Mikau: Hi guys! Sorry I'm a little late on my update this week! This week we've got a chapter between Aoko and Kaito, and then the next chapter I intend to have Saguru and Shinichi work some things out. As for my other works, HP got a pretty poor response even though I thought a lot of people were looking forward to it, so I was pretty disappointed and am considering putting it on the back burner (if you just forgot to review or didn't notice that the new chapter was up, let me know so I can stop being depressed about it). CTM has a short update this week, but next week will probably be standard length. Thanks so much for hanging in there with me, guys! Thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter: Assasin8, MeridianGrimm, MeitanteiRose, twilightserius, Bunnyz-chan, and GeekyGenius.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I'd be able to dedicate all of my time to writing and collecting something obscure like little owl figurines. Isn't that what rich people do? Collect little owl figurines?

…

Chapter Ten: Getting it Off Your Chest

"Kaito." Aoko blinked, processing the sight of her best friend standing out on her doorstep. It all came together at once, and she gasped, "Kaito! Are you alright?! Aoko's been so worried about you since you passed out at school! Aoko didn't know what to think. Kaito, are you okay?!"

Kaito smiled softly at the woman he'd once loved. He shrugged it off as if he didn't have a care in the world. He'd let her worry a little later. Right now he wanted her calm. "Yeah," he chuckled sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Sorry about that. I don't know what that was, but I'm fine now. Don't worry about it, Aoko."

"How can Aoko not worry?" She frowned deeply, pressing her lips together in a firm pout. "And what happened to your face? Kaito, you keep getting hurt lately!"

Kaito rolled his slightly red-tinted eyes. Yes, if "lately" included the fatal bullet wound of a month ago, his unfortunate paper-cut that Friday morning, and the already-healed cut on his cheek from the knife attack, he was indeed getting hurt oh so often lately.

"Aoko, I'm seriously fine. There's not even a scratch on me." He peeled back the bandage to show her his scratch-free visage. "See? Still devilishly handsome. Can I come in, or did you want to add hypothermia to my list of recent injuries and ailments?"

"Aoko's just worried about you, you know," she muttered under her breath as she stepped out of the way, looking a little hurt.

He felt bad for being curt with her. He stepped inside and smiled once more, mussing her hair. "Thanks, Aoko. Is your dad home?" He slipped off his shoes and made his way towards the living room without waiting for her to act as guide. He'd practically grown up here.

"No. He's at the station. Why?" She cutely dipped her head to the side, following him without question, taking the seat beside him on the couch. "Did you need to talk with Dad?"

Kaito shook his head, refraining from lounging on the couch like he usually did. "Nah. Just wanting some privacy. Aoko…I need you. I need to talk to you."

Her cheeks flushed, and she nodded slowly. "S-Should Aoko go make some tea first?"

"No thanks, Aoko. I'm good. Okay. First order of business, stop with the talking in third person bit." He smiled lopsidedly as he began. "I know you do it because you think it makes you seem cute and makes guys go all gushy and want to protect you, but seriously? Aoko, you're not cute."

"Hey," Aoko whined, crossing her arms over her chest and puffing out her cheeks. She was used to his constant teasing and abuse, but that didn't make it hurt any less. "Aoko is too cute!"

"No you're not." Kaito slowly shook his head before grabbing her hands and forcing her to look him in the eyes. "Aoko, you're not cute, you're like some intense Amazon warrior princess or something—you're tough and strong and just absolutely beautiful, Aoko. You're sexy enough to turn any man's head just by being you. You don't have to pretend to be cute, so cut the third person thing out, okay?"

Aoko's mouth had gone dry. She felt woozy all of the sudden. The way he was looking at her made the bottom drop out of her stomach. "K-Kaito?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "The reason that I'm telling you this is that…" He opened his eyes and looked at her again. "Aoko, I loved you."

She blinked. "Loved?" She blinked again. "Past tense?"

He nodded, a sad smile in place. "I found out about my dad and Kid and everything when we were sixteen, and now…it's been two years. That's two years I've been going behind your back and lying to you and disappointing you, Aoko. It didn't take me two years to figure out that a relationship between us wasn't going to work. I gave up hope of being with you not even six months after taking up my dad's mantle."

"But…now Aoko…now I know," Aoko argued, as if her protests could win his affections back. "Now—"

"—Now you know you can't trust me. Now you're not going to let me have your trust so easily, right? Didn't you say I had to earn it back?" Kaito challenged gently, helping her through the process of letting go.

