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Sky Colored Eyes

50: Spinning Ties

"Whew! Glad that's over," Heiji exclaimed as he emerged from the changing stalls back in his own clothes.

"Thanks for helping," Ran said, looking a little sheepish. As Sonoko's best friend, she felt vicariously responsible for the petit girl's tendency to trample over other people's plans in pursuit of her own. "We really do appreciate it."

"It was no problem," Kazuha assured her. "I thought it was pretty cool."

Heiji snorted then let out a grunt of pain as Kazuha's elbow dove itself into his ribs. "What was that for?!"

"You were being rude."

"Oi, you're not the one who's going to be memorialized in a bunch of photo books wearing a stupid fake beard."

The girls ignored him.

"We still have an hour before the kids have their show. Is there anything you guys would like to do until then?" Ran asked. "I mean, you probably haven't had much of a chance to look around yet."

"Know anywhere we can get something good to eat?" asked Heiji. "We sorta had to set out real early this morning. I'm starving."

"I second that suggestion," a new voice piped up just before a puff of smoke exploded in their midst. Kazuha, Ran, and Heiji all let out startled yelps and leapt away on reflex. When the smoke cleared, there stood a grinning teen with a mess of dark hair who could have been Kudo Shinichi's evil twin. One look at their dumbfounded expressions and he started laughing.

Heiji twitched, expression beginning to slip into a scowl, but before he could say anything, Shinichi appeared with a stack of paper slips in hand.

"Sonoko said to keep these," he told the group at large. "They're claim tickets. So we can each get one copy of the photo book when it's available."

"That was generous of her," the magician mused, pleased. "I can't wait to see how the pictures turn out."

"I can," Shinichi muttered so quietly that only Kaito heard.

The magician smirked and slung an arm over the shorter boy's shoulder. "Aww, don't say that. You were adorable in that hat."

Blushing bright red, Shinichi promptly stepped on the magician's foot. Kaito neatly avoided the foot without once removing his arm from its position on Shinichi's shoulders. The detective huffed but made no further attempt to trample his friend's feet. He didn't even make to protest as the magician proceeded to propel him towards the door, cheerfully offering to buy Shinichi a coffee.

Heiji followed them, studying them, and the girls trailed after him out of habit.

There was something strange about that Kuroba guy, Heiji mused. Not strange in a 'he's going to end up being one of the suspects of the day' way though—which was a relief since it was obvious Shinichi liked the guy. The eastern detective could do with a few more friends closer to home. Kuroba was just…odd.

Throughout Sonoko's photo shoot, the magician had gone along with all her crazy whims even though he had absolutely nothing to do with anyone in Teitan High. And he actually seemed to enjoy it. Well, maybe the guy just liked performing. Nothing abnormal about that, and the guy was certainly good at it. But it wasn't Kuroba's incredible acting skills that made Heiji frown (though he couldn't say those skills didn't set off a few alarms. There was nothing wrong with actors, but people around Kudo rarely turned out to be what they appeared, and that went doubly so for the quirky ones). Paranoia aside though, it was something else that was bugging him. Something Heiji couldn't quite put his finger on.

He continued to watch the two as their group, somewhat more cohesive now, drifted towards the aroma of fresh food.

Hovering just a few paces behind the two, Heiji couldn't hear everything that they said over the general hubbub of the festival, but he could definitely see what they were doing. He saw how Kaito's arm stayed around Shinichi for nearly the whole way to the food stalls, and Shinichi didn't once try to shrug him off. He saw too how Shinichi was smiling and laughing—and was that the hint of a blush?

And that was when it struck him. It wasn't just Kuroba that was odd. It was Shinichi too. Heiji had to search for a while before he found the word he was looking for. He finally settled for relaxed.

The Shinichi he knew was reserved. He had his sarcastic and melancholy moments, but he was always serious. Too much so for his own good, Heiji sometimes thought, but that was only to be expected when you tripped over as much crime as Shinichi tended to on a daily basis. Relaxed just wasn't a word Heiji was used to associating with his friend.

Well, that just went to show that Shinichi really had made the right decision when he'd moved, didn't it? Heiji had had his doubts, but he wasn't one to deny the evidence of his own eyes. Still, Shinichi wasn't the sort to become such close friends with someone in such a short time. The years he had spent in hiding had taken their toll.

There was definitely something more to this Kuroba fellow.

