"Hey, did you guys hear?"

The Detective Boys were once again gathered around their desks and waiting for class to begin. Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko always had the tendency to talk endlessly while Conan and Haibara would idly listen, only really talking when they got dragged into the conversation. Normally, the topics would range from talk about the new Kamen Yaiba episode to discussions of new possible cases. However, today was slightly different. 

"There's supposed to be a new student in our class today!" Ayumi told the others, successfully gaining their attention.

"Another one?!" Genta exclaimed. At this point, transfer students seemed to practically be flocking to their class.

"Yup!" Ayumi confirmed. "I overheard Kobayashi-sensei speaking with another teacher about it!"

The three children of the group went on to make theories about what the new transfer student would look or be like. The two shrunken teenagers, on the other hand, just quietly listened in. They weren't really all too concerned about it. While their own cases of transferring were out of the norm, so to say, actual transfer students weren't all that strange. 

"So, do you know their name?!"

"Ah, that's right!" Ayumi remembered. "It's-"

The girl was cut off by the sound of the door to the classroom opening, and in walked Kobayashi-sensei along with a young girl who held a surprisingly calm expression for someone in her position. Practically the entire class was staring at her in excitement, but she didn't falter in her steps and only smiled in their direction as she stood rather confidently next to their teacher. 

"Alright, everyone," Kobayashi-sensei started with a smile. "Meet your new classmate, Furuya Reiko! Please be kind to her!"

Edogawa Conan, who had previously not been paying attention, practically sputtered when he finally took in the sight of what was, to him, a very familiar girl. Her appearance was the same as ever and stood out with her long blonde hair that contrasted against her dark skin. It wasn't all that hard to recognize her. 

Especially since she was practically his little cousin…

As they tried to find out where to seat the girl, Haibara turned her head to look over at her seatmate. "Do you know her or something?"

"Something like that…" Conan laughed dryly as he tried to keep his voice down so nobody would overhear their conversation. It wasn't as though he didn't get along with the blonde. She was actually one of the few children that he could get along with easily. Which, in hindsight, was probably a good thing considering how often he used to have to babysit her.

"Is she a need for concern?"

Conan paused. That… well, that was a rather difficult question… "Not in the way you might think." He finally responded to which Haibara raised a brow. "She's…" he sighed, shaking his head in slight exasperation. "She's basically a magnet when it comes to trouble…"

It was true. While Reiko was fairly mature for her age, she had a tendency to find herself in all sorts of dangerous and/or strange situations. And, of course, Reiko seemed to not have any problem with it. Conan was honestly starting to believe that the girl's eccentric mother was partially to blame. He couldn't help but shiver a bit when he remembered the times he had been babysat by the woman as a child. That woman was probably more eccentric than both his parents combined which was quite a feat in and of itself. 

Those were some dark times indeed. 

"So she's like you," Haibara surmised with a small smirk that made the detective glare at her with an annoyed stare.

"In any case," He continued with a warning. "You should be careful how you act around her. She's smarter than you would think. I wouldn't put it past her to figure out our identities."

"Oh?" Haibara turned her stare over to observe their new classmate who was now taking a seat next to an ecstatic Genta. From just a single glance, she couldn't really understand what the shrunken detective was talking about. The girl seemed fairly normal as of yet. Maybe a little too calm for your average transfer student, but she seemed like an ordinary child. Besides, a first grader could only be so smart. 

However, she had to pause when the girl turned around in her seat to meet her stare. Furuya Reiko's face was practically unreadable, and Haibara couldn't help but sweat a little at the feeling as if the girl had been staring directly into her soul. It wasn't a feeling one would expect to come from such a small child. The discomfort left as soon as it came, though, with Reiko sending a small smile before turning back around to face the front of the room. 

"She's… strange," Haibara finally admitted, still a bit unnerved by the girl's stare.

"That's one way of putting it."

*****

"Furuya-chan!" Ayumi called out to the girl as the school day ended. Said girl turned around upon hearing her name only to meet the sight of the entire Detective Boys gang. "Do you want to walk home with us today?"

"Sure, I'd like that," Reiko smiled. "You're Ayumi, right?"

"Yup!" She confirmed with a grin. "And this is Genta-kun, Mitsuhiko-kun, Haibara-san, and Conan-kun!"

"Together," Genta started. "We make up…

The Detective Boys!"

Genta, Mitsuhiko, and Ayumi all shouted the last part in unison as the other two looked on, a bit amused. While they were a bit wary of Reiko finding out who they are, they had already figured that the others would try to invite her into their group. 

"The Detective Boys?" Reiko questioned, a brow raised as they made their way to get their shoes out of their lockers. She, of course, already knew who they were. They had been in the newspapers quite a few times after all. However, it seemed only polite to ask. Plus, she didn't think it would be all that smart to feed into their egos.

