A/N: Yeah, um hi *waves shyly* So I'm back, maybe, for a bit... So sorry for the delay! Apparently stress and writing does not go together very well for me. Anyway, here comes the next installment of Returning to Pain. Enjoy! (or cry...)

Update: 12-07-12

Word count: 2500

Warning: more angst I'm afraid ^^

"Do you believe in fate?"

The question is asked in a low voice from beneath him and he slowly opens his eyes to look down on the other teen lying in his lap staring up at him while silently tracing a finger along his jaw with soft, ever gentle finger tips.

"How could I not?"

Kaito looks surprised at his sure answer. He smirks, just slightly, a barely there twitch on the lips and he breaths in deeply, intending to explain:

"I guess you have to not to go nuts having my job…"

The other hums in agreement, possibly understanding more than the occasional listener. Shinichi wouldn't be surprised if the thief had his own reasons for believing in fate, reasons just as saturnine as his.

For a moment no more is said. The silence stretches out, only interrupted by their breathing. Shinichi can feel his back protesting at the lack of movement in the suddenly much uncomfortable position; he has slacked down and the muscles in his derriere are compensating for the extra weight put on him by the magician resting in his lap. But he doesn't want to move. It feels as if this moment is important somehow.

"Your eyes are really beautiful", comes the almost inaudible whisper from below.

It appears as if the words just slipped out because a pink tint can suddenly be discovered crawling up the magician's cheeks. His lips shut tightly and his eyes lock in a wide-eyed staring contest of astonishment with Shinichi.

He is very aware that he is staring at him, jaw slacking, a millimeter gap between his lips, probably giving off a somewhat slow expression. He can't help it, because he is staring at Kaito, and he is staring back, and he said those words, and his eyes are so wide, and those cheeks are so pretty, and he is lost in those indigo orbs and he is beautiful.

"Oh…" he manages.

The other says nothing. And then everything is so quiet again. It's unbearable, it's thick and heavy and he can almost touch upon it and he wants to break it. He has no idea what to say. What do you say when you have a beautiful teenager in your lap who just said you're beautiful and you realize you love them? When the world is bright, because his eyes are deep and telling, because his body heat is seeping into your clothes, because he is there, because for just a second, everything is at a standstill – what do you do then?

"I- I'm so-"

"No, you can't say that, you can't say you're sorry."

Indigo eyes keep staring up at him, expectantly, hoping. Shinichi's words were braver than he felt, but because those abysmal cliques of color are not breaking eye-contact he will say these words. Say them before his thief backs out, afraid of what his reaction might be, thinking he has gone too far. No, he can't let that happen.

"That was nice, thank you."

Without noticing, his hand had shot up and landed an index finger on Kaito's lips, hushing him, just making sure he didn't speak while he assured him, completely innocent. Soft muscle, ever so slightly moist, a small tremor; it doesn't feel innocent as Kaito's lips presses against his finger. No one from the outside can tell, he is sure, but it isn't just him pushing – he feels the responding movement from the other. Kaito is inadvertently kissing him, or his finger anyway, but kissing him none the less!

A rupture of pleasure originating in his gut is rapidly spreading through his body, and a small smile is hinting to break loose from his grim mask of indifference.

This sensation of being close to someone, anyone, should be scaring him beyond reason. The foreign heat of a body close to his, it's clawing at his chest, screaming at him - this is what has been lacking. The fear that has been threatening to eat him whole, he can with a certainty he hasn't felt for much too long say was just a drooping sensation of loss, finally flipping on him saying he didn't want it, didn't miss it, but rather shed it.

Now when his personal space was invaded and he felt the soft lips of someone who cared press against him in small, almost immeasurable amounts, the large gaping hole in his chest was saying, no, we never feared this, we missed it so much we didn't dare remember.

Couldn't remember the security erupting in our body when someone who loved us told us they would be there.

Wouldn't remember how much the repeated assurances from friends' touching an arm, ruffling our hair and pulled our sleeve affected us.