The detective in Heiji was itching to find out what it was even while the friend in him was glad to see Shinichi actually looking happy again. But no matter what Heiji thought of Kaito as a person, he was still annoyed that the magician was sticking so close to Shinichi. It was making it extremely difficult for Heiji to have that serious talk with his eastern counterpart that he had come all this way to Beika to get.

Having been lost in his own thoughts, the Osakan detective nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand touched his elbow. He whirled around to find himself staring into Kazuha's startled face.

"What's the matter with you?" she asked, nonplussed.

"Nothing," he said hastily and ignored her dubious expression. "Uh, did you need something?"

"I asked you if you wanted to try the takoyaki." She gestured to the stall beside them where a line was already forming.

"Sure," he agreed then frowned glancing around. "Where'd the others go?"

"You really zoned out there, didn't you?" Kazuha observed. "Ran wanted to try the stir-fried noodles that that couple we passed earlier were eating. They told her where the stall was, so she's gone to get some. Kudo-kun and his friend went to the pastry pavilion. We said we'd all meet up at the picnic tables once we had our food. You…really didn't hear them tell us any of that?"

Since he hadn't, all Hattori could do was cough and usher his friend towards the end of the line for takoyaki. Though there were already a dozen people ahead of them, the line moved steadily if not quickly. Soon, they each had a box of fried takoyaki drizzled with the chef's special sauce in hand (Heiji wondered if he was the only person disturbed by the brilliant red color of the special sauce. The aroma wafting off it made his mouth and eyes water. He would bet anything that it was spicy. Very, very spicy). They had almost made it to the picnic tables when they spotted Shinichi's distinctive cowlick. Curious, Hattori made his way over to stand behind his friend. Once there, he could see that there were a few carnival game stalls mixed in with the food. Shinichi was carrying a very large, pink cardboard box with the words Prime Pastries printed on the outside in cursive letters, and he was watching Kaito, who had a toy gun in one hand and appeared to be lining it up at a row of targets. He was making a big show of choosing just the right angle, and everyone around him was watching with bated breaths.

Well, everyone except Shinichi, Heiji noticed, who simply looked resigned. Then Kuroba pulled the trigger. The first of the ten paper targets shook as a hole appeared in the very center of its red heart. There was some clapping and a few cheers. Then Kaito hit the second target dead center too, and the cheers got louder. He was lining up for the third when Shinichi cleared his throat loudly.

"The cookies are getting cold, you know," he said.

The magician laughed then. "Can't have that." And, without even aiming—without even looking, in fact, he shot out the centers of every last one of the remaining targets.

The audience went wild, and several children broke away from their parents to ask Kaito to show them how he'd done it and tell him how cool he'd looked.

Taking in the whole scene, Heiji's only thought was how skillfully the magician had wielded that gun, fake or not. He had handled it like it was real. His form had been spot on. Kuroba knew his way around guns, his detective mind told him, and that never bode well around Kudo.

Except Shinichi didn't appear the least bit surprised by his odd friend's dramatic display of skill. Indeed, Shinichi rolled his eyes and turned away, spotting Heiji as he did so.

"We got cookies and pastries for everyone," he said. "Were you able to find a table?"

"Er, not yet," Heiji stammered, casting a glance in the direction of the picnic tables. He was just in time to see Kazuha taking a seat as the family who had been sitting there cleaned up their trash. "Oh, actually, it looks like we have."

"Better hurry over then before we lose it," Kaito advised, popping up beside Shinichi with a gigantic, plush soccer ball in his arms. "Hey Shinichi, I got you a present."

The detective goggled at the toy. "Uh, thanks, but it's…kind of big." What went unsaid was that his apartment was not.

"We'll put it in your living room. It'll be like an extra chair."

"I think it's too soft for that."

"Extra pillow?"

"If I put that on my bed, there won't be any room left for me."

Kaito laughed. "We'll figure something out. Besides, if you really can't find a place for it at your apartment, there's always that huge old house here in Beika. That place could use a little more fun."

Still discussing the possible uses of the oversized plush, the two walked past Hattori towards the picnic table Kazuha had claimed. The Osakan detective twitched. Was it just him, or had they forgotten he was even here? And had Shinichi really only just met this Kuroba guy recently? Because Hattori was beginning to have serious doubts.

"Hattori-kun? Why are you just standing here? Where are everyone else?"

