“Aoko…”
The brownish-black-haired good-looking prince slowly walked closer to the bed found in the room he just entered. He was wearing an all-white outfit with a blue long-sleeve shirt underneath and a white cape flowing gracefully from his shoulders. Though the scene looked very pleasant – the princess, wearing a white gown with light blue linings and ribbons, was sleeping peacefully on the bed curtained with powder blue silk fabric and sprinkled with white and red rose petals – worry and shock was evident on his face. His mind was swirling with thoughts on what to do, how this thing happened, who could have possibly done this to her and questions of similar concern.
As he was just half-a-meter away from the bed, his feet quickened their pace and he was there, kneeling down next to the bed of his motionless princess.
“Aoko…” He shook her lightly in his attempt to wake her up, but nothing happened. Her sleeping face was calm, her breathing did not change and her hands remained clasped together resting on top of her stomach.
“Darn… Had I arrived a bit earlier, this wouldn’t have happened to you.” He shook her shoulders a little more forcefully. “Aoko.” Upon getting no response at all, he clenched his fists, stood up in an instant and punched the wall beside him, his head tilted down and his eyes tightly closed.
All of a sudden, a strong light came into the room from the window behind him that even with his eyes closed, he could sense it. He turned around to see a familiar beautiful, long-haired fairy – a four-inch tall fairy, wearing a pink fairy dress and floating in air because of her pink flapping wings. She called to him, waving the wand-like thing in her hand to call his attention. “Kaitou ouji-sama!”
“Ran,” he whispered upon recognition. He showed her his serious but still gentle eyes as a reply. Seeing determination flaming up in these blue orbs, the little fairy spoke with her dazzling petite voice. “You don’t have to blame yourself, Kaitou ouji-sama. I know how to wake the princess up.”
“How?” he quickly asked, stepping closer to the little creature automatically.
She flew towards the bed and stood on the princess’ hands. Kaitou followed, his eyes glancing onto the princess and then back to the fairy. “What should I do? Tell me,” he asked, obviously getting impatient.
“The prophesy says that the person who could defeat the dragon is also the one who could break the spell cast upon the one who wore the glass slippers and fell into a deep eternal slumber,” the fairy explained. “Aoko ojou-sama is a victim of that spell because the witch made her wear those glass slippers, saying that wearing it would grant her love an immeasurable strength. She wore it for you, Kaitou ouji-sama!”
“Aoko no baka…” he whispered, his lips curved into a faint smile. “She shouldn’t have done that.”
“Now, all you have to do is to kiss her and she will wake up. That’s simply the solution,” declared the adorable little fairy, flying in circles above the princess as she became excited.
“Kiss her?” Kaitou repeated. He stared at the princess’ face and swallowed a lump in his throat before he leaned in closer to her. ‘I’ve never done this before but I will do anything just to bring you back to life…’ Just when he was merely an inch away from the princess’ lips, the room turned pitch black and he heard a small scream, making him turn around immediately. “Ran, what happened?” He tried his best to see in the dark but to no avail.
“Kaitou ouji-sama!” yelled the fairy as she struggled from being held by a firm hand. The grip on her whole body tightened, causing the poor little thing to have a hard time breathing. “T-tasu—tasukete, ouji--” Before she could complete her sentence, and before Kaitou could make a move, the fairy lost consciousness and the owner of the hand gripping her laughed with his manly voice. The strikes of lightning that followed were the only way Kaitou recognized who this person was and what he just did.
“So a fairy could only last 20 seconds of not breathing,” the young man cloaked in black said, amusement evident in his voice. He laughed once again, causing the prince to be more irritated as he clenched his fists.
“Shinichi! You traitor! So you were behind this after all!” Prince Kaitou exclaimed as he stood up, facing the one who looked exactly like him. “How could you do this to us?! We’re one family and--”
“Family? What’s that?” the black-cloaked lad laughed once more. “I don’t remember having one.” He slipped the unconscious little fairy into a pocket on his left chest and then put his hands inside his pants’ pockets as he walked closer to Kaitou, who by that time, gripped the sword on his left and posed his stance.
