And I Think I'll Stay Right Here
AN: Do not be put off by the beginning. The tone does get lighter. This is the one I wrote a prompt for in Manycases1truth. Written for kicks and giggles.
Chapter One – The Beating of His Wings
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The heist had been normal.
Normal, that is, from the Kaitou Kid's point of view – in which case, absolutely abstract in almost anyone else's. There had been acrobatics, hang gliding indoors, hide and seek in the dark, pink smoke and pink sleeping gas, Nakamori shouting and, of course, his favourite game of dogpile on the kaitou. It would probably leave him grinning for hours, days even, leaving Aoko steaming mad when she saw his face next in class.
But now. . . now, all was quiet. Except for the natural sounds of the riverbank he had set down next to that wasn't all too far away from decent civilisation in a distant corner of a park near to Ekoda. In the moonlight, the Kid seemed to shine with some sort of otherworldly presence, face pale with luminescence and the light of the ruby that he had stolen glimmering away against his monocle's glass.
The Kid sighed, lowering his arm with the gem in it back down to his side. The sound of his breath made hardly any sound at all in the still post-midnight, early morning air, his white suit rustling more like the wind through the brush than anything more human.
Only his cape with it's distinct flapping as though of slow wings would alert even the most sharp of ears to the fact that he was not simply a mirage.
His sigh was for the fact that, like for most rubies, it was simply impossible to tell whether or not it had another red stone shining forth from inside it. He would have to give it back another day.
A sound out of place, and he was whipping around, hand going to card gun hidden on his person and Poker Face sliding back down to mask everything to Kid's look once more.
A rustle, not of any animal that should live around these parts – the most he'd seen had been foxes and tanuki, and they were hardly large enough to make noises such as those. Or curses, or –
Or the sound of a gun firing, before he'd had a chance to see where it was coming from, he had the strange feeling as though it wasn't from the same place as where the noises had been, but it hardly mattered now – he hadn't gone to that heist prepared to be shot at, and he had to fight himself to keep from falling.
He was in the middle of an open area. With a bullet wound that was bleeding onto the grass. The glider was no option at all – if he fainted while however many feet up in the air, he'd fall to his death, and if he didn't then he'd still be a prime target.
Pain lancing through him and breath coming harder, the Kaitou Kid began to run for his life.
His heart began to pound, blood rushing from his head and to the place where he'd been shot. It had been in a bad place. . .
He would survive this, though. He was sure he could. He'd gone through worse, hadn't he? Been shot before? But then. . . the gem had been in his pocket before, hadn't i? He wasn't sure, anymore.
In the distance, he heard more loud bangs.
Or was that the time when Shiro had been hurt. . . that time, he'd gotten away too, hadn't he. . .
The moon was going away. She winked at him once, his own mischief reflected back at him, before she hid away, and he was left alone once more.
Something deep inside rebelled against that. Against the slightest fear that he wouldn't make it through. He had to, didn't he . . ? Make it through . . ?
But the moon wasn't there any more, and had no answers for him.
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He came to not on a grassy plain, not at the last place he remembered, and not even in a hospital ward. No, the Kaitou Kid had to come to right in the middle of a hallway. And not just any hallway, oh no. One of the Ekoda police station hallways, distinct to only this building by the sheer amount of glitter still pervading walls, floor and ceiling from the letter the note had been sent in for the heist.
Not to mention that there were notices up on cork boards at regular intervals, some including the deductions that had led them to the scene of the earlier crime, some of official notices, some of internal messages and adverts, some of personal photographs and doodles.
The Kid frowned. There were a number of things . . . off, with this scene. For one thing, he should be in a hospital, and he wasn't. For another, there should be Task Force members guarding him like nobody's business, and there weren't. Not to mention that usually there were anti-Kid posters up all over the walls, some even made by Aoko herself, and it was weird. Weirder than any of the other things he'd listed. All of the areas where they'd been looked as though they'd had something torn down.
In a dreamlike state yet still using the stealth that came naturally to him when wearing the white suit and hat of the Kid, he drifted off in the direction of the main bullpen, where he should be able to find Nakamori.
It was odd. Sometimes, he had dropped by – just to have a glance, or to give back the gem once he'd checked it – after the heists. The station was always, always rowdy and noisy and crowded. Or at least, it should have been.
It wasn't.
