Staring At Emotion In The Light Of Day

Disclaimer: Don't own either DC or MK! Enjoy this next installment of my fan fiction!

AN: Yes, various time-jumps between the different POV-snippets again; however the snippets themselves are written in the correct time line (mostly). Tsumari (In other words): The snippets written from Kaito's POV are in the correct order; the ones written from any other POV are in their correct order, as well. However, atm, events in Kaito's POV snippets are happening about a day or two or three before the murder of the book presenter occurs. Akako's snippets are happening earlier than that, too.

I hope that this cleared everything up and that you're not getting too confused by the various ways my mind works, dear readers!

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

Conan was slowly walking around the room, ending up in front of the table where the corpse had sat. The policemen – a very arrogant-looking inspector and his troupe hadn't taken too long to appear on scene at all – had already taken pictures of the crime scene and removed the corpse. When asked, he'd told Conan that Megure-keibu was very busy with a huge case nowadays. Needless to say, Conan became curious; but he'd had to stave off his curiosity for a little while longer, the murder case of the author taking precedence over anything else at the moment.

Apparently the author had lain directly on his book, with his arms acting as a cushion for his head. The head had pointed – ah right, it'd been to the author's right hand side that it had looked. The book itself was opened to a seemingly arbitrary page; it was the opening page of chapter five that the author had intended to read to the public later on. He had to have been practicing, then. Hakuba had done an excellent job at keeping panic at bay and the people inside the room from slipping out and vice versa.

This, nevertheless, wasn't the most pressing issue in the shrunken detective's mind. He'd already asked Ran and Sonoko if they'd seen the elder Mouri or if they knew where he could have gone, but that had turned up nothing yet. They had offered to go and ask the staff at the buffet about him and had promptly left him alone at the crime scene.

The police were by then asking the people who had known the victim personally. Seeing as they needed to interrogate every person individually, they had gone into the rooms adjacent to the presentation hall. The problem with those was that the inspector – as arrogant as Conan's first impression of him was – immediately upon finding out their desire to involve themselves even more, forbid any underage "assistants" from entering the rooms, no matter whose assistants those happen to be or what ties they might have to the police, leaving Hakuba as well as Conan outside.

As humiliating as that experience had turned out to be (the inspector hadn't kept from picking up Conan by the neck-end of his sweater and bodily shove him out), it was still okay, though. Conan knew at least one member of this particular group of policemen who would be able to fill him in on anything interesting happening within those rooms afterwards.

Meanwhile, he was slowly walking around to get a look at the bigger picture, or, rather, the measurements of the room. Could someone have poisoned the author from a distance without anyone noticing? It seemed that the six people who had personally known the author had all been within the room ever since the author had come in; he'd still been alive then, of course. What could have been poisoned to have him have ingested it while practicing his reading?

"Conan-kun!" He turned around, successfully having been broken out of his musings by Ran's shout. She was running towards him.

"Did you find anything, Ran-neechan?" The empathic shaking of her head verified what he'd thought. Kogoro Mouri wasn't just absent. He was obviously missing, and had been for a while.

"The members of the buffet staff told us that they had only seen him for a bit; no longer than five, ten minutes at most. They said he went in the direction of the toilets after having gone to the buffet."

While Conan digested this, Ran looked around in askance. The lack of some of the policemen seemed to have confused her, so Conan explained their absence to her.

"The inspector wanted to question the suspects, so he and some of the policemen went in there." He pointed towards the smaller rooms. The small boy blinked. Where had Hakuba gone in the meantime?

"Neee? Do you know where Hakuba-niichan has gone?" he directed an innocent gaze towards the girl.

"He was just stepping outside when I entered the room."

Conan opened his mouth. Another scream – more muffled, definitely shorter and by far more familiar than the first one – interrupted whatever Conan had been about to say next.

