Circle of Fate
2: Kaito
If anyone ever challenged her beliefs, Aoko would show a temper like a tiger for it. But other than that, she was as pure as a little kitten that everyone adored in the force, which made her an easy target to tease. She was exactly what Kuroba Kaito once described her not so long ago, and it irked her a little to know it was the truth.
Though even if it did happen, she always tried to use her patience to ensure her anger was kept in check when it was towards someone she couldn't blow her temper at, and it was also one of the things Aoko learnt from Kuroba Kaito, because he had always been testing her patience since day one. It was considered rare when she couldn't control herself.
And this time round was one of those rare moments. Almost.
There were four unsolved murder cases originally being handled individually by other Division 1 squads, but once a trend and connection started to show, Kudo Shinichi's team was being placed in charge to find the serial killer, who possibly had a strong grudge against magicians to kill four within one year.
But that wasn't the reason for Aoko's current conflicted emotions.
It was because Kuroba Kaito was out of the case.
She couldn't believe her ears when Shinichi declared about the new adjustment of roles. It wasn't the first time this happened, but it never applied on Kuroba Kaito before. As much as she wished she wouldn't admit, he was a brilliant asset to the team, and Shinichi knew it too. But with no apparent reason given, the entire team was told he would be off from this investigation during the meeting moments ago. Why? Why?
"Why?" Her soft voice echoed in the nearly empty office that contained only her and the owner alone. She was assigned to do an interview with the fourth victim's family, but she couldn't leave with a heavy heart. She needed to know why.
Shinichi placed his arms on his desk. "He's not fit for it."
"Not fit?" Aoko bit her lips. "Was he involved in a case similar to this before?"
He simply sighed.
"Inspector Kudo, with all due respect, I wish to know as much as I could about the case if I'm part of it, including why Inspector Kuroba wasn't part of the investigation." She felt her voice was starting to tremble. If it wasn't for her status, she would've been demanding for an answer right now. It was unfair, not just to Kuroba Kaito, but to the families of the victims. They should be ensured that the best treatment and effort would be put into solving the case, but now that one of the smartest man she knew was taken out... it didn't make sense!
Patience... Patience...
"Yes. He's involved in a case similar to this. Very involved, actually." Shinichi tapped a finger on a file. "I want to remind you that you are not allowed to leak out any information regarding this case to him, even if he ordered you to. The cases are confidential to those who are not participating in this, and you understand this rule as much as I do."
He still didn't exactly answer her second question, but since he gave her one, she had to answer him back, even if she asked him first. She straightened her posture. "I do understand, Inspector Kudo."
He picked up a file and handed it to her. She blinked in puzzlement, being sure that in the meeting previously, everyone had already received all the necessary information for the murders, including her. Nonetheless, she accepted the file from his hand, though a little tentatively.
"This file is confidential from everyone." Shinichi said before he locked his gaze firmly with hers.
"Eh?"
"It contained the answers you want to know about your partner."
Partner? She didn't consider Kuroba Kaito as her partner before, and she wondered why she never once think that way. All she saw him was a working colleague, a troublesome an annoying desk-neighbour... She shook her head and stared down at the file in her hand. The papers inside weighed like feathers, but she felt like she was carrying a ton of burden.
"I'm only allowing you to see it because I trust you to keep it a secret." Shinichi leaned back on his chair, a sign that the conversation was about to end. "Read it and draw your own conclusion. You'll return that file back to me by the next meeting, privately."
"Yes, Inspector Kudo."
With nothing else to say (and honestly because she wanted to read the so-called answers in her hands), Aoko walked out of the office and skipped towards her chair with the file pressing hard on her chest. She sat down on her seat and placed it on her desk carefully like it was made of glass and flipped open the cover to stare at the heading.
Konosuke Jii. Age 65. Male.
Death: Three bullets-
"What are you doing?"
She literally jumped in her seat as her hands frantically slammed the file shut.
"N-Nothing."
