Hello my lovelies :D Just thought I'd drop in with a quick little oneshot while I attempt to face the Second Movement of A Sonata and a Smile. -_- Even if I've put it on hold, I'm still clinging to the hope that I might be able to get it done someday. *raises eyes to sky prayerfully*

Anyway, this is yet another oneshot that's based on one of my life experiences – although extremely loosely, considering what happens. Enjoy! – Luna

Public Transport

Kudou Shinichi was having a bad day.

And no, not a bad day as in spilling coffee on your tie or getting a paper cut or – or washing your darks and whites together and ending up with a giant collection of pink socks.

It was more like taking your girlfriend out on her birthday to an extremely pricey restaurant in the next city over knowing that she's been planning this day for nearly three months now and breathing a sigh of relief as it went perfectly smoothly and then suddenly your waiter drops dead as he's handing you the check. With his face in your crème brûlée and his hand in your girlfriend's tiramisu.

That's the kind of bad day Shinichi was currently having.

Mouri Ran, Shinichi's girlfriend, gaped at him over the tufts of hair sticking up on the back of the dead man's head. She was dressed quite impeccably, wearing some scarlet dress Shinichi had never seen before and matching lipstick, a testament to how much she'd been looking forward to her birthday lunch.

Her lavender eyes narrowed in growing fury, and Shinichi mentally steeled himself just as she shrieked, "Shinichi!"

"Yes?" Shinichi asked, cowering slightly as he pasted on a shakily hopeful smile.

Eyes flashing, Ran shouted, "I planned four months for this, Shinichi! Do you know why?! Because you've been my boyfriend for so long but we've never done anything like this and I knew we were starting to grow apart! So I wanted it to be absolutely perfect! And it was!" She took a second to draw breath before pressing on. "Until somebody died. I only asked for one day, Shinichi. One day away from the bodies and mysteries and deductions and crimes. And you couldn't even give that to me?"

Concluding that it probably wouldn't help to point out that Shinichi had nothing to do with the people always dying around him – he sure as hell wasn't the one killing them – Shinichi only listened defenselessly as she raged.

Ran glowered at him, chest heaving from exertion. "I don't even know what to say right now, Shinichi. I just – I just can't."

Shinichi nodded curtly. "I understand, Ran." Without waiting any further, he set about the dead man, carefully examining him for any external wounds. Finding a prick in his thumb, Shinichi grabbed the black folder containing the check. Discovering that there was a small tack attached to the outer edge, he eyeballed both it and the wound and decided that the tack had probably poisoned the man to his death.

Suddenly feeling an ominous presence, Shinichi flinched, froze, and tentatively looked up. Ran was glaring at him so hard he wondered how he hadn't been incinerated.

"Shinichi," she said in a deathly calm voice. Deathly calm as in Shinichi was probably going to die soon.

With a lightning fast move, Ran reached out and smacked him so hard Shinichi's head was forced around and bumped his shoulder. "I hate you!" she yelled. "We are so over!" With that, she stormed out of the restaurant, and Shinichi gawped as he saw the car they'd come in pulling out of the parking lot and roaring down the street.

Wincing, he pressed his fingertips to his now-tender cheek. Damn. She'd gone easy on him, hadn't she? He sighed. Their relationship had been winding down for months now, anyway, and this had probably been the last straw for his childhood friend. Shinichi wasn't sure whether he should be feeling depressed or glad that he'd been let off with only a stinging handprint on his cheek.

Tearing his gaze from the window at his right upon noticing that the restaurant had gone completely silent at the spectacle of somebody dropping dead and Ran breaking up with him, Shinichi stared right back at his fellow diners. "Does anyone have a phone to call the police?" he asked calmly. "This man was murdered."

"Already done," called a voice from a dozen tables over, and Shinichi craned his neck to look at the speaker. His eyebrows shot up upon seeing a somehow familiar man grinning broadly at him – and despite that the man looked strangely similar to Shinichi himself, Shinichi doubted that was the reason he seemed so familiar. There was something about those bright indigo eyes that confused Shinichi even from twenty feet away…

"Uh, good," Shinichi nodded. "Until they get here, I don't think I can let any of you leave. Sorry."

"No problem," the indigo-eyed man chirped, and Shinichi shot him a questioning glance. Seriously, where had he seen him…?

The question was left unanswered as the Ekoda police arrived, all blaring sirens and haphazard parking as they burst through the door.

"Someone died?" panted the unfamiliar inspector as he stopped in the doorway, surveying the restaurant briskly.

Nodding, Shinichi waved him over. "He collapsed when he was giving me the check."

The inspector hurried over. "I see," he remarked, flagging down some officers to remove the body. He cast the second place setting on the table a suspicious glance. "What happened here? You were eating with someone, weren't you?"