“Oh, I thought you were treating me as a family? Why are you preparing your sword?” Shinichi mocked as he continued to calmly pace towards Kaitou. With the stillness of the night, his footsteps were so much audible and daunting as if there was a tick-tock clock that counts the remaining seconds of one’s life.
“I don’t know what you’re planning but if you hurt my princess, I will forget that you were once my twin brother,” Kaitou stated in a confident tone as he drew out his sword and pointed it to Shinichi.
“Relax, I’m not here to hurt anyone,” replied the black-cloaked lad, smirking. He lightly pushed Kaitou’s sword aside with his left hand and continued coming close to him. Arriving to a stop, he said, “I’m just here to wake you up.” His last words echoed in Kaitou’s ear, as though a spell was trying to hypnotize him. “Wake up~ Wake up~”
Kaitou groaned and fell on his knees, dropping his sword and cupping his aching head in the process. “Stop it!”
When he finally opened his eyes, he wasn’t in the dark castle room anymore but in his bedroom, seating on his soft white bed. He blinked twice, hands still on the sides of his head. He heard a familiar chuckle, making him realize everything and drop his hands onto his sides.
“What the—What are you doing here?” he quickly asked the chuckling Shinichi.
“Aoko~ I will do anything to protect you~” the latter mocked, doing some hand gestures to support the act. “I would even kill my brother for you~”
“Shut up,” Kaitou rolled his eyes away from Shinichi but a smile escaped his lips and his detective brother noticed that.
“You really love her more than your twin, how could you!” Shinichi whined and then tried to stifle his laugher.
“Shut up!” was the same reply from his brother. “Why are you here?” he asked, changing the subject as he turned to check the clock on his bedside table.
“Kid must cook breakfast. I’m here to wake him up.” Shinichi grinned.
Kaitou examined his twin’s appearance. Shinichi’s hair was a mess; he was still on his blue pajamas with its shirt partly unbuttoned. ‘This guy must really be hungry…’ The blank and bleak look he threw him made Shinichi wonder, “What?”
“I don’t want to cook,” Kaitou simply stated, lying down on his bed, turning his back on his brother and cuddling a pillow as he closed his eyes.
Shinichi whined and shook him annoyingly. “I’m hungry.”
“You have to learn to cook for yourself.”
“I know some simple stuff like eggs, hotdogs, bacon – but breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so it must be a good one.” The older one chuckled. “And besides, you should use your talents to serve others, especially those in need.”
“You call yourself in need?” Kaitou turned his head around a little to show Shinichi his raised brow.
“No, I call myself ‘others’, hahaha!” was the latter’s answer.
The younger lad turned his face away again and stuck it under the pillow he was cuddling. Though his voice was muffled, his brother heard him say, “You disrupted my dream. Now you must suffer the consequences.”
“Eh? I even spared you from killing me in your dream. You should be thankful for that.” Shinichi went on with shaking his brother’s back, causing the sleepy one to get more and more annoyed.
“If you hadn’t entered my dream in the first place, I would have kissed Aoko and have a happy ending with her.”
“Mou~ was that my fault?” Shinichi’s pout was turning into a slight smile.
Kaitou, meanwhile, uncovered his face and rested it on the pillow he was cuddling and accused, without bothering to turn around, “And you called me Kid so early in the morning. You know how much I don’t want to be called like that.” His tone hinted that he was just lazy and was just a little bit annoyed.
“Huh? Last time I called you Kid and you didn’t mind it. Some of your friends also called me Kid when I was you.”
“Well today’s an exception.”
Shinichi smirked at Kaitou’s quick answer. “Wait, where did that name come from again? Why did they start calling you Kid?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Ah, I remember. It was in your band, right? First battle of the bands you joined back in junior high.” Shinichi had a hand cupping his chin as he tried to remember more details.
“No…” was Kaitou’s long-said lazy reply, as if his denial would work on his twin.