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

"To whomever it may concern," the mysterious letter read,

"Congratulations on having come this far on your quest for immortality. Nonetheless, the stone's status goes – and will go – unchallenged, as will mine, as I regret saying.

For, while you could have found this in my presence, you could only be reading this letter in my absence – and the only reason for that case which comes to mind is not a pleasant one. Thus, I have only one favor to ask of you: to give the second letter to my family to read. I shall thank you deeply for doing this for me, and speak a good word for whenever your time may come.

As an illusionist, you will excuse my sense of humor, I hope.

I am sorry to inform you that this is not only a dead end in your search alone, but that this is the dead end.

I take a certain pride in saying that there is no such thing as immortality and that you are foolish to waste your life looking for it when it does not even exist.

Mark my words, traveler, spend what is left of your days in a more valuable fashion – life is rich in choice, should you need it, and also in opportunities and occasions.

Do not make yourself miss out.

The Thief in White."

She had read this one letter more than two dozen times already – she couldn't get over the fact that she was missing something vital here, besides the obvious – and she knew that Kaito would finally be forced to explain everything to her this time. Aoko had had one whole afternoon to get used to the idea of it being true – that Kaito's father had indeed been wandering around at night as "Kaitô Kid" and that now Kaito was doing the very same thing, for whatever reasons. It was obvious from the signature. Why else would he sign with "The Thief in White"? Who else did she know that went stealing while wearing white?

From there it only went to figure that his son would follow in his steps. Kaito adored his father – to that day still. Would there really be anything else that he was doing except to follow the famous magician? Contemplating her conclusion, she found that she couldn't explain away the facts. Everything pointed right there. That made her backtrack her steps and pause.

Why on earth would she want to explain them away? She was sure that her logic was sound. And then she knew why. He was her friend – she just didn't want to see what by then had had to have become another part of him. You couldn't go stealing at night without it somehow becoming an integrate part of your personality, however faint the traces were. And, to be honest, however abstruse it might seem, the suspicion had been there all along, hadn't it?

Were it any different, why would she feel this calm now? A strange sense of serenity and a feeling of finally being the one in-control had overtaken her a few moments after having read the letter for the first time. It was weird, really. She hadn't ever felt this way before and yet… and yet… it all made almost too much sense to her. As though the reasons for her childhood friend being Kid – even though she hadn't heard them yet – were right all along. As though he hadn't stolen a thing, in truth. As though he hadn't harmed a single person.

The brown-haired girl, of course, knew he'd harmed a lot of people, her included, in his endeavor to become a phantom thief. He'd – as one unwelcome side effect – stolen from them a lot of time that she could have spent together with her father. It was him who had given all those policemen lots of trouble and unnecessary headaches, making them run across rooftops and chase him to the world's end, without them ever coming close to catching him. Kaitô Kid had orchestrated all of the more or less pointless chases that he called heists. He'd purloined every item he set eyes on, uncountable diamonds, rubies and other jewels and valuable statues and among other goods.

Then why…?

Really, she couldn't understand herself sometimes. There it was, obvious proof that Kaito – her childhood friend Kaito – was the civilian identity of Kaitô Kid. (and wasn't she glad that Hakuba wasn't around, right then? He'd most probably have said "Told you so" with a smug grin. Or, if he hadn't said so out loud, it would have been exceedingly obvious in his demeanor.) And yet,…

To say that she had felt reluctant in confronting him with it when he had read the letter would have been an understatement. There hadn't really been a better moment than that, and still… she hesitated. If he was such an awful thief, then it shouldn't have been a problem, right?

Then why was it…?

How come she couldn't just come out and ask him flat out just what he was thinking, gallivanting with beautiful women and pilfering other people's things! Why couldn't she make him justify himself and give her his reasons for stealing? Why did she hesitate? She didn't know the answer to that question. What she did know was that – be it in his civilian persona or his alter ego – he made her mad. Exorbitantly so. Whether he intended for her temper to rise or not, usually he was the reason she was angry. The easiest outlet for her anger was him, normally, as well, though this time it appeared to be different.

