Windfall

By Ysabet

Chapter 7:  True Or False

                I spoke to you in cautious tones;

                You answered me with no pretense…

                And yet I feel I said too much

                --- My silence is my self-defense.

                For every time I've held a rose

                It seems I've only felt the thorns

                And so it goes, and so it goes,

                And so will you soon, I suppose……

                But if my silence makes you leave

                Then that will be my worst mistake;

                So I will share this room with you,

                And you can have this heart to break.

                                                (Billy Joel, 'And So It Goes')

Somewhere, deep within a room in which sunlight never entered, a clock ticked discreetly.  It was an excellent clock, certainly, all gilt and porcelain face with delicately fashioned hands and the most finely-crafted works, keeping very exact time; but it was useless.

The room's sole inhabitant had all the time in the world.

…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…

A second sound broke the stillness:  a sort of elongated *ssssshh* as the room's owner drew on his cigar; the tip glowed like a jewel, simmering to brilliance and then fading a little grayer as ash formed.  Fragrant wreaths of smoke floated invisibly in the shadowy air like serpents.

The room's inhabitant liked to come here to think.  It was soothing, the dark; you could forget so much that irritated you if you couldn't *see* it—and there was so much that was irritating about today's world, in his considered opinion.  There were too many fools, for one thing…  Oh, not that he had anything against the human herd's tendency towards lowest-common-denominator thinking—it made them all that much easier to drive where he wanted them, really.  Toss the right bait in front of them, dangle a handful of grain or a bit of rich pasture where they could see it and they took off through the gate of their own accord, never noticing that their path led them straight to the slaughterhouse.

No, it was the ones that decided to think for themselves that truly annoyed him in the long run.  As if their weak little half-witted schemes and plans weren't blatantly obvious to one with the right kind of vision…..

He blew a half-disgusted, half-amused cloud of smoke into the air, one eyebrow invisibly cocked as he shook his head in mocking resignation.  Well, there would always be fools—and there would always be those who would feed off of them; cattle and tigers, so to speak.  Natural selection—that was the way the world went.

He had learned that long, *long* ago.

…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…

A discreet buzz woke him from his reverie as the phone at his elbow signaled his attention; with a faint shrug, the room's owner picked it up and listened, not bothering to identify himself.  It was quite unnecessary, after all.

Moments later when he placed the phone back on its rest, his amusement had leaked away like wine from a cracked jug.  As he drew on his cigar again prior to rising from the upholstered leather chair, he reflected darkly to himself that there seemed to be other beasts about beside cattle and tigers.

And no tiger could ever bear another predator in its territory.

***********************************************************************

It was, considered Kaitou Kid, Phantom Thief Extraordinaire, somewhat *inevitable* that he would end up hiding in someone's dark closet eventually.  He had, after all, hidden in elevator shafts, on roofs, inside display cases, beneath floors, within (and suspended from) ceilings, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseum.  Therefore the chances that he should end up sooner or later in a stuffy, dark closet actually *were* rather high when you thought about it.

Not that he was in the dark, or at least not totally.  Oh no….. not completely.  First off, the closet-door was open a couple of inches, letting in the cool moonlight; secondly, he had a rather avant-garde form of nightlight with him.

The  young thief cupped his hands around the tiny, glowing ember that lay burning coolly on his palm, fascinated by how he could extinguish its light simply by blocking out the rays of the moon that had nearly disappeared behind the distant buildings.  One finger in the way of the pale beams, and the crystalline red glow simply winked out; move the finger out of the way and it was back, like magic…..  It was an odd light, really—there was something in it which had the quality of heat; and even though it emitted not even the faintest warmth Kaitou felt that if he held it long enough it would, somehow, begin to burn him.

He supposed that was understandable.

The young thief shifted a little, painfully; his shoulder was so goddamned stiff now, the muscles around his wound aching with every heartbeat.  As for the wound itself—well, never mind that; if he kept his mind off it enough, he might even forget how much it hurt (or at least that's what he told himself, lying there in the dark and trying to sleep).  His side was bad too; it was hard to take a breath without the deep score aching dreadfully, but it wasn't like he had a choice.

Sooooo…. It was better to lie there and play with his new little acquisition than think about gunshot wounds and the inevitable explanations of the morning, really.  And besides, the Pandora Gem was a good distraction.

*I ought to hate you, you know,* he thought at the glittering thing, almost as if it could hear him; it shone back noncommittally.  *My father died because of you—my life got twisted into an unbelievable shape because of you.  I ought to loathe every little shiny, gaudy scrap of whatever you're made of (I'm pretty damned sure you're not an emerald), I really should….. and instead I'm sitting here playing with you like you're the coolest thing to come along since vitamin-enriched coffee.  Wonder why?  Aside from the fact that I can't quite believe I finally, FINALLY managed to find you, that is…..*

He balanced the pendent on his knee, allowing the light to play across one door of the closet; for a minute or two Kaito amused himself by making hand-shadows dance across the surface— his dog-shadow was pretty good, his snarling lion was decent and he could do a pretty convincing pterodactyl too, but he needed both hands for that last one.

*Heh; bet I'm the first to ever use you for THIS purpose…..*  Somewhat dizzily Kaito wondered if he was becoming a bit feverish.

Ayumi had finally gone back to bed.  The little girl had been too sleepy for explanations by the time her teacher managed to think clearly enough to formulate sentences (the discovery that his latest prize was actually honest-to-God REALLY the thing he had been looking for had, basically, fried his synapses for a bit) and had accepted that he would tell both her *and* Aoko at the same time the next day. 

Personally, every time he thought of that his left eyebrow would begin to twitch like a metronome; so he tried not to think of it too much.

*….. Aoko…..*

The closet was a bit on the small side for a wounded man (he couldn't really lie down, and his young apprentice seemed to have entirely too many shoes for real comfort) but it was definitely better than hiding under the bed.  Kaito had briefly considered the possibility of hiding in her parents' bedroom, but decided that any odd noises should come from inhabited rooms only—and in his current condition he was a little clumsy.  If Rita-kun heard him knock over something in a room where no-one was supposed to be, the jig would, quite disastrously, be up.

The moon was setting; there was probably only about ten minutes or so of its light left, so Kaito stopped with the hand-shadows.  There was something else he wanted to check before the rays faded…..  Fishing in a small pocket inside his jacket he pulled out an old-fashioned jeweler's loupe, the kind one screwed into one eye; a year or so of snatching gems had given him a certain fascination for the things, and he had begun learning about their qualities not long after his dénouement as Kid.  Holding the piece of jewelry between two fingertips with the moon behind it, he leaned close.

*Veeeeeeeery interesting…..  Some odd refractive qualities in this little monster, almost as if it's cracked; and I can't quite see all the way through the thing at the center, the glow's just too strong.  Funny— there're little dark flecks here and there, and—WHAT the hell?!?*  A sudden brown cloudiness had hazed across the gem, appearing from the brilliant center and spreading outward… and he smelled…..

….. roses?

*Right; heh, roses.  A gem that smells of flowers?  I don't think so.  Must be 'Yumi-chan's rose-bush on the balcony… but what's this blurring—eeehhhw, there's something coming out of the back-----*  A tiny blob had appeared on the reverse of the gem (its enclosing silver fixture was merely a loop-setting, rather than a complete enclosure), seemingly out of nowhere.  In the uncertain light it appeared somewhat gooey, and it reminded its examiner of nothing so much as a bit of tree-sap.  He frowned a little, rubbing the stuff between his two fingers and wondering at the way it seemed to vanish into his skin so easily.

It tingled.

*Okay—that's odd, I admit it.  The stories about the Pandora Gem don't say ANYTHING about it oozing sticky little boogers all over the place--*  The young thief drew back, regarding the stone with disfavor.  *I remember, the velvet beneath it was stained in the display; I wonder if this is something it does all the time, or does it have to do with the moon?  Moonlight from the overhead skylight would have touched it for a few hours…..  Ah, damn, speaking of the moon, it's almost gone—better sit up a little more—*

*AAAAHHGH!!  @#$%!!  Shoulder-------*

His unthinking movements had set off fireworks in his shoulder and side again; a wave of pure misery shivered its way through his body, leaving Kaito sick and shaking in its wake.  *GOD, that hurts!!  Aoko, I know you're gonna feel like murdering me when you show up, but I hope I can persuade you to bandage me up before you turn me into a corpse; Ayumi meant well, but towels, tape and stuffed animals aren't really much help.  Good thing the bullets didn't hit any lower on my shoulder, or I probably *would've* bled to death on that rooftop.*  The considerable dose of aspirin that he had downed before he sent his young friend back to bed was helping, as was the warmth of the little girl's room and the bathrobe that he had wrapped around himself; on the other hand, his clothes were still uncomfortably damp and his wounds still needed cleaning that the pounding rain had not been able to supply.

*Better get some sleep, I guess…..  It's what, about four a.m. or so?  Can't quite see the clock from here.  'Yumi-chan said that her friend Rita would be leaving for school around seven-ish…  She'll probably be up in about two hours.  A little sleep would be good, assuming I don't roll over or something of the sort.*  The young thief carefully eased himself back, settling in a more comfortable position as his breath came sharply.  *Y'know… in the movies, the hero—Aaagh!—gets all shot up and… manages to toss it off with, with just the occasional—aaaow!—wince or grimace; you never think about blood loss, or how nauseous pain makes you.  You don't picture Schw—SHIT, that hurts!—Schwarzenegger or Chan or Lee with a splitting headache or… stiff muscles….. Man, I'll never hear anybody say 'It's just a flesh-wound' the same way, that's for certain….. rrrrgh…..*

Moving slowly and deliberately, he settled gently onto his right side; feeling had been coming back into his left arm over the past hour as the aspirin's effects set in, and he flexed the digits of his hand cautiously.  *Aaaaah…..  I don't think I'll do that much for a while; never knew you needed your shoulder-muscles to flex you fingers, for crying out loud.*

From across the room he could hear Ayumi's steady, light breathing; the child slept the sleep of the innocent, a mere lump beneath the bedcovers from his vantage point.  What a little trooper she was; smart, good in a crisis, loyal… and unfortunately tenacious when she got hold of an idea sometimes—she *still* wanted to know 'where the sun doesn't shine' was…..

His eyes closed.  Aoko—

Kaito could see her so clearly in his mind, could see how she had looked that morning in school (was it really less than a day ago that things had still been what passed for 'normal' for him?  *Get a grip, Kuroba; you and 'normal' parted ways a long time ago—Hell, you not only parted ways, you started a feud and occasionally take pot-shots at each other in passing.*)  She had been wearing the pendent he gave her beneath the collar of her uniform…..

…and chasing him around the classroom.

He smiled slowly to himself, remembering…..

* * *

*****SWOOSH!!***  The mop's swing had barely missed his head, causing Kuroba Kaito to grin in appreciation; he always liked a good workout to begin his day—and Aoko seemed to be in fine form this morning.  It hadn't even taken much to set her off, either; just a silly comment about how she seemed to be filling out her uniform much better these days…  The familiar glare had begun to smolder in her eyes, and he could almost swear that little lightnings had crackled there as she pulled her mop from seemingly empty space—

*****SWOOSH-SWISH!!***

*Oooo, good one; she got in a double swing there, Kaito—better get your butt in gear and stop admiring her technique, not to mention her legs—*

As he ducked a fairly emphatic jab-and-swat and reposted with a sideways bounce from an empty desktop, the teenager overheard a scrap of conversation from the back of the room.  One eyebrow arched slightly as he strained to listen while pelting past:

"…No way!  Look at 'em go, she hasn't yet managed to-- 100 yen says you can't do it—"

"Really?  You're on! HEY, KUROBA-KUUUUN!!!  HAVE YOU KISSED HER YET?!?"

*AWP??*  He skidded to a sudden stop at the yell, his mind tripping over itself.  *Uhhhhhhhh---*

*****WHAMMMMMM!!!!!***** 

He wobbled in mid-run and fell over with a thud onto a hapless tangle of desk and classmate, his ears ringing from the impact of Aoko's mop.  In the background he could hear a smug voice proclaim:  "There—toldja I could make her hit him.  So fork over my 100 yen……  Arigato, nice doing business with you….."

*DAMN.  She actually landed one….. wheeeeow, that girl's got a strong right arm.  Now-- who the HELL was making bets--?*

Slowly he clambered to his feet, ignoring the muffled protests beneath him ("Kuroba, could you *please* get yourself off me? That's my hand you're standing on—OW!!  Watch the feet--") as his gaze swept the classroom.  *Ahh, right—Yamada-kun, you're dead meat.  Gonna make sure something really SPECIAL shows up in your lunch today; maybe I should just inflict you with severe diarrhea or something like that—I think I still have those caster-oil capsules in my locker…..*  Across the room Hinagi Yamada caught his eye and immediately attempted to look innocent; however, his apparent Incipient Sainthood faded away as his gaze drifted past his classmate's shoulder, and Kaito also turned to look…..

Nakamori Aoko glowered; from where she stood, her glare seemed quite capable of turning her target to stone or possibly inflicting a fiery death.  She had soldiered her mop across one shoulder; as she slowly, slowly approached her prey at a steady stalk, the unfortunate Yamada-kun opened and shut his mouth like a landed fish, frantically looking for a way out.

Kaito grinned and crossed his arms; it looked like his caster-oil capsules wouldn't be needed after all.

"For your information, he *hasn't*-- I mean, he---  That's NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS—Oooooh!!"  Her words suddenly stammered to a stop as Aoko's face reddened.  Behind her back, her former target's grin grew even wider; THAT ought to fan the flames quite a bit.  Nothing made a person angrier than saying something that they hadn't intended to…..

As Aoko dropped the mop from her shoulder into her hands and assumed an all-too-familiar pose of attack, her new quarry seemed to shrink.  "Ummm, Aoko-kun—  D-don't get carried away, okay?  Just a harmless little question—didn't mean anything by it, what you two do together is, uhhhhh, is….  uhhhh….. EEEEP!!!"  Yamada-kun yelped in terror as the mop came down quite suddenly, barely missing his own head.  "HELP!"  He took off at a frantic run, dashing towards the exit.  Catcalls and cheers followed him, ending abruptly as he skidded full-tilt into their teacher as she entered the door.

"AAAAHH!!!"

