Mikau: Hi everyone! This took a little longer than I thought. -.-; My weeks have been so jam-packed lately. I'm having trouble squeezing in everything I want to get accomplished nowadays, and I have been paying more attention to my original novel than my fanfics, so… ^.^; But I'm updating now! And I have Just Passing Through as well as A Light in the Darkness for you today! Still fairly new is Out of the Looking Glass featuring Kid, Kaito, Conan, and Shinichi (Yeah. All of them. ^.~) One last thing before we get this show on the road. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: bobbyneko, Lady Rosencrantz, Ern Estine 13624, C.S.Y. Shadows, Kimmiko T, 908-03, neonquincy1217, and Yumeno Katrin! I'm really trying to hang in there and get my updates done, and your support is invaluable to me, so thank you, truly. And now, enjoy!

Disclaimer: If I owned it, the characters' relationships would function a little more realistically. Idealism and romanticism are great now and again, but…I feel like we need a little more reality in the DCMK universe…exempting the witch and the robots and the ghosts and the stone of immortality, of course.

…

Chapter Thirty-Five: A Bitter Confession

"I'm the Kaitou Kid."

Those words rang in Masumi's ears over and over again for a straight minute before she found herself able to respond. "No way."

"Way," Kaito whispered, setting his head back down on her shoulder as the slow song came to an end.

The next one was some pop song with an upbeat tempo, but they stayed as they were in slow dance position.

"And I'm really, really sorry about the whole stealing your clothes and tying you up thing. I swear that I never take girls' clothes off unless they're willing…that sounds wrong, but…I mean, like, this one time Sonoko lent me her designer dress so that I could disguise myself as her, so—"

"—Sonoko-chan knows about you?!" Sera hissed, trying to keep her voice down but failing.

Kaito pulled back away from her so that they still loosely had their arms around each other but were an arm's length apart and no longer touching as intimately as they had been.

He smiled sheepishly and confessed. "She's known me as Kid for a long time, but…we actually just met in person that other day when I asked you and Shin-chan to karaoke."

"I don't believe this," Sera reported, still in a daze, unsure if Kaito were just pulling a prank on her. She wouldn't put it past him, but…this felt too real…too surreal at the same time. "Who else knows?" If she had other witnesses that she could corroborate with…

Kaito shrugged. "Akako, Saguru, and Shinichi."

Sera pursed her lips. "Saguru-kun? But…isn't he on the Taskforce to catch you?"

Kaito nodded. "Yeah. He figured it out himself right at the beginning, but…well, no one believed him and I was proven innocent a couple of times since then, so…" Kaito smirked mischievously. "He kind of gave up and just persecuted me in private, but…he found out some stuff that made him change his mind about Kid. You should have seen him at the beginning, though. He was out for my head. He was almost as bad as Aoko with his thief equals bad guy mindset. But…we talked and reached an understanding."

"And he hasn't turned you in yet. Does he intend to?" Masumi pressed, needing to know. If this whole Kai-chan equals Kid thing were sanctioned by Saguru, then…there had to be something that Sera just didn't know yet. There had to be something that would make her accept and condone Kaito's thieving as well.

"No. He thinks I'm crazy and that I should go about things a different way, but…he sees the necessity of my donning the top hat and monocle, so…"

She nodded, all sorts of conflicting emotions running through her. Thieves were bad. Kid was…chaotic neutral? Kaito was…good…right? Yes. Good. Saguru was good. Lawful good. Stealing was bad. Working with the FBI was good. What was "good"? What was "bad"? Who got to decide that? Kid didn't hurt anyone. In that respect, he was better than Batman. Was Kid good? Kaito said that he had some kind of mission. He was trying to protect people from someone? Someone bad. Someone that had killed Kaito's father and wouldn't hesitate to kill again? So…Kid was a protector? Was Kid good? Kaito was good. And Saguru was good, and Saguru approved of Kid…or at least condoned Kid, so…

Sera closed her eyes, shutting off the whirlwind of thoughts. She shook her head and sighed, "What about Kudo-kun?"

