Heiji should have known the day was going far too well to be true.
The girls were going to be out most of the day—lunch, movie, some shopping, maybe even dinner. Hell, if Heiji (and Kazuha) got lucky, the two of them would go back to Neechan's place to be alone, then he could have Kudo all to himself until at least the next afternoon.
Sure, he loved it when the four of them spent time together, and he wanted to catch up with Neechan, but he saw Kazuha every day and he was dying for some one-on-one time with Kudo. There was no way he was going to have this screwed up.
He found the girls a nice cafe (away from Beika, like, all the way in Ekoda) and triple, quadruple, and quintuple checked their movie time before rushing them out the door. It would have gone a lot faster if Kazuha had just taken his advice to skip the make-up because it wasn't going to improve her face at all. But, instead, she spent the next five minutes threatening to stab him in the face with an eyeliner pencil, which made no sense at all because he was giving her a compliment, sheesh.
Once the two of them were on their merry way, Heiji sprinted to the closest Danny's (note to self, consider taking motorcycle to Tokyo just in case this situation pops up again) where he had takeout waiting. Bag in hand, he practically flew back to Kudo's house, where he set everything out in a somewhat orderly manner before dragging his boyfriend out of the library for their "surprise date" with the hope of sweeping him off his feet.
Needless to say it worked. Hook, line, and sinker.
Kudo was spread underneath him on the couch, not making a fuss for once about Heiji having his hands all the way up his shirt. Not that he could complain, since his mouth was latched onto his collarbone at that moment. Besides, Kudo's hands were obviously wandering too as he grabbed onto Heiji's ass and pulled him closer, clinking their belts against each other.
"God. Fuck. Kudo…" Heiji mumbled as he lowered his hands to work on Kudo's buckle, "Upstairs after this?"
"Yes! Please!" He pulled Heiji down to kiss him…
And then someone knocked at the door. What the hell? They didn't ring the bell at the gate. They knocked on the door.
Kudo tried to get up, Heiji pushed him back down.
"Leave it, I wanna blow you."
"Hattori!"
The person knocked again, this time more insistently.
"Come on. It's probably one of the girls. They must have forgotten something. Or it's Haibara with an emergency."
Heiji sighed and leaned back onto his knees, taking his weight off the other boy. "Tell Kazuha that I've never felt so betrayed in my life. I'd never cockblock her and Neechan like this."
Kudo scoffed and kissed the top of his head. "I'll be right back, then we can pick up where you left off." He rolled his eyes as the door knocked again. "I'll be right there! Hold on!"
Heiji grumbled as he sat up on the couch and tried his best to readjust his junk while thinking of the best ways to get revenge.
…
Only to hear a resounding wail and sobbing that sounded suspiciously like his boyfriend.
"Kudo?" He ran into the hallway, ready to see if Hell had frozen over because Kudo never cried and eager to punch whoever was responsible in the face. Instead there was Kudo, standing stiff and stunned in the doorway as this guy, who looked exactly like him, wrapped around him like an octopus, sobbing his eyes out.
What.
The.
Fuck.
It took a couple of minutes for the stranger to calm down enough to actually say much of anything. He sank into one of the easy chairs and gave them an apologetic look. "Sorry, I'd say 'I don't know what came over me' but...it's been kind of an emotional couple of days, and everything kind of came rushing at me."
"I get that, it's just…" Kudo's face looked sheepish, but his eyes gave Heiji a completely different impression as they shared a look. "I have no idea who you are or why you're at my house."
Okay, that wasn't true. At least half of that was a big fat lie. They both knew this guy was the Kaitou Kid. He'd had a beef of his own with the creepy guys in black that had given Kudo so much trouble. So, naturally, when the time came to strike he and Kudo had spent more than enough up close and personal time with the thief—up until he snatched some giant pendant, laughed in Vermouth's face, and jumped out a window.
It was really weird.