 *****CRASH!!!***** 

Papers fluttered everywhere, accompanied by muffled imprecations.  By the time things were under control and apologies had been made, Kaito was leaning back nonchalantly in his desk, hands behind his head.  As Aoko slid into hers with a scarlet face and a faint, smug grin, another classmate leaned over towards her usual target and prison-whispered:

"Hey, Kuroba-kun?  Why HAVEN'T you kissed her yet?  I mean, we all kinda got a clue at the party that you two were—"

Kaito chuckled very softly, clasping his hands behind his head and closing his eyes.  "'Cause she'd beat me into a bloody pulp if I pushed things, that's why.  Besides…" and he cracked one eye open, watching the Inspector's daughter surreptitiously; she was still blushing, but he saw her fingers come up to fleetingly touch the silver pendent hanging around her neck; "…besides, haven't you heard the saying that 'All things come to those who wait'?"  He chuckled again.

From across the room, Hakuba Saguru glowered.

* * *

As his breathing gradually slowed in prelude to sleep, the Phantom Thief hidden in the closet smiled a little painfully to himself.  *All things come to those who wait…..*   That included the bad things as well as the good things, he supposed.  In a couple of hours he'd be spilling his secrets to one Nakamori Aoko in the sort of situation that usually only happened during his worst nightmares…..

But he couldn't say that he hadn't really *wanted* to tell her now and then, not really; sometimes the nightmares had turned around into dreams, good ones.  He guessed it all depended on how she took it; if she managed to forgive him all the lies and misdirections somehow, then… 

But if she didn't…..

The pain that crossed the young thief's face had very little to do with Kaitou Kid and a lot to do with Kuroba Kaito.  *If she hates me—  I—  Ah, hell. If she hates me, and she just may, I think I'll wish I had died in that shootout.*

*She hates Kid, and she hates what he makes her father do.  But she… cares for me.  I think…..  I guess it all depends on which is stronger, doesn't it?  God, Aoko…..  What reason have I given you to not hate me, anyway?  Ten years or so of friendship, and--- and the something-more that it's turned into lately?  We haven't even had *time* for it to really grow, not yet, even if it can-- even if I could *allow* it to.  The Inspector's daughter and an international criminal… yeah, right, great future THAT little relationship would have.  Ever notice that 'fat chance' means the same as 'slim chance'?*  He sighed; on the other side of the room Ayumi shifted in her sleep and murmured a little, causing his eyes to blink back open.

*Let's face it, Kuroba:  this just might be the last time you see her.  Yesterday was probably the last 'normal' day you'll ever have, the last time you had the chance to sleep in your own bed or go to school… the last chance to be who you were.  When you swore to avenge your Dad you said you'd do anything to make Them pay; well, it looks like it's time to ante up.  What'll you do if she--*

*--No.  Don't think she'd do that—she wouldn't call her dad or the rest of the cops, not right away, no matter how mad she gets.  I think she'd give me time to run--*

*…and… then what?*  He stared bleakly out into the darkness of the closet.

*I know Jii'll help me… and Mom…..  I'll have to explain to her too, though I doubt I'll have to tell her *much.*  I mean, there's no freaking way she hasn't figured things out, at least a little.  But I might as well plan on kissing my old life a big, fat goodbye right now.  That's what seeing Aoko will be, in a few hours—a chance to say goodbye.*

*And that's all.  Unless she understands and forgives me, which isn't very likely.*

*Why should she, after all?  Because I gave her a stupid necklace?  Because I've been picking on her and playing tricks on her and basically acting like a total idiot around her for years?  Because… because I've been running from her so goddamn fast all this time and really, really just wanted her to CATCH me?---  I--*

*Shit.  Where'd that thought come from?*

Kaito winced in pain as the muscles in his neck tensed, pulling at his wounded shoulder.  A pure jab of misery shot through him, and he gritted his teeth.

*You swore you'd give anything and everything to make Dad's murderers pay; right.  Time to keep your promise.  If being Kaitou Kid costs you any chance to ever be Kuroba Kaito again, you'll just have to deal with it.  Bet it'll hurt a hell of a lot more than a gunshot, though.*

*Aoko….. should've kissed you while I had the chance.*

 His eyes closed again, tightly; something wanted to leak out, and he couldn't let it.  With his hand closed tightly around the silver-and-gemstone bauble resting on his palm like a promise, the young thief curled up to drift in restless sleep for a few hours.  It was all the peace he was likely to get.

***********************************************************************

***click-click-bzzz***  "—and it's six-thirty aye-em on the dot here in beautiful downtown Tokyo under partly cloudy skies.  Let's start the half hour off with a string of hits from one of America's greatest Country-Western singers, Merl Haggard:  'My Problems Got Problems', followed by 'Misery And Gin' and 'I Always Get Lucky With You'.  Wake up out there and smell the coffee, mina-san—"

***CLICK***  A hairy-knuckled, groping hand managed to shut the horribly perky-voiced alarm off after only three tries, which was actually pretty good on the average.  Nakamori Ginzo HATED American Country-Western music with a deep and abiding passion, which was, of course, why he had his alarm clock set on Tokyo's only CW station.  He figured that, if nothing else, the sheer annoyance factor would get him out of bed in order to shut the goddamned @#$%!! thing *up.*

This method was occasionally rather hard on alarm clocks, understandably; Nakamori *really* wasn't much of a Morning Person.

Blearily the Inspector rolled over to stare at the ceiling above his bed, the night's events beginning to flood back into his sleep-fogged brain like a bad dream.  He scratched at his jawline, the stubble rasping under his nails as he yawned and began the slow, grudging process of Getting Ready For Work.

*Rrrrghh.  Want a SMOKE, dammit.*

Bathroom ablutions completed, he managed somehow to get dressed on autopilot as gray thoughts of  thieves, bullets, hacked computer files and far too much paperwork stomped across his mind in random disorder, scattering any attempts at coherency like panicked sheep.  As he fumbled beneath the edge of his bed with sock-clad toes for his shoes, he sniffed experimentally:  well, at least something was going right—he could smell breakfast and more importantly….. coffee.

*Coffee. Need Coffee.  Need caffeine--  Need uurgh?  Uhh?  Shoes?  Where're my shoes?*  That was odd-----

*No shoes?  No shoes.  Probably got stolen by goddamned Kaitou Kid, for all I know.  Shoes.  Must've left 'em downstairs.*  He tended to take them up with him to his bedroom after removing them at the door, but no-one was perfect, and he HAD stumbled in at some ungodly hour, he didn't really remember or care when…..  Shuffling like a Night of the Living Dead castmember, Nakamori made his groggy way down the stairs towards the kitchen.

*Coffee.  Breakfast.  Aoko?  Right, left her sleeping on the couch with that kitten of hers.  Should be getting ready for school 'bout now……  Coffee…..*

He had reached the point of half-past-the-first-cup and was well into his breakfast when it registered that the figure who sat quietly drinking her own cup of coffee on the couch was indeed his daughter Aoko, who by all rights should be getting ready for school.  Bleary eyes managed to focus on this fact and channel it towards the more awake parts of the brain.   "Urgh?  Aoko?  You sick or something?"

"No."  Turning a page of whatever she was reading, the Inspector's daughter calmly took another sip.  "Just staying home today; I have some things I need to take care of."  She was already dressed, not in her usual school uniform but in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt; some part of her father's slowly waking grey matter wondered why she seemed to have oil-stains on her hands—it wasn't really like Aoko to be messy.

It wasn't like her to miss a day of school, either—wasn't he supposed to call in about that sort of thing?  Another deep swallow of coffee made things a little clearer; he was.  Clearing his throat, he opened his mouth—

"I already called in and left a message for the office at school that I wouldn't be in; they'll call your office later and confirm it."  She sounded remarkably awake, if maybe a little stressed—but then, this *was* Aoko, after all.  She wouldn't be his daughter if she wasn't stressed.

About then her previous comment caught up with him.  *Things to take care of?*  Huh…..  "Uhhhh… Aoko?  What things?"

"Just… things."  She turned a page again, a slightly strained look of concentration on her face; one rather wild lock of hair fell down into her eyes.   "We had a kind of unusual phone call last night….."

"Rmph?  Who from?"  He shoveled another bite into his mouth, wondering what she was talking about.

"… I'm—not exactly sure.  They wanted to warn you that somebody'd be waiting to kill you at work today."  She turned another page quietly, her eyes on the words before her.

"MMPHH!!!!!" 

He choked, trying not to spray breakfast in every direction.  "WHMPH DMPH YUPH TLPH MPH RITF AWMPH?!?"  Swallowing hard, Nakamori took a huge gulp of his coffee (it was too hot, but somehow that got lost in the moment) and swiveled around to stare at his daughter; he was suddenly quite wide awake, all traces of fog vanishing in a split second.  "—Why the HELL didn't you wake me up?!?  AOKO!!  Thought I'd taught you better than that—"

At his tone the girl glanced up—and he finally got a proper look at her face. 

"…Aoko?"

Inspector Nakamori Ginzo had never been a particularly sentimental man; he was gruff and a bit thick-hided and he knew it.  But he could recognize trauma when he saw it, and he was seeing it now in his daughter's face.  There had been a young officer killed in the department the previous month, during a random drug-bust; what he was looking at now reminded him of how that officer's partner had looked during the funeral.

"Aoko--?"  He stood up, chopsticks in one hand and coffee cup in the other, sloshing a little.  "What-----"  But she was looking away from him now, the shadowed, reddened eyes shutting everything inside.  A small part of Nakamori noted that her face was sort of—what was the word?  *drawn,* as if she had been stretched out too thinly to bear and might be about to snap.  "Aoko, what're you—  Wait; just… tell me what they said, okay??"  He tried to gentle his voice a bit for her sake.

She drew a deep breath before speaking, closing the notebook that lay in her lap; distantly her father noticed that it was one of his personal dossiers on criminals, and in particular on Kaitou Kid.  "They said," she answered him distinctly and calmly, "that if you went in to work this morning… you'd die.  They said that there was someone waiting to ambush you—someone in your office, I think."  Aoko closed her eyes, rubbing at the bridge of her nose as if she had a headache.  "You can't go in—"

Rising like the Wrath of God from his chair, Nakamori's moustache bristled as he growled out "The *hell* I can't—  Who was it?"  At her silent headshake his brows drew down.  "Anonymous?  Goddammit, like I NEED something else to make this week worse--  You sure you don't know who it was?"

She was silent for a moment, then glanced fleetingly back at him in a flash of blank, dark eyes.  "I… no.  No, I—don't think I recognized them at all."  Her words seemed to carry an odd silence with them, like the echo you get after a cry of pain.

Leaving his dishes where they lay, he scooped up his keys and wallet and started for the door.  "Shit.  Just… shit.  Never mind—"  He headed towards the door, stepping to one side to toe his shoes on…..

….. which weren't there.  His shoes weren't there.  In irritation he thumped back up the stairs for another pair.

* * *

Downstairs his daughter waited, a thin crease showing between her eyebrows as she listened to her father's progress above.  She might have seemed quite relaxed, quite at ease, if you didn't notice the way that her hands were shaking as they opened the notebook once more.  She began to read the Inspector's terse account of a heist six months earlier, her thoughts sweeping back in time…

("Kaito?  What's with you—you're slower than usual.  What's the matter, you—Ouch!  What'd you do to yourself?"  The Inspector's daughter had drawn her breath in sharply at the sight of her friend's wrist as his sleeve caught on the edge of the desk and slid up a bit.  The skin was mottled black and blue with bruises, but the young man just glanced up with his usual wry grin.

"Nothing worth mentioning—just took a few steps too many on the stairs and whammed myself but good when I fell.  Happens to the best of us—"  He shrugged, then blinked innocently up at her.  "—or the worst."

She scowled, thumping down into her desk.  "Can't trust you to take care of yourself for a minute, can I?  You'd better put some ice on that before it swells—"

"Jeeze, Aoko, it's just a bruise or two…"  He had rolled his eyes at her concern, which had swiftly begun to escalate into annoyance as he gave her a charming smile that flickered around the edges with teasing.  "Sweet of you to be so worried though—wanna kiss it and make it all better?"

The resulting mop-chase had been perhaps a hair slower than usual, but not by much—)

And now she stared blankly down at the report, reading the words through a haze of exhaustion.  There was a brief mention of a quick scuffle on some stairs, ending when the Phantom Thief made his getaway with the goods.  Nakamori had broken the point of his pencil when describing that bit.

She could understand his reaction.

*It's funny—I feel sort of numb, I guess…*  It was a little of like the time she had had to have her appendix out when she was nine; she remembered how it had felt, going under the anesthetic… all nice and fuzzy-edged, wrapped in a cloud of not-caring, not-upsetness, not-feeling…

Kaito had brought her flowers at the hospital.  Of course, he had pulled them out of nowhere, making them appear in a puff of smoke…..  The magic trick had broken through the not-feelingness, just like the sharp edges of pain kept trying to right now.  And she did feel, really—it just seemed a little distant, a little removed by grey, muted walls of shock and realization.  You could only have hysterics for so long, after all, before you got so tired that they stopped out of sheer lack of energy.

*You didn't tell me—you've always told me *everything* and you didn't tell me when you started this.  I thought we were--- friends, at least.  More, maybe.  But you didn't tell me.  WHY?*  Under the numbness there was an odd sort of ache, a dull burning…..

When she had hung up the phone the night before, she had been so full of confusion and bewildered betrayal that she had been fairly useless for quite a while; HOW could Kaito be— him?  *Really* him?  It just wasn't possible, was it?

Apparently it was…..  She turned a page, feeling the numbness receding a little more as the heat beneath it grew—it was helping with the exhaustion, burning it away like fog.  But… every time she would try to work out the reasons behind what Kaito seemed to have done (and there had to be reasons, didn't there?  There just had to be) her feelings would swell, overwhelming rational thought with pain and a feeling like her heart was going to split in two.  Aoko blinked at the writing as the letters blurred a little; she wasn't going to cry again, she wasn't….. she had done enough of that a few hours earlier.

She had felt like a total idiot.

But Nakamori Aoko was *not* an idiot, and neither was Kuroba Kaito; he had to know by now that she was coming, and that she would expect ANSWERS, lots of them; her fingers clenched on the paper between them, tearing it slightly as the burning beneath the pain grew a little more, banishing the cold shock a bit at a time the way a fire burns away ice.

