There were very few things in life that genuinely bothered Kaede, but one of them was the feeling that everyone around her was actively trying to ignore her. It wasn't something she encountered often, given that her friends all enjoyed her presence for the most part and she tried to limit interactions with people she didn't care to speak with, but when she thought she was being ignored she would get hurt, then a bit upset, and then dive into a state of anger that she'd never let show to anyone.
This was something that the people closest to her were all aware of, and that they tried to avoid having happen as much as possible. No one benefitted from seeing Kaede mad about something as easy to prevent as that, especially not the people she considered her best friends as well as her significant other. And yet, there were times where she'd start to convince herself that being ignored was what was happening, and someone would have to straighten her out, that someone most often being her dear Shuichi. "I don't know where you're getting that from, no one's ignoring you and everyone still loves you as much as they always have," he assured her upon the most recent instance of her feeling ignored. "Maybe they're all busier than normal, or they thought you weren't up to talking, but they're not ignoring you, I can promise you that."
"Okay, but you weren't there, Shuichi," she replied, puffing her cheeks out a bit as she let herself get more upset than needed about what had happened to her, before she recalled it for him. "I was just walking around the store, I totally wasn't doing anything, and both of them looked at me, then rushed away like they had something better to be doing! No one needs to do that at the mall of all places! And then, like ten minutes later, it happened with the others! I've never seen Himiko run that fast in my life!"
"For the first ones, think about who it was you saw and where you were, do you really think Maki wanted to spend more time there than necessary? As for the second ones, that's what being somewhere with Tenko does to a person I'm sure, it's nothing to do with you." Always trying to sound reassuring, Shuichi was making his best effort to ease Kaede's worries about being ignored by her friends, but he couldn't speak for everyone else and was honestly a bit curious as to what their real reasons were. "If you want, I can ask Kaito to see what was going on with him and Maki then, and you know that the others will answer you if you ask them about it."
Kaede's mouth scrunched up as she considered what he suggested, before she shook her head with a long, drawn-out sigh. "No, it's really fine. I was just…you know, kind of wishing that I had someone to keep me company while I was there. It's not fun to wander around by myself, but you weren't available and I wasn't going to invite myself into their time."
"Then who's to blame for you being excluded?" He wasn't going to explain to her that she couldn't expect to be included in things if she didn't make an effort, not when he knew she'd take that as him blaming her for her own hurt feelings (even though it was her fault), so he hoped she'd answer that question herself and move on. But the way she looked at him, her cheeks red from how she was pushing them out once more, her eyes narrowed with dried tears along her lower lashes, it was hard for him to want her to accept that she'd made a mountain out of a rather tiny molehill. "Next time you want to go somewhere, just let me know and I'll drop everything and go with you. It's what a boyfriend does, right?"
She nodded, finally letting her cheeks deflate as her spirits seemed to rise back to their normal, peppy levels. Grabbing him in a hug, she squeezed him tightly enough to nearly choke him as she said, "Sure is, thank you! I'll keep that in mind when I really want to go somewhere next!"
How much she regretted getting so excited that he'd told her that when, a few days later, she found herself growing bored with practicing the most advanced songs she had available at home and wanted to go look for some new music to try out. Getting ahold of Shuichi that day was impossible, he wasn't answering his phone and everyone she thought might be with him had gone radio silent on her as well. "Okay, so much for dropping everything to go with me, I see how it is," she grumbled, as she grabbed her things and headed back over to the mall for the second time that week by herself. She wasn't angry, or even upset, but she could feel the hurt feelings beginning to brew in her mind and it was only going to take something small to push her over the edge into convincing herself she was being ignored.
That something small came when she walked into the music store and saw two of the people who'd previously made it a point to avoid her looking at the books of piano music. Approaching them without greeting, Kaede went to say something to surprise them with her presence but one of them happened to turn around, and the almost horrified look on Tenko's face was nothing but bothersome to her. "I…wasn't aware you'd be here today," Tenko spat out, sounding slightly panicked as she spoke, glancing everywhere but at Kaede. "What brings you in here? Is this the kind of place someone like you usually goes?"
"It's the best music store in the area, so yeah, it kind of is," she replied hesitantly, thankful that Tenko actually said something to her but catching that something wasn't right with how she was being spoken to. "I should be asking you about what brings you in here, this is so far from the kind of thing you enjoy."