Kuroba Kaito was standing directly behind her chair. The carpet on the floor must have minus the sound of his approaching footsteps. His face was shadowed, his expression equally dark. She kept a hand on the cover and twisted her body a little to look at him more properly. His blue eyes were no longer on her but on her hand, or rather the file underneath it.
"Where the hell is everyone? The office was bloody empty when I came in the morning."
She licked her dry lips.
"I've heard the team is placed in charge of the four magicians' murder." He had changed the subject after a moment of silence, though it still wasn't in her favour. "Is that the case file of the fourth victim?" It was more of a statement than a question.
"No." She was confident enough to say so.
He tilted her chair to make her completely face him, but her hand stubbornly refused to move away from the file. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and turned to focus his attention on her again. She could smell mint from his breath.
"Your first word is a lie. Second isn't." He furrowed his brows. "So is it the third victim? Second victim? Which one are we investigating now?"
"We aren't."
He straightened up as if she had pushed him, his eyes staring down at her with surprise and enough hurt to make her feel sorry, guilty and unsure of herself.
"What are you saying?" He spat. "You are and I'm not? Who has the rights to cut me out?"
She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not that the office was mostly empty since everyone was out in the field and finding clues after the meeting had ended half an hour ago, which Kuroba Kaito obviously didn't attend because he didn't even know there was one. She gulped and felt herself cowering into her seat. He was often frustrated and annoyed, but never once was he pissed. And it was till now then she suddenly missed that cheeky and annoying grin he always wore. Shinichi might be right. Maybe it wasn't because he wasn't allowed on the case. Maybe he wasn't fit for it instead. She wished she could read the file first before deciding what she should do now. But-
"I did."
Seeming to have heard the little commotion, Shinichi was standing by his door, his arms crossed. Kuroba Kaito turned towards him and gave a low growl.
"Why?" He didn't sound angry. He sounded... betrayed.
"You know as well as I do."
"I've asked you." Kuroba Kaito began walking to Shinichi, his fist clenched. "I've begged you."
"We'll talk inside." Shinichi gestured him into his room and gave a brief glance at her before entering back into his office.
Kuroba Kaito slammed the door shut behind him. Even though she was half-expecting him to do so, she still flinched at the sound.
Through the gap in the blinds, she could see Kuroba Kaito dangerously leaning his body over the desk, and it took a minute of Shinichi's constant talking till he straightened his posture, both arms swinging loosely at his side. He was looking at the floor, not at Shinichi, not at anything. And in the middle of the one-sided conversation, he turned and swung open the door to leave and she pathetically tried to pretend as if she was too busy with her work to be spying on them.
But he didn't seem to care. His eyes was still focused on the ground as he headed out of the main office. He looked like something in him died, and she was sure it wasn't anger.
After giving herself a minute to regain her composure, Aoko mustered enough energy to peel open the file again.
Konosuke Jii. Age 65. Male.
Death: Three bullets in chest.
Suspect:
She widened her eyes.
Suspect: Kuroba Kaito
.o.
It didn't take her long to finish reading the report before evening. The file was thin, with little information and limited clues to piece together. All she knew about Konosuke Jii was that he once owned a bar near town and lived by himself in a quiet flat, unmarried and alone.
All of the magicians died with three bullets in their chest. Same as Konosuke Jii. All were aimed at the heart. Same as Konosuke Jii. All happened after the magician's show. Same as Konosuke Jii. The similarity of these cases were too high to think that Konosuke Jii's death was not involved with the current serial murders, but there was one difference, and her guts' feeling was telling her this piece of information was very vital. That was what she told Shinichi the next day she passed the file back to him before the meeting. He simply nodded to her words, nothing else.
Konosuke Jii wasn't a magician. He was a magician's assistant. The magician, however, was very much alive, although the last time she saw him, he looked almost as soulless as every murdered victim she saw at the crime scene.
Kuroba Kaito was a magician. He was that magician.
Three days had passed since she last saw him. A day had passed since the fifth murder happened. She never brought up about requesting for Kuroba Kaito's assistance to Shinichi again.
