i.
It's three years after the accident when she steps into Kaito's house again.
She isn't really doing anything that she's not supposed to — the Kuroba house keys hang right beside their own, on the hooks beside the front door, and her father has told her several times that she's allowed to go over there if she ever wants to — but Aoko's heart still beats loud in her ears as she unlocks the main gate and watches it swing noiselessly on well-oiled hinges.
Bright afternoon sun spills into the entryway as she opens the front door and switches to indoor slippers.
Aoko walks from room to room, from the neatly organised kitchen to the barely controlled chaos of the study, and pauses in front of a wall of photos at the foot of the stairs. They're mostly family photos, but Aoko and her dad are in quite a few of them, and there's at least two pictures of Kaito's dad with his doves gathered around him, perching on his shoulder and flying around his head.
The middle row is taken up by pictures of Kaito and Aoko.
She doesn't remember when some of them were taken, but others she recalls vividly — like this one on the left, of them in the kitchen.
(Kaito's mom made the best hot chocolate she'd ever had, and they had tried to imitate her once. Chikage had come home to the spectacle of two very unhappy children covered in cocoa powder, laughed while snapping a picture, and shown them how to do it correctly, but banned them from handling the hot water themselves until they were older.)
The house is just as she remembers, down to the last detail — but it's also nothing more than that, now.
(It's a silly thought, she knows, but it feels like time has stopped here, and is just waiting for the occupants to return.)
Aoko isn't sure what to do next. She finished her homework for the day before she even left school, and her father's working late tonight so she still has another few hours before she has to go home.
She finds herself climbing the stairs to Kaito's room before she can think too much about it, and old habit makes her knock before entering.
"Hello, Kaito," she says softly, remembering the argument they'd had after the one time she'd come in without knocking, and almost ruined some elaborate trick that Kaito had spent hours setting up. They eventually settled on knocking on the doorframe as a compromise, because Aoko certainly wasn't about to knock on the door like Kaito was some kind of royalty, whatever he said.
(Aoko doesn't remember crying at the funeral — only her father's arms around her, eyes weary with grief, person after person saying words that did nothing to bring her best friend back — but she knows she must have, because her eyes felt sore and her throat scratchy for days afterwards.)
Every surface in the room holds some object familiar from Kaito's many tricks. A set of bouncing balls on the shelf, a small mountain of cards beside the television, a coin with its edges worn smooth lying on the desk...
Aoko picks up the coin, and is trying to remember the practice routine that Kaito tried to teach her once (she hadn't had the patience then) when she notices something strange about the portrait hanging on the wall, like it's tilted at an angle.
She reaches up to fix it —
— and the next thing she knows there's a terribly loud noise in her ear and she's landing on the floor of another room, eyes stinging from the sudden cloud of dust.
The rest of the house had been reasonably clean (two housekeepers come every month, Aoko doesn't know who pays for them and has never asked) but this place feels empty and abandoned, covered in dust so thick that it catches in her throat when she tries to breathe.
Aoko doesn't bother to look around before turning back the way she came and pushing at the portrait until it gives way to the familiarity of Kaito's room —
— and it strikes her with sudden finality that this is permanent, that Kaito and his parents are gone and never coming back, lost and forgotten in time like that dusty room —
She remembers crying, this time.
(Her father finds her in the evening, half-asleep where she's curled up on Kaito's bed, and carries her home.
Later that night, she finds the coin tucked into her pocket, though she doesn't remember putting it there.)
.
She goes to the house a few times every year, after that.
The days vary — Kaito's birthday (often), the anniversary of their deaths (sometimes), the day after she graduated from elementary and then middle school (she'd met Jii-san there both times, and they'd shared — his green tea and her chocolate, long silences and fond memories).
Aoko doesn't go back to Kaito's room, and spends time with Keiko and her other friends from school whenever she can. She also promises herself that she won't cry over him again.
(It's what Kaito would've wanted her to do, she thinks, and anyway she hasn't forgotten him in the least bit.)
