Gems' Entry

by s2lou

Compilation. KaitoAoko. —To-morrow, Yesterday, To-day: Kaito would watch, silent and still, back straight like an Egyptian cat's, ears twitching in rhythm with Aoko's pained little night-noises.

9. Educated Dumbass

A/N:

A/N: This wasn't meant to be so long. It was supposed to be much shorter. I mean it. Much. But the idea for this scenario eluded me like a squirrel all summer, and then eventually it joined with that sadistic muse of mine and kept adding little pieces of it self in even as I wrote along. I survived on milk and cookies.

Time-space location (AU, folks!): London. The Thirties. (The golden age of mystery literature and so on.)

Warning: The length. (35 pages on Word… I'm dead…) Oh, and Jii-chan's French, too – I wanted to write a bit of French, so the translation for when he's talking with Kaito is a little farther in the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own the cast for this. I just dressed them up with dresses and top hats and placed them in a completely different context.

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Educated Dumbass

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MARRIAGES

Kuroba – Nakamori. On May 2nd, before the Register, London, Kuroba Kaito, only son of the late Kuroba Toichi, second son of a peer, to Nakamori Aoko, only daughter of Nakamori Ginzo, Prefect of Police of London.

--

Aoko's first thought on Kuroba Kaito was that he looked just like his father.

Minus the moustache. But he had the same tall, lean figure, the same black, untamed hair, the same blue, mocking, I'm-alright-y'know eyes. His stance – as though everything was perfect as far as he was concerned, and if it wasn't he could always laugh at it and forget all about it.

Aoko's second thought on Kuroba Kaito was that he was nothing like his father.

As they crossed the room to each other she could see the minor differences: the dullness of those eyes she remembered happy with mischief in the other man, the cold politeness which he bestowed onto her instead of the cheeky, insolent grin his father had born till the last.

He stopped a few feet from her, hovering there as though hesitant whether he should kiss her or bow, and after a minute of feeling her father's and his mother's gazes onto them from the doorway she extended a hand, firmly.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Nakamori Aoko."

"Kuroba Kaito." He shook the offered hand with a smile, but his eyes remained cool. He didn't look half as embarrassed as she was, only intrigued by her noncommittal attitude. Of course he'd gone through many an o-miaï like this before.

It was just for a few hours, she thought, just for a few hours and then she'd be free from this masquerade, from her father's fancy to try and play the matchmaker, from the cold indifference of the man in front of her. She'd be free to return to her own nice flat in downtown London, and forget all about it – maybe call Keiko or drink a glass of something while reading a good book or working on her Litt. thesis…

By the time she emerged from these thoughts, she was seated before her father's desk along with Kuroba Kaito and his mother, and Nakamori senior was reeling down a long list of amendments and articles she wasn't even paying attention to. Probably the enumeration of all the advantages they would benefit from if ever they married – Aoko glanced at Kuroba, who obviously had politely disconnected himself, and then looked out the window, thinking vaguely about telephone wires and rooftop tiles, and, for some reason, the Oxford Bodleian.

"–both families having to benefit from the arrangement, we have decided–"

Blackwell's bookstore was very fine too, Aoko thought absentmindedly. It wasn't very far, either. If she caught the 'bus at the corner of the street, she'd be there way before closing time…

"–the peerage–"

… and so she would be able to chose a good book for tonight. Or two. Or else she could always call a friend and suggest going to see a show – Laura, for instance, always had places for anybody who asked… or Mina-chan…

"–perpetuation of the family's name allied with the fortune of–"

Perpetuation of the family be blown. Her father couldn't honestly believe she'd marry anyone simply because the Kuroba's name needed to be carried out, did he? Had Kuroba Kaito been a little more friendly and open than he was, she might have considered a second before saying no, but the situation being what it was…

"–discreet ceremony and then honeymoon at–"

Kuroba Hiromi was a very beautiful woman, she thought. Even now, the loving way Toichi-san had described his wife to her was fresh in her memory, although almost fifteen years be gone – 'she always looks like she hadn't aged any farther than thirty,' he'd said, laughing. The description still fitted.

"–Kaito-kun here having left for a month–"

Kuroba Kaito was also a handsome man, she had to admit that at least. Keiko used to gather together all the clippings about him in those newspapers where he was talked of, be it about his being second-next-in-line for the peerage or speculations about a girl whom had been seen talking to him at a party or something. Keiko and her gossip, Aoko thought with an inward smile.

"–dot accounts ranging from–"

Oh, kami, she missed Oxford. There at least there would be nothing so ridiculous as this o-miaï – just peace and silent work, large stones gold in the streaming sunlight of the quad and the muffled laughter when one of the scholars in her corridor was coming back to her bedroom after pinching some milk in the buttery…

"–in consequence, the newlyweds will move in together tomorrow afternoon. After which we will make the news of their marriage public–"

"What?" Aoko started.

Kuroba Kaito's blue gaze turned onto her, and her father cut off, mouth open.

"Excuse me," she said, taken with a horrifying thought. He wouldn't have dared… would he? "I think I heard wrong. You talked about newlyweds and announcements - Kuroba-san here and I are not married – are we?"

Her father looked sheepish. "Well, actually, Aoko – you are."

--

The explanation that followed was long, confused, and, in Aoko's opinion, completely unconvincing.

"You understand," her father said, "the Kurobas are one of the only Japanese families left in London with which we are not related. As the death of Kuroba Toichi fifteen years ago – or was it longer? well, anyway – it is in every advantage for both families to unite their heirs and as your are both single children we didn't have much of a choice–"

"I don't see how," Aoko snapped. She shook her head violently, no longer caring about her elaborate hairstyle, and glanced at Kuroba Kaito – her husband­, kami – to see how he took it all, but he was merely frowning at her father. If he knew about this beforehand, she thought, I'll–

"How could you, father?"

"The ceremony took place before the Register on may 2nd," put in Kuroba Hiromi's quiet voice. "There were no friends or family – aside from your parents – or journalists. It was a simple, quiet ceremony–"

"But it wasn't!"

"Yes it was, Aoko-chan. You may not have been there, but the papers were signed, and you and Kaito were declared husband and wife. You then left for your honeymoon, which lasted a month, and only came back yesterday morning–"

"I was in Oxford a month ago."

"–Kaito was in Kent for personal business, so no one will wonder. We will announce your marriage in a few days, and meanwhile you will move in together…"

"This is ridiculous," Aoko shook her head again, thinking fast. Any second she expected to spring up with a triumphing 'Gotcha!" – but no, they all looked determinedly serious about the whole business. But it was impossible… She couldn't be married… "We can't be wed without signing something, without even knowing it…"

"You are underage, both of you," her father chanced in. Aoko glared daggers at him.

"I'll be of age in one month–"

"Things in this country would be going much better if majority was fixed at eighteen instead," Kaito put in. It was the first time he spoke since their introduction to one another, and Aoko glanced at him in relief – if he was angry, maybe there'd be a way… but he was just looking properly blank.

Kami…

What happened next was rather a blur to her. She remembered – vaguely – Kaito looking out the window, apparently no longer listening, her father and his mother talking together in a low voice, the chair's back the only actual landmark in the spinning world. Pieces of talk that reached her in bits and bits–

"–certain she'll make up to it."

"–hoping they won't–"

"–everything ready?"

"–yes, Jii-san is getting–"

"–announcements–"

"Very well," Kuroba Kaito said finally, and her head jerked up to look at him, hoping for something, anything– "I will come to fetch her at her place tomorrow in the course of the afternoon. Make sure she's packed…"

He left soon afterwards, hardly glancing at her as he passed her chair, and Aoko bit her lip when she heard the door close softly behind he and his mother. Behind her husband… and her stepmother… kami, it was a nightmare…

"Aoko…"

"How could you, Tousan?" she asked without diverting her eyes from the paperweight on the immaculate desk. "How could you?" She glared up at him suddenly, expecting him to shrink away, but he met her with a steadfast gaze which somehow, for some reason, comforted her. A little. If it was possible even to feel calmer in the situation as it was–

"Aoko. You must understand I did it only for your sake…"

"Like hell you did. And they did too, didn't they? they only had my sake at heart? Not your money at all? Not your money because they're broke and you're a prefect of police and it's better than anything? And you expect me to believe that?"

"Aoko, you're everything I have–"

She let out a short, barking laugh which made her look slightly mad. "And that's why you married me away. That's why you sold me like we're still in the middle ages – Tousan, this is the twentieth century, for goodness' sake!"

"We will talk about this again when you're calmer," her father said, coolly, and she felt the urge to punch him. "You're obviously not in your normal state–"

"I wonder why," Aoko snarled, and he looked at her then shrugged, a think-whatever-you-want sort of shrug, and it was the final split, the one which had begun long ago, when he'd started caring about his work more than about her. So that was it, Aoko thought, fighting back tears, they were strangers at last, after years of tearing apart, after years of trying to forget as much as possible about each other… they were strangers at last.

"Go back home," he said to her, one hand on the doorframe. "Have a good evening. Pack up. Kaito-kun will come and get you tomorrow afternoon–" Aoko didn't hear the rest of it. She slammed the door in his face, and felt slightly better for it.

Not enough, though. She'd like to slam a door in Kuroba Kaito's face, too.

--

He was, surprisingly, in time.

Aoko had had her things packed by mid-afternoon, had told her landlady she'd leave her flat for an undetermined while, had made her goodbyes to the familiar rooms she'd lived in the two last years, when she wasn't in Oxford. She hadn't resigned herself – she was accepting things as they came, if only to be able to fight them later.

She was just stepping back a little to prepare her counterattack.

That was all…

Kuroba Kaito stopped in front of her building by teatime, in a Chrysler large enough to welcome three times as much luggage as she actually had. She handed him the suitcases and cabinets without a word, and just as silently he charged them inside the car (how strange, she'd have expected he leave that out to a servant) while she waited beside it.

"You can get in, you know," he said finally – the first words pronounced between them – as he shut the trunk. He sat in the driver's seat, and it was only when Aoko settled in by his side that the reality of their situation hit her full in the face, just as he pulled out and slid smoothly onto the driveway. Husband and wife…

She'd gotten drunk the evening before, all alone in her flat, by the hearth, but even the bitter taste of alcohol on her tongue couldn't quite sweep her away, nor the hangover of this morning. And as she looked at her husband (the word had never sounded stranger) while he drove through London, easily skirting past the cars and 'buses, she wanted to sulk like a little child who didn't like the joke she was the object of.

She'd have to talk, though, sooner or later.

"Kuroba–"

"You can call me by my first name," he cut in, without even diverting his eyes from the street, "since we're husband and wife now."

"I'm not your wife!" Aoko exclaimed angrily. "Don't start and play the possessive husband on me!" He wasn't, not really, and his blue gaze told her that, but she wouldn't even listen to the logical little voice which murmured in her ear.

She then proceeded to sulk thorough the entire trip.

Kaito (since so she must call him now – married) lived in a two-floors apartment not far from Piccadilly Circus. An old, wrinkled man, probably his butler or something, was waiting for them at the door, looking anxious enough under his mask of impassivity.

There was something slightly foreign in his features, which was explained as soon as he addressed Kaito in such fast-speaking French Aoko couldn't catch a word out of ten.

"Je vous attendais plus tard, jeune maître. Je croyais que vous resteriez un peu ou que la jeune dame désirerait faire ses adieux… l'aménagement de sa chambre et de son salon est achevé mais j'ai bien peur que la cheminée ne nécessite des travaux plus poussés – elle ne tire pas suffisamment pour allumer un feu et–"

"Ne fais pas l'imbécile, Jii-chan," Kaito replied with a flawless accent. "On n'allume pas de feu en plein Juin. Tu auras tout arrangé parfaitement, comme d'habitude… Aoko voudra voir ses appartements, je suppose – tu peux porter ses bagages dans sa chambre. Dîner à sept heures."

"I will dine alone," said Aoko, who'd only understood the last sentence. The blue gaze trailed on her coldly.

"… very well. Still, I will have to talk to you afterwards. I will come by around eight – I trust you will have finished eating by then."

He walked past the threshold with exasperating easiness, leaving Aoko on the landing to glare at his disappearing back, and Jii-san walking back up the stairs half-crushed under the weight of Aoko's heavier cabinet.

"Wait, let me help you – err, do you speak English at all?" Aoko asked, half reaching for her suitcase and stopping rather shyly. The elder man gave her a wry smile.

"Of course," he said in English, and then switched to perfect Japanese. "Please follow me. I will show you to your rooms – no, don't bother with this, my lady." (My lady. Yes, of course, Toichi-san had been the second son of a peer, and Kaito, his son, being her husband… she was My Lady.)

On his heels, she walked through the first floor's salon and boudoir, passed the door which had just closed behind Kaito, then walked up the inner staircase which led to a smaller, more cosy room.

"There you are," Jii-san said, opening a door to the left. "This drawing-room is yours, and your bedroom is there," he indicated, pointing. "You have a bathroom with bath and shower place here. Will you want anything, my lady? I will go and fetch your luggage immediately. When will you want your dinner brought up?"

