AN: Warning for possibly upsetting off-scene argument between Kaito and Aoko. And their unhealthy relationship dynamics I suppose. If domestic arguments upset you, see end notes.

o*O*o

Saguru was startled from a post-dinner daze by pounding on a door. Not, he realized after a moment of alarm, his door, but Kuroba's. It was a Tuesday, meaning a weekday, meaning that if Takumi was visiting Kuroba, he would have had a curfew and it was…currently eight o'clock. Saguru squinted at the LED numbers. Surely he hadn't been sitting for that long…?

The pounding stopped as there was a clatter from Kuroba's apartment. "Hold on!" Saguru heard Kuroba yell.

"It's too late in the evening for this, Kaito," Aoko called back. "How many damn times do we have to go through this?"

Saguru carried his dishes (now sadly congealed from leaving them sit too long) to the sink and tried to drown out their voices with running water. It didn't do much good, and not for the first time he was resigned to how thin the walls were. He hoped that whatever was going on wasn't because of his conversation the other day...

"Kuroba Takumi, for the last time, check your phone!" Aoko said, quieter than her yelling before, but still loud enough to be heard clearly.

Saguru scrubbed his dishes clean as locks clicked and Kuroba's door opened. It shouldn't have been surprising to hear Aoko yelling at Kuroba's door considering that was how they'd met up again, yet this was the first time it had happened since then. Both Aoko and Kuroba had made it sound like it was a common occurrence. Had they been paying closer attention because they'd been embarrassed that Saguru had overheard? Now that the door was open, the voices were quiet enough for the water to drown out. Good. Let them have a bit of privacy.

Dishes went into the strainer and he left the water on a good half a minute more before reluctance to waste water won over the desire to let Kuroba talk without an unwilling eavesdropper. He turned off the tap just in time to catch Aoko's "—go wait outside, I need to talk to your father."

Well then. There was a pause and then the door shut and Kuroba and Aoko must have moved further from the wall because their voices were a near-unnoticeable hum.

Saguru wiped his hands dry and turned back to his desk with the starts of a lesson plan that he'd gotten sidetracked from. He'd just picked up his pen when there was a soft knock on his door. And Saguru was quite sure that it was his door this time. He sighed.

It was not much of a surprise to find Takumi on the other side of the door, backpack in one hand and a scowl on his face. Saguru stepped back to let him in without a word.

"I didn't feel like waiting outside while they argued," Takumi muttered. His shoulders were hunched up a few centimeters though he was trying to look calm.

"You're welcome here," Saguru said. Ordinarily he'd offer some form of refreshment, but from the restless way Takumi fiddled with the straps on his backpack and the way his eyes were glued on the wall separating Saguru's apartment from Kuroba's, Saguru doubted refreshments would be welcomed. "Lost track of time?"

Takumi shrugged. "Not this time." Saguru raised an eyebrow and walked back to his desk, sitting in the chair. He offered the other to Takumi, but Takumi shook his head. On the other side of the wall, something glass broke. It was all the more alarming because voices were not currently raised. Takumi winced and looked away from the wall. "I stayed out on purpose today," he admitted. "Today was their wedding anniversary. They always fight."

"Wouldn't it be better for them to not see each other in that case?" Saguru asked. He strained his hearing for any more sounds of destruction, but there was only the occasional soft, sharp rhythm of conversation.

"Tried that. Doesn't work." Takumi sighed and rocked back on his feet. "They'll just poke at each other. Better to give them a reason to fight about than have them pick and pick and pick. Those can get nasty."

Saguru twisted the pen between his fingers, still straining his ears. He had to wonder what nasty entailed. If mildly angry in high school had involved mop chases on Aoko's end and razor cards from Kaito, it was entirely possible that a true fight could be very bad indeed.

Takumi didn't seem to notice Saguru's worried glance at the wall. "They'll probably fight for another few minutes or so, work themselves up to where they can't decide if they want to hurt each other or make out, and then decide to stop before it reaches that tipping point. Give it a couple days and it'll be back to passive aggressive passes at each other like usual," Takumi muttered. He finally caught sight of Saguru's expression and winced. "The only thing that ever gets hurt are dishes…and maybe the wall depending on what hit where. They're not going to hurt each other. I mean the reason they fight so much is they still care too much even if Kaa-san kind of hates Tou-san too."

"Please tell me you have no inclination to get them back together." There was a second crash followed by Aoko shouting, "You will not—!" before she cut her words off. Or Kuroba stopped them. Either way, Saguru wondered if he should intervene.

