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.

11. Falling Down With London Bridge

A/N: Oh, dear. Another one of those… huge… long… oneshots… I blame it all on writerblock. And those Maurice Leblanc books of mine. 'Cause when inspiration finally struck, my muse decided to be whimsical and started off on another of those huge shots. Read this at your own peril. –bows and offers cookies to the courageous readers–

Disclaimer: I never owned. I don't. I never will. Earning money out of it? I just wish. All the quotations are Maurice Leblanc's (though translation's by me! x3).

Warnings: AU, again. And the length. A small knowledge of Arsene Lupin books is highly recommended, though the story is understandable on its own.

Space-time location: I have no idea. I've been placing it in Paris, but that may be only because I myself am a Parisian and Lupin's adventures are often happening there. Could be anywhere, really. But yeah, Jii-chan's a Frenchman again – he does like going to Paris in the manga, after all.

--

Falling Down With London Bridge

--

'Arsene Lupin would escape from prison. It was inevitable, fateful. People were even surprised that it should last so long. Every morning, the Prefect of Police asked his secretary– "Well! He hasn't gone yet?"

"No, sir."

"Then tomorrow he will."'

–from L'évasion d'Arsene Lupin

--

She didn't know what she had expected.

Of the notorious, internationally wanted thief 1412, a.k.a. Kaitou KID, she knew little more than did the common newspaper readers. What her father had told her amounted to nothing much. He'd described the heists with accurate precision when he was maddest about them, and once and twice she'd found him fast asleep on the papers he'd been working so late on the night before, but of KID himself, he was unnaturally silent.

She knew, like everybody did, that Kaitou KID was a young man with black hair and blue eyes. She knew the sound of his laugh, of his voice. She knew his cocky, mischievous character, his habit of tricking those who dared approach him too close. She knew of his gallantry, his gentleman ways, his stubborn refusal to hurt anybody, were they on his side or the other. She had studied his heists enough to know their usual pattern, beforehand note and cheeky audience and phantom-like escape. She knew that no one, except the officer who'd captured him, had ever seen his face.

None of this had had her prepared.

She had seen the data as completely separate information, had never thought of putting them all together and seeing what would come out of it. Had never imagined – had known, but never seen – up to the last moments when the cell's door had turned slowly, silently, heavy with protection devices, that KID was more than a phantasm, more than data on her comp's screen.

She had not been prepared to meeting someone.

She had not been prepared to the sight of the young man – and yes, she'd known he was young, but it made an actual difference to witness it in person – with wild black hair and blue eyes, coiled on the windowseat with a book in his hands and a hum on his lips.

The door turned again and shut behind her, with a soft click, and he looked up immediately, blue eyes meeting hers and looking – not nervous, not anxious, as she would have expected from a prisoner – curious, simply curious to know who had come to lighten up his day.

He put his book away and rose, meeting her with an outstretched hand, and – kami, he was even younger than she'd thought, twenty-five? Twenty-six? Surely it couldn't be any more than that. His handshake was firm and quick.

"Aah, so you're the long-expected lawyer," he said, beckoning her over to a plain wooden chair. "I half-waited a long-bearded old chum, who'd say I'd better plead insanity to the trial." He pulled a childish grimace. "Sit down, sit down. I am so sorry I cannot offer you more, or any refreshment at all. My current lodgings are not very well-furnished," he added wryly.

So Aoko sat on the unique chair, and he propped himself up on the table and folded his hands neatly, looking at her in a 'so-what're-you-going-to-do-now' way.

"I'm Nakamori Aoko," she said, and thought she saw something flicker in the blue eyes before his mouth twisted in another lopsided smile.

"I thought so. Nice to meet you," he replied, and pulled out a rose out of his fingers and offered it to her. Aoko arched an eyebrow. "I may call you Aoko, yes?" he added, with a charming grin.

… so he knew how to handle women. But that was nothing new to her. She'd seen him charm and lure women to have his way through, the dreamy looks on their faces when she'd interrogated them, even years afterwards, at the mere thought of the cloaked thief. She was not going to turn into one of them.

"And how may I call you? KID-san? Thief-san? Internationally wanted 1412-san?"

"… I think we can stick to Kaito now."

"Kaitou?" The other eyebrow joined up the first.

"Kaito."

His grin was merely cheeky and she sighed, taking out her suitcase and the KID folder in it. "Look, if we're going to work together I think you should start telling me the truth. Your real name would be a good beginning, if anything."

"But it is. My real name. Kaito." She looked at him, and he smiled, more softly. "It seems that my parents had the gift of foresight or something. Or it runs in the blood." –and there was very little that was trustful in this, but she found herself drawn to believing him.

She looked away from him, turning her gaze on her papers instead. She was not – she was not – supposed to see him as anything else than a thief, her client, but he looked – too much, too much – like a person, like an actual person. Well, of course he does. He is. But he–

… and there was something there. Something that…

"Alright. Kaito. Your full name, then."

"–how old are you?" he asked suddenly, and before she could say, What? added, "You can't be more than twenty-five. You can't. So you must have been born around the time when KID appeared for the first time."

She frowned. "I'm twenty-six." –and he grinned. "What?"

"… We're the same age." And by the time she'd assimilated the information, he was already prattling on, "So that's why you're called Aoko. It's because your father had already begun chasing after KID, and he called you like that." He laughed. "Don't you see? It all makes sense."

We're talking of two entirely different things, Aoko thought. "Speaking of which," she prompted, trying to sideslip him back into the right track. "If you're twenty-six you can't have been the first KID who appeared twenty-seven years ago. Who was he?"

Your father? A friend? A teacher? Magic, she thought, remembering the tricks and traps. Think magic.

"Should I answer that?"

"… quite frankly, if you want to get through your trial without at least twenty years in, you'd better." Her fingers crisped on the corner of the suitcase, where she had stocked the summary of everything she'd looked up about him, then relaxed, and she felt, although he hadn't turned his gaze towards her hand, that he hadn't missed a thing.

"Aah, but maybe I do not plan on attending my trial."

Familiar. It was just there, just out of reach. Something – something that meant… that meant… she frowned, trying to grasp at the thought. Something that had to do with a memory. Some– a song? He'd been humming. A book?

"… if you didn't you wouldn't have asked for a lawyer, would you?"

He was silent.

"Point," he then admitted, more slowly. He slid off the table, sticking his hands into his pockets, and took a few steps around the cell, forcing her to look around to keep track on him. The room was bare, hardly furnished with anything else than the table and a bed. "So what do you want to know?"