The point was, though, that this stranger had all of the same mannerisms—tells he probably didn't even realize he was giving away. You had to be blind, deaf, stupid, or all of the above not to connect the dots. Heiji and Kudo didn't fall into any of those categories.
But, this stranger didn't need to know that they knew.
"Our parents know...er, knew each other before my old man died. I don't really know if my mom stayed in contact after the funeral; she's kind of been off doing her own thing so, y'know. Our family name is Kuroba."
Kudo paused for a moment, probably searching the depths of his memory for the name. Just as suddenly his jaw dropped and a look of horror came over his face. "You…"
"Hey! You remember!"
"I wish I didn't."
"Yeah, we had some good times as kids."
Okay, wow. That was definitely not a can of worms Heiji wanted to open up. "Kuroba...hm…" He leaned back into the couch, putting his hand on his chin. "That name sounds really familiar, but can't put my finger on it. Your family famous or somethin'?"
"His dad was—"
"Kuroba Touichi, world famous magician!" Of course those words were accompanied by a shower of confetti and streamers. Why? Heiji had no fucking idea. First the guy barges in and completely kills the mood, then he throws confetti everywhere. Kuroba was lucky he didn't get his teeth bashed in.
Kudo sighed and pulled a stray streamer out of his hair. "That still doesn't explain why you're here."
And just like that, the no-good, cockblocking thief's dumb grin vanished. "I, uh...I did something really stupid a few days ago and hurt someone I really care about. We have a lot of mutual friends, and I really needed someone to talk to that had a bit of an outside perspective. So, I just kind of wound up here."
So maybe Heiji felt a little bad…
"But judging from that hickey and the state of Kudo-kun's belt, it looks like I interrupted your special alone time."
…
False alarm, Kuroba was a dick. Heiji glared at him. "Whatever gave ya that idea?"
"I'm feeling a lot of animosity in the room right now."
"I'll show you animosity."
"Hattori, he's already here. Let him talk so we can get him out of here faster."
"Just a few minutes, an hour tops, then I'll be out of your hair."
Heiji looked at Kudo, then Kuroba, and back to Kudo. He rubbed his face and sighed in defeat. All he wanted was sex with his boyfriend. Was that really too much to ask for? "What is my life?"
"I ask myself that every day." Kudo sat next to him on the couch and waved his hand at Kuroba. "Get started."
"Wow. Such tact." Kuroba grabbed some of the fries from one of the containers on the table (dammit, they didn't even get to finish their food) and stuffed them in his mouth. "There's this girl I'm dating—"
"Your girlfriend?"
"I dunno...we're...I guess?"
"Just say 'girlfriend', god."
"Okay, fine! My girlfriend, Aoko. Anyway, I've been keeping this really big secret from her for like a year and it was finally safe enough for me to tell her—"
"And she got upset about it?" Kudo interrupted.
"Well, yeah, but that's not—"
"Was this before or after you started datin'?" Heiji asked.
Kuroba gave them an annoyed look. "Will you let me finish my story?" He crossed his arms. "As I was saying. It was finally safe enough for me to tell her and she got upset at first, but then we just...didn't talk about it? Like, I brought it up, she yelled at me and threatened to shove a mop up my ass, but then we just kind of moved on?"
"So what's the problem then?"
"I'm getting there, hold on! Jeez, are all gay guys this pushy?"
"Hey! I'm not gay." Heiji pointed a finger at him. "I don't give a crap what parts ya have."
Kudo shrugged. "Plus I don't think our girlfriends would be too happy if we stopped showing interest in them."
Kuroba paused, obviously confused, and opened his mouth to say something. But then he must have changed his mind because he closed it and shook his head. "Okay, stop. You're distracting me. Anyway! So this thing doesn't come up and everything's fine and dandy. Of course, now everybody at school is talking about university and entrance exams. I haven't really been planning on that because, well, I decided I want to follow in my dad's footsteps, you know? Some of his old mentors said I can come study under them after I graduate. That's kind of been my plan for a while, and since I can't learn any more from my dad..." He frowned. "Then out of nowhere, Aoko asks me, 'Kaito, I'm applying to Beika University. What about you?' So I tell her."
