I think I've written quite a large number of "Shinichi dates Kaito without knowing it" fics, so I thought it was time for the reverse, because I think it could work this way. Not because Kaito is dense (although he sort of is in this fic), but because Shinichi is just so awkward at communicating his intentions, as we can see from his convoluted London confession to Ran.

Also, I've been struggling with a soulbond fic for the past week and I'm frustrated and annoyed that writer's block even exists, but I still wanted to post something for you guys, so here, have some badly-written fluff instead, since that seems to be my default when I don't know what to write. Yeah.

Warnings include shounen-ai, grammar mistakes / general errors, the fact that halfway through this I forget what the plot was supposed to be and sort of just... wrote stuff, etc. Set postcanon, when Shinichi, Kaito, Aoko, etc. are all about twenty or twenty-one.

Enjoy! - Luna

The Courtship of Kuroba Kaito

Aoko was the first to notice.

"Kaito," she began in a tone so delicate it belonged in a box marked Fragile, This Way Up the fifth time Shinichi showed up after Kaito's one o'clock Japanese literature lecture, made some nervous, snarky remarks, broke into stammers, and then fairly threw a badly-wrapped bento box at Kaito's head and ran from the room as if it were rigged to explode, "I think Kudou-kun might be trying to... court you."

Kaito, who was busy smiling moonily over Shinichi's horrible (yet somehow incredibly endearing – Kaito wasn't sure how that worked, really) attempt at chicken karage, blinked and looked over at where Aoko was tapping her pen against the desk. "What? Shinichi is?" He frowned. "Are you serious?"

"Um, yes." Aoko cast a pointed look down at the bento. She had opened her mouth to say more, but her face blanched when she noticed the silk cloth the box had been wrapped in. "Wait, is that a – are those Kid symbols?" She gaped. "Did Kudou-kun – did Kudou-kun buy that?"

"Yep. Isn't it great?" Personally, Kaito thought it was the sweetest thing, imagining Kudou Shinichi, Detective of the East, The Modern Holmes, and savior of the police force, physically walking into a store and buying something patterned so obviously with Kid emblems and I Heart Kid logos, just to make Kaito a bento. The first time it had happened, Kaito had practically strangled Shinichi in his haste to give him a hug. The way Shinichi had flushed and tried to play the whole thing off ranked easily in Kaito's top ten favorite things he'd ever witnessed.

When Kaito realized he had started to smile dopily down at Shinichi's misshapen hot dog octopi, he cleared his throat and turned a serious gaze on Aoko. She was regarding him with eyebrows raised in the universal expression of Not Impressed. "Kudou-kun must be really serious about you," she remarked, twirling her pen in a way that was somehow half-disapproving and half-amused, if you could even twirl a pen with that many emotions. "He actually lowered himself to your Kid-adoring level just to make you happy."

"What?" Kaito frowned. He'd assumed Aoko was joking about the whole thing, but… "Wait, are you seriously saying that Shinichi is – courting me?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Aoko nodded at the bento. "I mean, why else would he make lunch for you when he's clearly not good at cooking?" She eyed a particularly uneven octopus hot dog that, truth be told, looked more like a deformed squid.

Kaito shrugged as he prodded at a cherry tomato with his index finger. "I think he said it was because I don't eat enough? Which is really ironic when you think about how he's on a case, he doesn't stop to eat unless someone ties him to a chair and force-feeds him." And Kaito was now thinking about Shinichi being tied up. In a totally – innocent and not inappropriate way.

"Doesn't that make it clear that he cares more about your health than his own?" Aoko demanded. Kaito silently wondered if Aoko's eyebrows were trying to escape her face – at the rate they were traveling up her forehead, it was a legitimate possibility.

"Or he's just a hypocrite. But it's cute that he puts in so much effort." Kaito couldn't help but beam, putting the lid back on the bento. He'd eat it at home, when he could coo over it in peace. Aoko was proving to be a troublesome audience.

"It's cute," Aoko repeated. Her voice was so flat it was nearly two-dimensional. "Kaito, he makes you lunch and even bought Kid paraphernalia just because he knows you like it. I'm pretty sure that's, like, a marriage proposal in weird Kudou-kun terms."

"Hey, what do you mean by 'weird Shinichi terms'?" Kaito snapped, narrowing his eyes at her as he sensed an insult to Shinichi's honor. She waved him off, rolling her eyes.

