Chapter Text
“So,” Shinichi stares out across the park, refraining from clutching his chest at a brief spasming of his heart, “you and I really are…” he trails off, looking for a word— and is unable to find one.
“Apparently my parents copied yours’ looks, relatively,” Kuroba chips in, still sounding incredulous with shock. “My mom could be your mom’s sister, and my dad could have been your dad’s clone.” He pauses, then continues to ramble. “And we look so alike, too, and there’s all the craziness of the replacement— does that make us brothers? Twins?”
Shinichi snorts despite himself, and indulges in sarcasm as he deliberately flexes his wings, feathers glimmering in dappled, early evening light— “how can we be twins if we’re not even the same species?”
Kaito snorts. “That’s true,” he huffs. “You know, if Akako hadn’t already gone through the whole magical ordeal with me, your whole thing about seeing an aura would’ve worried me,” he says, going off on a tangent in relation to the different species comment.
Kudo cocks his head at him— bird like— and makes a questioning noise. His face pinches with recognition at the name Akako.
“Oh, well, she said she should be able to woo any mortal and all that,” Kaito says dismissively, “but she couldn’t with me. She said,” and here, he turns his voice to a poor, vaguely high pitched mimicry— “you certainly are no fae, you are mortal, yet there is something so very unusual about you, Kuroba.” He huffs. “I couldn’t tell if she was pissed or interested.” It had, after all, very much seemed like the witch wanted control, though she was very much curious as to why she didn’t have it.
Kudo taps his chin. “I did see something weird about you. Your mom says that was her protection spells and stuff like that, though.” Even now, Shinichi screws his face up at the mere notion of seeing something weird in that fae-type way.
Chikage watches on, bemused by the pair. “Yes, that is indeed what you saw,” she allows, chortling. “Humans,” she scoffs, somewhat to herself, “so vulnerable to magic.” There is an implication of I fixed that. “Most humans don’t get that level of protection without some horrid price,” the woman informs dramatically.
Kaito shrugs to this, and says, “makes sense, I guess.”
“As much as any of this makes sense,” Kudo grits.
Patronizingly, Kuroba pats a wing. “Get used to it.”
His mother outright laughs at that, much to Shinichi’s frustration.
Kudo turns his gaze to her. “What are you then?”
“Fae,” she answers simply.
“No I mean,” he sighs, searching for a good way to phrase his question, and comes up with, “all the yokai I’ve seen have had a human form and a non-human one.” Shinichi sighs, and admits, “me included,” while twitching his wings. “So yours is…?” He trails off invitingly.
“That’s rude,” she informs bluntly.
“Geez, detective,” Kaito interrupts, “didn’t anyone teach you the dangers of asking magic folk their true anything?”
Shinichi at least has the tact to wince— mostly because prodding at fae like that seemed dangerous, for all they at least appeared harmless, and for all he desperately wanted to prod. There were enough tales to fuel paranoia, to say the least.
“Though,” Kaito muses, rocking back with a chortle, “I guess if you never believed, you’d have no reason to care about learning that stuff.”
Kudo makes an aborted affronted noise, because he can’t exactly deny that; mysticism had only been relevant thus far as a cover up for death, not anything of value beyond that (let alone a genuine potential threat).
“I really can’t believe all this,” Kaito continues in a ramble, “I mean, you , a detective, a fae without knowing it, and in some weird swap scenario with me.” The way he says the last part injects sort of a me of all people kind of tone, as though there’s something particularly ironic.
Shinichi blinks. “The part about your mother doesn’t surprise you?” His gaze flicks to Chikage, and he adds a hasty, “no offense.”
Kaito snorts, and elbows his mom. “I mean, I love you,” he says, and it’s said without any weight, “but I guess you’re involved in so much weird stuff that it doesn’t necessarily surprise me,” he concludes vaguely. He snorts, and jokingly echoes, “no offense.”
Chikage huffs a prim laugh, and tips her head in a way that says that’s fair.
Shinichi’s eyebrows hike up. “Care to elaborate?” he asks— and it’s not a rude interrogation, just more of a generalized interest.
“Not really,” Kuroba snorts.
Shinichi drops his curiosity (as best he can, at least), though he does so with a puff of breath that is mostly a surprised laugh, but a little bit of an expression of frustration.
