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“-and then, KID rides in on a horse… Aoko, are you still with me?” Kaito asked, looking away from his planning board to where his agent was sitting on his couch, face in her hands.
“I don’t understand.” she muttered, “It’s insane. The plot line is insane! Why? Why? Why is it the number one mystery novel on the charts!?”
Aoko asked herself, not for the first time, how she became the agent to a multi-million dollar franchise. No, that wasn’t quite right. She knew how. She knew exactly how she became the editor.
Kuroba Kaito, her childhood friend had asked her.
She wanted to know what possessed her to say yes.
She and Kaito had been friends for years, dating all the way back to when they first met at the clock tower where he presented her the prettiest flower she had ever seen (a blue rose) and introduced himself. If she knew back then, that accepting that flower would have put her in the most annoying, headache-inducing job ever…!
She still probably would have taken it.
Because she couldn’t imagine life without Kaito.
Kuroba Kaito was a genius. He had an IQ of 400, something she swears is just a number he made up, but with his eidetic memory, Aoko could see how Kaito could be the smartest man on the planet. With how much he read, how many different hobbies he tried, how many life experiences he’d created –Aoko didn’t know anyone their age that had done as much as him. Not even people her father’s age had been so accomplished.
It’s what made his books so good.
He was a literary prodigy.
Back in high school, before he’d ever conceived of writing a book, Aoko was sure Kaito was going to be a magician just like his late father. Aoko was sure Kaito thought he was going to be a magician. Magic tricks and sleight of hand were all he’d practice during breaks between classes. He held miniature shows in homeroom and even had a twenty-step plan to gaining fame and making his name known in the world of illusions.
Then came a single writing project in their junior year.
“I want you to take two genres that don’t normally meet and write a short story. It must be at least 2,000 words long,” their literature teacher had described the assignment. “You have one week.”
Kaito took the bright, colorful world of magic and fantasy and shoved it together with the cold factual world of detectives and crimes.
It was 50,000 words. It was the first book of a series.
And Kaito had written it in three days.
Suffice to say, he aced that assignment. When Aoko got a chance to read it, she was enthralled. It was the world her father knew, of deduction and evidence and the unbending law, but told through the eyes of a not-so criminal thief who was looking to thwart the gang who killed his father.
It was expressive, life-like. The dialogue flowed so easily, it was like it was an actual person speaking to her. It was entrancing. But the thing that got her the most? Is what Kaito said after she’d finished reading.
“I bet you can’t tell me the main character’s name,” He’d said with a grin.
And Aoko… couldn’t.
She went back and read the story three more times, but… it wasn’t there. The main character was never referred to by name. Any part that focused on him was written in first person and any third-person view held different names for the people since the thief referenced in nicknames and Aoko didn’t know the main character’s name!
The Phantom Thief was truly a ghost.
Kaito had laughed at her when she’d finally given up. Despite that, she pushed for him to get the novel published. She was sure that people the world over would love the story he’d written, especially if there was a second novel in the works. She was ecstatic!
Kaito was not.
To anyone else, he would have appeared nonchalant, flippant even. He told her that, if she liked it so much, she should be his agent, get it published for him. It honestly looked like he didn’t care.
But she knew him. She knew that it was his coveted Poker Face coming into play. She knew that he was excited by her reaction. He’d made it his life goal to make people happy, whether by magic shows or by writing, it wouldn’t matter.
But magic was what he knew. Writing was not.
So Aoko studied hard. She looked up how-to’s on the internet and signed up for a few informal classes to become an agent. She worked some internships at popular publishing houses in order to make connections, because agents weren’t anyone if they didn’t have a network. She collected business cards and handed out some of her own. She took the dirty jobs and slush piles and coffee runs, to slowly work her way up to the top.
Finally, her freshman year of college, she got an editor to read Kaito’s work. The editor offered a contract point-blank after reading the whole book in less than a night.
Aoko and Kaito celebrated with cake and ice cream.
But Kaito didn’t switch his major to writing.
“What would that do for me?” he’d asked the stupefied Aoko, “What’s learning grammar and spelling going to do? No, I’d rather learn how to make the stuff my character uses and be accurate to physics and the laws of the universe, rather than use ‘magic’ as the explanation for everything.”
So he did.
Four years later, he had a bachelors in Science and Engineering, four novels written and published of his series Moonlight Magician, and a fifth on the way. Aoko herself went into Business, having already had several internships and being something of an entrepreneur herself. When they both graduated, they made the hottest agent/writer pair in new-age genre.
Which brought her to now.
“It’s not insane,” Kaito pouted from where he was examining his board. “If you factor in a cursed gemstone, Einstein’s theory of light speed travel and time dilation, it could, theoretically, work.”
“Kaito, you can’t send your main character back in time to King Arthur just because you got bored with the modern world!” Aoko threw up her hands in defeat, “Besides, if you do, why not just have Asano curse him?”
“But people would be expecting that!” Kaito pouted. “Besides! I haven’t factored in any Historical genre yet! Or Science Fiction!”
“Would it even be Sci-fi at that point?” Aoko asked as she massaged her temples.
“Hmm…” Kaito tilted his head ninety-degrees to look at his board. “Good point. If I want Sci-fi, it’s gotta be aliens.”
Aoko let out an agonized groan.
“Ah!” Kaito yelped as his eye caught on calendar date, “Aoko! You didn’t remind me!”
“Of what?” she asked, tiredly.
“Today’s the new release date for the latest Elementary Conan volume!” Kaito said as he buzzed over to his closet and snatched up the nearest jacket he could find. “I’ve been waiting ever since the last book left on a cliffhanger with Conan finding that children’s song as the way to contact the Organization boss!”
Honestly, Aoko wasn’t even sure what day it was anymore.
“I’m running to the store!” Kaito called as he walked out the front door. “Manuscript's on the table!”
Then he was gone.
Well, as long as he was distracted from adding freaking aliens to his work, Aoko was happy. As she turned to pick up the latest manuscript of Kaito’s series, a thought occurred to her.
Elementary Conan… was considered Sci-fi, right? With the use of the poison to shrink him and the use of gadgets and other technology to help him combat criminals?
Maybe Aoko could talk with the agent in charge and see about doing a cross-over of some sort…
She’s sure Kaito would like that idea.