"Unlike you, I don't stonily glare at Ran-chan every time I see her. I actually bother to talk to her, like a functional, emotionally mature human. And because of that, I know how Kudou-kun is with relationships," she reminded him dismissively, and Kaito swallowed down the bitter-tasting jealousy that rose at the back of his throat. It always did whenever someone mentioned Ran and Shinichi's three-year relationship. When Aoko noticed the pinched expression on his face, she backtracked quickly. "That's not the point, though. The point is that this is clearly more than Kudou-kun just – making bento for fun or anything."

"Sure, sure." Kaito rolled his eyes at her as he tucked the bento into his bag. "But it's not as if Shinichi's actually said anything to me, so I'm going to assume this is just a friendship thing." Because, after all, there was no way Kudou Shinichi, of all the gorgeous, perfect people in the universe, would ever feel anything for someone like Kaito.

Kaito was having a bad day.

Usually, he didn't let minor things bother him, but he was fairly certain the universe was conspiring against him. At least for today. He'd woken up an hour late because he'd been working on a term paper till three in the morning and his alarm hadn't gone off, and then, when he'd tried to take a shower, he'd discovered that the showerhead wasn't working, for whatever reason. By the time he'd decided that the showerhead was beyond repair, he had been standing in the bathroom naked for long enough that he had lapsed into an uncomfortable, shivery state that stayed with him all the way to his first lecture, which he was an hour and a half late to. And then, if that hadn't been enough, he'd discovered that in his hurry to leave home that morning, he'd left his wallet at home, which meant he didn't exactly have anything to buy lunch with. He'd gotten through two more classes on nothing but willpower.

By the time Kaito got home at five, he was exhausted, starving, and ninety percent certain that he'd contracted some kind of deathly disease as he sneezed his way to the living room to starfish on the couch and groan continuously for a solid three minutes.

His phone, which was digging excruciatingly into his hipbone, began to buzz fiercely near the two and a half minute mark. Sighing, Kaito wormed a hand in between where he was trying to become one with the sofa cushions to pull it out. According to his notifications panel, Kaito had received a text from Shinichi (or rather, from Shin-chan! xxx, as Shinichi's contact information read). All the text said was u ok?

Squinting – he hadn't turned on the lights when he came in, and the sunlight streaming through the far window was steadily dimming as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon – Kaito carefully tapped out no my life is horrible :(((( comfort me shinichi :((((( before he buried his face in the arm of the couch. His stomach growled at him, but Kaito couldn't find the strength to get up and go make something.

He wasn't sure how much time passed – other than that it was long enough that the light from the window faded, leaving the room shrouded in inky blue darkness – but he was suddenly aware of the front door opening in the distance and the sound of rustling in the entry. "Kaito?" a blessedly familiar voice called tentatively. Kaito wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't hallucinating Shinichi's voice out of sheer misery, but he still lifted his head just enough to get out a pathetic-sounding "Shinichi?" in case the hallucination was friendly.

Footsteps approached the living room. Kaito had half a second to think wait a second is this really happening before the lights snapped on. Squinting, he looked up just in time to see Shinichi regarding him with a judgmental expression as he stood in the doorway, hands on hips. Kaito supposed Shinichihad a right to be judgmental, considering that he looked like the modern day equivalent of a prince on a white horse while Kaito probably looked about as glamorous as a squished potato.

"You don't look very... alive," Shinichi remarked as he placed a lumpy, heavy-looking plastic bag that Kaito hadn't noticed he was holding on the coffee table. He raised one artistic eyebrow at Kaito, scanning him with a critical eye. "What happened to you?"

"Too many things. You don't need to know," Kaito mumbled, pressing his cheek into the seat cushion. Even when viewed sideways and from an unattractive angle, Shinichi was still devastatingly pretty. It was unfair.

Shinichi made a tsking noise. "Don't tell me, then." There was the crinkle of plastic as he turned to fiddle with the bag. When he faced Kaito again, he was holding a paper box and looking shiftily embarrassed. "I brought you dinner, though. I thought you might be hungry." Before Kaito could do anything like begin to cry because how was Shinichi real, he was like someone manufactured to be the perfect person, it was ridiculous, he added, "And don't worry, it's takeout. I didn't think you'd want to be subjected to my cooking if you were having such a bad day."

"I don't mind your cooking," Kaito told him honestly – Shinichi was definitely improving; more than half the last bento he'd made for Kaito was actually palatable.