"We were getting an idea for what to get you for your birthday." It was Himiko who responded to that statement, her eyes never having left the shelf of piano books. "Not like we'd get anything from in here, I can't use my magic to get a discount in physical stores and we're not made of money, not like—"
"Hush, Himiko! You weren't supposed to tell her we were thinking about getting her music for her birthday!" Tenko seemed beyond flustered at her girlfriend's admittance of their motive for being there, but before Himiko had a chance to apologize for what she'd done, they were leaving the store in a hurry.
Unsure of how she was supposed to react to what had just unfolded, Kaede watched them for a moment before calling after them, "I could always use more music! It gets boring playing the same songs over and over after a while!" Her face fell as soon as the words left her mouth, the fact that they'd abandoned her like that beginning to eat at her soul. As she turned to look at the music they'd been browsing before she'd arrived, the idea that they were making an excuse to get away from her crossed her mind and she couldn't help but dwell on it. There didn't seem to be much else in the way of an explanation for such strange behavior, and she wasn't sure if she should believe what she'd been told.
By the time she was leaving empty-handed, Shuichi had messaged her in response to the missed call, explaining why he hadn't been able to answer her when she'd needed him, but she was a bit mad that he'd told her he'd drop everything for her and yet he'd chosen to focus on working on a case over seeing what she needed. Yes, his detective work was helpful in that it paid him nicely enough to let him support himself, but he had made it clear that he wanted to be there for her and still he hadn't been. His explanation was accepted though, because she didn't want to irritate him and make him think that she didn't want to spend time with him.
Going to see him was her plan as she was walking out of the mall, but that changed when she saw that Tenko and Himiko were sitting outside, in the middle of a conversation that went dead as Kaede approached them. "Did I do something to the two of you?" she asked when she saw that they'd shut themselves up as she'd approached. "Or is this just your way of saying we're not going to be friends anymore?"
"Don't be so overdramatic, Kaede, we just had somewhere else we needed to be," Tenko replied, interlacing her fingers in front of her as she saw Kaede's stance soften a bit at her words, looking a little less upset about the encounter. "I'm sorry we didn't have the time to explain this earlier but we really had to go."
Her remark, "I suppose that makes sense," came after looking between the two as they sat on the bench, Himiko playfully swinging her feet while Tenko continued having her intent stare towards her. "I don't know why I jumped to the idea of us not being friends, that would be silly, especially since you guys were there shopping for me."
"Which you're not supposed to know about, sorry." Himiko's feet stopped moving as she looked to Kaede with her usual bored expression on her face. "I hope us ruining that doesn't ruin anything else for you."
"I…don't know what else it could ruin, except me knowing what you're thinking of getting me for my birthday." Finding herself able to laugh about how stupid this whole situation was and how immature she'd admittedly been acting, Kaede did apologize to the pair for accusing them of not wanting to be friends anymore before she headed off, going straight to the little house that Shuichi called his own.
He wasn't home when she got there, but she had a spare key on her ring to let herself in, which she did without a second thought. His place was relatively empty, him rarely spending time there to warrant it having much in the way of decoration, but that made it all the more endearing to go to, because at least he didn't have a piano sitting in the middle of the living space taking up precious room. The lack of a piano was the one downside for when she was sitting there by herself, though, as it meant that she didn't have much to do to entertain herself until he arrived. She found herself looking through some of his belongings, specifically ones relating to his job and some of the cases he'd successfully solved, when she heard the door open and him come inside.
"That took a lot longer than I expected it to," he said once he'd closed the door and had taken his shoes off, working on getting his jacket on its hook as she watched him intently. "It wasn't even that difficult of a case, the client was just very, uh, adamant in talking my ear off and it would have been rude to tell her to stop."
"It's okay, I know that you can't be rude with what you do. Detective life must be so hard to live." It wasn't intentional to let a little of her earlier anger slip into what she'd said, but the moment Kaede realized she'd done it, she was covering her mouth and preventing herself from saying anything further. Yes, he had been unable to live up to his previous promise, but he hadn't been doing it on purpose and she couldn't hold it against him. "I didn't mean that," she apologized through her fingers, "I know that you would have been around for me if you'd had the choice."
Hanging his hat on top of his jacket, Shuichi chuckled at the way she seemed so ashamed of her behavior, letting it roll right off his shoulders. "I would have done everything to spend the day with you if I could have done anything, I promise you that. You know this, Kaede, it's how it's always been. I love spending time with you."
