A/N: This popped up one day, a while back. It never quite left. Which just comes to show how strong muses can be. Especially when they've been fed essentially with cookies. x3
This is a b-day present for butterfly-chan, for being such a great KaitoXAoko author and an awesome friend, besides. –gives usual hemisphere-away hug, the promised truckload of cookies, and a HUGE plunnie of a teddy bear nibbling on a cookie–
(This isn't what I meant to offer you at first, because the other one turned out to be awfully long. It should be posted sometime in the week, just consider as an unofficial present till then, 'kay? x3)
Disclaimer: P.E.A.N.U.T.s, Inc.
-
Twilight Blues
-
1.
There is one hell of a lot of shouts and irate hisses and broken plates the day they move in together.
The flat is small and unfurnished, because they're both in college still and they can't afford a top fare, and the bed doesn't quite fit in the corner they planned, and some of the ofudas on the wall threaten to fall off. There's a grim face-looking stain on the kitchen wall above the washbasin, and they argue so vehemently about the size of the cupboard some neighbours come out on the landing to worry around the matter.
Their immediate neighbour, an oldish lady with a wrinkled face and wrinkled hands and a wrinkled, kind smile, invites them in her own apartment, which isn't much larger than theirs, but she's a widow, she explains, and her husband's pension is enough for her means.
They have tea and some mochi together and she tells them about those who lived in their flat before – a husband and wife going through the last instances of divorce and arguing about anything and everything almost every night. Both kind in their own, weird way, she says, but really too noisy to stand around.
"I'm really glad there's a young, happy couple to replace them," she adds, and they both flush quite prettily but don't bother to deny it much.
Later, they return, and order some take-out sushi, as it's really impossible to cook in their messed-up kitchen. They eat in silence, the sounds of chopsticks fumbling around, and from time to time glance at each other almost shyly, smiling a little when their eyes meet.
It's getting softer as the night wears on, and when he kisses her he tastes slightly of soy sauce and something else, too, something essentially him.
-
2.
She still has the dreams, often.
Sometimes she will just fall into them as sleep takes her, and she tosses around to get out; some other times her dreams will slowly degrade into nightmares, and she wakes up in a sweat, breathing raggedly with her heart beating much faster than it should be allowed to.
Kaito wakes to the sound of her sobbing, and she feels his cold fingertips trailing on her naked back just as he straightens and pulls an arm around her.
She cries softly in his chest, with images of her father falling down shot and vividly red blood staining a white tuxedo still shifting pitilessly in her mind. Kaito holds her, and doesn't speak, mercifully, but nurses her back to sleep till he feels her breathing even out against his skin.
He runs his hand in her hair as he lays her back down on her pillow, and his thumb brushes against the dried trace of tears on her cheek. Somehow, it seems she hums softly. He's gentle, and looks at her face long in the night's semi-darkness before he sleeps again, too.
-
3.
Sometimes, when his train is running a bit late and hers is unusually early, they meet at the station. His hand alights on her shoulder, startling her, and she turns around with a ready-made protest, before he pulls her up against him, laughing.
She does rant a little against his shoulder, and bites gently into the sensitive skin of his neck, nibbling, just to spite him. He makes a soft hiss, and bows his head so that his hair brushes so against her forehead. She blinks the locks away, irritated.
They talk quietly as they come out of the station, throwing their tickets in the bin, of nonessential things mostly, like maybe they should stop at the ramen store on their way home instead of doing all the cooking-and-dishes business.
"Of course," Aoko huffs. "It's your turn to make dinner for us tonight," and Kaito laughs again. He does that.
He takes her hand when they're out in the half-grey, blissfully lukewarm streets, and his fingers are a bit cold as they interlace with hers.
-
4.
Only Kaito would think of leaving a love note in the fridge and feeling certain she'd find it there.
Aoko chortles, and takes the piece of flying paper away from the milk bottle, reading it for the second time with amusement while she takes a glass down from the kitchen's cupboard. It's yellow and simple, and Kaito's intricate handwriting sprawls on it in an amused cat-like fashion.
'Off at Jii-chan's. Be right back. Love you.'