"Ran will be glad her lessons are paying off, then," Shinichi responded as he headed towards the kitchen. Kaito felt a stab of irrational jealousy and shoved his face into a throw pillow. He'd suspected that Ran was the one teaching Shinichi how to cook, but he had also been hoping he was wrong. The image of Ran and Shinichi huddled by the stove, pressed hip to hip as Shinichi made her laugh and burned everything and rested his head on her shoulder while she berated him teasingly, precipitated unhappily at the back of his mind.

He was pulled from the disgustingly domestic scene when Shinichi bopped him lightly on the head. The scent of yakisoba and green tea suffused the room as he pushed the now heated box at Kaito's face. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," Kaito muttered, sitting up properly to take the box and mug of tea from Shinichi. When Shinichi just lifted his eyebrows at him, evidently not convinced, Kaito said, technically not untruthfully, "I've just had a bad day, okay?" He stuffed yakisoba into his mouth instead of elaborating. It was pretty good yakisoba, at least.

Shinichi watched him for a moment longer, his face still doing that disapproving "I know there's more to it, and I'm going to find out even if you don't tell me" thing he did at murder suspects (which was a painfully arrogant expression that he really should not have been able to wear so well), before he shrugged and reached back into the bag. When he emerged, he was holding a bottle of massage oil.

Kaito wished he could say his mind didn't go to an exceedingly dirty place, but unfortunately, he would be lying. He choked on a circle of carrot and had to smack himself in the sternum several times while Shinichi looked on with burgeoning concern, still holding the bottle marked Madagascan Vanilla Massage Oil. Kaito sort of hated everything (except Shinichi. He'd never hate Shinichi, after all).

When he had regained use of his lungs, Kaito wheezed, "Why – what? You – you're going to –what?" hoping his face wasn't as radioactive red as it felt.

"What?" Shinichi glanced down at the bottle in his hands before he winced. "Oh, wait, no, that's not – you can put it in the bath to make it more – I didn't mean anything – you can just – never mind." Shinichi stuffed the oil back into the bag. Pink had begun to creep out from underneath the neckline of his sweater, staining his collarbones and the graceful line of his neck, and he ducked his head, clearly self-conscious.

"I – wait, wait, that wasn't a no. I can use it in the bath. That sounds fine," Kaito hurried to assure him, setting aside his dinner as he heaved a sigh of gratefulness. He wasn't sure he'd survive a massage (or anything else involving oil and being naked) from Kudou Shinichi.

"You – if you're okay with it." Shinichi glanced at Kaito, mouth quirking hopefully on one side, and Kaito nodded enthusiastically.

"Okay, then." Smiling faintly as he picked up the bottle, Shinichi grasped Kaito's forearm, so gentle it was as if he thought he was handling fine china, and tugged him towards the bathroom. "I'll get you a change of clothes while you're in there. I also brought some chocolate ice cream and a copy of the latest Detective Samonji movie." Even though Shinichi wasn't facing Kaito, Kaito could still hear the half-smirk in his voice as he added, "Although that last one's more for me than you."

"Shinichi?" Kaito said when they had drawn to a stop outside the bathroom, Shinichi extending the massage oil at Kaito with expectancy. "I – thanks, for all this." He felt a warm burst of affection bloom behind his ribcage. God, he adored this man.

Shinichi smiled, suddenly shy as he ducked his head. One hand lifted to ruffle Kaito's hair, fingers separating the thick snarls easily. "Don't mention it."

For Hattori's twenty-first birthday, he insisted on going to a nightclub. And not just any nightclub, but one of the modern, "classy" nightclubs with blacked-out windows and ten million strobe lights in every color of the rainbow. Shinichi complained, saying that it would be a waste of time and wouldn't he rather go somewhere with decent lighting and drinks that cost less than an arm, two legs, and your firstborn child, but Hattori insisted.

So that was how Kaito found himself staggering towards the bar, everything swimming before his eyes as he rested his cheek on the cool, icy countertop. He wasn't sure how many shots he'd done – he suspected it was in the double digits, by this point, but then again, he wasn't entirely sure what a digit was at the moment. Anyway, that wasn't the point. The point – was there a point? Did he have a point? What was a point, again?

A hand descended on his arm out of nowhere, and Kaito giggled at the thought of a disembodied arm floating around tapping people on the shoulder. He stopped laughing when he realized that was actually a rather disturbing thought.

