A/N: This started out as an experiment, and I actually enjoy how it turned out. So for once, I'll upload one of my oneshots onto this site!
[Kaito gives them pieces of himself and pretends that it's love.]
The first is because he's bored.
Kaito is bored, and he is lonely, and a comment from a particularly cruel critic leaves him wondering whether the words 'KID wants a crowd because it's the only love he will ever receive' are true. He changes his hair style, dons the disguise of Kudo Shinichi and seeks her out.
Ran is lonely too, and even though she knows that it's not Kudo Shinichi whose touch lingers on her shoulders, she leans in when he touches her. She loses herself in the image of a boy who plays detective, and Kaito finds himself in the touch of a detective's daughter.
Each touch is gentle, understanding, and Kaito offers his sympathies to a girl who spends all her time waiting, wondering whether the boy she loves will ever return home. Each brush of his fingertips against skin is patient, waiting for confirmation.
Kaito learns a little bit more of patience, tells himself that maybe he can learn to wait if she will simply teach him how to, but Ran is too kind to tear him apart and so he never learns, not really.
He falls a little in love – but then, Kaito thinks it's impossible not to fall in love with Mouri Ran, with the way kindness lurks behind her eyes, danger coiled in every muscle. His heart breaks a little bit each time she tries to grant him a name, but it's alright.
He knows that it's never going to last, so Kaito makes sure to leave before the feeling fades from his skin.
[Kaito changes himself, and pretends that it makes him easier to love.]
The next is nothing like the first.
Where the first had been subtle, innocent pecks against cheeks, sometimes a daring brush against lips, the second is electrified, more outward. There is anger in the touches he receives – not full hate, but anger all the same.
Sera leaves bruises against his neck, bite marks used as a form of punishment for the time he disguised as her.
Where Ran was like water, serene, calm, Sera is electricity. She's got a plan, and a crush on a detective she'll never be with, and well, she's not the first to use Kaito as a substitute for the real deal.
Sera is like the breeze Kaito feels whenever he drives his motorbike at 90, flying down the motorway without a care in the world. She is passionate and alive, and she loves life in a way that Kaito… doesn't.
"You look like you're dying," she says one day, when they are lying beside one another in the grass, having ridden out to some forgotten area in the middle of nowhere, their motorbikes left near a group of trees.
Kaito leans back and lets out a laugh, it feels hollow, uncertain but glancing other at Sera brings it to life, almost.
"I'm a living legend," he laughs, as he leans over to face her. They don't speak about the fact that they have had so many people torn away, are plagued by the fact that there is so much they don't know. "And everyone knows legends don't die."
He leaves her behind with the rev of his engine, replaces her lips against his neck with the breeze of the wind and pretends that it's alright to be a substitute and not the real thing.
[Kaito steals hearts with a kiss, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop him.]
He decides that the usual flings are difficult, and Kaito turns his attentions to someone who's more of a challenge. Summer passes with little response, although he doesn't quite remain with a single individual, is much to 'lovable' for that, but by the time autumn leaves spill across the floor, an array of reds and oranges, there's someone who gladly pulls at his hair and leaves his lips swollen.
Shinichi returns to a life with no secrets, and Kaito knows that in some sort of overwhelmed confusion, the other boy searches for a new secret to keep.
There are no fake aliases – well, only if he disregards his own of KID – and Kaito attempts to teach imagination where there is little, tries to rewire paranoia into caution. It's difficult, and Kaito spends more time trying to piece Kudo Shinichi back together than trying to tear him apart.
Funny, seeing as Kaito just wants to tear him apart. Wants to ask why he deserves to be loved when he's barely ever present, whereas Kaito who's never left anyone behind remains unloved and labelled as nothing but trouble.
Instead, his hands attempt to rewire what's broken – this isn't about love, it's about healing. And Kaito wants to snap - "oh, you thought you were special?", but he doesn't, he simply kisses the groove of Shinichi's collarbone when nightmares force him awake, stitches him back together with a care he simply isn't used to giving.
Shinichi is grieving the time he'd lost, and Kaito joins him in the time he's still got to live through, and together they are a mesh of emotion, trying to focus on the fact that they are more than the organisations they fight.
It's better for the both of them, when Kaito leaves. He's still in the middle of his fight against animals, and Shinichi still has to deal with the aftermath of his own altercations with alcohols.
Plus, Kaito's pretty sure that he doesn't want to be another person's substitute. And he knows that ever kiss they share tastes of Ran and her strawberry lip balm. There is no splitting those two up, Kaito thinks, and maybes he's glad for them, but mostly it hurts.
[The thing with stealing hearts is that KID returns what he steals.]
The fourth is different.