“Ah!” Shinichi snapped his fingers and smiled brightly. “The registration! You suggested the band name K.I.D.!”
Kaitou forcefully covered his revealed left ear with the pillow he was holding and covered the right with the pillow he was laying his head on.
“You blurted it out, out of nowhere, and the registration person who was in a hurry wrote it, leaving you guys with no choice. Since then, it became your permanent band name and they started calling you Kid because you think like a kid.” Shinichi laughed.
“Tsk.” Kaitou uncovered himself and sat up to face Shinichi. “It’s way smarter for a mere child to think of an idea like that. I derived that from our names – Kaitou, Izumi, Ichiro and Daigo. K-I-D!”
“That’s the childish part actually.” Shinichi’s laughter turned louder.
“Hmph!” Kaitou rolled back to his previous position, pouting.
Shinichi then dived onto the bed and annoyed his brother some more by shaking him, tickling him, bouncing on the bed, and all the while, calling him Kid and laughing after each call.
“Kudo Shinichi, you’re a major annoyance!!” said the younger twin when he has had enough. In an instant, he was able to push his brother to fall from the bed, but Shinichi remained in his laughing state that the fall didn’t matter.
Kaitou stood up and grabbed a towel from his cabinet.
Shinichi then stopped laughing and said, “Hey, you’re going to take a bath before you make my-- our breakfast?”
“Yeah, and you can’t do anything about it,” Kaitou replied smugly, obviously getting back at his twin.
“Mattaku,” the semi-scowling semi-smiling Shinichi muttered when his brother left.
#######
The twins prepared themselves for this normal morning. They have decided to go back to their proper places at school since the music practical exams are now over and there are no more reasons for them to switch.
One of the customary things between the two, however, is the Thief vs. Detective games they do once in a while. Kaitou plays the role of the thief, the challenger, the problem maker. Shinichi acts as the detective he really is – solving problems, engaging himself in mysteries and challenges his brother would make.
For instance, this morning, Kaitou handed over a piece of paper to Shinichi when the latter sat at the dining table.
“What’s this?” asked the older one, flipping the small paper in his hand.
“If you don’t solve it, you won’t have breakfast.” Kaitou grinned at him evilly.
“Uwaa! How mean!” Shinichi grunted.
Kaitou merely shrugged as he left the table side and went to the stove. “I’m going to make a very sumptuous breakfast so if you don’t solve that, not only your detective pride would be damaged, but also your heart for food,” he said in a pitying but teasing tone. “Wahahahaha!”
“Tsk, meanie,” Shinichi smirked before focusing on the paper he had. It was a rectangular small piece of paper, but with single spike-shapes at the middle of each side. ‘Is this just for design – dinosaur, puffer fish, hedgehog theme – or…?’ There was a number combination of ones and zeros on the front side; the back side was empty. ‘Binary number, huh?’ He smirked. The paper actually contained the number 1111101011001110011000000000. ‘There are 110’s but I doubt that it meant SOS.
(Note: in Japan, their ‘911’ or emergency hotline is 110.)
‘If I would convert this to another form – decimal perhaps, maybe I could get something…’ He looked around for a paper and a pen but immediately found them lying on the table in front of him, Kaitou must have placed it there when he gave him the challenge.
‘There’s this method – what’s it called again – sum of weights method? Anyway, I should multiply each digit to their corresponding weighs which are actually powers of 2. Shimatta, there are 28 digits! Since it’s binary – having the base 2, I would have to find out 2 raised to 0 up to 2 raised to 27!’ He smiled grimly to himself. ‘Oh yeah, whatever those powers of 2 are, when I multiply 0 to them, they won’t count. So there are only 13 1’s to consider… The first one should be multiplied to 2 raised to uhm – zero one two three four five six seven…’ He counted from the rightmost side of the number, wanting to identify when the first number 1 occurs. ‘Nine! The first one is the tenth digit so I should multiply it to 2 raised to 9, and that would be hm…’ He counted with his fingers from six to nine. ‘64, 128, 256, 512!’ He listed the said number 512 and proceeded to identifying the next ones. ‘The next 1 is the 11th digit so I should multiply it to 2 raised to 10 and that is 1024. The next 1’s are the 14th, 15th and 16th digits, so those are 2 raised to 13, 14 and 15. That would be 8192, hmm 16384, and uhm, 32768.’ As he said each answers, he listed them down legibly on the left side, opposite to the quick and scribbled multiplications he had written on the right.
