Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed.

Pairing(s): Kuroba Kaito x Kudo Shinichi, Agasa Hakase x Fusae Campbell

WARNINGS: Mild shounan ai (boy/boy pairing), you have been warned

Beneath the Gingko Trees

By V. Shalyr

"I'm surprised that your friends didn't insist on coming along."

Shinichi looked up at the comment from where he sat in the passenger's seat of the car. He had left the door open since the day wasn't too cold, and the late November air was clean and crisp with the nearness of winter. Other than the twitter of birds and the soft rustle of wind through the golden leaves of the gingko trees, everything was quiet this early in the morning.

"Actually, I didn't tell them about it. I mean, it has been ten years. I doubt any of them even remember."

Kaito raised an eyebrow at that, handing him a cup of coffee from the coffee shop down the street before leaning against the hood of the dark gray car and taking a sip from his own to-go cup.

"Won't they be angry when they find out?" he asked.

The detective shrugged. "Why should they be? This isn't a case, and we're only here because Professor Agasa asked us to wait with him."

"True."

"Besides," Shinichi added, "we have a big test tomorrow. They're going to be busy studying today."

"I notice you didn't bring any textbooks," the magician observed, although there was an amused quirk to his lips that told Shinichi he knew very well why that was.

The detective answered anyway. "Please, it's my second time in high school. A test like that's hardly going to be a problem."

Kaito chuckled. "You're not setting them a good example."

"At least I get good grades. And it's not like they're always watching me. Besides, they have Ai for that."

"Ah, the cool, young lady. That's why she declined accompanying her dear old uncle?"

Shinichi nodded.

"They're all going to the library together later. She reserved a study room for them."

The two fell silent and looked towards one particular tree in the distance. It stood not too far from the back doors of the elementary school, and there was a somewhat stout, balding man standing beneath its spreading boughs. In his hands, he held a bouquet of white and pink roses—provided by Kaito, since the professor had forgotten to bring any flowers of his own. The bouquet prevented him from fidgeting, but every now and then, he would look down at his fingers and shift a little on his feet.

To be honest, the sight made Shinichi feel somewhat nostalgic in a strange, detached sort of way. He had passed through this elementary school twice, and yet these trees and buildings still looked pretty much the same—a little older and a little more worn, but the same. Physically, he was seventeen now, but he was supposed to be twenty-seven.

Perhaps the nostalgia felt strange because it was nostalgia for how life might have been different. At least it wasn't a painful feeling anymore. Come to think of it, it had been here under these gingko trees that Haibara Ai had given him the news.

"There isn't going to be a cure."

"Are—are you sure?"

"Yes. If we'd been able to get the formula earlier, maybe. But we've both been shrunk for too long, and the temporary antidote... It would make any cure I made weaker than it should be."

"Oh... I see."

"I'm sorry."

It had not been as much of a shock as it perhaps should have been. Shinichi supposed that somewhere, in the back of his mind, he had realized long before then that the chances of getting his old life back were slim to none. And even if he had been able to get his hands on a permanent cure, what then? He was not the same Kudo Shinichi who had disappeared years before. It had been time to face the fact that no matter what, he could never turn back the clock and start over. Metaphorically, of course. Literally, that was exactly what had happened.

The only really hard part had been telling Ran.

He had decided not to tell anyone else who didn't already know about the connection between Kudo Shinichi and Edogawa Conan. Frankly, it simply wouldn't matter to most of them. His parents didn't care that he'd had to change his name, and other than Ran, he hadn't had any close friends before getting shrunk. If high school detective Kudo Shinichi never returned to Japan, the only person who would really be affected was Ran.

"I can't believe you've been lying to me all this time."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to get you involved."

"And living under the same roof wasn't getting me involved?"

"I... you're right. I'm sorry."

"And to think I spent all that time worrying about you!"

On the bright side, after yelling at him for awhile, Ran hadn't stayed mad. Because the truth was that Edogawa Conan was not a lie—not really. Somewhere along the way, Shinichi's "fake" identity had become an integral part of who he was. It wasn't like he had actually been pretending to be a different person. A different name and an altered back story did not make you someone new. Ran had understood that—understood it more quickly than Shinichi for that matter, since he'd still been feeling a little numb over the whole thing.

And anyway, like him, she was no longer the Mouri Ran who had gone to visit her childhood friend only to find an empty house.

"I wonder what he's thinking?" Shinichi mused aloud.

"Well, he did technically stand her up four times in a row, once every ten years," the magician said. "He has to feel a little bad about that, so he's probably nervous. Still, they've waited for one another for this long, so there has to be something real between them."

"Fifty years." Shinichi shook his head. "It's hard to believe that they've waited for each other for fifty years."

"What's really amazing is that they both felt it was worth it." Kaito took another drink of his own coffee and added, "If they really liked each other that much though, they shouldn't have waited so long. If it were me and I thought I had the wrong place after that first decade, I would have tracked her down to see if she was still interested. That's forty years they could have spent making memories."

"I don't know. They've both done a lot with their lives. I told you that she's the designer of that famous brand with the gingko leaves logo, right? Maybe none of that would have happened if they'd run into one another again sooner."

"Maybe," Kaito conceded. After all, he knew better than anyone that sometimes, pursuing a dream meant making sacrifices. "But we'll never really know."

Which was just as well. If humans could know all the potential futures they might have had, they'd probably drive themselves crazy making comparisons between what-ifs.

On the other hand...

