The Girl with the Wild Brown Hair
What do you do when you couldn't piece your words together to say it to the one you love?
Besides the miserable humid weather, summer wasn't that bad.
There were certain perks to it. First thing first was the grand school holiday that Aoko could enjoy, provided she finished her assignments, which she did so two days after school was out. Second, summer was somewhat her good prime excuse to use for... dropping by at Kaito's house on random occasions. She would rather let the heat suffocate her to death than admitting that she favored his company out of all things, and the matter of rejection wasn't something she thought she could handle well enough.
So! Here she was, doing what she does best by bursting into his home with a bag of ice pops she bought from the convenience store. There was a good bulk sale going on and she thought she could use this reason and offer her generosity to Kaito. The my-fans-broke-down excuse had been used twice this week. She needed fresh ideas.
Instead of the usual conversation-starter; "Why are you here?", what welcomed her instead was the sound of repetitive tapping coming from the living room. Aoko kicked off her shoes and tiptoed across the hall, and once she spotted Kaito sitting on the couch, her eyes blinked as his rare concentrated gaze peered into his laptop, his nimble hands running across the keyboards.
She didn't realize she had been staring until Kaito glanced up from his computer to look at her. Without letting a second pass, he slammed his laptop shut and nonchalantly dumped it onto the pillow next to him, as if he couldn't give a care about it. But Aoko begged to differ. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head suspiciously.
"What are you doing?" She dragged her words loud and clear. What on earth could he be typing so furiously into the computer for?
"Homework, obviously." Kaito stifled a yawn and took the remote from the coffee table to switch the TV on.
"Yeah, right. Like I'll believe that." Aoko eyed over at the laptop for one last time and scoffed. "There is no way you'll ever be so focused on homework, at least not until two hours before school starts."
He sighed at the TV screen, still switching the channels since everything that was being broadcasted during this late afternoon were either reruns or boring documentaries. "Is that it? Besides breaking down of fans and borrowing my ice cubes, the reason why you came today is because you want to insult me?"
She waved the bag in the air. "I've bought some ice pops. Thought about sharing them with you, but not anymore when you're being so unwelcoming."
Kaito instantly shot up from his seat and gestured her over at the couch with an exaggerated bow. "Please take a seat, Your Highness."
Aoko stuck out her tongue, but she couldn't hide the smile that was added behind after she was done with the tease. "You're such an idiot."
..
She stood on the roof, her cold eyes sending glares that could magically start fires. It gained his attention nonetheless, but his eyes remained fixated on the gemstone in his hand, its crystal clear surfaces reflecting the light casted from the bright moon above them.
"It'll be foolish to ask you to surrender yourself, right?" She smirked, her wild brown hair rippling in the cool breeze.
He slipped the diamond into one of his hidden pockets and mustered a poker face to hide the disappointment of knowing the treasure he stolen wasn't what he wanted. When he finished making sure his mask would be fit in place, he swirled around in his position and returned an amused gaze back at her.
"It's never foolish to try asking."
"Now I've asked." She took a step forward and he took the same step back.
"My apologies. Not today." He replied suavely before leaping over the ledge and jumping off the roof.
The last thing he saw was the flash of rage enveloping her features before he grabbed hold of the swinging ladder hanging from his get-away helicopter that came on time to fetch him.
He would trade anything in the world to wipe off that look off her face, but once he felt the cool and hard diamond against his chest, he could only think of one answer;
Not today.
..
The temperature was nearly hitting zero and the ground was covered in perfect sheets of white snow, but that didn't stop Aoko from running across the streets to get the famous Hokkaido soft serve that everyone was also queuing up for. After her purchase, she moved away from the rest of the school students and crowd and just a bit down the sidewalk, waiting for Keiko to reach her turn. She exhaled a breath of white smoke and licked her ice cream, feeling her face twisting in pure pleasure. Weirdly, her mind drifted along and she inwardly guessed if Kaito were to see her like that, he would definitely comment that she looked like a monkey.
"You look like a monkey."
Aoko flung open her eyes and turned towards the familiar voice, her mouth creaking wide open at the said man she never expected to see at the moment, sitting on a wooden and snow-powered bench and shaking his head. Her cheeks bloomed and she hoped he would mistake the result was from the cold. "I'm not going to share my ice cream with you." She spat triumphantly as she stomped over to the seat with her boots and slumped onto the seat heavily beside him.
He rolled his eyes. "Like hell I would want to eat an ice cream in the middle of winter."
"It's the culture!"
"Yeah, yeah." Kaito waved her off and a pen she didn't notice before began twirling in between his fingers. Now that she wasn't focused on being the joke, she observed the little notebook lying on his lap, the page that was shown was nearly taken up by a bunch of messy scribbles.
"What are you doing?" Aoko nodded her head over at the notebook.
"Nothing much." Kaito straightened his posture and mindlessly shrugged. "Just taking down notes."
"Notes?" She raised an eyebrow incredulously. "This is our last school trip and you're taking down notes?"
He glanced away. "Yeah."
"Oh," Aoko brightened up when realization dawned upon her. "You're writing to submit for the graduation speech application?"
Kaito turned to face her, his eyes round and wide. "What?"