She would be justified, she knew, in demanding him to explain himself to her. Aoko had waited long enough, hadn't she? More than a week ago, she'd been taken in that kidnapping that they'd orchestrated on their own – they never had counted on her joining them in that endeavor, after all! A week's worth of patience was wearing thin now. She had enough. And still…

Why did she feel so much like she should wait for him to tell her in his own time, instead?

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

Chikage was sure that this letter had been written by her late husband, probably even shortly before his death. Yes, that "t" was tilted a little to the left, wasn't it? He'd only started doing so about half a year before… Her eyes closed of their own accord. She'd been so very sure that she was over it already. Over his death. His murder. His continuous absence. Seeing this letter; this document – this certificate of his existence, really; holding it in hands and reading it (twice; she couldn't help herself) just brought back what she missed. Oh, naturally she still missed him. Moving his things was easy. Bombing their home was easy; compared to this… torture. It was painful. A very uncomfortable feeling had started spreading from her toes up to her head all the way through her body once she'd been presented with this letter.

What was it about written letters and sentences and words that made them magical? Wasn't it the same with runes? They held a certain magic within themselves, absolving people of guilt and speaking curses and protecting and attacking people with dark intents. Immortality. What a fanciful term for something so foolish. Undoing death. Cheating death. Escaping death. Everybody had to die some day. But hadn't her husband already spoken of this "cursed dream" sometime before?

Yes, she could dimly remember him having mentioned something along those lines. However, she'd long since forgotten what exactly he'd told her and what they'd been talking about back then. Nevertheless, the letter's content only reaffirmed what she'd already thought, herself. He was dead. Long gone. Absent from their lives for an indeterminable amount of time. She allowed a wry smile to graze her lips at that. Phrased like this, it almost seemed as though he'd wandered off on a journey.

Chikage was curious about that second letter that was mentioned in this one, though she left the decision of when to open it to the current "man of the house". With a look, she conveyed these feelings to her son once he sought her out and their eyes met. A short nod answered her. His decision. Closing her eyes once more, she drew back a little and noiselessly slipped out of the room, in search of something solid that she could hold onto without imposing on the young couple resolving their problems in the middle of the hut's living room. Her legs brought her with a confident gait towards one of the older, more ornate carton boxes in one of the corners of the bedroom.

Without hesitation and unnecessary movements, she opened one and reached in. Pulling out a smallish package that probably wouldn't be missed even if her son knew it was there, she went into the kitchen. She'd be left alone for now. Most probably, her son never even dared touch it, never mind open it to see its content. The script on it would prevent him from doing so.

"To my darling Chikage," it read in the most peculiar handwriting. Some time spent with browsing through their old love letters would give her some kind of peace, at least.

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

The first thought that entered his brain was that something was wrong. It was dark and he couldn't move. The feeling was not unlike having a few layers of plastic tape wrapped around him. Dizzy, he tried opening his eyes. Everything swam in front of him. It threatened to turn into the wrong direction… Oh, that was not such a good idea at that very moment, was it? Good, let's close them again.

His head ached; he knew he hadn't drunk anything yet. Or had he? No. There had been that buffet. And that book reading that his daughter and the freeloader had dragged him to. After that buffet he'd gone to the toilet, hadn't he? Ah right. And then… his head threatened to burst. A muffled groan escaped him. Muffled? … Ah. What on earth was going on?

When he heard high heels come towards him through the door, he decided to produce something louder than a groan. That halted them in their tracks. The door was knocked on twice, shortly thereafter opened. A girly scream tore through the silence and almost split his ears as well as his head into two.