"Seven will be fine," Aoko said absentmindedly. "Jii-san…" she turned back to him, frowning. "This is a bachelor's flat, not a newlyweds' apartment."

He looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, yes… I would account for it to you, but no doubt the young master will want to explain all this to you personally. Will that be all, my lady?" he repeated elusively.

As Aoko nodded vaguely, still frowning, he gave her another of his wrinkled smiles, bowed, and left the room leaving her to wonder what the hell this had all been about.

--

(Translation: I was awaiting you later, young master. I thought you would stay a while or the young woman would wish to make her goodbyes… the equipping of her bedroom and drawing-room are finished but I'm afraid the chimney will want some sweeping – it doesn't draw enough to light a fire and–"

"Don't be a fool, Jii-chan. One doesn't light fires in mid-June. You will have arranged for everything perfectly, as always… Aoko will want to see her apartments, I suppose – you can carry her luggage there. Dinner at seven.")

--

Kaito knocked at her door when the clock struck eight, as he had told. Aoko had finished eating long before, and watched him come in with a slight glare, noticing abstractedly that he'd dropped his grey jacket and was in shirtsleeves. He closed the door softly behind him.

"Well?" she asked before he'd had time to come in much further. "What is it you wanted to tell me?"

She was seated by the cold hearth, and he leant against the chimneypiece, looking down at her with a thoughtful air. Aoko got impatient, fidgeting nervously under those blue eyes she had never been able to resist to, both in the father, and, she suspected, the son. "Well?"

"Well, I'll come of age in three weeks," Kaito said, and Aoko's glare at him turned puzzled. "And so will you, I understand, a week later."

"And?"

"And, the both of us being independent, we will be able to do as we will. I'll apply to the Court of Divorce then, and since we neither of us have any real claim on each other, we should be able to come off it by August or September–"

Aoko did a doubletake. "Wha – you want us to divorce?"

"Don't you?" asked the blue-eyed man. "I thought you didn't like the mere idea of this marriage… and so as neither do I… it is the best solution for the both of us. Unless you disagree," he let his voice trail off, as though to say, 'Then you don't know what it is you want.'

"Of course I want to divorce!" Aoko protested indignantly. "But I thought – for the son of a peer – wouldn't that make rather a scandal?"

He shrugged. "I don't really care. So it's settled, then. Of course, in the meantime, we'll have to pretend we're actually married – well, we are – and with you off to Oxford and me in Kent for a month, both of us, we won't have to pretend too hard we've gone to our honeymoon–"

"We are not married!" Aoko exclaimed, rising. Kaito looked at her darkly.

"Are too."

"Are not!"

"We are married, Aoko, whether you want it or not. Our parents signed the necessary papers a month ago, and thus made us, their children, husband and wife. There's nothing we can do about that at present. And if we are to live on together till September, we ought not to start on meaningless quarrels."

"Fine," Aoko snapped. "But if that's so, we'll have to decide on some conditions. There's no way I'll take your arm in public or kiss you to amuse journalists or play the newlybride ever so possessive about her loving husband–"

"I'm not asking you to. Just pretending is all that'll do."

"–and," Aoko insisted, "no claiming your conjugal rights either."

He gave her a long look. "… I wasn't going to," he said finally, in an undertone that clearly said he thought her no screaming big deal. (For some reason, that angered her even more.) But it appeared he had nothing further to say.

"Alright, then. If Jii-chan has carried all your luggage here – do you want anything else?"

She didn't know what was more irritating with him – his apparent care for her comfort or his condescending tone. They both seemed worse than the other, and back again. "Nothing," she fumed. "I just want you to get out of my room."

His ever-blue eyes fastened on her, then he shrugged. "Fine. Goodnight." And walked out without another word.

Aoko dropped herself back in the depths of her armchair, bristling, and tried to remember how the hell she could ever have thought him like his father.

--

She was awakened at six the next morning by a brisk, loud rustle of wings just outside her window.

She sat upright in her bed, still dazed, and ran to the window, thinking maybe it was some kind of emergency of something. It wasn't, but about a dozen doves flapped their wings against her face as soon as she had pulled the pane open.

Once she had gotten over the shock both of the wake and the birds, she blinked around, trying to discern something in the brilliant sunlight which streamed on the street below. The roofs were shimmering red, and the thin, lithe shapes of the white doves stood out fast against them, in a constant blur, before they turned less distinct still against the flawlessly blue sky.

"What–?" she stammered, wishing something would suddenly pop up and make sense. The breeze against her skin was cool, and she was shivering in her thin, light nightgown.

The white blur swooped down toward the building again, and all but landed around a balcony on the same story, hardly a few windows away. A dark silhouette stood against the light, arms strewn with doves, and too far for her to make out his face, but she knew it was Kaito.

Of course it was. Only he would keep doves in the neighbourhood, and only he would open his window to them at six in the morning, just to wake everyone who was still sleeping.

She slammed the window shut, fuming.

"I hope the young master didn't wake you up this morning, my lady," Jii-san asked her when he served her breakfast – she'd demanded she'd eat in her apartments every meal, if only to spite Kaito. Who didn't seem to care. Obviously the whole pretending-to-be-husband-and-wife business didn't stand at home.

"As a matter of fact, he did," Aoko groaned, stabbing her scrambled eggs with an angry fork. "What business does he have leaving his doves out so early in the morning, anyway?"

"Toichi-san used to do it as well," Jii-san said, wistfully. "The young master just took it up when his father died. It is a habit, really. I daresay he did not think it might awake you – he is not used to welcoming young ladies inside the house, I must say."

That was a bit strange, considering the amount of girls and women he had been said to see regularly, but Aoko didn't pick it up. "That's the problem – he doesn't think," she said, but without conviction. Then, with renewed exasperation, "Is he always so proud and self-conscious anyway?"

Jii-san was looking down at her strangely, and for a second she was stricken by the idea that he may not know about their marriage in-name-only; but obviously he did. "Kaito-san is a very caring young man," he said, a little stiffly. "I'm sure if you just gave him a chance, my lady, you would–"

Presently the phone rang, and Jii-san ran away to get it in the next room. Would what? Aoko thought, looking at his back. He returned to her almost immediately. "My lady, a phone call for you."

"For me?" Aoko repeated, and knew it must be her father. No one else (yet) knew she was living here.

"A very – er – enthusiastic young woman," Jii-san added cautiously, and Aoko picked up the phone more puzzled than ever.

"Hello?"

"Aoko-chaaaaaan!" Keiko's high-pitched voice whined in her ear. "How dare you get married without letting me know! And with one of the cutest lambs of the generation, too! You were even off in a honeymoon and you didn't tell me anything? How dare you do that to me, Aoko-chaaaaan?"

"Keiko," Aoko breathed out. "How did you know I was here?"

"Your father told me, of course. Oh, he was very kind, even gave me the number and everything, but of course I couldn't wait to get to talk to you at last, dear! So tell me, how is it like being married to Kuroba Kaito? Oh, and you didn't even invite me to the ceremony…"

"Uh…"

"And the honeymoon, too! Oh, it must have been fantastic! Tell me everything, darling. I suppose you went to France's Côte d'Azur – that's the place to go, of course. It must have been beautiful, truly… Oh, I envy you so much! And you came back to London and didn't let me know, naughty girl! But now you shall not escape me. You will tell me everything I want to know! How did you come to know Kuroba-sama in the first place?"

Aoko took a deep breath and dashed away in a long lie.

"… and so we started to correspond while he was, err, away on business, and I guess that was settled from the time when he sent me a letter ending with, 'If I have to come to that I will die in your arms,' and…"

"Darling, how fantastic!" giggled Keiko, who'd always loved cheap romances. "Just like something out of a book!"

Aoko smiled at the window, letting her friend babble on – then frowned at Kaito who'd just entered the room through the door in her back and had picked up the other receiver to listen to their conversation.

"–you must have looked beautiful in white – what flowers did you carry, I wonder? White roses or orange blossoms?"

"Keiko, I'm going to have to hang up," Aoko cut in, still glaring at Kaito. "I've got to… I've got to go now. It was great talking to you again. Please drop by one of these days for tea. You know you're always welcome at my house…"

"Oh, but we've only talked five minutes–" click.

"How dare you!" Aoko fumed. "How dare you listen to my conversation with a friend of mine? It's not like you're concerned in it or anything–" Kaito put the receiver down, looking stoic and very much in his right.

"It's my house," he remarked. "And besides, it looks like I was concerned, since you were talking about our wedding…"

"There was no wedding!" Aoko bristled. "There was an arrangement between our parents – a marriage in name only, and we're going to get out of it in a few months. It had nothing whatsoever to do with us!"

"You were inventing a pretty story for that friend of yours, though."

"That was just because Keiko was demanding details and I couldn't quite give her any, could I?"

"No," he shot back, hard-mouthed, "but she sounds just like the kind of girl who'd give anything for juicy news and then spreads them round at light speed, with more details of her own invention. Strange as it may seem, I don't want my wife or myself to be laughed at–"

That was the final mistake. "I'm not your wife," Aoko hissed, picking up a vase on the chimneypiece and lifting it threateningly at him. "Get out."

"Put that down," he said, coolly. "That's china."

"Get out."

That was the last she saw of him that day. He kept locked up in his office till four, then departed – she heard the front door slam – and Jii-san informed her as he served dinner that he'd gone to see a show with some friends, with whom he would eat afterwards.

It was late into the night when she heard him come back in. Lying restlessly in her bed, she overheard the muffled voices of his and Jii-san's as they conferred together on the first floor, then the slow creaking of the stairs' steps when he came up, and later, the closing sound of a door.

Aoko turned her head in her pillow and slept.

--

Her second morning in Kaito's flat was even worse, if possible, than the first. Jii-san brought her the papers when he came in with breakfast, and she had hardly opened them that headlines of different types and sizes but all flashing up to the eye made her realize what it was exactly she'd let herself in for.

'FAMOUS HEIR MARRIES PREFECT OF POLICE'S DAUGHTER'

'KUROBA KAITO UNEXPECTEDLY WED'

'THE PRINCE AND THE SHEPHERDESS'

'Quiet ceremony on May 2nd'

'Secret engagement'

'Honeymoon in France'

There were photographs of Kaito on every front page, and old pictures of herself at fifteen which did her no credit at all, plus short biographies of her life (all of which excepting her Oxford years, for some reason). If one newspaper said of her that she was 'a lovely girl with a beautiful complexion and stunning dispositions for nobility' (whatever that meant), another described her as 'a well-off maiden who would do anything to latch of a member of aristocracy, the grandson of a peer being better than nothing at all.'

Her father and his mother had said a few, official words about the ceremony and a supposed secret engagement dating back to five years, and some skilled reporter had even dug up Keiko, who no doubt had been delighted to give away any information she held.

Aoko read it through, and instantly knew it had been a great mistake to tell Keiko everything she'd invented for her the morning before.

'Why, yes,' the interview went, 'of course I knew about their engagement – they were corresponding, you know, and Aoko always was in a sort of daze when she emerged from his letters. They had to keep it secret, you see, because they were so young, but eventually I suppose their parents must have gotten used to the idea (they weren't so keen on it at first, of course) and so they were married.

'I didn't get to assist to the ceremony, because it was to be so quiet and simple, and they didn't want to attract attention, but I did see them off to their honeymoon. Aoko looked beautiful in her white dress and orange blossoms. They went to France, see, on the Côte d'Azur, which is the perfect place for newlyweds, and remained there for a whole month, after which they came–"

That does it, Aoko fumed, putting the papers down and making briskly for the door. I'm going to see Kaito and tell him I'm going back home, arranged marriage or no. It's high time something's done with the situation anyway–

He was standing with her back at her at the foot of the staircase, in a grey suit with a soft hat, and seemed to be waiting for something. "Kaito!" she called out angrily, galloping down to meet him, and prepared for another fight.

He turned and, lo and behold, it wasn't him at all. It could have been his brother, though – he had the same black hair, though tamer, the same blue eyes, the same figure, if only slightly taller. He met her, as she slowed down highly embarrassed, with an amused smile and an outstretched hand.

"Sorry – wrong person. I'm just a visitor. My name is Kudo Shinichi–"

"Oh – I'm Na– Kuroba Aoko," she replied with a flush, cringing mentally. A marriage in name only, she told herself severely. In-name-only. Apparently unconcerned, Kudo Shinichi shook her hand briefly, then looked onto her with the same half-grin.

"So you're Kuroba's new bride. It's nice meeting you – I read about you," he indicated the newspaper tucked in his jacket pocket, "and of course I've met your father several times. Though I believe not much of it is half true – is it?" His eyes seemed to be looking through her with alarming easiness. Not really like Kaito's–

"Not much," she agreed, still flushing.

"Will you believe me if I tell you that in the four years that lasted our acquaintance and friendship, Kuroba never so much as mention your name–"

"And you, Kudo," came a light, mocking voice from the floor above, and they both looked up to see Kaito leaning over the banister with a soft grin Aoko had never before seen on his face, "are no one to talk. If you only came back from your trips on the day you said and not two weeks afterwards–" He came down the stairs with his hands in his pockets, looking glad enough to see him. His eyes swept on Aoko more softly than the day before.