"Hey, you here alone?" a deep voice asked, and Kaito twisted towards it, squinting. A tall man with highly gelled hair that reminded Kaito of a helmet was smiling charmingly at him, evidently the owner of the voice. He had yet to remove his hand, which had begun to stroke up and down Kaito's bicep.

"Uh… no," Kaito managed, leaning against the bar to get away from him. The man shifted closer in response.

"Really? Because I don't see anyone else looking for you," he purred, slithering closer to Kaito. Kaito wrinkled his nose – the man seemed to have a strong affinity for cologne that smelled reminiscent of rotting flowers, or perhaps fruit that had died of some mysterious plague. It was, unsurprisingly, fairly unpleasant.

Kaito was about to try to kick the man as discreetly as possible – he wasn't sure how it would go, because one, he wasn't a gorgeous beautiful incredible soccer player with killer aim like Shinichi was, and b, he wasn't at his most coordinated at the moment – when another hand landed on his other arm.

There were a lot of floating arms going around tonight, Kaito thought nonsensically.

"Kaito, how much have you had to drink?" It was Shinichi's voice – Shinichi's voice above the prepackaged pop playing in the background, above the cloying scent of the man's cologne – and Kaito instinctively turned towards it. He mostly just fell off the barstool, though. Thankfully, he dislodged the man's hand on his arm. Shinichi's, however, stayed put.

"Shinichi?" he slurred, grinning when Shinichi's face came into view. It barely registered that Shinichi was scowling, wearing his disapproval like a mask. "Shinichi! I was looking f'you!" He threw his arms around Shinichi's neck, pushing his face into the base of Shinichi's neck. Shinichi smelled like jasmine tea and warmth and the faintest traces of salt, and for half a second Kaito considered licking him to taste.

Shinichi sighed – Kaito knew because he felt Shinichi's chest move beneath him. "You really shouldn't have tried to match Hakuba shot for shot, Kaito. He could drink an entire liquor store and come out unscathed. You, on the other hand…"

The man chose this moment to clear his throat loudly. "Are you with him?" he demanded, and Kaito groaned.

"Helmet head," he muttered into Shinichi's collarbone.

One of Shinichi's hands lifted to press comfortingly against Kaito's nape. Overhead, Shinichi sounded indignant as he said, "Obviously he's with me."

"Or you're going to take advantage of him because he's drunk," the man suggested. Kaito snickered at the thought. It wasn't exactly possible for Shinichi to "take advantage" of Kaito, considering Kaito was very much willing.

Now Shinichi sounded frosty. He'd probably donned his intimidating "I am leagues ahead of you and you would do well to keep that in mind" face, too. That face was terrifying if you didn't know Shinichi was an absolute dork underneath it. "That may be what you were planning to do, but considering I've been dating him for a significantly longer time than you ever will, that isn't something I'm going to do. I suggest you leave now."

Throughout this speech, Kaito had focused most of his attention on the hollow of Shinichi's throat – specifically, testing out what would happen if Kaito pressed his cheek against it at various angles – but the moment he heard the "I've been dating him" bit, he frowned. That – was that true? Kaito obviously wished it was, but then, he didn't remember it happening…

"Shinichi?" Kaito murmured, teeth snagging on the neckline of Shinichi's shirt as he lifted his face. He felt a shudder go through Shinichi and frowned, peering up at Shinichi with concern. "Hey, Shinichi?"

"Uh, yes?" Shinichi wasn't meeting Kaito's eyes, steadfastly watching the man stalk off onto the dancefloor. "What is it, Kaito?"

"When did we start dating?"

Wrapped around Shinichi as he was, Kaito instantly felt the way Shinichi tensed into an ice sculpture, going rigid in Kaito's arms. "I – we – haven't. I just – said that so he'd go away."

"Oh." Kaito felt his own face fall. Shinichi still wasn't looking directly at him and he'd gone all stiff (and not in the pleasant way) and Kaito wished he hadn't said anything. "Oh," he repeated before he dropped his head against Shinichi's chest again. "That's too bad, y'know."

"Hm?" Shinichi, if it was even possible, seemed to tense up even further. "What do you mean, it's too bad?"

"I mean," Kaito sighed, mashing his face into Shinichi again, "I mean, like, I think it'd be awesome. Like. It'd be great. Like, y'make me really happy, and I wanna do that f'you." He was abruptly sleepy. It was something about the way Shinichi smelled and how the lights flashed and the alcohol coursing through his bloodstream. "I wanna be something t'you, y'know? It'd be so – so good."