Kuroba Kaito going to answer her questions—whether he liked it or not.  That, at least, was certain.  And until he did she would try to forget the little, nagging voice that kept whispering about him being hurt.  If he was hurt, he probably deserved it.

Her father was thudding back down the stairs now, a peculiar look on his face.  He opened his mouth to say something, and she cut him off for the second time that morning.  "I hid them."

"Huh?"

"Your shoes—every single pair of them."  She shrugged, a faint but humorless smile crossing her face as the last of the numbness receded in a thin, grey tide from her thoughts.  "It seemed like a good idea—you can't go to work without shoes, can you?  And I *knew* you'd want to.  You just can't, though.  I'm sorry."  Staring up at her father's slowly-reddening face, she casually added, "And I hid a few other things too….."

"….. like what?"

"Oh….. the phones, including your cellphone….. the sparkplugs from the car….. that sort of thing."  She glanced back up at him again, her smile fading into a stubborn, stony glare he knew only too well.  "You can't go in.  I won't *let* you."

Glaring back down again at his daughter in growing outrage, Nakamori sputtered incoherently and set off in fruitless search of the missing items.  His daughter watched him go, thinking of the horrified response his coworkers had given her when she had called in—  had the bomb-squad found anything?  They had to have searched his office by now…..  *I want to know how you knew, Kaito—I want to know how you found out about people trying to kill my dad.  I want to know EVERYTHING, and I want to know why you didn't tell me in the first place.*

*I want to know why you didn't trust me.*

Oh, right; *now* she recognized the burning in the depths of her heart:  it was anger.  Good, anger was familiar, anger was something Aoko could cope with; she could deal with it a lot better than she could with pain.

***********************************************************************

In the depths of a little girl's closet, one dark blue eye flickered open and winced a little with pain and confusion.  Without moving, Kuroba Kaito allowed memory to slowly filter back into his brain….. 

*Mrmphgl…..  Awake.  OW--- shoulder HURTS, side HURTS.*

*Not at home-- wherewhat???  Uhhh….. oh.  Oh yeah.  I remember now….. good news and bad news.  Good news:  Found the Pandora Gem, go me!  Bad news:  Aoko knows, so I'm utterly screwed.  Doomsday, basically— gonna have to tell her everything and she'll hate me forever*

*Just freaking wonderful; should've stayed asleep. Feel awful anyway—so stiff I can hardly move.  Where's 'Yumi-chan?*

He could hear the soft rustling of cloth, a slight sliding sound… then footsteps, small and lightweight.  The closet door slid open a bare inch.  "Hei-san?" whispered a tiny mouse-voice; he could see a single sleepy eye peering through the crack.  "Are you okay?"  A shaft of light fell through the opening to lie like a band of fire across the wounded thief's face and he winced again, putting one finger to his lips and nodding a fraction.  The little girl blinked at her guest, then nodded back and slid the door closed again; her footsteps pattered across the floor towards the door and out into the hall as she chirped "Rita-kun, I'm uuuup!  Ohayou!  You better get ready for school….. is breakfast ready?  I'm hungry, Rita-kun!"

Noises in the background seemed to indicate that Rita-kun had rejoined the world of the conscious and was groggily being rousted from her couch.  Kaito swallowed and tried to edge a little further back among the shoes and dust-bunnies, hoping desperately that 'Yumi-chan could steer her away from the closet.

He needn't have worried; the little girl chattered her way through breakfast at a fast rate, and Rita-kun left for her classes without a hitch, promising to stop back by during lunch.  In the closet the teenager sighed in relief as the door latched securely behind the cheerful young woman with the American accent; she sounded nice and all, but he doubted that she would accept a Phantom Thief as part of her charge's usual closet décor…..

*Wonder how long it'll take Aoko to get here?  God, I hope she kept her dad from going in--  Nakamori, you may be an idiot but you're HER dad, and there are enough people without fathers in the world.  'Sides, you're sort of my pet cop; I've known you since I was 'Yumi's age.  Wonder what you'd think of that?*

Lying supine on the dusty floor with his head resting on a child-sized pair of tennishoes, he sighed and morosely considered the situation.  He hurt like hell (though it didn't seem to be *quite* as bad as it had been the night before—oddly enough any fever seemed to have burned itself out), the only clothes he had were a bloodstained white tuxedo, he wasn't really fit to travel, he was missing school (Kaito wondered what Hakuba would have to say about that; probably something pointed and British… 'Tally ho', maybe?), and last but not least he was going to have to Explain to Aoko-kun.

Life sure bit sometimes, didn't it?

Of course, on the plus side, he was alive; Nakamori was alive (he hoped); he hadn't been arrested, at least not yet; and he actually had the Pandora Gem.  *And shouldn't I be smashing that to bits about now, like I swore I would?*  Opening his good hand he peered at it a little muzzily (apparently he had slept with it clutched tight, like a rather expensive security blanket); the stone and metal fittings were cold against his palm, faintly sticky with whatever had been oozing out the night before.  *Maybe I'd better wait 'til Aoko actually sees it—a good show needs good props, and if this is the last time I ever see her I want to make sure she really understands why I did what I did.  I owe her that.*

*Not that I expect it to help…..  She's a good person, an honest person, the daughter of a cop; I'm a thief, no matter how you look at it.  The best thing I can do for her is disappear from her life completely… if I can.  If I can bear to.  Shit.*  He sighed as the leaden depression from the night before settled back into place, slipping the gem into his pocket again; his skin tingled where he had touched it and he found himself unconsciously flexing the fingers of his left arm where it lay taped against his waist.  Funny—it really *didn't* seem to hurt as much as he would expect it to—

The sound of soft footsteps and something being placed on the tiles preceded the sliding back of the closet door; Kaito flinched at the brilliance of the early sunlight pouring in from the balcony door as his young apprentice plopped herself down crosslegged on the floor opposite him.  "I got you some breakfast," she informed him, settling herself beside the tray she had brought and holding out a plastic cup decorated with the cast of Sailor Moon. 

Slowly the young thief managed to sit up, grimacing as his movements made cloth that was currently stuck to his wounds tug and pull painfully; he was weaker than he liked, but he managed a faint smile as he took the cup in his good hand.  The warmth of the liquid inside felt good against his skin; gratefully he took a swallow, smiling a little as he realized that it was warm milk sweetened with something—honey?  Snagging a dish from the tray, he somewhat awkwardly took a bite; apparently Ayumi's idea of breakfast for Phantom Thieves had a lot to do with toast and some sort of oddly-colored breakfast cereal with marshmallows in it—well, good.  He could probably use the sugar.  Besides, he liked marshmallows.

For several minutes the sunlit room was filled with the sounds of crunching and slurping; Kaito would have found the whole thing to be fairly surreal if he hadn't been so hungry— he felt like someone had hollowed out his stomach and replaced it with a black hole.  *I'm amazed I can eat, what with almost Certain Doom hanging over my head—but I guess the body doesn't care about stuff like that.  All it wants to do is heal.*   And it was hard not to cheer up (at least a little) with such a charming breakfast companion…..

The marshmallows helped too.

Ayumi drank the last of her own milk (Kaito eyed the small white kitten-face beaming cheerfully from her red plastic cup and shuddered), wiped her mouth with one sleeve and smiled up at her guest.  "You look like you're feeling better, Hei-san; does it still hurt?"  She cocked her rather tousled head to one side, regarding him critically.  "You're still awfully pale, though… and you never told me how you got hurt.  Did you….."  The little girl hesitated; he could practically see the wheels turning inside her head.  "If you're—are you REALLY Kaitou Kid?  Mitsuhiko-kun says you're a really great thief… but….. the police are always trying to catch you, I know that…..  Did you—"  Her eyes suddenly grew round; "Did you get shot??"

*Ooooboy.  Maybe I should have a sudden relapse?  I don't know to explain this to an adult, much less a little innocent like 'Yumi-chan…*  Swallowing another gulp from his own cup with a throat that suddenly felt a little too tight, Kaito hesitated.  "Well— um, I—"

***BZZZZZZZTT!!***  The door-buzzer from the apartment building's main entrance went off; they both jumped, and Ayumi scrambled to her feet to run to the intercom in the front room, leaving one very nervous teenager behind her.  He tensed, feeling jagged lines of pain crawling down his skin as his muscles tightened; *Aoko?  Oh man…..* 

He swallowed hard, his last bite of toast sticking in his throat.  *Kuroba Kaito, it's dawn; present yourself for the Firing Squad.  Or would you prefer hara-kiri?  No?*  With a sinking heart he listened to the distant murmur of a familiar, transmitted voice and Ayumi's response.  *She'll be up in a minute, huh?  Great.  Ready…. Aim….. FIRE!!! and down he goes…..*

*I should be so lucky.* 

Ayumi padded back into the room.  The child was still wearing her flannel pajamas; a small frown found its way onto her face, and she put her hands onto her hips as she surveyed him.  "You look like you're afraid you're going to get yelled at.  Won't Aoko-san help fix you where you're hurt?  She's your friend, isn't she?"

Kaito nodded, leaning back against the closet wall; he had managed to prop himself up in a more-or-less sitting position, but he still felt fearfully weak.  "Don't your friends yell at you sometimes?"

She nodded, still frowning; pushing her hair back from her face, she wandered over to her dresser and began pulling clothes out.  "A little, maybe….. if they're worried, I guess.  Conan yells sometimes when he tries to stop us from doing something that he thinks'll get us hurt—"  She rolled her eyes, looking remarkably exasperated.  "He can be such a GROWNUP sometimes."

Kaito couldn't help himself—a snicker crept out, accompanied by the trace of a grin.  Ayumi stuck her bottom lip out at him.  "Well, he *can* —sometimes he acts like he knows everything and we don't know anything at all, but I remember lots of times he got stuck or did something silly that got him in trouble, like when he got hit on the head at that castle place, or the time he got shot in the stomach, or—"

The young thief felt his eyebrows going up; this sounded *interesting.*  "Really?  Hey, did he ever—"

***KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!!***

He panicked.  *AAACK!!  Policeman's knock—Ohshitohshitohshit!!  What'll I d-----  Oh.  Oh right.*  Aoko had inherited her father's knock; he had *known* that, of course, but…..  And as Ayumi scooted back into the living room to let her in, somehow the knowledge that he wasn't about to be arrested just didn't help all that much.

There were the sounds of a door opening and closing; a tentative voice greeted the little girl politely.  Kaito sat quite still, staring down at the dregs in the bottom of his Sailor Moon cup.  A questioning murmur—and then two sets of footsteps came down the hall…..

* * *

Everything starts somewhere, somewhen.  Later on, when she had a moment to really sit down and think about it, Aoko would remember the instant when she had rounded the doorway and seen Kaito sitting there, so obviously a world away from the boy she had grown up with; and she would think, That's when it started.  That's when it all changed.

Of course, if you really went back a bit to the absolute root of things, it had all actually begun with the phonecall the night before—but somehow, she supposed, things could have come out *differently* at that point.  She might have hung up on him, or not believed what she heard, or been so sleepy that she simply dropped back off and forgotten everything in the way that you forgot dreams…..  No; it was when she walked through the door and simply froze, staring, that began things, in much the way that a minute-hand on a clock begins a new hour when it ticks past the final second of the old.

The taxi ride over had brought her anger down to a fine, even simmer rather than a boil; metaphorically, she was sharpening her claws.  In the background of her mind the young woman did her best to ignore the little niggle of worry that kept poking at her (words like hurt and bleeding seemed to have developed a lot of importance); just in case, in her backpack she had brought along the rather sizeable first-aid kit that she kept in the kitchen.  Just in case.

She wished she could have included her mop as well, but explaining that to the taxi driver might have been awkward.  Ah well, perhaps this 'Ayumi-chan' (whoever she was) would have one she could borrow…..

'Ayumi-chan' turned out to be a bright-looking little girl of eight or so, wearing flannel pajamas and an inquisitive look; she bobbed in a polite schoolgirl's bow as she let her guest in, smiling.  "Hajimemashite, Aoko-san; my name's Yushida Ayumi."  She closed the door behind them both.

Aoko attempted a smile of her own; her face felt oddly tight.  "Um, yoroshiku, Ayumi—I'm Nakamori Aoko."  She glanced swiftly around what seemed to be a fairly normal apartment—there didn't seem to be any wounded felons perched anywhere on the furniture.  "Kaito—?"

The child nodded.  "I guess you're worried about him, aren't you?  I'm glad you came over, Aoko-san, 'cause think he's still hurting an awful lot even though he isn't saying so."  As she led the way down the hall towards what was probably a bedroom, the little girl glanced back over one shoulder and added seriously "Boys are like that—they either whine a lot and act like babies when they get hurt or they don't tell you ANYTHING about it."

Nodding silently, the young woman followed.  She supposed that this was true.

When they reached the door, Ayumi simply walked in, saying "Hei-san?  She's here…."  Aoko hesitated, feeling a very peculiar mixture of emotions:  reluctance, anger, curiosity… and hope— hope that maybe, somehow, it wasn't all true and he wasn't really…..  Shaking her head as if dislodging a stinging fly, Nakamori Aoko stepped in through the doorway.

"Hello, Aoko."  He was sitting inside a closet, his face pale and somewhat smeared here and there with dirt; incongruously he seemed to be clutching a Sailor Moon mug loosely in one hand.  As she quietly approached, she could hear the little girl behind her hop up onto the bed and settle down with a shuffle of pillows.

Slowly and a little numbly the Inspector's daughter took in all the details:  the rather dirty white tuxedo, the silky cloak (mostly hidden by what seemed to be a bathrobe draped over his shoulders), the clumsy arrangement of bandages and tape, the top hat and monocle on the closet floor, the calm poker-face that looked suddenly so alien (and yet so very, very familiar—how had she missed it?  How the hell had she missed it?) on the features before her.

Hope died swiftly.

"See?" said the child at her back.  "He looks like he hurts; can you fix him?  I tried to last night, but I couldn't get his jacket off.  I'll go get the medicine kit from the bathroom—"

"Don't bother—I've got one with me," said the dark-haired young woman absently, pushing her hair back from her face with rather unsteady hands.  She dropped her backpack onto the floor, noting distantly that it seemed peculiarly heavy; it made an odd sort of thump as it settled.  "How badly are you hurt?"  The question was addressed to Kaito, who blinked.