"Is this the challenge that Hakuba posed to you all about? Something about winning." Aoko shook her head and licked a part of her ice cream. "No offence but I think Hakuba fits better to commence the ceremony, regardless of the content of the speech."
"Excuse me?" Kaito gritted his teeth and slapped his notebook shut. "My results are on pars with his."
"I'm talking about your conduct."
"Says the one who always stands outside the class with me."
"That was last year!"
They both snarled.
"Whatever," Aoko lifted herself off the seat and brushed the powder of snow that was stuck on the back of her jeans. "If you're going to write something, don't write anything about me."
"Wow," Kaito muttered and flicked a gaze as cold as the weather to her face. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Because it will be an embarrassment." She stalked off.
"Like hell I would write anything about you!"
She used all the nerve cells in her body to force herself to not turn back, to see if his face matched the way she imagined it would look when she thought she heard the slight hurt in his voice...
Nah. It couldn't have been.
..
The icy currents continuously crashed against his skin, freezing even the inside of his bones. He hated the cold, but that was currently the least of his concerns, when staying afloat in the middle of the bottomless ocean was his main priority. And what was even more important was to send a signal to the rescue team soon.
"Hey, don't sleep. Wake up."
Her damp and wild hair, similar like a seaweed, was sprawled messily over her face. With her eyes closed the entire time, she twisted her head and dug deep into the crook of his neck and he shivered, despite her warm breath breathing on his shoulder. For the next minute, he didn't dare to ask her to wake up anymore, in fear that when she really did, she wouldn't let him hold on to her when she clearly needed his support, just because she was a stubborn ox. As long as he could feel her breathing, it was enough.
Besides, when could he ever hold onto her like this again?
Shaking off the thought, he whipped out a torch light hidden inside the strapped life jacket she was wearing and began turning it on and off. His fingers were so numb he'd missed the rhythm for flickering the light a couple of times, but it had already done its job to gain the attention he needed.
"She's right there! Send the boat over!"
That was the cue for him to leave. He slowly let go of her arms after making sure her chin stayed above the water before slowly paddling away from her side. While he stayed hidden in the murky waters, he watched her being retrieve out from the waters and to safety, where the readied paramedics and other police officers were frantically attending to her.
Other than the cold waves, a sense of ultimate relief washed over him before he finally made some sense to swim towards the direction of his get-away boat, which he was supposed to be on half an hour ago, if this feisty woman didn't jump off the cruise ship because she thought he'd accidentally slipped off the railings.
Despite all her curses and declarations about putting him behind bars, there were times when he wasn't sure if she truly meant it or not.
..
"This is what you get for staying up late, skipping meals and sleeping with your hair wet every night."
Right at the moment when Aoko finished her last word, Kaito sneezed. He drowsily grabbed one of the dirty, used tissue to rub his nose before dumping it back to the pile on his bedside table.
"And hygiene!" She scowled and threw a brand new tissue box onto his lap. "How am I going to leave in peace while knowing that you can't take care of yourself?"
Kaito sniffed and nonchalantly waved a hand. "Don't exaggerate things. I'm fine." Contradicting, he wrapped the blanket even tighter around his body and gave a frightening shudder. "I just need a few hours of sleep, which I was going to do so before you burst into my house again."
Aoko scowled, but her worries won over her agitations as she trudged to his bed and slumped next to him. "Sorry for bursting into your house, again." She muttered, her gaze lowered to the sheets. For the past few years, she had never once wanted to admit this to him, but now there was her chance, her final chance, sort of. Either she embraced it or never bring it up again. The latter seemed easier, but her heart choose the former. "I just wanted to spend some more time with you before I go."
He shook his head, eyes droopy and lazy. "Come on, it's not like you're travelling out of space. It's just a couple-of-hours train ride. How hard is that to meet?"
There it was again, like usual, how he brushed off her words like nothing when she had earnestly poured a little bit of her heart to him. Though truthfully, what he said was indeed true. Maybe she was the only one being pessimistically sentimental. Her lips slightly tugged as she slowly nodded to his words.
She had decided to further her studies in criminology, and only one college that was designated further inside the town district gave her this opportunity. Kaito had decided to pursue his magic career with Jii, obviously. Even though they had been going to the same school since elementary, she should have known this day of separation would come, yet it somehow still turned the back of her throat sour whenever she thought about it. Kaito sure seemed unfazed about this whole issue, which was rather unfair. But then again, if he actually showed that he cared, then he wouldn't be the Kuroba Kaito she had grown up to know all along.
"I'll cook some porridge for you." Aoko leaped up from the bed and placed a hand on her hip when he showed sign of retaliation. "I don't care if you are going to mock my cooking. You're going to eat it no matter what."
Not waiting for his answer, she skipped out of his room and down the stairs, half praying that the tiny sting in her eyes would go away, and also half praying that Kaito didn't notice that part about her.
It took her around fifteen minutes to get the food done. She sighed satisfyingly at her masterpiece on the kitchen table, though her lips twitched at the thought of what petty things could Kaito say about her efforts. There were conflicted contemplations on whether to bring the food up the stairs for him, but she finally decided that he needed to get out to get a fresh of air instead of his bacteria-filled room. Yeap, a better choice.