She got out a jotter and a propelling pencil. "Your full name would be a good start."

"I can't tell you that."

She let out an exasperated sigh. "I told you…"

"Don't get me wrong. I would if I was alone," he said smoothly, and she could feel the lie behind this. "But I have a mother. If I told you my full name, she'd be sure to be bothered by police officers and journalists, and she's distressed enough as it is. Isn't that true?"

It was true. "Fine," she said. "Kaito for now. Well then. Who was the first KID?"

He looked curiously at her. "Shouldn't you be asking me why I'm being KID in the first place?" –and there it was again. It was there again, the feeling that something – something was escaping her. Why hadn't she asked him? She'd always wondered. Why was the first thing that'd come to her mind, when she was finally able to ask him, was to know who the first KID was?

"I…" she coughed. "… okay. Why are you KID?" and knew her answer. He wouldn't say it. But that wasn't it, either.

"… I can't tell you," he replied, predictably.

"Then why are you asking me to ask you?" she exclaimed, and sat back in her chair with a huff. "You're not making this any easier. I'm your lawyer. I'm supposed to defend you at the trial. I'm supposed to have something to say for your defence. If you don't tell me anything, you won't be able to get out of it."

"… Why…" he started, and there was a soft knock at the door.

"… I've got to go," Aoko said, cramming her things back into her suitcase. "I'll come back in three days. Till then, try and think up things you can tell me. Goodbye," she added, outstretching her hand.

He grinned and shook it. "Till three days, then. Oh, and wait… is this yours?" he held up her watch. Aoko immediately rubbed her wrist, which she found bare. She snatched it away from him and glared, putting it back on.

"Why, you…"

"Thief," he suggested, and plopped back down on the windowseat, picking up his book. "Sorry. Bad habit of mine. I've been reading too much," and flicked through the pages to find his chapter again. Aoko glared a little longer, then went out.

While the door was turning shut, she heard him humming again.

"Well?" Hakuba asked, looking earnestly at her. "How did it go?"

"I…" she paused. "I don't know. He didn't say anything valuable." She rubbed her forehead tiredly, feeling a migraine perking up behind her eyes. "He's… is it very safe that you should be alone to guard him?" she asked, casting a frowning look around the anteroom. It was almost as bare as the cell, and there was another huge, barred door on the opposite wall. "You'd almost think you're a prisoner too."

"Nah, it's alright," Hakuba said, but from the shadows under his eyes she could see it was not alright. "There are two other guards outside this door, and no one passes me without passing them too. They're giving me the lunches, and I'm giving them to him when they're gone."

"To protect his anonymity," Aoko frowned.

"Only till the trial. We can't allow the public to know where he is, or they're be crowding out that door. Only me and the prefect of police know where he is kept. Even they–" with a nod at the door, "–don't know it's him they're guarding. They think he's a serial murderer. Which keeps them from the curiosity to go and have a peek at him," he added, smiling.

"… but you're alone with the full responsibility of him," Aoko said worriedly. "You don't look very good. Are you eating okay?"

"Yes, mother. Don't worry about me," he said with a half-grin. He ran a hand through his blond hair, messing up the usually sage locks, and if that was any indication that there was subject to worry… "Anyway, it's best that way. So when he…" he stopped, and then went on, "when he gets to trial, that'll be a surprise for everyone."

And that obviously was not what you were about to say, Aoko thought, narrowing her eyes at him. When he what?

"So how did you find him?" he asked, eager to skip to another subject, and Aoko complied grudgingly.

"I don't… he's not what I had expected," she said, and then waited for him to ask what she'd expected, but he didn't. "He danced around all my questions and never was serious with me for a second, but he doesn't look like the gentleman thief he's said to be. He was…" a young man. "He's disconcerting."

"Kaito's a strange boy," Hakuba mused approvingly, and Aoko looked up.

"He's told you his name was Kaito, too?"

"He's told me to call him Kaito," he said, "and then added something about him having a full name like everybody but also having a mother like everybody." Aoko nodded. "And him being fated to turn out a thief, but he was grinning that grin of his–" another nod. "I don't think it's his real name."

But it is, Aoko thought when she'd said goodbye and gone. It was. He was saying the truth. There was something – something in his air, in the way he spoke – easy – that couldn't have been anything but the truth. He's not trying to confuse us. Or he is, but in a very strange way.

And there was something else. Something to do with thievery running in his blood – something meaningful. She closed her eyes, trying to remember. She'd been taking out her folder and he'd said– 'Or it runs in the blood,' and–

And it's stupid, she thought, spotting her car and walking over. There had been nothing meaningful at all. It was just him being mischievous, and Kaito wasn't his real name at all. He was a thief. He was KID. He knew all the tricks to lure people, the ropes to tug on to make them believe something or other. And she'd been walking head-on into it. She fished in her pocket for her car keys.

And came out with a red rose – the rose – the rose he'd given her and she was certain she hadn't thought of picking up on the table as she left – and a neatly folded note. When, when had he done this?

She unfolded the note.

You should read Arsene Lupin books, it said.

--

The second and third sessions were equally unfruitful as the first.

KID – or Kaito or whatever, really – wasn't cooperating at all. He slipped by all her questions with exasperating slyness, and spent all his time juggling with flags and garlands and doves and making a clown of himself. He would shower her with confetti if the question she asked displeased him, or simply puff up blinking balls and roses and silver trumpets without leaving her a single opportunity to see how he'd done it.

Or he would simply pick on humming. Or reading.

"You're impossible," she sighed, exasperated, in mid-third session. "You're not taking any of this seriously, do you?"

"… you shouldn't take anything seriously, Aoko. Especially not life." He grinned, pulling a coin out of her ear. She shrugged him off. "Anyway, I know you're such a great lawyer you won't have a problem to defend me perfectly at the trial."

"I won't," Aoko huffed. "I'll make fools of you and me because you won't have told me anything."

He smiled, and sat on the table, pushing away her papers. "I'll tell you something. I'll tell you what being KID feels like."

Aoko arched an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"It's like walking on a tightrope," he said seriously. "You feel the wind going by, and you never know if and when you're going to fall. The adrenaline surges up, and it's an addictive feeling, really. You have to take every minute step very carefully and yet make it look like it's so easy anyone could do it…take this and say it at the trial," he chuckled. "You'll see they'll be so fascinated they'll acquit me without a second thought."