"Ah, Kuroba – nice to see you too," Kudo grinned back. "I've just met your wife – she thought I was you, you know…"

"You did?" Kaito asked her, sounding genuinely surprised. Aoko nodded gruffly, and he smiled at her again – and for a reason that had absolutely nothing to do with it at all, her heart began to make saltos.

It was over just as soon, however – Kaito led Kudo in his bureau, saying gravely they had to talk, and Aoko walked back up to her rooms, feeling disappointed and slightly disgruntled. She didn't know when exactly Kudo left, but probably before noon, for she had just finished her lunch when Kaito knocked at her door.

"We're going out tonight," he said to her. "You might want to dress up."

"Going out?" Aoko repeated blankly. "Where?"

"Yes – Kudo and a bunch of others have decided to hold a late bachelor's party for me – and a welcome party for you at the same time, I suppose. Seems that Kudo has nothing better to do after a month-long absence," he added a bit irritatingly. "So put on something nice."

"I suppose we can't avoid going?" Aoko asked hopefully. He looked at her, and shrugged.

"No. We can't."

He'd said to dress up, but she rather doubted any of the clothes she'd brought with her would quite qualify for a dancing evening in aristocracy. Eventually she resolved on a simple, fitting dress, which would at least spare her the shame of being thought over-sophisticated with too much jewellery and too many ornaments, but when she came down at eight Kaito was waiting for her downstairs in full evening dress. He gave her critical look, but made no comment, and gave her a long coat to put on before they came out in the street.

Jii-san had called for a cab (probably it didn't do to arrive at a party in one's own car, a breach of etiquette she didn't know about), and they settled on each side of each window, pointedly looking at everything that was not each other. With a lurch, the taxi pulled forwards.

Probably, Aoko thought, annoyed by Kaito's lack of reaction, he was thinking up methods of teaching her how to introduce herself to whoever she'd meet, how to not appear impolite, how to keep in her place, the mistakes to avoid which she would necessarily commit – the smug, educated dumbass–

"I know it's difficult for you to settle in a new background and meet another circle of friends," he said finally, and she waited for him to say she was too inexperienced, to say she needed taming. "But put up with it. You'll fit in all right."

Or he was going to let her ridicule herself. Proud, indifferent… "And what's that supposed to mean?" she spat out.

He looked at her. "… nothing," he said disgustedly, and looked back out the window. It was only to look back in immediately, and rap softly on the glass pane which separated them from the driver's seat. "Oï, man. Stop here a minute."

The cab slowed, and Kaito dashed out before Aoko had time to understand. She bent to look outside. It was the clock tower here, the clock tower where so many times– unsettled, she saw Kaito stoop at the foot of it and pull out something red – what was he doing exactly? He laid the red thing on a stone. From afar it looked like a flower… then he was back, climbing back in the car and pulling the door shut.

Aoko raised her eyebrows at him. "What was that for?"

"A tradition," he replied easily. "Something I think I owe my father." He sat back in his seat and gazed wistfully back out the window, and Aoko dared not speak again till a few minutes had elapsed.

"I don't dance," she said then, abruptly.

Kaito glanced at her. "Of course you do. Your father told me so."

"No, I – I mean, yes, I can dance," Aoko elaborated, "but I don't. I had few lessons when I was a child, but it was so long ago, and when I tried again a few years back I danced like a penguin. Ever since, I don't – simply don't dance. I stay on the side and talk."

Kaito looked back out the window, at the rapidly darkening shadows. "Well, maybe all you need is the right partner."

"And that would be you?" Aoko bit down, exasperated by his nonchalant, indifferent attitude.

"We'll see soon, at any rate."

Wonderful, Aoko thought disgustedly. She was not only going to ridicule herself with her inelegant dress and lack of manners, she was also going to trip over her own foot and make a bloody fool of herself on the dancefloor with a godforsaken husband who didn't care two pennies for her. Wonderful.

--

The Kudo household was gigantic.

A white-gloved manservant met them at the front door, nodding at Kaito like some old acquaintance, and let them both in, booming in a stentorian voice, "My lord Kuroba Kaito and lady!" loud enough for almost everyone in the grand room to turn and stare at them. Aoko inched instinctively closer to Kaito, and he squeezed lightly the arm she'd slid under his.

Kudo was already coming forward to meet them with a genial face and a few words of welcome. "Aoko-san, how nice to see you again… Kuroba, don't stay planted there like a tree. Your wife will want to meet our guests. Ran seems to have disappeared," he added, looking round with a slight frown, "I apologize – but she will be there presently."

Aoko heard him ask the manservant to go looking for Ran, whoever Ran was, while Kaito carried her away to introduce her to an easy fifty guests. She shook hands, smiled pleasantly, bobbed her head, curtseyed, spoke 'How do you do's and 'pleased to meet you's, tried not to trip on the corner of her tumbling shawl, clutched Kaito's arm like a harpy to avoid losing him in the crowd, and eventually, among the blur of colours and voices, found Kudo laughing behind them and pushing them toward the dancefloor, "Kuroba, this is your bachelor's party, after all!"

Dancing couples obligingly moved away to make room for them, and Kaito grabbed her hand firmly, one arm sneaking round her waist. "Just stay calm," he advised coolly in her ear. "You'll do fine." He spoke with a kind of detached care which only infuriated her more.

Aoko took a deep breath and didn't answer, trying to concentrate on the steps she'd been taught – how long ago? Her hand was shaking in Kaito's longer one, and she let him lead, feeling it better to just forget her anger at him for the moment and keep focused on dancing. One, two, three… one, two, three… one, two… one step up, two steps back. One step up, two steps back.

Surprisingly, it was better than she'd expected, and she even found herself relaxing, just so. Kaito was leading her around the dancefloor with a firm hand, his hair tickling her left cheek and breath coming down on her neck before he looked up and gazed at her seriously. Aoko looked away.

His mouth was just against her ear. "Aoko–"

"Oh, Kaito-kun!" a young woman with as high-pitched a voice as Keiko's cried out from the side of the dancefloor they were currently waltzing past. Aoko started. "How could you get married to someone that's not me, you naughty boy! You should have known I'd never let anyone get between you and me–"

Kaito led them both away, his face closing back into ice age.

They were silent all the rest of the way. Aoko did not trip over hers or anybody's feet, and was agreeably surprised – it seemed that despite the long years that had gone since she'd taken lessons, her body still remembered the dancing steps it'd been taught. The few times she'd tried over the last five years had inevitably led to disaster, whichever the partner, but this time it was all right… this time it was easy.

As their waltz finished Kaito led her back to the side of the floor, bowed deeply, and walked away without a word. Aoko turned away, thinking, Maybe all you need is the right partner, and very grumpily not accepting the truth of that assertion.

Kudo came up a few minutes later to claim her hand as well, and she only tripped twice, each time profusely apologizing to a laughing Shinichi. "It's all right," he said to her, after she very nearly threw herself over his outstretched arm. "Ran was like you, you know," and though Aoko still had no idea who said Ran was there was enough affection in her partner's voice for her to understand.

When that was over there was nothing much to do. She went down to the bar and vaguely engaged conversation with a girl who seemed to be waiting for something. When that lady's young man came forwards to ask her to dance, there was no one near in the immediately vicinity. Aoko yawned, gulped the last of her drink, and wandered away.

She knew no one, and no one knew her. Of Kaito's manifold introductions to half the room half an hour ago she only remembered blurred faces and voices, and she could not find any of those who were still fresh in her memory – and besides, to tell them what? She felt stares follow her as she passed past groups aimlessly; she wondered where the trouble lay – her dress, her lack of manners, her way of walking?

Eventually she sat down to listen to an old colonel from the Marines who was delighted to have someone to talk to. He veered away in a long monologue, about what, she couldn't be sure, something about velvet-covered armchairs and asparaguses… Aoko's attention strayed away.

"Of course it's a recurrent position, my dear young lady, I'm sure you agree, you must have been confronted to the same kind of situation yourself–"

Aoko fell into a dream. Kudo was standing in the doorway, welcoming in more guests, and Kaito – she looked around – was dancing with a young woman who had her back at her, so all Aoko could see was her long, silky hair and expensive dress. She danced far better than Aoko ever should. As they swept smoothly on her side of the dancefloor, a few couples away, she heard Kaito laugh.

One couldn't breathe in here. It was stifling, all the windows were closed, and Aoko was feeling soft of nauseous. She excused herself rapidly to the colonel from the Marines, and fled hastily into a smallish room at her elbow.

It was deserted and dark, and once the door closed the sounds of the party muffled up. As Aoko wandered away in the long corridors, they vanished altogether.

It was colder here, and silent. Aoko stopped in a large, windy room with all the windowpanes wide open, blue and black and grey, and hugged herself, taking deep breaths. It was better here. She was at least spared the amused looks on her dress, and Kaito's–

"Hullo!" a feminine voice called out from the balcony, and Aoko started.

"Oh – I'm so sorry – I didn't know there was anyone there," she explained, turning to go, but the voice called her back.

"Come and sit with me, will you?" Aoko stepped onto the balcony to meet the sight of a young woman a few years older than herself, but otherwise her splitting image. She was smoking, and grinned at her. "Hullo! I don't know you. Which means that, logically, you must be Kuroba's new bride – I'm Kudo Ran, by the way. I think you met my husband this morning." She tapped lightly on the stone beside her to beckon her over.

"I – yes," Aoko said, rapidly recovering. No wonder Kudo couldn't find her if she was here smoking. Ran caught her lingering gaze on her cigarette and grinned again.

"Shinichi doesn't like me to smoke. Can't blame him, though. So you are Kuroba's wife at last. It was high time, I gather. Kuroba always told us about you, poor bloke… He was smitten, all right."

"Oh, surely not," Aoko protested, feeling he must have been talking of another girl entirely – but she didn't tell her that. "I rather doubt Kaito would tell anything about me to anyone."

"But he did, he did!" Ran exclaimed, with a fresh laugh. She had this kind of elder-sister look which immediately entrusted Aoko to her – and she had yearned for a companion to tell everything to for so long… Keiko was no confident, and Kaito – still less.

"Is all this story about a five-years-long engagement true, by the way, or is it just journalists making crap up? I don't really figure Kuroba sending you romantic letters, for some reason… newspapers would do anything to gather some juicy news, be them true or not. They don't care two pence about verisimilitude."

"Nothing of what the newspapers said is true!" Aoko exclaimed belligerently. "… If they had known the actual truth, they would have been much more delighted, I think. But I guess our parents took care of making things sound credible enough–"

"What do you mean?"

Aoko looked at her, and blurted out, exhaustedly, "It wasn't a romantic wedding at all. There was no wedding. It was a commitment between our families – a deal our parents made… nothing, nothing of Kaito's relationship with me is true."

Ran was staring at her with eyes so wide they swallowed a third of her face. Presently recovering herself, she tapped the balcony beside her again and said, "Sit down. I think you've got many things to explain."

Aoko took a deep breath, and explained away.

--

"I see," Ran said gloomily, when she had finished. She extracted a fresh cigarette from a silver case, and proceeded to light it. "Well, all I can say is, that's a bloody mess you're in. No wonder Shinichi didn't tell me that."

"You think he knows, then?"

"Of course he knows. Kuroba's his best friend. He was his best man at our wedding…" Ran fell into a contemplative silence, which she shook herself out of after a minute. "How do you manage living together? You haven't ripped each other to shreds, it seems – yet."

"We don't. Live together, I mean. I stay in my rooms all day, and he either goes out or closes himself up in his bureau." She ran a thoughtful hand in her hair. "He's… –the flat's so large and silent, I'm never sure I mightn't break something fragile just by moving."

"That butler man of his is very fine, though."

"Oh, old Jii-chan is alright. He's wonderful with stuff. He's doing all the cooking, and he's got to have nerves of steel with such an employer as Kaito. He's the only one who's been remotely civil with me so far," she laughed. "Apart from you and your husband…"

Ran sighed and stubbed out the end of her cigarette. "We should go back," she suggested, getting to her feet. "Shinichi is probably having a fit – he should be used to it after knowing me so long – and Kaito must be worried about you."

"I don't think so," Aoko murmured.

"You should. You never know." Ran took her arm firmly and led her away on through the dark, blue rooms up to a door Aoko had never seen in her life. She probably would have lost herself a thousand times over if she had tried coming back on her own. "Let's just look happy and chatty about everything, shall we?" Ran grinned again, and pushed open the door.

They hadn't gone three steps in before Shinichi fell on their backs like a fury.

"Ran! Honestly, I know you don't like those parties so much but you could pull yourself together for at least a few moments – I wanted to introduce Kuroba's new wife to you but now she seems to have disappeared, too…" He stopped short at the sight of Aoko. "Oh. Well. It seems that you found each other."

