It was suddenly night again. A silky, dewy atmosphere stretched across the city and wrapped Aoko in its humid embrace as she sat, tapping away again at her old computer. A homework assignment that was almost past-due - only two hours left until midnight! - inched along in completion, fighting Aoko's best efforts to just be done with it. Outside her open window, tired raindrops began to tap timidly against her rusted screen. A nice breeze blew through her room and wrapped her tightly for just a moment. The tapping at her window began to grow more fervent.
Aoko broke her concentration on her homework to stare at her window, where Kaitou Kid in full costume was perched again. It felt like years since she had seen him, even though his heist was just the day before. She suddenly felt much less alone than earlier that day, when Kaito had been tearing her emotions apart. She swallowed and said, "You shouldn't be here."
"You never want me here," he retorted easily.
"I didn't say that," she said, approaching the window and unhooking the screen. "Thank you for the fireworks, Kid-kun."
Kid hopped into her room and stood, almost majestically, in her midst. Holding the screen against her, she gazed up at him in wonder. He was so strong and so charming, and she felt so boring in comparison. What did he want with her? He was interesting. He didn't even have a name. What could she do to put herself at his level?
He broke through her musings by saying, "Anything for you, Aoko-chan."
She placed the screen down carefully, and turned back around to find Kid's face a lot closer than it was before. Or was she just imaging it? She definitely was. She looked into his eyes. Something broken, deep far down, seemed to be healing. She felt a shiver creep up her spine. From her lower back to her shoulders to her cheeks - leaning forward, she grabbed onto Kid's head and kissed him suddenly.
She felt a rush of redness swarm into her cheeks and she closed her eyes instinctively as she expected Kid to pull back and disappear. After what felt like forever, a pair of cold gloved hands wrapped themselves around her torso and tugged her closer. She became acutely aware that she was engaged in an act of intimacy with a person that half the world's population would kill to be with - and that her father would kill to be without. She opened her eyes and looked into Kid's eyes, a little further this time. The healing and the brokenness were one and the same.
Aoko broke away and sat on her bed, sinking into its covers and becoming enveloped in its springs. She looked down at the pleats in her skirt and began smoothing them out as she asked, "What does this mean?"
She waited a minute for an answer, but when none came for a while, she looked up. Kid was standing in the middle of the room with a dumbstruck face, looking very far away. She walked back over to him and stared at him straight on. Face to face with the devil she grew up with. "Kid?"
"...Aoko?"
"We need to talk about this," she pulled him over to her bed and sat him down with her. "What are we doing?"
"We're friends," Kid said simply.
"That's not helpful," Aoko said.
He looked at her strangely. "So you're saying we aren't friends?"
"Actually -" she paused a second. "- I don't know. Are we? I don't even know who you are. And you won't ever tell me. And I know that. And I think that's okay. But -" another pause "- does that really matter? In the end?"
"It does," Kid said slowly, getting up. "I shouldn't be here."
Aoko tugged him back down. "No, listen to me. You are you, and I am me. I might not know who you are, but I know more about you than anyone else in the world. I think that's got to count for something."
Kid kicked back on Aoko's bed. He seemed to be rolling her words around in his head, thinking about them with his illogical logic in that weird way of his. Finally, like a kitchen timer dinging, he suddenly looked at Aoko. "So let me get this straight. You like me -" Aoko blushed a deep purple-scarlet before he continued on "- and I like you. Is that right?"
Aoko stared at Kid laying on her bed, looking comfortable and strangely not out of place. She also thought about Kaito, at school, and how angry he made her that day, and how he could never seem to be serious. And, for some reason, her mind went to Hakuba, who was weird and nerdy and not somebody that she was interested in ever having a relationship with but was somehow, against all odds, interested in her for who she was. Hakuba taught her the definition of love.
"Yes," she settled on.
"What are we going to do?" he asked worriedly. "This is complicated. Your dad -"
"My dad doesn't need to know. You're a master at secrets. This'll just be another one. So what do you say?"
Kid sat up and finally smiled at Aoko. He ruffled her hair a bit and playfully asked, "What are you saying?"
She swatted his hand, giggling out, "Please, for the love of God - will you go out with me?"
Kid pulled her into a quick kiss before leaping off her bed and jumping back onto the windowsill. "All you had to do was say please. I'll see you at ten on Friday, at Tropical Land. How's that? A real date."
"I'll be there." She followed him to the windowsill and smiled at him. "Goodnight, Kid."
"Goodnight, Aoko. Friday at ten. Don't forget."
"I won't," she replied. Her ears picked up the sound of her father's footsteps coming up the stairs - and presumably to her room. "Now, go - my dad's coming."
He jumped off his perch and flew off into the humid, summer night, disappearing just in time for Aoko's dad to open the door and peek his head in. "Hey, Aoko."
"Hi, Tou-san." Aoko busied herself with looking normal. Her father stared at her strangely. "Why is your screen out of your window?"
Aoko looked at the screen, lying on the floor next to her. "A bird flew into it and wanted to come in."
"Where is it now, then?" her father asked, in confusion.
"It flew away."
He nodded his head, the way fathers do. He stood in silence for a bit before saying, "Alright then. Goodnight, Aoko."
"Goodnight, Tou-san. Have a good day at work tomorrow."
Once her father had left, Aoko returned to her homework, and once again started tapping away at the assignment. Inch by inch, the words grew longer. Life returned to normal. But Aoko knew, as she crawled into bed after submitting the homework two minutes past the deadline, her life with Kid in it was going to be anything but normal.
AN: It's been five years since I last updated this story. It's been seven years since I started this story. I might not ever finish it. But I based this chapter's theme around the whole reason I wrote this - all you had to do was say please.I have received email notifications fairly consistently since I put this fic out regarding people favoriting and following this story. People love this story for some reason, even though I began it as an angsty middle schooler. It touches my heart, really. I was reading the most recent notification where some kind reviewer asked me to please update. I was sitting next to a friend, studying for some college exam, when I got the notification. I read it and said, "How funny would it be if I just wrote another chapter? Like, just like that? Like, boom. After five years, all you had to do was say please." I love you all and I hope this chapter did you guys justice.
And to any of the readers that started reading this years ago, how am I doing? Any suggestions for directions to take this? Does someone want to finish the story? I am halfway through nursing school and am ready to start other writing projects of my own, and I honestly don't have any time for fanfiction anymore. This is probably my most beloved story, for some reason, so I would love to give people that conclusion they deserve, one way or another. So let me know. Peace out for maybe another five years. Who knows.