"We stay alert, day and night!" Mitsuhiko immediately began explaining with pride and excitement clear in his tone. So, apparently, Reiko's attempt to keep their egos down had already failed. "Ready to take any case that comes at us!"

"Do you want to join?!" Ayumi asked eagerly. If Reiko were to join, they'd finally have an even amount of boys and girls in their group. Plus, from what she had seen in class, Reiko was really smart!

Reiko paused for a second at the sudden invitation. Going off their track record, they were basically danger magnets. But then again, so was she. So, would she end up bringing twice the danger? Or would it end up balancing out? In any case, she didn't have all that much to lose by joining the group, and she had always wanted to make friends her own age. 

Plus, there was a certain something that she was curious about. 

"If you would have me," She ended up sending them a pleasant close eyed smile after she had finally finished deliberating. "I would be quite interested in joining. Your group sounds rather intriguing."

"All right!" Three out of the five began cheering that they had yet another member. 

In the midst of all their excitement, they all somehow managed to get their shoes on and were already walking out the door. There had been no cases in Genta's shoe box, which was 'surprising' and 'rare' according to the boy, so they ended up just inviting Reiko to go over to the professor's house to play games with them. She agreed seeing as she didn't have much else to do. In the meantime, while they walked, the trio was throwing question after question towards her, and she would answer with ease. 

"So why did you end up transferring?" Mitsuhiko ended up asking after a few minor questions such as what her favorite color or her favorite food is. "Did you move from far away or something?"

"I was having issues with a few of my former classmates," Reiko shrugged nonchalantly. "So my mom decided it would just be best to change schools."

Conan grimaced at her words. He knew all too well that she had been dealing with bullying at her previous school. She always insisted on dealing with them herself, but there was barely a day she didn't come back home without injuries. Even after her mother had gone to the school to try and stop what was happening, nothing changed. Conan was honestly surprised that Reiko's mother didn't decide to put the school through financial hell after that. He could only assume that Reiko had stopped her before she had the chance. 

"Issues?" Ayumi questioned with her head tilted in confusion.

"That's a story for another day," she brushed off the girl's question with ease as she gave a small smile and patted the girl's head a few times, making her blush. "But there's actually a question I've been meaning to ask." Both Conan and Haibara stiffened ever so slightly as she turned in the direction of the miniaturized detective. "Are you by any chance related to a Kudo Shinichi?"

Conan sweat a bit nervously. He knew that she would never miss such obvious similarities. "He's a distant relative of mine," he excused but didn't meet the girl's eyes. It was difficult trying to get away with lies around her…

"I see," she held a slightly dubious look in her eyes but let it go as she turned back to the three actual children who were watching their conversation in confusion. "You guys said we were going to a professor's house, right?"

"Yeah!" Genta grinned before taking out his Detective Boys badge. "He's the one that made these for us!"

"Oooh~" Reiko leaned in to take a closer look at the device. "If I'm not wrong, that's a communication device, similar to a walkie-talkie, is it not?"

"How'd you know?!" The three kids looked at her in surprise that she guessed what it was so quickly.

"Well, uh," the girl blinked a bit at the sight of the overwhelming curiosity in the others eyes. "I just noticed that the back of the badge had a lot of the characteristics of a miniature walkie-talkie. Plus, there's kind of an antenna sticking out of the top."

Reiko was admittedly a bit confused when they expressed their amazement. To her, it seemed quite obvious as to what the device was, but perhaps most people failed to notice. She really couldn't be sure. 

"What about this!" Suddenly a watch was shoved into her face causing her to blink in surprise and lean back ever so slightly. "Can you tell what this is?!"

Reiko gently took the watch in front of her face out of Genta's hands and curiously examined it. Her eyes shined a bit in interest as she realized what differentiated it from a normal watch.

"Is there, by chance, a flashlight built into this?"

"Amazing!" The three looked at her in awe which only furthered her confusion. She honestly wasn't sure what was so amazing and why they were getting so excited about it. 

"You'll get used to it," Conan patted her shoulder sympathetically at the sight of her face scrunched in confusion. They had just made it to the professor's house, and the three hyper children had already ran inside. 

"Is it normal for children to get excited about such things?" Reiko tilted her head in question causing him to sweat drop. He had forgotten that she had barely spent any time around other kids her age. 

"It depends," Conan replied with a shrug as they and Haibara also made their way through the door. "But most kids aren't all that familiar with the mechanics of technology."

"I see…" Reiko would have to note that down. She didn't really feel like attracting any unnecessary attention after all. It was only then that she finally noticed where they were. "Wait… aren't we...?"

She had been so focused on the previous conversation that she hadn't even realized that they had entered a very familiar house. 

