kaito stared at the strange man that was staring straight back at him. After school, the teen had decided to practice some magic tricks by the river. Not many people hung out there after all, and the place was quiet and spacey enough. However, there was someone bothering him, and for some odd reason, Kaito's existence seemed to be bothering that someone as well.

"Why are you alive?" A large built man in a black coat, sunglasses, and a black hat addressed Kaito in surprise and with a bit of… fear?

"What?" Kaito responded, surprised and a little scared. He felt like he had been saying this phrase way too many times that day. However, it was no time to be thinking something like that; this man was giving him a terrible feeling. He was kind of dressed like the folks that… wait… NO. "I'm not-" Kaito didn't have a chance to respond as the strange man pulled out a gun with a silencer and shot at him. Barely dodging it, he felt the bullet nick him. Kaito then pretended to go into shock and let himself fall into the river. Goddamit!

Vodka hurried over to the spot where the teenager had fallen into the river. The kid was wounded, and probably wouldn't survive due to the shock of having been attacked. However, he couldn't fathom why the detective was still alive in the first place. We killed him, and although we never found his body, our investigation afterwards determined him to be dead. He had been pretty freaked out to see the supposedly dead kid standing by the riverbank. To think that their organization had been outsmarted by a teenager. Vodka then blinked as he saw the pass case that had fallen on the ground. The kid had dropped it, it seemed. "Kaito Kuroba" he stopped as he read the student ID. "Really?" He muttered to himself, scratching his head. "Was that really someone else or was this his alias?" No matter. He thought to himself. Erase all suspicious subjects. That was their rule. Vodka had as good as gotten rid of this strange character, and they would kill him if this Kaito turned up again.

Managing to hook a rope onto a pillar as he passed under a bridge, Kaito took a moment to breathe before he dragged himself onto dry land. Sopping wet, exhausted, and injured, Kaito laid down for a moment, looking up at the underside of the bridge where he had ended up. At this moment, his life looked bad. One of the bozos from Tantei-kun's enemy organization had obviously mistaken him for the detective, and attempted to kill him. What had he said? "Why are you alive?" Kaito groaned, putting an arm over his eyes. That guy had probably formerly been out for Shinichi Kudo's life, and had assumed he had been successful.

Considering the amount of grief Tantei-kun put up to stay hidden from this organization, and the craziness Kaito himself had encountered on the Bell Tree Express when he had assisted to fend these people off from Sherry, Kaito knew that he was now toast. These people would figure out they had accidentally tried to kill Kaito Kuroba instead of Shinichi Kudo, and would take Kaito out for good if he came out into the open again.

"Kaito?"

Kaito flinched as he heard the familiar high-pitched voice address him incredulously. Why was the pipsqueak here again? Am I hallucinating?

"Hey Tantei-kun. Long time no see." He addressed the boy weakly, not bothering to look over or get up.

"I thought I saw something shoot out of the water just as it was about to go under the bridge, and once I noticed it was a rope and saw a person climb out of the river, I came over to see if I could help." Conan had his phone out, presumably about to call the ambulance. "Are you o-" he paused as he noticed something, "Oh my god are you bleeding?"

"Don't call the police, or the ambulance!" Kaito coughed, his voice tickling from the amount of volume he had attempted. "Please, I've-" he looked around briefly before he beckoned for the incredulous looking detective to come closer "I've been 'killed' by an alcoholic beverage, if you know what I mean." Satisfied with the look of horror and shock that had ghosted over his friend's face, Kaito continued. "Besides, this wound is only a scratch. Is this place Beika? Close to somewhere I can hide?"

Conan, forcing himself to recover quickly from his moment of shock, nodded in response. "Yes." He held up his phone again, but this time, to call a different number. "Hey Hakase…" as Conan called up Agasa for help, Kaito shuffled through his own pockets to take out his sopping wet cell phone. Good thing nowadays, some carriers came out with waterproof ones.

Kaito had a couple calls to make of his own after all. "Hey Jii…"

000

Conan put his face in his hands as he sat in Agasa's living room with the professor, himself, and Ai. They had treated Kaito and left him to sleep in a different room to recuperate.

In the meantime, they had a new victim of the damned organization to hide. "So." Conan started, before going silent. What could he say? This was a terrible predicament, and he knew this first hand.

"He can't go back to his former life." Ai cut in, not having the patience for wallowing about how terrible a situation this was. She knew this painfully well herself after all, having been part of both sides of the equation. "And he has two options."

"What are those? Go overseas and cut off all ties to his friends and family in Japan? Or pretend to die and live under a different name?"