She frowned, almost wilting slightly. "But…"

He gave her hand a squeeze. "You can do better, Aoko. The real reason I decided to let you go and move on is that, Aoko, you're so amazing. Like…you seriously rock, and I…well…I suck pretty hard. I'm honestly a mess, Aoko."

"But you can get better," she weakly proposed, looking down almost unseeing at their joined hands.

"Yeah, and I hope to with time, but…when it comes down to it, I don't make you smile anymore, Aoko," he replied softly. "That's the most important thing."

She opened her mouth to disagree, but he shook his head, cutting her off.

"No. Whenever I do get a smile out of you, it's because I've had to cheer you up because I was the one that upset you in the first place. You know it's true, Aoko. If our relationship transformed into a romance, it wouldn't survive. You should be with someone that makes you happy."

She closed her eyes and was quiet for nearly four entire minutes, sitting there, holding his hands and struggling not to cry as she sorted it all out.

Finally she opened her damp azure eyes and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right, but…you're the only thing I've known for so long. How am I supposed to move on?"

"Some nice guy will come along," he assured, letting one of his hands drop. "We'll be starting college in April. You'll see, and when you do meet him and get married and have beautiful babies, you'll think, 'Gosh. I really dodged a bullet there with that Kaito jerk.'"

This got a giggle out of her, and she slowly took her other hand out of his. "You are a jerk."

"I know," he chuckled. "Sometimes I do it on purpose."

"I've noticed." She rolled her eyes.

"We good?" He inquired nervously. "You can smack me with a mop or something, if you want. God knows I deserve it."

She smiled wryly. "I still don't trust you, and now I'm even more pissed, but…what am I supposed to do? You're my Kaito. We may not be all hunky-dory at the moment, but…we're okay. Eventually we will be good again."

"I'm glad." He breathed a sigh of relief. "…Okay…so…ready for round two?"

Her gaze narrowed. "There's a round two? We haven't had enough emotional conversations for the night?"

He grinned sheepishly, thinking, "You haven't heard the half of it yet."

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Okay. Fine. What's round two? I already know about the kleptomania, and now I know the person I thought I was gonna marry isn't going to be 'the one'. What's next? Do you have a girlfriend or something?" Her face twisted into a sour look. "Is she pregnant? Is it Akako-chan?"

Kaito gulped. "That would be a resounding NO. Um…so…I do like someone, though. It's just…they're…kind of more…male than my usual type, so…" Kaito's entire face was turning peach.

Aoko blinked, her face going blank. "Is it Hakuba-kun?"

Kaito's blush reddened. "Maybe a little. I mean…there are two guys that I possibly like. The other one…Kudo Shinichi…he used to chase Kid around, so we got to know one another, and now…now we're actually friends, and…I definitely like him. I'm pretty sure he likes me too, but I'm not positive yet. I keep getting mixed signals."

"What about Hakuba-kun?" Aoko demanded. "Kaito, Hakuba-kun is in love with you."

"I know," Kaito sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I know. He's…kind of growing on me. We're good friends, and lately…I've just been thinking that he's kind of cute more and more often, but…it's nowhere near how I feel about Shinichi. But I'm pretty sure that Shinichi has a thing for Hakuba, so…it's kind of all screwed up."

Aoko nodded in understanding. "Well, if you like both of them and Kudo-kun likes both you and Hakuba-kun, there's not too much of a problem."

Kaito's gaze narrowed into a glare. "Sorry. Have you not been listening? The whole thing is a freaking mess, Aoko. No matter what happens, someone's going to get their heart broken. How is that not a problem?"

She laughed outright. "It's simple. Just convince Hakuba-kun to have a threesome."

Kaito blinked, mouth bobbing open and closed like a fish lapping up food. And then he started laughing too. "How can you just say that? A gay threesome is not normal. How can you just suggest I have a threesome as if I'd asked you how to fix a leaky faucet and you told me to use a monkey wrench?" He shook his head, still chortling merrily. "Just have a threesome. Geez, why didn't I think of that?"

Aoko shrugged. "Clearly you don't read enough manga. Glad I could help."

"Just what kind of manga are you reading?" Kaito snorted accusatorily.

"The kind that has allowed me to solve your problem." She challenged him to make something of it.

He nodded, backing off. "Fair enough."