Aoko's eyes narrowed. "That's what you think, uh? You think the jury will be so fascinated by your KID persona you'll be able to pull it off without trouble for yourself?"

" With lots of Trouble for everyone else," he corrected her. "… maybe I do."

"That's stupid."

"Which is why it's so brilliant."

Aoko glared at him for a second, watching him hum softly as he juggled rapidly with shiny glass balls. He's not trusting me a second, she thought, and cut in with a sharp, "What happened to the previous KID?"

His hands didn't slow down a fraction. "… he died."

… Of course. KID's career had been interrupted at least once after ten years of loyal services. The break had lasted seven years, seven long years during which her father had been reduced to mere robbery cases that left him fuming when he came home at night. And then the Torimitsu had received a letter from the infamous Kaitou KID – a letter some had believed to be a prank, but the police had taken no chances.

They'd sent her father again, and KID had been right on time.

This had happened nine years before. Which meant Kaito, if he was telling the truth about his age, must have been seventeen on that first heist of his, Aoko thought, gazing thoughtfully at the young man sitting across from her. Seventeen. He'd been so young – why, he must have been in high school – and yet he'd taken KID up without a second thought – taken it up and made a legend of it all over again.

And to end it all here, in a prison cell.

"Kaito," she said slowly, and he looked up and smiled. "Who was the first KID?" and somehow, somehow he looked like he understood her full meaning, what she hadn't been able to voice out. It shouldn't be that way, she thought – and then wondered why.

"My master," he said softly. "The one who taught me everything – and the best man that ever was."

And there it was again. The feeling – the feeling that something was slipping past her, just at hand's reach, but – fleeing – gone – when she tried to grasp at it.

He was humming again. It was soft, and somehow in sync with his juggling– hmm hm hmmmh mm, and Aoko had to click her tongue, irritated. "Very well," she snapped, back to the strictness of the lawyer she was supposed to be. "I don't suppose you'll tell me anything about the Black Pearl case?" and he laughed and started pulling flags out of his sleeve.

"I don't understand where he takes them from," she complained later, to a worn-out-looking Hakuba. "Haven't you been searching him for whatever he was carrying?"

"Of course I have," the half-brit snapped, obviously irritated by lack of sleep. "Every week. I never find anything. The only place I haven't peered into is his underwear – and he's had changes of those with changes of clothes every three days."

"And yet he keeps pulling… things… flags and trumpets and doves out of nowhere. Where does he even find food for those?"

Hakuba shrugged half-heartedly. "I don't know. Honestly, I don't want to know."

"But it might be important," Aoko insisted. "It might… I don't know… if there are exchanges possible between the outward world and his cell, he can use that for escape devices. He can manage to send messages to his accomplices, get them to send him weapons or–"

"Aoko-san, this is KID we're talking about," Hakuba said irritatingly. "He won't use weapons against any of us. Besides, if we cut him out one way, he'd find another. So long as he keeps getting nothing more alarming than flags, I don't see what I can do against that. He always comes back to–" and cut himself off again. Aoko glared at him.

"But it might be a key," she said, then gave up and went back home to transcript today's notes.

They amounted to nearly nothing, and after a while of staring at the almost-blank screen, she wheeled her chair around and stared outside the window. It was dark already; the town's bright lights stood out painfully against the violet-shaded sky. There were no stars to be seen through the thick clouds, and Aoko leaned her head against the cool glass, hoping it'd help her clear it up.

It made no sense. KID himself made no sense at all, and Hakuba not much more. They weren't going to get through with anything if this went on the way – the slow, excruciatingly lingering way – it did now. And Kaito a.k.a KID was obviously not going to ever help her.

She could always give up. Loads of lawyers would be thrilled to take her place, even though it meant having a few weeks off their schedule, and she'd only got the case because of her father, really. And she hadn't had anything in mind – anything real, definite, anything solid to rely upon – when she'd first begun.

Only she had. She hadn't had any more data than any of her colleagues would have had, but she had had something definite. She wanted to understand. She wanted to know.

She had never liked KID. She had hated him for a long time, and she knew he remembered her as the Nakamori girl who showed up at his heists with anti-KID banners, remembered her as the girl whose father he was stealing. Yet now there she was, his lawyer, the one who would defend him at one of the most awaited trials of the century.

There was a great difference, she pondered, between hating someone one had never seen and hating someone one was continually thrown with. But she had never seen him when she'd stepped forwards to be lawyer for the defence, instead of the prosecution like most of her friends expected; she'd never seen his face, much less been in any relative way close to him like she was now.

As of now, she only wanted to know who KID was – what it was he stood for, what it was that was so important her father had died for it.

She wanted to understand.

And this feeling, the feeling she had started experiencing more and more around the man, was definitely the key, no matter what Hakuba said. The feeling that something was just there for her to take, and she had only to reach out – but never seemed to be quick enough. And it wasn't – no, it wasn't the feeling that she didn't know something, but that, for some reason or another, she already knew it. She just couldn't figure out what.

Think, she thought, staring at the screen. Think. Something about seeing KID as a person, not as a ghost, something about the previous KID… about the… what was it again? She felt positive she had felt it more than twice. One was this afternoon, when he'd talked about his master, and before–

She looked up the entries of the two previous sessions. She hadn't reported when exactly she'd felt this, but – she scrolled down the pages, looking for something, anything, that might trigger the feeling again. Nothing in the second session. She skipped to the first.

'I may call you Aoko, yes?' 'I think we can stick to Kaito for now.' No, nothing of that. She ran down.

'How old are you?' 'We're the same age. Don't you see? It all makes sense.' What does?

'If you're twenty-six… who was he?' 'Should I answer that?' 'Frankly, if you don't want to… I think you'd better.'

There it was, she thought with a jolt. There. 'Maybe I do not plan on attending my trial.'

And why was that familiar, too? She'd seen that sentence before. Heard – no, not heard it, read it. She'd read it somewhere, sometime when she was younger, much younger. She could almost remember the sensations – shock, excitation, nervousness, elation – she'd felt. A novel. No, it was shorter. A story?

And there was something her father had said, too. Was that why she felt it was, somehow, the key? No… he hadn't been too happy about her reading the book. Why? He'd said–

Kaito must have known, she realized with a jerk. He surely knew. It probably was in that book he'd been reading when she'd come in for the first time. She'd just have to ask him–wait, she thought, squinting at her screen to remember how the book had looked. Maybe it was the same collection as hers had been, and if it was…

It'd been red. Red with a… what… title in green… or were they blue letters? And below, an image. A picture of something or other. A necklace, she thought suddenly. Gems, and then thought, You're confabulating. KID steals gems, but that doesn't mean he reads about them too.