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

He remembered. Of course, he'd remember, once presented with all the clues. The inscription on his father's grave came to him as though he'd been there only a week ago. Ah. A short pause in his train of thoughts followed. It had been last week that he'd gone there, hadn't it? Or was it two weeks ago? Time seemed to blur once you had left home for somewhere else. So much had been going on that he couldn't be too sure if he was correct in his assumption that that day was a Thursday, even. But he knew that he'd visited the grave just before he'd staged that Kid heist and the kidnapping incident. His memory supplied the rest.

"Kuroba Toichi", it had read, carved into the dark-colored stone on top of the grave.

"Loosening my hold on real human life, I become smaller,

Paling in the light of the darkest room,

Posthumously, my regards to the metal encasing me.

Starting out as a magician with 3 kyû, I now leave you to figure out its meaning, for life is fickle, indeed. 39, my family."

The meaning of most of it was clear to Kaito, now. Still holding almost reverently onto the letter that Aoko had given him just a few moments before, he reflected what all those findings could mean. K – that was obviously one of the robots. "Kuroba Toichi" was written at the very beginning, and if one started counting it as line zero, then the "K" could be deduced from there. The second line could just be a hint towards the robots: they are said to have no human life whatsoever in them and they were noticeably smaller than the average human being.

The "darkest room" obviously had been the secret room in their old house: it being the only room without any windows. Therein lay the second clue: the starting letter of line "2" is a "P"; this led to "P2", the second robot. "P3" was obviously referred to in the next line. The "metal encasing me" obviously meant that the "persona" of this poem was not a real person, but rather the letter that was within the robot. Or, the letters, for there had to be more than one, if one went with what it said in the first one they'd read.

The number, "3", most probably meant that there were three letters to be found in total. Somehow, Kaito wasn't sure if he truly wanted to find them and solve the mystery. Looking up, his eyes connected with his mother's. Oh, so she left it to him to find out about the other letters? With a distractedness that he hadn't felt in ages his eyes followed her sad form out of the room. Sad. She had probably never thought that her husband would have left her more than what she'd already unearthed, had she? This… message… had come quite unexpectedly, leaving both of them floating in the air with nothing to hold onto and having them all of a sudden deal with long-lost memories and emotions anew that they had thought they'd already coped with splendidly the first time around.

It had come as a shock to both of them, that was for sure. This letter had not only torn open old wounds, no, it had ploughed through them as though they were mere fields of emotions, to be handled at its earliest convenience, yet not important anyways. The question of "why" was left, glaring at him from within those words.

He took a breath and looked up, once more, only to stare into impossibly blue eyes full of untold truths and suspicions. His own grew wide. Of course. This letter was probably the catalyst for her to think some of those suspicions were true, if she hadn't already made up her mind after all those disguises that he'd put on. Right. Without averting his eyes, he sunk his head a little. Kaito wasn't sure what to say, what to tell her now. It would probably be better for her to take the first step. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jii-chan slipping out of the room. He'd unobtrusively stood at the door to the kitchen, watching them, and now apparently judged it better to absent himself from the situation. Kaito'd have to tell him about the letter later. Or had Aoko already done that?

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

The words on another letter entirely were creating just the same kind of reaction – or rather, a very different one – in the Head of the Kaitô Kid Task Force's office. The task force members were studiously avoiding that very room, fearing the inspector-in-charge possibly going on a warpath again. They were confused. None of them could make head or tails of what had happened to their inspector in the days shortly after the kidnapping.

They simply didn't know what to make of the sudden silence that had befallen the room that he was in. He'd raged and raged ever since his daughter had been abducted. And then, all of a sudden, it had stopped. Just like that. That had happened a few days ago.

Naturally, none of them had noticed a certain someone visiting the head of the Task Force; in all the commotion and worry they'd been in, no one had paid any heed to the people constantly entering and exiting the inspector's office. Partly reassuring him, partly just being there to be shouted at and partly to give him any news that might seem promising.