"Was that round two?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "That was better than round one."

"Yep. That was round two." He took a deep breath.

"Is there a round three?" she inquired apprehensively.

Kaito blew the air out of his lungs slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, there's a round three."

Aoko inhaled slowly. "Okay. Bring it."

He looked down at his hands, chewing on his lip as his brow creased. "So…this is what I really needed to talk to you about. The guys that shot me…the crime syndicate that got taken down…they were really bad, Aoko."

She nodded to show she was following, even though he wasn't looking at her.

"…They're the ones that killed Dad. He was the first Kid; I just inherited the job. At first I was running around without a clue just trying to find the guys that killed my dad, but then…then I just happened to steal a large gemstone, and that attracted the attention of the Organization. They were targeting big jewels too. It was then I finally understood what my dad had been doing, why Kid existed."

"Why?" Aoko couldn't help but ask. She'd always wondered what it was all for. When Kaito had first been shot, "Why?" kept replaying over and over in her head. What was the purpose? What was the meaning behind it?

Kaito ceased his chewing and just bit his lip. "So…imagine there's this big, powerful person who has everything. They have money. They have control. They could buy anything, have anything. What's the one thing that they want? The one thing they have no control over?"

Aoko frowned. "Aoko doesn't…I don't know. What?"

"I'll rephrase the question: what's the only thing they're afraid of?" Kaito posed.

"Having it all taken away, I guess. Losing it all?" she hazarded a guess, cocking her head to the side. She didn't see how this all fit together.

"Yes," he replied darkly. "And what's the ultimate, most permanent way to lose it all?"

She blinked, eyes widening. "Death?"

Kaito nodded gravely. "So what did this big, powerful crime syndicate want?"

"Immortality?" She frowned.

He nodded, an ironic smile on his lips.

"But, Kaito, that's impossible. Things like immortality don't exist. Everyone knows that. It's just…It's just not…"

He shrugged. "When people are desperate, Aoko, they'll believe anything. The Organization was searching for immortality. From what I've heard from Shinichi, they were trying everything from human experiments and making their own elixirs to searching for mythical solutions like the fountain of youth and…and Pandora."

"Pandora?" She felt like she had heard that word before. "Oh! Like the box or the jewelry?"

He smiled, unable to keep the thought that she was adorable from flitting through his mind. "Yeah. It's the same name, but I don't know if they have anything to do with each other. The Pandora the Organization and Kid were looking for was a gem inside of another gem. If you hold the host up to the light of the moon, Pandora shines red. If you hold it up to the full moon when a certain comet is orbiting around…it's supposed to cry tears of immortality."

Aoko nodded slowly. "So that's why…. Kaito, why was Kid looking for it? What were you going to do if you actually found Pandora?"

"Destroy it." He shrugged once more. "So…that brings us to the hard part of this discussion."

"Discussing crime syndicates, gems of immortality, and your father's murder weren't the hard part?" she scoffed. "I think I might want out of this conversation now before things get truly crazy."

"Hang in there with me." He smiled softly, eyes pleading. "This next part is about me, and I need my best friend right now."

Her expression saddened, and she nodded for him to continue. "I'm listening."

"I found Pandora."

Her jaw dropped. "It seriously existed?!"

"Yep." His sad smile persisted. "The night I was shot."

"What happened to it?! Did you destroy it before they got you?! It is gone right?!"

He shook his head.

"Where is it now?! Did they get it?!"

He shook his head again. "N-No. I…I still have it, I guess."

"Why the hell do you have it?! Were you not able to destroy it or something?"

He wrung his hands in his lap, looking away. "Aoko…I died."

She was confused again, but somehow everything he said turned out to be relevant and connected, even though it hadn't seemed to be at first, so she went along with his strange flow of conversation. "Y-Yeah, but the doctors brought you back. They were able to save you, so—"

"—No, they weren't," he whispered. "They couldn't save me, and I died. I remember being dead or in limbo or something. I was dead, but then I wasn't anymore."

"Kaito, I don't understand what you're trying to tell me," she confessed, looking intently at him, trying to read him. "The doctors did save you. You're okay now."

He closed his eyes and sighed. "I am sooo far from being okay, Aoko."

She didn't know what to do, so she put a hand lightly on his thigh in support.

"I want to show you something. Can I borrow a knife?"