The coin sits on a little shelf by her own desk, and one day she looks up tricks she can do with it.
It's frustrating when she finds herself having difficulty with even the simplest tricks, but Aoko is nothing if not stubborn. She can feel her movements getting smoother and faster as she practices, and the first time she successfully pulls out a coin from behind Keiko's ear they both gasp in delight, and Aoko thinks she finally understands a little why Kaito loved performing magic so much.
(The first time her dad comes home to her practicing, they both freeze — her fingers slip and falter, sending the coin rolling under the largest bookshelf.
Then he bends down, fishes it out with a long ruler (punctuated by a muffled curse when he hits his head on the sharp corner of a book), and places it back in her hands. "Kaito-kun would've wanted you to have it," he says before walking away to hang up his coat on the rack and put away his briefcase.
Aoko smiles, tells him that dinner is in the oven, and focuses on her practice for another minute before realising that he's pulled up a chair and is sitting across from her, watching her hands.
"How did you do that?" he asks grouchily with a frown when their gazes finally meet.
Her dad's hands are too big and used to entirely different movements, but she gets the feeling that Kaito wouldn't have minded this either.)
ii.
She's in her second year of high school when Kaitou Kid reappears.
Aoko doesn't think much of it at first. Then she happens to see a news broadcast screen while walking home with Keiko and the others after school.
The announcer is speculating about tonight's heist, but it's the picture of Kid from some previous heist in the background that catches her attention, and Aoko suddenly realises that she has seen that before —
"Aoko? Are you okay?"
"Ah..." Aoko turns away from the broadcast to Keiko's worried face. "Yeah, I just remembered something I needed to do, that's all!"
She tries to act normally on the rest of the way home, but the half-remembered portrait is like a constant buzz on the edge of her thoughts, and she barely stays at her own house for long enough to put down her bag before grabbing the keys and letting herself into Kaito's.
The portrait of Kaito's dad looks perfectly innocent where it's hanging on the wall, and Aoko is almost tempted to chalk everything up to her imagination, but she needs to know.
She pushes lightly on the edge like she did all those years ago, except this time she doesn't fall through as it spins like the world's most bizarre revolving door, slows, and stops.
Kaitou Kid looks back at her with Kuroba Toichi's face.
.
Aoko finds out the heist location from her dad easily enough. He's also more than happy to tell her everything he knows or suspects about Kaitou Kid once she reassures him that no, she isn't planning to become another fan of the thief anytime soon.
Kaitou Kid disappeared eight years ago, she learns, and hasn't been heard from ever since.
Until now, of course.
One question answered, so many more to go.
It takes four heists before she's lucky enough to spot a black-clad figure leaving one of the buildings around the heist site, and she follows Kid (currently disguised as an unmemorable office worker) until he disappears around a dark corner and walks back into the light as Jii.
Aoko freezes for a moment, stunned, but even as she hurries to catch up she realises that it does make sense for Toichi's assistant to have known about Kid.
"Jii-san!" she calls out.
He doesn't even pause before turning to face her, and there's no trace of anything unusual about him. "Aoko-san, what a surprise! Why are you here?"
"Actually..." Aoko opens her hand to reveal the monocle she'd taken from the secret room before closing it again just as quickly, but she knows he will have seen it. "Can I ask you a few questions?"
.
They're sitting in the Blue Parrot, which Jii had reluctantly led her to after much persuasion, and he makes them two steaming mugs of tea as he talks.
Neither of them drink it.
"How can I help?" Aoko asks when he finally finishes.
Her world feels like it's been tilted on its axis, and she thinks she's probably either going to be very angry or very sad about what she's heard later, but Aoko knows one thing — she isn't going to let whoever did this get away with it.
"Dad still has friends in Division One, we can always ask them to take a second look at the case and reexamine the evidence."