"So we did," said Ran, sweetly, but Aoko wasn't listening anymore. Kaito was still dancing, with the same young woman. She recognised the long, silky dress and expensive dress, and as they swirled around expertedly she saw her face, handsome and laughing and well-defined. She was a very beautiful woman.

So much for Kaito worrying for her at all, she thought.

"Ran-chan. Who is that girl Kaito is dancing with?"

"Who? …oh. It's–" Here Ran appeared to be picking her words cautiously. "She's Koizumi Akako. I think you may have heard of her."

That was an understatement, and as she looked into the attractive face of the woman on the dancefloor, Aoko thought she understood why. Koizumi Akako was one of the richest heiresses in London, one of the most coveted too. Just like Kaito was. Just like Kaito had been…

Ran seemed to have perceived her confusion, and did not say anything. Her hold on Aoko's arm just tightened a little.

A young man who'd been standing with his back at them stepped back then, just as Aoko forced her gaze away, gently shoved her elbow aside and very nearly knocked her glass of – champagne or something – all over the front of her dress. He turned immediately, with on his lips a quick apology, and a just as easy smile when he laid his eyes on her.

"Frightfully sorry, mademoiselle – why, Ran-san, you never told me you had such a lovely friend." His voice was rich and smooth, and if his fair hair and light eyes indicated he was English, there was something oddly Japanese in his features. "You might at least have the decency to introduce us to each other."

Ran looked very much as though she could have spared the task. "Aoko-chan, this is Hakuba Saguru," she said reluctantly. "Hakuba-kun, this is Kuroba Aoko," and if Aoko had thought the man's interest on her would deflate once he knew who she was and who she was married to, she was disappointed.

His smile grew ten-fold, and he snatched the hand she'd extended to shake his and lifted it gallantly to his lips, with a charming smile. In the corner of her eye, Aoko saw Kaito approach them, his partner still latching onto his arm.

"Why, so you are Kuroba's new bride – what you saw in him, I wonder… ah, Kuroba, here you are." He didn't seem embarrassed in the least. "I was just making the acquaintance of your lovely wife. No wonder you wouldn't show her to us till now… but I see you've been neglecting her," he added, with a hard look on Koizumi Akako. "Maybe the neglected lady would accept me as a dancing partner, instead?"

"Hakuba…"Kaito began, threateningly.

Aoko glared at him, a don't-you-even-speak sort of glare, and to Hakuba Saguru, "I will dance, thank you," and Ran had hardly the time to whisper hurriedly in her ear to be cautious that he'd already dragged her away on the dancefloor.

"Well, well, well," he murmured, once they were out of earshot. "Already tensions in the married couple?"

"No," Aoko immediately retorted, knowing it was the worst thing to say, and he smiled sweetly at her.

"I am glad of it. Very glad indeed."

They swept a moment in silence. He danced differently from Kaito, more intricately, and Aoko had to do her best to follow his complicated steps, so she almost didn't hear his next words, "You're completely different from what I expected, you know."

"Really?" she said, absentmindedly, concentrating mainly on the convoluted figure they were elaborating.

"Oh, yes. From what I read in the newspapers, I expected you to be one of those dreadful modern girls, with blue stockings and ideas about sending women to Oxford. Thankfully, I see you are nothing of that – a girl from the ancient century, sweet-tempered and innocent." She couldn't quite be sure if he was serious or not, and half made up her mind to tell him she was one of these women with ideas who'd gone to Oxford, but resolved on not. Hakuba caught sight of her smile, however.

"You should smile more often," he whispered. "You should dance with me more often, too… so tell me, lady, what in the world possessed you to marry Kuroba Kaito? Surely it can't have been love."

He was sporting the seductive grin which must have thrown a hundred women to his knees, and Aoko had no envy to be added up to them. But the image of Kaito laughing with Koizumi Akako imprinted itself on her mind, and she threw caution to the winds… "Maybe – not," she chanted, and Hakuba looked delighted.

"Aah… there I think we both agree," he murmured, leaning down so that his mouth was just against her ear. His arm tightened a little around her waist.

"Perhaps we do not, though," Aoko murmured back, pushing him away gently, but firmly. Hakuba grinned again.

"I am not one to be discouraged so easily–" the music was drawing to an end, and he led her away from the dancefloor, on the far other side from whence they had started. His hand was still holding hers. "If you must know, I'll–"

"Aoko."

Aoko jumped. "Don't do that!" she exclaimed, glaring at her husband. "Next time you sneak up on me like that, I swear I'll–"

"I was looking for you," Kaito cut in, apparently unconcerned with her ranting. "I asked for a cab. It's waiting for us at the door. Come and say goodbye to Kudo and Ran-san." His eyes turned a fraction of second onto Hakuba, but didn't linger, and returned to her immediately.

"But the evening isn't even half-gone," protested the other man, just as Aoko hissed, "Don't give me orders!"

"I'm afraid we can't stay longer," Kaito replied rapidly. "An unexpected emergency is calling us back home immediately. Come on, Aoko. We're in a hurry now." He grabbed his wife's wrist and made to lead her away.

"Wait." Aoko pulled back. "Thank you," she said to Hakuba. "For the dance."

"Aoko–"

"Thank you," she repeated. "I mean it."

Hakuba took her hand and kissed it, again. "Lovely ladies deserve lovely treatments," he whispered, and Kaito stole her away.

They said goodbye to Kudo and Ran in a hurry, were led outside in the blue night by yet another white-gloved servant, and waited in the cold for their cab to be brought up to the front steps. They had hardly come down them and Aoko immediately rounded on her husband. "How dare you come and interrupt us like that! How dare you take me away? How dare you? What do you think you can do with me? Who do you think you are to order me around? You smug, self-righteous little swine–"

"You're my wife," Kaito said, and took advantage that she was choking with indignation to take her arm again and drag her over to the door of their cab. "Climb in."

The door closed on them, and with a lurch the car dashed forwards, upsetting them, but Aoko didn't care. "I'm not your wife!"

"You are. You are for now, Aoko – and let me speak! You don't know Hakuba Saguru. You don't know what he's done. He's made a habit of seducing every married woman he can – the only one I know who's been resisting him is Ran-san. If he starts attacking you–"

"Then I'm not to worry," Aoko spat. "I'm not married."

Kaito's glare onto her got colder still. "I don't care what you say. This is the situation, and we'll have to make up to it for now. I thought I'd made that clear. Now, if you intend to make me, or yourself, the laughingstock of the whole aristocracy–"

"What about you, if it comes to that?" Aoko exclaimed, in a voice that rose into alarmingly high-pitched tones. "You've danced with me once when I'm supposed to be your wife, but that didn't bother you to dance twice or more with other women – if you prefer the company of one Koizumi Akako to mine you have no lesson whatsoever to teach me!"

Kaito looked up at her immediately, and in the blue of those eyes Aoko was caught breathless. She already regretted her outburst, and looked away, hoping the relative obscurity of the cab was dark enough to conceal her flush. She did not want to give him anything easy. She did not want to give anything away. She huddled in a corner of the car and kept her eyes resolutely fastened on the town lights passing by, and Kaito was silent as much as she was.

She wanted, idiotically, to burst into tears. She refrained them, however – Kaito would be far too pleased. No weaknesses… they would fight this out until one of them fell. No weaknesses. No weaknesses. –She tightened her shawl around herself. It was cold.

They reached home in utmost silence. Jii-san appeared to open the door while Kaito was paying the cab's fee, and Aoko dashed inside without a word.

She rushed upstairs, her shawl falling loosely behind her, hesitated a second in the corridor, and made for her bedroom. Just as she opened the door, however, Kaito grabbed her wrist again, making her stop cold; and she glanced up at him, glaring through her bangs. He was slightly breathless. He must have run after her.

"Aoko…"

"I'm going to bed," she murmured, looking down, and pushed her way out of his grip, past the door, and inside her bedroom.

She didn't want to cry anymore.

--

Aoko's first thought in the morning was that she was going to see her father and telling him she was putting an end to this masquerade, and then she was going home. Home. Far away from Kuroba Kaito's and Hakuba Saguru's… far away from them all, just alone and home.

By the time Jii-chan brought her breakfast, she'd revised that. She was going home directly, without even stopping at her father's. He would only try and persuade her not to anyway, and Kaito could rant all he wanted at her decision, she didn't care. If she left this morning he wouldn't worry about her till tonight and…

She was wondering lazily whether there was a plan of the London underground somewhere on this floor when Kaito knocked softly on her open door.

"Can we talk?" he asked, which surprised her. Usually he didn't ask, he just fired away without warning. Biting her lips for want of a better response, she nodded grudgingly, and Kaito came in (back away! back a-way!) – but hesitantly, as though he wasn't quite sure exactly what he was going to say. Aoko had lived with him long enough by now to know Kuroba Kaito was never at a loss for words…

"What is it?" she asked, not unkindly.

"I – listen, we need to stop. We need to stop arguing like we do all day – it won't lead us anywhere… I'm sorry," he said belatedly. Aoko gaped, surprise such that it brought her to her feet.

"You're what?"

"I apologize." He was looking at her directly, and she felt he wasn't backing away at all. "I shouldn't have been so harsh with you yesterday night. Of course you couldn't know who Hakuba Saguru is behind his good looks. But you'd disappeared and when I found you again you were with him… I guess I must have freaked out," he added with a sheepish laugh.

It was like floating in mid-air.

"No – I apologize," Aoko murmured, only half-believing her own ears and mouth. "I – I've acted like a spoilt child all long. I know it hasn't been easy for you either, and you don't like the situation any more than I do… but I needed someone to take it out on, I guess. I'm sorry. I mean it," she added, as he stared at her, dumbfounded.

"… I guess we're both bloody idiots, then, aren't we?" he grinned suddenly, and Aoko immediately felt the temperature crank up a few degrees. She had never realized the room had been so cold before he'd come in. She grinned back.

"Yeah."

"Truce, then?"

"… truce."

"Starting back," Kaito said again, and extended a hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Kuroba Kaito – an educated dumbass." His smile stretched out a little.

Aoko shook his hand. "Charmed. Nakamori Aoko, first-class fool." She laughed suddenly. Kami, what a situation. They should have done this ages ago instead of biting off at each other like two frightened beasts… he must be as stubborn and thick-headed as she was, she thought wryly. Incidentally, too, they were married.

Kaito was holding her hand still and smiling vaguely – just like Toichi-san used to… it was in the strangest moments that the son reminded her of the father, but it came to her more and more frequently.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked suddenly, and she was startled out of her thoughts. He'd let go of her hand, and she felt it fall nimbly back to her side.

"I… yes. Very well. Although those birds of yours woke me up again," she wrinkled her nose. "But you didn't," she added, remarking belatedly the grey rings under his eyes. "Have you been working late again?"

"Yes…" he rubbed his jawline tiredly. "I'm working on some tough papers…" His eyes were wistful and slow. It was strange actually having a civilised conversation with him. "Something I just can't understand–" he stopped abruptly and grinned down at her again. "How do you know I'm working late often anyway? Have you been stalking me?"

Aoko flushed beat-red. "Of course not. Jii-chan told me. He said you were locking yourself up in your bureau with papers and a coffee pot and there was still light under the door when he put the lamps off and went to bed himself," she elaborated.

"Sometimes I fall asleep there," Kaito murmured absentmindedly. "I'm too tired to walk up to bed, so I just pop down in one of the armchairs and get a bit of sleep… which usually results in having a nice cramp in the neck the next day," he grimaced. "I'd better go back to it. I'm glad we had this conversation, Aoko."

There was the way he said her name, softly and carefully, as though it was an object of attention… at the door he stopped.

"Aoko, will you lunch downstairs with me today?"

She found herself nodding.

--

After that discussion the next two weeks elapsed by quietly enough.

Both husband and wife respected the truce, and the household was comparatively tranquil and noiseless. Aoko even caught Jii-chan humming to himself once she sneaked up on him in the kitchen. Kaito laughed his head off when she told him that.

They didn't spend much more time with each other. They had their meals together (expect breakfast, which Jii-chan brought to both in their rooms) but otherwise Kaito mostly kept himself locked up in his bureau and worked for days on end. Sometimes he would dash out to tell her he wouldn't be dining with her that night, too much work to absorb himself in, and dash right back in, his hair more dishevelled than ever.

By the end of that first week she received a telegram from her father. It couldn't have been shorter.

'Hope you're doing fine with Kaito-kun. All for your sake. Love. N.G.'

Of course it would have been much too time-consuming to write a letter or even pick up the phone, Aoko fumed, crumpling the paper. And what was that about waiting two weeks before he took care of her wellbeing?

Kaito would want to know about this, of course…

She met him, not in his bureau for once, but on the downstairs phone. He was in

shirtsleeves, and obviously had ran his hand in his hair several times already, for it was wilder than she had ever seen it.

"Mother – no, of course, everything's doing fine. No, really. And Jii-chan's been acting as a perfect chaperone, so you needn't worry." He laughed, and turning his eyes to the door, caught sight of her. He smiled. "Keep it low, Aoko's eavesdropping."

Aoko smiled back and closed the door softly.