Aoko crept up the stairs and poked her head inside his room. She blinked dumbly at the empty bed, until she stepped into the room to find Kaito sitting in front of his desk. His blanket was still heavily wrapped over his shoulders as he penned down some words on a familiar-looking notebook she often saw him carrying.
"Kaito?" She called out before ambling to his side. "What are you writing?"
He turned to look at her in mild surprise, like he didn't expect to see her at that moment, which was puzzling when she thought she made her entrance loud and clear. His two hands then stealthily reached out to cover the pages of the book as he responded monotonously. "Nothing."
She narrowed her eyes. "And you think I'll obediently believe what you say?"
"No harm trying." He smirked.
"Seriously, what are you doing?" Aoko stretched her neck to glimpse in between the spaces of his fingers.
Kaito flinched and distanced himself away from her face. Using the cruel way of shutting her off, he closed the notebook with a slap and chucked it inside his drawer. "Just taking down notes."
"Notes, again?" She rolled her eyes. "High school's long over. What notes can you write?"
"Something about this and that." He sniffed while adding a shrug.
"Hmm?" Aoko crossed her arms and peered down at him dauntingly. An idea suddenly popped in her head. "Oh. Are you writing a farewell letter for me?"
He sent her a withering look. "In your dreams, Ahouko."
I know. In my dreams. She tended to avoid bugging into his activities usually, unless her curious bug kicked in on the day. And today was that day. Aoko tugged on his blanket, jerking one side of his shoulder. "Are you hiding something from me?"
His eyes grew cautious all of the sudden. "Everyone has secrets."
She pursed her lips and returned him an equally careful gaze. A moment of silence ensued, and for some odd reason, the portrait of Kaito's father hanging on the wall behind her gave her a form of uneasiness she couldn't comprehend. She took in a deep breath and spoke again. "Then what is yours?"
He paused for a while, unblinking at the staring contest. Only when she gave up and broke the eye contact then Kaito answered, with a grin that she didn't know if she should take it seriously or not. "They aren't secrets anymore if I tell you."
"Fine," Aoko scoffed and turned away with a slight huff. "I'm not interested anyway."
"Good. And stay that way." He stated solemnly, standing up from his seat. She stepped back in slight shock, unsure if her stunned silence came from his sudden, uncharacteristic heavy tone or the way he stood right before her, so close that she could smell his scent. Aoko gulped and scratched the side of her cheek to dispel the weird feeling swirling within her.
"Uh, anyway. Your porridge is ready." She mumbled into her hand. "That's what I wanted to say."
Kaito turned his back towards her to toss his blanket onto the bed, and as if it was a sort of switch, his cold demeanor turned back to his original warm ones that Aoko recognized. In an instant, they fell back to the old teasing routine; He rubbed his chin playfully and began muttering about how this would probably be the last time he tasted her burnt crisp of death, for which she jabbed him in the abdomen as a reply.
They descended the stairs together, their previous tension completely forgotten.
No matter how old they grew up to be, she hoped this part of them would never, ever change.
..
He knew this would come sooner or later because she had always been too smart for her own good. Or maybe he was too careless around her because she always caused the chaos in his mind and taken away the ability for him to think straight. He'd already counted himself lucky that his lies could cover up for so long, but that was the problem. Why not continue lying? Either buck up and make a better lie or not lie at all if he was going to fail in the end. Both situations were a ton better than being stuck in the middle, unable to move forward or backward. It was the worst thing that could happened- No. It came in a close second after the moment of breaking her heart.
Her wild brown hair flowed gently with the wind on the hospital roof, one of the nature's way to make him enchanted by the way she could look so effortlessly, even if she always thought otherwise. He would choose to stare at her for his entire lifetime, but not when her eyes were looking at him this way.
"Why?"
He could tell there were so much things she wanted to say, but her quivering lips prevented any more words to spill out. She clenched onto her chest, twisting her clothes and causing it to wrinkle under her tough grasp.
There was an uncomfortable tightness crushing his throat and he swallowed hard to get rid of it. With nothing else he thought he could do, he simply muttered out "I'm sorry," before he rubbed his neck to ease the pain. Something inside his body was rupturing his ribcage or lungs or maybe his heart, and he was tempted to clutch onto his shirt like what she was doing to hers. Maybe… maybe she was feeling the same way as he was too.
"Why didn't you tell me?" She sobbed.
"I couldn't." He lowered his head and raised a hand to touch the bullet graze wound in his abdomen, now bandaged and properly tended to. He shouldn't be walking around or even standing, with the amount of blood he lost from bleeding at the back of the alley and also on her car seat when she found and sent him to the hospital.
"You couldn't?" She snarled, her face displayed the hurt, oh the hurt.
"I don't want you to be involved." He admitted willfully. They were on the move now, much more active than before, and this was the result of his attempt in confronting them for the third time. "I don't want this to happen to you."
She looked at him, confused. "Is this your way of protecting me?"
It was unsettling when she phrased it this way. Maybe it was because everything was so bluntly obvious, yet he didn't want to admit it so straightforwardly. Yes, he wanted to protect her. Then again, in what kind of position? As a criminal? As a friend? As a…
"You think you're protecting me." She shook her head, continuing when he didn't answer. "But you have no idea how much you've hurt me, in a way that I never imagine you could ever too."
