A/N: On a bit of a roll here with the Detective Conan/Magic Kaitou fics.

Anyway, my WordPerfect spell checker tells me that twitchy isn't a real word. One can twitch, and one can be twitching, but the state of being twitchy is not recognized as a word in its dictionary.

I don't care, where I come from twitchy is a word.

It is also a word according to the online dictionaries I consulted on the matter. It's an adjective (I think) and it refers to being:

a) nervous, anxious or restless.

Example: a twitchy smile

Example: been feeling twitchy about the interview

b) characterized by twitching.

Example: a twitchy eye

It even has an adverb: twitchily. Which my word processor also doesn't recognize. Too bad for it, because I have now added twitchy to the list of acceptable words.

So there.

Side Note: Illustrious is a great word. So is conundrum. (I had far too much fun with my diction in this piece.)

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Nakamori Ginzo was twitchy.

Not his relatively common 'if you say the wrong thing I'm going to kill you' sort of twitchy either. This was full blown 'bouncing slightly in his shoes' twitchy.

He wasn't entirely sure why, since he was not, generally speaking, a twitchy man. An impatient man on occasion, a pissed off man fairly regularly, but all out twitchy was decidedly a new one.

It might have been the fact that his new shoes were a little too tight, or the fact that his boss had chosen this occasion to review the operation of the Kaitou Kid Task Force, or even the fact that he was currently missing the ball game that he had really been looking forward to, though that was doubtful.

He didn't really know for sure.

But he had a guess.

His guess went like this: Kaitou Kid was late therefore he, Nakamori Ginzo, was twitchy. Now, Kid being late wasn't entirely unheard of, but there was late and then there was late and the illustrious phantom thief was decidedly the latter.

Really, three hours late was pushing past fashionably late, knocking over scandalously late and shoving ridiculously late into the punch bowl.

So now Nakamori had a conundrum. Stay and potentially look like an idiot when Kid didn't show, or leave and definitely look like an idiot when Kid did. He had little doubt that whatever decision he made Kid would do whatever was the most inconvenient for him, meaning that the options of staying and Kid showing, and leaving and Kid not showing weren't really possibilities.

Kid was just contrary like that.

There was also the 'put off the decision for as long as possible' option, Nakamori's favorite, which left Kid as a wild card. That option, however, was quickly exhausting itself, based on the looks on the faces of both his boss and the man who owned the stupidly large diamond that was the objective of tonight's heist.

What did anyone need a diamond that big for anyway? And why was every last person they dealt with stupid enough to keep displaying their damn jewel - or jewels - after Kid left a heist notice? You'd think these idiots wanted to have their stuff stolen. (Truth be told some of them wanted exactly that because the hype created by a Kid heist was sometimes worth more than whatever item had caught the thief's eye, especially when said thief was known for returning the item. Though for some reason the fact that people who attempted to cash in on Kid's actions regularly ended up screwed seemed to elude most people.)

But that's off topic.

The crux of the situation, Nakamori decided, was that Kid was breaking the Rules of Engagement. The Rules were very specific and included, amongst other things, a note about the phantom thief always showing up. He was allowed to be a couple of minutes late on occasion, but being stupidly late or not showing up at all was a level of disrespect that Nakamori couldn't put up with.

After all, their whole twisted relationship was based on some mutant form of respect for one another.

Nakamori wasn't stupid. He knew that Kaitou Kid was just messing with him for his own amusement a good ninety-five percent of the time. The police officer wasn't on Kid's level, not in the way that Kudou Shinichi or that brat Hakuba Saguru were.

But he also knew that Kid didn't waste his time on people who didn't challenge him on at least some level. People like that were dealt with quickly and efficiently, people Kid had some respect for were teased and played with.

And one of Kid's favorite games appeared to be "mess with the angry inspector."

For his part, Nakamori held a grudging sort of regard for the phantom thief. Nakamori was the best, despite how things appeared when dealing with his opponent, or else he never would have been given this assignment. Kid pushed and prodded until Nakamori exceeded his personal limitations and then began the process all over again. It was . . . a growth experience for him.

Not that Nakamori didn't do his damn best to catch the thief - he was, after all, a criminal and a pain in the ass as well - merely that Kaitou Kid was going to be the creator of his own downfall, namely a triumphant Nakamori.

Hah! He couldn't wait to see the look on the high school detective brat's face the day that happened!

Nakamori was obsessed and knew it. Oh sure, Hakuba could probably tell you the length of Kid's shoe laces and where they were manufactured, but it was Nakamori who knew when the grin Kid was wearing meant danger, when it was playful, when it was victorious or when it was hiding a grimace of pain.

This Kid wasn't the Kid, of course. He couldn't be given his age, but Nakamori had started thinking of this Kid as the rightful heir to the first. But still, he knew the ins and outs of the smirk that was a better mask than the monocle the thief wore.

He knew Kid.

He didn't know who Kid was though. He could probably figure it out if he put his mind to it, but that seemed wrong somehow. He'd find out when he pulled the monocle off the face of a well and truly caught Kaitou Kid. Anything else would be breaking the bounds of the game.

Which brought him back to his current problem.

His boss was looking at him, and Nakamori rather felt like he was going to twitch out of his own skin when a voice broke the tension.

"Good evening, gentlemen! My apologies for my tardiness, but there was a slight family emergency at home involving a leaky kitchen faucet and ... well, you know how that goes. Thank you all for waiting!"

Nakamori couldn't help the grin that twitched up onto his face for a second, but he schooled it back into place, took a deep breath and started the events that he knew better than he knew himself.

"KIDDDDDD!!!!!!!"