After reflection, she wired back to her father, 'All for the best', and didn't sign it off. Both N.A and K.A would have sent him in a fit of nerves anyway.

They went to see a show twice, and dined with the Kudos once, in a simple, quiet restaurant which seemed to be a personal favourite. The location was agreeable and without affectation, and Ran took Aoko aside after coffee.

"Well. It seems that you two haven't ripped each other shreds yet," she said, lighting a cigarette. "Have you called up a truce or something?"

"A truce," Aoko agreed. Through the yellow-tinted glass, Kaito and Shinichi were still sitting at their table, talking fast in low, excited voices. She wondered if Kudo had been working as much during the last few days as Kaito had. He certainly looked like he lacked a few hours' good sleep, too.

"My dear girl," Ran dropped nonchalantly, "if you go on staring at your husband that way, I will start to believe you're in love with him."

Aoko jumped, looked at her in horror, and started to splutter.

"You know," Ran said amusedly, "it is not so uncommon. Only in talkies do all husbands love their mistresses and loathe their wives – and vice-versa. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to like, or love your groom simply because the two of you are already married."

"Our marriage was set-up," Aoko reminded her.

Ran shrugged. "That's no difficulty, either. It may be unromantic, but if you really love him, why should the fact that you were wed beforehand be stopping you? –this as a common generality, of course," she added cautiously.

Aoko emerged from that discussion confused and unsettled.

The next morning, she went to see Kaito in his bureau and asked him if there was anything she could do. Her husband emerged from his ocean of paperwork and files with a nonplussed look. "What do you mean?"

"Well – I need to work," she explained, squirming uncomfortably. She still remembered what Hakuba had said about 'those dreadful modern girls, with blue stockings and ideas about sending women to Oxford.' "I'm getting bored here with nothing to do."

He frowned. "Why don't you work on that Litt. thesis of yours?"

"… what thesis?"

He frowned some more. "Why – I assumed – your father told me you'd begun a Litt. thesis while at Oxford. It's not finished, is it? there's a pretty good library down the corner – it's not the Bodleian, of course, but you should be able to find as much information as you need for the time being. And if you don't, we can always run up to Oxford and spend a few days there–"

Aoko was gaping at him. "Did I say something strange?"

Presently she recovered herself. "No. It's perfect. Thank you," she said, for what, she didn't know, and retreated before he could ask himself.

She went, consequently, back to her own old flat, to recover the first draft of her thesis which she hadn't thought of taking with her (not even to spite Kaito, who obviously didn't care a damn anyway), and had to suffer half an hour's monologue from her landlady, who'd 'read all about the young lady's affairs in the newspapers and was really charmed she could have found such a lovely and caring husband. Well, not that herself had anything to say, her own poor man, who'd been dead three years this July, having been quite considerate with her in their youth–'

Aoko fled, really hoping she would never be found talking that way about Kaito, not even in her old, ga-ga-ing age.

Like Kaito had said, the library down the corner was very fine (he must have come there many times himself, and even indicated her a few books which might interest her the first time they went there together) and most afternoons of hers were devoted there. The librarian, though surprised to have a woman so regular a visitor, was very helpful once he had been explained the situation, and allowed her to take home a few documents which she wished to peruse more attentively. If this went on she'd be working about as hard as Kaito already was, she thought wryly.

It wasn't enough, however. She was living entirely at Kaito's expense, and although he probably could perfectly afford it and more, she did not want to be thankless – and consequently shocked Jii-chan half to death when he surprised her one morning making a battlefield of the kitchen and a flour-covered statue of herself.

"My lady!" he cried out, making a wild grab for the falling eggs before that resulted in another disaster. "My lady, please don't bother – if you want a particular recipe for tonight, you might just ask me, I am entirely at your convenience…"

"Oh, don't be a killjoy, Jii-chan," Aoko said happily, wiping her forehead and smearing it with more flour. "I'm enjoying myself here. Ran-chan gave me a recipe of lemon pie I want to try out… but you can help me if you want," she added benevolently.

"My lady – it is quite irregular…"

"Well, I don't mind. Let's be frivolous and cook ourselves. Give me that milk jug."

Kaito came home to find his enthusiastic wife making a flour path between the kitchen and the dining-room. He paused. "What's going on here?"

"Ah, Kaito!" Aoko exclaimed, pushing strands of hair falling in her eyes out of the way and looking delighted to see him. "We're making a lemon pie – what fun! Old jii-chan is completely out of his wits, I must say. The kitchen is a no man's land. You must come and see."

"What did you do that Jii-chan let you throw decorum to the winds?" Kaito asked, obligingly letting himself be carried away. "Did you murder him? There's no way he would let 'her ladyship' transform herself into a kitchen maid unless something drastic happened."

"Oh, I bullied him. I'm quite good at bullying people."

"Not everyone can bully Jii-chan," Kaito remarked as they reached the kitchen door and he noticed his manservant standing in the middle, swathed in flour and looking round in polite despair. "Hullo, Jii-chan! looks like you've let Aoko have her matter out with herself, haven't you?"

If there was something to say for Jii-chan it was that he never was at a loss for words. "Young master," he said, turning back to an amused-looking Kaito while an eager-looking Aoko started back on her pie, "you have married a young woman like no other."

"Oh, I know," Kaito said, watching Aoko tie up her hair.

Jii-chan, despite his protests, was forced to sit down at the table with them that night, and the lemon pie was delicious.

--

The end of those two weeks of relative peace saw the start of another quarrel. Later on, Aoko would insist it was all her father's fault, and he certainly could have made his second telegram a little longer than the first.

' Delighted. Keep on. N.G.'

"Three word and initials!" Aoko fumed as she paced restlessly the drawing before her husband. "He couldn't even put in 'best regards' or something – it wouldn't have cost him two pennies more!"

"If he says he's delighted there's nothing more to add," Kaito remarked, laying the cable aside.

Aoko rounded back on him, furiously. "Oh, of course, you agree with him! I didn't explain anything about our situation when I wired back to his first telegram, but I'll bet you took all the pains possible to invent a pretty-looking story for your mother!"

"Just like you did for that friend of yours," Kaito replied coolly. "Besides, it was necessary to come up with a plausible, credible story, instead of nonsense about honeymoon in France and whatnot. We need to pretend, not–"

"Oh, and so what did you tell her? That we adore each other and sleep together every other night?"

"Aoko!"

"What could you tell her if it wasn't that? And I suppose she told it, with more details of her own invention, to my father – who was so delighted about the thrilling news that he even forgot to remind me that he was my father and still had two pence of love for his own daughter!"

"Oh, so it's my fault, then?" Kaito snapped, standing up so they were facing each other. "It's my fault if you don't get on with your father?"

"Whose else would it be?" Aoko snapped back, not very truthfully, but she was too mad to care. "If you and your mother hadn't been there my father would never have thought of this crazy design of an arranged married – as a matter of fact, I believe it's the two of you who put the idea in his head in the first place! And then he sold me over for the sake of the Kuroba's name!"

"That's what you think, then?" he shouted. "You think I married you because of the Kuroba's name–" but she was shouting louder than he and muffled the second sentence.

"I damned well do! You think I wanted to be wed to and living with a smug, educated aristocrat–"

"Your relationship with your father has nothing to do with me, Aoko! If I'm not mistaken, you've been that way for years – he's been ignoring you and preferring his work better than you, and you've been taking it all in, and now you're putting the blame on me!"

"That's right," Aoko snarled. "It's all my fault." Her lips were trembling, and she tried to pass him by, but his arm blocked her. "It's all my fault!" she cried, and there was a hysterical, on-the-verge-of-tears dimension in her voice which made him shiver. "Now will you leave me alone and LET ME PASS!"

His arm fell to his side and she ran over to the door, biting her lips not to cry. She wanted to hit him, beat him, make him cry out in pain – and she knew the exact thing, the exact words which would get straight past his carapace to his heart – and break hers as it went.

"At least I still have a father," she dropped over her shoulder before slamming the door shut.

"Aoko–!"

She ran up the stairs and locked herself up in her room, heard beating erratically, but he didn't come after her.

Later that evening, as Aoko, coiled on the windowseat in her white nightgown, stared outside in the street, the clock in her bedroom tick-tocked its way steadily on to twelve. The strokes echoed gloomily in the silent emptiness, and Aoko started, turning her eyes on it in startled fright… she felt the tears run again, down her cheeks and into her mouth, past her lips their salty, bitter taste on her tongue.

It was the 25th of June.

--

Aoko kept her room all day.

Jii-chan tried to cheer her up as he brought her a late breakfast and lunch, but she shook her head. "It was a mistake from the start, Jii-chan. I should never have even accepted the idea of this marriage… I should never have come to live here at all. We will hate each other to bits."

Only when he was about to leave she dared ask after Kaito.

"He's kept locked up in his bureau all morning, my lady," Jii-chan replied, with a weary smile. "He didn't sleep in his bedroom last night."

She knew he hadn't. She would have heard him; she'd been listening for the sounds of his footsteps. None had came, and hope had withered away just as easily as it had formed. It was laughable, really, the way she was completely dependant… the way it was all so likely to deflate when they were less wary of it.

Laughable… laughable…

Jii-chan left, leaving her to the sole company of bacon omelette and her own, whacked thoughts.

Lazily, she thought about Keiko, and all those journalists who'd been making hot headlines of their marriage. They'd be delighted, after two weeks of repeating the same old news everybody knew and steadily passing on to something else, to hear about their divorce a few weeks' hence. There would be the talking neighbours and well-meaning great-aunts, who'd say they'd seen it coming all along, who'd say a lord's son couldn't possibly marry a common girl like the daughter of a police officer…

There would be those who'd laugh, and those who'd pity. She couldn't know which were worse. There'd be those who'd say they had known all along they couldn't be happy… and little would they know, as of yet, of the actual truth, the one which was kept secret by their parents' signature on a paper.

Not theirs. Never theirs. They were kindly pushed to the side and supposed to accept anything that came their way with deliberate submission that bordered on insult. Her father would be furious when he'd hear of their divorce.

Let him. It would do him good for him not to have what he wanted.

She shivered, and hugged herself a little tighter. It was so cold.

--

At eleven the following night, she rose from a cold bed with the silly hope that maybe Jii-chan wouldn't be finished with this day's chores yet and maybe – maybe – would extend kindness to making her a cup of tea or some hot milk.

She crossed the corridor and came down the stairs in the cold, dreary blues falling in by the window, but when she reached the inner hall there was a faint light coming out from Kaito's bureau – a slit of thin gold onto the dark tiles of the floor. The door was opened just a crack, however, so it wasn't Kaito, who always locked himself up, but Jii-chan, probably putting out the lamps or–

It wasn't. She had hardly pushed the door a little more ajar that her eyes fell on Kaito, sitting by the dim glow of the fireplace with a book in his hands. He was concentrated in his reading, and for a second Aoko was caught breathless. She stepped backwards, hoping she would get away unnoticed.

No such luck. The hinges creaked, and Kaito immediately looked up.

There was a pause.

"Aoko," he said, finally. She saw the long, fine hands lower slowly to lay the book on his lap. "What – what are you doing here? Why aren't you in bed?"

Aoko looked away. "I – I couldn't sleep," she said, and cursed her stammering voice. "I couldn't sleep and I wanted – I wondered if maybe Jii-chan was still awake and could heat me some milk. I thought–"

"I can do that," Kaito said, and rose. "No need to wake poor old Jii-chan. He's had a hard day already." He laid his book aside and brushed past her, murmuring as he went: "Sit down. I'll be right back."

He left, and Aoko saw his figure outline itself in the blues of the halls on to the kitchen door.

There was no light on in the bureau, except the faint hum of the fire in the hearth, which crackled and fizzled and cast a wavering glow on the walls. Aoko stepped in, looking round. Kaito's desk, covered up entirely with piles of papers and files. The long bookcase, wood dark-brown and extending on the wall. The two armchairs by the fireplace. The chimneypiece, a clean marble, supporting some china and a nice collection of photographs.

A face smiled at her which she already knew. Kaito's mother, several years younger, laughing at whoever was taking the picture. Kaito himself (was he seven or eight?) running after an escaped ball. Toichi-san – there were several of those – alone in full evening dress, on the church's steps with his bride, with baby-Kaito on his arm, with ten-years-old Kaito in some park and both of them grinning at each other.

She smiled and took the picture down, brushing her thumb on the glass.

"That's my father," Kaito said behind her, making her very nearly drop the frame. She caught it back and turned to him, open-mouthed, but he was just smiling softly, gazing at the picture. "It was just a few weeks before he died…" he whispered, laid the plate he was carrying on the coffee table, and straightened again to take it from her. "Tousan was…"

"I'm sorry," Aoko blurted out. Kaito started, and put the picture back on the chimneypiece.

"Err – come again?"

"For yesterday." She knew she must be looking foolish, looking intensely at him with her hands fisted in her nightgown, but she didn't care. She didn't care for anything. "I'm sorry. It was stupid. It was selfish. It was – I'm so sorry…"

He ran his hand in his hair, looking down sheepishly. "It's – okay, I guess. I've said inexcusable things too." He sat down, and for the first time she noticed how tired he looked. There were dark rings under his eyes and he rubbed them wearily. "We… we never do things like other people, I guess…" but there was a smile in his voice and Aoko felt lighter. She sat opposite him, bringing her knees up to her chest.