"Hell no." Takumi looked at Saguru like he had three heads. He'd stopped rocking on his heels. "Are you crazy? The last thing they need is to get back together. If anything, they should try seeing somebody else."

"I am glad to hear you say that because their relationship is far from healthy." Another crash, the sound of glass clinking off glass, and Kuroba's voice just a bit louder and more insistent running alongside it.

Takumi snorted. "No, really?" He glanced at the wall and the chair Saguru had offered before finally choosing the chair. "They used to try not to fight around me, but I'm way past thinking they could ever make it work."

There were a hundred different things Saguru wanted to say, how it wasn't fair for anyone of them involved to keep going through this or how he was sorry to see how bad it could be—and this was the worst Saguru had witnessed between Kuroba and Aoko, though he also had witnessed or heard several amicable interactions between them. Any words he could have offered only sounded trivializing or condescending in his head, so he said nothing. It was quiet next door, quiet enough that Kuroba and Aoko were either whispering or not talking at for the moment. And Takumi kept sitting on Saguru's chair, looking uncomfortable and tired. Saguru was surprised Takumi had chosen to reach out to Saguru in this moment at all.

"What's your family like?" Takumi asked suddenly. "I don't really remember them being anything but like that," he waved a hand at the wall, "and Shiemi only has her mom and Yuuto has three younger sisters but both his parents work so…"

He looked like he needed a distraction, Saguru thought as he absentmindedly tucked the information about Momoi and Himura Yuuto from class 1-C away. "If you're hoping for a viewpoint on a more standard family unit, I'm sorry to disappoint. For the majority of my life, my parents lived half the world apart."

"How would that even work?"

Takumi leaned forward, interested. That was fine. Better listening to Saguru talk about his family than listening to his parents argue. "Remarkably well," Saguru said. He leaned back in his seat. There had been holidays and long phone conversations that had cost a small fortune in the years before skype and international cell phones. But his parents had been happy in their own way. Certainly happier than Kuroba and Aoko were at the moment. "They are both independent people, and in that sense they were content in pursuing their own lives. Mum had her career, Otou-san had his life here, and I spent a good deal of my childhood spending school breaks overseas."

"Huh. But wouldn't they miss each other?"

"Naturally. Although I suppose if anything, that it worked out meant they grew very good at communicating." Actually, his parents were fairly good at communicating—with each other. Now anyone else could be a different matter. It took a lot of trust and compromise to do that as he had learned with his own relationship. "Each moment they had together meant more back then… Of course, they've lived together again since I moved out and Mum retired. It was probably very difficult to live together after so long apart."

"I can't even imagine how people could make that work," Takumi muttered, likely trying to picture his parents under the same roof.

"A large home with personal space to retreat to likely helps," Saguru said drily.

"How big is a big house? Because after half a world apart, no house is going to be big enough."

"Big enough," Saguru said.

"Big enough that you could live with them?" Takumi challenged.

"Technically, yes, but as an adult who has lived on my own for several decades, the idea of living under parental authority again is rather unappealing."

Takumi grinned. "Yeah, I can figure. Can't really see myself going back after I can be on my own. It can't happen soon enough."

"There will be things you'll miss, but there are other benefits."

"Like getting away with not making your bed and not having a curfew?" Takumi asked with such a longing tone that Saguru had to stifle a laugh.

Saguru had never had much of a problem with either of those things, but the thought of them would have been awful at Takumi's age. "Among other things," Saguru said. Kuroba's apartment had been quiet for several minutes now and he tilted his head as he heard the door opening. "I believe your mother is ready to leave."

"Ah…" Takumi's smile dropped as he was reminded of the time and place. "Yeah. Well, thanks for the story and letting me sit in your apartment, Hakuba-sensei."

"Any time," Saguru said, meaning it. He walked Takumi to the door, finding a stressed looking Aoko pacing with her phone to her ear just outside the door.

She looked relieved when she saw Takumi with Saguru and tucked her phone away. In retrospect, she probably though he had run off. "Let's head home," she said to Takumi, only giving Saguru a small nod of acknowledgement.

Takumi shrugged and let her tug him toward the stairs and away from Kuroba's apartment.

o*o

Saguru waited until they were out of sight down the street before approaching Kuroba's door. To knock or not to knock? Was it better to pretend that nothing had happened or offer support that Kuroba would likely not want or appreciate? He knocked. It was a long pause before Kuroba answered.