But Jii's already shaking his head before she finishes her sentence. "The physical evidence is inconclusive, and there's no motive for murder unless we reveal Toichi-sama to be the Kaitou Kid. You must understand, Aoko-san, that there's very little that you can do. Please, just forget what I told you, you were never supposed to know about this."
Her temper flares. "You just told me that my best friend was murdered, Jii-san! How am I supposed to forget about that?"
Jii takes a step back in surprise, but Aoko doesn't apologise.
The tea has cooled to lukewarm, but she sips at it, suddenly feeling very tired. "You said there's very little that I can do. Not nothing. What is it, Jii-san?"
He looks almost resigned when he answers. "I cannot possibly ask you to take up the mantle of Kaitou Kid, Aoko-san."
"Why not?" Aoko says, and when Jii looks back at her blankly she gets up from her seat to pace. "Why can't I be Kid? I know I'm not very good at magic, but I can practice! And it can't be easy doing heists at your age, right?"
She belatedly realises that the last part was rather rude, but Jii only smiles ruefully. "While that might be true, Aoko-san, might I remind you that your father is still the head of the Kaitou Kid Task Force?"
"If Tou-san knew about this he'd want to do something about it too," Aoko answers, because it's true. She might've inherited her dad's fiery temper, but she also learned right and wrong from him, and if he ever finds out about this she thinks that he'll understand why she had to do it.
She expects Jii to continue persuading her, and is ready to argue — instead, he smiles ruefully and takes their cups to the sink. "You and Kaito-bocchama were always stubborn even as children. I can see why you got along."
.
For the first time in her life Aoko is thankful for her distinctly unfeminine frame.
The blue dress shirt fits awkwardly across her chest while the coat hangs loose at the shoulders. But she hasn't mended her father's clothes all these years for nothing, and after two hours and some work with a sewing machine (and threads found in a drawer and labelled neatly with elegant handwriting she suspects must belong to Kaito's mother), she has a passable set of clothes to wear as Kaitou Kid.
She and Jii have reached an agreement — she'll help him with the heists first while practicing her tricks, and once she's good enough then they'll switch positions.
It's two weeks later when the arrangement gets put into practice.
Aoko has been tasked with the job of monitoring the security feeds and reporting the locations of various Task Force teams to Jii. It's not going to be a difficult job, she thinks, but still an important one, and she plans to do it well.
"Aoko-san..." comes Jii's voice over the headset, and Aoko really hopes he isn't about to ask her if she's sure about doing this. "Can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear. Let's do this, Jii-san."
.
When Aoko demonstrates the small repertoire of tricks she's picked up over the years, Jii says that he'll gradually reduce sleight of hand usage during heists and switch to illusions that she can do just fine as long as they set up the trick beforehand.
(He shows her easier methods of doing some of the tricks and interesting ways to adapt the others, and if Kaito were here he'd be grinning stupidly and proclaiming that his dad was the best magician in the world, so obviously his way of doing things was the best, but that's neither here nor there.)
Jii also teaches her basics of disguise, but once she manages to create and put on her first latex mask, he sets up a video call with someone else to show her the rest.
"She's one of Toichi-sama's old students," he answers when she asks him who her new teacher is, and Aoko just about gets a heart attack when Kudo Yukiko comes onscreen.
Yukiko's bubbly cheerfulness is contagious, and soon enough Aoko finds herself chatting quite comfortably with the actress, who's busily setting up an impressively extensive range of makeup equipment as she talks.
"Now, don't get me wrong, Jii-san's pretty skilled in disguise himself. But," (and here she brandishes a suitably threatening makeup brush of some sort at the screen, Aoko has no idea what it's actually for) "the subtle art of disguise is different for us females, mark my words! Do you know why?"
"No," Aoko replies dutifully, and settles in for the long haul.
(As it turns out, that was a flat eyeliner brush. Aoko gets fairly worried despite herself when Yukiko demonstrates its use, but somehow she manages not to poke herself in the eye with it. Aoko isn't sure she'll be so lucky.)