"Bloody idiots, uh?"

"We can't be anything else," he retorted, with a soft grin. "Have some milk."

He had brought her milk, all right. Along with some cacao, sugar and honey-flavoured biscuits. In silverware.

Aoko wanted to laugh. "You must be the only aristocrat who not only makes his own midnight snack buts arranges them in his mother's silverware," she remarked, dipping the tip of a biscuit in her teacup. "Jii-chan must be ashamed of you."

"Oh, he is," Kaito was sipping tea exactly like any other English gentleman. It made her want to smile, and smile she did. "He's in despair of ever bringing me up to the rules. Says I'm way too much like my father in some ways. Looks like Tousan liked to run around in his shirtsleeves and come out in the streets without his hat… shocking," he added, in a perfect imitation of Hakuba's snobbish voice. Aoko chuckled.

You are like him, she thought, gazing at him. In many ways – probably more than you even think. "He was a good man," she said abruptly.

She immediately regretted it. She thought she might have given the game away, but Kaito gave her a curious smile and nodded. "Yes, he was. Very much so."

"He did magic, too." She couldn't help herself, really – it just came out of her mouth. "I mean – I read about it – Keiko," she lied, by way of an explanation. "What I mean is… he was well known for his imitation skills and magic tricks…"

"Shocking," Kaito said again. "In the eyes of all good society, he was The Man Who Must Not Be Talked About. Which is probably why he liked it so much… if only to spite them. Those magic tricks of his are probably a dearer heritage of him than his name or his wealth or his title–" he trailed off, remembering.

"Did he teach them to you?" Aoko helped herself to some cacao.

"H'm. A few. Some others weren't altogether perfect when he – when he died, so I finished the job–"

Aoko put her teacup down. "Show me!" she pleaded, hugging her knees like a little child. She felt about as excited as years before, under the clock tower– "Please? Pretty pretty please?" she was quite good at looking like a yearning kitten.

"Aoko – oh, all right." He grinned suddenly, and it was Touichi-san's grin, the one he had before he was going to pull a coin out of her ear or a rose out of her hair or something equally technically impossible. "So what do you want me to do?"

A dove erupted out of nowhere and alighted nimbly on his shoulder.

… it seemed that Kaito was, really and truly, his father's son.

Looking at him right now, surrounded by doves and confetti and flags, he looked just like Touichi-san had, long ago, in the dusk upon the clock tower. And yet there was something else, too, something Kaito-ish, something she couldn't quite place. In the way he moved his hands, in the way his birds seemed to coo down at him (no, Touichi-san's doves had loved him as well – were they the same, by the way? She doubted it, but how long lived a dove…) in the way, maybe, he laughed like a happy child, while Touichi had smiled calmly, as though all this was simple and easy, but Kaito – Kaito didn't even appear to be thinking at all. He was just doing it.

And obviously he was enjoying it.

And suddenly Touichi-san was there, again, beaming down calmly at her and whispering, 'You'll like Kaito, Aoko-chan. You are alike, the two of you.'

"Aoko?"

She looked up. He was leaning down to her, worry written all over his face and one hand struggling with some juggling balls and flags and stuff while the other had just been squeezing hers gently. "Are you alright? You looked strange…"

"I'm fine," Aoko assured him. She eyed his hand occupied by all the trumpets. "Can I–" she hesitated– "can I try to juggle?"

He didn't look surprised, didn't ask anything, but handed the juggling balls over. "Sure." He turned away to drop all the rest of his stuff on an empty armchair, and came back to her. She had stood, and was staring at her hands grimly.

"It's a while since I ever practised," she explained, lifting her eyes at him. "I dunno if…"

"Try on." He passed behind her, to lay the plate on his desk – out of harm's way, Aoko registered numbly. "It's like riding a horse. Or a bicycle. If you did it once you never quite forget. Go on," he urged, still in her back.

Like she had thought, the first moments were disastrous. After some fumbling tries, however, she thought she'd got the knack again, and a few minutes' practising were enough, after that, to bring it round quite nicely. The balls were flying and tumbling in elegant leaps, her hands hardly shifting at all to catch them. She smiled, when she got more confident; she had almost forgotten the delight and satisfaction it brought when she managed to do it all right.

"See?" Kaito said, at her shoulder, and she nearly lost it. Recovering, she hissed,

"Don't do that!"

He laughed. "Fine. Ah – careful–" she'd dropped one of the balls, and he caught it easily. "Calm down. Breathe – there, it's alright. Better. If you move your left wrist an inch to the side you will find it easier to catch… here!"

He'd covered both her hands with her own, his chest pressing against her back, and she was immediately scarlet, immensely grateful that he was behind her and could not see her face while juggling with her. His movements were swift and calculated, each motion reaching up and progressing down to catch each ball with perfect precision.

He had long, fine hands, fingers which carelessly interweaved with hers, and his mouth was almost muffled in her hair. She needed to breathe.

"It was great," Kaito said, when the movements finally slowed down and the balls were all in their hands. He was still behind her, and his voice vibrated only inches away from her ear. It did nothing to help. "You're good at it."

"I had a good teacher," Aoko said, and paused. "A while back."

Kaito was silent. He let go of her right hand, so she could turn to him, but kept the left one in his, thoughtfully. His eyes were serious onto her, and blue, blue like they never had been – it was maybe just the effect of the faint light reflecting, but she was certain he had never looked at her that peculiar way. "Aoko…"

She waited.

"We should go and get some sleep," he said eventually.

"Oh!" That was not what she had expected. "Yes, I suppose you're right." She handed him the balls, but he shook his head and pushed them back.

"I've got others. And you need to practise. Come on." He started towards the door, still holding her hand, and she could do nothing but follow. The silverware and fire in the hearth were left as they were, for Jii-chan to find in the morning. Poor Jii-chan, she thought as she climbed the stairs behind Kaito. With the two of them snapping off at each other and struggling constantly with each other, he certainly had much to do.

Kaito's hand was warm against hers.

At her bedroom door they stopped. She figured Kaito would bid her goodnight and pick his way on to his own room in the dark corridor, but he didn't. He squeezed her fingers, kept them in his one thoughtful moment, then let go.

"My book," he said. "I left it downstairs. Go to sleep," he told her. "You look like you could sleep on till doomsday."

She cracked a smile and watched him nod his head, then turn towards the stairs. "Kaito?" He stopped and looked back at her, and kami, she was stupid. They were passing the first instances of divorce in two weeks. They were supposed to hate each other's guts, not hold hands and teach juggling. "Happy birthday," she said lamely. "I'm sorry."

"Love is a devilish fool." He shook his head. "Goodnight."

--

The week between his birthday and hers elapsed at an alarmingly fast pace.

Jii-chan made no comment when they resumed being comparatively civil and amicable towards each other on the 26th. He merely gave Aoko one of his wrinkled smiles which made him look much younger, and lunch that day was one of the best they had shared together.

There weren't many changes, though. Kaito kept more locked up in his bureau than ever, and Aoko was rarely ever at home, her thesis and the library and two invitations to tea from Ran keeping her nicely busy. They met during meals, and went to a show one evening – more for gusto than for the pleasure of going, however. Her father had arrived one morning to ask them to show themselves more. People were starting to whisper, he said. Aoko didn't care a damn.

One evening, the day before her birthday when she should legally come of age, she came downstairs – maybe for the same reasons, maybe not – to find light filtrating again under Kaito's door.

Working up late again, Aoko thought deprecatingly, and pushed the door open a crack wider.

There was no light in the hearth this time. The light came from a gas lamp flickering on Kaito's paperwork-covered desk, and for a moment, she thought he was just bent over his folders and files. After a minute, however, she saw he was asleep.

He had his head pillowed in his arms, breathing softly among toppling piles of papers and what looked like invoices. He must have been mulling over them all evening, she thought, extracting a pen from under her hand. The faint light flickered on his face, picking lines and shadowing the trembling eyelashes and the long, relaxed mouth.

She reached out to bring the light down. He was probably cold, even in summer, and she draped her long fitting shawl around him, fingers just lingering on his shoulders and making sure it didn't loosen off. Locks of black hair were dropping on his eyes and nose.

He stirred. She shrank away, but he merely sighed deeply and tightened his arms a little.

"Aoko…"

All in all, it was much better he was asleep.

--

Aoko woke up on her birthday morning with thoughts of lemon pies dancing around in her head. She dressed up all along like a good girl, and was met by Jii-chan in mid-staircase, just as she was coming down on her way to the kitchen.

"Hullo!"

"Good morning, my lady. The young master asked me to give you this."

It was her shawl. She recovered it, frowning. "Couldn't he give it to me himself?"

"The young master left early this morning, my lady." He started to walk downstairs with her. "He told me to wish you a happy birthday, and to say he's sorry, he was called away on an emergency relating to his work. There is a present for you in his bureau. Will you care for any breakfast, my lady?"

"Sure," said Aoko, absently. He'd left. An emergency relating to his work… a present for her… she wasn't certain whether she should feel pleased or offended. And he slept so little there days…

The bureau was still a mess, but it seemed that the piles and piles from paperdom on the desk had melted partly down. A gift-wrapped package had been left by the gas lamp; with it no note, no indication, only a dark-red ribbon and a rose.

A present, she thought, carrying it up to her room. It spoke of a certain degree of intimacy which she wasn't sure they had reached, or hadn't already walked right by. And there was something else, something which she didn't seem to be able to quite grasp at–

After a moment's reflection she tore it up.

It was a book – one of the books she had been rummaging around to find in different libraries, which neither of them had a copy of. She wondered, vaguely brushing her hand against the cover – How had he known he wanted it? Where had he found it anyway?

You're interested, Kaito, aren't you? she thought, and then sat down to work.

The day passed on quiet, mostly in writing and moping and a call from a fairly exasperated Ran, who said Shinichi had been gone hours and hadn't even left a note to say where he was going or when he was coming back.

"Kaito's disappeared, too," Aoko told her. "He left this morning in the early hours."

"I knew it," Ran muttered. "It had to be something between the two of them – Shinichi was working so hard recently, and when there's something fishy Kuroba is necessarily implied, too. When will they learn that we're not the kind of wives to wait for them behind without a word and a worry in the world?" she burst out, and hung up before Aoko could say anything more.

I'm not Kaito's wife, she thought, putting the receiver down. Not strictly. Not to his eyes – nor to mine. She eyed angrily the long pages of writing she had reeled off in the afternoon; she was suddenly taken by an immensurable hatred for them. Worried wife be blown.

"Damn it," she muttered, between her teeth, looking around from something to break, and the door opened just in time to avoid the massacre by decapitation of a vase of flowers at the window.

"Well, Jii-chan, what is it," she called irritatingly, turning to face him – and she instantly knew something was very, very wrong. The old man's face was a blank, blanker than any butler's could or should be, and his eyes were dull and expressionless as his voice formed over the words.

"I think you should listen to the wireless now, my lady."

He stole away before Aoko had time to question him.

There was a wireless set in the other room, the one adjacent to her room and to Kaito's, and another downstairs, which Jii-chan had probably been listening to while – cooking dinner, or dusting the windows… Aoko moved quick to flick the switch on.

'… crfkcfkr… repeat,' a man's nondescript voice crackled. 'We as of yet have no further news from inside the trial court where the accused have taken hostages the whole court and the assembly. We are, however, assured that they had accomplices among the crowd, who overcame the forces of police before passing their stipulations to the outside of the building, where we have sent reporters at this hour, and regiments of police have been sent to intervene if necessary, but it seems that the aggressors are armed and threaten to, err… bump off one hostage an hour if they are not listened to…. crkfkckrkf… we remind our listeners that the great surprise of this trial was to find in the prosecution box not only Kudo Shinichi but Kuroba Kaito, son of the famous and deceased Kuroba Touichi. Nakamori Ginzo, Prefect of Police…–"

The phone rang.

Aoko leapt to it before Jii-chan could pick it up downstairs and pressed the receiver to her ear. "Hello!"

"Aoko-chan, is that you?"

"Ran-chan," Aoko breathed out, now experiencing the very curious sensation of feeling intensely relieved and intensely distressed all at once. Then again, who had she been expecting? Kaito's mother? "Yes, it's me."

"Have you heard?"

"Yes."

"I've run through Shinichi's things," her friend said, sounding less panicked than Aoko felt – possibly she was used to this kind of thing, her husband having a reputation as a detective. How could she have forgotten that? How could she have overlooked the fact that Kaito was his best friend? "It seems that they have been studying for this trial for a long time now – maybe months."

"What case is it? what trial?" Aoko asked, her mouth dry.

"The Stanford case – I think you know what that is."