"Thanks for not waiting," Shinichi said, glancing up to meet the magician's eyes.

Metaphorically, again. Literally, they hadn't started officially dating until a few months ago since Shinichi had needed time to grow up again. But that didn't mean the magician had just waited around. Strong relationships needed time to grow. And although they had known each other fairly well as Kaitou KID and Edogawa Conan, that was not quite the same as knowing Kuroba Kaito and Kudo Shinichi.

"Hi, Tantei-kun."

"KID? What are—this is a detective agency!"

"Relax. They won't be back for awhile yet."

"How do you... Never mind, I don't want to know. You realize that this qualifies as breaking and entering. It doesn't matter that you're not here to steal anything."

"You can add it to my very long list of similar offenses."

"So... why are you here?"

"To see you, of course. I heard that you've been sick."

"I'm not. I've just... had a lot of thinking to do."

Shinichi could still remember how bizarre it had been to see Kaitou KID sitting in the armchair behind Kogoro's desk in the Mouri Detective Agency. Then again, when it came to the magician thief, the strange and bizarre were commonplace.

"What about you?" Shinichi had asked after awhile, moving to sit on the couch with his bowl of cereal. "You haven't had any heists for awhile."

"You could say I've had a lot of thinking to do too."

"Are you finally going to retire? The Organization's gone. There's no reason to keep looking for a magical jewel that probably doesn't exist."

Shinichi wasn't sure what answer he'd expected, but it wasn't the one he got.

"Maybe I am. I have my professional career to think of after all."

"What?"

"I've always planned on becoming a professional magician. It might be harder to keep on moonlighting as a magician thief if I'm also planning professional performances. I'm not sure if I can really stop searching for Pandora, but there's no reason to make a show of it anymore—much as I enjoyed it. No one will know I was ever there."

Shinichi had set down his bowl at that, suddenly no longer hungry. He'd started thinking of KID as a constant in his life, and it was unexpectedly upsetting to discover that he was going to lose that too.

"Tantei-kun, are you all right?"

"It—it's nothing. I'm glad you won't be a thief anymore."

"Worried about me?"

"Sometimes."

The admission had caused the barest flicker of surprise to cross the thief's face.

"Are you sure you're not sick?"

"I'm sure."

"Well, in that case, I actually came by to give you something."

KID conjured up a white envelope with a flourish and stood, walking over to hold it out to him.

Shinichi accepted the envelope with confusion. "What is it?"

KID grinned, the living room lights gleaming off his monocle. "Seven tickets to an upcoming magic show. I hear the magician is a first-year college student who's gaining a lot of popularity. It'll be in three weeks."

"Seven tickets?"

"One for you, four for those children you're always with, one for the good professor, and one for Miss Ran—should you want to invite her. We should hold on to the friends we have, don't you think?"

Shinichi's heartbeat sped up. Perhaps he'd been wrong. Kaitou KID might be retiring, but he wasn't going to be disappearing from his life.

Still, he had to ask, "Are you sure?"

"If I wasn't, you wouldn't be holding those tickets. Also, just so you know, I'll be staging one last heist to say my farewells to the KID Taskforce. I owe Inspector Nakamori at least that much. You can tag along or not, it's up to you. But for sure, I'll see you in three weeks."

And so, three weeks later, Shinichi, and the other members of the Shounen Tantei had met aspiring stage magician Kuroba Kaito. The other children had been thrilled and awed, and for an hour, Shinichi had felt like an actual kid again. After the show when the others chattered excitedly about magic in general and the performance in particular, Shinichi had joined in with enthusiasm. And he thought that KID—or rather Kuroba—was right. It was important for him to hold on to the friends he had, and even more so for the very few friends who knew the whole truth.

"Looks like she's here," Kaito said.

Shinichi looked towards the street, but it was several moments more before the white car came into view. It parked some distance from their own car, and after a second, a middle-aged woman with straight blond hair that ended just beneath her chin got out. She shut the car door quietly then, after a brief hesitation, walked over towards the man beneath the tree.

Agasa looked up at her approach then hurriedly held the bouquet of roses out to her. She accepted the flowers and returned his hesitant smile.

"If she'd just turn a little, I'd be able to read her lips," Kaito said. They were too far away to hear anything.

"We shouldn't be eavesdropping anyway," Shinichi reminded him.

"It's probably something about the last time ten years ago that you told me about," Kaito said as though he hadn't heard him. "He's apologizing and saying that he never forgot her."

"We should go,"

Kaito laughed. "Okay, okay. I suppose it is a private moment."

Kaito moved around to the driver's side of the car, and Shinichi shut the passenger door. Around them, the pale morning sunlight and the leaves of the gingko trees came together to brush the air with hints of gold. For a moment, they simply sat within the silent car, watching Professor Agasa and Lady Fusae laugh at some joke or memory. Then Kaito started the engine and turned the car towards the street.

"So," he said, glancing at Shinichi, "since you don't have school today and you're done with all your homework, how about joining me for breakfast?"

"Don't you have to rehearse for your show tomorrow?"

"Not really. I've rehearsed plenty the last few days, and everything's set to go. Besides, there's this wonderful breakfast place with a spectacular view that I've been meaning to take you to."

END

AN: This one-shot was inspired by episodes 421-422, Gingko-Colored First Love. I was re-watching them the other day, and I couldn't get the atmosphere at the end out of my head. It just seemed like a rather unsatisfying place to stop the story:)

.