The halls were clear, and he didn't pass a single person, even though he could hear peoples' voices growing steadily clearer and louder as he got closer to that main area of open offices and desks.
Once he'd found someplace to watch them from without being seen, he could recognise each and every single one of the men and women in the room. None of them were talking, and if someone did, then it was in a whisper, an aside. They looked . . . upset.
No, more than upset. Devastated. But he couldn't figure out why they would look like that. The only reason he could think of that would band them all together like that was him. But he was right here! He almost thought to jump out and startle them into chasing him around the station, just to stop them looking like that. It was scaring him.
A door opened and shut. Everyone – including the Kid – turned to look to see who had come in. It was the Inspector, with an unreadable look on his face. They kept watching. Waiting. Though what for, the Kid didn't know.
"I saw it." The Inspector's words were harsh and grating. "It was him. I was wrong. And when I get that bastard that did this to him, I'm going to make him pay." A snap resounded throughout the room, and from where he was, the Kid could see two halves of a pencil fall to the floor. "The Kid might've been a criminal, but he didn't deserve that."
Kid? But that was him. How could they be talking about him like that when he was there? But of course, they didn't know he was there. He was still hidden. On a spur of the moment, split-second decision, he unfolded himself and walked with all the confidence he didn't feel right into Nakamori-keibu's line of sight.
No one said anything. No one saw him. The one nearest to him shivered. The Kid frowned through his Poker Face, worried and confused. What Nakamori had just said ran its way through his mind again. ...bastard that did this to him . . . might've been a criminal, but he didn't deserve that. Something clicked. He wished it hadn't.
His wounds weren't hurting. In fact, he couldn't even feel them at all. He patted down his clothes, looking for some streak of red that would make sure he wasn't hallucinating but found nothing. He was about to start panicking – a very un-Kidlike behaviour, but if it worked, it worked – when a thought slapped him in the face like Aoko with a fish.
I must be having some sort of out of body experience, he rationalised. I mean, what else could it be...?
"Damn," said one of the Task Force men. "He was so. . . so young. . ."
I'm still young! He wanted to shout out, I'm still here!
Nakamori spat out an expletive.
"I damn well know how young he was! The kid grew up with my daughter!"
All previous activity in the Kid's brain ceased to function. Everything still remaining focused on what the Inspector had just said. It wasn't true. It wasn't possible. No way in friggin' hell it could be true that the Inspector had somehow figured out Kid's civilian identity.
But apparently, there was.
"I should have realised something like it a long time ago," the Inspector continued. "But it didn't. It took me seeing him. It. Lying there." Unable to hold it in any longer, the Inspector hit the wall, and his hit was strong enough to leave a dent. Several of the men looked away, but none of them had flinched.
One of them, one of the younger members of the Task Force who was more experienced than his fellows due to having joined not long after leaving school and had in fact been one of Kaito's sempai for a year, had his fist shaking even, as though he wanted to follow his officer's example.
"I – I knew him. He's – he was, always so full of mischief. I thought . . . he was so much like his father."
A lot of the members of the Task Force had known Kuroba Touichi. Because Kaito's father had been good friends, through irony, with Nakamori Ginzo.
Kid wanted his mind to shy away from all of the times the word 'was' was used about him. He wasn't a was. He was an is. Present tense. Here and now.
Wasn't he?
Nakamori took a long puff of his pipe.
"Too damn much like his father, I say." He leant hard against the door, not meeting anyone's gaze. One hand raked its way through short-cropped yet wild hair. "Both of them died far too young."
The Kid reeled. No. No, no, no, no, no! It wasn't supposed to go like that – it wasn't. He was supposed to be having an out of body experience, able to go back into it once he was healed up well enough that he wouldn't just die anyway, probably with the incentive of a kiss from a fair lady – hopefully with all mops in the hospital confiscated – and then he'd wake up. And they'd argue. And she'd find a mop anyway somehow, and he'd let her hit him even if he was still really badly hurt, because she'd deserve it, and he'd get out somehow, and he'd carry on somehow, and he'd. . . he'd. . .
Somehow, this can't be happening.
Not thinking, he ran towards the door the Inspector had been leaning against – the man was now seated with the rest, who were offering their commiserations, but he didn't need them, he was right there, damn it – and through it, and somehow he'd forgotten to open it, but he was through, and he was running, and running felt good. Running felt very good.