Ran didn't add anything by way of an explanation, and she needn't anyway. Aoko knew all about the Stanford case. Her father had worked on it for years – had been on the trail of this organisation which passed drugs from one frontier to another under the eyes of the police for years. Six months before, he had managed a spectacular arrest of two of the three head-chiefs, exploit which had brought on his immediate promotion. She had heard somewhere that Kudo Shinichi had helped him out… and probably Kaito had, too.

"I'm going to kill him when he comes back," Ran was hissing on the other end of the line. "It's not the first time he's doing that sort of things, but that's really going too far – Aoko, are you still there? Aoko?"

"Yes," Aoko said slowly. "Ran-chan, can we do anything?"

"We can do nothing."

After Ran had hung up she sat in silence for long minutes, trying to piece it all together. Presumably Shinichi and Kaito had been helping her father out with the case and as such were main witnesses for the prosecution (so that was what Kaito had been working on so earnestly, preparing for the trial…). So now they were in that trial court, along with her father – the speaker on the radio had told his name, but she had assumed he'd just been making official declarations.

Instead, the three of them were taken as hostages in a shut-up trial court, at the mercy of dangerous criminals, who were all the more likely to take it out on them who'd thrown them in jail in the first place.

Kami…

(I'm going to kill him when he comes back, Ran had said. But what if they didn't?)

After a few minutes she went downstairs to speak to Jii-chan.

He was in the kitchen, making dinner, his face back to usual. The eyes he lifted to her were, if anything, looking more distressed than anything. Weren't butlers supposed to be impassive? Aoko thought irrelevantly – but Jii-chan wasn't a butler, he was an old friend of the family, and probably one of the persons on earth who knew Kaito best.

"I don't think Kaito will come home to dinner tonight," she said slowly. Jii-chan nodded bleakly, and she was struck by the helplessness of the situation. They could do nothing. They could do nothing. Only sit and wait. "Has this kind of thing happened often?"

"Not very often, my lady," the elder man shook his head. "It's – the young master has started helping Kudo Shinichi-san for more than a year now, but no situation has been so grave up to today. Nor so–" he cut off, but Aoko could finish the sentence alone. Nor so hopeless.

"Very well, then," she said. "I think… I think you should make an omelette and bacon for when he comes back, and light a fire in the drawing-room."

Their eyes met in perfect understanding.

--

It was a dreary night. Aoko sat by the wireless, coiled on the windowseat and in a blanket, listening to the reports of the situation which came in from time to time, interrupting the broadcasting. None of them brought any useful information.

'… the aggressors have now passed their reclamations to the police. They want total immunity when they come out, and forty-four hours to get out of the country before they are searched for again…'

'… a messenger they have sent to the outside has said that one hostage has already been shot down… it would be one of the two lawyers for the defence…'

'The presence of Nakamori Ginzo inside the trial court has so far prevented the taking of any important decision…'

It was sickening.

Kaito had been working on this case for her father all along, she thought. He'd passed days and nights in his bureau, chewing over tons and tons of paperwork and testimonies to make sure he was ready for the trial. He had helped him out in the first place – how, she didn't know, but he had – and then he'd spent all his free time gathering data so the Prefect of Police was not caught empty-handed when it came to witnessing in the prosecution box.

And all that time she'd acted like a spoilt child, throwing tantrums and snapping at him, telling him he was no good for anyone, telling him he only wanted their fortune allied to his own name, telling him he didn't care at all for her and her family. Telling him her father had sold her to him, telling him she hated him, telling him…

Kaito had exhausted himself working for her father, for her father's name. He had looked so tired, sleeping in his bureau. And her father hadn't thanked him at all, when he'd come to visit them. And she'd been horrible with him all along. And all that time… all that time…

Kaito…

'… we do not, at present, know the exact outcome of the situation inside the court. Further bulletins will be broadcast.'

The clock read ten-thirty. Downstairs, she heard Jii-chan moving about, replacing restless chairs and building useless fires, putting back books, shutting windows. The way he did every night… but the scheme had something intensely sinister to-day, as though it might be the last time he ever did it.

She had to stop thinking that way.

The closing of a door downstairs, and silence. The clock read eleven.

'… local bobbies now gathering by the court, ready to intervene manu militari in case anything happens. Officials have not yet given their explanation of the situation, nor the possible decision that will, eventually, have to be taken. Further bulletins…'

If Kaito didn't come back (and she couldn't help thinking that way, not with the situation between them taking such a turn) if Kaito didn't come back, she would be left a very young, very wealthy widow, prey to all the Hakubas of the world.

But what did it matter? She wasn't Kaito's wife, was she? She had never been. It was a marriage in name only. They didn't love each other. Their parents had set it all up…

Still, it hurt.

Damn it. It hurt like hell.

With a jolt, she realized it was her birthday.

'… another messenger sent by the aggressors saying another hostage has been shot down, and the rhythm will only increase if their reclamations are not accepted immediately. Officials in charge have not yet declared anything in suite of…'

The hours passed on. Eleven-thirty. Midnight.

The best Hour for a crime, Aoko smiled grimly. She turned her look to the window. Outside, the lights of London spread indefinitely – or so it seemed. There was a strong concentration of yellowed blurs in one corner – kami, it felt so close… so close she could have flied to the roof and gotten inside the building, making sure Kaito was alright, really alright…

Fifteen minutes to one. One-twenty.

'Further bulletins will be broadcast.'

How could it be so cold?

'Further bulletins will be broadcast.'

You should have known I'm not the kind of woman who stays behind and waits for her beloved husband, Kaito, Aoko thought desperately. And there was a strange twinge in her gut, as though something was not quite right. As though she should be knowing something.

'Further bulletins will be broadcast.'

It was twenty minutes to two.

'We remind you that Kudo Shinichi, the well-known detective, Kuroba Kaito, son of the late Kuroba Touichi, and Nakamori Ginzo, prefect of police, are all three among the hostages. Also Mouri Eri, the famous lawyer, and step-mother of Kudo Shinichi… crflrfclflr. We, as of yet, have no idea who is alive and who is dead.'

Twinge.

Aoko sat still, the folds of her blanket falling loosely around her.

After a while she started to cry.

--

When she woke up the wireless was crackling grimly, and the sky outside was a pale white. The sun had not yet risen, and the horizon just above the rooftops was a very faint, hesitant sort of gold, blurred by the mist coming up from the Thames. It was the crack of dawn, and it was very cold.

On the other side of the floor, Kaito's doves were making such a ram she could hear them all the way to here.

Twinge.

Kaito, she thought. Kaito is gone. She looked at the wireless set, but it was only making fizzling, non-descript sounds. If any important news had been broadcast, she had certainly missed them. It made her sick even to think of it… And Jii-chan must still be asleep.

Twinge.

Images came pouring in.

The way he'd looked at first glance, looking so much like his father and yet so much not, so alike and so distinct because he was an entirely different being – the hair, the eyes, the look, the cool smile, the hands in the pockets which he had taken out to shake hers–

The same Kaito, in the car, saying, 'You can call me by my first name now, since we are husband and wife.'

Herself, insisting, 'No claiming your conjugal rights either,' and the long, hard look he'd given her then, and the way she'd been so furious after that, the way she'd wanted him to go and stick his head in a bucket of water–

The brisk rustle of wings in the wind the next morning, and his silhouette outlining against the sunshine–

His soft grin at Kudo telling him she'd mistaken them, and the genuine surprise in his eyes when he'd turned to her–

The wistful quantity of his gaze, when he'd come back from leaving a rose under the clock tower, and said it was something he owed to his father – something she didn't know about, but she could just guess–

The worry in his eyes when he'd seen her with Hakuba, and, later, the anger as he said, 'You're my wife, and I will not let you make me, or yourself, the laughingstock of the whole aristocracy'– and her own anger at this, the way she'd bitten her lips all the trip back home to avoid giving him the pleasure of seeing her cry, seeing her break–

Himself, saying the next morning, 'I guess we're both bloody idiots, then, aren't we?' and the smile he'd given her then, happy, just happy–

His laugh when he'd surprised her making a lemon pie and a mess of the kitchen, and his firm affection when he'd said, later on, 'Jii-chan, if you do not sit down immediately and dine with us, I will throttle you myself. Good god, man, do you realize what would become of us if you died from exhaustion?'

The faint gleam of the juggling balls running in their hands in the dim glow of the fireplace, and the two doves on his shoulders when he'd turned back in the staircase and had grinned at her, looking, in so many ways, so much like his father and yet so much not–

His soft breathing – not so long ago, it felt a lifetime away – in his bureau, slumped, asleep, on his desk, and the faint whisper of her name leaving her lips–

Her own staying up all night, hoping to catch bribes of information on the wireless, hoping he'd be fine, just fine–

Aoko sat very still, the greys just clearing, just enough.

And Ran, in the restaurant with yellow-tinted windows, looking at her looking at Kaito, the thin, swirling smoke of her cigarette half-shrouding her nonchalant smile as she said– 'My dear girl, if you go on staring at your husband that way, I will start to believe you're in love with him.'

"… oh, damn," she said, very softly.

And the light dawned before her eyes.

--

Most of the day passed without any alteration of any kind. 'We can guess something is happening in here right now,' the speaker said in a chilly voice, 'but, at present, only conjectures can be formed… crklrcrlfk… authorities having yet to take a decision, to the great appeal of all London's population.'

Aoko kept her room all day.

Jii-chan came up to bring her meals, but they talked very little. Aoko thanked him with a nod of the head, and he addressed her a few words of comfort – had he known, too? Had everyone known except her? Had Kaito?

Well, of course he had. 'Love is a devilish fool,' he'd said – that evening in the staircase – and kami, he'd been right. He probably had known a long time beforehand.

Where to, now?

Downstairs, she could hear Jii-chan move slowly, restlessly, uselessly – what was he, without Kaito? Was he to see both the father and the son die before his eyes?

(And what would she do, if Kaito died? Returning to her old life seemed impossible, but she didn't quite care to stay here all alone in the great rooms still tainted with Kaito's presence… Oxford… her father, what would he say? her father?… if he even got out of it himself… and Kudo… and Mouri Eri… she must be Ran's mother… kami, Ran must be in a worst state than herself…)

The 'phone rang all day. Jii-chan went to answer it downstairs, and after three times of seeing him come up to give her the caller's message, Aoko uncoiled herself from the windowseat and dressed numbly. People out there seemed to be pretty concerned about her, and their words were full of disgusting sympathy – she must be strong, she must overcome the pain, she must be worthy of Kaito's memory (almost as though he was already dead, as though he was already gone, as though she had already lost him) and she nodded and accepted them, and looked away.

The only 'phone call to which she answered came from Kaito's mother.

'I know,' said she, 'that the arrangement between our family and yours hasn't been very much to your liking at the beginning. But Kaito–' her voice faltered at the name of her son, '–Kaito told me that you had become friends, at least. I do not know what I should hope now, that you should love him or not…'

"Do not hope on my love or his," Aoko replied, shortly enough. "Just hope he gets out of it alive and well. That is all I dare hope for myself – my feelings, or his, must come second-best."

'… You are strong.' She sighed. 'I am sorry, Aoko, I was not able to know you before your father and me arranged this marriage. I only wish that Kaito and you… that maybe things might – things might have been different.'

Meaningless words.

Apart from this alteration, the day was unbroken till after dinnertime. It was only then that the front door opened, and she heard hushed voices in the hall, one old and one young, and then the staircase running past her steps, as she charged onto the white-and-black tiles.

She was expecting a black mop of hair and blue eyes tired. She met instead with a blond, sage head and a gold gaze which rested on her with amusement.

"… Hakuba-san," she said breathlessly. "I… my husband is not at home." For the first time the word rolled on her tongue easily, just as it started to slip away from her grasp. It was ironical, really.

"I know," he said, and then seemed to be waiting for something.

"Ahem… you should pass into the drawing-room, my lady," Jii-chan suggested, and Aoko gave him a relieved smile. Yes, the drawing-room would do fine. It was impersonal enough to welcome a visitor, but there were proofs enough of Kaito's presence to–

"Do sit down," she said, giving the example, but Hakuba preferred leaning on the chimneypiece and bestowing a smile unto her. The light was declining outside the windows in his back, and he was faintly shadowed.

"I heard of your husband's, err… difficult position as of late," he said delicately. (Difficult was putting it mildly.) "However, we must find it is all for the best." He paused there, and was satisfied to see her change colour. "For weeks I have waited and struggled against the better of myself – for weeks I have restrained myself to come here while Kuroba could have interrupted us. But at last I can keep my word."

"Your word," Aoko said drily.

He knelt at her feet, and she felt the sudden urge to kick him. "I had told you I am not one to be discouraged so easily. Aoko-san…"

He definitely deserved kicking. This would have done for Keiko, not for her. He was babbling away. "Aoko-san, I'm certain you have noticed my marked passion for you… if words were enough to tell you of my feelings, I would certainly speak further. As, however, it is not so – and your husband not being here to constrain me from speaking…"

Wonderful. He'd heard about Kaito being gone – or dead – and he'd come right away to propose to her to–

(What, now? should she call for Jii-chan? maybe he was used to this kind of situation – maybe girls had come to Kaito in this very room, in the same hopes as her current suitor. And if they remained alone too long, there might be a misunderstanding – maybe Jii-chan would think – and what about Kaito?