The same meeting like every other day happened and nothing fruitful came about. As the team was dispatched to do the usual activities of investigation and interviewing, Aoko spent her time reading files under the cold-case section in the records room. As a dutiful police officer, she was ashamed to admit that she was avoiding her current duties to focus on something else, but there was something more important about Konosuke Jii's case than the five murders, something... awful... She had no idea what she was finding, but that didn't stop her search for any possible related events further in the past, further back when Konosuke Jii was still alive...
And then she was chased out by the supervisor because it was late, because unlike her, people wanted to go home and sleep.
A year working at the same place almost every single day had set an auto-pilot to her feet. Even when her thoughts and mind were far from reality, she was pretty sure she would safely reach her bus stop no matter what. The only thing that could possibly deterred her route would be if a nuisance suddenly blocked her entire path, like now.
Her face nearly hit the man's chest and she glanced up sharply, her eyes met Kuroba Kaito's cold blue ones. She stepped back, about to complain about how he almost scared her when he tugged onto her arm, pushed her to the edge of the pavement and to the empty road and waved. In less than a second, a cab stopped right by their side. How lucky she was, for a cab to appear so fast when she didn't want one, yet she could wait for hours when she bloody needed one.
He opened the door. "In there."
"I'm taking a bus."
"Cut your bullshit about being environmentally-friendly and saving the earth. You're coming with me."
She scoffed. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
"Why not? You don't trust me?"
She looked up at him, about to say something cutting, but the words faded out of her mind when she realized he actually meant it. His face was set, the strain showing around his eyes and mouth. Her chest cringed, for some unknown reason. She looked away instead.
"What do you want from me?"
"I-" He lowered his gaze, seeming as if he wasn't the one who dragged her to a cab. "I don't know."
"Excuse me?" The driver peered over his shoulder. "Do you want to get in or not? I have mouths to feed."
Kuroba Kaito let go of her arm, silent. He was waiting for her to answer.
She remembered the details of the investigation, about how Kuroba Kaito was found cradling Kinosuke Jii with blood covering his entire body, about how a gun was found in one of his equipment lockers, about how he and the victim had a conflict a few moments before the performance started, and about how everything that was originally pointing him of murder to be all cleared just because a CCTV caught him on tape and provided his alibi during the time of the gunshots' sound.
During the time of the gunshots' sound. Unable to determine exact time of death. In those exact words, it was typed in bold red.
Suspect: Kuroba Kaito
The three words consistently haunted her mind, and she wasn't sure if it was fear or-
She cleared her throat and smiled sheepishly at the driver before getting into the car. "Sorry to make you wait." She scooted further inside for Kuroba Kaito to get in.
It couldn't have been fear. That was something she was sure of.
Those thoughts were saved for later.
.o.
The address Kuroba Kaito gave to the driver was somewhere not far from her home, but she didn't feel like starting a conversation about it. After fifteen minutes of the silent ride, he paid for the cab and they got off and onto the empty street as the only car on the road drove away, leaving only the lights of the flickering lamps above her for company. She tugged her bag closer to her body and stood an assumed safe distance from Kuroba Kaito.
He was trained as a police officer earlier than her. Trained as a magician with tricks up his sleeves. Trained enough to hurt her before she could react. She took in a deep breath. She wasn't sure if she was feeling regretful now or what, but she was sure that she would like to go home and sleep soon, or right now.
"So?" Aoko prompted.
He stuck his hands into his pockets. "Holmes's freak warned me not to go close to you."
"And as usual, you don't listen to his orders."
"You're right about that."
"Like what I asked previously. What do you want from me?"
He eyed her for a moment before trudging down the empty street, but stopped when she showed no sign in following. He sighed.
"You knew about Konosuke Jii, isn't it?"
She didn't say a word. There really wasn't a difference. He always had a knack of seeing through her lies rather easily sometimes, much to her annoyance.
Kuroba Kaito took out his hands from his pockets and showed it to her, his lips tugged down. "Handcuff me if you're afraid." His voice was heavy and serious. "I just want to bring you to my place to have a talk. Less than a minute."