He's scribbled a red heart underneath. Aoko smiles, and slips the note in her pocket. Maybe when he comes back she'll let him know that next time he can always leave it in the living-room, or even in the bedroom, where she's bound to find it. She knows he won't, though, if only to annoy her.
She wishes absentmindedly he'd told her beforehand he was leaving, so she could have asked him to buy some flour and butter on his way home. They're running frightfully low.
Milk runs cool against her throat.
-
5.
They never quite know when they're going to have sex.
Sometimes it's almost planned, because the evening has reeled off that way, and they have waited all along and aren't quite ready to give it up; sometimes anything, a completely involuntary gesture will unfasten it: a lock of hair that trails down on one's cheek, a pink triangle of tongue pinched between one's lips, a few words of nonessential matter, told in a laugh – and they will find each other kissing as though they were never meant to do anything else right then right there.
They like the creaking of the bed as they tumble onto it; they like the weight of body upon body and the warmth and the feel of skin against skin. They like the way Aoko's back is pressed into the mattress, the cool breeze that plays on Kaito's skin. They like the caresses and the kisses, always, and for all this they lose themselves in each other's arms, never quite knowing when or why they're going to make it.
Kaito is surprisingly quiet when he makes love to her; his breathing's ragged and hard but he hardly ever speaks, even for her name. She does, though, and when suddenly she whispers his name in a breathy voice, head tilting back, then he will make a sound of his own, a sharp hiss of sheer pleasure while his face comes down to nestle in the crook of Aoko's shoulder.
In the hazy mist of the afterglow, Kaito leans forward on his elbow, smiling, and trails absently his fingertips on the skin of her breast and stomach.
"It's all right, that way," he murmurs.
-
6.
Apart from the genteel old lady of the first day, not all the neighbours are saints either.
Aoko hears the whispers that follow her as she passes in the staircase, the hypocritically cheerful 'good afternoon's and the sideways glances that follow when they think she isn't looking anymore.
She knows all these people – whoever they are, well-meaning great-aunts, gossiping housewives and their leering husbands coming home at the end of the day – don't approve of young people living together without even being married, and, my dear, it's obvious they're a couple, and the whispers follow her all the way to her door.
Most times Kaito is here when she comes home, and he knows instantly something is wrong with her. It takes some cajoling to get her to tell him, and when she does, finally, he wants to go down and drop buckets of icy water on those thick heads of neighbours they've got.
Aoko holds him back, but she laughs, and it's all he wants.
They'll bother about the world outside another day.
-
7.
(No one ever said it would be easy.)
-
8.
They've stored two large, old picture albums in the whatnot. Kaito most probably has forgotten all about them entirely, but Aoko does take them out, when she's home unexpectedly early and there's nothing much to do.
The first half of the photographs are old and dating back to their younger years, back when both her parents were still alive and Kaito's father was, too.
Pictures of them both standing by the clock tower. Her eight-year-old birthday party. Touichi-san teaching them to juggle. Chibi-Keiko with half-long pigtails and a pout. Kaito immerged in Arsene Lupin's novels. Her father at the head of first KID Task Force. The two of them playing ball, a day Aoko still particularly remembers because it's about the only time she beat Kaito at it, and she picks up a pen and writes 'Ah ah aaaah I kicked your butt!' on the page next to it.
The second half is more recent, high school days mostly – Kaito reading KID articles, Keiko giggling insanely, Hakuba drinking tea, Aoko with White Day chocolates, a furious mop chase in Math. class. Aoko vaguely scribbles 'Perv' beside the picture.
Kaito, of course, chooses that moment to come home, and watches the albums with her, sometimes adding some comments of his own –'You were kind and genteel back then,' 'If I see that guy ever again I'll kick his ass,' 'Aah, yes, good day–' and Aoko's furious scrawl beside that– 'SHUT UP!'
He's got a leg on each side of her, and she leans back against his chest, her head tucked under his chin. In times like this, they think they'll be fine, surely.
-
9.
Aoko can be too good to be true.
Sometimes it's the height of summer, when she sits at the window and fans, sighing exaggeratedly the way she does when she wants to attract his attention. She's glancing at him from time to time, when she thinks he isn't looking, and Kaito bits his lips not to smile, pretending not to see.
