Mikau: Hi all! This is my submission for Poirot Café's Super Short Contest: Fight. I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: If I owned it, Toi-chan really would be dead. I can't stand the uncertainty in the series since the Corbeau arc. :/
…
Family Lies
"Tell me that Kuroba Touichi is dead."
Chikage jumped at the unfamiliar voice. She'd been waiting for her son (strangely late at four in the morning) back from the Corbeau heist, but when she whirled around, she found only Hakuba Saguru standing in the kitchen doorway.
And the British sleuth looked like he'd been through quite the ordeal. His coloring was bad, dark shadows beginning to form under his tawny eyes. Normally prim and proper Hakuba's clothes were also in disarray. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket, and his tie had been discarded. His shirt was untucked and partially unbuttoned, as if he'd been disrupted in the middle of preparing for bed. Most peculiarly: there were dark damp spots on the button-down. It was drenched with tears and smeared with snot and saliva. The cuffs were wet too, but those patches looked different from the salty remains of the tears near the lapels. Perhaps it'd happened when he'd tried to clean the vomit off of his sleeves? He'd missed a few spots.
Chikage rapidly took inventory of all this before manufacturing an appropriate response. "H-Hakuba-kun…I presume?" They'd never met, but she could claim Kaito'd mentioned him, she'd seen him on TV. "You're Hakuba Saguru, aren't you? Kaito's classmate? That London detective?"
"Tell me that Kuroba Touichi is dead," Hakuba growled once more, glaring her down. How he hated her right now.
Chikage kept up her surprised, ignorant act. She would show her cards to the little boy that easily. "Of course he is…for a long time now. Hakuba-kun, what are you doing here so late asking about that? Did you come to see Kaito? He's not home. He said something about a heist, and—"
"—I know damn well where Kai—where Kuroba is, thank you," he hissed venomously. "He's sedated, utterly unconscious in my bed at the moment, under Baaya's watch. I just spent the past two hours holding him as he suffered a rather sever panic attack, so you can drop your act right now, Kuroba-san. I've been stalking your son, investigating your family since I arrived in Japan, and I know. Not everything, but enough that the Organization would kill me if they knew, so whatever pretty lie you were going to force-feed me, save it."
The "innocent surprise" slowly melted off of Chikage's face to be replaced by a guarded expression. The "little boy" was a lot sharper than she'd thought. And he currently had her baby.
In an arctic voice she replied, "Why are you here, Hakuba Saguru? What do you want?"
"Only to know that you haven't been lying to your son for nine years, that you and your husband haven't been screwing with him, letting him get mixed up in your war, and letting him mess up his life for an idolized father who isn't really worth his blind devotion. Tell me that Kuroba Touichi is dead and that Corbeau Kaito saw was not his father," Saguru seethed.
Chikage opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She'd never thought about it. Had she really…?! She hadn't meant to… She'd never imagined that Kaito would react so strongly…
"Is…Kaito going to be okay?" was the only thing she could think to say. A panic attack? Would Kaito recover?
Hakuba tensed. She seemed genuinely remorseful, but…sadly, Hakuba was familiar with the son's acting abilities. Kaito got it somewhere; for all Saguru knew, Chikage was a master of deception.
Completely exhausted, he sighed, dropping the snarl and the menace from his voice. "I'm afraid I'm unsure. It…was pretty bad. I thought I'd have to take him to a hospital, but…with time and the proper treatment…Kuroba-kun is one of the strongest people I know. He'll need counseling and support, but I'll be there for him…Aoko-kun as well. You've done a lot of damage, Kuroba-san, but I believe some of it might still be undone."
"It's not her fault."
Saguru froze, slowly turning to face the man coming up behind him out of the shadows. Kid had done the same many times, but…somehow this was on another level. Saguru had felt nothing until the man spoke, but…now…the black-clad phantom had a tangible aura that weighed down on Saguru, almost choking him.
"She thought I really was dead for more than a year, and then I told her to keep it from Kaito," the man—Kuroba Touichi—explained coolly, gliding past Saguru like a specter. "I thought it would be best. To keep the Organization away from my family, I had to die. It worked until Kaito resurrected Kid," the ghost chuckled fondly, almost as if he thought his son was silly yet cute.
"And you didn't stop him then?" Saguru growled, up in arms once more. "You just let him put his life at risk, his future…his relationship with Aoko-kun? He's doing all this for you, you know. He loves you, and you…you don't care about him at all do you?"
Saguru wanted to kill him. Only thoughts of Kaito kept him from lunging at the scoundrel and strangling him.
The grief of losing his father a second time in the wake of these terrible revelations…it might break Kaito beyond hope of repair.
Touichi wore a thoughtful expression as he poured a cup of coffee. "The love I have for my son…isn't something that most would recognize as 'love', but...it does exist."
Saguru snapped. "Well, I care about Kaito in a universally recognized way, and I'm going to fight you for him if need be. He's my friend, and I'm going to be there for him like neither of you ever has!"
Chest heaving, Saguru glared at the Kurobas. Chikage's eyes were moist, her brow furrowed. She looked on the verge of tears as she realized that maybe they had been wrong, only hurting Kaito instead of keeping him safe. Her eyes were full of a gratitude towards Hakuba that she was currently unable to voice.
Touichi, on the other hand, remained calm and collected. Saguru couldn't tell if it was poker face or if the man really didn't give a damn. Either way, he bowed civilly to Saguru, all the while wearing a creepy half smile.
With a snort of spent frustration, Saguru turned on his heel and marched out of the house. He was in no state to deal with the crazy Kurobas right now. He needed to go home and rest, prepare himself mentally for the coming morrow when Kaito would need him most.
The
End