Chikage sighs relentingly, but it’s more of a mockery of giving up. “If you must know about forms,” she says, before Kaito can cut her off for fear of revealing the whole connection of gem heists (of which he wasn’t even sure how much she knew!) at just the phrase if you must know, “I was a rabbit, he a dove.”
“Was,” Kudo focuses in on, gaze gaining that burning intensity again.
“Don’t use your magic on me,” she scolds, actually intimidating for a split second (rather than something framed as theatrics); her face twists, and something within her seems to flare indignantly. The sudden reaction causes Shinichi to blink, utterly confused. Chikage doesn’t elaborate on that, and instead explains, “indeed, when we performed the whole changeling ritual… we became closer to human.” She hums pleasantly, wistfully, “the perfect disguise,” and does not expand on that, either.
Shinichi can at least build a picture of the vague things in his head— the Kuroba parents crossed some no-good fae, had a fae-baby already or close to that time, and thus performed the aforementioned changeling ritual with said baby to root themselves in this realm (and humanity in general), and had since raised Kaito Kuroba as their own (complete with protective spells).
Shinichi feels a raging, crashing curiosity, questions as many and as intense as waves in the ocean.
He starts simple. “I thought anyone could replicate humanity.” Any fae, at least. After all, he had seen a multitude of disguised creatures at that point. “Why would you want to be closer to human than you could already get?” They’d blend in fine to humans, so why the extra ritual?
“Believe it or not,” and she winks at Kaito at this like it’s some kind of inside joke again, “our natural disguises are only so perfect. Other yokai can often see through them, not to mention that they only last so long. No fae can fully live in the human realm as a mortal; disguises and energy wear thin— changelings are an exception, they have reserves to better keep up their disguises, but even that just lasts longer .” She pauses. “And, with unmuffled magic, a fae that broke a contract can easily be tracked by the one that they made the contract with, because of all this.”
Well, that made some modicum of sense; Shinichi himself obviously didn’t fit in with humans, considering fae had tracked him down, commenting on his appearance and whatnot, even if all (or most, if you counted witches) humans found nothing odd about him.
Shinichi, in his mind, compares the ordeal of contracts with getting someone’s information to hold them to a deal— he is naturally familiar with this situation because he has encountered many a case where just that has been used against someone to commit murder or otherwise threaten them. He’s encountered many cases in general. Privately, Kudo puts this stray train of thought into the box in his mind that’s labelled “ how did I not notice I was magical before?” and leaves it to race around in that section of his hindbrain. In general, the idea made some sense, even if the circumstances and details would have been considered utterly insane by Kudo not a few weeks ago.
“Ok,” he says, “so you were hiding,” Shinichi sums up, nodding. “And I’m going to guess from your vagueness you won’t tell me from what,” he groans with a frown.
“Correct,” Chikage says primly. Patronizingly, she adds, “it’s better if you don’t get wrapped up in it.”
Shinichi’s frustrated twisting of his face earns a cackle from Kaito. It’s doubly frustrating, given that (unknowingly, on Chikage’s part) this is Shinichi’s own excuse used against him. He wants to point out that he’s already wrapped up in unknowable things, so what’s one more— but Kudo also knows that probably won’t work, and it’s best not to involve Kaito with his side of the mystery by saying that anyways, so he keeps his mouth shut.
Instead, Kudo doubles back to the whole disguise again. “So if your disguise is so perfect,” he begins, “why can I see you?” Unsubtly, he eyes the faint aura.
“Well, for one, your eyes are exceptional,” Chikage says flippantly.
Kudo blinks.
“You see truth well,” she snaps a little in a more simplistic explanation, both praising and irate in one go. “And secondly, it’s more the sign of magic in general— not inherently another form that indicates I’m strictly fae.”
Shinichi thinks back to the flickers of animals he’s seen folded within people— and Chikage, though she has an aura of sorts, does not have that origami nature. He doesn’t see a specific form beneath her human one like the others, no flash of long rabbit ears or a glint of dark lagomorph eyes… just, normal human, albeit a bit glowy around the edges.
Shinichi considers his own remaining questions, all together; everything, and nothing at once. Either they’re questions he knows Chikage can’t or won’t answer, or questions that have been drilled into his head and he has simply deemed their answer unacceptable. Chikage probably has just as many vague things to dispense on the minutiae of the fae realm Shinichi might ask about, even when it’s pointless and he knows it. Damnit, he just wants to get into the nitty gritty— even when he’s been told there is no point to focussing that close, that the fae naturally resist the classifications that he so adores.