"Your house." She furrowed her brows. "And that is going to make me feel safer than here?"
"No." He lowered his arms; it couldn't possibly be the ache. "Of course not."
"We can talk here."
"We can't. I need to show you something."
"What?"
"It's at my house."
"Honestly, Kuroba." Aoko wiped a hand over her face, suddenly feeling tired. "That's the crappiest excuse I've ever heard from a murderer trying to lure me to his house and possibly butcher me to pieces."
He gave a wry smile, something that reminded her the old, cocky Kuroba Kaito she knew since a year ago. "Mine couldn't be the crappiest when you're still alive now."
Okay, he had a point. "Tell me what it is first."
"I know you don't trust me, Nakamori. And I don't blame you." Kuroba Kaito glanced away. "But I trust you enough to show you what I want to show." He turned to look at her again, his eyes clear from any kind of hidden intention. Faking it or not, Aoko wasn't sure, but it looked real. Too real for her.
She bit her lips.
"Fine."
.o.
Technically, Aoko was warned not to divulge any information about the case to Kuroba Kaito, which she didn't intend to do. Their meeting was solely because he wanted to show her something, and that wasn't not allowed by the books. It should be fine, and-
What the hell?
Judging by his car and desk, she always thought he was a messy and lazy person. But the house was completely out of her mind, not in a bad way at all. Despite how it was located at the suburban area of the streets and in the middle of other mildly-tattered looking houses, what was inside was brilliant. It was literally the saying of: Don't judge a book by its cover.
Somehow she wondered if it was applicable for him, as a person too.
He had a fancy TV, nice leather couch, clean kitchen (which she guessed he didn't use it often), nice wallpaper, shiny coffee table... It was like stepping into a grand hotel, where everything was brand new even though the things were most probably re-used a hundred of times. She almost felt too comfortable in his home that it was awkward for her to think about it.
But the main focus wasn't that. The point when her jaws literally dropped and how her mind went totally What the hell? was when Kuroba Kaito picked up a remote and pressed on a certain button, and the wall of the TV flipped, replacing with a large whiteboard instead. It wasn't just any whiteboard either. It looked extremely similar to the one in the headquarters' meeting room, where everyone produced their own ideas and thoughts about the murder. But this one was bigger, with more pictures, more words, and more...
More clear.
"The murderer is Ichiya Sawako." He plucked a photo of a woman in late twenties and showed it to Aoko. "Her father was a volunteer in the third victim's performance a year ago, but he died due to the magician's fault. Fuelled with hatred, she killed the magician and the four other innocent parties because she wanted to cover up and divert the attention away from her father's incident. And at the same time, she was vengeful towards people from the industry too."
Aoko frowned and took a step closer to the wall. "That's-"
"I've said it'll be less than one minute and I've honoured it." He pasted the magnet back over the photo on the whiteboard.
"How do you get the details of the murders?" Her eyes scanned across the whiteboard. It wasn't slip-shot work. There were many things that was surprisingly the same as what she heard and shared with the team, while the rest of the information were ones she didn't know, yet made sense to her in some way or another. Everything was written nicely in great details, to the point she had to force herself to look away just to avoid herself from getting too immense into reading everything. "They are all classified and confidential. From you."
"I've investigated from scratch and got all the information by myself. From everyone and everywhere, but not from the headquarters." He didn't sound proud like how he usually did when he get a new clue. It was that moment when she noticed the dark rings under his eyes.
"Then it couldn't have been accurate." She was only referring to the information that were new to her, but there was no need to tell him that.
"I know what's accurate or not, Nakamori."
She glanced at the whiteboard again. "Why are you showing me this?"
"To let you get all the credit. Just another help up the ladder to your promotion, aren't I nice?"
"That's not what you said before." Aoko growled. She could have been accused of anything, but her hard work was not meant to seek for promotion. Still, she decided it was pointless to waste her saliva on him. "You said you trusted me to show this to me. But why?"