Some other times it's the morning, and Aoko wanders sleepily in the kitchen, straying by the fridge to get the milk only to notice belatedly that Kaito took it out moments before. She's solely wearing one of his own T-shirts, which is far too big for her, and falls loosely around her figure down to her knees, and she's so innocently unnoticing of the effect of her outfit onto him that Kaito can't help wanting her even more.
He stares at her, wondering if it's possible falling in love all over again with the same person when the first time it was already such a mind-blowing beating, and Aoko looks up and snaps at him to quit staring, damn it.
He recovers quickly and grins, just because he knows it will unnerve her.
Little does he know she thinks exactly the same when he comes out of the shower.
-
10.
It's not all clear sailing from there either. They're both too stubborn and too temperamental for quarrels not to crack up like fireworks – about anything and everything, even wet matches if it comes to that.
Usually Kaito is the one who grabs his jacket and slams the door, and Aoko sinks to the floor, sulking.
Being lovers naturally brings in more trouble than being childhood friends, and she wishes they could pull it off with mop chases like they used to do. She wonders, as of now, what would happen if she grabbed one of her faithful mops and tried to swat him; if he would laugh and dodge, or grab the handle and throw it to the side.
She's afraid in such moments – immensely, exaggeratedly afraid, like a child who counts her fears – that maybe tomorrow there'll be no Kaito in her bed when she wakes, his stuff and books and clothes will be gone, will never have been there, and if they meet in the street they'll be nothing more than once-childhood friends who haven't seen each other in years.
She was forced, far too long, to give in to Kaito KID, give in to her father, give in to everything that was Kaito and that wasn't her. And then Kaito came back – hers, hers, hers – but she knows she's still got to learn how to take, after so long she spent giving. It's complicated, and maybe a little too complex for the both of them, and all she can do is wish and hope and go on living and she feels helpless.
The soft sounds of footsteps on the tatami, and she looks up at Kaito looking down at her.
(And later, their entangled limbs underneath the sheets, and Kaito's swift fingers in her hair.)
-
11.
It is hot, blindingly, excruciatingly hot, and Aoko moves quietly across their flat.
Kaito is off god-knows-where, of course, and even with her lighter clothes on and the fan going 'tchuk-tchuk-tchuk'-ing in one corner of the room the heat still chokes her breathing. She walks into the kitchen and opens the fridge wide.
The juice she makes is fresh and fruity and just sweet enough not to be sickly, and she drinks it in quick little gulps as she moves back into the living room. The fuurin she tied to the window chimes, the sound just like a drop of crystal water dripping on a long translucent surface, and for some reason, it reminds her vaguely of peaches and watermelons and the day Kaito and her moved in together.
She drops on the floor, her head tilted back. The far-reaching world is not quite there with her. An exhausted bird in the rustling branches of the tree just outside the window. A bee buzzing busily on the ceiling. The chiming of the fuurin. The light purr of the fridge in the other room.
Summer sounds, and the sweet taste of juice still on her tongue.
When she wakes up Kaito must have come in noiselessly, because he's seated beside her, with her head on his lap, and is petting her hair gently. Her breath hitches, then relaxes, and she feels his fingers linger.
She doesn't say anything. Kaito smiles.
The fuurin chimes, again.
-
12.
Sometimes when it's so exhaustively hot outside they can't even think of going out, they nestle under the cool sheets of their bed, almost-bare bodies entangled and chuckles echoing lightly from underneath their hiding place.
They laugh and whisper nothings quietly, hushing each other and giggling like children who ought to be asleep. They don't talk much, but they can't help grinning at each other and making sudden, wild motions as though to fling back the bedsheet. The other catches the outstretched arm, brings the captured hand to their lips, smile against the swift-touching fingers , just so. The first who laughs loses.
The game goes on, and the bedsheets are white-blue as they run satin-like on their limbs.
Outside, the light from the setting sun turns to blood-like crimson on the walls of the bedroom, and taints them with a faded shade of red – and, later, with the softer hues of mauve and delicate blues.
They chuckle, quiet.
Reality hasn't caught up with them yet.
