Inspector Nakamori Aoko was looking up at the sky, and the full moon that shone there.
Around her were shouts and people running, as everyone prepared for Kid's arrival.
At eight o'clock, he would steal the jewel a double-glassed case was protecting for now. She looked at it, through the balcony's window, then went back to her gaze at the moon.
So many things had happened.
"Dad! Dad! Dad, wake up, please!"
She was clenching at her father's hand, tears running down her cheeks and inside her mouth. She could fell their salty, sour taste.
Around the body, policemen were watching their boss's daughter crying over her father's corpse. She cried as if nothing mattered anymore, as if she thought she could die right now because of sadness. None of them knew what to do. It wasn't their role to give orders or to take the initiative. It was Nakamori-kebu's role.
"Aoko," a voice said in her ears. "Aoko, it won't help anything. He's not coming back."
Kaito's face was sad and angry. His hand closed upon Aoko's, forcing her to let go of her father's wrist.
"I'm sorry," he said, taking her in his arms. "I'm sorry."
"But did Kid really kill kebu?" one of the policemen asked another.
"I thought Kid never killed."
"I saw what happened;"
Everybody turned to look at Saguru Hakuba, including Aoko and Kaito.
"What happened, Hakuba-kun?" the former asked, shivering.
Kaito just frowned.
"They were on the roof," Saguru said. "Nakamori-san and Kid. They were fighting."
"Do you mean that Kid killed my…" Aoko's voice broke down, and she began crying again.
"No. No, there was another man. Dressed in black. From the helix, I couldn't quite see his face, but…I saw where his gun pointed to."
He looked at Aoko.
"He wasn't trying to kill your father. He was trying to kill Kid."
Aoko tugged her nose into Kaito's shoulder, wiping her tears against his shirt. She felt his embrace tighten around her, as he repeated so that she was the only one to hear, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't do anything."
"Baka!" she hugged him back. "Even if you had been up there, you couldn't have done anything."
But he could have. He could have.
Knock.
She turned to look at the man who had just opened the window.
"Nakamori-kebu, it's twenty to eight," he said hesitantly. "Maybe you should come inside."
"Kid will arrive exactly on time," she answered. "I'll come five minutes before that."
She heard the window click shut.
The moon was beautiful… just as beautiful as it had been that night, through the sitting room's window.
It was the evening after she had acceded to the grade of a police officer. She was appointed to Kid's heists, just like her father had. At twenty-one, she was one of the youngest police officers in the county. And a female one, which was even more unusual.
She had opened her door, closed it slowly, taken off her coat, advancing in the dark hall. After the lights and noise in the street, her silent and still flat seemed ethereal, ephemeral, as if it would vanish any moment.
She had turned on the light in the kitchen and headed towards her bedroom, brushing past the sitting room.
"Aoko," a voice had said.
'Kaito,' she had thought. 'What is he doing here?'
She had opened the sitting room's door. "K " but she never finished, her hand falling to her side.
It was Kaito. And it wasn't him.
Kaito.
Kid.
Kaito Kid.
It can't be, a part of her mind had thought. It can't be.
But it was.
He had picked up the hat and monocle he had left on the table. "Now you know," he had said calmly.
She hadn't answered.
"You had a right to know. I wanted you to know."
There were a thousand things she could have said. She could've burst into tears, asked him why he had done that, claimed that this kind of joke wasn't funny, or simply thrown herself in his arms and said nothing at all.
But she heard a firm, rational voice speak – her voice.
"Why are you telling me? I could get you under arrest any day."
His lips had twitched into a sarcastic smile, the one she was used to see on Kid's face. So odd to see it on Kaito's now.
"Oh, no, you wouldn't. You could arrest Kaito Kid, but you have no evidence against Kuroba Kaito. Besides-" his voice had deepened suddenly, "you're just like your father, Aoko."
"What about my father?" she had hissed.
"He was a fair, noble man. He never tried to fool, or betray me. We were fighting – but it was a noble fight, a man-to-man fight between he and I. We respected and esteemed each other."
So odd to hear those words in Kaito's mouth.
She swallowed. Hard. "Do you… do you know who killed my father?"
He winced, and hesitated before answering. "No. No, I don't."
"He's lying," the rational part of her mind had told her. But at the same time the emotional part was yelling, "How can you be so calm when you just broke my heart!"
He paused before saying, "Aoko… as a police officer and my childhood friend, you would've uncovered it one day or other. Now, you should… you should forget about Kuroba Kaito. I'm a thief… a phantom… and you are a police officer, Nakamori-kebu…"
He opened the window and stared at the moonlit terrace. He looked at her over his shoulder.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't save your father."
He went out. "Kaito!" Aoko shouted, and ran after him.
He was gone. She could see the black shape of his handglider against the full moon.
Abandoned on the balcony was a dark, red rose.
"Kid!"
As one of her policemen shouted this, Aoko instantly looked up.
A white handglider was circling above the building.
"Here you are," she mumbled for herself.
She ran inside, shouting orders.