"I – okay," Shinichi whispered, somehow audible over the pounding bass and the female artist shrieking about being forever young and the raucous shouting from the dance floor, and then there were hands sliding into Kaito's hair. Kaito pushed into the touch like a cat. "Let's get you home."

Kaito wasn't sure what happened after that because he fell asleep against Shinichi, but when he woke up in the morning with a sparse memory, a headache that felt more like a meat tenderizer working devotedly at his brain, and a mouth drier than the Sahara Desert, Shinichi was in his kitchen, miraculously managing not to burn the eggs in between toasting bread and making coffee. And when Kaito hesitantly asked, "Did I say anything – weird last night?" Shinichi just smirked at him and said, "Do you think you did?" and yeah, it was basically frustrating and awful, but it also wasn't because it was Shinichi, and Kaito was very much gone for him.

Kaito officially started realizing that things were getting a bit weird when he happened to accompany Shinichi to a crime scene.

Well, "happened to accompany" was a bit of a misnomer. Shinichi had treated Kaito to coffee and eclairs after one of Kaito's magic shows (apparently he absolutely needed to know how Kaito had done one of his levitation tricks; Kaito, on principle, refused to tell him), and while they had been on their way out the door, a woman had faceplanted straight into her nonfat vanilla latte. Needless to say, they stayed.

As Shinichi puttered about the body, muttering things under his breath as he scoured the woman's coat for some tiny, insignificant detail that would probably become the key to the whole case, Kaito lounged on an L-shaped couch by the front windows. The rest of the customers had been herded outside, save for the woman's beady-eyed companion and the terrified baristas, but Kaito had been left alone. Apparently he was associated with Shinichi to the point that nobody suspected him of anything.

He was in the middle of plucking idly at the tattered upholstery of the couch when a voice from overhead startled him. "Oh, Kuroba-kun. Nice to see you again."

Looking up, Kaito found that Satou was standing over him. Behind her, Kaito saw that Megure and Takagi had also arrived and were now berating Shinichi for touching the body before they'd gotten there. Shinichi just looked impatient, cutting the inspector off to motion frantically at the inner lining of the woman's coat. It was oddly captivating to watch.

"Hi, Officer Satou," he blurted out the moment he realized Satou was eyeing him with a contemplative, one-eyebrow-raised expression as she waited for a response. He flushed, rubbing at the back of his head. "Sorry, I just… sorry."

Satou narrowed her eyes at him for a moment longer – she gave a quarter turn to peer over at where Kaito had been looking – and then smiled abruptly. It wasn't a nice smile; it was an amused "I know exactly what you were doing and I'm laughing at your expense because I'm a horrible, sadistic person" sort of smile that made Kaito feel like an amoeba beneath a microscope lens.

"I take it that Kudou-kun's successfully managed to woo you, then?" she grinned, settling against the wall and crossing her arms across her chest. Kaito tugged at the collar of his shirt and cleared his throat, more to buy time than anything else. He'd always been somewhat scared of her ever since the time he witnessed her casually pistol-whipping a serial killer who had over eighteen murders to his name.

"Um, what do you mean?" This must have been how criminals felt when being interrogated, he thought a little wildly as he tried not to look intimidated (and probably failed).

Satou waved a hand airily. "You know, Kudou-kun's courtship or wooing or whatever you want to call it. I know he's been making lunch for you because everyone in Division One was subjected to tasting everything he cooked before he gave any of it to you." She winced. "I don't think Takagi-kun has ever really gotten over the curry incident. He never orders it whenever we go out now."

"Wait, what?" Fear momentarily forgotten, Kaito blinked up at Satou with incredulity. "What do you mean?"

At this point, Satou was regarding Kaito as if she suspected he might have been dropped on his head as a child. "I mean that Kudou-kun always make us try his cooking before he gives any of it to you, because heaven forbid you nearly die of food poisoning," she informed him slowly before she sighed. "He's lucky all of us love him so much. One of us would've murdered him out of self-defense if we didn't."

For a moment, Kaito opened and shut his mouth, not entirely sure what to say. "You – but I –" He couldn't seem to form a coherent sentence, mind racing like river rapids.