.
"That's all I have to teach you for today," Yukiko says two hours later. "We'll talk about posture next week."
Aoko thanks her — sincerely, because that was far more interesting than she'd initially expected, but her head feels like it's so full of new knowledge that it'll spill out if she so much as tips it — and is just about to close the connection when Yukiko speaks again.
"Just a moment, Aoko-chan. There's someone else here who'd like to talk to you for a bit."
Curious, Aoko watches as Yukiko stands up, and someone else takes her place.
"Good evening, Aoko-san," says the person who cannot possibly be Kaito's dad, despite her eyes telling her otherwise. "I'm Kudo Yuusaku, Yukiko's husband."
"Hello, Kudo-san," she replies automatically, and tries to stop staring at him. "I'm sorry, you just look a lot like someone else."
"I could say the same to you," he answers with a small flicker of a grin, before his expression turns serious. "Now, this is a purely theoretical discussion, of course... but I heard you're interested in the legacy of Kaitou Kid?"
iii.
On her first heist as Kid, Aoko nearly gets caught three separate times, and it's only the strategic deployment of distractions she'd put in place earlier that allows her to escape.
Jii's voice over the comms is worried but level, so Aoko thinks she mustn't be doing too badly, but all the same they both breathe a sigh a of relief when she finally gets away in the hang glider, her dad's voice ringing in her ears from five stories below.
(Aoko still hears it hours later as she lies in her bed, staring at the ceiling.
She's thought about telling her dad more than once, of course, about the truth behind the Kuroba family's accident — but she can't say that and not tell him that Kaito's dad was Kid, because he will want to know why it happened, and she doesn't want to put him in that position.
Aoko won't lie and say that she's not afraid of what will happen if her dad ever finds out what she's been doing, but she believes in her heart that it's the right thing to do.
That will have to be enough, for now.)
.
Aoko gets better after that. She learns from her mistakes at the first heist and sets up precautions for any problems that she might run into, goes over floor plans and tries to predict how the Task Force will move or react.
(Here, Aoko has an advantage no one else does — she knows precisely how her dad thinks, how he reacts in any situation and the first thing he will do. It isn't much, but she isn't top of her class for nothing, and what she lacks in skills she can more than make up for in intelligence.)
Writing heist notes is surprisingly fun (she feels almost like a teacher writing a particularly evil test, and now she knows why Konno-sensei likes setting trick questions for their exams so much), but the one time Aoko catches herself planning a note midway through a conversation with Keiko, she shuts down that train of thought hard and focuses on her friend.
(She's glad, in a way, that Kaito never had to do this. He was always better at keeping secrets than her, of course — she vaguely remembers him telling her something Toichi said about having a poker face, though she's forgotten the rest of it — but she tries to imagine her best friend lying to her about something as crucial as being the international criminal her father has dedicated his entire career to chasing and can't.)
.
At any rate, she settles into the new routine — if anything involving being an internationally wanted criminal on a regular basis can be called routine — and goes on with her life.
Which is, of course, when everything changes.
.
Everything appears to happen at once:
A girl named Koizumi Akako transfers into her class and... Aoko's actually not quite sure what happened back there, but apparently magic is real. Akako hasn't tried to (magically) bewitch her since, and actually gives her a really pretty protection charm to wear on her wrist, so Aoko thinks that they're friends now. Probably. It's quite hard to tell with Akako.
A bunch of people armed with guns and frankly terrible fashion taste appear at a heist. The leader calls her Kuroba Chikage, and Aoko feels a frisson of fear mixed with anger as she realises that these are the people she's been looking for. She lets herself fall backward off the roof before he can make good on the threat of shooting her, and barely spares enough time for a glance upwards to check that the grappling hook is working properly before she's relaying the information to Jii and asking him to tail the men. (Aoko wants to scoff at the possibility of a gem which cries immortality, but after Akako she's inclined to give it at least the benefit of the doubt.)