"Yeah?" Kuroba asked. He had a broom in one hand. His eyes were tight at the corners with tension.

"Would you like any help cleaning up?" Saguru offered.

Kuroba gave him a flat look. "I've got most of the glass cleaned up already, and I'll just vacuum up the rest. Don't talk around things, it doesn't suit you."

Saguru sighed. "Fine. Would you like emotional support and company or should I bugger off?"

There were small details, Kuroba's hair more mussed than normal, the way his lip looked just a bit red like he'd bit it. A nick on one hand, the blood already dried where maybe a bit of glass had ricocheted or been bumped during cleanup. This was a Kuroba wearing very little of his usual masks and Saguru wasn't sure how welcome his presence would be with those vulnerabilities, the situation aside.

Kuroba shrugged. "I'm not really going to be up for conversation, but if you want to watch me clean glass slivers off my floor and sit in silence, hell, why not." He left the door open for Saguru to decide and went to fetch the vacuum.

Saguru stepped into the apartment and shut the door behind him. A glance told him plenty. The broken things had been a plate and two glasses. It looked like the entire contents of the kitchen table had been swept off it at one point, papers, a bent-open paperback novel, and a napkin holder—contents included—laid strewn on the ground. Clean dishes in the dish holder by the sink showed where the glassware had come from. It would have impacted off the wall for the glasses, and perhaps thrown straight toward the ground for the plate. In his mind's eye, he saw the staging, Kuroba at the sink first while Aoko was near the table, her following him around it as the argument grew and putting her in range of the dishware.

Kuroba returned from Takumi's bedroom with the vacuum, a small handheld one for contained messes.

"Watch out for glass," Kuroba said, not looking at Saguru as he plugged the vacuum in. "I think I got the large pieces, but some flew pretty far." The vacuum clicked on, conveniently ruining any chance to ask questions or comment.

Saguru lingered in the entryway. The broken glasses had been cheap and generic, the plate was a pattern Saguru had seen for sale when he had bought his own dishes. Still, they had been Kuroba's and there had been no call to destroy them.

In the living room portion of the main room was a half-finished game of cards and an abandoned dish of senbei showing exactly what Kuroba and Takumi had been doing when Aoko arrived. In the kitchen area, Kuroba went over each section of tatami with exaggerated patience, his shoulders too tense to be anything but uncomfortable with Saguru's presence. Kuroba's once neglected plant had new green leaves. A new book sat on Kuroba's bookshelf. It was on bone china teacups, likely in reference for something at the museum.

The vacuum clicked off. Kuroba crouched over it, one hand smoothing over the tatami as if in reassurance that the glass was gone. "Are you just going to stand in the entryway?" he asked, still not facing Saguru.

That was, Saguru supposed, hint enough to either get in the apartment proper or to leave. He stepped into the room and knelt next to the strewn papers to help pick them up at least. Kuroba glanced over sharply and winced.

"You really don't have to help."

"Would you rather I kept staring?" Saguru asked. In truth, kneeling was unpleasant on his bad knee, but it gave his hands something to do. A bill joined a few letters joined junk mail joined a notice from the school that Saguru had passed around to students several days ago. Tucked in with the papers were handwritten notes scrawled on bits of scrap paper. Some of it looked like it might be in some form of code. Saguru didn't let his eyes linger over it, just tucked it in with the rest and moved on to gathering up paper napkins. Kuroba's hand on his wrist stopped him.

"Really." Kuroba sighed yet again, running his free hand through his hair and leaving it in even more disarray. "It's not a big deal. Don't go messing your knee up over a few papers."

Saguru handed him the napkins he'd gathered and turned the napkin holder right side up. "I'm well aware of my limitations and a few minutes picking up papers is within them."

"I wasn't trying to imply that, I was just…" Kuroba gathered the rest of the stuff off the floor and set it haphazardly on the table. "There. All clean."

Questionably clean. Still, when Kuroba stood up and moved to gather up the cards in the living room, Saguru followed.

Cards arced between Kuroba's hands like an afterthought, flipping and flaring through complicated motions through muscle memory alone. "I know what you're probably thinking," he said. "But before you get pissed at Aoko for breaking stuff, realize that she once asked me to quit being Kid and I said no. And then she got promoted to head of the task force and I'm a constant threat to her job security if she fails too often and forever taunting who I am at her in her opinion."