His eyes widened. No. No. No. "I'm-
She turned away, to prevent him from seeing the tears running down her cheeks. "I don't- I don't know if I hate you because you're a criminal, or because you lied to me." Her breath hitched and she nearly choke. "I don't even know if I hate you or…"
He waited for her answer. He could wait for an eternity for her to finish that sentence he needed to hear, selfishly for his own sake. But she didn't complete it. Instead, she daringly faced him, the image of her tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.
"I- I can't see you now." She turned away again. "I need time."
It all ultimately ended like this. He closed his eyes and felt his heart stop beating for a second. "Okay." He slowly nodded his head and stepped back, giving her one last glance. "I'll go."
And so he went.
..
The sound of the uneven footsteps coming from the corridor sent Aoko pinching the bridge of her nose. She knew in an instant whose it belonged to, based on her deduction and the familiarity of hearing it for the near three years. Before the banging fist and tearing down of her dorm door could possibly happen, she abandoned her ongoing thesis aside and opened the door.
Keiko's half-raised hand stopped in mid-air as she tilted her head sideways in a robotic fashion before grinning from ear to ear. "I knew you'll always have my back."
Aoko shook her head and took her best friend's arm to help her in, the faint alcoholic scent was most likely going to get on her shirt too. "How's the party?"
"You should have gone." Keiko said, trying to sound as sober as she could. "Everyone was asking about you."
"Did they?" Aoko drawled and let Keiko slump onto the bottom bed of the bunk, which belonged to the latter. She then went to get a glass of warm water from their little kitchen and passed it to Keiko.
"It's as if I'm your personal assistant or some sort, giving everyone updates about your life." Keiko accepted the glass of water with a muttered thanks behind. "But really, it would be even better if you're there."
"Who knows?" Aoko snorted and slumped onto the bedsheets next to Keiko. "But someone has to open the door for us or we'll be sleeping in the corridor till next morning."
"Don't make it sound like we're some drunk and irresponsible people." Keiko rolled her eyes before glancing at Aoko's wild looking desk, the thick books towering high up and stacks of paper pilling against each other. "You're way too good for that."
"Well, maybe I would've gone if the deadline for my thesis isn't near." Aoko stretched and felt her back cracked.
"Really? As if that was the reason." Keiko set the glass of water on the bedside table, looking a little more freshened up. Aoko inwardly groaned. She was half hoping that Keiko would leave the conversation for tomorrow, but she knew the chances were low when she noted the flicker of light from Keiko's spectacles. "Kaito-kun didn't attend the gathering as well."
The mention of his name ached her heart much lesser now, compared to two years ago. Still, it left a twinge in her chest and she doubt it would go away anytime soon. She cleared her throat and swiped her hair across her shoulder unnecessarily, a little act she used to prolong just one second of the time to clear her mind. "He must be a busy man."
"Must be." Keiko agreed before she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at whatever thought that appeared in her mind. Aoko had a pretty bad feeling about the next sentence Keiko was going to speak- "Are you two still keeping in contact?"
Conversation over, Aoko declared in her head as she trudged her way back to her seat after she replied the question with a lazy shrug.
Birds of the same feather flocked together, perhaps; Keiko's stubbornness was just as high as Aoko's level. She wobbled her way to Aoko and leaned against her desk with crossed arms. "I know you love Kaito-kun, but can't you at least be a little un-selfish with your love and share some bit of information instead of hiding it from me?"
Aoko would have cut Keiko's sentence if she wasn't spending her time gaping at Keiko, completely stunned out of words. She dropped the pen she had picked up from the table in an accused manner and hollered. "What nonsense are you talking about?!"
"While we were reminiscing those memories in high school, it suddenly got me thinking back about your relationship with Kaito. Something happened between the two of you, right?" Keiko frowned and tapped her chin. "Actually it wasn't just me. Everyone was talking about it; That the two of you got together. Broke up. Patch up. Secretly married. Adopted three kids. Something along the line."
"Please, please tell me you've corrected them." Aoko groaned, rubbing a tired eye. "Nothing made sense. Not even the first part of the fabricated storyline and you should know it."
"Really?" Keiko paused and leaned forward, looking straight into Aoko's eyes. "There's nothing?"
"No." Aoko's heart squeezed at the moment when her words fell out and she scooted her chair nearer to the desk and away from Keiko's face. Her eyes set upon her essay and a wave of exhaustion flooded her system, the temptation to let her head fall on the table and sleep right away was so high. Perhaps she could give herself a cheat day and get five hours of sleep instead of three. But with Keiko's pestering and the nagging throb in her heart, she doubt it would work out.
"Realllllllyyyyyy?" Keiko chimed.
"Yeeeeesssss."
"Fine." She grumbled and headed to the bathroom. "I'll spare you the agony for tonight. I know that in your mind, you're begging for me to spare you from any more questions."
"It seems those Psychology lectures is working well for you, huh?"
"No, it's because I'm your best friend, silly." Keiko rolled her eyes before closing the door behind her.
.o.
"It's here! It's finally here!"