"Ah—two gunshot wounds, one through the shoulder and the other along the ribs.  I'm pretty sure the bullets aren't still in, but my shirt and coat are pretty well stuck to me—"  He blinked again, some of his composure slipping.  "Why are you…..?  You're going to bandage me just like that?  Without my even asking?"

She shrugged, turning away.  "Ayumi-kun?  Could you please bring me a couple of washcloths and towels, some scissors and a really big bowl of hot water from the sink?"  Aoko's voice was quite calm and rather cool.  The child nodded at her, then slid back down from the bed and bounced through the door towards the kitchen.

* * *

"See, Hei-san?  I *TOLD* you she'd help….."  The cheerful voice carried down the hall, interspersed with the opening and closing of drawers and the sounds of a tap being turned on.  Kaito sighed, closing his eyes and allowing his head to drop back against the wall for a second.

*Wish it was that simple, 'Yumi-chan…..*

The rustling of cloth made his eyes snap back open; Aoko was kneeling before him, staring intently and expressionlessly into his face.  Kaito's immediate instinct was to shrink back, but the faint jerk of movement he made caused his face to whiten and an involuntary gasp to slip out.  "So—aren't you going to ask?"  He said faintly, wiping at his forehead with his good hand.

"Ask what?"  Her voice was so quiet—not like her usual shouts and caterwaulings when she was angry.  And she *WAS* angry, he could practically feel it radiating like steam from her skin.  "Ask you why you're Kaitou Kid?  Ask you why you rob people?"  The words lost a little of their calmness as they speeded up.  "Ask you why you never told me about this?  Ask you why you never TRUSTED me?  Little things like that?  Are *those* the questions you think I should ask, Kaito??"

Her dark eyes glittered as she glared at him, fire beginning to rage in hot coals just below the surface.  "No… no, I don't think I'm going to ask you any of those questions.  Want to know why not, Kaito?"

He shifted again nervously, ignoring the jolt of pain from his wounds and staring her straight in the face; he couldn't back down now.  "Okay…  Why not?"

"Because you are going to tell me everything right now.  And I do mean *EVERYTHING.*  Or Else."

Kaito winced again from the fierceness in her voice—she didn't sound cold now, not in the least; and he didn't think the 'or else' she was referring to had anything to do with calling the cops.  "Do you hate me for this, Aoko?" he asked quietly, trying to keep his own voice steady and not to burst out with what he really wanted to say: *Please don't say yes, don't hate me, don't—*

She closed her eyes and sat back on her heels; a tremor seemed to flicker its way through her as she spoke between gritted teeth.  "I—hate *Kaitou Kid;*  I'm not sure how I feel about you yet."

*--please don't say yes, please don't-----  Oh.*

*Oh.*

And as Ayumi came back into the room with a pile of terrycloth and other items, he supposed that that would just have to do for the moment.

* * *

The basin of hot tap-water sloshed slightly as Yushida Ayumi sat it down onto the floor beside her two guests; with utter disregard for the small puddle the girl plopped down crosslegged next to them.  Still clutching her stack of washcloths and towels, she gingerly offered Aoko the scissors.  "I got the really sharp ones from my 'Kaa-san's sewing stuff; are you going to have to cut his shirt off?"  She cocked her head to one side, watching in interest and concern as the young woman carefully slid her father's bathrobe from Hei-san's shoulders.  "That's what they do on all the police shows on TV when somebody gets shot….."

Aoko nodded, glancing at her with a slightly strained smile of thanks as she snipped away at tape and bandages.  "Yes I am, and he's going to have to just sit still and quiet for a few minutes while I do it.  *Right,* Kaito?" 

She fixed Ayumi's teacher with a glare; he swallowed, slumping a little as she slid one of the scissor-blades inside his sleeve.  "First you want me to tell you everything, then you—OW!  Watch it!--- want me to shut up…..  Agh!!  AokoowowOW--!!"  He hissed in pain as a tug from the young woman peeled back the sleeve, showing long runnels of stains down the length of his arm.

Hei-san clenched his eyes shut as he braced himself against the closet door-frame, biting his lip hard; he looked awfully pale, and Ayumi wondered briefly if it was more because his friend had been yelling at him than because he was hurting (they had tried to be quiet, she could tell that, but she had been able to hear them all the way down the hall.  Aoko-san's voice was sort of loud).  The child's forehead wrinkled as her teacher gritted his teeth; the stains on his jacket and shirt looked a LOT bigger and worse than they had in the dark the night before, as bad as Conan-kun's had when he had gotten shot— 

She darted a look at Aoko-san's face and her eyes widened a little at the set, almost scary look she found there.  Aoko-san looked like *she* was the one who was hurting…..  "He'll be okay, won't he?"  The words slipped out before she knew it, and she bit her own lip.

The young woman carefully eased the tattered remnants of Hei-san's jacket away from his shoulder, ignoring his stifled exclamation and placing a soaked washcloth across the stained shirt beneath; holding it in place, she nodded grimly.  "He'll be fine, I think—I'm not a doctor, but I think I just need to get all this off him and clean the wound."  A half-smile crossed her face for a second, making her look much prettier than the scary look had.  "My dad—he got shot once in the leg when I was twelve, and he was a much worse baby about having his bandages changed.  I had to do it for him, because if he started bleeding you'd think he was dying—"  She seemed to start slightly then, stopping in mid-sentence with a confused look on her face.  Her hands continued what they were doing, however, as they carefully snipped away at the dark blue cloth glued to Hei-san's ribs.

"I—remember that—  I came over one time when you were changing them upstairs, and---"  The young man paused to bite back what sounded like an interesting swearword; "—and it sounded like you were killing him.  Thought he—Ow, DAMMIT, Aoko!  Leave me a *little* hide, will you?—I thought he had maybe complained about--- aaaOWCH!!!—about your cooking one time too many…"  Beads of sweat were gathering along Hei-san's forehead; Ayumi shivered in sympathy.

"I'm a *GOOD* cook, and you very well know it--- and stop swearing, Kaito, or I'll—"

"—you'll what?"  He laughed; it sounded a little funny to the gradeschooler's ears.  "Shoot me?  Been there, done that, got the—"

"Bullet holes, right.  I can see that."  She peeled off another strip of cloth from his side, baring flushed and angrily-scored skin as Ayumi's teacher gasped in pain.  "Idiot.  Keep it up and I *will* give you something to complain about—"

The little girl hesitated, then scooted up a little and reached out to touch Aoko's shoulder; the young woman paused, a soaked and reddened cloth in her hand.  "What is it, Ayumi?"

"Ummmm….."  She didn't want to be rude, but—  "Ummm, Aoko-san?  Could you PLEASE not yell at Hei—I mean, at Kaito-san, just for a little while?  If you keep yelling at him he can't tell us about why he's Kaitou Kid.  And…"  She smiled tentatively at her two guests.  "… he *promised* me last night he'd tell me, and you said he had to tell you, and he could tell both of us while you bandage him so he doesn't have to think about being bandaged."  She sat back again, looking hopeful.  "And then you can yell at him later, okay?"

The young woman blinked at her for a second; then one side of her mouth twitched slightly.  "That… sounds like a good arrangement to me.  Well, Kaito-kun?"  Aoko-san's voice sounded sort of *dangerous,* as if she were a bomb that just might go off any second.  Apparently Hei-san thought so too, since he swallowed hard and nodded.

"Fine, okay.  Ah, 'Yumi-chan?  Sorry 'bout the swearing….."

She giggled.  "That's okay.  Can I play with your hat while you're talking?"  She wriggled a little, impatiently, as the young woman beside her applied another soaked cloth.

"Not the—OW!!—hat, no—it's got a few gadgets in it that are too dangerous.  But—oh; here… can you reach around behind me, under my jacket on the right?  Not the smaller compartments, though… just the big one right by the seam; it's safe."  He craned his head sideways to watch as the little girl scooted around to search; small hands discovered a series of pockets in the coat's cloth, pulling out something that glittered like diamonds in the morning sunlight…..

"OOOOOH!!!"  Ayumi squealed in delight at what, actually, DID seem to be diamonds—real diamonds, all shaped into flowers and set into a crown.  She had never seen anything like it in her *life,* and she immediately bounced to her feet and to the mirror on her dresser to try it on.

Behind her she heard Aoko-san drop her washcloth with a wet *splat.*  "Are you crazy?!?" hissed the teenager furiously.  "You *stole* that, didn't you?  You actually went and stole it and now you're letting a little girl try it on--  Kaito, what the HELL do you think you're doing?  It's stolen property— she'll get her fingerprints all over it and—"

"That's right," said Hei-san flatly.  "It's stolen property, I stole it, and I'm a thief.  That's what I *do,* Aoko—I steal things.  And it'll get returned later, just like everything else I've stolen… well, except for the baseball, but I had a good reason for that one.  Dammit, Aoko, I'm not an amateur!  D'you really think I'd return it with any prints on it?  If I was THAT stupid your dad would've caught me ages ago!"  He laughed, and Ayumi paused in adjusting the sparkling piece of jewelry; there was that funny note in his laughter again, almost a sort of bitterness, a terrible sadness…

How could a person sound so sad when they were laughing?

But Conan sounded that way sometimes too; Ayumi guessed it had to do with keeping secrets inside. 

They were yelling at each other again, their voices growing sharper and louder.  "Maybe you SHOULD have been caught—then you wouldn't have blood all over the place and a couple of holes in your—"

"Oh right, instead I'd be in a cell someplace awaiting trial; what a wonderful way to finish up high school.  'Kuroba Kaito, Student Most Likely To End Up On Interpol's Most-Wanted List—Oh Wait, He's Already There'.  Do you suppose I could graduate college with a major in Prison Escapes 101?  Hey, maybe I could teach classes—"  There was that unhappy laughter again, ending in a pained gasp.  "—SHIT, this hurts—"

"—and whose fault is that?  And QUIT SWEARING!  If you'd just tried to think with your brain instead of—"

Okay, that was enough; they were acting like total *babies* now.  Smoothing her hair into place the little girl turned back around and glared at them both.  "STOPPITTT!!!"

Caught in the act, the so-called adults froze in place with their mouths open, their angry words cut off in mid-tirade.  Ayumi stomped one foot (which made her new hair ornament slide sideways, but she didn't care about that); "You SAID you wouldn't yell at him—" that was for Aoko-san; "—and YOU said you'd tell us why you steal stuff."  She crossed her arms and loomed over them with every centimeter of her small height.  "Instead you're BOTH ACTING LIKE BAKAS and *nobody's* explaining *anything!!!*"  Angry tears started up at the corner or her eyes; she wiped them away impatiently, stomping her foot again.

Guiltily the pair before her glanced at each other, then dropped their eyes.  Aoko-san drew a deep breath and studied the floor as she spoke.  "I'm sorry, Ayumi… I'm just— this is sort of a shock for me, and….."  Her voice trailed off as she picked up the soggy washcloth she had dropped, wiping up the splatters.

Hei-san picked up where she had left off, continuing the sentence with the ease of long familiarity.  "… and we're both *used* to squabbling with each other; it's easier than—well, practically anything, including explanations."  He darted a somewhat sheepish glance at the woman beside him.  "Um, I'm sorry too…. both of you."  A small grin crept out of hiding.  "I never claimed to be very bright—just clever, y'know?  Well, and good-looking, and stylish, and—OW!"

Aoko-san had removed another wet cloth from his shoulder, pulling the last of shreds of tattered shirt-material away and finally baring the full extent of the damage.  "JEEZE, Aoko, *warn* a guy when you're going to—aagh!!—"  He clamped his mouth shut, the color draining from his skin; the fingers that sponged his shoulder so gently trembled a little as scarlet began to ooze from the wound again.

"I'm sorry too."  Ayumi could barely hear the young woman's words as she stared at the wound; it looked HORRIBLE, all ragged and sort of torn—she had always thought bullets just made holes in people, not great big rips.  In the past year or so she had seen a few people with bullet-holes in them, but never without their shirts—and the left side of Hei-san's shirt was now a pile of cut-up cloth lying on the floor.

*Oooooooh……*  She gulped.  It had to hurt an *awful* lot—  "Do… do you need the medicine kit now?"  The gradeschooler tried to keep her voice from quavering; Aoko-san nodded absently, wringing out the last washcloth and rinsing it in the water (now an ugly red, full of floating bits of shirt-material and other stuff that Ayumi didn't want to think about).

"If you could get me some fresh clothes and some more warm water, that'd be good too—"  Thankfully the little girl scooped up the bowl (sloshing it again) and headed to the bathroom closet for more towels; behind her she could hear her two guests' voices saying something that might have been apologies.  At least it sounded like apologies… and anyway, they weren't yelling.  That was good.

That was a start.

* * *

The silence that fell between Kaito and Aoko was an awkward one; but, the young thief thought to himself, it was a damn sight better than all that shouting.  Easier on the nerves, too.

He closed his eyes and allowed his head to fall tiredly back against the closet doorframe; "Note to self:  Never, never get shot again," he muttered as his shoulder gave a particularly vicious throb.  The washcloth that had so gently sponged away the dried blood was cool by now, and as hot pain bloomed again where the bullet had struck he swallowed another exclamation and did his best to ignore it. 

Aoko carefully placed the last clean cloth across the wound, and it occurred to him that this was probably the most physical contact that they had had since they were kids.  *It's not quite the sort of contact I've had in mind lately, but I guess it'll have to do, won't it?  Baka; keep your thoughts on the present and not on daydreams.*   A faint, rather rueful grin tried to find its way to his face, but he squashed it down firmly.

(But somewhere in the back of his mind a small, gleeful voice wondered when the last time she had seen him without a shirt had been, even partially; probably not since two summers past, when they had gone swimming at the local pool.  He wondered what she was thinking of seeing him now; all those roof-hops and the hang-gliding had added quite a bit of muscle tone...)

"Kaito?"  Her voice was a lot quieter than usual; she almost sounded like a nice, normal girl and not the usual mop-wielding valkyrie that he knew and loved—

(*Hmmmmm,* he mused, *that last word had an *echo* to it, didn't it?  Interesting.  'Course, it's not like the thought hasn't crossed my mind before…*)  "Hmmm?"

"Are you all right?"

