Triangle: A Kaitou Kid Vignette
By Ysabet
It was one of those nights when the wind sang. It fluted its way across the peaks of buildings, howled in mezzo-soprano clarity around eaves and shutters, rippled shogi walls with a staccato voice; cold and clear, the air was its own instrument in the first week of winter. Clean whiteness blanketed the city in a rare late-hour snowfall; and, as it was too far into the night for many human beings to be abroad, the thin draperies of snow lay for the most part untouched beneath the full moon.
The thief stood on the very edge of the very sharpest corner of the very highest building for a good distance; after all, it gave the very best view, clear as any jewel in the ice-sharp air. His cloak fluttered like wings in the strong wind, curling around him in mimicry of the fine mare's-tails of powder-dry snow that danced past. One white-gloved hand held the brim of his hat tightly lest it be whipped away, a sacrifice to the season.
The night's work had proven good; it had brought him three beautiful, gaudy trinkets for his pains—stones clear as water, aquamarine and emerald and amber. He held each one up, admiring the cold moon's light as it glittered off each facet; the stones might have been cut simply to reflect the moon, rather than to adorn some petty human body. Moonlight was clean, moonlight was pure—moonlight was as white as his cloak, his hat, his gloves. Moonlight, for the thief, would redeem his thievery someday, making him innocent once again.
But not tonight.
No, tonight the moonlight devalued each of the gems, reducing its beauty to mere stone and not a thief's redemption or a son's revenge. His whispered curse was lost to the wind, who accepted it without comment.
He would lay the stones in a pigeon's nest, well-sheltered under an overhang; a cryptic note (not too cryptic) would tell their location for a certain police inspector (not too bright) tomorrow, after his show had ended. The careful waltz that their dance of wits had become went on down the years, as it had before he had taken up his father's mantle; it had been more than a decade now, and somehow the inspector never quite caught the thief—was it perhaps because he didn't wish to see his daughter cry?
Or his grandchildren, either? It had been ten years, after all…..
So the note would be delivered via some clever scheme, paper airplane or balloon or some such trick. Then on with the next show, either the public ones for the audiences that never got enough of the world-famous magician or the private ones that still went on every twenty-eight days for the benefit of himself and the police and the moon.
Matinees, if you will. Three of them, every month, while the moon was full.
The thief sighed, then laughed to himself; it was alright, really. So what if he hadn't found the Pandora Gem tonight, just like all the other nights? There would always be more gems to target, more glittering triumphs to hold up in front of the moon, his finest critic. He could hear her applause in the wind…..
So he bowed to her, never once losing his balance in the slightest; gravity was an old friend of his, after all—they were comfortable with each other.
In fact, he was comfortable with a lot of things—content, one might even say: with the strangeness and triumphs and even the dangers of his tripartite life. Magician, husband and thief—his coins all had three sides. He had taken up his father's white cloak with little reluctance, ten years past; the regrets had come later on, once he had time to think. But they were gone, washed white in the moonlight, and none of the three could exist without the other. Someday he would take delight in teaching his children the Art—especially the eldest; she was already showing an aptitude.
Stepping back a bit, he furled his cloak around him against the cold and shivered just a bit; the snow was beautiful but careless of its admirers. Time to head home to his warm bed and the warmer embraces of his wife, who would be angry (as always) that he had gone out on a heist, but who would want to know the details (as always) before she allowed him to sleep. Interrogations could never wait 'til morning, no matter how weary one might be.
Must be her ancestry, he thought with a wry grin.
One last look down at the city, and he launched himself in a leap from the ledge to the narrow rim of a metal sign six or seven feet below; rooftops weren't really the best place to glide down from, you were too visible against the empty sky when you took off. Now, if one was going for showmanship that was fine….. but not tonight. Tonight he had been much more stealthy than usual, advancing up with extreme punctuality as per his warning to take the prizes but without the usual fanfare and flare. He wasn't sure why—
--maybe he just felt like giving a private performance tonight. For the moon, perhaps. Why not?
He had three audiences, really, the three sides of his existence: the public, the authorities, and the moon. Three sides to a triangle, three stages for a performance, three-two-one, presto!
Three.
A press of a button, an adjustment of a belt, and the thief was ready. Gravity accepted his slight weight (still light and lithe even after a decade, though with decidedly more muscle) gracefully, allowing him to move through the winds as he would. The fine, thin snow sang and whistled against the struts and fibre of his man-made wings, burning in delicate firey crystals against his skin.
Time to go home. A good night, really; he had attained his goal (even if the gems weren't the ultimate prize) and the inspector had had a rare run through the snow. Yeah; a good night. His wife would probably swat him one, but he had learned over the years to keep mops out of the bedroom.
***
And as the high, sweet voice of the wind sang in his ears, bearing him safely home, the single black object on his moon-white person twisted and tangled in the breeze: an inheritance from his father, the inch-wide triangular charm that hung from his monacle. Black as soot and marked with a gold 4-leaf clover, one might wonder why it was not white to match the thief's clothing. A mark of sin, perhaps?
Or a last jest by a man about to die? It had been his father's, after all.
Moonlight glittered on the golden clover, on the black enamel of the face and the front; moonlight glimmered on the three edges, which were not enameled but oddly glassy. And as it fluttered and spiraled in the wind like a tiny triangular kite, a careful watcher might have seen the charm from edge-to-edge, not frontwise.
In fact, they might have noticed that, when seen from the edge, it was translucent.
And glowing, very, very slightly—a scarlet glow from deep within, as rich and pure as the light of the full moon that teased it forth.
Kuroba Toichi, master thief, had been a very clever man….. clever enough to find and conceal the gem that his enemies and ultimate murderers sought in a very clever place.
Somewhere a dead magician was laughing at his killers.
After all, who said that the Pandora Gem had to be large?
***
Landing gently on a ledge two blocks from his dwelling, Kuroba Kaito smiled one last time at the moon and tipped his hat in salute. Somehow when it was full---
--- it always looked to him as if it were laughing.
He laughed back, sharing the joke (whatever it was), and took flight for home, and Aoko.
************************************************************************************************************
YSABET'S NOTES: Okay, I don't know what I was smoking when I wrote this one, but it sort of sprang up from a conversation I had with Becky Tailweaver a while ago about possible hiding places for the Pandora Gem. For those of you who don't know the story behind it, go take a look at http://www.kaitokid.esmartkid.com, where you'll find the entire Kaitou Kid story (Thank you, Jane!). I dunno; think maybe I've been reading too much manga?
Nahhhhhh……. @_^