"Oh, I see where this is goin'..."
"Yeah, I think so too."
"She explodes at me, like full out, red faced, probably going to kill me explodes. She calls me a liar, says that I'm always keeping secrets and being sneaky. A lot of it was probably just stuff she was holding back, but...I just, I'd never seen Aoko get that angry. And then she started crying and told me to get out of her house and…" He looked genuinely upset. "I fucked up. Big time."
Heiji nodded. "Yep. You sure did."
"...well, that's encouraging, thank you."
"Have you guys tried, I dunno...talking?"
And at that, Heiji had to give Kudo a look. A look that said, "Seriously, this is coming from you of all people" as he crossed his arms and flat out stated, "Excuse me? I think Neechan has somethin' to say about your communication skills."
Kudo rolled his eyes. "We worked it out eventually! We wouldn't be in this position if it didn't."
"You wouldn't be fucking a guy if you didn't talk to some girl? What?"
"Basically, yeah."
"Shut up, Hattori. You know it's much more complicated than that."
"Um, can we please get back to my problems?"
"Well, I was getting to that before someone had to open their big mouth." He flicked Heiji's arm before continuing, "The point is, up until recently I was in a really similar situation. here was a girl I liked, and I kept a big secret to protect her, when I told her she got really upset. But after, um...stuff happened, we talked it over and I got it knocked into me that, hey, communication is actually pretty important. And it's only gotten a lot more important now that this," he pointed between the two of them, "and what our girlfriends have going on is pretty dependent on it."
The teenager across from them got a serious look on his face as he sat back, tenting his fingers. "So you're saying...I need to get a boyfriend to patch things up with my girlfriend?"
"...oh my god."
Okay, that was pretty funny. Nobody could blame Heiji for laughing. After he finally stopped, when Kudo punched his arm, he wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and clarified, "What he's sayin' is that you two need to talk and stop stewin'. No boyfriend needed."
Kuroba sighed in relief. "Okay, good. Because no offence, not only do I not swing that way, but I don't think I could sleep with Hakuba and take it seriously."
"Please tell me you're jokin'..."
Before another word could be said, Kudo's phone started to ring. He looked at the caller ID. "It's Ran, I gotta take this." He answered it as he walked into the hallway.
A beat passed between the two of them, making the silence just this side of awkward. Kuroba opened his mouth, and Heiji braced himself for the worst…
"How do you guys do it?"
Oh...okay, maybe it wasn't that bad. "Whattya mean?" he asked, hoping it wouldn't be something dumb like "do it in the butt".
"You know...this thing you've got. Four people in a relationship."
"Uh, well...we're not all in it with each other? Like we're together, and the girls are together, and then each of the girls is with one of us, but I'm not with Neechan and Kazuha—"
"Yeah, but don't you guys get jealous? I don't think I could share Aoko with somebody…"
"Of course we do," Heiji shrugged. "Kudo's all the way up here and I'm in Osaka, so we don't get to see each other every day like he can with Neechan. Even when we do, we usually can't go out without a metric asston of problems. But, I guess we wouldn't care about each other enough if we didn't."
"Oh...I guess that makes sense." Kuroba looked at the containers on the table and then back at him. "And I'm guessing I kind of screwed up today for you guys?"
"Yep."
"Well now I feel like a dick."
"Yes, you are."
"...tact is not one of your strong suits, is it?"
"I really don't give a fuck."
"That's cool." Kuroba stood up. "I'll just have to make it up to you two somehow."
"Please don't."
"Try and stop me."
Kudo came back into the room, pocketing his phone. "I hope you're not thinking of leaving."
Heiji gave him a hopeless look. He wasn't getting laid, was he?
The girls came back a short time later with a girl that looked too much like Neechan, but thankfully didn't sound like her. Heiji couldn't deal with more than one set of complete doubles that day, thank you.