He snorted involuntarily.  "My therapist says it's all a phase and should pass soon," he muttered, but the joke was halfhearted at best.  Kaito opened his eyes again and blinked up at Aoko wearily.  "Fine, just… spiffy."  A tired note of sarcasm warred with his  attempt at cheerfulness.  "Why, don't I look it?"

She sat back on her heels, still clutching the now-scarlet washcloth; droplets of red had spattered her sweatshirt here and there, darkening her cuffs and spotting the denim of her jeans.  "Actually, no; you're pale as a ghost and I don't know what you're going to do about missing school…..  You can't go in like this tomorrow."  Aoko scowled a little, the familiar expression settling on her face in a way that was almost as reassuring as a smile.  "And don't tell me your mom called in for you—"

*Oh, right… better take care of that right now.*  "What—ow!—time is it, anyway?"  He shifted painfully, sitting a little more upright.  At that angle he could just make out Ayumi's bedside clock… "Almost nine-thirty… later than I thought.  Do you have your cellphone on you?"  In answer she passed it over silently, her scowl deepening in puzzlement.

Flashing a tired-but-still-very-Kaito (or Kid) grin her way, he flipped it open.  "Wanna see a magic trick?"  She crossed her arms, the scowl beginning to turn dangerous; *Hey, you wouldn't hit a wounded man, would you?* he thought hopefully (and quite possibly inaccurately, all things considered.)  Clearing his throat as he dialed their school's office-number, he adjusted this and that and concentrated…..

***bzzzt***bzzzt***bzz---  "Ekoda High School, Administration….."

"Ah, konnichiwa—this is Kuroba Hikarue… my son Kaito's a student with you there, but I'm afraid he won't be coming in today—"  Grinning as he spoke in flawless imitation of his mother's voice, the young thief watched Aoko's jaw drop and her eyebrows climb; in the bedroom's doorway, Ayumi buried her face in the pile of towels she was carrying to muffle her giggles.

"Ah, Kuroba-san!  We tried to reach you earlier—is your son ill?"  The office clerk on the other end of the line sounded bored but dutiful; faintly he could catch the shuffling sounds of paper.  No doubt this call was tidying up a loose end for them—well, good; no reason he couldn't make someone's day a little easier.

"Unfortunately he is—just something passing, I'm sure, though if he gets worse I'll take him into a clinic for a checkup.  Will you be needing me to drop a note by, or will this call do?"  Kaito conscientiously added on a few details regarding his student I.D. number and class schedule, making certain to flavor everything with *just* the right note of tired concern.  Aoko was staring openly by now, eyes nearly popping at the feminine tones and diction; she shook her head hard, fighting back what looked suspiciously like a very unwilling laugh.

"The call will do for now, but if you could either send a note with him when he comes in or possibly drop one by later--?  Arigato, Kuroba-san, we'll check him off as 'excused.'  Jaa ne…."

"Jaa….."  He smirked and hit the 'end' button on the cellphone, handing it back; Aoko took it in one rather limp hand, her eyes still wide and startled.  "Well?"  he demanded of his audience, feeling somewhat better than he had all morning; "How'd you like the trick?"

*If you could just see your face, Aoko-kun…..*

Slowly Aoko took the bundle of terrycloth from the still-giggling Ayumi's arms, settling back crosslegged again.  "Is that….. have you done that sort of thing to trick my father before--?  I've heard him complaining about—about Kid misleading his men on the radio—"  Ayumi scurried back out towards the bathroom to get the bowl of water, not wanting to miss a thing.

"Yup."  He chuckled, wiping away a trickle of sweat from his hairline with his good arm.  "It's a lot more efficient than running from them or having to do something more dangerous to get 'em off my trail…..  Aoko?  Your dad—he's okay, isn't he?  You DID keep him from going in this morning--?"  A slight thread of worry dampened his satisfaction at the ruse he had just pulled, but her nod reassured him; with a relieved sigh, he allowed his head to fall back again.  "Good.  You have *no* idea how glad I am to hear that….."

Ayumi skidded at a comically fast hop across the floor, arms full; a small wave from the bowl she was carrying sloshed over the rim, spattering her teacher with a healthy splash of warm water.  "Hey—'Yumi-chan, I wasn't expecting a bath, y'know—" he protested as droplets ran down the bare skin of his neck and dripped from his hair. 

The child sat the basin down with an apologetic giggle, settling beside her other guest in unconscious crosslegged mimicry.   She regarded them both, her head cocked slightly to one side with the diamond crown she still wore slanting just a touch askew.  "Hei-san?  NOW are you going to explain?  Oh, and you need your medicine kit, right, Aoko-san?"   The backpack containing the kit was just within reach of her short arms, and she leaned far over to pull it by one strap.  "It's—heavy—"   With a sharp tug it slid across the floor, and she unzipped it—

and froze—

"Meeee(yawn)owww?  Yow? ….. YOWwow??"

*Oh NO.  Somebody Up There really, really hates me.*  "Aoko?  WHY did you bring your kitten with you?  I'd have understood it if you brought your mop, but….. a kitten?"  Kaito's own eyebrows were climbing into his hairline now; an ecstatic Ayumi was enthusiastically hauling the white furball out of the backpack, and he wondered if he should warn her—

"Mew?"

"Awwwwwww!!!  He's so CUUUUUTE!!!  He looks *just* like HelloKitty!!!"  The little girl hugged the Kitten From Hell with all her might; it made a sort of muffled squeak, and Kaito suppressed a shudder of horror.

"purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….."

--nahhh.  No need to warn her, apparently; small children did not appear to be on the fiend's list of acceptable chew-toys, unlike himself and the majority of the known world.  One evil, crystalline blue eye glared balefully at Kaito from over Ayumi's flannel-clad shoulder as a pink nose twitched distastefully in his direction.  "Um, Aoko?  The kitten?  Why?---  Errr, hello?  Hello, Aoko?  Earth to Aoko—"  He waved his good hand in front of her eyes.

The Inspector's daughter jumped slightly, seeming to shake herself out of a daze.  "I… could have *sworn* that I left him at home--- I had to get him out of my backpack twice, but he—I zipped it shut, I know I did!  How in the world---"  Slowly she reached out a hand and smoothed it across the kitten's fluffy head; it purred even harder, eyes closing in bliss.  "Oh well…..  Ayumi?  This is Spot.  Spot, meet Ayumi—"

The little girl allowed the kitten to slip down and curl up in her lap, a look of delight on her pink-cheeked face.  "Hajimemashite, Spot-chan!  Ooooh, look, he likes to cuddle….."  Thoroughly absorbed, the child in the flannel pajamas and diamond tiara bent over her new friend and stroked the soft white fur.  Kaito had to grin at the total and utter incongruity of the sight, and he caught a matching grin on Aoko's face before she reached to snap open the first aid kit. 

His smile faded, however, at what lay within…..

Bandages, tape, hydrogen peroxide, swabs, ointments….. ow.  Ow, ow, ow.  He gritted his teeth.

"Why don't you start explaining?" suggested Aoko, pulling out a strip of tape in a businesslike manner.  A hint of her previous strain and anger showed on her face for a moment and quivered in her voice.  "Or… would you rather I bandage you *first?*"  A certain sharp-edged note behind the words suggested that this option would not prove comfortable at all.

*Man, talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place…*  "Fine, okay."  He sighed, watching as she began unwrapping pads of gauze.  "Aoko?  One thing, first—it's sort of important that you understand this….."

She tensed, raising her eyes to his; the paper around the gauze ripped between her fingers.  "What?"

Kaito met her gaze evenly.  "I'm not ashamed of what I'm doing.  You've known me most of my life, Aoko; do you *really* think I'd do this sort of thing without a good reason?  *Really?* "  He stared her down; the young woman flushed angrily, her lips tightening into a thin line.  "I mean, think about it— did I ever do anything really dishonest or criminal while we were growing up?  I'm not much of a role model—" (and he shot a slightly guilty sideways glance at Ayumi, who looked puzzled), "—but I'm not that bad.  And if you suddenly took up burglary or carjacking or—I dunno, mugging people in alleys or something—I'd be pretty damned sure you had a good reason behind it…"

Aoko's lower lip stuck out, making her look remarkably like Ayumi in a snit.  "So what's your point?" she growled, tearing off a few more strips of tape and lining them up along the edge of the first aid kit.

The young thief shrugged his good shoulder, then bit off a curse as the movement pulled at muscles that emphatically did not want to move.  "Just….. *listen* to me before you make any judgments, okay?"  He offered her a rather lopsided smile.  "Aoko…..  I won't deny that being Kid's been a blast a lot of the time, and there's parts of it I've really enjoyed—but, y'know, I had to learn how to break the law and do things that you're always told are bad.  Lying to people, stealing….. getting away with things."  Kaito laughed briefly; then the humor in his face slid away into a kind of wistfulness.  "Sometimes it would've been so easy to fail, to just let your dad or Hakuba or that Kudo guy catch me—to just give up.  And sometimes I was so tired that that sounded pretty damned tempting, even though I'd end up in jail and my mom'd be in trouble since I'm still at home and all.  But—"  He hesitated.

"But what, Hei-san?"  They both jumped—each had forgotten about Ayumi; the little girl still sat crosslegged beside them, stroking the kitten that snoozed in fuzzy slumber across her lap.  Her clear eyes were fixed on his face, full of questions and curiosity….. and empty of judgment.  To her, he was Hei-san first before he was anything else—and she trusted Hei-san.

"Um…. But, well….."  Kaito looked a little uncertain.  "I guess I'd better start at the beginning."

The child rolled her eyes and heaved a theatrical sigh.  "THAT'S what we've been TELLING you to do….."  She and Aoko shared an exasperated look between them, then fixed their eyes unblinkingly on the wounded thief; he gulped.

"And I'll need you to lean forward a little—the bandages will have to go around and back of your shoulder a bit."  The young woman slid over to sit directly beside Kaito, bringing the kit with her.  "You can talk while I work…"

"Um.  Right."  He looked away as she began to unscrew the lid of the hydrogen peroxide.  "Let's see…..  uh, maybe we could start with a little history lesson?-----  OW!  Jeeze, that's *cold!!*" 

The Inspector's daughter had just poured a little of the liquid onto the wound; she carefully swabbed the long blaze across his ribs with a soaked cottonball.  "Hold still and talk."

"………………….."  Kaito sighed.

"Okay, it's like this—and 'Yumi-chan?  If you don't understand something, just ask, okay?---  The thing is, there've been phantom thieves, 'kaitous', around for a long time.  Back when the British came in and took over in the 1800's they really started showing up, and they've been around one way or another ever since."  He leaned forward a little more, gritting his teeth as careful hands dabbed at the damage just above his shoulderblade.

"If—aaaaowch!--- if you wanted to embarrass some High-and-Mighty rich type, *especially* somebody in charge, you might think of hiring a thief that was good enough to not only sneak onto their property and steal something valuable BUT was *also* good enough to do it really, really publicly—y'know, so the High-and-Mighty guy'd lose face.  And to make matters even worse, you could get the thief to return what they stole in some way that smacked the owner right in the nose…..  That was the sort of thing a kaitou did. " 

He was silent for a moment, thinking hard.  Stealing a glance at Aoko's face, he wondered a little at her closed, absorbed expression and the way her fingers moved so gently against his bare skin.  Despite all his protests her touch was so light, almost delicate….. and, Kaito thought to himself with a nervous internal grin, if things weren't hurting so much it'd really feel sort of… ummm….. well, never mind that or he'd loose his train of thought entirely. 

Lately she had been doing things like that to him a *lot.*

*Uhhh… where was I?  Oh yeah.  History—nice safe topic.  Pay attention, class…*

"A phantom thief didn't just steal valuables; they stole prestige, security, public opinion…..  A lot of merchants hired kaitous to discredit their rivals.  I mean, if you had a cargo you wanted shipped to another port, you'd steer away from somebody who had just had their family jewels—errrr, I mean, a family heirloom stolen from their own treasury."  Kaito swallowed hard as ointment was slowly squeezed from a tube onto the worst part of the wound and tried to ignore the sensation.

"I… uh…..  Anyway, kaitous never really died out—there are still a few around; most of the modern ones deal in computer hacking and commercial espionage.  There's nothing like seeing a product that *you* were just hyping to your stockholders show up on the market under somebody else's logo, two weeks before production…..  Hackers, data pirates, that sort of thing; the more visible ones in Japan stem from the kaitous."  Ayumi was looking more than a little puzzled by now, but she said nothing.

Aoko soaked another cottonball and moved lower, blotting at the painful gash across his ribs.  "Lean forward a little—good.  And quit stalling….."  There was a growl of impatience in her voice.  "How does all of this relate to you?"  The Inspector's daughter snipped a piece of gauze in half with the scissors; the little girl beside her scooped up the tag-end and began to dangle it in front of Spot, who lazily swiped at it with a paw for a second or two before losing interest.

Kaito swallowed again; this was the Big Part.

"Well…..  there've always been a few *traditional* kaitous around, the sort you could hire to steal things besides computer files….."

She quirked an eyebrow in his direction; the eye beneath it glittered, sharp as any stiletto and twice as dangerous.  "Things like jewels?"

"Right."

"….. and…..?"  Her hands smoothed a piece of tape in place.

"My dad was one."

Her hands went very still; Aoko's face visibly paled.  "Your— your dad was a…?  But he—!!" 

Ayumi made an inquiring noise, pushing the tiara up from where it had been doing a slow slide towards her nose.  "You said your dad died when you were a little older than me, didn't you?  I remember….."  The young voice was subdued.  Carefully she removed her headgear; tiny rainbows refracted across Spot's fur and her own troubled face and covering them both with diminutive rainbows as the diamonds threw back the light from the balcony.  "It made you unhappy to talk about it.  But you said he was a magician, not a thief… didn't you?"  Her small hands stroked the light-dappled kitten, who yawned and went back to his nap.

Kaito nodded, then wished he hadn't as the tape on his skin pulled.  He was quite strongly aware that Aoko still had her hands resting on him, one each to either side of where he had been bandaged; they were very warm.  The young woman seemed to be almost frozen in place, and he turned to look back at her.  "Aoko?"

She whispered:  "…I… liked your dad a lot.  He was there when mine--- when mine was out chasing criminals.  He used to do tricks for me, and make me laugh….."  Fierce eyes glared into his as her fingers tightened a little, and he let out a grunt of protest.  "How could he have been a thief?  He was a *good* man!" she demanded, her voice cracking.