Besides, Kudo’s heart is flipping in his chest, beating sharply against his ribs in a way that promises more coming pain, given time. He is, for a moment, brought to an uncomfortable parallel of a bird beating its wings against a cage woven of bone and nerves; it’s certainly fluttering like so, after all, though the comparison is a bit uncanny for obvious reasons.
Chikage and Kaito loom over him, looking somewhat concerned; not full worry, just toeing the border of it, examining him to see if that line needs to be stepped over.
Shinichi startles, realizing that, in his lapse of external concentration as he considered and appropriately dismissed pointless questions, his hand has twisted itself up in the fabric over his chest, clawing at his heart. An obvious sign that something was very, very wrong with him.
As he comes out of his stupor, Shinichi lets out an involuntary small noise of alarm and surprise, quickly assuming as inconspicuous a pose as he can. The Kurobas eye him to let him know it was indeed anything but subtle, but seem to be waffling on prodding him.
“I’m fine,” Shinichi blurts, attempting to clear away the half-hesitant stares. The look on Kaito’s face is almost knowing, even, but— but that’s ridiculous, because it’s not like Kudo Shinichi having heart problems of any sort is public knowledge. Let alone the knowledge of the cause of those problems (he hadn’t been killed by the Black Org, so it definitely wasn't public).
Either way, they latch onto the reassurance far too eagerly, Kaito more so than Chikage, though the woman seems to take her son’s cue and nods easily, waving it away. Shinichi would call it strange that she would be so unconcerned at the clear pain he was (still is, really) in, but the entire situation is odd, so he brushed it off in much the same manner. It was stuck under a pin in his mind: consider later. Currently, there was a lot of information under that pin.
“However,” and he refrains from nervously vomiting, definitely completely unrelated to that heart spasm, in a hurried defense, “I should probably get going.” He doesn’t want to, really— but what else is there, at the same time? Pointless questions that will have some kind of non-answer about how fae defy logic, or about how Chikage doesn’t want to say what she was running from? And all this while dealing with the unpredictable ticking clock of his body? No thanks; he doesn’t want anyone else caught up in the whole Conan mess, strange magic or no. Despite relation, he barely knows the Kurobas.
Shinichi studies carefully as Chikage once again takes cues from her son— worried but uncommitted to getting him to stay, carefully neutral up until her son says easily (though not without vague barbs of curiosity), “it’s been a long time for supposedly missing detectives to be out.” Then with that, Chikage is smiling serenely, wishing him well and whatnot— impersonally, though, not as though she just found out they were biologically related.
Shinichi blinks. He’d internally allotted time to allow himself get away from the pair, as well as check for bugs or tails. The fact they’re not all that insistent he stay after a clear bout of illness makes Shinichi more suspicious. Granted, Kuroba doesn’t necessarily seem like the super curious type, but Kudo also doesn’t like the strange knowing glint that has shimmered up to the surface.
Shinichi is not near the truth, of course— the fact that Kaito and KID are one in the same, and that he knows about the whole Conan situation (so to put it). Instead, Kudo’s conclusion is that they’re suspicious of his behavior (and his behavior is, admittedly, unfortunately conspicuous) and are indeed planning to tail or bug him to find out what he’s hiding.
Shinichi waves goodbye as his mind spins. They seem to let him off easy.
Of course, that isn’t to say that things will go well. Unfortunately, they let him off easy is notably followed up by an exasperated for now. Shinichi is well acquainted with the exasperation, with the persistence of (for lack of a better term) his bad luck. It was indeed suspicious how easily Kaito had let him go after both the revelations and the clear pain Shinichi had been in— but Kudo ultimately makes the decision to leave without question in accordance to a wise saying about gift horses and gazing into their gaping teeth, no matter how his curiosity begs him to look right at its tongue.
xXx
Part of Shinichi wants to fly home, just to do it, and partially as a test of avoiding tails— no way either Kuroba could track him as a soaring black bird, right? Still, he has clothes to carry (an unfortunate inconvenience to flying, something he’d never thought he would consider clothing to be), and maybe he’s a mite bit anxious about soaring on fresh wings for such a distance, especially when he already feels flushed and sweaty from his heart.
