Crap. I was just rereading the previous chapter and noticed an error. Where Kaito was talking about where he first met Katrine, it wasn't on the Blue Birthday heist, but the Golden Eye heist.

Anyway, on with the story.

--

Conan came darting out of the house at high speed and practically flew down the street, paying no mind to anyone who may have seen the tears running down his face. Damn that bastard, how could he just stand there and say he was sorry!? How could he even know what it meant to be sorry when he just went and did the same thing he was apologizing for! Conan choked on a sob. He'd thought Kaito had loved him. He honestly thought that to be the case. But now…

Kaito had left him, seemingly without a second thought. He'd also, somewhere along the line, come up with a wife and two kids, one of whom had to have been conceived when Kaito was still with him.

But…even with the evidence staring him in the face, he couldn't believe that Kaito had cheated on him. Kaito was ridiculously loyal, sometimes to a fault. Would he really be someone that would cheat on him? If it were anyone else, he wouldn't doubt it. After all, why would someone want Conan as he had been then? He had been nothing but a child, and a male child at that. If it were anyone else, his first assumption upon seeing the situation would've been that Kaito was seeing someone else on the side, although given that he'd apparently gone after a male child, Conan wouldn't have expected that other person to be female. But this wasn't any other person. This was Kaito and Conan knew he wouldn't do that. Or…well, he may not know who Kaito was after those ten years of separation, but back then…he'd definitely known Kaito back then, better than almost anyone else, and there was no way he'd do that to someone important to him. And Conan had definitely been important to him, even if he apparently wasn't important enough to keep him here.

Conan swallowed a lump in his throat as he relived the memories from so long ago. It had been one Kid heist that had changed everything. The only Kid heist the current Kid ever missed. Even now, no one knew what had happened with that. Many speculated that it had simply been a forgery and the fake had never gotten up the nerve to go through with it. Conan, however, knew that that wasn't the case. Kaito had mentioned the heist to him beforehand, teasing him about decoding the note and seeing if he could stop Kid from getting away.

When Kid hadn't shown up, Conan had been terrified. What if the snipers that had been vying for him for a while had finally gotten him? What if something had happened and he couldn't make it?

With these worries in mind, he'd left the museum and headed immediately for Ekoda. If something had happened, surely Kaito would show up sooner or later at either his mother's house or the establishment of his accomplice. Since Conan didn't know where the latter was – he and Kaito may have been dating, but that didn't mean Kid would reveal more than was safe. He was a thief, after all – he headed to the Kuroba residence, hoping against hope that Kaito would be there.

He had been so scared when he knocked on the door, only to have a teary Kuroba Hikaru greet him, holding a crumpled note in a shaking hand. 'Oba-san?' He'd asked in his most childish voice. 'Is Kaito-niichan there? Can I talk to him?' But Kuroba-san had shook her head, sinking to her knees before him.

'He's not here,' she'd sobbed. Conan's blood ran cold at that and he gently requested to see the letter that she was clinging to. She'd let it go easily enough, but he'd then found himself supporting the whole weight of a distraught mother who sobbed into his shoulder. He let her weight drag him to the floor as he read the letter and felt his heart break.

Mom,

Sorry, but I have to go. I can't explain, but I assure you that I'm safe. Something came up and I living in Tokyo is too much of a hassle for now. I'll try to contact you sometime soon, but I can't guarantee anything.

Love you,

Kaito

Kaito had left, without telling him anything. He'd gone home later, hoping that maybe Kaito had left a note for him at the agency or even at the Kudo mansion if he were afraid of Ran finding it, but…nothing.

Kaito hadn't bothered to let him know that his lover would no longer be in Tokyo.