"You might be the only one who does," she said as she dropped her hands, the memory of how she'd been treated at the music store crossing her mind. "I ran into Tenko and Himiko and they were trying to avoid me again, but what else is new? Did I do something wrong to deserve all this?"
His eyes shifted towards his feet for a moment, before he chuckled again. "No, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm sure there's a reason for their behavior, you'll just have to figure it out. And by 'figure it out', I don't mean right now, just move past it and see what tomorrow holds." Reaching out towards her, Shuichi was able to get his hand on her arm before she came closer to him, their bodies colliding in a hug in which she held him tightly, while he looked blankly past her with very little in the way of returning the gesture. "I promise you everything's going to be okay, Kaede, and I mean that."
"I just want to know that my friends are still my friends, each and every one of them," she whispered, her face being pressed up against him as she continued her hug. "Tenko and Himiko and Maki, and even Kaito, all of them. I don't know what's going on and I want to know as soon as I can."
"I have a feeling you'll know soon enough." It was hard, trying to be so supportive when she was going to get upset and angry about things anyway, but the attempt to preemptively talk her down from jumping to her incorrect conclusions was about all Shuichi could do in that moment. "One day at a time, it'll work out as it's supposed to. Now can you, uh, please let go of me, you're starting to squeeze too hard."
That night had a couple hiccups in which she'd bring up what had been happening and he'd have to calm her back down over it, but overall it was a pleasant time of them being together. There was something on his mind that he couldn't shake every time he looked at her, whether she was happy or upset, and when she was about to head out for the night he took the opportunity to bring it up with her—causing her to stop dead in her tracks at the door. "I'm not going to be available tomorrow, I can't believe I just thought to tell you that now, but there's a huge case that came in as I was leaving today and they're going to need me on it all day."
"So you're going to be going back on your promise again, huh?" she asked, rage beginning to build up within her, but she swallowed it down as she knew that he couldn't help his work situation. "I guess I'll see if anyone else wants to spend time with me if I need someone, but I really wish I could be with you."
"Trust me, I wish you could be with me too, it's the kind of case that…well, I can't tell you any details, but it's not pretty." He shook his head, seeing her shoulders slumping at the lack of information she was getting. "You can always come over here after I get done, I'd be happy to have dinner with you again if you'd be interested in that."
Considering the offer for a second, Kaede chose to open the door and look back at him with eyes shining in anger. "No, I wouldn't really be interested in that right now, thanks. I'll talk to you again whenever you decide you're going to make time for me like you promised." Even though she knew it was a bad idea, she stormed outside and slammed the door behind her, heading home alone and with all the time in the world to convince herself that Shuichi was trying to avoid her just like everyone else she knew was.
She went to bed angry that night and woke up the same way, considering trying to reach out to her other friends to see if perhaps they'd fill the spot that Shuichi should have been filling. Without making an attempt she already knew that Tenko and Himiko were both off the table, because even if they decided she was worthy of their time that day she wasn't exactly eager to be around them after what they'd done to her the day before. She could have tried calling Maki, but if Maki was even available the chances were that she'd be down to do something if, and only if, Kaito was allowed to come along, and that was something that Kaede could do without. She had other friends she could try to contact, the first ones that came to mind being Kirumi and Gonta, but she figured that neither of them would be receptive to her reaching out because she was feeling ignored.
"I guess I'm just spending today alone," she grumbled, kicking her blankets off of herself and getting out of bed in a huff, dressing quickly and storming out of the room as if something in there had wronged her. Her piano called to her the moment she saw it, but she still had that itch to be playing new music, which she still hadn't gotten even with being at the music store the day before. That was entirely the fault of those girlfriends, because if it hadn't been for them talking about getting her music for her birthday (which was a couple days away, a perfect amount of time for an online order to be delivered), she would have bought something to play that day.
The long, irritated groan that she gave when she realized how stupid she'd been to trust their word, when they'd been treating her so poorly in their past few interactions, was the deciding factor in what she did that day. As much as it pained her to admit it, perhaps it was for the best that she get out and do something non-music related for a change, and do it by herself because she didn't have any friends or even a boyfriend to rely on. There wasn't much for her to do on her own aside from window shopping and treating herself to a nice lunch for one, but those sorts of things could be used in the future as leverage if someone wanted to tell her she never spent time on her own.