Shaking off his trance, Heiji found himself now in the company of Mouri Ran. She had a steaming box in hand and wasn't so much looking at him as past him. "They found a table. We should join them. Or was there something else you wanted to get? If there is, I can take your takoyaki over for you, and you can go get whatever else you want and meet us back here when you're done."

"Oh, uh, no, I think I'm good. Kudo got extra pastries and cookies, I think."

Ran smiled. "Sounds good. Let's go sit down then before someone else steals our seats."

"Wait, Ran!"

The girl stopped to give Heiji a questioning look. She was rather taken aback by the seriousness of his demeanor as he caught up to her and stared deep into her eyes. "That Kuroba guy. What do ya think about him? You've met him before, right?"

Ran shrugged. "Just once. Sonoko and I ran into him and Shinichi at a KID heist. Apparently he's a fan, being a magician too and all."

Hattori grimaced. He knew you couldn't throw a rock these days without hitting a KID fan, but it still befuddled him how people could be fans of a criminal, even if he was a good magician (not that magic was anything to be amazed by, fake as it was). It simply made no sense. But that aside, knowing that Kuroba was one of the thousands of KID fans out there didn't tell him much.

"He and Kudo seem pretty close, don't ya think?" he pressed, eyeing Ran's expression carefully. Was that a blush? That was a weird reaction. Why would his question make her blush?

"It does seem that way," she murmured, gaze shifting to where the two boys in question had joined Kazuha at the tables. There was a long moment of silence before Ran suddenly turned to Hattori with a bright smile. "It's all right. I'm okay with it. Though I won't say it's not surprising."

Hattori opened his mouth then closed it again because his brain couldn't seem to come up with anything intelligent to say. He had clearly missed a huge portion of this conversation, but Ran was already moving away, so he didn't have the chance to ask her to explain her cryptic remarks.

Shaking his head, he set off after her. Upon arriving at the picnic tables, he noticed at once that something was missing.

"What happened to that soccer ball?" he asked, sliding into the seat across from Shinichi.

"I put it away," Kaito answered before Shinichi could. "We won't be able to do much if we have to tote it around with us."

"Put it away?" Hattori echoed, looking the magician up and down. There was just no way that that gigantic plush was anywhere on his person. "Where?"

"Into another dimension," the magician said cheerfully.

"You should have seen it!" Kazuha burst out, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. "It just vanished into thin air!"

The Osakan detective's eyebrow twitched. She was way too excited about this. Honestly, he would never understand the girl's interest in magic shows. But he decided not to mention how it was all just trickery again because one, she always got annoyed at him when he did, and two, there were more important matters at hand today. The question was, how was he going to get Kudo alone so they could talk?

Lost in his thoughts, he began eating his takoyaki on autopilot. It wasn't until his mouth closed around the first fried morsel that he suddenly remembered the chef's special sauce. By then, however, it was too late.

X

"I've never seen anyone's eyes actually bug out like that before," Kaito chortled as he and Shinichi carried two large cups of ice water each back to the picnic tables where four more identical but empty cups already stood clustered about Hattori. The dark-skinned detective's eyes were still watering as he fanned his tongue with his hand. The moment Shinichi came within arm's reach, Hattori snatched one of the cups he had brought and downed the entirety of its contents in three long gulps. Shinichi handed him the second cup once he was done.

"I'm really sorry," Kazuha apologized for the third time in the last five minutes. "I meant to tell you that the chef's assistant told me we should scrape off most of the sauce if we're not fans of super spicy food, but I forgot."

Hattori swallowed another massive mouthful of iced water then turned to offer his friend a pained smile. "S'all right. I probably would've tried the first one as is anyway. Ya know I like ta get the whole experience when tryin' a new dish."

Kaito clapped him on the back. "That's the spirit. You never know, that sauce could've been the most awesome secret sauce ever passed down through generations of takoyaki masters, right?"

Heiji glowered. Was this guy making fun of him? He couldn't tell. He supposed that was a large part of what bothered him about the guy. He was impossible to read.

"Maybe you should eat a cookie," Ran suggested, handing him a black and white cookie from the Prime Pastries box. "Sometimes eating something that's not spicy works better than drinking water."

"Thanks."

With Heiji's tongue no longer on fire, everyone else finally settled down to eat. Only they had spent so much time first procuring food then saving Heiji's taste buds that they only had twenty minutes left to finish lunch and get to the park stage in time for the Shounan Tantei's silent play. The air filled with the sound of determined munching.