Conan closed his eyes against the pain. He didn't want to think about this. It was in the past, already, and thanks to Ai, he'd managed to live with the pain, even if he never forgot it. Now, though, with Kaito back, but unwilling to tell him anything…

A broken sob emerged from his throat just before he collided with a solid form, sending him tumbling back onto the hard asphalt. He blinked around tears, trying to make out what he'd run into and saw Kuroba Hikaru staring at him in shock and worry, Kuroba Katrine beside her with and equally shocked look on her face. The one child, Yuuichi, was cradled in Katrine's arms, fast asleep, but his brother, Toichi, had apparently been the one he hit, because he was sprawled on the asphalt in front of Conan, rubbing his head gingerly and staring at him.

"Conan-san?" He began with some trepidation. "A-are you…alright?"

Conan blinked, uncomprehendingly, even as Hikaru reached down and helped him up, wrapping an arm lightly around his shoulders. "What happened, Conan-kun?" She asked in concern.

He swallowed, dragging an arm across his face. "N-nothing," he muttered, voice clogged with tears. "I'm fine. Just – " He took a deep, steadying breath and attempted a feeble smile. "I'm sorry. Please, excuse me." He bowed politely before running off towards Beika, leaving the Kurobas staring in shock.

After staring for a good minute, a poorly concealed expression of worry on her face, Hikaru hurried to help her grandson to his feet. Absently, she inquired as to whether he was alright, but she didn't pay attention to any response he may have given. She knew of only one reason why Conan would be in this area and, considering she had been one of the parties involved in setting his meeting up, she knew it would've been to see her son. What on earth had Kaito done now to make such a sweet boy cry like that? Just like…

She bit her lip. Just like how he'd cried when he'd been younger. She didn't recall the incident all that well, but she knew that the night Kaito had left, Conan had shown up, worried sick about her son for whatever reason. That had been odd, she realized after the fact, because the only reason he would've been there was because he knew or suspected that something had happened to Kaito – Kaito, not Kid. And considering that boy was supposedly Kid's fated rival…

She shook herself. It didn't matter now, did it? Whether or not he'd known about Kaito was Kaito's business and it surely wasn't that which prompted him to leave, so…

No, what mattered now was what on earth had happened to put that sweet boy in such a state. She hurried home, hardly noticing the questions her son's family shot at her. The front door was unlocked and she swung it open, glancing around quickly, moving to the next room after the first revealed a lack of Kaitos.

When she finally found him, he was slumped against the kitchen cabinet, head tilted back and eyes closed, two prominent tracks of tears trailing down his cheeks.

"Kaito," she gasped, rushing to him. His eyes opened blearily and he tried to focus on her. The buzzing in his head and the tears in his eyes made it difficult, however, so he simply gave up trying and shut his eyes again. "Kaito, look at me. Are you alright? What happened?"

It seemed to take forever to get his mouth to comply with his thoughts and open, but he failed to make any noise, reassuring or otherwise. Vaguely, he heard more footsteps approach, but he couldn't be bothered to turn and acknowledge them.

"Something's wrong." Hikaru said, probably to Katrine or someone along those lines. "It's possible he hit his head on the cabinet. Maybe we should call someone, a doctor or an ambulance."

That got a response out of him, a tearfully painful one. He whipped his head side to side, vehemently shaking it no. The motion made him dizzy, but he didn't stop. He couldn't go to the hospital, certainly not now. They had work to do and he couldn't afford to be hindered by a medical authority. Besides, he never went to doctors anymore. They were too prying, to nosy, and he simply didn't want to deal with it. Fortunately for him, his colleagues and friends were rather skilled at stitching him up when it came to that.

"Toichi, hold Yuuichi," Katrine's voice said faintly somewhere in the background. He felt two cool hands grasp his cheeks, pulling his head forward slightly until his forehead rested against her's. "Kaito, can you hear me? Are you alright?"

A moan was the best answer he could give, his vocal cords refusing to cooperate properly.

"Wouldn't it be best for you to see a doctor, Kaito?"

"Nu-uh," he barely managed to articulate. He could feel her frown.