The shrilling scream immediately jolted Aoko up from her bed. Darn it, just when she was about to doze off to her sleep after her completion of her assignments in the wee morning. She drowsily sat up and stared down from the top bunk, watching Keiko dancing with a small parcel in her hands.
"What is that?" Aoko ruffled her already messy hair and squinted her eyes to see, not like it helped.
"It's the book I've pre-ordered several months ago! I've been waiting for this for years. Literally!" Keiko raised the book in the air like she was holding her baby. "You have no idea how much I've suffered all these while."
"No wonder you've been volunteering to open the mailbox recently." Aoko scoffed. "I hope you didn't forget mine?"
"Of course not. You have one." Keiko pointed at a lone mail lying pathetically on the small dining table. She placed the wrapped parcel beside it and tore the wrapper away, revealing a black hardcover book with white bolded letters as the title, but from Aoko's view, she couldn't decipher the words.
"Why are you even reading books?"
Keiko glanced at her, horrified. "And why are you not?"
"I have enough articles and notes to read. Why would I want to spend my remaining available brain cells on books?"
"Yes. And so, you made the wiser choice by spending even more brain cells on something redundant like Sudoku." Keiko scorned sarcastically and rolled her eyes. "As a representative of my fandom, I hereby tell you we're offended."
"Fan… what? Fandom?" Aoko refrained from further comment and held her tongue when Keiko snapped a look over her direction. Shaking her head, she climbed the short ladder down from bunk and to the floor to get her own mail when she knew Keiko was too much busy goggling over her book to entertain her for now.
It was the letter for her phone bill. What a bummer. She tore the envelope open and shook the letter out, though her attention was still stuck on Keiko. Ever since she started school, her curious bug had been activated at a much frequent rate than before.
Keiko had moved across the room and sat on the lone bean bag situated at the corner. In mere seconds, she was already on the second page.
"What is the book about?" Aoko couldn't help but asked.
"This is the third in the series." Keiko's eyes displayed more focus than her voice. "Maybe you'll hate it, I don't know. The protagonist is an anti-hero. The other side of law and justice." She finally looked up from the book. "Someone like Kaitou Kid."
That word struck her as hard as how a truck could possibly hit her. Aoko dumbly nodded, fully understanding as she glanced away to stare at the bill she had successfully taken out, but a weird force had unknowingly sapped out her entire energy that she felt tired all of the sudden and the letter slipped off her finger, falling onto the ground.
"Aoko?" Keiko raised an eyebrow, the book was set aside at the moment. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." She mustered a smile and picked up the letter to slot it back into the envelope. "Can I see the previous two series? If you have them with you."
"You're… interested?" Keiko blinked in surprise.
Aoko licked her dry lips and nodded to the answer. Long ago, two years to be exact, she had listened to what Kaito had to say about his other identity. She didn't have the heart to correct Keiko, about how she no longer really hated Kaitou Kid after coming to light about his true motivations behind his act, which probably only a handful of people knew. But at the same time, she couldn't accept the fact about how much she had been lied to just for him to cover up the truth. Did the truth weigh heavier than the trust they had between them?
Someone like Kaitou Kid. Maybe based on those books… she could manage to read those underlying emotions that Kaitou- Kaito often showed to her. He was basically an anti-hero, huh? Close enough?
Keiko left her book on the floor and jumped up from her seat, scrambling hastily to her tiny shelves that stored a couple of her treasures, which Aoko probably only glanced at five times since the past years they had been living in the same dorm together.
They sat around the dining table as Keiko eagerly spread the two books out. The first one looked very worn out and spider-cracked with age. Aoko pointed this fact out loud.
"This came out around the end of our first year in high school, can you believe it?" Keiko caressed the tattered book and giggled, for who-knows-what-reason. "The second came out a while after graduation. And now I'm reading the third one!"
"The interval is pretty long." Aoko noted.
"You'll close an eye about it when the books are so good." Keiko squealed. "The first one was completely sold one just a week after it was put on the shelves, in case you didn't know."
Aoko really didn't know. She was probably too busy loathing Kaitou Kid back then to care about novels and fictional books. She stared at the cover and its title.
The Girl with the Wild Brown Hair.
Shrugging to herself, she flipped the book and began on the first page, which wasn't technically the first page but the dedication page. This obviously showed the negative sign of how often she actually read fictional books-
And then her eyes grew wide.
To A, who always burst into my house for the silliest reasons.
The temperature in the room dropped to the point it gave her a shudder. Her knuckles tightened around the book, eyes glued at the page till the words no longer made sense to her brain. Aoko touched the letters, feeling the little prints on her finger and without a word, she grabbed the second book Playing with Fire and flipped to the first page again.
For A. It's hard not to write about you.
"... Aoko…? Aoko!"
"Uh- Huh?"
"Are you alright?" Keiko furrowed her brows in concern and set a hand on Aoko's shoulder. "You don't seem yourself."
Still distracted, Aoko blankly muttered "There's one more," out loud before she stood up abruptly from her seat, the chair nearly the toppling back. She sprinted to the beanbag where Keiko left the third book The Stranger She Knows on the floor and flipped back to the first page.
Her heart sank to the bottom of the Earth.