"I trust you to be able to memorize every shit I've written here and tell them to Holmes's freak because he refuses to hear me out." He scowled. "Then he'll finally let me back on the team after this is solved because I don't need a week of vacation. He's being a blind dumb ass this time round for some reason and for the record, I've found the murderer faster than him, thrice."
"You have a week of vacation?"
"Can you focus on what I'm saying?"
"I'm not going to blindly submit this report for you." She wasn't a messenger. She's a detective. "I'm going to look into it."
"Why? Are you doubting my investigative skills?"
"No." It was a slip of tongue, but she didn't bother to retract back the truth. "I'm doubting your mental state." She glanced at the whiteboard, her eyes twitched painfully at all the scribbles and words. "The fifth murder happened just yesterday and you've already got so much research on it. Either you're the murderer, or you've worked harder than your body would allow."
"So we're back to square one." His eyes drooped. "You still think I'm the murderer just because I was a suspect of a case similar to this."
"No." She said again, calmly. "It's obvious you haven't slept. I was wondering why Inspector Kudo bothered to give you a week of vacation."
"Try harder with your jokes and I might laugh one day, out of pity."
She ignored his curt comment. "You're trying to find the murderer for your assistant's death. But you've reached a dead end. These cases aren't related to it after all. Konosuke Jii's murder happened five years ago. Ichiya Sawako's father died a year ago, according to you. And she only targeted magicians, not assistant."
"That isn't your business." He muttered. "What I want you to do is to tell him these findings and get it over and done with."
"This isn't a school assignment where you can get it over and done with." She gritted her teeth. "I still need to check everything first, which I will do it. Pronto."
He opened his mouth, but thinking again, he dropped whatever he wanted to say. Instead, he finally relaxed his posture, almost as if he had forgotten this was his home. "Sorry, I don't usually have guests. Do you want a drink?"
"It's fine." Aoko gestured to the board. "You should tell me more about this first."
"Right."
When she got a closer look, she noted one of the photo stuck at the corner of the board was a little out of place. It was too late for him to snatch the photo away when she already knew what the picture was. She watched him hide the photo behind his back awkwardly, like a child trying to hide the cookie he stolen from the jar. He looked utterly... pitiful. Her throat turned a little sour.
"Konosuke Jii's a nice man." She didn't know anything personal about him, but she knew it through Kuroba Kaito. There were moments when his annoying grins told her nothing, but his hollow eyes explained everything.
His eyes wavered. "Yeah... He was."
She wasn't confident to do so, but something within her spoke. "I'll find Konosuke Jii's killer too, one way or another."
"It's a cold case that has no new lead and reasons to be reopened." He gave her a sidelong glance. "Besides, I don't need your help."
"I'm not helping you." Her tone didn't match her softened gaze, though this time, he seemed too tired to be observant enough to know.
He would never know the amount of time she spent in the records room, rummaging and searching through papers and papers. He would never know how her hands trembled when she finally found a case file dated eighteen years ago, the name of the victim labelled Kuroba Toichi. He would never know how her lips quivered when she looked through the pictures, and a family of three out of all the bloodied images caught her eyes. He would never know how her tears filled her eyes when she saw the little young boy smiling so innocently into the camera, as if that happy day would never end.
"Care to enlighten me?" Kuroba Kaito rolled his eyes.
He would never, ever know.
.o.
Kaitou Kid.
Eighteen years ago, the famous Phantom Thief that her father had been chasing his entire life disappeared. And it was the exact period when Kuroba Toichi and his wife died. It was a car accident, many would have thought, including their young and innocent son who knew nothing about murder and death. But only the police knew more than that, that there was a bullet stuck in the legendary magician's chest before the car swerved out of control towards the barricade and down the hill.
It was a tragic ending for the talented magician and his wife. But this news was long forgotten when many conspiracy about why the charming Kaitou Kid suddenly disappeared gained more attention than anything else. Even though Aoko could see the truth as clear as day, no one seemed to link Kaitou Kid with Kuroba Toichi's death. She wondered why.