Saguru wanted to say that that still did not justify destruction of Kuroba's property. And yet he was also too aware that they were still at the start of a friendship despite how their shared history made it feel longer. He couldn't bring himself to push the matter. "Your relationship with Aoko-san," he said instead, "is between the two of you. So long as you aren't harming each other," and sadly he couldn't necessarily include emotional or mental hurt in that statement, "then I'll keep out of it."

Kuroba glanced at him from the corner of his eyes, cards doing a perfect bridge between his hands. "You're censoring yourself again."

Saguru said nothing and the cards stilled in Kuroba's hands. The deck slid into his shirt pocket, right above his heart.

"You know," Kuroba said, "it's not like anything has really changed. She's just doesn't have a mop at hand most of the time."

"And the arguments are no longer good hearted at their core," Saguru countered. "I always wondered what would happen if you were too slow to dodge back then."

"Then I'd have been hit," Kuroba said casually. "But I've never been slow to dodge and Aoko never really aims to hit."

"All it takes is one—" Saguru started, irritation overcoming his desire not to push, and Kuroba cut him off.

"I know." He finally looked at Saguru then, tired and serious with something sharp in his eyes. "I know exactly how it is to be slow to dodge," Kuroba said. He tapped the deck of cards over his heart and Saguru thought about gun statistics and the upward trend of shootings at Kid heists over the last decade, the list of civilians who had been injured over the years by ricochets or from being unfortunate enough to be caught in the crossfire—both literal and not—between Kid and those after him. "And I know what it looks like when someone strikes with actual injury in mind. That's not what is going on. She breaks things because she doesn't want to break me." Kuroba stared Saguru down until Saguru had to look away.

"It would be better if she could avoid destruction entirely. If she ever did hit you, she wouldn't forgive herself."

Kuroba smiled, a bitter twist of his lips. "Well, it's good that I have plenty of practice dodging. Senbei?" he nodded at the bowl on the coffee table.

"No thank you."

Kuroba nodded, smile still fixed in place as he finally rebuilt his masks. "Thanks for checking on me," Kuroba said, and Saguru could take a hint.

"I'm glad nothing was too badly damaged," Saguru said. "It seems you really do have the mess taken care of."

"Yeah. Yeah I do. Sorry for the disturbance and all."

Saguru shook his head. He let Kuroba subtly herd him toward the door with a few more empty comments between them. It felt like he should have been able to do more, but he wasn't sure where he'd gone wrong in the exchange this time or if Kuroba really did prefer to be alone now to having Saguru hover around the evidence of the argument.

"Goodnight, Hakuba," Kuroba said when Saguru was in the doorway again.

He shut the door before Saguru could come up with a way to convey the same message without sounding trivializing. The right words never came.

*o*o*

Saguru jolted awake the next morning with the thump of someone sitting next to him. He jolted around to see what the hell it was and was confronted by a pair of crossed legs in dress slacks. The legs, of course, were attached to Kuroba Kaito. It was...fifteen minutes until his alarm went off. Kuroba grinned as Saguru frowned a bit more each passing second.

"Why?" Saguru asked, hating being cheated out of a few more minutes of sleep. This was getting back for barging in last night where he wasn't wanted, wasn't it?

"Just cuz," Kuroba said.

Saguru groaned and pressed his palms to his eyes. Kuroba snickered. "Shut up," Saguru muttered. Something warm and smooth bumped the back of his hand. A paper to-go cup, clearly full of something hot.

Kuroba tapped his hand with it again, still grinning. "Earl Grey. Not coffee, I promise."

Saguru sat up and took the cup, turning it around in his hands, half wary that it was some kind of trap.

"And for breakfast..." Kuroba held up two paper bags. "You have a choice of ham and cheese croissants or apple raisin bread."

"...croissant, please." Were they just going to pretend nothing happened last night?

Kuroba handed over the croissant bag without even trying to make a performance of it. He took a roll out of the other bag and munched on it. Belatedly, Saguru noticed a second cup next to Kuroba's knee.

"Felt like an early morning out?" Saguru asked. The croissants were fresh; the cheese was still a bit warm.

"Or something," Kuroba said with a hum.

This was an apology, Saguru realized. A roundabout, non-vocal one, but a truce of sorts all the same. Since Saguru doubted there were any words that would smooth out what happened last night or their previous conversation about Kid, Saguru would take what he could get. Considering everything, the silence as they finished their respective breakfasts was companionable. Saguru couldn't even stay annoyed that he'd been woken up early. Kuroba had gotten his tea perfect, a spoonful of sugar and a splash of milk.