‘So the next ones are the 19th and 20th digits and that would be 2 raised to 18 and 19.’ He scribbled some more, ending up with ‘262144 and 524288.’
“Crap, this is getting to my nerves.” He chuckled then looked to his left. “Hey, couldn’t I use a calculator?”
“Nope, of course,” replied Kaitou. “It wouldn’t be as challenging if you would use a calculator.” He chuckled.
Shinichi smiled half-heartedly at him. “If it were a real scenario and I had to solve something like this, I could use a calculator, you know.”
“Too bad it isn’t.” The younger one smirked at him before turning back to the pan he was holding. “Hahaha! I really enjoy seeing my brother bewildered with my puzzles.”
“Not for long,” replied the confident Shinichi as he turned back to his multiplications. ‘Okay, so what’s next? Hmm, the 22nd 1, that would mean 2 raised to 21, giving me…2097152. And the remaining 1’s are the 24th up to the 28th. That’s 2 raised to 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27. Alright, I’m almost done.’ He scribbled some more on his scratch paper before coming up with ‘8388608, 16777216, 33554432, 67108864, and 134217728.’
He massaged the back of his neck. ‘Whew, now all I have to do is to add these numbers that I’ve got. Adding these 13 numbers would give me…’ It took him just a minute and a half to get ‘262989312.’
His brow rose automatically. ‘Now what’s so special about this number? Hmm… Could it be an address or a contact number of some sort…’ He scratched his head, irritated. ‘What does this mean…?’
As he tapped his pen on the table, the small piece of challenge paper flew a little to the left, and now it wasn’t lying on the scratch paper anymore but on the table. As Shinichi’s eyes followed its movement, the final sight struck him with a very brilliant idea. ‘Sixteen sides! Crap! Why didn’t I consider that earlier?! This paper, with its four supposedly rectangular sides divided into two because of the spikes in the middle of each, plus the four two-sided spikes themselves gives me 16 sides. Heh! You want me to convert it into hexadecimal don’t you?’ He glanced at the busy Kaitou.
(Note:hexadecimal – number system of base 16)
From that time on, he got too engrossed with his computations. He quickly turned his scratch paper around to start over with a new solution. ‘I’ve read this from one of Agasa-hakase’s books about logic. In converting a binary number into its hexadecimal form, the shortcut I learned was to divide the binary number into groups of four bits, starting from the least significant bit which is the rightmost.’
(Note: Bits – binary digits)
‘Each group would correspond to a single hexadecimal digit. I just have to multiply to each bit per group their respective weights – 2 raised to 0, 2 raised to 1, 2 squared and 2 cubed, that is, 1, 2, 4 and 8.’ He started copying the number from the challenge paper and dividing them into groups. He ended up with:
1111/1010/1100/1110/0110/0000/0000
‘Alright, the two groups on the right have all digits zero, so that would be 00 in hex. Two down, five to go!’ He lightly slapped his own forehead. ‘I should have thought of this earlier.
‘Anyway now, the third group from the right consists of 0110. That’s…’ He wrote (0x8) + (1x4) + (1x2) and (0x1) ‘…which gives me 4 plus 2, equal to 6!’ He smiled, knowing he could win against this problem any moment now. ‘Now I have 600.’
‘The next group, 1110, that’s hmm, 8 plus 4 plus 2 and that’s 14. But in hexadecimal there are only 16 digits that consists this whole number system. That’s zero to nine and then letters represent the next values: A for 10, B for 11, C for 12, D for 13, E for 14 and F for 15. Hence, the next digit I’ll have is E.’ He wrote at the bottom of the scratch paper E600. ‘Could this be a serial number of a product or so?’