Nonetheless. He makes it back from the train alive and intact, and so does every passenger on the train— something that is (depressingly) surprising. Shinichi had clutched his heart the whole time, earning him vaguely concerned looks, at least in the way one’s fellow train passengers can muster a concerned look, or care at all. All those gazes make getting lost in the crowds (in case the Kurobas did decide to tail him) rather challenging.
He doesn’t particularly succeed in getting lost, no, but Shinichi is relatively confident that he’s not followed. He usually notices it by now, either by way of observation or a more baser intuition— a tingling at the nape of his neck, sharp eyes on him leaving a physical feeling— and there is neither that leads him to believe he was actually tracked. And that feeling happens even with KID, master of disguise, and Shinichi figures he doesn’t have to worry about that level of expertise here— in other words, he’s not too worried, just a bit paranoid.
Kudo really doesn’t want the mostly ordinary Kaito to be involved in his whole mess. Well, mostly ordinary is rather generous terminology given his apparent upbringing and general chaotic demeanor, but still. Perhaps “mostly safe” would be a better replacement— by being blissfully ignorant to danger, Kaito could keep himself from being a target, which is especially important given his apparent visual similarity to Shinichi.
If Kudo thinks about it too long, his mind spins; he speeds up his clip on the way out the train station as thoughts swirl in his head, hypotheticals winding into the infinite anxious abyss. Would They assume Kaito was one in the same as Kudo, just under a new identity? Would Kuroba be considered instead a twin, and be threatened by proxy? And so on and so forth, down the rabbit hole of paranoia over the hypothetical situation of someone having a vague idea of connection between the Kurobas and the Kudos.
The main thing that puts a stop to it is the thought that they haven’t been discovered in any form already, despite the similarities. Not even Shinichi himself had known— and he was quite good at figuring things out, obviously, given his profession.
So he took all those paranoid thoughts and shoved them into an ill fitting box, then shoved it in with the precarious stack of similar mental boxes. Perfect solution.
Part of it was the hopelessness of the situation: what else could Shinichi do? If the Org were going to go after Kaito, they would, and there was not much Shinichi could do in regards to that. He could warn him, yes, but that would open Kuroba up to another host of equivalent or greater dangers if They began thinking a civilian knew. It was an endless loop of fear, because Kudo was truly unaware of just how far their power and knowledge extended, and did not exactly want to push that.
It was a balancing act, too, because Shinichi had glimpsed Kaito’s life, seen his cheeky grin, and he did not want that to be replaced by the worry that he often saw in the mirror. If he thought too much about it, Shinichi could even consider that maybe it came out of a weird sort of sentimentality, a strange desire to see himself (well, a reflection of himself) smiling like that, properly aged and loosely, sociably happy.
Then again, maybe he was overthinking it. After all, the train ride provided space to think on all these stresses, and space to fully pick apart all the revelations of today— Shinichi simultaneously felt like his mind was brimming with the new information while also being entirely starved of it. Meeting his… birth mother was overwhelming in itself, though she didn’t even give him much outside of her existence and some vague reasoning. Seemingly, she also had her own secrets that she wanted to keep Shinichi out of.
Perhaps if Shinichi could see the full, entire irony of the situation— rather than the mere glimpse he caught, the brush of the idea that both he and Chikage were paranoid over something, and reacted the same— then he would’ve laughed. Alternately, maybe he would’ve slammed his head against the wall and groaned very loudly.
What was more ironic than keeping each other away from the very thing they were both embroiled in?
The train ride and walk home went… both better and worse than Shinichi imagined it would. The “better” part is that he, blissfully, still avoided encountering a case in progress— he wouldn’t necessarily ordinarily be grateful towards that, though in general he had reached a tired sort of neutral towards the prospect. He felt that way even before he discovered that he was actually drawn to cases— now, Shinichi is a little unnerved, though still withdrawn and tiredly neutral at the same time.
The “worse” part of the equation is that it’s Shinichi who feels like dying the whole time, rather than some random passenger. His heart pumps double time, as though it has a knife and is stabbing his chest with a vengeance. In a less lucid, pain-hazed moment, Kudo wonders how he would even begin to solve a murder where that was literally the case.
Miraculously, because he is apparently just full of luck today, Shinichi gets himself back to Agasa’s before fully collapsing. It’s not pleasant, of course, but he manages to throw himself down into a lab chair in front of a feverishly working Haibara with only some minor assistance from the walls, and absolutely no dragging himself across the floor (which given his state was noteworthy). Take the bright side of things.