Coughing uncomfortably, Shinichi nodded. "Yes, she was my girlfriend. She broke up with me literally three minutes ago and left."

"She's a suspect, isn't she?" snapped the police officer exasperatedly, scowling at Shinichi as two other uniformed officers lifted the motionless waiter off of Shinichi's plate and loaded him onto a stretcher. "Why did you let her leave?"

"She could've caused me a lot of bodily harm and turned this into a double homicide. I'm positive that she didn't do it – no motive, no opportunity," Shinichi offered weakly, knowing that he was probably not in the inspector's good graces. "If it's anything to you, I'm Kudou Shinichi. I used to be fairly well-known a few years back, while I was in high school."

The inspector's eyes lit up. "Oh! You're that high school detective, aren't you?" He beamed brightly, clasping his hands together. "I used to follow you. What happened after you graduated?"

"I'm still in college, but in my free time I act as a special consultant to the first division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department," responded Shinichi, smiling in relief.

"I see. Well, anyway, since you say so, I doubt that your girlfriend did it," the officer commented. "I'm going to go around and try to get some alibis and testimonies. Would you like to accompany me?"

"Of course," Shinichi affirmed, rising. As he followed the inspector into the back room, he felt the tingling sensation that someone was watching him. Glancing over his shoulder, Shinichi discovered that the indigo-eyed man had his eyes glued to him, wearing a tiny smile.

It was more than a little disconcerting.

Shinichi dropped his head into his hands, breathing out from his nose hard. Finally, after nine grueling hours, the case was wrapped up. It had been the girl the waiter had been cheating on his wife with – nobody had suspected her, thinking her to be a random diner, since she didn't seem to have any connection. Her motive was that the waiter had broken up with her in an effort to become faithful again, and she hadn't exactly liked the idea.

She had been arrested already, the case was shut, and Shinichi was stuck in Ekoda, seeing as Ran had taken the car back to Beika already. He doubted any of his friends would be thrilled with the idea of driving out to Ekoda at ten o'clock at night, and he also doubted any of them could. Hattori obviously lived in Osaka, Haibara had decided not to turn back and was therefore unable to legally drive at the age of ten, his parents were off doing God knows what, calling Sonoko would not be a good idea considering that he and Ran had broken up only hours ago, and Professor Agasa was at some inventors' convention in Hokkaido.

He sighed, staring blankly at the door.

"Kudou-san." Shinichi looked up in surprise as the inspector patted him on the shoulder, smiling brightly. "Thanks for your assistance today. You'd better start heading home."

Shinichi nodded, sighing yet again. "Well, I guess I should. Do you know the way to the subway station?"

"Yes, but it's a bit far from here." The officer contemplated it for a second before suggesting, "Why don't you take the bus home? We've got a great bus system here that runs at this hour – and it costs less than the subway. And it goes all the way to Beika."

"Really?" Shinichi raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Isn't over an hour back to Beika?"

The inspector shrugged lackadaisically. "Probably, but it would be the same travel time anyway, right?"

"I guess that's true." Shinichi rose. "I guess I'll get going. Where's the bus stop?"

Turning and motioning at the street in front of the restaurant, the police detective explained, "There's a bus stop just across the street. Go on, Kudou-san, I'll take care of everything here. You don't want to miss the bus."

"Uh huh." Shinichi bowed him a goodbye before stepping out into the crisp night. Pulling the collar of his jacket up around his neck, Shinichi crossed the street and stopped at the bus stop, shuddering and staring down the street.

It wasn't ten minutes before a bus pulled up, completely empty save for the uniformed bus driver manning the wheel. The doors wheezed open, and Shinichi shot the driver a thankful look before climbing in and grabbing a ticket from the machine.

The inside of the bus was warm and brightly lit, and Shinichi was grateful for that as he seated himself. "Is it okay that I'm going all the way to Beika?" he called up to the driver as the bus lurched into motion.

"Mmhm," the driver hummed, and Shinichi frowned as he saw a smirk growing on the man's face.

Concerned, he leaned forward slightly – and glimpsed indigo hidden beneath the brim of the uniform hat.

"Hey – aren't you –" Shinichi started, but not before the man's smirk turned into a now painfully familiar grin and he lifted his cap.

"Yes?" he asked, and Shinichi was now quite positive that it was that same indigo-eyed man from the restaurant.

"You're from the restaurant, aren't? Why are you driving a bus?" demanded Shinichi. He paused for a second before quietly adding, "And, uh, have we met anywhere before?"

"Other than in your dreams?" the man beamed cheekily, and Shinichi rolled his eyes. "You could say that we know each other pretty well."

"…Are you a stalker?"

"…What?"