He continued with the remaining nibbles. ‘Ah, yeah, 4 bits is a nibble, hehe…’ He found himself enjoying the activity now. But then his stomach grumbled. ‘I must hurry or my stomach’s gonna be angry with me.’ He chuckled to himself before turning serious again.
‘The next nibble is 1100. That’s 8 plus 4, 12!’ He wrote the letter C and now he’s got CE600. ‘For the next, it’s 1010, 8 plus 2, that’s 10, which in hex is A.
‘Only one more left, 1111. That’s the maximum value a hex digit could have – having all bits as 1. That’s 15 or should I say F.’
He sighed and thought, ‘I really should have done this earlier; this is so much easy compared to the one I did a while ago, stupid, stupid.’ Even if he was extraordinary enough, having known such things and being able to finish multiple-liner mathematical computations in a matter of seconds, he still calls himself stupid. That is how conceitedly humble Kudo Shinichi is.
He then looked at the final answer on his paper – FACE600.
“FACE 600?” he mumbled to himself. ‘FACE could mean face as in an order to look at or turn to something or to a certain direction. If that’s the case then FACE600 means to face 600, but where is that 600?’ Out of habit, he cupped his chin. ‘600…’
‘Wait a sec.’ This young Sherlock of the Japanese Hei Sei generation suddenly remembered something. ‘Sometimes, people use hours in telling directions, referring to the position of the hands of the clock. So this 600 could mean 6:00 or 6 o’clock. And if I were to face my 6 o’clock that’s…’
Shinichi turned around only to be greeted by a loud “pop!” sound.
After following with his eyes some confetti that fell scattered on the ground, Shinichi turned to face the person holding a hand-size party popper. “Congratulations, brother! You have solved Kaitou’s Puzzle No. 16!”
It took some 10 seconds of stillness between the two before Shinichi halfheartedly smiled and spoke, “Your weird challenge made me hungrier.”
“Here you go, smart little runt.” Kaitou messed his twin’s hair and handed him a tray of breakfast complete with soup, curry rice, mango shake, and a banana.
“Yey, curry rice!” Shinichi grabbed the tray, turned around to face the table and muttered “Itadakimasu” before starting his full course meal.
Kaitou, on the other hand, went to the other side of the table smiling. He placed his food there and sat down to eat as well.
“Hey, Kai-chan,” Shinichi called, partly teasing because of using Kaitou’s childhood nickname.
“Yes, Shin-chan?” Kaitou shot back with a smirk.
“Why did you want me to face my 6 o’clock?” he stated out his curiosity. “Was it just one of your creative ways in serving breakfast?”
“Nah, it’s about the party popper. I’ve always wanted to pop one in your face.” With that said, the younger twin laughed and the older one raised a brow as his lips formed a weird smile.
#######
To be continued
#######
Author’s Notes:
Hi there everyone! ^^ thanks for reading up to this part n__n this chappie was supposed to be the whole day in the story but it turned out that the early morning Kaitou-Shinichi part was long enough for a chapter. So I decided to cut it up to here and just continue the day on chapter 8. ^^ the mathematical/logic part in this chapter was inspired by one of my subjects back in college XD –just sharing– ^^ I hope I was able to explain adequately the things Shinichi knew about number systems and conversions. ^__^
The curry rice idea came from the episode Chinatown De Ja Vu in the Rain where Conan acted childish and craving for curry rice just to make Ran go home because she was sick. =P he was REALLY cute back then! ^o^
Hope you guys liked this. ^^ thanks again! ^o^
Review review~ *winks* =D please? *puppy eyes* hehehe! XD
PS: Kaitou-kun left a challenge and told me to give it to you. XD it was a paper – the same sixteen-sided one – with this written on it: 101111101101
Clue you ask? It’s something soft that we all probably have. XD anyone who solves this code would get a price from Kaitou-sama and Shinichi-sama. XD \(^o^)/
Till next time folks! ^^