"If you don't want a doctor, then look at me, Kaito. We have to be sure that you're alright." Slowly, ever so slowly, he obeyed, his eyelids sliding open the smallest amount until he all he could see was a blurry tan-ish color. Probably Katrine's face, he thought hazily. It occurred to him that he should probably be worried that he couldn't get his eyes to focus on her, or anything for that matter, but he couldn't really bring himself to care. He hurt, yes, physically and emotionally, but it wasn't like he'd hit his head hard enough to give himself a concussion. It took a lot more than that to get through his hard head.

Katrine sighed, a sudden gust of wind against his face. "Let's get him to bed. Maybe that'll help." She said, pulling back to haul him up. His mother grabbed his other arm and together they lugged him down the hall.

Once he was settled, the women left, Katrine to get her sons and Hikaru to retrieve a wet towel to wash his face. She gently cleaned the tear tracks from his cheeks, repeating the motion when new tears retraced the path. He couldn't seem to stop them from flowing and had given up trying. It wasn't like his mother had never seen him cry before, anyway.

"What happened, Kaito?" She asked delicately. "We saw Edogawa Conan-kun on our way here. He was in much the same state you were, although there appeared to be no physical injuries, self-inflicted or otherwise." Her voice hardened on the last few words. She could scarcely believe her boy would do this to himself, whatever it was that he had done precisely. "What happened between you two, Kaito? I thought he was just here to talk."

Kaito was silent for a long while before he said, barely audible, "I hurt him…again." And with that, a fresh wave of tears burst forth along with a racking sob. "God, I'm terrible. I keep doing that, again and again. No wonder he hates me." He whispered brokenly.

Hikaru frowned, her eyes narrowed in worry. What on earth was going on?

--

Distraught as he was, Conan knew it would be unwise to take the bus back to Beika. He didn't want questions, didn't want people trying to comfort him when they couldn't even understand what was wrong. The inquisitive looks he was currently getting from the passing crowd were bad enough. He really didn't want to think what the other occupants of a bus would do.

Besides, walking home gave him time to think…although maybe that wasn't such a good thing. He really hated his brain right now. He didn't care what the evidence pointed to, Kaito wouldn't have cheated on him, even said that he hadn't cheated on him.

But what was his word worth, really? After all, the thief just kept claiming that he 'couldn't say' anything, so, really, what assurance did he have that Kaito was telling the truth?

But…Kaito could've just avoided the subject like he did the others. He could've said that he couldn't say anything on the matter, and he hadn't, instead stating that he had only been with Conan. On the other hand, he did say later that he 'couldn't say'.

Conan frowned. But that wasn't regarding the same matter, not really. Kaito had refused to answer questions about his 'son', yes – and just thinking that word sent a stabbing pain through his heart – but he'd been honest with Conan in that regard. He could've pulled something out of his ass and lied about it, but he hadn't and didn't that mean something? Anything?

He choked back a sob. Dammit, his thoughts weren't helping him get anywhere. The only thing that would help him was refusing to talk! Why!? Why was Kaito so goddamned stubborn about this? Couldn't he trust Conan?

But that was just it, wasn't it? Obviously, Kaito didn't trust Conan or he never would've left in the first place for Lord knows what reason. But why? What had he done to dissuade Kaito of his trustworthiness? He couldn't remember anything that would make him think that…

"Conan-kun!" Someone exclaimed. Conan looked up in surprise, making out a petite form through watery eyes. "What happened?" The familiar voice continued on, "Are you alright!?"

"Ayumi-chan," He recognized, voice thick and hoarse. "I…I dunno. Can you…can you help me get home?" He asked. He didn't really want the girl tagging along, knowing she'd want to ask questions, but Ayumi had already seen him like this and would no doubt be asking questions anyway and at least she had some tact and probably wouldn't question him while he was in this state. Hopefully, because he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to conjure up a coherent answer to anything right now.