The beep of Saguru's alarm cut through the air and Kuroba turned it off before stretching. "And that's my cue to go," he said. "I have an errand to run before work."

"Right." Which was why he'd been visiting so early then. Had Kuroba slept last night? "Thank you for the croissant," Saguru said, holding the bag out.

Kuroba waved it away. "Have it for a snack later. Actually, take them both."

"But—"

"Have to go. Later, Hakuba!" Kuroba waved and ducked out the front door before Saguru could even start in on the protest that it was Kuroba's breakfast. What was with him and bringing Saguru food?

And they still hadn't mentioned last night.

Saguru frowned at his front door. "Really, Kuroba? Really?" Saguru flopped back on his futon. He was fully awake now thanks to the food and caffeine.

Apparently they were going to just go on as if nothing happened. Well, Saguru could do that. He'd just tuck everything to the back of his mind and wait until the topic came up again in the future. It wasn't like it would never come up again.

Damn Kuroba's stubbornness.

He rolled out of bed, making the plan to stop by the store after work. He'd 'accidentally' make too much curry tonight and leave a portion for Kuroba. If Kuroba was going to gloss over everything with peace gestures, Saguru could at least make the effort to meet him halfway.

o*O*o

AN: Okay, so I know I probably upset somebody with this chapter's depiction of Aoko. No, they're not always like that, and no, that sort of behavior is not a normal thing, nor is it ok (holy crap is it not ok). The way I see Aoko, is that canonically she has a lot of anger issues. It's played up for slapstick laughs, but Aoko snaps pretty easily and her first instinct is usually to lash out at Kaito physically—largely because Kaito's baited her in the first place, but that's a whole different issue. (Kaito has his own buttload of not cool behaviors that make me side eye their ability to have a healthy romantic relationship to be honest, but that's not what is going on in this chapter). For this AU, I see Aoko as continuing on with her lashing out at Kaito and him merrily dodging because he expects it—right up until she gets to police school and at some point or another there's a talk about domestic violence. And Aoko has an "Oh shit" moment where she examines her and Kaito's dynamic and is distressed. And so she makes a promise to herself to never try to physically harm him again when she's angry (playful swats don't equal attempting to smack him with a mop, ok? Ok. There's a line.) But Aoko doesn't necessarily internalize the whole thing behind that and she still has anger issues, anger issues she never really learned to fully control or work through. Usually they're yelling, but there's still years of physical reaction habit, and occasionally there is collateral damage in the form of objects. It's still not ok that she's breaking Kaito's things. Kaito, for his part, recognizes that she's trying not to hurt him and sees that effort and dismisses the other parts of it because on some level he feels he deserves every moment of her lashing out. (Nnnnot cool behavior on his part either.) He also has the habit of stone-walling when Aoko gets to a certain point and not reacting can actually make the situation worse than reacting would, and just...all around bad things. :/ Honestly this is the worst moment I will write between them, and usually they have a balance of snippy-but-also-care going on, with Aoko being the more negatively inclined between the two. But they've been kind of tiptoeing around with Hakuba there so they haven't been having as many smaller arguments, and to some extent this was a while coming. The anniversary date was just the trigger for it to come out. (And yes, Saguru's conversation with Kaito did come up in the argument, but no, it wasn't a catalyst for it. Aoko and Kaito are more likely to fight around emotionally significant dates and right before/after Kid heists for obvious reasons.) I hope I didn't make anyone too angry with this. I like Aoko. I like Kaito too. I don't necessarily like the dynamic they're set up with or what it implies (Kaito finding her anger funny/instigating her anger/Aoko ok with physically harming Kaito).

((On a much different note, I wanted to make it very clear that Takumi recognizes it's not good and that his parents shouldn't get back together. I will admit I included it because the whole 'Ran trying to reunite her parents' bit in DC frustrated me a good deal even though I get why she might have the impulse to do so. ...This might also be a time to admit that I have been in the position Takumi's in listening to parents argue while an unhealthy relationship strangles on far longer than it should have. It sucks. Anxiety inducing like heck. So if this chapter is something that's upsetting, I apologize, empathize, and honestly won't blame you if you skip it and wait for the next one. There's nothing in here that you need to know beyond: Hakuba sees Kaito/Aoko at their worst and tries to help how he can in the aftermath and with their son. If just the argument would be upsetting, try reading from the single "o*o"))