From scarcely a foot and a half away Kaito's dark blue eyes stared directly back at hers, full of memories and old sorrow.  "That's right, he was.  A very good man…  Remember that, okay, Aoko?  Remember that while you listen to the rest of it."

"B-but he— Kaito, how COULD he have been—he, he was always so—"

"Just LISTEN."

She shut up.  In the lap of the little girl beside her, Spot cracked open one watchful eye.

"I don't know much about the family history, just the little scraps I've found in my dad's notes since I started all this.  But as far as I can tell he was trained by *his* father, and planned on training *me* when I was ten."  Kaito shrugged a painful, one-shouldered shrug as he scratched at his head with his good hand.  "I mean, he'd already taught me a lot of stuff—d'you remember how I got your back door open all those times you locked yourself out?  I could pick a fairly simple lock by the time I was seven.  And there was all that stuff on disguises, on how to watch people and what to look for when you wanted to imitate somebody…..  A lot of it's natural ability, but some of what I use was taught to me by my dad, plain and simple."  A wry smile flickered in his eyes and he shook his head.  "I even found out a bit about my mom's family—seems they had a couple of phantom thieves in the woodwork way back as well… kind of weird, isn't it?"

"But….. stealing is *wrong,* isn't it?  Hei-san?  I learned that when I was really little."  Ayumi's words were tinged with confusion and more than a little dismay; she pulled Spot up into a hug, her small arms tightening around the kitten and producing a rather surprised "Mrrrrmmph!" sound.

Kaito cocked an eyebrow at her in amusement.  "So's hiding in trees and eavesdropping on people, especially your friends….. but that didn't keep *somebody* from doing it, now did it?"  To Aoko's astonishment the little girl blushed deeply and squirmed a little; the feline in her lap let out a protesting "YOWwow!" and scrambled free, bounding halfway across the bedroom floor to disappear beneath Ayumi's bed.

The child stuck her lower lip out.  "That's not NEARLY as bad as stealing stuff… Stealing stuff can get you put in jail.  And besides," (she glared up at her teacher) "detectives catch thiefs, um, I mean 'thieves', and I do detective stuff.  And what about Conan-kun?  HE could catch you….." 

Aoko blinked at Ayumi in puzzlement as she picked up the tape and scissors again.  "'Detective stuff'?  And who's Conan-kun?"

Kaito chuckled, flinching slightly as ointment was applied to the long gash across his ribs.  "She belongs to a sort of detective-club; a pretty bright little bunch of kids, too, if you ask me.  Conan-kun… he's one of them, the smartest; your dad's met him before, maybe—he lives with Mouri Kogoro, that private detective that makes the news now and then.  You know, the one who supposedly solves crimes in a trance?"  He met Ayumi's eyes with a slightly warning look and she nodded, silently agreeing that the less said about Conan the better.

A long strip of gauze was laid carefully in place.  "Right….. and yes, Ayumi, stealing IS wrong, no matter why you do it."  The young woman glared at her patient.  "Just because your grandfather did it and your father did it doesn't make it right—OR intelligent."

A flicker of anger showed briefly in Kaito's eyes.  "Fine.  Yes, it's wrong; if you steal stuff for yourself, you hurt people…  And maybe that's why my dad specialized in jobs where he was hired by people who had *already* been stolen from; they paid him to get their stuff back."  He sighed, a line appearing between his brows.  "Okay, so maybe he didn't do that every time—he had to make a living somehow, and no matter how famous he was most stage gigs just don't pay that wonderfully."  Kaito gave Aoko a faint, crooked grin; "Hey, even Phantom Thieves have car payments, y'know?"

She snorted (sounding remarkably like her father just for a second) as she applied the last strip of tape.   "So..… what went wrong?"

The grin faded and the young thief's eyes went rather bleak.  "One of the main differences between a traditional kaitou and an ordinary thief is that a kaitou's usually hired by someone else to steal, though not always—and he did well enough to be more than a bit picky about his clients and targets.  As far as I can tell from what I've learned, he was approached by some sort of—organization?—that offered him a contract regarding finding a particular jewel.  Not just any jewel, though… a very special one:  the Pandora Gem."

Ayumi's eyes widened, astonished.  "The one you—" but Kaito held up a finger to his lips; bouncing a little in her excitement, the child subsided and allowed him to continue.

"Problem was, they were lacking in a little information regarding the whereabouts of their target; not only did they not know *where* it was, they didn't know what it *looked* like either.  It was supposed to be a gem inside another gem, and the only way you knew you had the right one was to hold it up under the rays of the moon—and it would glow."  There was a faraway look in the young man's face for a moment; he shot Aoko another grin as she busied herself with cleaning up the debris around them.  "Sounds like a bunch of pipe dreams, doesn't it?  Wait'll you hear what else the Pandora Gem was supposed to do….." 

(From beneath the bed a pair of blue eyes peered out; narrowing, they began to track the movements of Aoko's hands as she gathered scraps of cloth and wiped up droplets…..)

Kaito paused for a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing; he carefully flexed just the slightest bit, wiggling the fingers of his left hand.  "Stiff—but they're working," he muttered.  His eyes softened as he watched Aoko's hands gathering the tattered remnants of his shirt; the majority of his jacket and the right side of his shirt were still intact and hanging on him, but he'd need some new clothes before he went anywhere. 

(The blue eyes focused tightly on the girl's movements as soft white paws carried the feline beneath the bed closer and closer, readying for the attack…..)

Aoko scooped up a stray bit of cloth, then absentmindedly wiped at the floor beneath it with her cloth.  "Get on with it, would you?  So what was this mythical gem supposed to be able to do that made them want it so badly?" 

(Almost there…..  White hindquarters waggled in preparation for a pounce--)

"Oh, nothing much….."  The young thief made a fist and rotated his forearm, grimacing.  "Just make you immortal, that's all." 

Aoko nearly dropped the cloth she was wiping with; her dark brows drew down, and she opened her mouth—  and a furry mass of feline predatory instinct leaped out from beneath the bed to clasp pink-padded paws around her wrist.  She yelped involuntarily, then caught up her pet and hugged it close; Spot purred complacently, throwing a narrow-eyed 'Get Lost' look at the only other male in the room, who rolled his eyes and continued with his tale as Ayumi giggled…..

"I know, I know; sounds like a bunch of bullsh—uhm, a bunch of craziness to me, too… but these guys believed it, or whoever was in charge did at any rate.  So they hired my dad to keep stealing particular gems and testing them until he stole the right one."  Kaito sighed, the bleakness returning to his eyes.

"It probably sounded like a dream come true at first—they gave him some basic info on what to look for, but beyond that they apparently didn't care what he did with any gems that weren't the right one; they paid him a fee for each theft, even if what he stole turned out to be normal."  

"So he went through a largish handful of targets, stealing them, checking 'em out and returning them in some pretty interesting ways;" the bleak look faded a little into professional appreciation as he chuckled softly.  "I wish you could read his notes on the one he sent back in the middle of a fast-food delivery of Beef Chow Mein.  The poor owner almost choked on it.  And then there was the note in the fortune cookie….." 

(Curled in Aoko's lap, Spot made what sounded distinctly like an appreciative snort; the young thief blinked at him, then dismissed the noise as coincidental.  Cats, after all, did not snort.)

Turning serious again, Kaito tugged at the remains of his jacket and shirt, carefully easing them off.  "Guess these aren't much use anymore, are they?..... Anyway, after a while Dad got to wondering about his 'employers' and decided to do a bit of detective work on them—it turned out that they were a bunch of murdering scumbags that'd do damn near *anything* to get what they wanted.  Think of one of the Yakuza-type gangs, only with a little more organization and secrecy; that's who had hired them.  So…" 

The fingers of his right hand tightened on the bundle of cloth in his lap for a second before he began rummaging through pockets both normal and hidden in the garment.  "…so he told 'em the deal was off, that he wasn't interested in working for murderers.  Being a thief is one thing—but a killer, that's something else entirely.  We do have our standards."  He placed a handful of random objects from various compartments on the floor; the Inspector's daughter frowned down at them (fighting back a distinct desire to reach out and touch)—small metal spheres, matt-black ovoids, bits of wire, a tiny toolkit, lockpicks, a very peculiar-looking sort of gun, springs, sensors, mini-binoculars, a box of Pocky…..

Tearing her eyes away from the magpie-hoard Aoko made a snort of her own, but the sound had a preoccupied note to it.  "What happened next?" asked Ayumi from her place beside her, reaching out to stroke Spot; the kitten yawned in disinterest and licked a paw.  "This is like a fairy tale, like the ones we hear at school about ninjas or that Western hero—'Robbing Hood'? um, something like that… except—"

"—except that it's *real*… and this 'Robin Hood' was my father.  And he didn't rob from the rich and give to the poor, and he didn't escape from the Sheriff of Nottingham's men—instead, they killed him."  Kaito's voice was a little harsh; silence, sad and somewhat bitter, hung around the words after he had spoken them.  Carefully he scooped his small hoard of toys into the closet, pushing them back as far as he could manage and then sitting back with a sigh.

"I'm—I'm sorry, Hei-san!  I didn't mean to hurt you—"  The little girl's eyes had filled with tears; she bit her lip, looking ashamed.

Kuroba Kaito just shook his head, attempting a smile.  "S'okay, Ayumi-chan; I didn't mean to be so abrupt just then, either.  It's just that… this was my *dad.*  I loved him a lot… and he died."  He sighed again.  "Anyway, he told 'em to take a long walk off a short dock; trouble was, they didn't take much to the idea of somebody knowing what they were looking for but NOT working for them—they weren't much in favor of loose ends.  And then, to make matters even worse, my dad decided that maybe it'd be a good thing for *him* to find the Pandora Gem before his former employers did—I mean, who wants an immortal Bad Guy running around?  Especially one that you knew YOU could've stopped, if you got to the target first?  So he—"

"Wait, wait, I'm confused here…"  Aoko was still frowning; she held up a hand, then took Kaito's armload of useless cloth away as Spot jumped neatly from her lap to the floor and wondered off in the direction of the hallway.  "I thought you said—Kaito, your dad didn't believe that the gem would make a person immortal, did he?  I mean, not *really*?"

A one-shouldered, painful shrug was her answer as the young man slowly tried to raise his left arm up a little.  "Hard to—ow!!—say, really; his notes are kinda erratic.  From what I could—rrrgh!—tell, he was working on the principle that it never hurts to make certain that your enemy's at a disadvantage… and by then, they were enemies."  He grunted slightly, beads of sweat beginning to appear on his face as he struggled to fold and extend his arm; beneath the strain of his mild exertions a redness began to bloom beneath the tape on his shoulder, and Aoko forgot herself enough to curse.

"Um, Aoko--?  What was that about  'stop swearing'?"  Kaito heard Ayumi muffle a distinct giggle.

"Oh, BE quiet and keep still for a bit 'til the bleeding stops."  Muttering rude words to herself, the young woman got to her feet.  "Ayumi-kun?  Where can I throw this away?"  The child hopped up, tugging at her to follow.

Kaito made a restless movement that ended in another involuntary "Ow!"  He slowly drew his legs up beneath him, wondering if it would be a good idea to try and stand.  "Errr, Aoko?  Unless you're planning on turning me in to your dad right away, uhhhh, throwing a bunch of blood-stained clothing away where it can be seen would be a BAD thing….." 

Unidentifiable shuffling noises, the occasional Mrrow? and the sound of cabinets closing were his only answer, but as the young woman reentered the room she gave him a somewhat irritated look.  "I buried them under a bunch of old newspapers and the kitchen-scraps from the last day or so; if that's not good enough you'll have to do it yourself."  Absentmindedly wiping her hands on her jeans, Aoko leaned against the doorjamb with Ayumi beside her.  "Now," she prompted; "what happened next?"

The young thief sighed, a shadow of old sadness and new pain crossing his face as he slowly began the attempt to climb to his feet; without shame, he allowed his friend to assist him as stiffened muscles protested.  "You *know* what happened next, Aoko—you were there, remember?  All those years ago, when I came home from school that day and found out I didn't have a father anymore….."

* * *

Standing quietly beside the doorway, Ayumi tried not to squirm in impatience; why was it taking Hei-san (somehow she just couldn't get herself to think of him as 'Kaito-san'; maybe she should try thinking of him as 'Kid'?  Kid-san? or Kid-kun, maybe?  No, that sounded… sort of weird) so LONG to explain?  At this rate it'd be lunch-time and Rita-kun would be coming home before he told them about why in the world *he* was Kaitou Kid—

It was taking FOREVER.  And she found herself considering the reasons why that might be so; when *she* didn't want to tell something to somebody (like her mom or her dad) she tended to put stuff off by talking about other things first.  Maybe that was it; maybe he didn't want to talk about it, so he was talking and talking and TALKING about history and phantom thieves and his dad as much as possible.

Why?

*Because he's… worried? scared?  Maybe he thinks we won't like him anymore if he explains that part?  He's hurting now, talking about his dad dying—but he'd rather hurt and talk about that than explain the rest.  I guess he really DOES think we won't like him when he tells us the truth; is it gonna be THAT bad?*

He had paused for a minute or so as the young woman helped him to his feet; Hei-san was awfully pale, and his forehead was dotted with beads of sweat.  "I— think— maybe I'll— wait a little while before I— ngghh!!— try to do anything drastic— like walking….."  The words were forced out between clenched teeth, and Ayumi could see how much the simple act of rising had cost him; it hurt her to watch.  Aoko-san's face was nearly as pale, and despite the muttered string of angry comments she was making, her hands were very careful as she eased Hei-san gently onto the small chair in front of the desk.  From the doorway Spot watched critically, pink nose twitching.

"Hei-san?  Do you want me to get you some more aspirin?"  It was all she could think of doing to help—and she just had to *do* something.  Hei-san looked up at the offer and nodded gratefully, wiping at his face; he was really beginning to look tired now.  Explaining was hard work, apparently.  "Okay!  Don't tell any more stuff 'til I come back, please….."  Ayumi spun around and dashed down the hall towards the bathroom, where she filled up her toothbrush-glass and appropriated the aspirin from the cabinet.