"Reiko-chan?" The owner of the house blinked a bit in surprise as he caught sight of the small girl the others had been telling him about just mere seconds ago. 

"Agasa-hakase!" Everybody except Conan was surprised at the sudden exclamation.

"Eh?!" Ayumi exclaimed. "You guys know each other?!"

Reiko nodded in confirmation. "My cousin lives right next door, so we've met quite a number of times."

"Your cousin?"

"Kudo Shinichi," she told them at the sight of their questioning gazes. "He's not my cousin by blood, but he's been like an older brother to me."

Conan tried to ignore Haibara's teasing smirk as he turned his head with a slight blush. 

"Isn't he that high school detective that used to be really famous?" Mitsuhiko asked which caused Conan to become a bit annoyed at the 'used to be.'

"Mhm," Reiko nodded with a smile. "He's really cool," Conan was less annoyed now… "except maybe when he's gloating."

The said boy deadpanned before crossing his arms with a slight pout. "I don't gloat," he murmured under his breath, still doing his best to ignore Haibara's snickering. 

"Anyways," the blonde broke the flow of the conversation. "You guys said you wanted to play some games, right?"

"Right!"

****

"I'm home!" Reiko called out as she entered her apartment that she shared with her mother. She had just gotten back from the professor's where she had been playing video games with her new friends. It was the first time she had ever hung out with friends after school and was surprised to find that she actually had fun. 

Reiko paused in the doorway, hearing what sounded like a stampede come from a few rooms over before she sighed, taking off her backpack and setting it gently on the ground, preparing for the oncoming storm. 

"Reeeeeiiiii~kooooo~chaaaan~!!!" The said girl let out a slight 'oof' as her mother snatched her up into her arms and began spinning her around. 

"Hi, okaa-san," Reiko greeted her mother with a sweet smile even as she was being spun around and hugged tightly by the older woman. This, of course, was a daily occurrence at this point in time. "How was your day?"

"Great, now that you're here!" She exclaimed, rubbing her cheek against her daughter's. It would be an understatement to say that she was a doting mother. 

Nomura Haruna, Reiko's mother, was a rather eccentric woman to say the least. She's a famous actress around the world. She did her own stunts and her own makeup. She was very self reliant in the industry. And, despite her overwhelming popularity, she had few friends yet a vast amount of connections. Not much is known about her to the public, and the paparazzi has difficulty capturing pictures of her as she almost always goes out in disguise.

"How was school today?!" Haruna finally set her daughter down. "Did you make any friends?! There weren't any bullies, were there?! How do you like your teacher?!"

Reiko could only smile at her mother's excitement and fretting. While Reiko was fairly eccentric herself, she tended to be the more calm and level headed one out of the two. She wasn’t great at expressing her emotions, but she wasn't horrible either. The only times she ever really even got hot headed or upset was when she would be dragged into fights at her old school. 

"School was actually really good today," she admitted, a small smile on her face as she remembered how she actually had friends now. "The lesson was a bit boring, but I managed to make five friends and went the whole day without getting into any fights! There weren't any bullies, and our teacher was actually really nice!"

Haruna smiled softly at her daughter who had finally come home from school with a bright smile for the first time in ages. She was glad that her decision to transfer her to a new school ended up well. She wasn't sure what she'd do if it had turned out poorly. 

"And who are your new friends?" 

"The Detective Boys," Reiko told her, causing the woman to have intrigue glimmer in her eyes. She had heard of the Detective Boys multiple times through the newspapers. Though, the one that intrigued her the most was the so-called Edogawa Conan. She could recognize that face easily and had her suspicions, but she still didn't have any evidence. "They invited me over to play games at Agasa-hakase's today, and they even invited me to go camping with them this weekend." It was at this point that Reiko started to shuffle her feet nervously. "Would… would it be alright if I went with them?"

"Of course!" Haruna reassured her daughter with a grin. "But I better meet those cute, little friends of yours sooner or later!"

Reiko only nodded, a small smile still gracing her face, but Haruna could tell that there was a glimmer of excitement in her eyes. 

"I'm especially curious about that Edogawa Conan," Haruna admitted, a glint of mischief flitting across her face along with a smirk. 

"So you noticed it, too." It wasn't a question. If Reiko was able to notice, then she knew her mother would have done the same. 

"Of course!" She grinned as she grabbed her daughter's hand, and they made their way out of the entranceway and into the living room. "Who do you think you're talking to?"

"Then, do you really think…" Reiko drifted off.

"Yeah, I have no doubts in my mind," Haruna finally lost her grin and put her hand up to her chin in contemplation. "I don't know how yet, but somehow

Edogawa Conan and Kudo Shinichi are one and the same."

******

2987 words excluding A/N's

Finished- 5:52 pm on February 12, 2021

Bye~