Didn't remember that the eye contact with someone understanding what we were thinking would make us smile and have us soaring through the skies from confidence that only recognition and belonging could bring.

So he forgot.

And ran.

And for the longest time he would start shying away from the rest of society, look down on it and alienate himself to the point of no return. Realizing how far gone he had been, he felt his breath choke up. He had been so close. A second later and he may have crossed the final line. Leaving empathy, identification, familiarity and all that resembled home, he would have been no different than them. Those people, who had ruined his life, had written the starting point for the decay of the bonds holding him to the rest of the world.

Looking down on the wondrous boy resting in his lap he could see what he had been about to lose. The pale face illuminating his indigo eyes that are burning with emotion, unspoken words screaming to be said, a determination strong enough to lean a mountain against, empathy feeling more than just his fear but digging holes through him, feeling his very soul and knowing. Just a second later and this, this, had never been experience by him. The grief of not knowing Kaito would have brought him to his knees had he not already been sitting.

A hand shoots up to touch his cheek and his skin is burning under the small spots of contact. Yes, this is what he missed. This brief connection is what pulled him back. A realization that it isn't really hatred or anger or frustration or impulse that drags people into darkness; it is emptiness. When people don't have this, don't have emotion to accompany them, to guide and direct their moral compass, people stray. And he had been so close to straying.

But he was saved.

Time passes in an unknown spectrum, quietly invading their awareness. Before they know it, the sense that it is time to move sneaks up on them; aching muscles, feet fallen asleep and grumbling stomachs. Shinichi gently lets a hand trace down the midriff on the thief in his arms, who in response squirms and looks up with eyes full of mischief. If Shinichi reads him right, he is currently seconds away from being pranked, badly.

He smirks in response, a confident tug on the lips, almost mocking. He has no idea how his mind got from shying away to open mischief. The doubtfulness from before makes itself reminded and yet it doesn't feel as intimidating anymore. The magic of Kaito, he muses.

And so he pushes two digits into the side of the teen lying across his legs. He, unsurprisingly tenses up for a split second before shooting up into the air, spins away and disappears from view. Shinichi rises and stands perfectly still in anticipation, hiding the awe he feels at the quick movements (really, who could move that fast?) and crouches just a small bit in preparation for the oncoming attack.

Yes, there will be an attack. Always is, with the thief. His finger twitches. And then something dark crashes down on top of him.

A second of disorientation while gravity pushes them to the floor before the cackling of the other reaches his ears and he scowls, unhappy. Feeling the movement, sensing the limbs' placements he twists around and tosses the surprised thief off of him. Yelping, Kaito braces himself and lands on the floor just a meter away from the now standing detective.

As Shinichi faces him with a sneer, confident, despite his somewhat lacking defensive techniques, in his ability to put the much too happy thief, he can't help but pause when the other does not stop his own growing grin. Slowly he puts a hand to his face, let it slide back over his head, and feeling the slight dampness and new stiffness, gulps. Eyes narrow on the thief whose cheeky grin develops into a full blown laughter. A growl erupts slowly from the pit of Shinichi's throat as the realization dawns on him.

"KAITO!" he shouts and throws himself at the criminal.

In his defense, Kaito stands still in the wait for the enraged detective to land on him. Then again, who is to claim the sanity of the phantom thief upsetting a member of the secret investigative and executive squad for the internationally integrated crime organizations who, under strict orders from dropouts from FBI, has trained under the world's top practitioners of self-defense and martial arts?

The thief, despite lacking official training, does not lose ground to the currently pink-haired detective. He was not an internationally wanted criminal sauntering around the roofs of skyscrapers avoiding deranged police squads the past years for nothing.

Maybe it is due to the pent up fears finally coming lose in a crazy swivel of pranks. Maybe it's the sheer number of kettles present in the kitchen. Maybe it is just the cursed luck of the flamboyant detective. But in the end, the result is the same.

