"There's something for you on the counter."
"Hm?"
Yuma had bolted for the restroom as soon as they'd entered the terminal-cum-headquarters for the trench project, leaving Kotori feeling very, very alone with Kaito. A few employees were seated at temporary desks installed in the front room; an enormous man chain smoking while watching a muted movie; a lady speaking rapid English over the phone to someone speaking even more rapid French on the other end. She wondered how long it would take for Yuma to pee. Boys spent less time in the bathroom than girls, right?
She trusted Kaito. She wasn't afraid of him. But trusting someone was different from feeling at ease around them, and she didn't trust Kaito not to snap at her for not being able to hear him over the vague electrical humming of the room and the roaring of the airplane's engines cooling down.
Kaito turned away from her. "On the counter. There's something for you," he said stiffly and a little more loudly. He waited a moment, then pulled out his phone and pretended to be interested in checking messages on it.
"Oh." She didn't really want to stop keeping an eye on him, but she didn't want to make him say it three times either.
She spotted it quickly, a blue monogrammed shopping bag looking very out of place among the equipment and control boards. She approached it, feeling Kaito watching her out of the corners of his eyes.
The tissue covering the contents of the bag crinkled softly against the background noise of the room as she tore at the gold sticker sealing it closed. She didn't recognize the brand at all, but she could sense that it was something high-quality. Expensive. She got just an impression of orange and white before she pulled it out, and she gasped as it unfolded in her hands. Wool, soft in a way that coats she bought were not, heavy in a way that coats she bought were not.
"It's beautiful!" she said, much too loudly, and cringed a little. The oppressiveness of the room persisted.
Kaito demeanor shifted almost imperceptibly at her outburst. He looked up from his phone. "We're in the arctic. You're going to need something warm to wear."
It was freezing outside. It was freezing inside, too. Of course she didn't want to stand around out there without a coat, and she hadn't had a chance to plan for the adventure. Kaito had just shown up, ordering Yuma and her into the plane and no one else. "Thank you very much." Kotori slid it on, enjoying the smooth weight of the fabric on her arms. The temperature of the room quickly became bearable.
Orange? What did she even have that it could go with? It was so bright that it would have to be paired with neutrals; that's what Glamour Girl's style section had said last month, and she was definitely not wearing neutrals right now. But it was such a rich thing that she might try to wear it with anything. It was such an adult thing, too. She picked at her heart choker, feeling like a little kid in dress-up. Kaito was an adult, wasn't he?
She looked back up at him and was startled to realize he'd been watching her with an expression she'd never seen on him before. It was… soft; like for a moment he'd let go of everything that made him a Numbers Hunter, a champion duelist, the pawn of Heartland, the son of Dr. Faker, and he'd shown that the part of him that was a brother who cared for Haruto wasn't an anomaly in his personality.
Kaito hurriedly look back down at the screen. "You're welcome," he mumbled.
Was it a gift? How could he just give her something so nice? The Tenjos were rich, she reminded herself. This was probably nothing to him. Questions sprouted from questions, but the matter-of-fact-ness with which he'd told her his reasoning for giving it to her shut her down. They were in the arctic. She needed something warm to wear. How did one even talk to Kaito as a friend? She'd never seen him make small talk, never seen him with someone he wasn't making plans with or making threats against. She'd never seen him not angry.
The need to say anything at all overwhelmed her. She grasped at the first question that seemed easy to ask. "What store is this from? I don't recognize the name," she asked, clutching her wrist.
Kaito flicked his eyes up to look at her. "Soho Channel. It's–" He cut himself off at the sound of running footsteps.
"Sweet duds, Kotori!"
Yuma was just so…. She couldn't help but smile at him. "It's very nice. Kaito gave it to me," she said, looking to Kaito, but he was back to being the same old Kaito: angry, impatient, closed-off. It was like a switch had been flipped.
"Let's get going," said Kaito. "The soon we get out there, the sooner we'll be able to get in touch with Astral."
"Right! Let's go!" said Yuma. He jumped to be the first one out the door. Arctic air buffeted them. "Whoa! It's cold out here!"
The questions in her head hadn't stopped growing. If Kaito were so concerned about staying warm, why hadn't he given Yuma a coat too? Why hadn't he put on something warmer himself? Kaito reached out to hold the door for her. She looked at his face as she stepped into the snow, but he didn't return her gaze.
Tokunosuke said everything had a flip side to it, and Kotori knew he had a point, even if she sometimes hated what she saw when she looked: Mr. Heartland, Yuma, herself.
She wondered what she'd done to glimpse the flip side of Kaito.