But he must have, or the character in this book wouldn't have said, 'I do not plan on attending my trial.' A prisoner had said that. A criminal. A thief?

Right. Her father had said, 'I don't like the idea of you enjoying the adventures of a… something… robber.' Or something thief. What thief? There had to be something there, something that might be a clue to the solution. The adventures of a…

Some curse or other, Aoko thought, discouraged. Of a damn thief. Or something. Knowing her father it couldn't have been anything else.

She could always ask Kaito next time, she mused abstractedly, and then ran a search through the whole KID folder for the words 'thief' and 'trial', and scanned through the manifold results thorough the whole evening.

--

Kaito was not reading when she came in for the fourth session, after three exhausting days of running from the prosecution quarters to the defence quarters and back and trying to find out reliable witnesses for the trial. (It wasn't, as might be expected, she thought, that there weren't enough, but rather that there were too much. Exactly how many women had he fleetingly seduced on his way to one jewel or another?)

When she asked him about the book he'd had in hands on their first meeting, he just grinned clownishly and said something of 'Maa, Aoko, you know I'm not allowed anything like books' or the like.

Which was probably why he received newspapers, she thought, eyeing the Torimitsu on the table. A large picture of… yes, it was KID, occupied the front page, along with a diagram of something and a long article. Probably about the trial being only a month away and the lawyer for the defence not being able to find anything valuable to defend her client, she thought, picking up the page.

It wasn't. Instead there was a long clipping in italics and a prose she only… too well… recognised.

'Dearest readers of the Torimitsu,' it said,

'You are not without knowing that I am currently on a health cure in prison. This stay, however, is only temporary, much as I am sorry to part with my caring, job-consuming guardians (you public never know how devoted they are to their task. Why, they have been trying to capture me for twenty-seven years straight, and now that they have managed it, are not keen on letting me go so easily).

'Yet you must not fret. I hereby announce my decision NOT TO ATTEND MY TRIAL, although I know the seats have all been bought already and some of you will be disappointed not to enjoy my company a little longer, and be therefore able to witness my handsome face by themselves.

'I will not, however, attend my trial. It pains me to sadden you, but so it is – and we shall have another chance of meeting under the stars again. This prospect alone comforts me from having to part with Hakuba-guardian-san, and my lovely lawyer, Nakamori Aoko, daughter of the well-known late inspector Nakamori, who devoted the twenty last years of his life in running after me.

'Do not await news of my evasion. It is probable that the KID Task Force (how delightful it is to have one's own Task Force!) will never admit to having let me go until the very last moment, when they no longer have any chance of catching me again before the trials begins.

'I will, however, pass on further bulletins through this charming organ that always has had the courtesy to publish me, the Torimitsu.

'Till then.'

There was no signature, but a mocking caricature at the end of the letter that said it all, and Aoko wheeled round to Kaito, who was busying himself with the wing of a dove. He looked up on his own, probably because she was so radiating waves of anger.

"Kaito. Did you write this?" she asked suddenly, crushing the paper in his lap.

He gave it one glance and nodded. "Sure. Why?"

"You're in prison!" she hissed. "You're not supposed to be sending out letters to newspapers to tell them you're not planning on staying there!"

"Oh?" he cocked an amused eyebrow. "But I don't plan on staying here. I believe it's my duty to inform the public of that, so they're not too disappointed. Supposed or not, if I can, why should I restrain from it?" He looked genuinely curious, and it made Aoko want to yell.

"But you will attend your trial! You're just bluffing! Admit it, Kaito, there's no way you can get out of this cell–what?" he was frowning down at her, the small quirk of his mouth just enough to show his downright enjoyment of this.

"H'mm. Didn't Hakuba tell you?"

She scowled. "… tell me what?"

"Nothing!" he trilled, and went back to whistling the same tune he'd been humming and back to his dove's wing. "It's much funnier if you find it out on your own," and hadn't she known better she would've thought, from the look on his face, that he was scheming something nasty.

"Find what out on my own?" She was still holding the paper, and upon finding that she'd nearly crushed it to disintegration, relaxed her fingers again. Hakuba, uh. Was it just her imagination or had those two found some kind of implicit commitment?

Twinge. She winced and squinted again, trying to realize. What– implicit commitment?

"You'll see for yourself soon enough," Kaito chanted, effectively ruining her concentration, and then cheerfully proceeded to make himself thoroughly unhelpful all the way through that interview.

And the next.

And the one after that.

Aoko went home at night exhausted both mentally and physically, after running around all day in corridors and in her mind. Then she had to type in all her reports, and try and make sense around Kaito's statements.

They didn't. Make sense. He just seemed to be dropping them haphazardly, without any order or logic, and merely, it seemed, for the sake of annoying the hell out of her. Most times he appeared to be making fun of her. Others he was simply being nonsensical.

She started noting down his comportment as well – 'popped up dove then' 'offered me a bouquet of roses' 'started pulling out his handkerchief and got out a string of scarves and flags from his pocket instead' – and if it meant anything she had no clue what. And yet she couldn't shake off the impression that it did mean something, that he was not simply being nonsensical, that he was aiming at something. That it all – the doves and the teasing and the regular letters to the press and the book and the humming – somehow, in some weird pattern of his own, fitted in.

So far, she had no idea what it was, and so far, it pissed her off.

"You know what you remind me of?" she asked at the end of a very frustrating seventh session. "You remind me of a teenager who's just making fun of everyone, including himself."

"Maybe that's exactly what I am," he said lightly, glancing at her from his favourite seat at the window. "Maybe you've just hit the sore spot of my charac–"

"So all that KID persona was just for fun," she blurted out, thinking of her father. "It was just this? Nothing but gusto? You didn't mean any of it?"

He was watching her, and she thought, He knows exactly what I'm thinking of. Then he unwrapped himself from the windowseat and crouched in front of her, taking her hand. "Of course not, Aoko." She recoiled for a second, then relaxed. "If there's one thing I can tell you, it's this. It wasn't just for kicks, I swear."

His thumb was brushing soothingly against the back of her hand. "Your father–" he began again, and she thought, I was wrong. He didn't know what I was thinking of, he was thinking the same thing. The thought brought a strange bubble down in her throat. "He was loud, and I loved playing pranks on him, but he was a good man, and I – in my own peculiar way – respected him." He was silent for a second. (So, so serious–)

"He shouldn't have had to die that way." –and the door opened.

