Invisible

Summary: Life's back to normal for one Kuroba Kaito. However, he sees something one day a short while after his kidnapping . . . an unexpected phenomenon no one else noticed.

Pairings: If you have a very active imagination and/or serious fan-girl/boyism, then yes.

A/N: I own nothing. Not DC, not MK and not the song Invisible by kemu feat. Gumi and Rin. I recommend the cover versions, by either iciko or Kakichoco & Vivienne. Or both, actually.

Technically, Invisible is a side story for my DC series. So no, this isn't the sequel to Scarborough Fair, and it'll only be a oneshot.

Prequels: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Scarborough Fair

Side Story: Clockwork Relations

A finger flicked his forehead and snapped Kuroba Kaito out of his daze. He turned his head sideways to scowl at his desk mate. "What, Aoko?"

"Pay attention," she hissed as their teacher wrote on the board. "You should at least try to learn."

"Unlike you," Aoko flinched as her skirt flew up by a seemingly-magical wind. "I already know all this stuff."

The teacher had a hard time holding back a smile as she watched two of her best – and loudest – students go into their usual daily fight. Normally she would try – and fail – to stop these two but today she wasn't even going to bother. Kuroba had been kidnapped recently and this was a way for her to know that everything was alright with him.

After ten minutes the chase/fight/banter, the spontaneous magic tricks and the swear words that really weren't appropriate for school and the flying razor-sharp playing cards came to a stop. She continued her lesson, doing her best to ignore the few stray playing cards with razor-sharp edges still stuck on the blackboard. "As I was saying. . . ."

Kaito sat back in his seat and wiped away the sweat from his face, not bothering to hold back his wide grin. This was routine. This felt good. It felt especially good after a three-day period where everyone around him had treated him like a glass figurine on a rickety shelf in the middle of an earthquake. They were finally realizing that he was back to full health now.

The happiness wore off, though, when he remembered just what his mother had said to him the first moment the two of them had been alone at home after his rescue from the kidnapping.

"Kaito, stop looking for Pandora. Stop being Kaitou Kid."

After she said that he had stared at her in shock. At first he thought it was a joke, something to let him relax and laugh about. Then he thought she was just being hysterical, scared at the prospect of losing her son after her husband. But the more he had asked about her request the more she had denied giving him an explanation, always coming back to "I can't tell you, Kaito, but please, just stop it all. All of it."

Had Kuroba Chikage's legendary iron will shattered when he had gone missing? Dr. Hailey had turned out to just be a crazy person who thought a doll was his daughter and he had come back safe and sound. Nothing about it had been related to his other life. Maybe his disappearance had just been something that scared his mother too much. A reminder that her son was just human at the end of the day, all too able to die before his time like her husband had.

But no, that thought should have gone away soon enough after he denied her requests the first two or three times. If that had been the only reason she would have settled for fussing over him. Making sure he and Jii were prepared for every possibility. Instead, she was trying to get him to quit his night job as the Magician under the Moonlight at every possible moment. And she had a lot of possible moments now that she was staying at home with him for an unknown amount of time.

Was she trying to move on? Forget all about dad? Get closure by pretending it didn't happen? Or was there something else?

He didn't know. She wouldn't tell him, always tearing up and just going back to begging him to stop. But . . . Kaito's grip on his pencil tightened. He did know that he couldn't stop. And as much as he hated making his mom cry he wasn't going to stop. For him, closure would come when Snake and his organization were down and Pandora was crushed. He couldn't quit trying to avenge his father till that happened.

After school ended he let himself get dragged along by Aoko, Akako and Hakuba. They all claimed that the reason he had gotten kidnapped was because he hadn't listened to them and taken the proper care he should have. Kaito couldn't really say anything to that because it was partly true and as such he was forced to face the punishment his mother had decreed like an honest man who most certainly wasn't Kaitou Kid; he had to treat them all at that café down the hill.

Aoko seemed excited enough. According to her it was a good place with cute cakes and great tea and everything. Akako and Hakuba had had no problems with the decided gorging area – although Hakuba would most likely complain at the tea when he got there.