Frowning now, Satou tilted her head at him. "Didn't you know he's been –? But I thought for sure you two were together now when he asked for massage oil recommendations the other day, right before he rushed off in the middle of a case. I thought he was running off to use it with you?"

"I just put it in the bath. Which I took alone," Kaito tacked on hastily when Satou's eyes gleamed. He backpedaled quickly as something struck him. "Did you say he ran off during a case?"

"Right," Satou nodded. "He got a text – which I'm going to assume was from you – asked me if I knew any good massage oils, and left while we were investigating. He sent us a full deduction later, of course, but it was weird for him. Kudou-kun usually never lets anything take him away from cases." She paused, eyes searching Kaito's face. "But judging from the look on your face, I'm guessing you had no idea about any of this, and now I'm thinking maybe Kudou-kun didn't want me to say anything –"

"Didn't want you to say anything about what?" Shinichi asked as he appeared over Satou's shoulder, expression inquiring as he dropped onto the spot beside Kaito and wound an arm around Kaito's shoulders. Kaito turned his disbelieving gaze on him, and Shinichi frowned. "What's wrong?"

Are you trying to date me in a weird, roundabout way without telling me? Kaito wanted to ask, very badly, but he couldn't make himself say it. Not when Shinichi was looking at him so expectantly and Satou was trying to slip away without drawing attention to herself and they were in the middle of a crime scene, for God's sake, and it just – wasn't the time.

Instead, he shrugged and leaned into Shinichi's hold. "It's nothing," he mumbled into Shinichi's shirt, which smelled strongly of pine-scented laundry detergent and jasmine tea (Kaito momentarily wondered if Shinichi bathed with tea bags or something) and was the softest thing Kaito had ever felt. "Don't worry about it. How's the case going on?"

And then Shinichi's face lit up and he started talking enthusiastically about the importance of coat linings and why the color burnt orange was significant in so many ways, Kaito, this is a breakthrough. Kaito tuned it out in favor of committing Shinichi's profile to his memory as he wondered if Satou was actually serious.

Things came to a head a few days later.

Kaito was in the middle of breakfast (a bowl of cereal and an apple he'd scavenged from the back of his refrigerator) when his phone started chirping beside his elbow. Upon closer inspection, Kaito realized that Shinichi was calling him, strangely enough. Shinichi was really more of a texting sort.

Swallowing a chunk of apple, Kaito picked it up and tapped the accept button. "And to what do I owe this pleasure, my darling Shinichi-kun?" he asked, cradling the phone to his cheek as he stood and relocated to the couch, where he could hug a pillow and flail more effectively. It was difficult to get properly excited in a kitchen chair.

There was a snort. "Do you greet everyone like that?"

"Only my favorites," Kaito replied, grinning as he imagined Shinichi flushing. "But anyway. What is the purpose of this call, dear Shin-chan?"

Shinichi's eye roll was audible. "First of all, never call me Shin-chan again, and second of all, I was wondering if you were free tonight, but I might have to reconsider."

"Don't be like that," Kaito told him, curling up so he could hug his knees to his chest. He wondered what Shinichi was doing. Maybe he was in the library, reading The Sign of Four for the millionth time, or maybe sitting at his kitchen table, flipping through a case file as he talked to Kaito. The possibilities were endless (and all mesmerizing). "I'm free tonight."

"Oh. So, like, you don't have any plans?"

Frowning – was it just Kaito, or did Shinichi sound nervous? Shinichi never got nervous; he got angry and frustrated and occasionally scared, but not nervous – Kaito said slowly, "Yes, that's the definition of 'free.'"

"Okay, okay," Shinichi responded before there was a long pause that began to feel uncomfortable after the first five seconds. When Kaito was at the point where he was willing to say anything just to break the silence, including confessing his undying adoration for Shinichi, Shinichi blurted out, "Do you want to come with me to Megure's promotion party?" in a nearly incomprehensible rush.

It took Kaito's brain a solid twelve seconds to parse through the tangle of syllables. When he'd finished, he frowned, bewildered. "Of course I do." He hoped his tone conveyed the "what are you on about" way he was feeling, because a promotion party was fairly tame. They'd gone to Takagi's, a few years ago. From the way Shinichi had hesitated, Kaito would've thought he was confessing to murder or something.

A rattling, shaky sound overwhelmed the line for a moment. Kaito frowned before he realized it was the sound of Shinichi exhaling. "Thanks. Thanks, Kaito, that's – thanks." Shinichi cleared his throat. "It's – well, it's a black-tie thing. You know. Suits and all that."