It seemed almost too easy. But no – she had much rather fight her own battles alone.)

"Hakuba-san, are you fooling with me?" She rose, and was satisfied in seeing surprise plastered all over his face before he recovered. He was taller than herself, but she folded her hands, tilted up her chin and waited.

"Indeed I am not. I beg you, madam, to never doubt my affections for such a lovely object–"

In fact, kicking would be too soft. "Hakuba-san, that you were able to speak without interruption was only due to my extreme surprise," she said coolly – if he was going to be snobbish, then so would she. "You have made your object in coming here perfectly clear. Now I must ask you to leave my house immediately."

If he hadn't been surprised before, then so he was now. She saw the fine mouth twitch irrepressibly before he spoke again. "I thought – that is to say, your response to my addresses back when we first met left me no doubt of my feelings being returned–"

"I'm afraid you saw there nothing more than what you wanted to see."

The light was falling fast now, what little portion of the sky she saw out the window rapidly darkening to an ashes-to-ashes blue. A perfect shade for a perfect situation, Aoko thought ironically. She was coming back – down.

"I have no desire to be slighted by you," Hakuba snapped at her, all handsomeness on his face now lost and forgotten. "I suppose you have found some fool other than me – richer, perhaps – to cheat on your husband with–"

"I have no intention to be added to your lists of conquests," Aoko snapped back.

"You should not believe half of what is said about me," he replied with a strained smile.

"Even half is more than enough. Now that you have insulted in both possible ways, I must ask you to leave – now!" He turned away, but made no motion towards the door, and Aoko's eyes followed him while she bit her lips, wondering whether Jii-chan would be of any help. If she could only find a phrase that would unnerve him so much he'd leave without question…

"If I might be allowed to ask," Hakuba asked angrily, rounding back on her, "I would like to know why you accepted my attentions the first time we met, if it were to reject them so cold-heartedly on our second meeting–"

"And I would like to know why you are courting my wife in my own house," Kaito said, from the doorway.

Aoko looked over at him, instantly breathless, but he did not look back. He was in his shirtsleeves, and his eyes were fixed coldly on Hakuba while he articulated the words distinctly, "I think you no longer have a business here, Hakuba. You can leave now. Jii-chan, show the gentleman out."

Hakuba looked at him, then back at Aoko, slapped his hat against his leg, and made his way out. He shouldered past Kaito as he passed him, and stomped away on Jii-chan's heels towards the exit. Kaito softly closed the drawing-room door behind them.

"Kaito…" Aoko launched forwards, then paused. He looked so tired. "Are you… are you alright?"

He dropped himself in the nearest armchair and rubbed his face with both hands, staring grimly at the cold hearth. "Just – exhausted, I guess." He gave her a smile only the faint ghost of the old, flippant grin. "And ravenous, which is unromantic but logical after thirty-six hours without swallowing anything. I suppose there's no luck Jii-chan could cook me an express dinner, by any chance?" he asked hopefully. "I could eat any kind of grub."

"Half a jiff," Aoko said, and ran out of the room. She was back almost immediately, with a plate of bacon-and-omelette and a large brandy on a tray. Kaito stared at her.

"Good lord, Aoko, where have you found this so rapidly? Have you been hiding food in your room?"

"Of course not," she huffed, chucking the tray at him. "I know you'd be hungry when you – came back, and yesterday night I told Jii-chan to keep some food warm for you overnight. He's been doing it again this morning and tonight, so it was all ready."

Kaito shook his head. "You're wonderful," he said.

While wolfing down the omelette he told her what had really happened inside the trial court. "They did shoot down the two lawyers for the defence," he said grimly, sipping brandy. "I don't know why – maybe it was the symbol of authority… it was to be Mouri-san's turn next – she's Ran's mother, you know. Luckily, we were able to intervene before they could touch her."

He sighed. "I don't know what was the worst, knowing we couldn't do anything till they got more self-confident, or the shouts and sobbing inside the room. It was tight, and there were at least a hundred people inside that place – the trial had excited much curiosity in the first place. We, as witness against them, were supposed to be got rid of sometime before they got away with it, and I think your father was their pet hostage. If anything went wrong they could always exchange his life against their liberty…"

"He is all right, then?" Aoko asked worriedly.

"Yes, he's fine." Kaito finished the omelette and put his fork down. "Only Kudo was hurt – a little – on the arm, and that was all his fault. He wasn't careful enough when he attacked one of our men. Nearly gave the game away… I hope he gets a good beating when he comes home."

"Oh, he will," Aoko said, thinking about Ran and When will they learn that we're not the kind of wives to wait for them behind? She would certainly let him know what he was about. Only now did the thought make her want to smile.

"Good." He bit into an apple. "Well, anyway, we took care of one criminal at a time – there were five of them, you know, two were tried and the other three were accomplices… well, now they'll all five be in jail," he added with satisfaction. "We fell on their backs nicely. I intended to go to the police station with Kudo, but your father told me I was to go back home. Said you must be worried and I should go and comfort you as soon as I can." He grinned again. "So home I came…" his voice trailed off.

Aoko could not help but start, "Hakuba-san–"

"Oh, I know what he came here for," Kaito said. He looked immensely tired again, as he relaxed against the back of his chair. "I was expecting it some time or other… but I hadn't thought he'd take advantage of that moment. I thought him more gentlemanlike. Still, it's obvious he hasn't got what he wanted," he smiled.

Aoko looked at him and said softly, "No. He didn't."

It was completely night by now. The room was all but shaded in blues and greys and blacks, so she could hardly make out Kaito's darker silhouette in the armchair, and Jii-chan hurried in to light the two lamps on the mantelpiece. The glow was warm and homely, and Kaito was silent.

"… Kaito," she said after a long moment of trying to piece her thoughts together. "There's nothing I never told you…"

He didn't speak, but shifted slightly to show he was listening. Aoko lowered her eyes, and hugged her knees a little tighter.

"I… I knew your father." No reaction. Aoko bit her lip and went on, "I was meeting him regularly between seven and ten-years-old. It was he who taught me to juggle… My father – my father was starting to work harder than he spent time with his family, so I was under the survey of a governess, but I still had a comparative freedom. So every Saturday, when I came out from my dance lessons, I crossed the square and met your father in the park in front of the clock tower."

She chuckled. "Of course, I was too young to realise that little girls do not meet with older men all alone in a park. I loved your father very much. He was sort of a godfather for me… he gave me gifts for my birthday and taught me his magic tricks, how to feed his doves… we had a lot of fun, always. He was always laughing.

"When he had nothing to teach me, we usually talked. I told him about my father, and he spoke about his wife… and you, too." She smiled up at him, but he said nothing. It seemed to her he was breathing just a little faster. "He loved you, Kaito. He said you'd grow to be just like him… that we were alike, the two of us. You and me. I longed to meet you at last… and he'd told me he'd bring you next time we met…"

She hugged her knees tighter still. "But when I came to the clock tower that Saturday, he didn't come. I waited for him an hour and a half, until my governess, alarmed at my not coming home at the usual time, came and found me. And when I went back home, I found in my father's newspaper that Kuroba Touichi had been killed in a car accident the day before."

Kaito looked away. She glanced at him, but continued without interruption, in a very soft voice.

"I refused to leave my room after that, even when my father tried to come and console me. And I stopped taking dance lessons, and never juggled again… until that evening one week ago. With you." She smiled at her knees. "You're so like your father, Kaito. You have the same way to make me love magic as he did."

When he looked back, she saw he was smiling. "I know."

"Kaito…"

"I know." He leant forwards on his elbows, grinning that happy, if tired, grin of his. "Aoko, did you honestly think that my father never told me about his three-years-long meetings with little Aoko-chan with blue eyes and such a wide smile?"

Aoko was so surprised she straightened, letting her arms fall from around her knees. "That's why…" she gasped. "The rose…"

"H'm. I started doing that when I was fifteen. I'd seen you in the street… he'd brought me a picture of you by the way… and I thought that's what Tousan would have wanted to do. That he would have liked to think that one day, maybe, as a grown woman, you'd pass by the clock tower and find the rose and think about him." He smiled, remembering, and Aoko had no idea what to say.

"I… I must have changed from my picture when I was fifteen." … great. Of course she could find nothing more intelligent to say–

"It didn't matter." He grinned at her. "You were so pretty…"

Aoko flushed, and almost didn't hear his next words. "… he loved you, Aoko. Loved you very much. He always was tired and depressed at the end of the week, but he came home calm and reposed after meeting you, every time… I guess you were like the daughter he would have wanted – however clichéd that may seem – the sister he would have wanted for me."

Aoko nodded bleakly, trying to fight back tears.

"I can even recall–" he was laughing now– "I can recall he told me once that if I ever came by the fancy to fall in love, I could do no better than fall in love with you." He relaxed in his armchair, gazing thoughtfully at her. "… good ol' Tousan. Always right, even when he was joking."

Love is a devilish fool, Aoko thought, and found the salty taste of tears running in her mouth. She felt idiotic, sobbing against her knees, but Kaito was crouched before her before she had time to apologize, and took her hands gently, rubbing his thumb against her palm in a soothing motion.

"Good lord, Aoko, I didn't say it to make you cry… I'm such an ass… please don't cry… here, take this one, it's quite clean. Have you been taking it all in for all this time? We're still the same bloody idiots as ever… we can't do anything like normal people. But why cry against your own knees when you can employ my perfectly good shoulder for the same use?"

By that time he'd helped her to her feet and was cradling her against him, "That's better. My mouth in your hair and your breath in my neck… we're still fools, you know… I guess we're not quite out of the woods yet, eh, Livingstone-san?"

Aoko chuckled, irrepressibly. "… oh, it's not fair," she sniffed, rubbing her cheek against the fabric of his shirt. "Why can you always make me laugh? I can't resist you when you smile like that…" she couldn't finish; he kissed her immediately, and she was breathless.

For some reason, Keiko worked her way out in her mind then, Keiko and her usual clichés about passionate kisses and jelly knees and fireworks – for some reason, it wasn't at all like that with Kaito. It was awkward, and rather tentative at first, and there were no fireworks at all; all those cheap romances books hadn't said anything about the clumsiness of trying to find a respectable position for kissing and having a partner chuckling low against one's mouth.

But they hadn't said anything about the warmth either, nor the grounding sensation of a strong body against hers, nor the flashes of blue when she cracked her eyes open and stared into his as he released her slowly.

They hadn't said anything about the stupid smile that seemed to have etched itself onto her face, or his. They hadn't précised that when he bumped his forehead against hers, it actually hurt a little, but there was his breath above her lips again, and she didn't really care about all this after all.

Eventually Kaito whispered, in a breathless voice, "So… no Divorce court after all, uh?"

… for some reason it was the most beautiful declaration she had ever given. She grinned. "No, I don't think so. I've grown rather weary of trial courts. Congratulations. You may kiss the bride."

"Again?" Kaito murmured, and leaned in.

It was only much, much later, in the midst of kissing and laughing and trying to keep one's breath, that he whispered something along the lines of, 'And may I claim my conjugal rights now?' and it spoke enough for Aoko's enjoyment of the current situation that she kissed him again immediately.

--

"Nakamori Ginzo, young master," Jii-chan said the next morning.

Kaito blinked, looked around lazily, tried to struggle against the joined forces of sleep and the entangling bedsheets and Aoko's arms, failed, tried again, gave it up, and eventually said, in a very intelligent manner, "Hnnn?"

"Nakamori Ginzo," Jii-chan repeated. He précised helpfully, "Her ladyship's father, young master. He's waiting for you downstairs. He says there is an urgent matter he has to discuss with you – and then he would wish to speak to her ladyship as well."

"H'mmm," Kaito said, waking up by inches. "…all right, Jii-chan, you won. Aoko and I are getting dressed and coming down in a minute… and would you be so kind as to make us something by way of a breakfast sometime?"

"Of course, young master." Jii-chan bowed himself out of the room, and Kaito dropped his head back onto the pillow exhaustedly, thinking, Why the hell can't they leave us alone?

"What is my father doing, visiting us at dawn," Aoko mumbled, snuggling closer to him. Kaito looked down at her, hand running thoughtfully in her hair.

"It's ten in the morning, honey."

"Don't call me honey… ten in the morning?" she sat up immediately, remarked belatedly her very naked state, and gathering the bedsheets on her bust. "Stop sniggering, Kaito… how could we sleep so late as ten in the morning?"

"I don't think that's much of a question," Kaito replied absently, concentrated on sneaking one hand up her back to push her against him again. "It isn't exactly as if we went to sleep so early yesterday night, either…"

Aoko crammed him with a pillow.

--

-gives cookies to readers who've managed the read till the end- Well done! You still alive? It won't be this long next time, I promise ;) well, I think. I hope. –author very exhausted right now, munches on cookies– It was my first AU in a completely different space-time location… -goes and starts on others- Thanks for the read, minna! See you next time?

-whistles- Welcome to Cookieland, cookies for everyone…