"Shin-chan?" Kaito echoed. "We started off as rivals. He wanted to kill me sometimes back in the day." He smiled fondly at the memory. "Over the years, though, we came to an understanding. Not quite the same understanding as I enjoy with Haku-chan, but our own kind of arrangement. Then over the summer we started meeting on friendlier terms. He found out about my real identity a few months ago when I got shot. He saved me," Kaito reported dreamily with a bit of a giggle. "And that's when I started to fall in love with him."

"But…he didn't turn you in or…have any objection to your illegal activities?" Sera stressed, thinking that if two detectives for whom she had the highest respect were okay with the whole Kaito equals Kid thing, then shouldn't she be too?

Kaito shrugged. "He had a problem with how I was going about my vigilante crusade…so he introduced me to his FBI friends. Now I'm legally sanctioned by the US government, we're all on the same page, the same team, and everyone's thrilled with my work."

"I feel like I'm missing something," Sera sighed. "So Kudo-kun and Saguru-kun are okay with all this? The FBI is okay with it?"

Kaito nodded.

"So I don't have to call the police and have you arrested or have some kind of moral crisis over the fact that one of my best friends is a criminal…because you're not actually a criminal, you're a vigilante turned undercover FBI witness…right?" Sera summarized, wanting to get all of the details before she reacted to this shocking, head-spinning news. She didn't want to make a scene because of her personal feelings, her gut reaction, if there was more to it than first met the eye.

Kaito gave a nod once more. "Yeah. That sounds about right. Let's go with it."

She pursed her lips, thinking it over once more.

Kaito was good. Kid was secretly good. There was something more going on, something he wasn't saying. His motive, his goal made all the difference in a situation like this, and that was the thing Kaito was skimming over.

Kudo-kun…the FBI…the Kaitou Kid. Why did Sera get the feeling that they were all tangled up in the Organization she was desperately lacking any information on? Could it be that these bad guys that had killed Kaito's father, the guys that Kaito had become Kid to protect other people from (by stealing gemstones? What? She would have to press him about that because that just didn't make any sense) were actually the Organization?

Then all that was left for Masumi to do was to accept it all, pump Kaito and Saguru for data, and maybe kick Kaito in the shin for the whole clothes stealing incident. Yeah. That sounded like a plan.

"Ow!" Kaito yelped, crumpling at the ferocity of her kick. "That was my shin! What the hell, Mi-chan?! What was that for?!"

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Remember that time when you stole my clothes and tied me up? I'm pissed." And then she smirked, helping Kaito back to his feet. "And now I'm over it. But don't think I won't bring it up again in the future, and don't think I'm going to leave you alone about the details of your motive."

"You detectives are all so snoopy," Kaito sighed, giving his shin a good rub. "I'm not at liberty to tell you anything. You know how the FBI works, yes? I'm sworn to secrecy."

"But Saguru-kun's not. And you told him, didn't you? I can just wheedle it out of him later." She chortled triumphantly.

Kaito pursed his lips in a pout. "Maybe I'll tell you one day when it's over."

"I want to help," she hissed, careful to keep her voice low so that the couples dancing around them wouldn't overhear.

"No. Shin-chan, the FBI, and I are enough," Kaito insisted, slipping his arms back around her so that it would look like they were dancing. "You'll get yourself in trouble, killed maybe, and you'll kill Saguru along with you. You get that? It's one thing for Shinichi and me to go on a suicide mission when I've got nothing but him to lose, but you're different. You're not messed up in this yet, and I don't want you to be. It's not because you're a girl, and it's not because you lack the skill to be helpful. Honestly, you'd be an awesome addition to our team. The problem is that you're not as tied up in this as we are. You can get away and be happy with Haku-chan. You can have a normal life. Shinichi and I…we're royally screwed up because of these bastards, and we're not going to be able to rest easy until we've taken them apart with our own hands. Stay safe, Masumi-chan. Stay sane. Don't ask me about my mission again, okay?" Here the serious expression faded from his face and he smiled fondly at her. "I think of you as my sister-in-law, and I love you too much to let you get involved. Okay? So don't make this anything more than what it really is. You're brave enough, strong enough, smart enough. It's just that you're too precious to participate."

She bit her lip and stared him down for a good long while before she blew out a sigh and looked away. "Maybe," she consented. "I need time to think about it."

"That's a start," Kaito chuckled, giving her cheek a playful nip. "So…we're good?"