Kaito felt his eyebrows rise. Oh. That might explain part of Shinichi's hesitance. "That's all right," he replied. He still had a suit he could probably fit.

"It's at the Crowne Hotel," Shinichi added, and Kaito blinked so hard he nearly broke something. That – was a very expensive hotel, the kind of place that offered champagne on the room service menu and actually had a serviceable ballroom. Kaito had always secretly wondered if the taps dispensed liquid gold instead of water. "So… yeah."

"Who else are you inviting?" Kaito asked hesitantly. He'd decided that Satou might actually be right about what she'd said, but if Shinichi said he was also inviting Ran, then maybe she was wrong. The more he thought about it, the more sense it would make. Ran had been friends with Shinichi for much longer; the police force knew her better than they knew him. Not to mention that Ran would probably appreciate the hotel more than Kaito could – she'd probably know about the hotel's history or the famous paintings that doubtless hung on the wall or the style of interior decorating or something –

"Would it be weird if I told you I wasn't inviting anyone else?" Shinichi offered, tacking on a self-deprecating laugh at the end. He didn't provide any further explanation.

"Er… only if you make it weird," Kaito stammered. He was abruptly feeling an odd mixture of hope and consternation. "What time are you going to pick me up?"

"Maybe around seven? Be ready by then, at least," Shinichi said, smiling audibly. There was an undeniable edge of relieved, grateful – something to his voice. "See you then, Kaito."

"Bye, Shinichi. See you," Kaito answered before he hung up and banged his head against the sofa arm until he was feeling less out of sorts. He needed to go iron his suit, but first he was going to wash his face with cold water and try to sort this whole thing out. Satou was looking more and more right.

By the time seven rolled around, Kaito was in his suit, hair styled away from his face, and trying not to sweat through his suit jacket. He spent several minutes pacing the front entry until he started feeling unpleasantly like a caged animal, at which point he nosedived into the couch and wallowed until Shinichi appeared out of nowhere to pull him out.

Shinichi, to the surprise of absolutely no one, looked like the art project of someone whose brief had been "the most attractive person you can imagine – but even more attractive." He wore his suit like a second skin and his hair in a tousled, artful mess, and Kaito had never seen anything better. It was unnerving when Shinichi extended a hand, grinning down at him. How was Kaito even talking to someone so pretty? "Want to stand up?"

Grunting his assent, Kaito climbed to his feet. He felt a bit like a trashcan standing next to Shinichi, but Shinichi's gaze still scanned him with something that resembled admiration, if you turned your head precisely eighteen degrees to the left and squinted. "You look dashing, Kaito," he remarked, eyes flickering back up to Kaito's face, and Kaito sighed.

"I bet you say that to all the pretty ones," he scoffed, shouldering past Shinichi and his dastardly good looks to go locate his dress shoes.

"No, just you," Shinichi called from behind him, and Kaito swallowed.

Maybe – maybe the courting thing held some water after all.

It really did, Kaito decided the moment they were seated in the party hall. The party was nice, of course, although Kaito could tell that the hotel restaurant was of the "eat doll-sized portions of Alaskan tuna tartare and chanterelle risotto with aged parmesan and go home hungry at the end of the night" variety. And it wasn't as if the company was horrible – the others at their table were Satou and Takagi, Yumi and her shogi player boyfriend, Chiba and his traffic officer girlfriend, and Megure and his wife. It was just – Shinichi had neglected to mention that it was a party where one was expected to bring their significant other. Kaito realized this when he realized that literally everyone else at their table was one half of a couple.

"Shinichi," Kaito began during the appetizer (an artfully arranged plate of julienned vegetables that resembled rabbit food more than anything else), "am I here as your plus one?"

"Yes," Shinichi confirmed, poking at a string of carrot with eyebrows lifted. He glanced at Kaito fleetingly. "What, is that a problem?"

"No, just –" Kaito cut himself off when Midori, Megure's wife, set down her sterling silver fork and smiled, matronly, across the table at him.

"Oh, you must be Kuroba-kun," she beamed, looking expectantly at him. "We've heard so much about you." She paused to laugh delicately into one artistic hand. "Well, Juuzou has, and I've heard from him. How did you and Kudou-kun meet, I wonder?"

