as if the stars were within reach,

he continues to follow without hesitation as they banter back and forth. kaito stops when kudō pauses at a door , hesitation blossoming in his body language. when the detective goes inside the dark room , kaito stays in the doorframe , keeping his eyes on kudō only. ( it seems clear to kaito that this wasn't a room that kudō wanted him to look into , and even though he is who he is , he won't break such a boundary made even without words ).

there's no fumbling as kaito catches the file with two fingers , smoothly transitioning so that he's holding it with one hand. there's a part of him that wonders what is in this file of kudō yūsaku that could be importance to him , there's another one who knows. ( he'd found several notes with a ' ! ' when he had been searching his father's secret room. all of which had been stored inside of a novel from the night baron series. inside had been an inscription that only said " from the one who named you. " it hadn't been hard to connect those dots ).

he steps outside of the doorframe as kudō exits , struck almost speechless. he probably will be once he opens the file to see what kudō yūsaku has to say , and there's a twitch of his lips ( in what direction , for once , he doesn't know if it was going to be a smile or a grimace ) as he considers kudō. he understands that detectives hoard their case files similarly to the way magicians hoard their tricks. it's a show of trust , he thinks , to do this , to give him this. is it one that he deserves ? kaito doesn't know.

said reason is inextricably linked to the connection between their fathers, whose privacy shinichi doesn’t hesitate to infringe upon. his father was both a good judge of character and also not a fool, so yūsaku having trusted tōichi is as good a guarantee as any for shinichi to trust kaito. it was only logical.

when the door is safely shut, shinichi leans against an adjacent wall with an innocent look on his face. he grins, “i was just trying to make it a little more challenging. i didn’t expect you to ignore the room, y’know?” there’s no sign beyond an outward exhale, but shinichi feels a curl of relief settling in his chest. that kaito would stop himself from looking, just because of a sign of hesitation from shinichi, only cements his decision to place his faith in kaito. he hums, a little thoughtful, a little amused. “huh. i kind of understand why kaitō kid’s known for being a charmer now.”

TL;DR my mother’s health is steadily being revealed through multiple tests with her doctors to be getting worse. First she was told about the fact she possesses ulcers, a deteriorating colon, and polyps (that have since been removed for testing and we get those results soon). Yet now we were given x-rays/photos of her stomach where healthy tissues are supposed to be but they’re not— parts of her stomach show up dark, which apparently means that those parts are… dying/deteriorating as well. And we hope that her polyps come back negative— but at this point even though we are trying to keep a strong face, we are all concerned that might not be the case. And preventative medications to take action now rather later, as well as treat what’s currently been found, has put us all in the negatives. Again, as my sister will say in the gofundme itself, we’re not asking for more than we need or anything like that— we’re just looking (and are grateful) for any help at all. And again, I’m really, truly sorry to have put this on your dashboards.

( of course kaito noticed that kudō had been waiting for something. the desk in his study wasn't normally where he stood around , which is why it was a usual entrance point for kaito. there's a part of him that wonders if he was so easy for the detective to read that he knew when and where to wait for him. ).

accompanied by conversation, it doesn’t take long to reach their destination: shinichi stops outside one of the rooms, hesitating only briefly before nudging the door open. he’s certain the thief notices the pause, but he’s weighed this decision over already; there’s no point second-guessing it now. besides, his dad won’t mind, if shinichi’s deductions about his relationship with the previous kaitō kid are correct.

he steps into the dark room, heading straight for the table to collect the gift he’d prepared in anticipation of kid’s arrival. “found this when i was going through my dad’s archives,” he says, tossing the folder over to kaito without so much as a word of ‘catch’. “i’d apologize for having seen what’s inside, but it’d be mean to lie to you on your birthday, so i won’t.” shinichi teases with a smirk, herding kaito back outside before he can investigate the room too closely.

kudō yūsaku’s case files on kaitō kid were one thing, — (and wasn’t the photo of their fathers posing together interesting, given that yūsaku definitely knew about kuroba the senior’s moonlight persona? there was no reason for it to be compiled within this specific folder, otherwise.) — but shinichi wasn’t sure he was ready to return the offer of handing kaito carte blanche over everything else. inexplicably enough, he trusted kuroba not to overstep.