“Oh,” she says evenly, eyeing his panting form, “you’re back.” Early is left unsaid, though it’s painted in the tone of her voice and the quirk of her mouth.
“Maybe staying up all night wasn’t the best idea,” Kudo chips in, a non-response in between pants.
Haibara hums noncommittally. “I have wondered if stress lessens the effectiveness of the antidote. It would explain why it never seems to work its full time on you.”
“I’m not stressed,” Shinichi snaps quickly, disliking the implications.
“Stress is anything,” Ai brushes off vaguely. “If it gets your heart pumping, it’s stress.”
Shinichi wants to snap that he’s had enough experience with psychology to know the technical definition of stress, and that he’s also had enough experience with Ai’s brand of sarcasm to know the lack of sleep, general overthinking tendencies, and blushy crushing on Ran that she was barbedly prodding at— but he’s cut off by another heart spasm. It’s probably for the best, in the long term, that he doesn’t get to shoot anything back. Ai can be cold and cruel in her revenge.
“Ugh,” Kudo groans, slumping further down— impressive, given he is already tossed haphazardly on a chair. “If it’s all magic, why’s it have to hurt so much?” It’s a halfhearted complaint, of course. Still, he takes a moment of reflection to consider the evolution away from complaints along the lines of but it doesn’t make sense, and magic shouldn’t exist. Now it’s just can’t it work in my favor? For once?
“A scenario where your body quickly sheds that much mass is going to be painful no matter what,” Ai says.
“It should,” Shinichi agrees between huffs, “and yet,” he hums, thinking of an easy shift to a bird form— something that should be even more painful, if one took into account the reshaping of bone structures. Going from a child to an adult was all weight and size, but he still maintained human form. On the other hand, going from a bird to a human would mold every structure into something new, and lighten* his bones while at it.
“Just be glad you can’t feel that transformation as well, then,” she snips shortly at Kudo. “You’d probably pass out.”
“That would be… inconvenient,” Shinichi weakly settles on in agreement. As it is, he’s already close enough to fainting with every Conan growth spurt (and… ungrowth spurt). He really doesn’t need (or, obviously, want) more bone rending pain in his life. Who in their right mind would? For once, Kudo internally thanks magic for being without logic, because the pain he can imagine from such a change is astronomical. Just thinking about it makes him shudder, though that could also be the contractions of his heart— though it’s probably both.
Haibara eyes him. “Almost time?” she questions, glancing first at his condition— sweaty, flushed, shaky, weak, and very much in pain— and then at the clock on the wall. As usual with the antidote (and their recent discoveries, to put the whole fae thing lightly), Haibara looks at him with simple, naked interest— not bothering to hide the scientific, analytical part of her behind notions of sympathy or empathy. Kudo, at least (and quite exceptionally, comparatively), can respect that.
“It’s not time based on our predictions,” he recalls, because it’s decidedly late afternoon and not evening as they had planned— “but I think so.” His body is a veritable time bomb, at this point, and the sharp jolts of his heart are the countdown ticks to its inward collapse.
“I suppose this could also further support the theory that with each antidote, you grow more immune,” Haibara contemplates coolly as her small hand wraps around Shinichi’s larger wrist and she keeps quiet count of his heart rate. Her voice is calm and whispery in contrast to Kudo’s tense, strainedly loud breathing, her hands cool and still compared to his heated skin that is wracked with painful tremors.
Shinichi just makes a low groaning sound, and states sarcastically, “also inconvenient.” It’s more than just that, obviously; it’s catastrophic, in terms of consideration for a new antidote. At the moment, though, he doesn’t exactly have the wherewithal to be weighed down with those existential thoughts.
Grasping at his heart, the detective considers all the new info on the table— the idea that somehow, this form is a result from some kind of depletion of energy, or something of the like, as has been suggested to him from individuals he would have formerly considered crazy. Briefly, in the haze of pain of an overwhelmed body, Kudo allows himself to laugh at the fact that he would’ve considered himself crazy— mere weeks ago, for believing in magic, and even further back than that for the whole child-body situation he’s found himself in, because his life apparently refuses to resemble any sort of normalcy.
