A/N: Oh, dear. It's been ages, right? I've got this HUGE writerblock for weeks… besides homework is hell. -sara-chan trying to grasp at her vacation- And I've been working on, uuuh… that would be five or six fics all at once, which is also hell. (I've been feeding my muse too many cookies, I should think.)
-gets bricked by said muse-
Oh, yeah. Ficcie dedicated to katiesparks, because it's Halloween day (so. Part of the festivities too) – and to prompt her to continue that new geisha story of hers. Damn it.
Disclaimer. I don't own. Don't make no money. You don't sue. Yadda yadda yadda. x3
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Whom The Worlds Change For-
They meet sometime in the street.
Aoko is walking a little too fast, and she trips over her own feet often and guides herself home by the lights around her; she is way too distressed and hazy-minded to care about how she's dressed. Kaito, when she spots him – or spots him is probably wrong, tumbles in his sight is more like it – is wearing his usual jeans and a coat over them, and she mildly registers that it must be really cold if he has a coat on; he's leaning against a lamppost and looking out for her as though it's perfectly natural for him to be there right now.
No, not natural – she understands, and breaks down a sob – as though he was always meant to be there when she comes.
They're close much sooner than she thinks is humanely possible – but he's hardly a few feet away from the lamppost really, so she must have gone all that distance on her own – and his arms are open and then around her, and his shoulder against her face is grounding and warm.
Her arms sneak around his chest, underneath his coat, and his embrace wrapping her up tightly she curls up against him, so close, so close she wants to burrow inside of him, make herself whole by being part of him.
His scent reaches her as she presses the cold tip of her nose against the exposed skin of his neck, deep and addictive and wonderfully real and there, and she breaks before she even knows she did.
She doesn't know how long he holds her, how long her body shakes in tearless, ragged sobs, how long his hands run in wide, soothing circles on her shivering – from what, cold or crying – back, warming up the ice-like fabric of her shirt. She can feel each tip of each finger, and the strong, comforting pressure of the palm as it brushes down to the small of her back, climbs up the spine, reaches her shoulder blades and goes back down from there.
–warm.
Her own hands crawl quietly up his sides, and one grasps at his shoulder while the other digs in his hair – painfully, she'll think later, but he doesn't as much as hiss in discomfort – stilling, stilling there. Her fingers are trembling, but she hopes he won't notice it too much.
(And it's stupid, because he always notices everything, but he says nothing. And it's almost as well.)
Her face is still pressed against the cloth of his pullover, and she takes comfort from the knowledge that she doesn't wet it with tears, and that it's thick enough to muffle her moans even to her own ears.
They must have been standing under the lamppost quite a long time now, and her shaking scarcely starts to subside. Kaito's hands, however, have stilled, one around her waist, holding her so tight – she almost believes he's shivering too, or maybe she passed it on to him – the other, heavy fingers on her nape, bringing her head down and her face against his collarbone.
It speaks enough for his own emotion that his face is buried in her neck, nose in her hair and breath in her ear, and it speaks enough for hers that she just begins to realize it.
When they pull back, it's only for a few moments and only for something as thoroughly unimportant as air, but his hand reaches up to the crown of her head and starts a rubbing motion, or combing, maybe, as his fingers run between the strands of brown hair and trace down to the shell of her ear. Her scalp tingles almost deliciously.
"KID," she gasps, and her voice is, unsurprisingly, high-pitched and broken with those unshed tears of hers.
"I know." She doesn't ask why, or how, although he told her he wasn't going to come to or even watch the heist. He's Kaito. He knows, just like he knew he had to be there tonight, in this deserted street where she could meet anybody, fall onto any kind of mishap.
"My father–"
"I know."
They share the cold and silence and the electric, quivering light of the lamppost a few minutes more.
"You should go back home," he says finally, mouth muffled in her hair.
She nods once.
Neither of them move.
In the end, he carries her home in his arms – princess style, she knows he'll joke later, but for now he's silent and she curls up in his warmth like an wet kitten. The fabric of his coat is rough and slightly scratchy underneath her cheek, and it shifts every time he jerks her a little closer to his shoulder, careful not to let her slip.
He lets her down when they reach her building, and their hands are still holding each other all the way up the lightless stairs (to prevent either of them falling, she'll think, but his palm is warm and presses agreeably against hers). He opens the door to her flat without asking her her keys – and she's certain she'd locked the door before leaving for the heist, but.
She only realizes this later, when he drops her gently on her bed, the thought fleeing in her mind and she hardly pays any attention to it, just briefly wondering. He quickly tugs her pants away, pulling her back against the pillow, and tosses the garment to the foot of the bed.
"Kaito…"
"It's okay." He makes to pull her shirt over her head, then appears to think better of it, and tucks her in without another word. "I think you should try and get some sleep," he says eventually, unfolding a blanket. His voice is very quiet and gentle, not at all like her usual clownish best friend.
This is, she thinks, something else.
He turns to go, and her hand shots up to grab the hem of his black pullover (when did he take off his coat? She didn't even notice).
"Stay?"
Her voice is almost a plea, and when he turns back to look down at her she sees on his face his weighing pros and cons. They've slept together many times when they were children, but they're much older now, and they have to deal with grownup bodies and hormones, which isn't exactly easy. Then again, they're both adults, both knowing their responsibilities and masters enough of their bodies and their relationship to avoid doing… anything.
It's a bit of a dare to discover that now, that way. It's a gentle, slow, sincere process, unidentifiable on its own, and lacking only the trigger that tonight was.
"Alright," he says eventually, and there's a bit of a grin in his voice. He gets rid of his pullover, keeping only his jeans on, and slips in between the sheets, against her, warm. Later, she'll think it curious that the first thing she thinks is that his feet are cold, making first contact with hers.
She puts her head down on the pillow.
"Tell me you won't be gone in the morning," she mumbles, sleep already taking its toll. "There won't be a rose, or a note, or the like. You."
Through the slits of her already closing eyes, she sees him grin quite frankly this time, the way he did as a child. "I'll be there." –and for some reason or other she thinks of coffee, the scent seeping through the flat in the morning and the rich, dark taste against her tongue.
She feels him, rather more than sees him, reach up to switch off the lamp, and the bedroom falls completely dark. She thinks, while he pulls her a little closer, that their eyes will accustom themselves to the obscurity and discern the grey hues, but for now she wraps her arms around his chest and lets her head loll on his shoulder. His hand presses at the back of her head, fingers threading with the locks. They used to sleep like that as children.
Tomorrow they'll still be adults, limbs entangled and breath on the same pillow. There'll be coffee and breakfast and trying to understand how things are going to unfold from now on; the same as they ever did, really.
She can feel it–or is it hear it–faintly. Thud. Thud. Th-thud. Th-th-thud. Thudthudthud. The–almost–synchronicity of their heartbeats.
The world tomorrow will be something entirely different.
-
Riiiiiight. -sara-chan currently sipping tea with cookies- Muses are. Weird. As in. Weird. End of story.
Next oneshot will be… longer. Lengthy. You may want to read those Arsene Lupin books of yours again. (And if you don't have any, shame on you! The library's that way.) … nah. You don't–really–have to. Well. Maybe just a little. (Exam time: Who's Lupin?)
-bakes and offers cookies to apologize for the… long… wait-