She thought about it all once more, not as long or as hard this time, and she nodded. A soft smile spread across her face. "Yeah. Yeah, Kai-chan. We're good. I don't understand everything, but…I know enough to be able to say that I still think you're a good person. If you ever feel like explaining it all to me, telling me the full story, I'd be happy to listen."

"Good," he chuckled. "Thanks, Mi-chan."

Suddenly a thought occurred to Sera, and she remembered the conversation they'd been having before. "But…Aoko-san wouldn't understand any of this if you explained it to her?" she pressed.

That mournful smile found its way back to Kaito's face, and he shook his head. "No. I doubt she'd even give me the time like you've been so good to do. You see, I've wronged her personally with this whole mess. It doesn't matter why I did what I did. To her, the means are far more important than the ends. I make a fool of her father. No one takes him seriously thanks to me and my tricks. I've taken away her family's honor. I've taken her father away from her when I keep him out late for heists. Even when he's not on active duty, his mind is troubled and he's plagued by me. I've stolen his peace of mind…many, many hours of sleep from him."

Even as he said all this, Kaito was the one that looked like a victim. His sins weighed heavily on his mind, haunting him daily.

"Worse," Kaito went on. "I've used her. Every time I suggested that we go bring her dad some food or a change of clothes or something while he was getting ready for a heist in order to gain access to the location, the jewel, the security system beforehand. I used her to gain access, to gain intel, to gain the upper hand. My favorite has got to be when there was a heist during a play, so I begged her to get her father to get tickets for us. Or maybe when the Queen of Ingram came with her topaz and I used Aoko to get on the same train as Her Royal Highness and the Taskforce."

He shook his head, looking absolutely disgusted with himself as he continued. "Heck, there were even times when I asked her to hang out with me so that I could stake out heist locations without seeming suspicious. We went ice skating, to the museum, the zoo…I even went so far as to use her as an alibi a couple of times. Mi-chan, what I've done on a personal level is unforgiveable regardless of my self-appointed quest to save the world."

There was silence as Masumi considered his confession. She wracked her brain, trying to think of some way that Kaito and Aoko could still work.

"She can never find out," Kaito declared definitively. "Just the pain of being stabbed in the back like that would ruin her. The sting of being betrayed by her life-long friend…by the guy she likes…it'd be too much. I don't want to put her through that. She doesn't deserve to suffer on my account any more than she already has.

"And at the same time…I have no right to tell her how I feel until I can look her in the eye and swear that I'll never lie to her again. Not until all of this is over and I can tell her the truth."

Kaito laughed bitterly at this, the unhinged look coming back to his face. "But then she'd hate me. She'd never be able to trust me again. And what kind of foundation is that for a relationship?"

Masumi felt like crying at Kaito's tortured laugh. It made tiny fissures in her heart. She could feel the cracks forming.

"I don't know what would be worse," Kaito mumbled as his hysteria died down. "…Coming clean and letting her hate me…letting her know just how badly she's been used and betrayed…or letting her go and mourn the gradual loss of an old friend without her ever knowing why."

He looked up at her and entreated, "What would you want, Mi-chan? Would you want to know or would you prefer to be quietly set free?"

Sera licked her bottom lip, nibbling on it in thought. Finally she responded, "Kai-chan, I think it's kinder to let her go. She may always wonder what happened, but I think it's less cruel than letting her be consumed by rage and hate. She's got a beautiful heart; it would be wrong to pollute it."

"My thoughts exactly," Kaito chuckled softly, resigned to his fate.

"Oh, Kai-chan," Masumi sighed, squeezing him a little tighter.

"Thanks," he chuckled, but the laugh was empty, his eyes were vacant.

They were kept from further mourning by Kaito's phone beeping and buzzing in his back pocket.

Kaito apologized as he fished out the device. "It's from Shin-chan," he observed, opening the message.

He nearly dropped the phone as his eyes widened, his mouth dropped open. "She…broke up with him."

…

Mikau: Man. I feel absolutely evil. That's two nasty cliffys in a row. ^.^; Well…hopefully you enjoyed this chapter, and hopefully I'll be able to get the next one up in the next week or two. I really want to get back into my habit of writing some every day in July, so fingers crossed that it works. See you next time guys! Take care!