Keiko appeared before her and chuckled after peering at what Aoko was staring at. "Don't tell me before you read the books, you're already intrigued about A?"
Aoko dazedly passed the book back to Keiko. "It isn't anything special…"
"You're so wrong about that." Keiko remarked sternly. "The first two books were pretty dark and intense and believe it or not, the only light-hearted thing about the series was the dedication page, about A. And everyone ended up being curious and we even got this conspiracy forum just for it." She then looked down to sigh heavenly at the page. "With this, I bet the forum is going to get flooded again."
"The author." Aoko raised her head sharply and snatched the book from Keiko's grasp again. She turned to the spine and the words embodied in white on the black cover showed the author's name; PT. Kite.
Taking notes my ass.
"Even with your skilled deduction, you'll never know who the author is. It would be an insult to the fandom when we'd been guessing for most of our life." Keiko placed a hand theatrically over her chest. "The author refused to reveal him or herself to public. I think I'll cry if I ever know."
Aoko could only force a smile.
To spend the rest of her day, Aoko packed the two books Keiko was willing to lend and headed out of the dorm. She needed to be somewhere who wouldn't give out spoilers or disturb her peace, and the only place out of the entire Earth she decided to choose was there.
She managed to buy one of the few leftover tickets for the noon-hour train and took the opportunity of the long ride to read The Girl with the Wild Brown Hair. This should be a piece of cake when she'd read books twice or thrice as thick as this. But the problem happened even before Aoko could start, when she had already spent a couple of minutes digesting just the words of the title. At the rate she was going, she would finish this next year.
Focus. Focus.
If Kaito really wrote this book, and if he happened to portray himself as the main protagonist, then the female character or the so called girl with the wild brown hair got to be her, right? The thought of how she was possibly written into a character of a story, part of her was a little… conflicted. She had never told anyone, not even her father, about her encounters with Kid. Heck, she didn't even mention anything about it to the real counterpart of the thief. Now what? Was their story being broadcasted to the whole world?
Furious and… confused.
She held onto her emotions for the first four chapters, at the same time trying to pick out the point of similarity, but she found more difference than she expected. The female character was introduced as an Inspector at the start of the story, transferred to replace another retired Inspector and being in charge of the squad. She was confident in her talent, well-liked at first glance and completely nothing like Nakamori Aoko. The anti-hero wasn't similar in many ways to Kaitou Kid either. He was a permanent member in the same squad, used guns and weapons to fulfil his deeds, targeted loots that weren't only diamonds or gemstones and he didn't have any knowledge about magic.
And the last, most important difference;
The anti-hero liked the female character at first sight.
By the six chapter, Aoko was more confused than angry. Shouldn't authors be writing what they knew? Since Kaito loved magic, she thought he would've incorporated some part of it into the book, but there was completely nothing about it. Most of the terminologies and aspects within the police force were accurate, as far as she knew, but why?
When she reached the eighth chapter, she was too engross in the story to care.
She finished the book just a few minutes before the bullet train arrived at her station.
Keiko was right. It was so good. This was definitely a reason why the books were cleared within the first week of being put up on sale, but why didn't Kaito tell her any of this? So that she wouldn't suspect that he was Kaitou Kid? It was a little hard to link the relation anyway, but this was the only reason Aoko could think of at the moment. She stared at the cover, lost in thoughts for the remaining time until the train finally reached her destination.
.o.
It had been ages since she'd been back. Aoko mused for a moment and calculated the exact answer was nearly two years.
The clock tower still stood proud and tall till this day, all because the demolition plan was foiled in the end. She easily piece the puzzle and clues together by herself and knew the credit belonged to Kaitou Kid, whereas Kuroba Kaito, a normal citizen, then happened to ride along with the good fact and was just an unfeeling jerk. That was what her past young and foolish teenager self once thought. Everything changed when she knew about his other identity.
Just a short distance away, there was this tourist populated café that Aoko used to love hanging out back in those high school days. Her smile bloomed even bigger when she skipped inside the café and noticed nothing much had changed, saved for the addition few seats here and there. It was good to know that something back at her familiar hometown still hadn't change.
Aoko ordered her coffee and waited patiently at the side of the counter till her named was being called. She collected her drink and made her way to one of the few available seats and begun her original plan. Being here, the place she'd chosen to be in the world. The memorable tower just ahead, the fragrance of her coffee, the book she was determined to read…
By the time she finished Playing with Fire, half of her coffee was left cold and the natural light from outside had diminished and was replaced by street lamps and shops. This was probably the first time she'd broken her record of reading so slowly, but it couldn't be helped when there were some part of the story that made her stop for a full fifteen seconds before she could read on, though it wasn't because her eyes were tired or she was getting bored.
This story was starting to feel like the words Kaito couldn't say or would never say… to her.
She flipped to one of the pages she had made a little dog-ear and begin reading the same paragraph again. It was the scene when the anti-hero realized his own father and himself were the reason why the female character's father was never part of her life, due to an accident that led him to lose his memories and start a new family elsewhere. A totally different context with two different reasons for two different things, but the guilt and remorse the anti-hero felt was the same, and Aoko understood and sympathized so much.
Besides rekindling the loneliness she once felt whenever she came back to an empty house after high school, it brought her a new light.