A high school detective starts appearing at her heists, though fortunately Masumi Sera doesn't appear to have any intention of transferring to Ekoda High — Aoko isn't sure that she can continue to keep her secret secret if that had happened. (Also fortunately, Aoko realises that Sera is a girl before either her dad or Jii does.)
.
Heists get noticeably more difficult when Sera is around.
Not that she doesn't like the detective. (Aoko is actually pretty sure that they'd get along well if they met outside of heists, although that's not likely to happen anytime soon.)
But Sera sees through her plans more often than not and acts on them rather decisively (and somewhat violently — after Aoko sees footage of Sera taking down some gangsters in Beika with her Jeet Kune Do, she makes a note to keep a minimum radius of three feet away whenever possible). The only time she's felt more challenged than this had been that nightmare of a heist at the clock tower, and that's saying something.
Between trying to outwit Sera and not get shot by Snake's goons, though, there's no way Aoko is letting Jii take her place if she can help it.
So she sets up multiple contingency plans for each heist that Sera attends, and puts on a bulletproof vest under the shirt because no way is she trusting some jewel to keep a bullet away from her heart, even if Snake is dumb enough to aim for it time and again.
Things settle — or more accurately, teeter and wobble about — a new, considerably more tentative normal. Aoko gets less and less sleep every night, either staying up to finish elaborate heist plans far in advance of the heist or being kept awake by dreams when she isn't. There's something of a vicious cycle between the two, vivid images of her being caught red-handed by her father only to see him shot at Snake's hand fuelling her need to double- and triple-check her plans for every heist, but she can't seem to break it.
Aoko knows she's being paranoid enough that even Jii is looking at her askance, but it's not until Keiko insists on having a sleepover ("where you actually get some sleep, Aoko!") that she finally acknowledges that something needs to change.
She just doesn't expect it to happen so soon.
.
Aoko runs up the last flight of stairs and across the roof before pausing to catch her breath.
(This phantom thief thing is better exercise than any other sport she's encountered, frankly speaking. She's pretty sure that her gym grades have improved by leaps and bounds, if nothing else.)
She waits until she hears a familiar set of footsteps approaching before fishing out a card from her chest pocket, one she'd found tucked in neatly under the gem.
Sera Masumi, it says in neat blocks of kanji, followed by a handphone number.
Aoko turns to face the detective, holding the card between two fingers. "Is this an invitation, Sera-tantei?"
"Perhaps," Sera answers cheerfully. "You know, if you ever feel like talking about everything. Just a girls' day out."
There's a voice changer in her Kid mask, and a backup one as a choker around her neck — when she speaks during heists it's in a male voice, but no one but her dad and the Task Force still believes that the Kaitou Kid is a man. (She loves her dad very much, but he must be turning a blind eye to the facts if even Snake has figured it out.)
Strangely enough, Sera's never made mention of this to anyone on the Task Force, but if this is a trick of some sort...
The suspicion must show in her posture, because Sera grins, and the almost predatory glint in her eyes changes to something more playful. "I won't arrest you, I promise. Detective's honour."
Aoko has to admit that the idea is terribly tempting. "And if I have a certain problem that might require your assistance, would you provide it?"
"Absolutely." Sera's still watching her from across the rooftop, and hasn't even made any move to stop her from escaping. "So, how about it, Kid-san?"
"It's a date!" Aoko finds herself calling back cheerfully, and she spends the rest of the night and a fair part of the next morning alternating between mortification and anticipation at the memory of Sera's laugh echoing on the roof, thumb and pinky stuck out in the universal gesture for call me.
iv.
They meet at a park halfway between Ekoda and Beika. Aoko gives Sera the card back — or tries to, at any rate.
Sera doesn't even glance at it before shaking her head. "Keep it. It's yours."
Aoko tucks it back into her pocket, feeling strangely calm despite the fact that she's all but proven herself to be the Kaitou Kid. "So? Am I who you expected?"