A small sound missed by the boys flying around the kitchen laughing, screaming, shrieking. A door opening. Light steps making their way across the hall floor into the kitchen. Two large eyes staring unbelieving at the scene of the two teens. One supposed dead. The other, a stranger she thinks she remembers from sometime long ago in a park, asking her about Shinichi, but gone from her mind at the time where the image of the person causing so many emotions to swirl up simultaneously as her brain is trying to make sense of the pure impossibility of the situation, is right before her.

It is nothing short of the gasp that sends the males in the room into a screeching halt, the quiet, very human and very present sound of another person. They pause, slide apart, and come to a ready stance with eyes glaring calculating at the source of the sound.

Mouri Ran. The girl of his dreams from his childhood, from so long ago, from another lifetime. The sight of her is heartrending. It is his lungs coming to a painful and suffocating stop. It is his mouth going dry. It is his body losing its balance and a quiet acceptance when Kaito's arms and hands support him. It is the small utterance of a choked word, so long since last time it tastes weird on his tongue:

"Ran…"

Past that comes nothing, and he can see in her eyes it's not enough. It's not alright to come after all this time, after all the ignored phone calls, the lack of contact, or assurance, of the slightest signal to indicate he is still alive. No, it's not enough.

"Shinichi… I-I, you- "

It seems she does not get much cooperation from her oral mechanisms either. He holds his breath. He doesn't know what to say, what there is to say. He left her, he gave her up and he moved on. And despite his brave (stupid, egoistic, hypocritical, arrogant, selfish?) actions, his heart still constricts at the sight of her.

After a few more never-ending seconds of strained silence, Ran finally manages to pick which front to take, or assemble her shattered thoughts into a coherent sentence, whatever fit better, and she manages:

"You've come back… I didn't think you would. I talked to Agasa-hakase and he would just deny knowing anything, but I could see he was keeping something in. What has been going on with you? I knew something was up. Did you think I was stupid or something? To go away for so long, not contacting anyone; what were you thinking? What kind of horrible trouble did you get caught in for you to be forced into hiding, into giving up on everything and everyone? Did you think that no one in your life could stand to hold on when times for rough? Do you have any idea how worried your parents have been?!"

By the end of her rant, the explosion of words escalates into a volcanic eruption and Shinichi flinches. Because he can hear the pain, hear the anger, the sadness. But most of all, he could hear the hollowness that has shaped her into someone who actually reaches to understand. She hasn't locked herself into delusions about his disappearance; about how angry she will be when he gets back and how everything will eventually turn back to normal. No, she has come to accept that something had happened. Something on a whole new level, one she might not, despite her reluctance to accept it, comprehend.

It hurts to see what he caused this strong strong woman to go through. The implications of his actions once again tweaks at his guilt sensors. This is about more than safety and wanting the best for someone. This is having forgotten where the line for being able to leave someone is drawn. She confessed her love to him, and he blindly thought he could shove her aside and hope she would move on? Not happening.

His support from Kaito is growing stronger as the other pulls him into a half-embrace rather than try to push him up again.

"Mouri-san", says the thief and Ran twitches as she is reminded there is another presence in the room. "You should have a seat. This is not the place for violence of ignorance."

Rather solemn words from the mouth of a prankster thinks Shinichi somewhere in the back of his mind, before he is drawn to the kitchen table. He hears the rattling of pots and pans being moved across the floor as Kaito pushes them to the side, but he ignores it. Ran sits down hesitantly opposite him and looks up at him. Shinichi can barely meet her gaze, barely stand to have her so close. Even Kaito standing behind him, slightly to his right, does not help. Instead he feels the walls close in on him. Why must they sit down? Why not stand in an open space where there were no obstacles to barricade an escape?

Lost in his thoughts he gasps when he feels Ran's fingers touch on his intertwined fingers resting on the table. She almost pulls away when she hears his reaction, but rather she more securely let her hand cup and warms his ice-cold digits.

"What happened?" she whispers, and all he can think is that he must get away.

A cliffhanger... Yeah, so hate me! Reviews are appreciated!

Thanks MysteryConan who reviewed without an account! :D