"The first one sounds like a plan." Ai responded, "The second one won't work if he stays in this country. They will still find him. The real second option is to actually die, but we know that is a dumb plan."

"That is not an option." Conan snapped, looking annoyed. "And it's not funny Haibara. This is no time to be joking."

"I'm not joking." Ai responded coolly, crossing both her arms and legs in response. "I just figured presenting the reality of his options to you would snap you out of your brooding so you would actually understand the seriousness of the situation."

"Ugh, Haibara I know." Conan sighed, putting his fake glasses on the coffee table and pulling at his hair. "But he's not going to take that option."

"Well from what I hear, he is a lot like you, Shinichi-kun." Agasa added on, looking at the boy next to him. "And if that's true, then he probably really won't be going anywhere."

Conan glared at the professor for that remark. "We are not alike." He muttered, "But you're right, he'll probably escape and try to do things on his own if we only present him with that option."

Ai chortled at her friend's reaction at being compared to the show off thief. "I agree. In that case, maybe he'll even-" she stopped before a thoughtful look crossed her face. "I have an idea." She grinned a rare, mischievous grin that got both of the men sitting across from her backing away.

After they heard her proposal, both Conan and Agasa looked at each other, then at Ai, then at the door that held their currently resting guest.

Conan turned his face over to Ai again, and opened his mouth. "I don't think-" he stopped, and then put his hands in his face again. She was right. She was right. If she had the tools, and if this were presented to Kaito, he would probably end up accepting it. He sighed. "Can he at least live here?"

"It would depend on 'Ran-neechan', wouldn't it?" Ai remarked, smirking at the boy's predicament. Neither of them would probably want this, but really, it depended on what the girl thought best for Conan. Conan couldn't say no to her after all.

"What would depend on the Mouri girl?"

Agasa and Conan jolted as they heard a tired voice come up from behind them, as Ai merely looked up. "Ah, speak of the devil. Please, sit down." She said, gesturing for Kaito to sit down in the empty spot next to her. "We were just discussing your… future plans."

"Right." Kaito said stiffly, before sitting down and looking defiantly at the three of them. "I'm not going-"

"-overseas and cutting all ties to friends and family. We know." Conan ended the sentence for him, before giving him an apologetic look and putting his hands in his face again. Despite being physically seven, he felt like a tired out middle-aged man. "Haibara…" and her, his middle-aged mean wife.

"So, other than actually killing yourself, I have another option for you." Ai piped up, looking Kaito in the eye. "I'm a scientist."

"I… didn't know that. But okay." Kaito responded slowly, getting a bad feeling about this but deciding to hear her out.

"And I made the drug that caused us" she gestured to herself and Conan "to become small." She continued as she saw Kaito's eyes widen as the boy started to piece together what she was getting at. "Although our conditions were by chance and I have no permanent fix for it yet, I have been able to develop a few spinoffs during the course of my research."

"Don't tell me…" Kaito groaned, slumping back into his chair. His eyes met with the mini detective, whose eyes were pleading to be forgiven.

"I have a drug that can deliberately turn you young, unlike by off chance like the killing drug did for us, and in turn, I have a drug that can return you to normal from that deliberate rejuvenation." Ai said, dropping the bomb that Kaito knew was coming. "You understand this second option now right?"

"I become pipsqueak numero dos and live as his brother?" Kaito groaned, slapping his face with his hand. "I don't have to live with the Mouris do I?"

"Well… it depends on Ran…" Conan muttered, looking around nervously. "If she finds out I have a brother... she already worries about me as it is."

"Will we be twins?"

"Fraternal twins. And you have to take my birthday because she already knows mine." Conan said, glad that Kaito was taking this second, and crazy option, surprisingly well. He guessed he should have known, considering the thief had not exactly lead a regular life before. "What do you want your name to be?"

Ch. 2 preview –

"Conan-kun…who's that?"

Both the addressed Conan, and newly shrunken 'brother' stopped in their tracks as they heard a familiar feminine voice coming from the front door of Agasa's house.

Kaito shrunk back, scared of being attacked by the Mouri girl. He had been in the process of chasing mini Kudo around with an oversized lab coat after all.

"He's my twin brother." Conan replied without missing a beat, before he completely ruined it by laughing that stupid nervous laugh. "He was living in the States like I used to, but he came to Japan because he wanted to uh… be with me?"

'Shinichi you moron!' Kaito thought, as he heard the detective say that fateful line. 'If you say that-' His thoughts were interrupted as he heard the Mouri girl spill the fateful offer that he was dreading; an offer that wouldn't take no for an answer.

"You should come live with us then!" Ran piped up, clapping her hands together. "What's your name, by the way?"