When she returned to the room, Hei-san had shifted a little; he was leaning back against the wall with his bad arm resting in his lap.  "Don't you need a sling for that?" she asked, pulling memories of Mitsuhiko's favorite Western films filled with cowboys, shootouts and bar-room bandaging from her mind.  "John Wayne always wears a sling in the movies when he gets shot in the shoulder….."

Hei-san gave a little snort of laughter, gulping down the pills and following them with the water.  "Yeah, but later; right now I need to move it around a little so it doesn't stiffen up any further."  He gave her a rather crooked grin.  "'Sides, if I was John Wayne I wouldn't have ended up on your balcony with a couple of holes through me; instead, I'd've--- oh, I dunno, shot all the villain's guns out of their hands or somethin', I guess…  That sound 'bout right, little lady?"  As he spoke his accent went through a series of very peculiar changes, sliding deeper and slower until the words came out in a strong cowboy-drawl that made Ayumi's eyes pop wide open.  At the same time Hei-san ran his hand across his bangs, shoving the messy strands over to one side straight across his forehead; her teacher's face seemed to rearrange itself magically until it was sleepy-eyed and somehow *older* looking: straight-lipped, lined and sardonic and he was speaking from one corner of his mouth and he—

"…you look….."  She hopped up and down in excitement.  "You look LIKE JOHN WAYNE!!!  Well—allllmost, 'cept that you're younger and you're not wearing a cowboy hat and you need a handkerchief around your neck and another shirt and—"

He grinned, a familiar sparkle of mischief back in his rather tired eyes as the likeness and accent dropped away like a mask.  "I need a whole new outfit, don't I?"  Glancing ruefully down at the cut-away remains of his blue shirt and the dirty white pants he shrugged.  "Guess if I went outside like this I'd make a whole new fashion statement."  He chuckled, striking a distinct Runway Model pose (or as much of one as he could manage with the bandages and all).

"What, like 'I am blind and my seeing-eye-dog is dead'?" suggested Aoko-san rather sarcastically as she sank down onto Ayumi's bed. 

Ayumi blinked, not understanding; apparently Hei-san did, though, since his pose swiftly wilted into dejection.  "Maybe you could get him some stuff?" the little girl suggested, frowning.  "Or maybe my daddy's things would fit—"

"NO."  Both Hei-san and Aoko spoke at the same time, hastily and with some force; they paused to stare at each other for a second before the young woman continued, a frown-line appearing between her brows.  "I mean—I can run home or—"

"—you could head over to *my* house and pick me up a change of clothes.  Please?  You've had a key to my back-door for ages, and my mom's not home…"  Hei-san looked wistfully at his friend.  "I don't usually wear this outfit for more than a few hours at a time, and I really feel conspicuous right now.  D'you think that maybe you could—?"

He was *stalling* again; Ayumi could tell.  But he was right, too… he did need something else to wear.  "And… Rita-kun'll be here pretty soon—she comes home at eleven for lunch and it's almost ten-thirty now…" said the child doubtfully.  She plopped down on the bed and scooped up her pillow, hugging it for reassurance.  "I don't know what she'll do—I'm not really s'posed to have any visitors over while she's gone."  She hugged the pillow a little tighter, scowling into the fabric; beside her the bed dented slightly as Aoko's kitten leaped up, circled once or twice, then curled up neatly into a cat-shaped curl of fur.

The two adults in the room looked a little panicky.  "How long will she be here?" asked Hei-san slowly, his thin fingers picking nervously at the tape on his side.  "You think maybe--  Aoko?  Could you go get those clothes and come back later?  Yeah, yeah, I *know*--" and he held up his hand to forestall her outburst; "—I promised to explain, and I'm not finished.  But….. one part of it you need to hear about after dark, you really do.  Besides…" and he gave her a rather painful grin, "I could really do with a nap about now.  Tired… didn't get more than a couple of hours of sleep last night."  He fought back a yawn, adding "And don't you want to see how things went with your dad?  How DID you keep him from going to work, anyway?"

Aoko crossed her arms, looking a trifle smug.  "I managed.  It's hard to drive to work when you can't find any of your shoes, the spark-plugs to your car, OR any of the phone-receivers…..  He finally ended up bullying one of our neighbors into lending him some shoes and driving him in, but by that time the rest of his department had cordoned off his office and had a bomb-crew inside searching it."  She shrugged, but Ayumi could see a lot of worry in the movement; she did want to know how her father was doing, even if she didn't want to admit it.  Not for the first time the child considered that grownups were really very, very strange.

*If she's worried, why doesn't she just say so?  I would.*

Hei-san was laughing now; he broke off, coughing a little and hugging his ribs.  "You stole his shoes?!?  Oh man--!!  Aoko, if you ever wanna go into the Phantom Thief racket, just say the word--!"

The girl cut him off, snapping "As IF…!" with a growl of temper; but there was a slight little smile on her face as she stood up.  "Ayumi?  Do you think you'll be able to keep Rita-kun from seeing Kaito?  I mean, could you… maybe tell her you're, ummm….."  She looked helplessly at her friend.  "Kaito?  Help me here—I don't want her to have to lie—"

Hei-san shook his head, still snickering.  "Hey, no problem.  Just tell her you're practicing a magic trick to show her later and you don't want her to see 'til you've got it right."  He chuckled again.  "I can even teach you a new one if you want…"

His apprentice fixed him with an expectant look, sliding down off the bed (and, incidentally, waking up Spot; the kitten shot her a disgruntled look and tucked his head back beneath his tail with a mrmphh.)  Ayumi loved learning new tricks.  "Can you teach me how to make doves appear, like POOF! out of nowhere?" she inquired hopefully.

"Uhhhhh—  Maybe not *quite* yet.  But I can teach you how to do a new card trick… it's called 'Aces Up'.  Will that do?"  He squinted at her and yawned again, looking more than a little exhausted past the cheerfulness.  "Y'know, 'Yumi-chan, I thought for sure you'd want peacocks, not doves…?  How come?"

The little girl winced, remembering her dream from the night before.  "Doves are nicer," she said firmly. 

* * *

*He looks… tired.  How much of that is real and how much is just another way to put off the rest of the explanation?*  Aoko scowled down at her hands, absently scratching at a spot of dried blood that she had missed on her wrist.  *Kaito's blood.  He did lose quite a bit—I guess maybe we can put it off for a little while longer…..  After all, he's not going anywhere.*

*And that's a problem too…..  He can't stay in Ayumi's closet forever; somehow I've got to get him away from here before this Rita-kun or somebody else finds him.  And—then what?*

*And….. since when did I suddenly decide that I was going to help him hide?!?  I'm a police inspector's daughter, and he IS Kaitou Kid…..*

*….. but he's also Kaito.  I hate Kid, but--*

*--but—I—don't hate Kaito.  I—*

*--I— Dammit.  This is giving me a headache; I don't know what to d--*

"Aoko?"

*--huh?--*

"Um, Aoko-kun?  This is headquarters, calling all Aokos…..  Tune in, Tokyo?  What's wrong?"  She hadn't realized she was standing there staring, but apparently she had been; a bloodsmeared finger tapped her briefly on the forehead and she swatted at it reflexively, startled.

"N-nothing."  Aoko blinked, then frowned down at the quizzical eyes staring up into hers.  "I guess I need to get going—and Kaito?  Don't even think about leaving, okay?  You'd better be here when I get back, or—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know… you'll put your mop 'where the sun doesn't shine.'"  He snickered as she had the grace to blush.  "'S okay; I'm not going anywhere, even if I could.  Right now I doubt I could make it a block without help, and I kind of expect I'd attract the wrong kind of attention….."  Her friend glanced ruefully down at his bare chest, the fingers of his good hand picking idly at the edges of the tape.

He really was quite a mess; Kaito's eternally-unruly mop of hair stuck up even further than usual, sort of waving at the world; there were streaks of grime down the side of his face and a slightly scraped bruise darkening one cheekbone.  The pale skin of his bare chest showed the occasional abrasion here and there, and Aoko could see lighter lines and marks that might be scar-tissue at one place or another.  How many times had he been hurt in the past?  How many times more would he get hurt, if he kept on—doing what he was doing--?

She wondered if he cared; probably not.  What was a bruise or two when your entire world had just gone into cardiac arrest?

And it *had.*  Maybe that was why she wasn't pressing him so hard to get done with the explanation and all, despite the fact that she was just about to explode from impatience; there had been moments while he was telling about his father when the agony of memory had shone through so clearly…..

And no matter who else he was, he was still Kaito; and she didn't like seeing him hurting.

"Errrrr… Aoko?  You're staring again….." 

Those dark blue eyes were peering worriedly into hers now; she shook herself out of her reverie with a shrug.  "Never mind.  Ayumi?  Those wash-cloths and towels I used-- maybe I'd better take them with me and wash them… can you gather up anything with bloodstains?"  The little girl nodded, slipping out the door towards the bathroom.

As if this had been a signal the young man in the chair slumped forward a little onto the desk, eyes closing.  He propped his chin on his good arm, a tangled lock of hair falling half over one eye. "'Yumi-chan…..  I never meant to get her so involved, y'know?  If there had been any other way…"  His voice was very soft, fading a little now with fatigue.  "That wasn't something I planned on at all—'course, I didn't plan on getting *shot* either."

She studied him silently, seeing the lines that weariness had begun to etch onto his face.  "Lots of things don't go like we plan them to," she answered as softly.  "If somebody had asked me yesterday what I would do if I found out who Kid was, I would've said—well, you know what I would've said."  Her gaze traced the line of Kaito's bent shoulders, lingering on the way the muscles seemed to flow in smooth curves down the length of his bared back. 

For a single curiously intense second she flashed back in thought to the sensation of how his skin had felt beneath her fingers when she had bandaged him.  It had been warm, almost too warm, and unconsciously she found herself rubbing her fingertips together as he opened his eyes to turn his head her way.  "And what'll you say now, Aoko?"  For once there was no humor in his voice… just tiredness.

"I—don't know.  Nothing yet, I guess….. not until I hear what you have to tell me this evening.  But Kaito?"

"Hmm?"  He blinked up at her.

"It'd better be good."

At that he closed his eyes again, making a small sound in his throat that might have been a laugh.  "'Good,' huh?  Kinda depends on what you think of as 'good.'  But I'm not sorry I did it."  He sighed.  "I'm sorry things turned out like they did, though…  I didn't want you to find out like this."

"Oh really?"  Anger lent an edge to her words; she could hear it.  "And just how DID you want me to find out?"

He sighed again, and this time the noise held as much amusement in it as anything else.  "Wanted to tell you—I mean, deliberately, not by accident or anything like that.  Isn't that stupid?  You have no idea how many times I thought about it….."

"But….."  She paused, leaning against the doorway as uncertainty chased itself through her mind.  "Kaito, what if I had told my dad or something?"  The words *what if I had gotten you arrested?* hung in the air, heard but unspoken.  "What would you have done then?"

He shrugged, one-shouldered; his eyes were still closed.  "Gone to jail, I guess.  Justice would have triumphed, your dad would've gotten a medal or something, Kaitou Kid would have been locked up—for a little while, anyway—and the bad guys who killed my dad would have won."  Aoko opened her mouth to retort, and then realized that there was nothing she could really say to that.  Behind her she could hear Ayumi rummaging around in the bathroom clothes hamper.

"Aoko?"  Kaito's voice held a sleepy note.  "Have you got that pin I gave you on you?  Y'know, the little mop-pin?"

"Ummm…."  Slightly red-faced, she rummaged around in one pocket (for some reason she didn't like leaving it at home) and brought the pin out.  "Right here.  Why?"

He barely opened one eye, a faint gleam of mischief showing through the lashes.  "Hit me with it, would you?  Somehow it just doesn't seem right, your being pissed off at me and not smacking me with a mop—"

"You had better be glad you're wounded," she growled, crossing her arms.  "Otherwise you WOULD be getting smacked, and with something a lot bigger than a pin."

At that he raised his head.  "'Yumi-chan?  Aoko's threatening meeee….." he called out plaintively; the little girl came into the bedroom from behind Aoko, carrying a plastic bag full of clothing. 

She stopped short at his woeful expression, a thunderous frown crossing her face.  As Aoko took the bag from her, she shook her head and placed her hands on her hips.  "You're teasing her, aren't you?" scolded Ayumi; "If you tease her, you probably WILL get hit with a mop.  But—um, Aoko-san?  Can you wait 'til he feels better to hit him?  You can yell at him later on, after he's finished explaining… but if you hit him now you'll just have to put more bandages on him, and I think we're almost out of tape, and I *know* we're out of towels 'cause I got the last one out of the closet earlier—"

Aoko couldn't help herself; a giggle escaped, and she shook her head as well.  "I can wait," she assured the child, who looked satisfied.  "I'll just hit him twice as hard when I do."  Kaito sighed deeply a final time, assumed an air of martyrdom and closed his eyes again.

***********************************************************************

A key rattled in the Yoshida apartment door; from her room, Ayumi heard it open and shut.  "Ayumi-kun?"

"In here, Rita-kuuuuun!"  The bedroom door opened and the little girl stuck her head out; behind her the faintest rustle of movement faded into stillness.  "Don't come in—"

Books were placed on the kitchen counter, and the young American woman's voice filtered down the hallway.  "Oh?  Why not?"  The refrigerator door opened as lunch items were considered and rejected.  "And what do you want for lunch?"  The question was followed immediately by a sneeze.

"'Cause I'm practicing a magic trick to show you later and I don't want you to see me 'til I got it right.  So don't come in, okay?  Promise?  A peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, please….."  Ayumi had just discovered peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, which she considered to be high culinary art.

Kitchen cabinets opened and closed; there was the rattle of glassware and the sound of liquid being poured into first one glass, then into a second.  "No problem…" came the slightly preoccupied voice.  "Can you show me the trick after we eat?"  Another sneeze, accompanied by a sniffle.

Ayumi glanced over her shoulder, then drooped slightly.  "Ummmm, no…..  I need more practice first."  She slipped out of the door, carefully closing it behind her and pattering down the hall.  "It's kind of hard to do—"

The American student smiled at her from behind the counter.  "Then you practice hard, okay?  You can show me when we eat dinner."  She spread a little more jelly on the sandwich she was making, adding another dollop for good measure.  "Where'd you learn all this new stuff, anyway?  Your mom told me you were learning to juggle too….."

