A/N: … and so they begin to travel together. Also, Happy Valentines' Day! and happy birthday to you, D3athrav3n92! *blows kiss* More fic will come to celebrate both events later in the evening. Because, again, I can. Breed, my minions, breed.

Warnings–Nope!

Disclaimer–no owning on my part, no suing on yours, all is well with the world.

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1.4

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The bus was neither empty nor packed. A few people, men for the most part, hardly glanced at them as they passed, Kaito ahead, leading her toward a seat he would deem acceptable. He had clasped her hand to help her inside the bus and had yet to let go.

"What the hell," she muttered to him as she slipped past to sit on the windowseat.

"It's better if people think we're a couple," he said, with a sly grin. "Less noticeable."

"Couples hardly travel all over the country by bus."

"I know. But alone, I would have been more easily spotted so long as I travel by bus, and so would you. Left to ourselves, we are accepted as private business and left alone." He squeezed her hand lightly in emphasis. "Agreed?"

"Who's after you?" He shrugged, but she stood her ground firm, slapping the words back on his face, waiting. "Well?" And as he looked away she squeezed his hand in turn, twisting the tease. "Well?"

"You are," he said. "You are."

It was a breath and not nearly enough. She let it go for now.

She also left her hand in his.

It relaxed as the hours passed, and so did his. A simple embrace of fingers, tips brushing against knuckles, palm again palm. Kaito's was dry, and slightly calloused–the result, probably, of night practices and heists, grabbing tight onto handglider bars, priceless jewels. Sometimes his thumb absently pressed against the back of her hand, sending a minute shiver up her neck.

Some kid in a backseat had a walkman, and had cranked up the volume to its maximum. Though it was too muffled to hear anything more than an irregular pounding, its vibes resonated through the thick, overheated air and the bus' metallic sides, accentuating with each stroke the rumble of the vehicle like a gigantic heartbeat.

At two in the afternoon the bus stopped for oil and more passengers. Two left; a full five came on. Aoko watched them from across Kaito's lap–three workmen in dark-blue overalls, a young girl with a huge sportsbag, a man of nondescript age with a woollen bonnet pushed down onto his eyes.

These were sharp, meeting Aoko's, passing to Kaito. A nod there from her neighbour, something shifty in the dark eyes, and the man passed and sat four seats back.

Kaito made no comment.

When the bus stopped again, however, he followed the man out. They talked at the door of the shop, two dark figures bent over something in the grey dusk; she could hardly see them across the parking. The man nodded, laid a hand on Kaito's shoulder; they both went in.

"You know that man?" she asked Kaito when he returned with Chinese food in plastic trays.

He said no.

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Because Akai means bus to me. I loved that old case. That's also the first instance of someone from DC intervening in the story–though there'll be many more x3

Cookies? (this is starting to sound like a gimmick xD)