Their heads had swiveled around at the first mention of a Kaitô Kid sighting; when those sightings multiplied within the day, they got ever more confused. The inspector had only told them to send out people should it be anything more serious, like the real Kaitô Kid appearing and actually stealing something. He wouldn't do so without giving them a notice beforehand, would he now? Moreover, did Kaitô Kid's face appearing everywhere constitute as serious? Needless to say, everyone in the Kaitô Kid Task Force left that week of Kaitô Kid reappearances far more befuddled than they'd ever been.

And when, after that week of mayhem, their boss came out of his office looking determined and telling them what he was intending to do, they simply accepted it and went with his plan. It was at least some kind of action that they could take. After all, wasn't that the thief's well-known signature underneath that heist note?

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

When they arrived at the toilets – the direction where the scream had come from – they found out that Kogoro Mouri had been found. Tied up, with a gag and in his underwear, he'd been left for someone unassuming to find in the broom closet right beside the toilets. Frankly, it looked as though he'd been pranked. Something about this scene was familiar, though. Conan had the solution to this almost in his grasp. He'd seen this before, hadn't he? Somewhere…

Glancing up, he saw that Hakuba had come with them to the toilets. Was that the light or was the blond detective looking a tad pale? And where was the inspector? Ah, there he came.

"Ah-ha! I knew it!" Huh? "Gentlemen, take pictures, please. This is evidence." Both eyebrows went up at that. Evidence?

"The case has been solved!" What? Conan's brain was running on automatic at that moment, his thoughts a mile a minute. The case had been solved?

"Do you know who murdered the author?", Sonoko was the one to voice one of Conan's questions.

"Yes, of course! Ladies and Gentlemen, the perpetrator turned herself in just about five minutes ago. The case is closed. Thank you." Satisfied, the inspector turned around and walked back towards the hall where the reading had been scheduled.

What?!

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

In another part of the city, Jodie Santemillion was left alone to muse about the cases that the FBI was busy with nowadays. The blonde considered herself a rational human being. She knew that the earth went around the sun and that usually every event had a logical explanation behind it. That was why it threw her for a loop when – right after that disastrous bombing and the consequent abduction of the Kurobas – Kaitô Kid had staged a week filled with appearances of himself all over Tokyo.

There was no doubt in her mind left that it had to have been the phantom thief himself who had organized and managed the distribution of merchandise, clothes and other miscellaneous items all over the city. It wasn't as though the companies had agreed in advance to do so at the same time. (she'd verified that with at least four of them earlier. They'd all told her some "unknown benefactor" had ordered all those items and things to be displayed and sold at that and that time on that and that date exactly.)

Wasn't it also Kid who had given them that brown bag with these top-secret documents? They had only been able to make any headway towards the bigger picture with those; had they not been given them at that exact moment, they wouldn't have been able to apprehend those agents and gather all this invaluable information. Wherever he had found that, it was doubtlessly one of his more rational actions when considering recent developments. Or was it even Kaitô Kid who'd organized all those appearances of the Kaitô Kid paraphernalia and merchandise in the city?

She huffed. Naturally it had to be that thief. But what could he possibly gain from those? Jodie shook her head. The woman knew that she wouldn't be able to get any closer to the answer to her questions by sitting around and thinking on them. She opened her laptop and looked into her email account. Maybe some of her acquaintances had some news on her most recent troubles.

A new email awaited her. Oh. It was about Kaitô Kid. He'd even attached a newspaper article. Bemused, she blinked. Twice. What on earth…?

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

Kaito was being held, once again. Honestly, he already couldn't count how many times that had happened in the last few days on one hand and he was glad about that, too. It grew more and more familiar, the more and more often it happened. Aoko was becoming the pillar he could lean on… something that he'd considered the most dangerous thing to happen only such a short time ago. And now… look at where he was. It was still dangerous, but having her right there, with them, he thought was the safest place for her to be – not the sanest, no. Oh, it was by far not the sanest place to be. Especially if one took into consideration just how many times his life had been shaken around lately.