The child shook her head mysteriously.  "It's a *secret.*  Can't tell you—"  She wandered over to the pantry, opening it and pulling out a box of almond cookies.  "You sound like you've got a cold, Rita-kun.  Are you feeling alright?"

Rita sniffled again and rubbed at her eyes.  "I guess so…  Sleepy, though; I took some cold tablets last night and this morning, and I keep wanting to doze off."  She smiled down at her charge, accepting a proffered cookie.  "Thanks for asking, 'Yumi; I'll be okay in a day or so.  You might have to shake me if you need to wake me up, though….."  Munching, the young woman turned back to the counter.  Behind her, Yoshida Ayumi got a thoughtful look on her face and peered once more into the pantry.

"Rita-kun?  What do kittens eat?"

The young woman threw her a slightly baffled look over her shoulder as she spread peanut-butter heavily across a slice of bread.  "Uh, cat-food, I guess….. why?  Is that part of the trick?"

"No, silly.  And I mean besides cat-food….."

Rita-kun shrugged a rather mystified shrug.  Little kids—who could tell what they were thinking?  She knew the Yoshidas didn't have a cat.  Small children often had imaginary friends or pets, though; maybe Ayumi had picked up the idea somewhere?  "Well, I guess they'd eat all sorts of things.  Maybe they'd even like sandwiches…"

The child pulled out another handful of cookies.  "Peanut butter ones?"

"Um, probably not.  Cheese, maybe, or tunafish—no, not sushi!  Tunafish salad, Ayumi-kun….."  Sniffle, sniffle.  She sneezed again.

The little girl considered the idea.  "Oh.  Yuck; I don't like tunafish salad."

Rita-kun shrugged again, chuckling.  "Well then, don't feed it to your kitten."  That had to be it—the little girl had developed an imaginary pet.  *Oh well,* she thought to herself in amusement; *At least it'll be cheap to feed!  And no litterbox, either.*

"But I don't HAVE a kitten, Rita-kun!"  The child stared at her, baffling the young woman even further.

"…..Oh.  So—why did you ask me what they'd eat?"

Shrug, shrug.

Rita paused, wondered… and then turned back to making lunch.  Little kids—who could tell what they were thinking?

***********************************************************************

Meanwhile, back in the closet…..

*Rrrgh; o—kay.  That's ENOUGH movement for a while…..  Ow.  Ow freaking OW.  Stupid bulletwounds.  Or, as Nakamori'd say, @#$%!! bulletwounds….. why do they have to hurt so much?*  It had taken just about every ounce of strength and determination Kaito owned to climb from the desk-chair, stagger the few steps across Ayumi's room and make his way back to a sitting position inside the little girl's closet.  It wasn't that he didn't trust her to keep the American girl out, but accidents happened; it would make him feel a lot more secure if he could make sure they didn't happen to him.

So; back into the closet he went.  He supposed there was a joke somewhere in that…..

As he settled painfully down amidst the shoes and dustbunnies, something moved at the very corner of his vision.  Startled, Kaito's head jerked up as two baleful blue eyes gleamed at him from the shadows near his feet; a querulous "MerRowww??" and a faint hiss of displeasure announced that his hiding place had been sub-let.

*Great.  Keep quiet, cat, or you're toast.  Furry white toast, but toast all the same.*  Their gazes met, blue staring narrow-eyed into blue; Kaito gritted his teeth and refused to back down as his small fluffy rival yawned in apparent derision, stretching a little.  *You just keep to your end of the closet and I'll keep to mine, okay?  Aoko'll be back in a few hours--*

*--oh damn.  And she left you with me and she didn't provide anything like a litterbox.  Great, just great.*  Spot yawned again and seemed to grin nastily.

It wasn't that Kaito disliked cats; quite the contrary, even though the presence of his doves made his house a great favorite with the local feline population.  But *this* little monster—well, he could recognize rivalry when he saw it, and apparently Spot had it in for him but good—

Still staring the blue eyes down, the young thief considered a joke somebody had told him about cats once.  "You know what the difference is between cats and dogs?" they had said… "We take care of dogs, feed them and love them and take 'em to the vet, and they think:  'Hey wow, these humans treat me great; they must be gods!'… But with cats, well, we take care of cats, feed them and love them and take them to the vet, and they think: 'Hey wow, these humans treat me great; I must be a god!'"' 

The cool, disdainful gaze boring into his seemed to agree with the latter part of the joke.

Kaito considered for a second; then a slow grin as nasty as the cat's began to creep across his face.  "Hey Spot," he said softly, fixing the blue eyes with his own; "Y'know what?  'Yumi-chan doesn't know a *thing* about kittens.  She's never had a pet of her own—said so herself.  And I'll bet that if I told her that cute little kittens just LOOOOVE baths that she'd have you under the sprayer-hose in the bathroom quicker than you can say 'meow'….."

It was *not* his imagination; the kitten flinched, crouching a little.

"… Well, Spot?  You get my drift?  Just sit there nice and tight and quiet… and we'll get along just fine.  Matter of fact," he said, warming to the idea, "if you don't rock the boat I'll make sure there's some tuna in it for you."

And *that* wasn't his imagination either—the kitten had perked up, looking distinctly interested.  *Guess I've finally lost it; I'm having a conversation with a cat.  But—oh Hell, whatever works…*  "So—we got a deal?  Behave yourself, keep it quiet, and I'll make it worth your while.  Well?"  Kaito tilted his head a little to one side, surveying the kitten; Spot almost seemed to scowl for a second…..

….. and then, with a rather contrived (and exaggerated) expression of supreme indifference the kitten curled up into a ball and (at least to all appearances) went to sleep.

Kaito blinked.  *Guess that's as good an answer as I'm gonna get.*  He breathed a sigh of relief and resolved privately to never, ever mention the previous conversation to anybody.

Leaning back against the wall, the young thief tried to settle a little more comfortably; a huge yawn split his face.  The aspirin he had taken were starting to kick in and so long as he made no abrupt moves things weren't *too* bad….. and he was tired.  Kaito's eyes began to lid closed…..

*….. shouldn't really nap, I suppose—that Rita girl's still here.  But 'Yumi-chan'll keep her out…..  Could really use a couple hours've sleep…..*

He yawned, shivering just a little in his shirtless state.  *…should've gotten that bathrobe back, but I think Aoko took it to wash.  No biggee, not that cold…..  'S funny, though—my shoulder's tingling, not a hurt-tingle, just a sort of itch.  Side too.  Feels ….. sort of like when your foot falls asleep and then gets feeling back later…..*

*Awfully tired.  Tired of hurting… tired of talking.  Shoulder feels better, all tingly….. wonder why? Kinda nice, though; never mind.*

Yaaaaaaaaaawn…..  His head sank down onto his chest.

*…..doesn't hurt, so's okay.  Sleepy….. j'st gonna doze off f'r a few minutes….. zzzzzzzz…..*

*…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..*

*…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..*

* * *

An undefined time later Kaito blinked, his eyes opening to the darkness of the stuffy closet.  *Mrmph?  Where--?  Oh, right.  Dozed off.  What woke me?*  A cheerful young woman's voice bidding farewell gave him the answer as what sounded like the front door closed.  *Ah; Rita-kun just left.  Didn't sleep long then; guess lunch is over--*

At the thought of lunch his stomach growled loudly; cursing under his breath, the young thief swallowed hard and wondered if ninjas ever had that sort of problem.  *It'd be pretty damned embarrassing to be nabbed out of your hidey-hole by somebody just because your stomach growled so loud they heard you…  Good thing Rita-kun's gone; I doubt she'd really feel too happy about my joining her and 'Yumi-chan for lunch.*

Growl, growl….. grumble, rumble, gurgle…..  *Ahhh, shutup.  Stupid stomach.*

He could hear clunks, rustles and clatters from down the hall; the slosh of liquid followed the opening of what was probably the 'fridge door.  That pattering noise, that was Ayumi coming down the hall….. 

"Hei-san?  Do you like peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches?"  The closet door slid open to reveal a slightly smeared little girl, carefully carrying two glasses and a napkin-wrapped object—no, TWO napkin-wrapped objects that smelled wonderful.

He drew in a deep, happy breath.  "'Yumi-chan?  Right now I'd eat 'em if they had rat-poison inside; you're a lifesaver!"

She giggled, then plopped down on the floor beside him and watched as he wolfed the first sandwich down.  "You look like you're feeling better; did you take a nap?"

He swallowed a huge bite, following it with a gulp of soda from the glass.  "Yup.  Still sleepy, though…  Guess I'll doze a little longer; Aoko won't be back for a little while—she needs to check on her dad as well as take care of getting my stuff for me."  Kaito yawned and took another bite, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand; reprovingly his young friend passed him the napkin that had wrapped the sandwiches, and he used it with a somewhat guilty look.  "Um, sorry.  Guess I'm sort of making a pig out of myself…"  He began on the second sandwich.

"That's okay."  The child beside him took a long swallow from her own glass.  "Oh—I almost forgot; I'll be right back…."  Without warning she sat the drink down and hopped up, padding out the door and back towards the kitchen; a moment later she scooted back into the bedroom carrying what looked to be a third sandwich, this time on a plate.

*Hrm?  Oooo, another sandwich!  Looks like cheese this time….  Yeah-- don't mind if I do, 'Yumi-chan, thanks—*  He began to reach for the sandwich…

But the little girl paused, looking around the room and calling softly:  "Spot-chan?  Spooooot—"

*…oh.  It's for the cat.  Hey, how come HE rates a plate?  All *I* got was a napkin--*  As the kitten wandered out from the closet and began to scarf up the sandwich, Kaito could swear it was smirking around its whiskers.

*One-upped by a kitten.  Great.*  He shrugged and attempted to ignore the munching sounds.  "Um, 'Yumi-chan?  When will Rita-kun be coming back?  I might better call Aoko and let her know—"

The child wiped her mouth with her own napkin.  "She said she'd be at the library all this afternoon, then she'd come and bring dinner—we're gonna have take-out Miso Ramen, mmmm!—at, ummmm, five o'clock I think, and then she's going back to the library for a while."  Another gulp, then she put down the glass and scuffled around in one pocket, producing a well-thumbed deck of cards.  "Hei-san?  Can you teach me that trick now?  Then I can practice it while you take a nap—" 

Her hopeful gaze was fixed on his, and he chuckled as he put down his own glass.  "Sure.  Okay, this one's almost a self-working trick—you remember, I told you about those?  You need to start out with all four Aces pulled, one on the top of the deck and the other three on the bottom—"

* * *

"Think you got it?  Good.  So…… show me!"  Kaito grinned at his young apprentice, fighting back another yawn.

The little girl fumbled the deck slightly but managed a creditable riffle, carefully keeping certain cards in place.  "Okay…. I'm gonna start dealing the cards out, and you tell me when to stop."  Starting from the top she began stacking the cards face-down on the floor; Kaito watched critically, calling out "Stop" three times.  Ayumi squared off the remaining cards and placed them in a fourth stack, grinning slightly…..

(and Kaito knew that grin.  He wondered just how Kudo was going to feel the first time he recognized Kid's confident Poker-Face on Ayumi's young features…..)

"Well?"  He was grinning too.  "Ante up!"

With a confident toss of her head and a flourish, Ayumi the Astounding flipped each stack of cards over in turn—to reveal an Ace sitting serenely on top of each stack.  "Taaaa-daaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!"   

Kaito applauded enthusiastically by slapping his one good hand against the floor.  "Smooth, Ayumi-chan!  I couldn't see the Bottom Charge you used just then at all.  Very smooth.  Now," and he crooked one eyebrow in the giggling little girl's direction as she scooped up the cards and squared the deck, "d'you think you can do that 'Pick A Card, Any Card' trick I showed you last week?  I bet if you t—"

***BZZZZZZZTT!!***

The door-buzzer went off like the Trump of Doom, making them both jerk their heads up in shock.  Ayumi's eyes bugged out as cards scattered in all directions, and Spot hightailed it hastily for his corner of the closet.  And as for Kaito—

*--ohManohMan, don't be the cops, don't be the cops--  No, no, there's no reason the cops should show up, Idiot; Aoko wouldn't tell 'em without hearing me out this evening, she SAID so, so it's not the cops unless somebody saw you land on the balcony last night…..*  He found himself somehow buried deep in the depths of Ayumi's closet with no memory whatsoever of moving (although the muscles in his wounded side and arm said otherwise), snugged up as tightly as possible against the wall.  With his good hand Kaito reached swiftly up to yank several articles of clothing down over him, considering rather wildly that if being buried under little-girl sweaters and jumper-sets would save his bacon then Hey, it was worth the indignity.  "'Yumi-chan???  Go see who it is—" he whispered sharply, tugging the door shut.  Through the crack he could see his young apprentice gulp hard and scramble to her feet, pelting out of the room.

Distantly he could hear her voice over the pounding of his own heart.  "W-who IS it?!?"

"Ayumi-kun?"  Even through the distortion of the speaker Kaito could recognize the clear young voice.  "It's me, Conan—can I come up?"

"Uhhhh….. just a minute….."  Frantically the little girl ran back down the hall to stick her head around the doorway.  "HEI-SAN!!" she hissed, eyes wide.  "What'll I do?!?  I forgot—  Conan and Rin and Mitsuhiko and Genta, they're all coming--  I *forgot!!*"  She danced in place in agitation.   "Hei-san?!?  What'll I do?!?"

Deep in the closet, the Phantom Thief closed his eyes.  *Oh shit.  I'm TOAST.*  And from the speaker he could hear the insistent, slightly worried (and now slightly suspicious) voice:

"Ayumi?  Ayumi-kun?  Is there something wrong?"

"Ayumi?"

**************************************************************************************************

To Be Continued……..

Ysabet's notes:  BWAHAHAHAHHHH!!!  Made you look— :P

 **sweatdrop**  No, no, put down that chainsaw!  I swear, I'll write the next bit as fast as I can!  Trust me, you ain't seen NOTHIN' yet…….

By the way, just as an aside:  The tricks found in this fic come from Card Trick Central at http://web.superb.net/cardtric/index.htm; check 'em out!  A very cool site with all sorts of fun stuff on it; granted, they don't tell you how to make peacocks appear like POOF! out of nowhere, but I suspect that this is now the least of Kaito's problems.

Many, many thanks to those who helped me betaread this monster!  Byeeee!  Gotta go finish Conversations before I get beheaded……