Shinichi, while he still has the strength and wherewithal to do so, abruptly stands up— startling Haibara, causing her to retract her hand from his wrist, stopping the count of his pulse. She eyes him warily as Kudo wordlessly jerks to the bathroom, to go and scream in peace and quiet (as much of that as he can have, at least, when he’s writhing and yelling in pain). Behind Kudo, his wings shudder, twitching erratically and looking overall as bedraggled, drooping, and pathetic as the rest of him. At least, unlike the rest of him, they aren’t sweat soaked, presumably because birds do not sweat (Haibara barely stops herself from spiraling into questioning why the rest of him sweats, then). The wings are, however, beginning to steam a little— just another confirmation that Shinichi is falling back to Conan now, rather than hours later when he should .
...Not, of course, that he “should” at any given moment at all, period. It’s natural for a sixteen year old to be in a sixteen year old body, not a six year old one, but the issue was far past that point. Whether it made sense or not, it was happening anyways, much like a good portion of the messes in Shinichi’s life. It all added up to a running theme that he was quite tired of.
Ai looks somewhat hesitant to let him go, a mix of emotions swirling within: concern, and a healthy dosage of scientific curiosity. She does, however, relinquish him, allowing Shinichi his privacy— however much that matters, with the way she’s so thoroughly medically examined him— and dignity. She understands that one, at least; the both of them are utterly awful at showing vulnerability to others, and that level of pain is practically the definition of “vulnerable.” If he were to stay, he’d be thoroughly embarrassed, and her resulting guilt and attempts at obligatory comfort would only further humiliate Kudo. They had understandings of each other, in these ways. Simply: don’t push.
So she lets the warmth of his wrist leave her grasp, that arm previously in her hold trailing behind him along with his unwieldy wings as he drags himself to the bathroom. He looks close to falling over in a stumbling heap at any given moment as he crosses the tiled lab. When Shinichi catches himself on a table, Haibara winces forward in an aborted helpful motion before he picks himself off and uses the momentum of a shove to propel him the rest of the way. He closes the door in a movement that’s more of a coincidental rocking backwards and falling into the door than actually whooshing it shut behind him, but it works regardless of intent.
A guttural, twisting scream that rakes at Haibara’s mind emerges from the bathroom. It’s horrible, the pain trapped in that noise; there’s a reason she never takes the antidote, and detaches herself to a clinical state of mind when Shinichi foolishly does.
As he screams, she compiles her thoughts. This antidote is shorter. Even now, she is left with the question of why the antidote even works given the quirks of his body. The fae seemed to have described Shinichi’s reaction to the APTX more like… a depletion of energy, or perhaps an ugly wound (or some combination thereof). Something that forced his form weaker, just like when he overextended himself and briefly became even smaller, trapping himself as a raven, ridiculously.
A second question: would the antidote work on her? It’s a hard one to answer, because she’s not sure why the antidote works on him in the first place, given it doesn’t replenish magic in any way that seemed relevant to the way the fae talked about him.
She shakes herself. You’re thinking about it scientifically. If this were any other scenario, this thought, especially in such an admonishing tone, would never come close to brushing her mind. However, as it is… well, the situation is indeed unique, to say the least. Magic and science don’t particularly go hand in hand, at least not all the time, and Haibara is learning to let go of science (at least a little).
Maybe it’s the belief that it’s going to work. External belief or internal belief, though, I wonder? Another thing that made a perfect zero amount of sense, but seemed to fit a creature that worked off magic just fine. The real question with that theory is whose belief counted: Shinichi’s own, or another person’s? Haibara moves over to scribble down, “tell him a pill is a sugar pill, even when it’s the real thing. Record effects.” It would be easy enough to trick him, if she were just to take the powder of the drug and pour it into a different cap; she could even get an appropriately sized pill of another type and twist it apart, pour the APTX in, and reseal it. “ If that works, find some way to give him a sugar pill where everyone involved believes it to be a sugar pill.” She pauses, and considers that Kudo had told her of baiju that caused him to transform— both unexpected to him and everyone around him. That was test enough to disprove all of that; it worked regardless of belief, his or other’s (because she doubted Hattori would be giving out cures to problems he didn’t know existed at the time, and Kudo had made sure to impress upon her he hadn’t intentionally drank it, mostly because she sent him a judgemental look about it). Despite how unscientific it all was, Ai couldn’t help but be disappointed and frustrated; she thought she was at least sort of grasping onto all this nonsense dreamlike logic, but she was still stumped.