"Just a thought," Shinichi assured as the bus continued making its way down the empty street. "That last comment sounded a little stalkerish."

"What, do you have experience stalking people?" asked the driver/random guy incredulously as he stopped at a red light.

Shinichi shook his head. "No, I've been stalked before," he corrected easily, frowning as he noticed that the driver's hands tightened on the wheel. He was about to comment on it when the light turned and the bus shot forward, throwing Shinichi into the seat in front of him.

Swearing and rubbing the spot on his cheekbone that had collided with the seat, Shinichi scowled at the driver, who was watching the street with a determinedly fixed expression. "What the hell was that for?"

"You've been stalked? By whom?" was all the man said, the words stamped out in ice.

"Just by some fans and some… other people," Shinichi answered, mentally electing not to tell the man about the "other people," a category that included two rapists, three serial killers, and multiple disgruntled relatives of criminals he'd put in jail. If the stranger had reacted that much to hearing he'd been stalked, he didn't know what he'd do if he found out the identities of the stalkers.

"I see," ground out the man, and Shinichi let out a breath.

"Why do you even care? As far as you're concerned, I'm just a guy whose corpse attraction power ruined your lunch," Shinichi said after a few minutes of silence.

As he spun the wheel just a bit to the left, the driver glanced up and quirked an eyebrow quizzically at Shinichi in the rearview mirror. "Corpse attraction power?"

Giving a hollow, mirthless laugh, Shinichi nodded. "Everywhere I go, I attract death." He pressed his face against the icy window without flinching. "It's my curse. Ran was an angel to put up with that shit for four years. We couldn't go anywhere without someone dying." He sank down, suddenly feeling very tired. "I swear I'm cursed."

"I don't think you're cursed," the man disagreed vehemently, and Shinichi's gaze slid over to his back. "That, for one, is ridiculous, and a detective like you shouldn't believe in curses anyway. And anyway, we've been together a full twenty minutes now and nobody's died."

"We're the only two people in this entire bus."

"Not the point. I could've been poisoned with a slow-acting poison and would die now," countered the indigo-eyed stranger.

Shinichi laughed, sinking down in his seat. "That's true, huh?" He sighed, eyelids dropping down.

"Tired?" asked the bus driver sympathetically.

"Mmhm," Shinichi nodded. "That case really took it out of me."

Slowing at a traffic light, the man peered over his shoulder at Shinichi. "Why don't you just sleep until we're in Beika?"

"Mmpgh."

The last thing Shinichi heard just as he dropped off into sleep was a softly whispered, "Good night, tantei-kun."

Shinichi's eyes snapped wide open and he drew in a sharp breath, wildly staring at his surroundings. He was lying on his own bed – when had he gotten here? – fully dressed and befuddled.

He nearly swallowed his tongue upon remembering what had happened on the bus – and what the hell?! That man with the indigo eyes had been Kid?! Seriously?!

Nearly having a heart attack, Shinichi's frantic gaze dropped to the neat rectangle of white lying innocently on his nightstand. He snatched it up and read the black print with bated breath:

Hope you had a good rest, my darling tantei-kun.

I hope to see you soon.

Beneath the impeccable type, formed by sprawling lines, an unfamiliar name was signed.

Kuroba Kaito.

…Okay, Kid had just given Shinichi his civilian name. He wasn't sure how to process this information.

But… Kuroba Kaito.

Shinichi cracked a smile. This was going to be rather interesting, wasn't it?

Omake

"Hm? Where did Kudou-san go?" the inspector wondered as he emerged from the kitchen, glancing around the restaurant in search of the detective. "I was going to offer him a ride back to Beika…"

"What are you talking about, Inspector?" One of the forensic officers laughed as he packed up his tools. "You told him to take the bus less than ten minutes ago. Is your age really catching up with you?" Chuckling, he dropped the lid on his toolbox and left.

The inspector blinked, staring after him. He hadn't left the kitchen for the past hour. Who exactly was going around telling Kudou-san to take the bus?

And why the bus? The subway station was only a five minute walk from the restaurant, and the bus driver was a less-than-pleasant elderly man who seemed to despise humanity. Nobody liked boarding the buses around these parts for fear of his temper.

"…Oh well," the detective decided, turning around to continue rounding up his men.

Well, hope you enjoyed your dose of Luna-style fluff. :3 I did have a slightly similar experience a billion years ago, when I had the worst day ever but when I took the bus later, the bus driver was nice enough to drop me off at my house instead of the bus stop. I recall thinking he was a pretty awesomesauce guy for that.

But anyway, hope you enjoyed the pre-ShinKai tease and Kaito being a fluffy marshmallow of sweetness. Be a equally fluffy marshmallow of sweetness and drop me a review, k? *prances away*

- Luna