Warning: None apply
A.N: Just think of it like a Leverage kind of deal. The team will run into a lot of funny trouble, I suppose. And Kaito will run into a very angry Shinichi Kudou.
The woman sat across the table from him on a sunny Tuesday morning. He had opted to work out of office that day, seating himself in the al fresco of a cafe he frequents often, a plate of half eaten chocolate croissant and the crumbs of a chocolate muffin at his elbow. As long as there was easy access to chocolate, wifi, and a power supply, he wasn't too picky about where his butt would be parked for the majority of the day. As it was, he was engrossed enough in his work that his only response was to shift his belongings a centimetre or two closer to himself, and did not realise that he was being spoken to until he's come to a momentary break in his work.
The woman only smiles serenely, as though she hadn't just been ignored for the past thirty minutes. It's an amazing display of patience, Kaito thinks. She's wearing a sunhat, chestnut brown hair in a neat braid over her shoulder. Her nails are neatly manicured, and she wouldn't look amiss as an art student in the Louvre in her white cotton blouse, wool pleated wrap skirt and scuffed oxfords. Mostly the scuffed oxfords and the plastic dinosaur button brooch, he decides.
"Sorry, you were saying?" he looks up around a mouthful of croissant, trying to keep most of the crumbs from falling onto the keyboard of his laptop. They don't, but end up on his notebook instead, and that was just as annoying.
"I admire your work," she says simply, hands folded across her knee on her lap, a small smile on her lips. Tom Ford Flamingo, he thinks.
"Sorry, do I know you?" he asks, allowing a look of honest confusion to cross his face.
"Maybe not," she admits, just as honestly with an embarrassed downward sweep of her lashes. She lifts a shoulder when he says nothing. "You, however. You're well known. Or I suppose the term should be notorious?" She touches the tips of her thumb and forefinger to form a circle, lifting her hand up before her right eye, left hand imitating the shape of a gun. "Or am I wrong?"
"I'm afraid you've lost me," he says blankly, careful to keep his hands relaxed before him.
She blinks back at him, before returning her hands to her lap once more. "I know you have retired, but I would like to make an offer to you regardless. We could use someone with your skills and a mind like your own." She undoes the strap on her camera bag, and her fingers dip in to pull out a black name card. "Make of it what you will. Money, crowds, revisiting for old times' sake. Hopefully not money, because we're honestly not too well stocked on that." She slides the card over to his side of the table. "No pressure."
He stares at her, before bursting out into laughter and twisting around in his seat, looking around searchingly. "I - wow, this is. Wow. Is this a prank show? Where is the secret camera? I'm not sure what is happening, but you're good, lady." He goes a little pink, embarrassed. "Will this be on youtube?"
She joins him, sharing in the joke, and gets to her feet when it is natural to. "Think on it," she winks at him. "I shall not disturb you any longer, for I, too, would like a tour of Paris before the day is over."
"Miss?" Kaito blinks at her, the smile faltering in the return of his confusion.
She blows him a kiss jauntily, and walks off with her pastry in a white paper bag without a single backward look, easily lost in the people although there weren't too many of them around at his hour.
That was last Tuesday.
Suitably unnerved but refusing to show anything for it, Kaito had stubbornly remained at the cafe, grinding down on his work until the early lunch hour.
All he left behind was a plate of crumbs and an empty stained mug.
This week, he found himself breaking into a studio apartment just off the central.
She didn't seem entirely unsurprised to see him, although she did very nearly drop her cup. The contents of it spilled over onto the floor, and she let out a curse, stepping back quickly.
It was true that he was retired.
It was also true that he should have been on a plane back to Japan, a flight that has already left an hour ago from Charles de Gaulle for Tokyo.
"And what makes my lovely lady think that I will be interested in your offer?"
She doesn't turn back from mopping up the mess with a thick wad of paper towels. Her hair is let loose, and it cascades in waves down her back. "Maybe the fact that you are here and not on the flight home to your friend?" she says testily. "Shit. We have housekeeping for this shite." She throws the wad of soaked towels down onto the ground.
He's been retired for give years now. Shinichi probably still has the key to all his stuff that he's locked away the day he's accomplished his objective.
"How would you like to be a consultant criminal, International Thief 1412?"
She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, and pours herself a new glass of wine. He pauses, considering.
"Call me Kid."