Still, it was better to have her here, half-wrapped around him. He could get used to this, his mind supplied helpfully. But first, first she'd need to know. Sighing, he made his arms let go of her and fall to the ground. The two of them put a little distance between themselves, still embracing, still on the floor, but looking straight into each other's face, into each other's eyes. Yes, that had been a letter written by his father, his eyes seemed to say. His mouth, on the other hand, didn't even know where to start. It opened of its own accord once. Twice. Then it stayed like that.

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

While he was fumbling for words – truly a one-time thing considering just who she was dealing with – she waited. She knew her resolution of having him tell her because he wanted to. Nonetheless this did not make things any easier. Aoko was not the most patient person to be around. The black-haired girl did not like waiting at all. When his mouth had stayed slightly open for a bit of time, she made her move.

"It was him, wasn't it?" he was listening intently to what she had to say. "Kaitô Kid." A cautious nod. What was the point in lying? She closed her eyes for a moment, processing that.

"And now you are…" Opening her eyes, she didn't know how to go on. He was… Kaito was…

Another nod – slower than the last, more weary and less cautious – followed the unspoken, unfinished question.

He hadn't outright lied to her. Well, he hadn't outright told the truth, either, but in all this time – ever since the kidnapping – he hadn't lied to her. Kaito had refrained from telling her everything that was going on, yes, even going so far as to deny her having anything to do with what was going on, but he'd only ever omitted the truth. Was that lying? She didn't know.

The magician had lied to her while they were at school, when everything had been normal and nothing had gone crazy like things tended to do at that moment. The girl didn't know what to think about that. She'd been worried about him lately, too, hadn't she? Hakuba had even helped her… Hakuba. He'd known, hadn't he? How had he known? Giving Kaito another look, she thrust that thought aside. It wasn't important now. More important was if Kaito was willing to trust her.

She didn't know what was going on, what big thing they were involved in, but if it was as big as to make the Kurobas kidnap themselves, then… why had they not gone to the police yet? They had set up a safe house – more than one, the first flat they slept in counted as well, - and for what purpose? Their house had been bombed, why? Just how big was that thing they were involved in?

"Did you tell Otou-san?" A shake of the head. "Why not? He could have helped you! You could have – I don't know, done something better than kidnap yourselves!" Aoko got up, "You could have gone to the police! Aren't they the ones who are supposed to keep people safe?"

'Why was your house bombed' wanted to slip out, too, but she considered the questions that she'd already fired off at her poor childhood friend enough for the time being. By this time, she was standing in front of him, having cut herself off to try and get some answers out of him. When he didn't say anything, she continued, in a more quiet voice.

"I'm not stupid, Kaito. I defended you in front of Hakuba, I defended you in front of Otou-san. I don't want to know why you became the Kaitô Kid right now; I want to know why you didn't go to Otou-san or anybody from the police." The brunette was looking more and more forlorn by the minute to her eyes. Her body was shaking, her lips trembling in a last ditch effort at keeping her composure.

His eyes went wide. A blink of the eye and he was standing, as well, and taking her into his arms. She only had one second to look startled. The roles were reversed now, were they? For the longest time, none of them spoke. Then she let go and tears spilled down her cheeks.

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

"I…" her arms tightened around his. All the while, she was crying silently. A sigh. "Oh dear. We're right a mess, aren't we?" Another sigh. "I didn't go to your father because I knew he couldn't help." When she made a protesting noise, he hushed her gently. "I thought this through. Before our house was bombed, I got a warning." His hands were carding through her hair, carefully separating one lock from the other. The motion was intended to calm her down, as well as himself. It gave his hands something to do while he thought about how to phrase what he wanted to say.

"I could have gone to your father then. But the warning was on short notice. And he is no bomb expert." Truly, it had been on short notice, hadn't it? They'd had only a few days to prepare. Had he gotten her father involved, they'd have had far more red tape to deal with. Also, they would have been back to square one: Snake knew that the Kuroba family was linked to Kaitô Kid and would have been free to act on that knowledge in whichever way he pleased.

