He hadn't meant to get shot. It kind of just happened.
Kaito struggled to breathe as he held his heaving chest with one hand, and the other holding his bloody right shoulder, the burning in his lungs felt nothing like the burning in his skin.
Kaito exhaled deeply and leaned against the stone wall of the stairwell on a building he'd run up on a whim, tired and afraid, adrenaline pumping through his veins. Blood stained the fabric of his white suit, and he tore off his suit jacket and only saw his blood had soaked his blue dress shirt underneath too.
He pulled his hand away from his chest and rustled his mussed brown hair, his white hat fluttered to the ground as if in defeat.
Not yet, he thought and sprinted across the roof of the building and straight into the black helicopter that had landed only seconds before. An old man hopped out of the helicopter, grabbed Kaito's fallen hat and dashed back into the already airborne helicopter.
Kaito let out an exasperated breath and recounted the events leading up to his current state. There was the gem, the beautiful jewel that he had announced to the world that he'd steal, and then there was the escape, that hadn't gone as he'd expected.
"Was it the right one?" Jii asked, stroking Kaito's forgotten hat, his old knees bouncing up and down in anxiety.
Kaito sighed. "No, it wasn't. The police grow tired of my constant evasion and even Snake was there today. He's the one who did this," Kaito said gesturing to his bloody shoulder. His blood boiled with anger, thinking back to when Kaito had almost made his way out of the jewel room when he was confronted by Snake.
"Give me the jewel and I'll make your death quick." Snake demanded, holding out his hand for the jewel Kaito held in his hands.
"That is something that I will never in my life ever agree to."
"I will have immortality, even if it takes me an eternity and then some. I will have it."
"Snake lunged for the cursed jewel and Kaito skillfully dodged and threw the gem to the ground, shattered red shards rolled about the floor. In a fit of rage, Snake whipped out a small pistol and fired.
Pandora, the one thing that Kaito hated the most. Drink a single drop from the cursed jewel and it would grant immortality. It was the thing that Kaito had dedicated his life to finding and destroying. Nobody should be able to have such a gift yet such a curse.
"Kaito, isn't that Aoko?" Jii asked, pointing out of the helicopter to a building below.
Kaito's eyes widened as he rushed to the front of the helicopter, only to see Snake standing atop an abandoned building, two slumped figures at his side.
Without hesitation, Kaito leapt out of the helicopter and landed on the building in a roll, his snowy suit jacket fluttering down after him.
Kaito bared his teeth and hissed as he landed. "I thought things ended when Pandora shattered. Give her to me," Kaito pleaded, gesturing to the girl Snake held at his side, "and I'll leave you be."
Snake's eyes narrowed and he laughed. "Do you think it was easy for me to choose to spend half my lifetime searching for Pandora? Did you think everything would end when Pandora was no more?" His laughing stopped, and he snarled, "You were wrong."
"This has nothing to do with Aoko, leave her out of it!" Kaito growled. He took a step towards Snake, but Snake held an arm out over the edge of the building, suspending the mousy brown haired girl over the edge, a cloak Kaito had never seen draped over her shoulders. Kaito ceased his advance and held out his arms as if to stop Snake from dropping his only lover off the edge.
"I guess it's a little too late for that, isn't it?" Snake sneered. Kaito hadn't noticed another man—one of Snake's lackeys, probably—had taken the other person he'd held to the other side of the building.
"You're all about no violence. No death, no bloodshed. The moment I release these two, you will have only seconds to choose who will die and who you will save. One, or the other. One the most important person in your life, and the other an innocent bystander you just had to drag into this mess of yours," Snake smirked as his grip loosened on Aoko and the other man dropped the other person over the edge.
Without question, Kaito dashed passed Snake and leapt over the edge, and Snake made no move to grab him. In a flash, he had the hang glider hidden in his suit jacket deployed, and had snatched Aok's plummeting body out of the sky, and flew far away from Snake. The cracking of bone against the sidewalk from the other person's body against the hard ground echoed in Kaito's mind, the sound engraved in his mind.
Aoko and the other person must have been asleep, for as they had fallen they hadn't even screamed. And still, Aoko made no sound. Perhaps the wind slashing at his face had stolen away the quiet words she might have spoken too.
Before long, Kaito landed on some small abandoned building, cast away his jacket and laid Aoko down on the ground. He heaved a sigh and lay down beside her, staring up at the quickly falling sun, the bright oranges of dusk replaced by the darkness of the night.
There was no wind, and there were no people. The building-top was completely silent, save for Kaito's deep breathing.
Only his breathing.
He hadn't heard Aoko say anything yet, and he hadn't heard her breathe either. Kaito turned his head on the ground to look at her face, something he had become accustomed to seeing every day, completely neutral and unmoving, her lively eyes hidden behind heavy lids. Kaito stood and knelt beside Aoko, and placed two of his fingers to her wrist.
The beating that should have been there, the beating of her heart, there was only silence. Kaito's eyes widened in panic and by chance, flipped the cloak oof of Aoko's body.
Right in the middle of her chest, there was a small hole, dried blood staining her white blouse. Kaito's eyes remained unblinking as tears welled in his unseeing eye, his stiff arms holding Aoko's lifeless body felt numb, and he thought to the last time he had seen her. He remembered every moment he had shared with her, and every single time he lied about being Kaitou Kid, every time he'd neglected her so he could look like the cool kid at school.
Touching his forehead to hers, it felt cold, and he thought back to every turn in life that had brought him to that moment. Every lie, moment of deceit, heist, every day spent plotting and spending with Aoko. He could only imagine if he had done everything differently. If he'd never even picked up the monocle that would deem him Kaitou KID, if he'd never met Aoko, if he'd never found Pandora, if he'd given Snake Pandora, and went home to see a still-alive Aoko, walking and living the life she should have, but didn't because of him.
He tilted his head down and planted a light kiss on her cold, lifeless lips as if giving her the farewell he hadn't gotten to give her before she left him, and he wondered what would have happened. . .
If he hadn't chosen this life at all.