That whole day was spent stewing in her anger, in her frustration at how she should have had friends she could rely on to be there for her and she couldn't even trust them to do that. Every time any of them had problems, she was always down to be a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on, but now that she just wanted to spend time with someone they were all being rude and busy and wanted nothing to do with her, and that cut her deeper than she should have let it. Going home just as upset as she had been when she woke up, the first thing she noticed when she got back to her place was that the front door was wide open—a tell-tale sign that in her focus on her bad feelings she'd forgotten to lock up and someone had taken advantage of her oversight.
Screaming, she glanced around the hall that she lived in and checked to see if anyone was around, but as she was fumbling to get her phone to call for help a familiar face poked its way out of the open doorway, and when she saw them she froze immediately. "I thought you were working today?" she asked Shuichi, as he stared at her with slowly-moving eyes, almost as if he was processing something. "Why are you here? Why did you break in?"
"Listen, I didn't break in, you know I have a key for your door just like you have one for mine, but you have to…" He trailed off as he saw the anger building in her face, her taking determined steps towards him and the doorway, which he put a stop to by holding up a hand in front of her. "Don't come in, please. We're almost done and—"
"We're? As in, there's more than just you here?" Her words were more spit than spoken, and she so badly wanted to disregard his request for not entering to see what was happening inside, but the way he nodded at her, showing weakness and perhaps a lack of planning on his part, made her reconsider. "Okay, I'll listen to you. What are you even doing?"
"—that I can't tell you, not yet." Pulling his hand back, Shuichi ducked his head back into the room for a moment before disappearing entirely, making sure to close the door as he went inside. The feeling of the door closing in her face put Kaede's confusion and anger to its boiling point, and even though she'd just told Shuichi she'd listen to him she decided that nothing was quite worth having him lock her out of her own home.
It would have been best had she listened to him, as opening that door and seeing Shuichi in there with everyone she'd felt was avoiding her recently (that included Kaito, as much as she hated acknowledging that they were friends sometimes) made her realize that something she wasn't supposed to know about had been going on under her nose. The human wall that stood between her and her piano was concerning, but not as much by the shocked, almost distraught faces that a couple of the people there were sporting. "I thought you said you'd cast a spell to keep her away longer?" Tenko asked Himiko in a low whisper, while the small woman was staring slack-jawed in Kaede's direction. "You can't tell me that your magic failed us on that part!"
"Maybe it took too much power to make the transportation work out that it didn't last as long?" she replied, her head leaning downward. "That's twice now I've been responsible for ruining birthday surprises, inviting me along was a mistake."
"Hey now, don't talk like that about yourself, you've done nothing wrong!" Reaching over to pat her shoulder gently for a split second before his hand was removed, Kaito's face had turned into that goofy, irritating grin of his as he was trying to be comforting. "It's not like you told her what we've gotten her, you know?"
"You guys got me something?" Nothing made sense there in that moment, with how everyone had been treating her like she didn't exist, but for Kaede to see them all standing there, in the place she called home, she had no reason to doubt that Kaito was telling the truth. "When was I going to find out about this?"
Shuichi looked at everyone else, at how they'd fallen silent to keep themselves from saying anything else, before scratching at the back of his neck. "Tonight, it was always going to be tonight, but no one in on the secret could bring themselves to talk to you just in case they ruined the surprise. Guess their attempt at keeping it secret ruined it after all."
"So they weren't ignoring me because they hated me?" That matched up with how insistent he'd been that things were going to be okay, which meant that the whole time, Shuichi had been orchestrating something right in front of her and managed to keep her unaware of that fact until it came crumbling down. A feeling of regret began to wash over her, as she understood that she'd been acting immature towards all of her friends behind their backs when they'd been trying to keep a surprise for her. "Oh man, guys, I never would have guessed that you were doing something for me!"
"And you'd never guess what it was, either, if that much was too hard for you to figure out." Like always, Maki's words cut deep, but Kaede felt like she deserved to hear them in that moment. "Would we seriously all decide to play petty with you and pretend like you don't exist for any reason? No? Didn't think so."
"I…knew you wouldn't, but I guess I just thought that maybe I did something wrong and you guys were letting me know that." Never once did Kaede actually think she'd done anything wrong, because she couldn't come up with anything that was possibly the root cause for the change in behavior in her friends, but now that she knew the truth she was feeling more and more upset at herself for being so focused on getting attention that she never thought there could be more to it.
Maki rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she turned to look at the piano behind her. "If you did something wrong, I'd tell you to your face, you know this."