"If you're asking whether I suspected your identity, then yes. You have above average intelligence and physical ability, but you're not as well-versed in magic as the previous incarnations of Kid." Sera's been ticking off points on her fingers, but here she pauses and looks at Aoko almost sheepishly. "I have to admit, I didn't consider you at first. It only occurred to me later that the daughter of the Task Force's leader was virtually above suspicion, and could therefore do whatever she wanted..."
Sera's gaze turns sharp. "But that's not why you're doing this, is it?"
"No." Aoko knows well enough to expect the burn behind her eyes by now, and she blinks it away before continuing. "No, I wouldn't do something like this without a good reason."
"Care to explain? I think this is a story I'd be interested to hear."
"It's a long one." Aoko waves one hand towards a nearby bench, and takes a thermos out from her bag with the other. "Do you like hot chocolate?"
(As it turns out, Sera is more of a coffee person, but she's also a really good listener. She promises to look into what she can find about the activities of Snake's organisation, and to wear a bulletproof vest to the next heist.
Aoko sleeps better that night.)
.
She ends up meeting most of Sera's friends in Beika: a karate champion (her own double take is mirrored by Ran, to Sera's immense amusement), the Suzuki family's daughter who also happens to be a loyal Kid fan (Aoko thinks she deserves the small warm glow of pride she feels at learning the second fact), and yet another detective.
(Aoko thinks that she manages to hide her reaction to seeing Kudo Shinichi in person quite well, all things considered — thanks to Sera's warning beforehand and a few newspaper pictures — but Ran still pulls her aside for a quiet conversation later, and Aoko tells her the truth.
Ran listens quietly, nods, and offers tissues and a hug when she's finished; there is compassion in her eyes but no real understanding. And Aoko is glad, that she has not had to know the constant gaping presence of an absence two steps to the right and too far away.)
They're at a coffeeshop. Shinichi's the only one drinking black coffee (or "acid", as Ran had called it with a long-suffering expression which made it quite clear that they'd had more than one argument about this before), the rest of them have fancy drinks with whipped cream on top that Sonoko ordered and insisted on paying for.
(Aoko really likes hers, actually. She makes a mental note to ask Sonoko what it's called, though from what little she's seen of the other girl it's likely to be some special order not listed on the menu.)
Later, under the cover of conversation, Sera leans over to murmur in her ear. "You've met Kudou-kun once before, you know? At the clock tower."
Aoko stares at her, wading through memories of blue roses and — oh. "He was the one in the helicopter? The one who shot at me?" she asks in a low hiss.
"Well, the official files say that Megure-keibu fired those shots, but..." Sera's eyes are comically wide, but Aoko's pretty sure that she suspected the truth before this anyway. "I think payback would be perfectly justified here."
Sera chuckles when Aoko levels the full force of her glare at Shinichi, who lasts about thirty seconds before turning to look at both of them.
Aoko turns up the glare a bit more.
"Oi, Sera?" Shinichi is getting nervous, Aoko can see it. "Did I do something to annoy Nakamori the younger?"
Sera just laughs even harder.
.
They end up making plans to watch a movie next weekend.
Sera says that she has some information to pass on, and Aoko isn't meeting Keiko and the others on that day anyway, so she agrees.
It turns out to be quite an enjoyable few hours even with the leaden weight of Sera's files on Snake on her mind, until someone gets murdered right after the credits.
Both detectives are up and running before Aoko fully registers the scream, and if she'd still had any doubt about Shinichi being a very different person from Kaito they are quickly dismissed as she watches him work. He examines the scene with a dispassionate focus, and doesn't even flinch when examining the victim's wound.
(Kaito had worn that same expression of intent whenever he got particularly engrossed in a trick, but there was always emotion running underneath.)
After the criminal is led away, Sera tells Aoko that between one afternoon at the coffeeshop and a movie, this is the longest they've gone before a murder happening with both detectives around.