"… oh," Hakuba said, looking confused at the sight of them in a such a… position. Aoko probably would have flushed beet-red, had her mind not been occupied with other thoughts. "Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I was just bringing in lunch," he said, and set a tray on the table.

Kaito sprung to his feet and leapt to inspect the food, 'ooh'- and 'aah'-ing over it, and Hakuba came to stand by Aoko, whispering, "Everything all right?"

She nodded, eyes never leaving Kaito's lean figure fussing over the table. "Everything's fine. I think. Ne, Hakuba-kun, have you checked this food? He might receive messages through the bread or–" and this was familiar again. She ransacked around for the thought, trying to grasp at it. The bread. And something about potatoes and a… cigar?

"I've opened the bread," Hakuba was saying, "and the food is cut so minutely there's no way there could possibly be a message in it. Besides, look at him. He's wolfing it down without a second thought."

Which he was. Aoko kept her eyes on him all through his lunch, which lasted all but five minutes, and Hakuba being as intent on watching him as she was, he couldn't possibly have sneaked something off the plate or the tray without any or both of them noticing.

"Aah, delicious, Hakuba-waiter-san," Kaito grinned back at them when he was done. "A bit short, but delicious. You'll pay my compliments to the chef, and please ask the prefect of police to allow such a good citizen as I am to eat a little more?"

"Stop joking," Hakuba scowled, picking up the tray, but Aoko stopped him.

"Wait. The fork." –and was dead certain Kaito turned and grinned at her. "What?" Hakuba said.

"The fork," she repeated. She pointed at it on the tray, and as Hakuba had both his hands busy holding it, picked it up herself and started turning it left, then right. "Maybe it's–" and it turned right and split in two. The shaft was hollow.

It was also empty. Hakuba cursed and turned to Kaito, who was–still–grinning.

"Maa, you didn't honestly expect such a gentleman as me to use such easy devices," he said, and that was what her father had said. Not damn. Not a curse. Gentleman. 'I don't like the idea of you enjoying the adventures of a gentleman thief.'

She excused herself, drove back home in a rush, and pulled her Arsene Lupin books out of the bookshelf.

--

It took her all evening to sort out the information Lupin provided her with. (The book wasn't red at all. It was light-brown, with the picture of a cell that was almost the split image of Kaito's.)

Still, it was obvious who KID had inspired himself from. Gentleman-thief. Casanova. Fair-play. Cheekiness. Refusal to kill anyone. Gentle, if not even friendly, behaviour towards the police. Love for… perilous…at best… situations. Stubborn determination (and success) to bend the common laws of physics. It was all there in the books.

Kaito had added his own personal touch, but the principles were all there, and he was obviously matching his stay in his cell to Lupin's in the French Santé. Elements – all those which had caught her attention over the weeks she had known him – all pointed to it.

Keeping newspapers in his drawer. Hollow forks (and that was the relation with cigars. Lupin's guardians had discovered the cigar along with the fork). Borrowing watches that weren't his own. Messages that passed from the inside of the cell to the outside without anyone knowing how, or when. Sending letters to newspapers.

'I will not attend my trial.'

The same words, the same meaning, and the same careless laugh behind it that convinced everyone he was as serious as could be.

(But if he intended to get out of his trial the same way as Lupin had, why was he leaving such obvious hints of their likeness? she thought. Surely, surely, it was to confuse them. Or it was intended to let them think he wasn't going to act as his model because it was so obvious, whereas he actually was… which was brain-consuming. She shrugged it off, merely filing down the supposition before heading back to studying the book, along with a much-needed coffee pot.)

Their behaviour corresponded too. Cheeky and arrogant, but a liveliness, a youth, a laughter that could only endear him both to the crowds and the police. 'What a strange boy!' exclaimed Ganimard, Lupin's police nemesis, amusedly, in Arsene Lupin In Prison. 'You're disconcerting.'

Which he was.

And deceptive, and sharp as a blade underneath.

They didn't exactly match, of course, because Lupin was a paper character and Kaito an actual person, for all his personas, but they fitted. It was almost frightening just how much. It was almost frightening how much both of them treaded the thin line between fiction and reality, the thin, thin, so thin line between danger and safety, life and death, caution and offhandedness, with the same careless laugh and the same pirouette – both quite willing to make the jump if it came to it.

Stop it, she thought. You're confabulating again. KID – Kaito wasn't a novel character, he was a human being, and there was no such thing as bending the laws of physics. There were simply ropes, tricks, lures, traps. Machinery. If she started being sentimental about this case, she would soon be acting romantically, and that was probably the worst thing a lawyer could do. She had to keep cool, keep her will firm and rational.

… still.

' "It's very well to be someone or other,"' said Lupin to Ganimard at the end of the same short story, after his remarkable but by no means spectacular escape, ' "to skip personalities like shirts and to chose one's looks, one's voice, one's eyes, one's penmanship. But it so happens that one sometimes gets confused amongst it all, and that's sad. Right now, I feel the way the man must have felt who lost his shadow. I will seek myself… and find myself."'

… it was just as well the phone rang just then. Aoko paddled over to it in her crowded flat, sipping coffee and hoping it might clear her brain. She, too, felt like she had lost her shadow. "Hello?"

"Aoko-chaaaan!" Keiko whined on the other end of the line, and Aoko immediately considered hanging up and blaming it on static. She could hear a plane landing (or taking off, maybe) in the background, soon drowned again under Keiko's high pitches.

"How could you not tell me you're lawyer for the defence? You knew how much it meant to me that you should at least be lawyer for the prosecution, but this is So Much Better!" She could hear her lift a dramatic back of a hand to her forehead, in the airport or wherever her friend was. "I can't believe you must know all about KID now – but is it fair, really, that my own best friend should tell me nothing about it but I should learn it in the newspapers the day I come back to Japan? Ooh, but you must tell me all about it. I've heard they're not planning on showing his face until the trial's day (I really have no idea why, what a stupid idea of protection) but you must have seen it, of course–"

"Keiko-chan," Aoko tried to put in through the flow. "Weren't you supposed to come back in a week?"

"Of course, but people are so barbaric! They could never understand true beauty–"

"… you're been fired?"

"Of course not! I left them hopeless and begging for my return–"

"… you've been fired."