"Okay now, let's stop guilting Kaede for not thinking you guys were hiding a surprise from her and instead let her know what we've been hiding, hm?" Shuichi stepped forward to come to Kaede's side, so he could wrap an arm around her to keep her steady just in case the reveal was too much for her. "This took a lot of work, a lot of coordination, and only a couple instances of someone being pinned against a wall, but…"
As everyone moved to the side Kaede was greeted with the sight of a different, new piano in place of the one she'd been playing for so long. Speechless, she felt her knees beginning to buckle underneath her, which played perfectly into Shuichi's plan to hold her up, her leaning into him just to stay standing. "You don't know how much planning this took to keep you from finding out I was going to do this," he told her, hearing her trying to come up with words to express her thoughts but being left with sputters. "But I knew I couldn't do it alone, and that was when they all got involved, but none of them felt they could trust themselves to not tell you, which is where avoiding you came in."
"I knew if I was talking to you about anything, I'd bring it up in a heartbeat," Kaito admitted, knowing that he was probably the biggest culprit of what Shuichi had just said. "And I knew if Maki Roll was talkin' to you, I'd probably slip up and talk to her about it while you were around and that wouldn't work either."
"You caught us looking at music because we were going to get you something to play as your first song on your new piano, so what we said at the mall was only a half-truth." Himiko sounded bored like she always did, even though she was beaming as she spoke. "It was for your birthday, that part was true, but there was more to it."
Everything about the scene was beyond believable for Kaede, as she had convinced herself too strongly that everyone was trying to avoid her because she'd done something wrong that hearing them come clean about why they'd been doing it felt wrong. Not only that, but they were saying these things in the context of a brand new piano to replace her old one, that creaked when she opened and closed its lid, that had keys that rarely stayed tuned, that had shared some of her favorite musical memories but needed an upgrade. "This isn't a birthday present I ever could have expected," she said after collecting herself while still leaning against Shuichi. "It's so expensive, and super heavy and big, and you guys had to take the time to really work to get this in here!"
"None of that mattered, not when I knew how much you'd enjoy having a new piano to play. Getting everyone to agree to help, that was the hardest part, but the cost and the day off work? Sacrifices I was willing to make." His head resting on top of hers as she'd continued to lean on him, Shuichi could feel Kaede tensing up as he'd spoken, but he wasn't going to ask her why that was the case. Knowing how upset she'd been in recent days, it was completely possible it was because she felt like she needed to apologize further for how she'd behaved.
That was a large part of the reason, he came to realize, as for the rest of the night while everyone was gathered at her place she was completely apologetic towards her friends, but she would leave him out of the sweeping apologies despite him being the one she'd actually been talking to. The reason for that decision came after everyone had left, laughter and good spirits shared between everyone, and he was admiring the piano and how good of a job he'd done at selecting it and getting into Kaede's tiny little living space without damaging anything or anyone. After she'd closed the door on everyone else, she turned to him, saying in a rather flat voice, "You could have told me that they were keeping a secret from me, that would have saved a lot of time and anger and looking stupid in front of everyone."
"If you knew there was a secret being kept you would have tried your hardest to find it out before we were ready for you to know," he replied, feeling her brushing up against him as she came across the room. Her arm was touching his when she turned to look at the piano as well, the brightly-shining keys glimmering in the overhead light, begging her to play them, and he was going to suggest that she break in her gift when she faced him, a sweet, almost seductive look in her eyes as she stared into his face. "Er, what's that look for, Kaede?"
"Nothing much, I just forgot how much I love being with you in all of my anger at thinking you were avoiding me like the rest of them." Her sentence was punctuated by her pushing herself into him, slowly walking him back until he was against the wall; he was going wide-eyed at how playful she seemed to be, and she must have known that he was weighing the options of making a move right then, as she puckered her lips and pressed them gently against his.
Within moments that gesture had gone from "gentle" to "intense", as she kept him pinned against the wall, her body pressing against his as their kiss deepened, something initiated by her and fully accepted by him. When they broke apart, there was a moment of staring into each other's eyes before she was bending down, leaving him a bit breathless but aware of what she was going to do. "Do you think this is appropriate right now?" he asked, feeling her hands gently brushing against his body until they were beginning to undo his belt, the soft jangling of metal moving in tune with their breaths until she came up with a response.
"You gave me a piano, I'm giving you something in return."
A/N: happy birthday Kaede I love you