Or maybe, she considers internally, it works more because it would work on me, and it’s all part of his disguise as an actual person. It’s just weird and abstract enough to make a twisted sense. For the sake of whatever changeling disguise related magic exists— because it obviously does, some level of passive energy or a spell or something used for a constant glamor on the wings (specifically), as well as the obscuring of smaller details— the disguise is forced to act when taking an antidote that would work on a human in the same scenario. Whatever magic is there extends itself, doing its best to turn Shinichi back, going along with the intended function of the pill on humans (as Kudo is supposed to appear, despite how much that has fallen apart as of late). However: the fact that it’s shortening implies that either the antidote genuinely has some immunity component that the magic is mimicking, or Shinichi is just… running out of that magic, depleting it and thus lowering his time in his true, grown form a bit more. This, at least, seems likelier than the belief theory, and (conveniently) is some degree less complicated.
By now— a few minutes in real time, which is all that it took for those thoughts to flit at a lightning pace through Ai’s mind— all is quiet. Kudo has quit his screaming, now simply panting in the bathroom. Haibara decides not to disturb his momentary recovery or dressing, because she knows wounded pride is something he takes annoyingly seriously (not that she has a ton of room to judge, something she would not admit to even herself). It is, at least, relieving to not hear those twisted noises of pain wrenched from his throat.
Instead, Ai goes back to theorizing in her mind— the antidote must work on Kudo for some reason, and perhaps it is chemical. Maybe it works because he seems more tethered to humanity in the physical way, and thus affects him like a human since he practically (sort of, kind of) is one— from his descriptions, the other yokai he’s seen are more like… well, yokai. Things that could pass as human, but not under tight and restrictive inspection. Shinichi can, obviously had slipped by even his own rigorous noticings. Ai doesn’t know if that’s because he still largely perceives himself to be a person (a notion she’s not overly keen on fully disillusioning him of, largely because he seems incapable of fully coping with it), or perhaps a quirk of being tied to changeling shenanigans.
Either way, the latter two— that Kudo either is human enough that it works, or expends enough energy to convincingly keep up the illusion of humanity to have the medicine work on him— are her best theories. The one based on energy makes the most sense to her, because the medicine is inexplicably losing its efficacy, and an energy issue might explain that— unfortunately, this all means she has to test her reaction to it against his, which she is not particularly looking forward to.
In general, what frustrates Ai the most is that there’s not really a way to confirm either, outside of looking at a theory in comparison to anything other idea and saying yes, that seems most like the fae and their tricksy, illogical ways. It would hold until better theories came along, one which would likely have little to test it to prove positive as well— and so on and so forth, a true spit in the face of any scientific methodology.
...Clearly, bitterness pervaded her entire thought process on the matter.
Kudo’s first words to her, once he is fully clothed and looking… well, presentable (because he still looks like a sweaty mess, you can’t really cover up the pain and distress of a heart issue in mere minutes) are a deadpan: “are you thinking too hard about science and magic?”
Haibara jolts— just a little bit, a tiny little wince. But it’s enough to set Kudo’s face into a predatory haha, I was right type grin. She wouldn’t roll her eyes (too undignified, unprofessional), but she does fix him with a flat look that gives an equivalent message. Ai contemplates saying something sarcastic along the lines of didn’t know you developed mind reading, but decides to keep her mouth shut because if there’s one thing Kudo doesn’t need, it’s inflation of his ego. “Right,” she draws out snippily, not denying it but not giving him much satisfaction either; it’s not cruel, just part of their little games with each other. Besides, again, Kudo needs to be knocked down a peg or two sometimes— though maybe not after his body just collapsed in on itself.
He’s still grinning a bit smugly, which makes Haibara want to retract that last mental statement, but Kudo continues on before she can. “Well,” he grunts, “the antidote didn’t really work or feel different, outside of lasting shorter than expected.” He stretches his sore muscles, and sighs. “Is that because of the immunity thing?” Haibara had mentioned a likely chance of immune response that would make the pill become less effective as a reason not to take the antidote constantly in the past, after all— because if it was just a matter of regularly taking pills, Shinichi would consider himself (relatively, albeit painfully) cured. She also had, of course, mentioned wearing his cardiovascular system out until he inevitably died, which was a more pressing concern (to say the least). Shinichi, at the time, had been more concerned over the latter than the former, so he had not asked about the possible formation of an immunity— it seemed like a moot point when overusing antidotes would lead to tachycardia, then weakness of the heart, on to higher chances of heart attacks, and finally death.