During the middle of Aoko describing the macaroons at the café, Kaito froze as he saw something across the street. Something impossible. . . yet as real and as clear as the sun in the sky.

"Dad!" he shouted, waving to the man across the street. He was right there, standing, staring at him! "Dad!"

Aoko stopped talking, and faced him. "Kaito?" she asked hesitantly.

Any other time he might have stopped, insulted her intelligence for a few moments before pointing out the obvious, that his father was standing across the busy street and why was she calling his name like a confused lover might?

But it was his father standing across the busy street dressed in casual clothes like jeans, a t-shirt and a jacket looking right at him. His face was a bit hidden by the tweed cap on his head but it was the same face with the same proportions and the same damn mustache. He didn't have time to explain. He had to act. Now.

How long had it been? A second? Two?

Kaito didn't bother asking the walking clock next to him. He ran onto the street, fully intending on getting across. A few cars screeched and honked their horns as they raced by, telling him to get off the street. His self-preservation was forced to kick in a few seconds later when a loud van honked as it raced by, mere centimeters away from hitting him, telling him in the universal driver's language that the van's owner thought him a suicidal moron.

Aoko caught up to him when he stopped to avoid being hit by the car and grabbed his arm to prevent further progress. Kaito tried to shake her off but then Akako joined in and the two's combined efforts were enough to drag him back to the sidewalk. Any other day he might have done some kind of magic trick to make them stop, but he was distracted trying to keep an eye on his father's. . . whatever that was. Reincarnation, ghost, zombie, doppelganger, whatever. He felt like if he lost sight of Kuroba Toichi's image now he would have to go through the pain of losing him all over again.

"Kaito, what's wrong with you?" Aoko tried to wave a hand in front of his eyes but he pushed her away impatiently. His dad's spectre was still standing there, not doing anything except looking at him.

"Dad!" he called again, trying to make him react somehow. He had to make sure it was really him.

A bus got in between his line of sight and the familiar man on the other side. When it passed he was gone.

"No! Dad!"

This time Hakuba had to join the girls in restraining him from jumping out onto the streets. "What is wrong with you, Kuroba?" the detective hissed in pain as Kaito bit his hand.

"Let me go, he can't have gone far – my dad was right there!"

"Kaito," Aoko's voice was sad. Gentle. "Your dad . . . he's. . . ."

He stopped struggling and looked at the others. Akako was frowning, probably irked at not sensing some kind of demonic energy. Hakuba looked like he thought him insane – even more than usual – and Aoko . . . Aoko looked ready to cry.

Kaito closed his mouth, burying the protests of him having seen Kuroba Toichi. Now wasn't the time to be seeing ghosts. He had already accepted the death of his father eight years ago, had accepted the fact that he had, in fact, been murdered a few months prior to today. The time for these kinds of hallucinations weren't now. Closure would be gotten when Kaitou Kid finally smashed Pandora into bits, and brought the organization down to its knees but that didn't mean he had to think that his father was alive. Kuroba Toichi was, no matter what, dead. "C'mon," he muttered. "I owe you all something from that café, don't I?"

His classmates followed, though they looked worried about him now.

Back in his house, hiding in his room from his persistent mother, Kaito looked at the portrait of his smiling, performing father. It had been the same face staring at him on the streets, yes, but that was impossible. Maybe it was just someone who looked alike. Maybe he was imagining things, seeing things that weren't really there. He heard it happened to geniuses or people who had drugs administered to them. He fit both descriptions.

Oh, and the head injury. Let's not forget the head injury, he thought to himself as he rubbed the spot. Yeah, that had to be it.

Besides, if his father was actually alive, Kuroba Toichi wouldn't have just abandoned them. He would have told his family and have just stepped right back out into the public, claiming he was alive and alright. Or, he would have taken them all into hiding. His mother had slipped a few times and hinted at the connections his father had had. Powerful connections in high places.

It was a sad truth . . . but what he had seen earlier that day wasn't his father. It was nothing but a hallucination his imagination along with his traumatized, formerly drugged mind and concussion had created with prompts from his brain constantly reminding him of his mother's requests.

That was what the doctor would tell him, and for once he would agree with the opinion a white-coated quack gave him.

Kaito went to bed early.