Now she blinked in confusion. "O…kay." She went to the kitchen, grabbing one of the knives from the block and carefully carrying it back to the living room. "What's the knife for?" she asked as she gingerly handed it over.

He took it and inhaled deeply once more. "Okay. Look. Just watch, and don't freak out, Aoko."

Before she could stop him, he pressed the blade to his palm and drew a thin line of blood down along his lifeline.

"Kaito!" she gasped, reacting exactly how he knew she would.

"Watch," he commanded, showing her his bleeding palm as it slowly closed back up, leaving not even a scratch behind.

Aoko blinked slowly, staring in wonder and awe but mostly fear. "Kaito?" she whispered as his eyes glowed red.

"The doctors didn't bring me back, Aoko," he explained sadly. "I was dead, but now…it's kind of looking like I might never die again. Pandora was the one that revived me, and I'm not too sure of what exactly that means for me now. It's kind of looking like I'm immortal, so…I'm kind of scared, Aoko."

Aoko nodded, face absolutely blank in shock as she tried to process, but her brain kept short circuiting. She didn't understand. It wasn't something she could understand. Her perception of reality had been completely twisted. It was no use contemplating and trying to put it all together, so she gave up.

She took the knife from Kaito, threw it to the floor, and tackled him, nearly crushing him in a hug. "You're okay," she assured. "Everything's going to be fine, Kaito," she promised.

He held back tears as he wrapped his arms around her as well. "It doesn't feel okay. Ever since yesterday morning when I got that stupid paper-cut and first realized that I wasn't normal anymore…everything's just been all wrong. I don't feel like me anymore. I mean…am I even human? What the hell's going to happen to me? What if people find out? Aoko, I'm gonna end up in some creepy research lab, and they're gonna study me and poke me!"

"No you're not," Aoko replied with absolute certainty. "Do you think I'd let them take you? Do you think Hakuba-kun would? Your mom? My dad? What about that Kudo-kun that you're so taken with? Do you honestly think we'd let them take you away from us?"

Kaito blinked. "No." He could almost see them all forming a human shield around him, protecting him from the men and women in white lab coats. "No you wouldn't."

"So don't worry about the scary scientists," she chuckled, giving him a little squeeze. "And another thing: of course you're still you."

"But…I might not be human anymore," he argued weakly, knowing that she was going to have an incredibly persuasive rebuttal. He was looking forward to hearing her reasoning. She was making him feel better already.

"Who gives a you know what?" she snorted, sounding very much like her father's daughter. "You still act like they guy I've been friends with for nearly thirteen years now. You didn't know any different until yesterday morning, right? This past month since the shooting, you've been absolutely fine, right? So your eyes have been a little redder than usual. So what? You're still Kuroba Kaito. Kaito, you've always been not normal; that's part of what makes you you. Now you're just a little bit more…atypical…. I still love you, and I'm betting that Hakuba-kun and Kudo-kun will too. Just don't get mortally wounded and survive again. That would be suspicious. Other than that, you should be fine. You haven't had any trouble all month long, so…just be extra careful from now on, but don't freak about it. You did just fine when you weren't even trying."

He nodded slowly, gradually pulling back. "You're right."

"Of course I am." She rolled her eyes, giving his cheek a quick peck and then blushing madly. "You're strong, Kaito. You can get through this…and I'll be here if you need to talk."

"Thank you, Aoko." He leaned in and pressed a longer kiss to her cheek. "I'm really glad I came to talk to you. You've helped a lot."

"What are best friends for?" She shrugged, beaming happily. "Did you want to hang around for a while? We could watch Who Framed Rodger Rabbit? if you'd like, or did you have somewhere you needed to be?"

Kaito thought of Hakuba and Shinichi waiting for him to return, but then he shrugged. They could survive without him for another hour or two. He could use the downtime with Aoko, not having to worry about hiding anything or being discovered. He could use the break.

"That sounds awesome. Thanks, Aoko."

He really did feel better now that he wasn't hyper-vigilantly guarding his secret from everyone anymore. Opening up to his first love had brought him a sense of calm and peace. For the first time in nearly forty-eight hours he could relax. Breathe.

…

Mikau: So, I like this chapter. ^.^; I hope you did too. I really enjoyed being able to show Kaito and Aoko's relationship. I think they've been friends for so long that they just have this strong bond and understanding of each other, and it was good to showcase that here. Again, I hope you guys enjoyed it. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing guys! I appreciate your support and encouragement a great deal! See you next time!