Pavements, people, streetlamps, buildings, trees – all of them blurred in the corner of his vision. All he could see was his road ahead of him, the path he was taking without his mind being rationally in control.
It was where he had always gone when he hadn't been able to hide everything under Poker Face before he had become Kid. He had gone to Aoko's.
In the night, it looked just as inviting as it always had done. Yet he didn't go by the front door, instead swerving to the side and finding that tree just there that had grown up right next to Aoko's window, perfect for a thief to climb in through. Or a younger Kaito, when her father wouldn't have killed him for trying something with his daughter. He still did it occasionally, though.
Aoko was still awake. Undoubtedly, waiting for her father. She was wearing cute flannel pyjamas, and was clutching a very battered-looking Kid plushie which she had professed to have made herself – for the supreme purpose of beating him up. From the looks of things, it hadn't just been her beating up his likeness.
And yet she was clutching it – him, a part of him that was buried deep down said, mischief making the rest of him want to blush – tight. As though she knew that something was wrong.
He tried to speak. To say her name. To tell her that he was here, that it was all right, that no matter what her father said, he was all right.
But he couldn't. His mouth would open and close but he wouldn't say anything. A painful lump in his throat prevented him. As though he were afraid that if he did speak and she didn't even look up at him with fire in her eyes, then all would be lost, and what the Inspector had said would be true.
She sobbed, and he couldn't cope any longer. He coughed, first once and then again to get that lump out of his throat.
She didn't look up. She must have thought it was just a bird.
"Aoko."
His voice came out as the Kid's still, for which he winced, knowing that it would only make matters worse, but he couldn't help it. If she would only respond.
She didn't.
"Aoko – look at me." Not a twitch. "Please." Another sob. "I bet I can predict what panties you're gonna wear tomorrow!"
Absolutely nothing, when there should have been towering infernos of rage.
In a pique of despair, the Kid let go of the branch he had been holding onto without even realising it, and fell softly to the welcoming earth.
Falling, falling and his head hit something hard, scratching against his face, monocle still on, hat? Fallen off elsewhere. . .
He reeled. He remembered. They were right. They were all right. He shouldn't be here still.
Those shots that he had thought had been in the distance had been, when examined under the eye of detachment, much, much closer to home. He simply hadn't been able to feel anymore.
Mechanically, he brushed himself off – unnecessary, he wasn't able to pick anything up, but just a habit – and stood up. All right. What did he have?
Well, for one thing, he was apparently dead. Supposed to have gone and joined the choir invisible – and he supposed he had to be glad for the maestro up there that it was going to be him and not Kudo, that guy could be scary with that voice of his – but somehow, he hadn't. He'd have to look into that at some point.
Did he have anything else?
Well, he could still climb trees. He could still hold onto things. He could fall and not feel pain, or even really fall at all.
He. . . was still dressed as Kid. Complete with Kid's hat, suit, cape and monocle. Right down to the white loafers. Even the hang glider was still a familiar weight against his back, even if it was probably useless by now.
He supposed that if he had all of that, he also had everything else, as well. Including the clothes that would change him back into Kuroba Kaito and out of the character of Kid.
Not that that would help any, now that he was dead and his identity had been blown sky high. It would probably be all over the papers by tomorrow morning. He could just see it now – Kaitou Kid Actually High Schooler Who Went To Classes With Inspector's Daughter.
He wondered if there was any way that he could stop that from happening before his mom became Their next target.
There probably wasn't though; he had tried and tried and tried to get people to notice him all night. All without success. Or at the very least, if you didn't call one case of the shivers a success, if he was right. Aoko hadn't even known that he was there.
Which had both hurt like hell and felt comforting at the same time. She didn't like ghost stories, after all.
With one last look back at the Nakamori house, up at her window which was still lit up like an oasis of light in the darkness, he started to walk away. Home. Mom was probably worried sick –
And had every right to be. He wasn't all right. Far from it, and if he appeared to her now, then it would only end up making things worse. She'd already lost his dad. He didn't think he could bear to see her face when she realised that she had lost him, too.