(Aoko dearly hopes that Sera is just joking, but judging from Ran's and Sonoko's reactions, along with Division One's obvious familiarity with them... she's really glad she doesn't live in Beika.)
.
At the next heist, she meets another man whose dyed blond hair and overly high-powered lenses loudly proclaim disguise to her newly trained eyes.
Aoko never does find out who he really is, but she learns that he protects Sera more fiercely than he does anything else, and that he is very, very good at what he does.
later:
It's two years later when everything ends, with a fake stone that still bleeds carmine red in her hands (some invention of a little scientist, Sera had called it).
She wakes up in a hospital bed with police sirens still ringing in her ears, and the sight of a familiar face inches from her own.
"Sera-san?"
"You feeling alright?" The detective grins at her half-nod, half-wince. "It'll get better soon, I promise. There's a person here to see you, by the way."
Aoko fumbles for the remote, and levers the top half of the bed upwards just in time to see Sera usher in someone.
The light in the room is low — it must be either very late or very early, Aoko notes absently, because the corridors are quiet and empty — but there's no mistaking those features. "Kudo-kun?"
But then a far more familiar grin appears, one that says not-Shinichi like a blaring neon light. "Wrong one. Jeez, did you get dumber while I was away?"
Her heart skips a beat in disbelief. "Kaito?"
She gets leveled with an unimpressed glare — and okay, that is entirely familiar on Shinichi's face and this one. "What, you know someone else with this face?"
Sera rolls her eyes somewhere in Aoko's peripheral vision, and leans forward to stage whisper exaggeratedly to possibly-Kaito. "Just go ahead and hug her, moron."
"Yes, ma'am," he says, and suits action to the letter.
Aoko gasps when the scent hits her — how could she have forgotten this, like someone had introduced a fireworks display to a sweet factory and built a birdhouse on top of it — and wraps her arms around him.
Kaito squirms out of her embrace before she can fully catalogue the feel of him between her arms, shoulders pointy and awkward. "Don't overdo it, idiot. I heard you injured your shoulder falling down. Clearly you're still a klutz."
She glares at him, though the effect is probably rather spoiled by the heat she can feel welling up behind her eyes. "Get me a mop, will you, Sera-san?"
Sera snickers in a distinctly sinister manner as she ambles out of the room, and Kaito watches her go before turning back to Aoko with wide, mock-horrified eyes. "A mop? Do I want to know what you plan to do with that?"
"Pin you to the wall so you won't disappear again, you stupid moron!" she half yells, and only when Kaito's eyes widen in genuine alarm does she realise that she's crying as she says it. Aoko wipes at the tears angrily with the back of a hand — she'd promised herself that she wouldn't cry over this idiot again, damn it, and she isn't about to break that now —
A box of tissues appear in front of her with a soft pop, and she grabs three pieces before looking up at Kaito's face.
"Hello, I'm Kuroba Kaito," he says, and his face is grave and somber and nothing like the Kaito she once knew.
(But that's okay, she thinks, because she isn't the Aoko he got to know either. They'll survive, somehow.)
"And I'm not going anywhere ever again." Another pop and a familiar blue rose appears, and he leans over and carefully tucks it in her hair. "Not unless you tell me to."
Aoko sniffles, dabbing her eyes dry — she caught the movement when he produced the rose this time, but only because she was watching (he's still miles better at this than she is). "Promise?"
"I promise. Kaito's honour."
"Okay." She pulls him into a hug again, and makes sure that he hears every word when she says, "Except you don't actually have any honour, bakaito."
He squawks in indignant rage right next to her ear (which, okay, ouch) and her face feels like it's going to split from grinning so widely, but it's worth it.
.
(Later, they will tell each other stories of the years they missed; later there will probably be arguments, loud ones, because an absence like this is not one that can be swept under the rug just like that — but at least there can be a later to hold on to, and for now Aoko is content to revel in the feeling of an absence impossibly reversed, here in the dawn of a new day.)