"Uh…" Kaito's eyes shifted towards Shinichi, who was now examining a piece of cucumber with far more intensity than it warranted (it was a sliver of cucumber on a plate, not a guide to the secrets of the universe). "We… met at one of my performances." He supposed you could describe a heist as a performance. "I'm an amateur stage magician."

"How romantic," Midori sighed, clutching at her husband's arm. "Juuzou, did you hear that? They met at a magic show. Young love is such a beautiful thing. Remember when we were young?"

"Mm," Megure shrugged, crunching on a carrot.

Sighing, Midori turned back to Kaito. "Ignore him. Tell me more! How did you two get together?"

And that was only the start. Kaito fended off questions from all corners – Satou's suggestive ones were by far the worst – while Shinichi played a convincing statue beside him. Well, a statue that ate and drank and made conversation with Kaito but suddenly went deaf and mute whenever someone asked them about their "relationship." Kaito honestly wasn't sure if he was supposed to be as amused or infuriated. But by Satou's latest blatant insinuation about their nonexistent sex life (it seemed Satou's subtlety was inversely related to the amount of champagne she drank), he was leaning more towards infuriated.

It only worsened when Shinichi actually offered Kaito his arm as they were leaving and opened Kaito's taxi door for him, because he wasn't even trying to be lowkey at that point. Kaito slid into the backseat with something like irritation. It was hard to cling to that irritation, however, when Shinichi oh-so-casually slid an arm around his shoulders and tugged him closer, all the while staring out the window at the passing streetlamps and pedestrians and feigning disinterest even as his cheeks went faintly pink.

The cab dropped them off at Kaito's street corner. Shinichi paid the driver – Kaito groaned; if Shinichi had been acting like this the whole time, why hadn't Kaito realized earlier? – before he smiled warmly at Kaito. "Shall we?" he asked, gesturing at where Kaito's house loomed in the murky darkness, and Kaito couldn't do anything but nod helplessly.

The walk to Kaito's front door was quiet, but not uncomfortable. Shinichi was humming something jaunty under his breath – the melody was off-key and he dropped a few notes, but Kaito found himself smiling dopily anyway.

"Well," Shinichi said when they arrived at Kaito's front door. He rocked back onto his heels, mouth curving shallowly. In the faded light from the nearest streetlight, his features were soft, a study of shadows and highlights. "I had a lot of fun tonight. Thanks for coming out with me." He paused.

Kaito stared at him for a moment longer, waiting, before he demanded, "Look, are you going to kiss me goodnight or am I going to have to do it for you?"

He was delighted to see Shinichi's mouth drop open. It wasn't often that Kaito got to see the great Kudou Shinichi speechless, after all.

"You're sort of obvious, and I'm not as dense as you are," Kaito began, smirking when Shinichi's expression didn't change – he looked a bit as if he'd been electrocuted. "Although at first, I didn't think anything of it. But then Satou-san told me about how you make all of Division One try your cooking before you give it to me, and then I thought about the whole bar thing, and then tonight? Don't even try to deny it. You took me there as your boyfriend." He'd put his hands on his hips at some point. "So are you going to do it, or do I have to?"

It took Shinichi another few seconds to close his mouth and regain control of his voice. "Satou promised she wouldn't say anything," he complained, running a hand through his hair. "I was trying to be… subtle. Like – a proper courtship."

"As much as I love you, Shinichi," Kaito informed him, smiling uncontrollably when Shinichi's eyes blew wide, "subtlety isn't exactly your strong suit."

Shinichi stood there for a moment longer, staring at Kaito as if Kaito had hung the stars in the sky and painted the sunset and set the earth in motion, before he broke out into a grin that Kaito rather thought matched his own. "Well, in that case," he said before he lunged forward and kissed Kaito, mouth pliant and warm against Kaito's.

"That was better," Kaito panted when they parted several eternities later. His hands had migrated to right above the flare of Shinichi's hips, and Shinichi's framed Kaito's face, each fingertip a point of comforting pressure on Kaito's jaw. Beaming at Shinichi, Kaito leaned in just enough to whisper, "I've still got massage oil, if you're interested."

They were standing close enough that Kaito physically felt Shinichi's sharp inhale.

"Okay," Shinichi agreed, voice a little strangled, "yeah, subtlety is overrated."

Um, my next fic will be less sap and more substance? Maybe? Possibly?

Well, I hope you enjoyed this fic even a little (if you did, please considering dropping me a review!) and I'll see you all soon! - Luna