Swallowing a last bite of noodles, Ran stood up. "We'll have to hurry if we want to get good seats."

There was a brief stampede for the trashcans. Then they were off.

Heiji had fully intended to pull Shinichi back so they could have a word before the play, but, once again, his plans were thwarted. Kaito had already draped an arm over Shinichi's shoulders and was now gesticulating wildly with his other hand. Catching up to them, Heiji caught the tail end of a story about how he had once treated his entire middle school class to a cherry viewing festival—in the middle of November. Heiji wasn't at all sure he'd heard that right, but he decided to just add it to the rapidly growing list of Kuroba's oddities.

The park stage was a temporary structure that the city had erected in the middle of the largest lawn in Beika Park. It consisted of a raised, wooden platform with a screen set up behind it to act as a backdrop and a place behind which performers could store props and wait for their cues. A local band was just finishing their last number as Shinichi and the others arrived. The band members took their bows to a smattering of applause and cheers before they tramped off the stage with their instrument bags slung over their shoulders. There were no microphones or other sound equipment, this being the middle of the park, but judging from the smiles on the audience's faces, the band must have done well with only acoustic instruments.

Once the stage had been cleared, a dozen elementary school students scrambled onto the stage carrying boxes and things of varying sizes. Shinichi recognized several of the children as classmates of his when he'd still been Conan, and he felt a sudden pang of loss that he quickly shoved into the back of his mind.

"Efficient little tykes," Kaito remarked approvingly. "They must've practiced."

The formerly plain stage now appeared to be a shop of some kind. There were several large boxes serving as displays and counters. On them had been arranged a mismatched collection of crockery. The last pieces to be carried onstage were a series of three massive flowerpots that Shinichi suspected had been hand-painted by the students an their chaperons. They were garishly bright and enthusiastically sloppy except for the occasional smattering of perfectly drawn flowers and cartoony animal faces. Though no one could call them attractive, Shinichi couldn't help but smile at the sight of them. Although he had to wonder why they were bringing potted plants onto a set that looked like it was supposed to be a dinnerware shop.

With the pots full of dirt and one small, bushy plant each, the kids were having some trouble getting them onto the stage. Seeing this, several members from the audience who had been seated down near the stage got up to help.

The play began with half a dozen 'customers' wandering around the shop while Haibara sat on a stool behind the main counter and watched them with a deadpan stare. Two of the customers (being acted by Genta and Mitsuhiko) bumped shoulders in front of a display of four matching plates. They launched into a silent argument over which of them would get to buy the set. Their contorting faces and wild gesticulations drew several laughs from the audience. Their movements became more exaggerated as the argument escalated until Genta shoved Mitsuhiko, causing the smaller boy to stumble back and (very carefully) bump into the plate display just hard enough to make it tremble. A couple people cried out in alarm, but nothing fell.

Seeing her customers getting out of hand, Haibara hopped off her stool and strode towards them. While she wordlessly berated them for causing a scene, waving at the many breakable objects in her store, one of the other customers picked up a teacup, looked around at the audience, then deliberately tucked the item into his jacket pocket. Unfortunately for him, Ayumi, who had been browsing vases nearby, must have seen the theft because she flung out an arm dramatically and opened and closed her mouth several times. Everyone else in the shop turned towards the commotion.

With hasty and definitely practiced speed, the thief took the teacup out of his pocket and slipped it into the cabinet behind him without ever once looking in said cabinet's direction. His body hid his actions from his accusers if not from the audience, who were watching from the side.

The thief turned out his pockets and mimed complaining about being called a thief. But Mitsuhiko pointed to the cabinet behind him, drawing everyone's attention to the fact that the cabinet door was ajar.

Haibara marched past the now sullen thief and threw open the cabinet door.

A man tumbled out from inside it to lay sprawled out on the floor. The teacup in question slid off his back and hit the stage with a clunk that suggested it wasn't nearly as fragile as it looked.

Shinichi stiffened.

All around him, the audience was murmuring, impressed by the surprising progression of the play from a comic day in the shop to a murder mystery.

None of them seemed to have noticed that the shock and horror on the children's faces were genuine.

Then Ayumi screamed.

TBC

A.N: Hope everyone is doing well. Take care.