A light of forgiveness.
The book closed again.
She checked the train schedule online and knew it was too late for her to catch the last ride. There was coincidentally no lectures or meetings tomorrow, so at least she could spare today and the next away from school for a while. All she needed was to send a text back to Keiko.
The lights here were sparse compared to her college that was situated in the middle of a populated town. With a lift of her head, Aoko could count quite a number of stars and she smiled, just a tiny little bit, when she spotted a shape that the stars had formed in the sky. Kaito once told her of the name of this constellation before, but she couldn't remember.
Maybe she could ask him again.
Before she reached her old home, she decided to drop by at a bookstore. Not to be boosting but her talent of reading and absorbing fast was something Keiko was really jealous of. And knowing that, Aoko knew Keiko would never lend her The Stranger She Knows until she finished it, and it would be way too long for Aoko to wait. Just to try her luck, she made the choice to see if she could buy the book for herself.
The bookstore was nearly empty and was near the closing time. Aoko sent a sheepish look over to the cashier and quickly dashed inside the store to give a quick look. It was always good to set her expectation low, and when the unthinkable really happened, it was easier to be amazed and happy.
There were five copies of the book on the shelf.
"You're lucky." The storeowner said and added a wink after Aoko picked one of the books and approached the counter for her purchase. "That was from the last carton we have. Come here the next day and it'll be all sold."
If it was true that she was lucky, she wished her lady luck would stay with her till tomorrow at the least.
She took a detour just to make sure she wouldn't past a certain house to reach her own. It wasn't because of any childish hate or rebuke, just that she wasn't ready to see him if he were there to see her. With the third book unread, she would rather take things on the caution side and understood all the facts first before she act on it.
And that was what she did. She spent the entire night staying up on the couch and read till the next morning.
The book started off with the female character knowing of the anti-hero's betrayal and everything was almost closely and eerily similar to what happened between them. He fought for his justice his own way while the female character did her methods. Contacts were broken, no more talking, no more messaging, no more funny video calling, no more anything. It was almost as if the female character ceased to exist in his life, but despite of that, she still heavily remained for the rest of the book, in the thoughts of the anti-hero.
Once she finished the book, she was instantly craving for more. The last chapter was a bit weird, as if the whole series had already ended, but it couldn't have been, when there wasn't a solid happy ending for the two. Besides that, the anti-hero hadn't even fulfilled his mission in stealing the eight treasures his father left for him to find. So far in the three books, only three had been successfully retrieved. And based on this fact, it was highly probable that there would there be five more novels before the series come to an end.
Aoko wanted to ask him.
True to what he mentioned of her, she used this reason (the silliest reason) to drop by his house once again. She spent five minutes dolling her hair up, five minutes pacing around her room, five minutes to walk to his house and five minutes trying to keep her heart beating at a steady rate. And after using up all the possible excuses she could give herself to delay meeting Kaito, she finally managed to force herself to properly stand outside his doorstep and ring the bell.
It was very quiet. She couldn't hear any movement inside.
She rang the bell again, and again. Until five minutes was up.
Kaito wasn't at home.
Aoko tentatively took out a book she was hiding behind her back all along, hoping to somehow surprise the author once the door opened, but it never did, and it still remained close no matter how much she prayed. She grudgingly sighed and pondered if her lady luck had left her last night.
She peeled open The Stranger She Knows and flipped it to the dedication page, the one factor that brought her to where she was now.
Dedicated to A. I miss you so, so much.
.o.
She didn't have Kaito's contact, and the only place she knew where to look was here. Two years since she was here and two years it remained the same. It formed a much bigger smile than the one she gave yesterday after knowing about the cafe near the clock tower didn't change. Comparably, Jii's bar was way much important to her.
The Blue Parrot sign wasn't lit up at the moment, obviously when it was still mid-day. Pushing back those thoughts, she stepped in.
Her entrance was surely loud enough, when her exposed toe from her sandal accidentally kicked the potted plant she didn't notice before and she gave a yelp, earning enough attention from two men that were playing billiard at the corner of the room, along with a bartender.
That very bartender gasped.
"Aoko-san…?"
Jii, standing behind the bar counter, widened his eyes at the sight of her, the cloth in his hand slipped from his fingers and fell onto the ground.
She couldn't hide the excitement in her voice. "Jii-san!" She greeted merrily like how she always did in the past. When the same, weird reaction from Jii still didn't go away, she awkwardly responded with two raised eyebrows and approached to the counter. "Did I come at a bad timing?"
"No, but-" Jii swallowed hard before he bent down to pick up the cloth. "I didn't expect you'll come here."
"Why not?" Aoko smiled earnestly. "You're always like my grandfather to me."
He looked pained despite the irony of the next sentence. "I'm happy you think of me this way."
Aoko casually slid her butt onto the seat and placed both of her arms over the cool counter. She didn't bother to hide her fidgety thumbs and took in a deep breath, ready for the question that was stuck in her throat since morning. "Anyway… Do you know about Kaito's little hobby?"
"What?"
She pulled out the book from her bag and showed it to Jii. The latter widened his eyes, so huge and big that she suspected it might fall off anytime. She caressed the hard cover and smiled nervously at Jii when he still didn't give him a respond. "I know I'm a bit late, and honestly, you can't blame me."