So he just walked. Aimlessly. All around town. That's the place where he would go with Aoko just to chill out. That's the place he'd go to get his midnight snacks after a heist, always with the excuse that he'd been over to watch, not participate. It had always worked, or the proprietor had also been a Kid fan. They were going to be upset, either way. There was the shop where he'd go to get his new books, and unlike what Aoko often said, he was a voracious reader. He just didn't like girls' manga. Contrary to probable popular belief, he didn't just read texts on magic tricks, either – it was best, he had thought from a young age, to know as much as possible about as much as possible. Then, you could come up with something really weird, and everyone would be in awe. Not to mention, he had learnt French for the sheer pleasure of reading the Lupin stories in their original language. That was the place where he had done this, and that was the place where he had done that.
Without realising it, he had started to make himself out to be a ghost to everyone already, and so far only Nakamori and his men knew that he was dead.
Abruptly, he laughed, and the sound shocked him. It was the first time that he had laughed since all of this had started. And he couldn't help it. It was all so. . . ironic. They called him Kaitou, and Kaitou he was. In all possible interpretations. He was a mystery even unto himself, a phantom to everyone and everything. A shade. A spirit. And he was still a thief.
And so – if he was going to go on from that line of thought, then what had he stolen, and what would he steal? He somehow doubted that the ruby he'd had in his hands prior to his death had been the Pandora Gem. If it had been, then he would still be alive and immortal, not dead and immortal.
He shook his head. That second one just sounded wrong.
Still – where to go? He smirked, hiding his insecurities behind the motion. Where else to go when there aren't any more places to which you can move forward, except back where you came from?
Back to the beginning. Back to the Police station.
It took him somewhat less time to get back there than it had to run from it, and yet how that worked he wasn't sure and he didn't think he wanted to know just yet.
He slipped in, trying to avoid touching people – it made him feel ever so slightly nauseous to see that all they could feel of him was that weird shiver, not anything physical at all – and mostly succeeding.
No one saw him. No one took any notice of him. People seemed to look straight through him, giving him the strange feeling of not actually being there even though he knew that he was.
When he finally got there, the bullpen of offices was much emptier than it had been before. In fact, there was only the group that had been around the table, Nakamori himself, and a couple of others. He recognised them all. None of them saw him. They didn't even go cross-eyed.
Feeling more and more out of place and drifting like a leaf on the wind, he jumped deftly on top of one of their filing cabinets to watch and listen with sad affection. More and more he felt like an outsider, looking in on what had used to be his own life.
Nakamori was saying something – something about how none of them had to go back to work for anywhere up to a week. He said that he wasn't, and that he was going to spend the time with his daughter. Kid silently agreed. Aoko would need her father more than ever, now.
He never saw the door open and close softly, but he did hear it, faintly. Saw the gathered police look over at the newcomer, but not the newcomer themself. If they spoke, it was quiet enough not to be heard by this particular ghost. Everyone else towered over them just enough for him not to be able to see them to begin with, too.
Something brown flickered and caught the Kid's eye. Something brown, which was usually attached to something – or someone – blond. Kid cursed.
The something brown suddenly sat up as though he had been given a strong static shock.
"Hakuba-kun." The Inspector's voice, though gravelly and rough, was as close to gentle as Kaito had ever heard it outside of when the man had been talking with Aoko just after his wife had died. "You don't have to be here."
"I'll argue the opposite. I do have to."
"You don't look well."
The rest of the Task Force present agreed with the Inspector, all wanting to look after the youngest, who had been at the heist. Who had been Kaito's friend and the Kid's rival.
The movements of the uniformed men allowed the Kid to see the blond detective properly for the first time. Nakamori had been right. Hakuba looked far too pale, his eyes unfocused. . .
No. Wait. Rewind. Unfocused? He'd been watching people he was invisible to for too long. He grinned, an ear-to-ear Cheshire Cat smile.
Just as he'd hoped, a feeling that had almost deserted him, Hakuba seemed to pale even further, eyes widening.
Whooping, the Kaitou Kid jumped down from the filing cabinet and waved vigorously over at the blond detective. Then, unable to hold himself in any longer, he began an acrobatic series of backflips around the room while Hakuba himself sat tentatively down and pleaded a headache coming on.
Someone could see him – it didn't matter that it was Hakuba. Someone could see him!
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AN: I had to end it there, rather than earlier or later. This way, it shows a good note at the end : ) The title's from this: The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land, you may almost hear the beating of his wings. -- John Bright (1811–1889)
Not all of them are going to be this angst-y and morbid. In fact, as the first one, this is the odd one out.
