Chapter 5

Meeting my (awesome) brother, Settling in

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I kicked at a stone, which was in my path. Frankly, I could have just ignore it, but my current mood set me on a grumpy edge.

That woman ditched me again!

Any mother would have give their child a slap if they ever heard such words coming out of their child's mouth. And at the back of my mind, I heard Cho chuckling to herself and commenting something along the lines of 'foul mouthed kid'. But I knew she wouldn't have that much of a credit.

For your information, I used to cuss a lot mentally in my past life. Okay maybe not that much, but I still remembered the period which 'what the hell' and 'god damn it' became my catch-phrase.

Thinking back, maybe my (past life) table-mate was a big influence on me. She had been swearing every single minute back when I haven't died...

So, khem, back to this.

That day, I had successfully been enrolled in Teitan. Just my luck that I got into the Detective Boys gang's class. I had done the introduction ( "Hello everyone, I'm Kuroba Miu-" chalked up my name in kanji on the blackboard. "Um, I like to travel around the world, see and experience new things, and I love to read and solve puzzles, but I wouldn't mind joining a game of sports. As for my dislikes, well, I don't like unexpected things happening to me-" Which to mean, no being killed of gunshot or any drugs. "- and my dreams... I haven't think of it yet."), picked an empty seat which was coincidently by the window at the back of the class. (Cho muttered something along the lines of that window seat being destined to produce interesting people, but I tuned her out.) Classes were boring, and I could finally understand the tedious life of Conan and Ai, though I could glimpse that Ai was scribbling down something which seemed far too complex to be math notes, and Conan reading some book that did not have big words and colourful pictures on them.

Ayumi was elated to see me in her class, and the three (real) first graders came to me to invite my into their gang. Without a moment's hesitation, I accepted.

My logic was, if you can't avoid a problem, might as well plunge into it.

At the end of the school, I received an SMS from my mother which decided my current situation.

How's ur first day of sch? Hope u're fitting in well, Miu-chan~ Here's the map to Kai-chan. Gd luck finding ur way! Love, mum ❤️

Included in that SMS, was a world map, with an arrow pointing at Japan.

So, without thinking, I shoved the phone back into my pocket, and muttered my first vulgar of the day.

Yup, Cho was definitely a bad influence on me, past me or not.

In the end, after two hours of mindless wanderings around the streets, I finally got the direction I wanted by zooming the world map that my mum sent me. The arrow wasn't pointing at any house though, it was directed at Kaitou's school.

So, with nothing else as a lead, I grudgingly trudged towards the building.

It was just my luck that the high school lessons had ended hours ago.

I sighed. Worse come to worst, I could still break into the school's general office or staff room to find the address of the Kuroba household or something.

I sneaked past the security guard with natural stealth that only a member of the Kuroba household could possess, and proceeded to the classes.

If I wasn't mistaken, he was probably on his second year, so I climbed the stairs and went to the Year 2 classes.

The school still had occasional students whom I brushed past several times, and their whisperings were getting me self-conscious, so I decided to avoid them altogether. My hand brushed upon the Pandora Gem for assurance, and I peeked shyly through the windows of classrooms as I walked across the corridor.

My ears, which had been trained since young, picked up the sounds of footsteps and I immediately hid myself in an empty classroom.

Well, technically I was doing nothing illegal, just breaking into a school–

Which is illegal.

– but hey, nobody's gonna press chargers again such a cute child, right?

So, ignoring Cho's howling laughter (I swear one day I could learn how to shut the telepathy stuff so I could live peacefully at least for half a day), I schooled my face into an utterly innocent smile which I had long since mastered in front of a mirror, and interrupted the two students who were apparently having a chat of sorts.

"E-excuse me?"

The two, a boy and a girl, judging from their uniform, stopped talking and walked nearer towards me.

"Need any help, ojou-chan?"

I blinked. And I carefully scrutinised his face. And the girl beside him. And secretly heaved a sigh of relief.

Putting up my brightest smile, I enquired, "do you know my brother? He's Kuroba Kaito."

I inwardly threw a party, because, thank Kami this is such a coincidence that I've met the one I'm looking for.