Haibara seems like she chews on the answer an abnormally long time— mostly because she mulls over the ways to phrase, well, it’s more magical stupidity, possibly, probably, in her head. What she comes up with is a gently phrased, “it’s probably that your… unique biology affects the pill.”
“I’d be surprised if it didn’t,” Shinichi deadpanned back, a bit snappy at the non-answer.
Ai shot him a glare that reminded Kudo of his place, enough to spark a justified amount of cowering and general quailing. This time, she puts it more bluntly. “An immunoresponse is just as likely— if not less likely— as this phenomena to be a result of you merely attempting to blend in.”
Shinichi’s face contorts in thought. “So, what, you think I’m only getting this diminishing return because a normal human would get that decline, and I’m… mimicking them,” he finished his tirade of a conclusion a bit slower than he started, running out of steam as he considered it heavily.
“That, or,” Haibara huffed, “I merely assumed it was immune response, and it’s more a sort of magical… energy… depletion.” It sounds ridiculous whenever she starts to say it out loud, but she sticks with it and forces the words out her throat.
“Right,” Shinichi grimaces in a way that is kind of resigned. He wrings his hands a bit in a concerned fashion, then asks, “does that imply I’m going to run fully out of disguise?”
Ai blinks at that. “I don’t know,” she admits, which brings them back to frustrated.
Shinichi, who seems to be learning some lessons, throws himself onto a chair and moans, “well, there’s not really a point in overthinking it, since we clearly can’t tell, so might as well just,” he trails off with an elaborate hand waving motion.
“You’re… letting this go,” Haibara reiterates, stunned. Reluctantly, yes, but he is.
Kudo winces, clearly not pleased about it, but he does nod. “I mean, we should look at… why the pill did those things.” He frowns. “The yokai I’ve met in the past talk about me as though I’ve lost my magic or something— but I did recharge in the fae realm, and I’m still like this “ he gestures to his small form. To end the thoughtful ramble, Kudo goes with sarcasm, as usual— “I mean, I’m not supposed to be like this regardless, but it seems like there’s something else that’s a factor. Six years old at sixteen does not abide by any sort of natural logic, yokai body or human body.
Ai’s mouth pulls into a thoughtful frown. “Though the yokai are… vague—“ to say the least— “I get the impression that they are… unsure about your situation.”
“Crypticism to cover up lack of knowledge,” Shinichi phrases it with bitterness. “It would fit.”
Ai rocks back in her chair— she does not slump, she does if with grace, it is merely a lean— and dispenses a nod and a faint sigh.
“And I’m feeling science and paragons of rationality will not be our answer,” Shinichi grimaces, voicing both of their thoughts.
Ai steeples her fingers in front of her face, nodding while making a noise of agreement. “What is, though?” It’s more a rhetorical question than anything— all their options are cryptic magic-affiliated beings that are either too obsessed with being vague and-or do not actually know anything.
“I think we need to figure out what the exact original function of the APTX is, and what exactly they insisted on having inside it for strange, seemingly magical reasons,” Shinichi says, slowly. Haibara, after all, had previously mentioned that the APTX had mysterious ingredients the Org insisted on putting in with no elaboration, and that its original purpose was rumored to be long life. This was ironic on two fronts— because it had both failed (thus becoming a poison), but also had (arguably) succeeded with them by deaging them.
Ai manages to make her glare look prim and proper, somehow. “If we could do that much, we would already have its formula for a cure anyways.” After all, before this whole mess, finding the original make up of the APTX to synthesize an antidote was the original goal (even if it had been sort of lost in this ridiculous shuffle).
“Right, right,” Kudo mused dismissively, “but we didn’t have access to… what we do now.” Ai almost snaps at him for being vague, but he deliberately shrugs his wings in indication of magic stuff.
Haibara stares at the glossy wings for a long moment. “Infiltrating them is a horrible idea— as usual,” she says slowly, working her jaw to avoid gritting her teeth.
Shinichi blinks. “I’m not that dumb,” he caws in offense, “I had a different plan!” He pauses. “Would you have said yes to me infiltrating them?” Because that sounded like resignation.
Ai rubs her face, dignified aura dropping for once. “I can’t actually stop you,” she grits. “Obviously, though, I have at least somewhat misjudged your stupidity, which means you have a plan at least better than that.” She pauses, and admits, “but to say I have any idea on how to proceed is laughable.”
“That’s okay,” Shinichi says pleasantly, “because I do.”