None of them were bomb experts, her father least of all. Nakamori-keibu knew how to chase after phantom thieves and old rivalries. To throw a bomb into the equation would have made everything more difficult. But how to explain…?

"I… the man who bombed our house… he is a known adversary of Kaitô Kid's. He… is scrupulous and dangerous. I didn't become Kaitô Kid, but I stayed Kaitô Kid because of him." She gazed up at him, a bit confused but listening intently.

He paused shortly, looking back into those deep, deep blue eyes. Kaito had to gulp before going on. "It's… it's a long story." Her answer came shooting out of her mouth before she'd even tought about it and before he'd considered exactly how he'd tell her what had been going on with Kid. "I've got some time." Almost shyly her lips formed a hesitant smile, probably meant to reassure him.

Ah, when had he ever been able to resist her?

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

They'd been ushered out as soon as possible. Conan wasn't the only one who was displeased at that, although Hakuba had gone away with the excuse of some "Baachan waiting for him" somewhere close shortly thereafter. A frown crossed the young boy's face. Why would the murderer hand herself over just like that? The story that the police had provided them with was that "Her guilty conscience had overwhelmed her – she hadn't been able to hold it in any more and handed herself over to the police."

Just like that. She'd gotten herself arrested – and would be in prison for at least the next five years, just like that. Was it only him or had this murder seemed a tad too easy to solve?

Well, standing outside of the building – especially since it threatened to rain sometime soon – wasn't going to help matters any, was it? They signaled for a taxi on Ran's prompting and left the event more confused than ever. The elder Mouri had been kept behind by the police – for questioning – so it was Sonoko, Ran and him in the car. Since the shrunken detective won't get any closer towards the solution of this mystery any time soon, he decided to put it aside for now. He'd be sure to question Ran's father about the murder – and his part in it – later.

Questioning Ran's father later, it turned out, however, hadn't been needed at all. The murder and its subsequent solution were apparently deemed newsworthy, and the three of them (Sonoko had decided to stay for dinner) watched as the mystery was unfolded in front of them.

The headlines?

"Kaitô Kid, A Killer?"

StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay

AN: Woooooooooooooow… the last update was on December 24th, 2012?! That was a looong break! I am deeply sorry, dear readers, for having left you hanging this long!

I have to admit, too, that I cut this installment slightly short – I wanted to update more than I wanted to continue struggling with the end snippets of this chapter – but, therefore, the next chapter is going to be a tad longer than this one; so you've got something to look forward to, at least! ;_)

Up until now I have had to deal with a variety of life's … worse situations, for lack of a better word, and those have thrown me for quite a loop in the last two years or so… I have had the doubtful pleasure of experiencing the worst kind of writer's block – the one where all the creativity just goes "poof!" and the muses go into hiding – and had to find my way back into writing once more, before I was confident enough to finally put online the next chapter of this story.

I had to cope with nightmares for longer than I was comfortable with, on top of a lowered feeling of security and comfort in my own four walls. I valiantly refuse to believe that I "attracted this kind of thing by thinking about murder mysteries/mystery stories", which my brain told me to believe for quite a while after a rather terrible event happened in my life.

Thus, I hope you can excuse me having said "this will be out in January". I learned from that: I won't give any predictions about when a chapter might come online again; you'll just have to be surprised when they do. ;_)

I did cajole my muses out of hiding, but I cannot promise it will be this story's next chapter I shall be working on next; they are apparently a little bit pickier than they were before I left for my hiatus…

Nevertheless, by putting this chapter online, I can finally assure you with certainty that this fanfiction is NOT DEAD, nor will I ever put anything online that I won't finish. :_D And that is already something, don't you think?

In any case, thank you for reading! I hope you liked this newest installment of We Are Golden and that you're looking forward to what I'll be coming up with next as much as I am!