She looked upset and angry, her eyes still red-rimmed from tears. Apparently the girls had found her sitting at the cafe, alone, and what should have been a date turned to a group therapy session. Kazuha hadn't minded too much, it seemed, so she was definitely more of a sport about it than Heiji had been.
Kuroba looked reluctant the moment she walked into the living room, and probably would have pulled off an elaborate disappearing act if Kudo hadn't not-so-subtly pushed him towards the girl. He looked away from her with a pout on his face. "...Bimboko."
The girl, who Heiji just assumed was the Aoko girl Kuroba has mentioned before, crossed her arms. "Jerkaito."
They stood in silence for a little while. Neechan and Kazuha looked anxious, while Kudo didn't seem to care too much. Heiji on the other hand was ready to rip his hair out.
"Well?" Aoko started.
"'Well', what?"
"Are you going to say anything?"
"Are you going to say anything?"
"I wasn't the one that screwed up, jerk!"
"I wasn't the one that got into a hissy fit over something as dumb as not going to university!"
"It's not about that, you moron!"
"Well enlighten me then, you—"
Kudo threw his arms up in the air, completely exasperated. "What did we just talk about! Come on!"
Kuroba frowned, but then nodded. "I guess...maybe we should...talk about stuff…?"
Aoko dropped her arms and opened her mouth to say something, but then Neechan and Kazuha gave her a look and she must have changed her mind because she just muttered, "Yeah...maybe we should…"
Kuroba sighed and looked at her, "I didn't like keeping it a secret from you."
"I know."
"And I just thought you knew about…"
"I guess I did...I'm not really angry about that."
"Yeah?"
"Can we go home and talk about it?"
"Yeah…" Kuroba's shoulders relaxed a bit, "come on." He shot Heiji and Kudo a grateful look as they made their way out the door.
"Dad's making fish for dinner."
Heiji swore he saw tears in Kuroba's eyes at that. Huh...why would he be crying about fish? Kuroba was weird. Hopefully they wouldn't run into each other again for a long time, or ever again.
Kazuha made a relieved sound. "Well...I guess that worked out in the end. Too bad both of our dates didn't turn out as well."
"You know, you two could still go t' Neechan's place..."
"I'm not walking anymore in these shoes, Heiji!"
He gave her a face that even he knew looked pathetic, realizing he'd gone through all of that for almost nothing.
Neechan put her hand on his shoulder and leaned in to whisper, "I wanted some alone time with Kazuha-chan...you and Shinichi share a room tonight."
He briefly considered stealing her away and eloping, that's how happy he was. Totally would have defeated the purpose though.
She grabbed Kazuha's hand and led her towards the staircase. "My feet hurt too. Let's go upstairs," she said. And that was all it took.
That left him and Kudo alone in the hallway once again. Kudo leaned against the wall. "You know...I always thought the Kaitou Kid was gay."
"With that tacky suit? Please." He moved in front of Kudo and braced both of his arms against the wall. "Now...where did we leave off again? My memory's kinda fuzzy."
So this could take place before or after "Date Night" - as you can tell Polyverse is pretty out of order. I'm just writing stuff as it comes to me.
I was going to touch on some things about Aoko and Kaito, but this was my first time writing them - and since this is from Heiji's POV and he only really knows Kaito as the Kaitou Kid outside of this situation, it wouldn't really make sense coming from him. So if they do seem a little weird, you have to take that into consideration, Heiji doesn't know what "normal" is for Kaito and Aoko, and he doesn't know that things are really bad between them right now. I might write something touching on their relationship eventually, and how they learn to communicate, but we'll see.
Eventually I'll write the origin fic, which'll totally explain how "communication" became the motto for our four couples.
Thanks to nikki_kun05/mabuhaylyn for Alpha Reading once again, and an extra special thank you to olive-the-olive from Tumblr and Crimson Amarone for Beta Reading.