-
13.
The old lady living next to them is becoming more and more of an invalid, and they often drop by, one or the other, to say they're going to the combini and does she need anything?
Most times she giggles like a pleased schoolgirl and says, no, thank you, or else asks for very little – a bottle of milk, or some miso soup.
The couple who run the combini begin to know them too, and greet them with an easy smile and an allusion to some trip they made two weeks before, during the Golden Week, and they work the automatic door open for them since it's broken down two years ago.
While they walk back, they meet little girls in uniforms coming home from school, no older than seven or eight, and there's always a girl with shining blue eyes or a boy with dark wild hair in the lot, and they chuckle, just for themselves. It's alright.
They come up the stairs, and knock on the old lady's door, and she's sitting in the exact same position as before, in one of her faded kimonos from when she was eighteen, and offers some iced tea and a wrinkled smile of hers as a thankyou.
One evening around the end of summer, after Kaito has left for his study group, Aoko catches up with him in the night, and kisses him breathlessly.
There's her arms curving around his chest, his hands on her neck and burying in her hair, her feet barely touching the sidewalk, a hurried business man who nearly runs bang into them and a thirteen-year-old girl who passes with a sympathetic giggle.
"I thought you'd told me to get the hell out," Kaito grins, after.
"Idiot," Aoko says.
-
14.
One evening, not very long before their third anniversary, Kaito comes home exhausted and finds Aoko sitting by the window, reading silently and looking up at him. He watches her without a word.
"Kaito?"
It's not often he lets himself strip up and allows weakness, and the look on his face is so intensely needful she wants to rise. But then immediately she finds him crouched at her knees, with his head on her lap and his arms around her waist, gripping at her.
"Kaito, what's the matter?"
(Because if there's one thing they've learnt, it's that they still need to look and speak to understand each other.)
He doesn't reply; at least, not at first. Then she hears her name, whispered breathlessly between his lips, and he could be crying, she doesn't know, his face is buried in the folds of her long skirt. He's shaking lightly, but she pretends to believe it's because he's cold, and hugs him a little tighter.
"Kaito," she murmurs (so they are balanced, at least balanced together) and she wants to smile or cry and she's not really sure which.
"They could just never understand us."
-
15.
In the end, it's the little things that keep them together.
There's a tree growing just in front of their living-room window. When the wind blows just a little, the branches and leaves rustle lightly, sounding just like water.
When they come home one autumn evening, the thin, almost non-existent sound greets them, and their lightless flat is drowned in the cool, merciful blue hues of the falling night. It's soft and a bit cold, maybe, but they've got used to the cold.
They dare not break that silence, but they move quietly. It's the little things. It's the love notes pinned on the fridge, the cool bedsheets in summer, the fuurin chiming, the grim face-looking stain on the kitchen wall, the milk in the evening, the wet matches, the drinks they share sometimes, the mochi and tea, meeting at the station and coming home in the cold. And, in the end, it doesn't matter – so much – the world outside.
So it's alright. It's alright. Because, no matter how far they've gone and how far they'll go, there'll always be another autumn evening and those merciful twilight blues for them.
They start on homework, boil some noodles, drink sweet juice while talking softly, the way they do when there's nothing very important to say except that they're glad to be here. The night falls on, outside, and never makes a sound.
It will be alright.
-
(It's the little things.
But it's precious, and it's true.)
-
Ofuda: they're panels on the wall, sorta to hide the stone, I guess. They're most commonly found in smallish flats or traditional houses.
Mochi: it's a rice sweet quite common in Japan. In spring it can be cherry-flavoured and eaten while viewing the cherry trees bloom (in which case it's called sakura-mochi).
Tatami: soft panels on the floor.
Fuurin: a very simple bell that's tied to the windows in summer, since its sound is refreshing and very agreeable.
Combini: a convenience store that's open 24/7. (Shame on you if you didn't see it before in DC!)
I suppose most of you knew about them already, but I thought I'd better. If anyone spots a mistake or something, let me know, 'kay? xD –offers some celebration-cookies– Next update should come pretty soon (and it's gonna be a loooooooong one). Till then, ja! Thanks for reading, minna!