"Okay," she said softly, warily, grasping his wrist in a gentle hold and guiding him in the correct direction.

He knew she was worried, more worried than all of the Shonen Tantei had been about him since Kaito had shown up. At the moment, he was truly thankful towards her. She provided a distraction from his thoughts and silently gave him support, even if she was clueless about what had transpired.

That was problematic, though. If there was anything any member of the Shonen Tantei hated, it was being clueless. Last time, they'd been too young to really understand and investigate what had caused Conan's depression, but now…

Now, they had an extra ten years of experience and were old enough and influential enough to get any information they may think they needed.

But really, what could they find? Back then, they'd both been paranoid as hell, taking extra care to be sure that they weren't seen together, that they didn't leave any evidence. Besides, no one outside the loop would ever suspect the Kaitou Kid and Edogawa Conan, especially as they had been back then. After all, the Kid was a ladies' man, right? There was no way he'd go for a little boy, even if that boy appeared to be more intelligent than most of the police force. Edogawa Conan was known for being one bizarre little kid, but everyone knew that he was merciless when it came to criminals. He tracked down murderers with a single-minded intensity and was even considered Kaitou Kid's one true rival because of how close he'd come to catching him. Why would anyone think that a boy like that and Kaitou Kid …

No, he really didn't think they'd find anything about then, much less believe any of it. Conan was their role model, after all. He may have been a bit unorthodox in his methods – some of his strategies were downright illegal – but he was still a detective. In their minds, anything in the grey zone that he did was purely for the sake of catching those that had done something big enough to overshadow his little transgressions. Besides, he usually tried to keep the rest of them from doing much of the questionable bits, preferring that himself or Ai take the fall if they were caught.

Still, just because they couldn't find anything about ten years ago, didn't mean they couldn't come up with theories about the recent stuff. He hadn't exactly been acting discreet about any of it and they were already suspicious…they might not be able to find the truth, but they certainly wouldn't be much fun when they decided to question him.

And just because they couldn't find anything didn't mean that others couldn't. But what did he have to worry about? The ones who knew about him being Conan – Hattori and Ai – already knew quite a bit of the story, anyway. Hell, back then, he'd told Ai and Agasa everything. They'd been cautiously accepting about his association with Kaitou Kid, but when it came down to it, they didn't really care. Hattori, however…well, he knew about Kaito and he probably suspected about Kid, especially since he knew the theories Hakuba had made no effort to hide, but…well, Hattori understood him, at least a little. He might not've approve of the relationship had he known about it back then, but it hardly mattered now, did it? Besides, if Hattori did figure it out and decided to question Kaito, well, maybe that wouldn't be so bad. At least it might give him a chance of getting some of the answers he so desperately needed.

While he'd been thinking absently, Ayumi had lead him all the way to 2-22 Beika-cho and knocked on the door when she noticed that Conan wasn't aware enough to do so himself. The door opened and Ai-chan and Heiji-oniisan stared at them, expressions of anticipation fading quickly into visages of worry.

Ai waved her frantically inside, pulling Conan into the living room to sit him down and take his temperature. Heiji seemed a little lost as to what he could do, but pulled out a handkerchief and offered to the boy. Conan blinked at it then up at him, dazed, before seeming to comprehend its purpose and taking it, dragging it across his eyes. "What happened, Conan? I mean, I thought we set everythin' up alright. You did get a chance to talk to him, didn't you? He didn't harm you in some way, did 'e?" Hattori demanded, wilting slightly under the glare Ai gave him. Maybe he was overwhelming the kid, but hell, he was the sort that'd keep it all to himself unless they demanded explanations.

Conan glanced at Ayumi, who was giving him a confused look, no doubt wondering who they were referring to but having the sense not to question it right now. He sighed. Hattori would forget that he didn't really want to advertise this to the world, which meant not telling his friends if at all possible. "No, he didn't…not physically or anythin'," he hiccupped, trying to get a grasp on his sobbing. He really didn't want his friends seeing him in this state, but now that they had, he could at least try to maintain some of his dignity. "I talked to him…sorta. He wouldn't say much."