There are no kisses, no lingering touches. Instead of love bites, there is sitting across from one another on balconies, hands intertwined, fingertips touching.
It's not the type of love Kaito expects from the Suzuki family's heir, especially with the way she calls out to him at every heist, but Sonoko is innocent when it comes to love.
KID is her first love, her only what-if.
But she is content with platonic romance, with the roses he gives her, flirtatious quotes and the odd leaning over to brush her hair from her eyes. She is reserved, and Kaito isn't sure whether it's because all of her passion remains overseas with a boyfriend she barely sees, or whether it's because her best friends have already had him.
"I bet you give roses to all the pretty girls," she comments one day, when he climbs up to her room, hovering in the window. She looks over at a purple stained rose, and there is sadness there, as if she's just realised that he could become anyone, charm anyone.
"Maybe," Kaito says, "but only you deserve them."
She offers him a smile, and holds the rose close to her chest. She turns away, and Kaito knows that this is the moment she will turn him away completely, having seen under the monocle and the masks he wears. He doesn't mind though… At least this time he's not been a substitute, at least this time he's someone she'd actually wanted.
He leaves a piece of himself behind, leaves behind the blue ribbon from his hat, and hopes that she'll use it to remember.
He grabs a spare hat for new heists, decides that it's too late to fix something that's broken.
[His affection is an illusion, but it's not quite magic.]
The next is a car crash.
Kaito draws her in and pretends that pinpricks against fabric doesn't tear holes into his skin. He is the only one she wants, and it is not because of love, but everything between them is magic.
Akako is a witch, Kaito is a magician, and maybe in another world it would be enough, but instead it's a barrage of emotions. He doesn't love her, because there is always someone else, and she doesn't love him, she just wants him to succumb to her will.
Each touch burns, hot and raw, scorching him the way hellfire scorches the rooms that Akako uses to summon Lucifer. There are snapped words of hating one another, and Kaito gives up the claim that KID is not his alter-ego because Akako knows to much for him to deny it.
They are both the bruises left on wrists, anger filling stone hearts.
Akako will never love another man, she states, because they drool all over her. And she will never love KID because he doesn't. It's fine, because Kaito will never love a witch, and Akako is the wrong colour anyway – she is a hot, bubbling red and Kaito's only ever wanted blue.
[Kaito's heart is a crime scene – messy and no one can quite figure out the trick.]
This is his big rebellion.
He waits, and he charms his way into the heart of his biggest critic. It takes time – precious timings that he's had to set off, and Kaito convinces himself that if he can get Hakuba to love him, then he really is loveable.
It is with subtle movements. Slowly cutting off the pranks centred only him – 'Don't you know boys only pick on those they like?' - small smiles whenever the other talks about time in such a precise way – 'because I like knowing exactly where I stand'.
Hakuba chases him to the end of a corridor during one heist, having led the KID taskforce up to the roof – why do they think he needs to be on the roof to escape? -and he pauses behind him, just long enough for Kaito to turn from where he's removing a window from it's frame.
"You made it easy for me to follow you." Hakuba says, and there is confusion there.
Kaito turns, folds the wings of his hang-glider back into his cape, and offers a wide smile. Maybe he's made it easy to be followed, but Hakuba's made it easy for him to get away, escorting the police to the wrong area.
Their romance ends with a hurricane. There is talk of falling, and like a storm, it's over almost as quickly as it starts. It's wild, uncontrollable, which – Kaito loves the irony of someone so controlled being so uncontrollable.
They stand at the window of the heist, and Kaito talks about falling.
He's not sure whether he likes the feeling, so he tests it, stepping back out of the window and preparing himself for the free fall.
[They all love him for being someone else; they never love him for just being Kaito.]
It all ends with Aoko.
She calls out to him from where he's climbed to the roof of his house – something she hates him doing, but never quite tells him off for doing. He makes his way down, glances at her before turning away. She puts a hand on his shoulder and waits.
She knows about all the heartbreak – she knows him. She always has. And maybe that's why he's so uncertain when it comes to loving her, because she knows all about Kaito but she remains unknowing of KID.
He turns back, and their eyes meet for a moment. He can see longing, both on his end and hers, for a second. Then, it's over, just like that.
"No," Aoko says firmly, and Kaito understands. Of course he understands. They may be in love with one another but neither is ready for what a relationship will bring. They are not ready to bridge the ever growing distance between them, not mature enough to face the other's secrets with them.
He smiles, self pitying. All he's done is attempt to find a substitute for her, and what does he get for it? Conflicted feelings and a best friend who won't kiss him.
"One day," Aoko says, turning away before either can start the long-due conversation.
And the cycle repeats.