"–but they can beg and beg and beg, I shall not come back! I've received loads of letters from my fans, you know, who all plead for my return in some other magazine, but that's not the point. The point is that you're coming to lunch with me tomorrow and telling me all about Kaitou KID-sama. Have you taken any pictures of him?"

"These are confidential information," Aoko put in, formally. "I can't divulge them to anybody–"

"Anybody, Aoko! I'm your best friend!"

Yeah, and an active member of the Kaitou KID-sama fanclub. If I gave you those nonexistent-anyway photos, they'd be on the Net an hour later. "Besides, I can't tomorrow. I've got a session with Kai–tou KID at one."

Mistake. Keiko started to squeal.

"Ooooh! Are you? Well, then, we can go together – that way I can take pictures for myself and have a nice little chat with him – wait, what ensemble should suit me best? Dear, dear, I'm just coming back from a trip, that's why I so wanted you to tell me about this, Aoko-chan! Wait, you should know – what's his favourite colour, yellow or blue?"

"Keiko…"

"Oh, white, of course. He's always wearing white. Those doves of his." She giggled. "Here I come, Kaitou KID-sama, an innocent dove!"

It was hopeless. It took Aoko the best part of a half-hour to unhook her best friend from the phone, uh-huh-ing her all the way and almost hanging up in her face, and another one to recover from the shock. Keiko was always worst when she came back from those fashion trips of hers.

It had, however, cleared her head from Lupin (if not from KID) and she was able, upon settling back at her computer and staring doubtfully at the screen, to ponder the matter more rationally, which was all she needed.

Establishing a link (and the most obvious of all – Hakuba must have thought of it ages ago) between Lupin and KID was alright, but it was not her answer. It gave her an in-depth perception of KID's persona and of Kaito's personality, and their – wait, his aptitude to resemble a Maurice Leblanc hero, and that could certainly help her understand him better, but it wasn't her answer.

But I felt it, she thought, scrolling up the pages to the first and second sessions. I felt it when he spoke of Lupin – or in Lupin's way. 'I do not plan on attending my trial' and my watch and the fork and the cigar-associatiion…

But not only that, she realized, skimming through the sessions. She'd also felt it when she'd thought he was an actual person, and when he'd asked her why she wasn't demanding after his reason for being KID. And 'it runs in the blood' and 'he was the best man I ever knew'.

No connection with Lupin through this – at least, she believed not.

It didn't help.

So Lupin wasn't the solution, nor yet an unknown. He was simply a, a… a clue to what it really meant.

Aoko rubbed her temples painfully. What it really meant. She couldn't even figure what it was – a feeling, a sensation she felt every time she was around Kaito. The certainty that she knew something already (but couldn't remember it), and that this same knowledge was leading to the solution of–what? What was there that should be understood?

It had to do with Kaito–Kaito, and her father. Why he had died. What he had died for.

Lupin was a clue. She supposed that Kaito was a clue too. And his predecessor, probably, as well – 'the best man that ever was' – and yet, still, a thief, described by another thief. She shouldn't be trusting Kaito's word so easily. Or at all.

That's the main problem with this whole business, Aoko thought wearily, shutting the computer down and heading for the bathroom. She needed a long, warm, relaxing bath. It makes us all hypocritical, she thought, before drowning it under the rapid rush of hot water pouring down from the tap.

--

The next day was light and airy, wisps of November white clouds stripping the sky as Aoko walked down the boulevard at lunchtime, heading for the prison. Keiko being liable to show up on her doorstep and kidnap her, she'd left early for the library, where she'd worked for an hour, and had consequently forgotten all about lunch. Her stomach was currently howling with hunger.

She eyed mournfully one of the bakers on her way. The sandwiches in the windows were all gone or going, and she didn't have money enough for one anyway – nor even for a pastry of some kind. She'd have to settle for nicking some bread from Hakuba's or Kaito's lunchtray.

It was, however, a beautiful day – not quite sunny, but not as chilly as some others before – and the people of the boulevard were taking their sweet time, relaxing each of them in a sauntering stroll or at one of the cafés' terraces. The wind was brisk, though not enough to be sharp, and it hit her face agreeably.

A beautiful day.

"–Aoko!"

The only reason she didn't stagger on the spot was that she could not hear that voice here, and therefore put it down to food-deprivation.

"Oï! A-o-ko!"

Nope. No food-deprivation. Unless it was a serious case of delirium. Maybe if she glared at him hard enough, the wild-haired young man in his twenties waving enthusiastically at her from the table of one of the cafés would just – disappear, and she could go on her ravenous way to the prison.

It didn't work one bit.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed, slipping between the tables to sit on the chair next to his. It was he – dressed casually in a black shirt and blue jacket, head tilting to the side like a perfectly genuinely curious and innocuous cat who's just managed to capture the canary without letting the canary know.

"Having lunch, of course," he replied, with a sharp grin, and surveyed her face critically. "You look like you haven't eaten in weeks. Well, I'll just have to order for the both of us, shall I?" It was a mild poke at the canary, and he was obviously very pleased with it.

"You're supposed to be in prison," Aoko hissed in her fiercest whisper. "Not having lunch on boulevards."

"Hm-mm," he hummed unconcernedly, turned, and waved at an oldish man in a black blouse. "Garçon!"

Aoko settled back down in her chair, cradling her bag on her lap and later letting it slip to her feet, and watched Kaito order to the waiter, eyes idly taking in the menu's columns. It must be awfully expensive here, she thought uncomfortably, squirming on her seat and looking around. The restaurant was large and well-built; the long windowpane gave a nice inkling of what winter evenings, with those candles lit and the dark red wood of the tables, might be here.

"Huitres Musgrave," Kaito was saying to the old man, rapidly. "Plain water, I think – the lady will not drink alcohol, and I must remain sober, of course." Another wry grin there – the cat opening its paw one inch, one wing aflutter. "No fish – a simple, one-plate meal, I suppose. And then a Faisan rôti sur lit de pommes des champs–whatever they are–et herbes du verger. Dessert ­– what do you like best, Aoko, tarte meringuée or Paris-Brest? Yes–la tarte, je pense. Then coffee and croissants, Jii-chan, thank you."

The old gentleman gave him a grin, striking in its likeness with Kaito's, and then bowed and swept off between the tables; Kaito watched him go fondly.

"Good ol' Jii-chan," he murmured. "Old friend of my dad's," he explained to Aoko. "Frenchman. Wonderful cook. We used to invite him over every night. When my father died–I was hardly ten back then–he set up this restaurant–" an almost-languid, in its quickness, wave of the hand over the terrace where they sat– "with the legacy. He's done great, I think."