There was a faint dying noise that sounded deep in his throat, one that Aoko didn't miss. "Since when did you know?" Jii asked hoarsely.
"Just yesterday, literally." Aoko bit her lips. "Keiko introduced the whole series to me at the same timing when the new book was out and I sort of deciphered everything after reading the dedication page. The author must be Kaito. PT. Kite? Phantom Thief?" Aoko chortled out loud. "Like he could fool me."
Jii was uncharacteristically quiet today.
"Anyway… how's Kaito?" Aoko rubbed the back of her neck and glanced to her side. "I've dropped by his house but there wasn't anyone."
Something caught his breath. "Kaito-botchama, he-"
She leaned forward in curiosity when Jii had paused his sentence for a long while. "He…?" She gave a little prompt.
"I'm sorry, Aoko-san." Jii took off his spectacles and placed his palm over his eyes. "I can't say it."
"Say what?" She blinked. "Is he hiding somewhere?" A hope began bubbling inside of her. "H-Have he found Pandora?"
"Kaito-botchama is dead, Aoko-san." Jii glanced away and bit his lower lips. "He's dead."
The world had gone to a slow, painful halt, no longer able to orbit. Her breathing had stopped, yet she could feel her heart pounding loudly against her chest, wanting to burst out, wanting to burst into flames. She felt her eyes sting, her nose runny, and the back of her throat famously sour like she always was when she thought of Kaito. But not like this.
No. . No. . No. .No.
Not like this.
"You're kidding, right? Jii-san." Aoko growled, her jaw trembling to the point her teeth were grinding against each other unconsciously. "It's not funny."
"I'm speaking the truth, Aoko-san. And the fact that I'm disobeying Kaito-botchama's last wish is already a sin for me, but I couldn't help it in the end." Jii stared straight into her, the tears treacherously brimming in his eyes.
Aoko cupped a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes, her tears silently fell. She tasted metal, and she forced every part of her muscle to not vomit. Not on the book, at least.
"He didn't have much time left to live when a bullet that struck the back of his skull during his very last heist. It was just a matter of a few hours before he was gone. The doctors did whatever they could, but those last hours were all he had." Jii sniffed and rubbed his eyes, his voice fading while the memories were coming back. "He spent his last finishing his manuscript before he go."
"It couldn't be. That's not possible... He couldn't just, leave." Aoko wailed, feeling all the calcium in her bones and every cells in her body dying just a little. She choked back a sob and fisted her hand, slamming the bar counter over and over again till her hand bruised. She didn't even care when she could feel the judging look coming from the two customers behind her. "Why didn't he say anything to me?"
"Kaito-botchama didn't want you to regret. He knew you would, that was why he made me promise to not tell you his passing, and to lie to you he'd gone overseas and was never coming back." Jii shook his head despondently. "But it's unfair to him. It's unfair to make you think he'd abandoned you when he didn't."
This is all… too sudden. Her hands slowly and steadily reached out for her face as she sobbed uncontrollably into both of her palm, creating a river of her own.
Jii continued. "He always talked about you, Aoko-san. Always, even after you realized he was Kid. He never stop mentioning about you, because you are the only thread he had out of the entire mess. Even though he seemed capable of independency, he relied on you more than you ever know. You gave him many lessons and things to talk and reflect about every single day, and those things were what he carried in his heart throughout his entire life." He closed his eyes, all the wrinkles exposed, along with the pain he couldn't hide. "What do you do when you couldn't piece your words together to say it to the one you love? Aoko-san, you were the love of his life, and with his dying breath, he finished his last book for you."
..
He watched her from a distance, eyes wavering at the sight of her and only her. She was sitting on the bench, enjoying her cup of take-away coffee and a book in her other hand. He knew it was Sudoku even before she took out a pencil from her jeans, because that was how well she knew about her.
This was the suffering he deserved. Watching the woman he loved from afar, unable to reach out to her because he did the wrong thing. He shouldn't have lied to her, shouldn't have let her go so easily, shouldn't have given up and walked away either. He shouldn't have done a lot of things, same for the number of things he should have done for her. Trusting her, embracing her, loving her… It took him too late to understand them.
"Please take care of yourself." He whispered in the breeze, hoping the wind would send his message for him. He stayed for a little while more, selfishly, until he saw her smile as she scribbled some numbers on her book.
It was enough for him.
He turned and walked away, this time fully knowing that it was the right thing to never look back.
..
.end.
A/n: (I remembered this was inspired by an Avengers fic, but I can't recall the title since it's been so long). I was such a destroyer to happy endings in the past so I'll relive my tradition one last time(?) So... hope you guys… enjoyed? Ha…ha…
PS: In case of any confusion, or maybe your hopeful delusion (HAHA) that this is a happy ending, NOPE. Kaito is dead. So basically, all the parts you've read and assumed were KaitouKid&Aoko were actually the two characters in Kaito's book, not them. Same goes for the very ending of this fic. So basically, the italic parts of this fic are extracts from Kaito's book. Hope it clear things up :)
Anyway, do drop a review if you hate me! And hope to see you in the (indefinite) future.