The walk back to the Kuroba residence was pretty awkward, for me at least. But a couple magic tricks later and I was already warming up to my awesome brother. And it hadn't even sunk in that, damn! My brother is the famous (infamous) Kaito KID!

For once, Cho was fangirling and squealing until I was worried for my ear (or head, whatever the telepathy worked) but for those rare times, I didn't blame her because I was doing the same mentally too.

... It wouldn't help if your brother's first impression of you was a weird, retarded kid, would it?

So I carefully wiped all syndromes of fangirlism off my face in the state of the famed Kuroba poker-face, and quickened my steps so as not to get left behind. My strides were pretty short, but in my defence I was the youngest here physically.

"You probably know that I'm Kaito already, so can you tell me a bit about yourself?" I inclined my head to see Kaito beaming at me (the fangirling Cho once again screamed until my ears felt like they were bleeding), and instinctively returned it with a rivalling grin of mine. "Okaa-san never told me I had a younger sister!"

Knowing mum, she most likely had done that on purpose.

"I'm Miu," I declared childishly, then tugged the hand that I had been holding onto. Kaito, probably knowing what I was going to do, straighten his hand as I trailed the two kanji on his palm. "It stands for the 'beautiful rain', mum told me."

She might have been wanting to name me as 'beautiful feather', but it clashed with the surname, which already had the same kanji for 'feather' so mum had considered naming me after the 'rain'. It was kind of nice, as I'd always loved the tranquility that it could provide.

"That's cool," Kaito remarked, and threw in another smile of his which would made fangirl of both worlds (my past one and the current one) jealous and come after me with either tomatoes or knifes. Preferable neither.

"Who are you, onee-chan?" I dipped my head, trying to appeal with cuteness, towards the teenage girl.

Said girl went 'kawaii' and fussed over me for a few seconds, but nevertheless introduced herself as 'Nakamori Aoko', which I had known before I was even born... Literally.

I didn't hesitate to throw in a "Is she your girlfriend, nii-san?". Three guesses to who might have influenced me on this matter.

As expected, the two sputtered (awww~ Ain't they sweet?) and instantly denied. If I was feeling anymore sadistic, I would have smiled mischievously (Chikage-brand) and retort something along the lines of "in denial~~" but in the end I didn't, since I wasn't so keen on painting a bad image of myself on the first day. That, or I was just saving all the mischief for later.

I blamed Chikage-mum as another bad influence.

"I guess you can use this room as yours from now on," Kaito said as I followed him to a simple room.

From the looks of it, the room had been a guest room of sort. A single bed in white sheets, a small nightstand, an empty wardrobe.

He frowned. "We need a table and a bookshelf," he stated, noting the absence of necessary furnitures.

"A study desk will do," I said, putting my bag against the side of the nightstand.

I squatted down and fished out an envelope, handing it over to Kaito. As he checked the contents of the envelope, I told him that it was from Kaa-san. As it turned out, there was a piece of cheque, and a letter. I had no idea why write a letter, though, since Kaa-san could have just facetime him on his computer. Was it even called 'facetime' in this universe?

Eyes darting over as Kaito-nii started making some spluttering sound, I realise his cheeks were faintly dusted red, and concluded that Kaa-san had made some teasing comments. It felt oddly satisfying not to be the only family member receiving her weird, twisted brand of humour.

"That can wait till the weekend sales, I think, it's not that urgent anyway," I said, putting away all my stuff into their respective places. Since morning, I had been stuck with a small trolley, and while it was more portable when compared to other models, it had still been mildly annoying, especially when I had no need for anything in it save for the occasional snack. Not to mention the unwanted attention I got from it.

My older brother (still felt weird and honoured to be calling him that) helped me settled in, and I wondered how long it would be for the plot to kickstart again.

Meanwhile, I had places to go, people to meet.

Events to plot, and birds to look out for.

I bet some of you are having the shock of your life. Ahahaha maybe not *dodges behind wall and braces for flaming tomatoes and rotten eggs* I've had this chapter written out quite some time ago, but hesitate to publish it as it is so short.

Meanwhile, my muses for this story dried up as I stop Conan for some time. So I decided to just post this first and see where it picks up later. For the next update? Ehehe... I'll try?

Thanks for all the reviewers and support!