The interval had given Aoko room to think.

Lupin again. Lupin too had escaped from prison once–though his escape was set up by the police; they'd hoped he'd lead them straight to his accomplices and they'd be able to hook up the whole lot–but Lupin had merely had lunch on the boulevards and then gone quietly home to prison with a laugh in the director's face.

But if Lupin had only done it once, this was obviously not the first time. Kaito was looking far too relaxed and genuinely happy–the cat just about to eat the canary now–and she seemed to recall some things Hakuba had hinted at, and then cut himself off–damn Hakuba. Couldn't all those guys just speak their minds?

"So." She said. "Come here often in the past weeks?"

The corners of his mouth softened a little, as he shot her an I know that shit look. "Fairly," he laughed. "First time I did it, Hakuba almost had a stroke. He got used to it, though."

"Yeah?"

"H'm. Do understand, Aoko. Prison food is terrible, and when you've once tasted Jii-chan's cooking, you just don't eat anything else. Sooo–" he laced his fingers behind his head and jerked his face back to look at the sky– "yes, fairly often. I like it here."

Jii-chan sauntered back up with a long-necked jug of water and a plate of oysters, and Kaito immediately skipped from the melancholy persona to the Good let's have loads of fun one, and went through dissecting the lot in search for pearls. By the time Aoko had managed to understand the handling of those long pitched forks, he had already gone through half his plate, and was humming again.

It was a disturbing kind of humming. It was all the more disconcerting that she knew what song that was–she just knew, it was on the tip of her tongue, she'd heard it all her life and kami, she hated that feeling when it came.

"Hmmm hmm hm hm hmm hm hm, hm hm hmm, hm hm hmm…"

Kami. The oysters were taken away, and she laid the fork back on the tablecloth, settling for drinking water instead. Kaito paid her no heed, and started juggling with forks and spoons and whatever silverware had found its way onto the table.

"Hmmm hmm hm hm hmm hm hm, hm hmm hm hm."

Another plate. Another fork. Suddenly Kaito stopped humming. "Aoko. Have you gone to the prosecution's quarters recently?"

"… just yesterday," she replied, stunned, a potato slipping out of her stabbing reach. "Why?"

"Well." He impaled a piece of meat on his knife, looked at it savagely, and ate it. "There was a nasty bit of critic in yesterday's papers–I think you must have seen it–" he levelled her with a grave, if amused gaze– "the prosecution saying we didn't have a bit of truth in our defence and my saying I wouldn't attend my trial was just showing off to cover that up."

"I wonder too," Aoko said coolly. "You do realise that apart from some segmented fragments I tore away from you at great cost and from Arsene Lupin, we have nothing to rely on? Kami, Kaito, the trial's only three weeks away, so if you've got something to say say it now."

He sidestracked immediately. "Uh, so you've noticed that, right?"

"I have a little knowledge," she replied, still icily, and then feeling this deserved some kind of explanation, at least, she added, "My mom offered me Arsene Lupin in Prison when I was seven. My father was mad." She grinned.

"I can imagine." –and then it was her father talking, and she stared at his rapidly-moving lips, dumbfounded– "Aoko darling, I don't like the idea of you enjoying the adventures of that goddamn gentleman thief–" He scrunched up his nose. "Kami, it's weird thinking of Nakamori-keibu saying darling. –What?"

She was still staring at him.

"Ao–Shit. Gosh, I'm sorry–I didn't realize." She felt his hand on her shoulder, on her shoulderblade, on her back. "Aoko?"

"I—"

Kami, it's weird thinking of Nakamori-keibu saying– and… what else?

The best man that ever was.

"I—" It was no use. It was gone–but it had been there one second before, like a heartstring to pull, and if only, if only she could have pulled at it, the whole thing would have unravelled like a tapestry, and clear and logical and–

"Aoko."

"Aah… yes?"

"I–"

"Kaito, the pie is coming."

He looked properly baffled, and when he handed her her plate and let their fingers brush, when she left cream on the corner of her mouth and he reached out to wipe it, and either time she didn't shrink back with an angry retort and flashing eyes, it only went deeper.

"See what I mean?" he asked, waving a spoonful of meringue at her. "After this, prison food is dog food. They really should try and treat their faithful citizens better–can't you do something about this, Aoko? Can't you make a law or something–"

"Hmm."

Bewilderment mixed with alarm in his eyes. "–try and give us a French cook, I'm sure Jii-chan would accept to devote himself to the task–"

"London Bridge Is Falling Down," she blurted out suddenly, baffling him suitably for the second time.

"Uh… yes?"

Her voice had risen to a high-pitch in excitement and she leant forwards to bite into a sample of her pie, which he had been spoon-feeding her in last recourse. "London Bridge Is Falling Down," she repeated confusedly. "That's what you're humming, isn't it? what you were humming all this time?"

That was it. It was it. Well, no, it wasn't really–but it was Lupin and Kaito and 'I don't plan on attending my trial' all over again, a clue, a hint of something deeper, truer. Something that was there, something he was handing her on a silver plate, and she could only grasp slivers at a time–but it was this. There. London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down…

"You're a puzzle," she informed him, as coffee came and went.

"A muddle," he replied, grinning, and mentioned Jii-chan over. "But it will get better."

Two minutes later they were on the boulevard again, he helping her into her coat, she laughing at him and adding, "Maa, the perfect gentleman you are! Young men nowadays never forget their manners, do they?"

"Probably they do," he replied with a straight face. "I'm just weak-minded. True gentlemen always are. Protective streak a mile wide. Women and children first and everything." He looked down at her bare hands. "Why aren't you wearing any gloves? It's mid-November, d'you know?"

"For the single pleasure of having you lending yours to me."

He grinned at her. "Unfortunately I don't have any either. Must be our luck running out. This–" he grabbed her right hand and stuffed it down his coat pocket along with his– "is it alright?" There was something soft in the corner of his mouth, in his eyes.

"Yeah. Fine."

It was a beautiful day.

--

It wasn't for long. Down to the prison, they squatted under the outer wall, casting wary looks at the two gorilla-shaped guards that ferociously stood by the cell's first barred door. From afar, it looked like a perfectly regular bank complex.

"How did you even escape that?" Aoko hissed from over Kaito's shoulder.

"I didn't," he said, laughter audible in his whisper. "I just told 'em I was hungry and they got compassionate and let me pass. They promised they'd keep my room free for me, aren't they kind? Don't tell Hakuba, though. He'd flip his shit."