Hattori cursed while Ai frowned in annoyance. She didn't say anything, however, passing him a tissue to blow his nose. He'd been sniveling rather pathetically for a while now and the gesture was much appreciated. Ayumi simply stood next to him, thoroughly confused, but clutching his hand in an effort to provide some sort of comfort.

"I just…I thought maybe he'd give me a reason, at least." Conan whispered. Ai slid her hands through his hair soothingly, her face twisted with worry in a way most of the world would never believe her capable of. "I dun wanna talk about it. Just want ta lie down." He said, his voice slightly slurred. Ai nodded, standing and helping him up. She nodded to Ayumi and Hattori, giving them the sign to back off and let her take care of it as she lugged him upstairs to his bedroom.

"It's alright, Conan," she whispered softly. "I don't know what's really going on, but somehow, we'll find the answers for you, okay?"

"Promise?" Conan asked, tears dropping from his eyelashes and a look of total hopelessness on his face.

Ai swallowed. Conan wasn't supposed to look like that, not ever. She remembered what it had been like before, when Conan had been totally unresponsive to everything in the world, and she couldn't stand for that to happen again. "I promise," she vowed. She swore she would get that bastard to help Conan-kun, no matter what she had to do. Her friend deserved to be happy after all they'd gone through, he really did. Surely, if fate were kind enough to grant someone like her with a happy life, fate would take pity on Conan and make things right…right?

--

She headed back downstairs after tucking him in. Ayumi and Hattori were still there, looking up at her expectantly. "I won't say he's okay," she sighed, "but he should be getting some rest. In the meantime…Hattori, do you know anything, anything at all that could help us get that damn bastard to explain himself. Conan's not going to improve at all until he knows and if that guy won't tell him face to face…"

"Well…you know more about what happened in the past than I do. But I might have an idea about what Kuroba's doing here now."

"Oh? Do tell."

"Well, Conan and I ran into him and his kid a couple of days ago and he was supposedly in some sort of meeting with this guy. It didn't really occur to me at the time what with the way Conan was actin', but the guy seemed pretty familiar…like I'd seen him somewhere recently."

Ai leveled him with a stare. "If you'd get to the point, please? Without a name, this lead crashes and dies, you realize?"

"Well, that's the thing. I dun' know a name, but I know I've seen him somewhere recently. Like…maybe on the news or something?"

Ayumi cleared her throat. "I have a newspaper in my purse. It's today's addition, so I don't know if it'll do any good, but…" she shrugged and rummaged through her bag, pulling the bundle of paper out triumphantly when she found it.

Hattori snatched it from her immediately and started flipping through it. Ai sighed. "I'll turn on the news, too, just in case something pops up. It had better lead somewhere, though, Hattori, or we'll be left with nothing."

For a long while, it seemed like Hattori's dubious memory wouldn't be of any use. Haibara had even broken out the computer and made Hattori surf the news sites in hopes that something would ring a bell but no such luck until finally, he stopped on a certain article from three weeks ago. "This was the guy, I know it," Hattori declared.

Ai gave him a flat look, clearly not believing this would lead anywhere but at a loss for any alternative leads. With a sigh, she leaned over his shoulder and read the headline. "Wealthy Businessman Founds New Political Party? And this fat guy is the one you saw?" She indicated the picture below the headline.

"I'm sure of it. 'Say's his name is Fujimoto Jirou."

"Okay, so that's a start," she said slowly, "now we just have to figure out what the heck Kuroba is doing talking to some political newbie."

"He seems to be starting quite a sensation, though," Ayumi commented. "I heard on the news that his group is becoming really influential and they're garnering lots of followers."

"But what would Kuroba want with this guy?"