Aoko took her father out for dinner one night. It wasn't just for the case, she missed him a lot and hadn't seen him since weeks. But nonetheless, the dinner and father-daughter chat turned out to be like a fan-meeting about Kaitou Kid, but he didn't mind since the thief was always his favourite topic; He was once the leader of the Kaitou Kid squad after all. Her father was also one of the people who refused to believe Kaitou Kid had died.
He remembered the last heist like it was yesterday. Kaitou Kid was a crafty and brilliant magician, who only stole gems and held the promise of never allowing anyone to get hurt. There were times when the thief would stay to entertain the police a little while, but it stopped when there some men in black started lurking around in his later heists.
Men in black.
She was back in the records room again, not until she was chased out, though this time round not by the supervisor, but by Kudo Shinichi.
They went back to the department and headed into his office. She could sense eyes on her back as she followed Shinichi into his room, but she couldn't care. What she cared about was that Kuroba Kaito's desk was empty. He had returned since a week ago after Ichiya Sawako was captured, but judging by how his newspaper wasn't on his table and he was gone, she guessed he was taking a shit. Which was good, really. Because if he were to see her having a private chat with Shinichi, he would drill her with questions. And she wasn't ready to reply.
"I know I was right about you, Aoko." Shinichi slumped onto his chair. "You're a great asset to the team."
She wasn't fooled by the compliments. There was a hidden meaning behind each and every single word and she knew what it meant. It was necessary for her to write down in the log book about which section of the records room she had went into, and Shinichi probably realized she was in some places she shouldn't be in. She didn't bother beating around the bush.
"Kaito deserves to know." She stopped for a second, surprised that she had used his first name, but Shinichi didn't seem to notice.
"Of course he does, just not now." He tapped a finger on his desk. "The lesser the people who are involved, the better."
"I know about those men in black." She saw how he stiffened at the last three words, but she pretended not to see. She realized she had been doing a lot of pretending recently.
"Not enough for them to hunt you down." His voice stern. "And you shall keep it that way."
"Konosuke Jii. Kuroba Toichi. Kuroba Chikage." Aoko pursed her lips. They were people she had never met before, but when their names left her mouth, it gave her a weird tingling sensation in her chest. "Were their deaths related to the men in black?"
Silence.
She was getting more confuse than curious. "If you don't want me to meddle, why did you give me Konosuke Jii's file when it was completely unrelated to the recent magicians' murders?"
"I know Kaito would ignore my orders and find you to get information about those murders." Shinichi sighed. "So I thought I'll do a reverse method. Make you wary of him instead. Turns out this was the only thing I'm wrong about you. And you ended up exceeding my expectations."
"But that doesn't mean he had to be taken out of the team."
"He believed that the murderer was the same as Konosuke Jii's." Shinichi said heavily. "I don't want him to distract the team for his own purpose."
Aoko understood what he meant. Kaito had his perks to make everyone lively when they were down and depressed, and he had the looks and rude humour to go with his shitty personality to make the members on the team to like and listen to him and his opinions. She was one of them, though she obeyed his instructions only because she always thought his way of thinking was smart and reasonable. No other reason.
She had no words to retort back. What Shinichi said was definitely true.
"I will never regret adding you to my team." He stared sincerely at her. She would have been embarrassed if she wasn't taking the conversation between them as serious as she could. "But please don't make me regret that one choice of giving you Konosuke Jii's file. I really don't want to lose a member, not in a way that is irrevocable." Shinichi sounded extremely exhausted all of the sudden.
She pressed her lips into a thin line. She was so close in uncovering everything, so close to helping the little boy named Kuroba Kaito find out the truth. But her thoughts ended there and she slouched, her eyes cast down.
The little chat was over and she was forced to promise to not go back to the records room without authorized reasons. She walked out of the door, deflated, but her mood changed instantly at the first sight she saw. Kaito was animatedly pointing at his newspaper with two colleagues standing behind his back, three of them were laughing hysterically in the middle of the office. Probably those usual dirty jokes they shared.
Maybe it would be better like this; She just had to keep on pretending. This would also help to make his job in putting up a bright facade in front of everyone a lot more easier too.
