13Chapter Three: In which Kuroba Kaito accidentally punches his crush in the face and subsequently learns there is life after complete and utter humiliation
The case was wrapped up, but Shinichi's mind was occupied with a problem even more complicated than puzzling out how the victim's niece's husband's mistress's father had murdered him from a hundred meters away with a rubber band ball, a lighter, several iron bearings, and an anime body pillow.
The problem was this: Kudo Shinichi had no idea how to make friends. All of the friends he'd ever had could be divided into three categories: people he'd met through his hobbies, like his middle school soccer team; people he'd met through murder, like Haibara and Hattori; and people he'd met more or less by total coincidence who for whatever reason had adopted him and refused to be driven away by his personality flaws or morbid interests, like Ran, Sonoko, Agasa, and all the Detective Boys.
The point being, Shinichi had no idea how to take the lead in actively pursuing a friendship with someone. How was he supposed to convince KID to be friends with him when he had no idea how to even extend a casual offer to hang out? He'd gotten far too used to relying on Ran or Hattori or the Detective Boys to come up with plans to drag him around everywhere.
Oh god, Sonoko was right, Shinichi was a total loser who was definitely going to die alone.
No. Stop. Approach the problem rationally. If you aren't good at something, you practice until you are. Logically, what he needed was a controlled environment in which to practice his social skills safely, without the risk of being horribly humiliated—or worse, ignored—at every heist for the rest of forever. A control group. Someone he could try acting naturally around, to see if anything about him needed to be adjusted.
In other words, what he needed was a practice friend. But how was he going to find one of those? It wasn't like friends just fell out of the sky. Only dead bodies did that.
"Excuse me, Kudo-san?" Shinichi blinked, shaking himself out of his thoughts as he registered the sight of a messy-haired girl—navy seifuku, red ribbon, Ekoda High, was eating ice cream from the shop across the street until just a minute ago—who bore a remarkable resemblance to Ran.
"Ah, can I help you?"
"This idiot wants to be friends with you!" she announced, catching the boy hovering uncertainly behind her by the collar and hurling him at Shinichi with absolutely no warning whatsoever.
"Aoko!" Her companion howled as they collided. Caught off-guard, Shinichi went down.
The part of his mind not preoccupied with trying to curl himself up enough not to bounce his head off the sidewalk noted her impressive arm. What was this Ran's sport, discus-throwing?
"Why," Shinichi groaned, a little dazed but thankfully not concussed. mostly due to someone's hands cupping the back of his head.
Not-Ran's friend was sprawled above him, face buried in Shinichi's sternum and arms outstretched where he'd made a grab for Shinichi's skull like he was diving for a fly ball at Koshien.
"I think I broke my nose on your ribs," the boy mumbled plaintively. "D'you ever eat?"
"Is this how people make friends in Ekoda?" Shinichi snapped back, feeling oddly defensive. He ate when he remembered to! He was a busy person!
"Aoko is so sorry!" Not-Ran—Aoko, apparently—was stuttering, hands fluttering in horrified embarrassment. "Aoko didn't—Aoko wasn't trying to—oh my god, Kaito, get off him!"
'Kaito' suddenly appeared to register their position, and scrambled up so fast he almost yanked Shinichi's arm out of its socket as he hauled him up.
"Thanks," Shinichi said doubtfully, subtly testing his shoulder with a full-body stretch. He wasn't experiencing any headache or dizziness, but he must've hit his head after all, because he thought he heard an alarmingly high keening sound coming from Kaito's direction as soon as he lifted his arms. But when he glanced over, Kaito was busy fiddling with his sleeves, face hidden under a baseball cap Shinichi could've sworn he hadn't been wearing before.
Shinichi must be more tired than he'd thought, if he was making elementary observational slips like overlooking a hat. He should go home and get some…
…Wait.
"Really super sorry, Aoko hopes you aren't hurt, please don't tell Aoko's dad—actually that's more for your sake, since he'd probably laugh at you a lot—"
Aoko was still going. Shinichi considered waiting her out so as not to be rude, but she didn't seem to be winding down at all, so he coughed a little self-consciously and ventured, "Did you say your friend, um, wants to be friends with me?"
Kaito snapped his head up to shoot Shinichi a stricken look, eyes huge over his pink cheeks and wow, did he look a lot like Shinichi. It was a striking resemblance, and almost sort of creepy, because Shinichi wasn't really in the habit of thinking his own face looked kind of cute blushing like that.
"Oh, yes, that!" Aoko jabbed Kaito in the side to jump-start him.
"HerethisisforyouI'mreallysorry!" Kaito yelled, lunging forward and arm shooting out in an uncontrolled jerk, and Shinichi's face exploded in a haze of pain and confusion and also flower petals, for some reason. He reeled back, wincing at the unmistakable heat of blood welling up inside his nose.. This day really wasn't going well.
"Kaito you unbelievable fuckup," Shinichi dimly registered Aoko shrieking in the background, but he was a bit too preoccupied with pinching his nose and tilting his head forward at the recommended forty-five degree angle to pay much attention.
"I'm so sorry so sorry why am I like this," Kaito was moaning, tugging frantically at some sort of cloth that seemed to be caught in his sleeve. Whatever was holding it in place finally gave way, only to spill out a seemingly infinite length of scarf cycling through every color imaginable.
Kaito was so weird. Watching him scrabble for the end of the scarf, cursing under his breath and clearly panicking, Shinichi found himself laughing for the first time in a long while. Kaito stared at him, astonished, before leaping forward to press the entire wad of silk against Shinichi's face to try to stem the flow of blood.
"Stop laughing, you're making it worse—I mean, you should laugh, you should laugh all the time because wow, you look—you look really good, it's just that it's not very good for you right now, and laughing while you're covered in blood might give people the wrong idea—"
Kaito's anxious babbling just made him laugh even harder, the laughter pouring out of Shinichi and leaving him gasping at the end of it, feeling light and steady and right in his skin, the occasional residual giggle bubbling up at the sight of Kaito's attempts to hold the scarf securely to Shinichi's face even as his shoulders heaved and his nose twitched with the force of his laughing.
Shinichi focused on Kaito's face to get himself back under control, cataloguing the similarities between their facial structures and seeking out the differences. They were there, now that he was looking: Kaito's jaw was a little lower and squarer than his own; his cheeks were just a bit fuller; his eyes perhaps the barest tinge more purple than blue, darkened with concern as he thumbed a stray drop of blood off Shinichi's cheek.
"I really am sorry." Kaito murmured. His hands were warm and strong, gentle despite his calluses and the surface abrasions he'd sustained saving Shinichi's brain from concussion. It was...nice. "How can I make it up to you?"
Nobody had taken care of him like this since he'd gotten his body back. It was surprising to realize that he'd sort of missed it.
The realization emboldened him. "I'll forgive you if you buy me a coffee." He said before he could second-guess himself, and he couldn't help but smile when Kaito burst out, "Yes. Yes! Are you free now? I'll take you to Fantômas. Best coffee in all of Ekoda, or so I hear. I'm Kuroba, by the way! Kuroba Kaito."
His eyes were bright with happiness, and his wide grin was bashful and ridiculously endearing.
"Kudo Shinichi. Lead the way, Kuroba-san." Shinichi said.
He had a good feeling about Kuroba Kaito.
PSA: This was a Miraculous Ladybug AU all along (jk, that's a different story entirely)
(Aoko ran away out of sheer secondhand embarrassment)