She nudged him in the shoulder. "Be serious for a second."

"My dear… always," he retorted, and then did something with his hands and a pocket remote that caused the ape-descent guards to gasp, turn their heads, glance at each other, and run into the building through another door.

"What was tha–" –and he grabbed her hand again, broke into a dash across the yard, and skidded them both to a halt in front of the door. He fiddled with the lock rapidly, got it open despite all impossibilities in three seconds flat, pulled them both fluidly inside, and leant against it to shut, laughing.

Hakuba was not pleased.

"Do you realize what could have happened if you were caught, the both of you?" he scolded tartly, crossing and uncrossing his arms as he paced the cell. Kaito had coiled himself on the windowseat again. Aoko lifted hands in a peace offering.

"Hakuba-kun–"

"Nobody knows my face," Kaito piped in. "Anybody who saw us must have thought it was a perfectly standard date."

Aoko glared half-heartedly at him. "Don't you begin."

"I haven't even started."

Hakuba was starting to worry his lips again. "Obviously the two of you don't realize at all what is at stake here. Honestly, you're a notorious thief and his lawyer–is it normal that you should be acting like two lovesick high school students?"

"No," Aoko said.

"Yes," Kaito counterattacked. "By the way–before I forget–" he yanked his coat off the–coat stand, which hadn't been there any of the times before–and got out a small package that certainly had not been there when Hakuba had ransacked those pockets for unknown weapons fifteen minutes before. "For Akako-san," he said to his jailer, grinned, and promptly fell into a post-lunch nap.

"It's no use," Aoko told Hakuba when they vacated the cell quietly enough to avoid waking him. "He'll do whatever he wants, no matter how much you or I shout."

"I know that," he replied, and shut the heavy door again. "I've been chasing him for nine long years, Aoko­–that's enough to know that nothing ever goes right or wrong with Kaitou KID, it just goes the way he wants." He breathed out in what was almost a sigh. "But it would help if you didn't go and be stupid with him."

"It was just fun," Aoko protested, and then realized this sounded just like she was cautioning his actions. Which she didn't. She didn't.

Hakuba was running his hand in his hair again, a gesture he accomplished oftener and oftener these times. "Aoko, you're one of the saner persons I've met. You're–nothing like all those girls KID, or Kaito, has seduced all these times to get his point through." His hawk-like eyes fixed hers, pinned hers. "Don't become one of them."

She didn't like the turn the conversation was taking. "O-kay. Don't worry. How's Akako?"

The gold in her friend's eyes seemed to lighten up a bit. "Good. She's six months through now. Says she wants Lucifer to be godfather, but obviously that wouldn't work–" he made a wry face, and weighted Kaito's package in his hand.

"What's in there?"

"… from the shape of it, a rubber duck."

"Oh, dear," Aoko said, laughed, and left to raid her apartment for a nursery rhymes CD.

She found one after one hour of rummaging around, and plugged the phone off to avoid any Keiko-interruptions. She pushed repeat, then skip until she reached track four, and slumped in her armchair, head leaning back against the cushion. A deep, rich man's voice filled the void of silence, and she closed her eyes, silently.

London Bridge is falling down,

Falling down, falling down,

London Bridge is falling down,

My fair lady.

Yes, it was most definitely that. She wondered why Kaito had chosen it. Maybe he hadn't–maybe it was just one of these melodies which self-imposed themselves to one's mind and refused to leave for days–

Take a key and lock her up,

Lock her up, lock her up,

Take a key and lock her up,

My fair lady.

–or maybe not. Despite the feminine pronoun, Kaito may have been feeling sympathetic, although he could go and leave his prison as he wished. That– not again. She fished around for a few moments, but to no avail.

How will we build it up,

Build it up, build it up,

How will we build it up,

My fair lady.

There were a few couplets down that talked about a prisoner and a woman trying to get him out of prison, weren't there? Stole my watch and broke my chain… that was accurate, if anything, to part of the truth.

Build it up with gold and silver,

Gold and silver, gold and silver,

Build it up with gold and silver,

My fair lady.

Or were those alternative lyrics? She'd been pretty certain there had been something about iron and steel will bend and bow and… penny loaves? Yes, and something else about a hundred pounds to set the prisoner free–

Gold and silver I have none,

I have none, I have none,

Gold and silver I have none,

My fair lady.

Vaguely, she wondered why the fair lady wanted to set the prisoner free. If he'd stolen her watch, she'd only want to toss him in prison, right? Right. Stole my watch and broke my chain–what chain? Gold chains?

Build it up with pins and needles,

Pins and needles, pins and needles,

Build it up with pins and needles,

My fair lady.

But pins and needles would never hold… pins and needles… somehow, it was as Kaito's prison, that too. Kaito who left it as he wished, and oh that feeling again… why? Left as he wished? Was that a clue, too? Was the song?

Pins and needles bend and break,

Bend and break, bend and break,

Pins and needles bend and break,

My fair lady.

What had Hakuba meant when–'I've been chasing him for nine long years, Aoko–that's enough to know that nothing ever goes right or wrong with Kaitou KID, it just goes the way he wants.' Were things going the way he wanted, even now?

Build it up with wood and clay,

Wood and clay, wood and clay,

Build it up with wood and clay,

My fair lady.

Were they just doing everything he wanted–was he just laughing at them from his cell, at their firm belief that he'd never escape when he did everyday, that they had him in their grip when he was just ready to leave?

Wood and clay will wash away,

Wash away, wash away,

Wood and clay will wash away,

My fair lady.

And even if that was so–what was there they could do? He was a level of reasoning higher than they were–Arsene Lupin or no. Maybe I don't plan on attending my trial. Of course not; that would have been stupid of him. He was a notorious thief with masses at his feet. Of course he didn't plan on staying in prison if he could help it. But she had been committing the fatal mistake of the lawyer–she'd started to see him as a person who laughed, ate and drank, felt as her, not as the thief–was that a twisted version of the Stockholm syndrome or something?

Build it up with penny loaves,

Penny loaves, penny loaves,

Build it up with penny loaves,

My fair lady.

Aha, Aoko thought vaguely. I knew, I knew penny loaves came into it somewhere–Penny loaves will tumble down, tumble down, tumble down–and fell asleep to the bass voice of falling London Bridge.

She–dreamt that Kaito was standing in his cell and humming, then looking up at her and saying–and saying–wake up.

Take the key and lock him up, the singer was saying–how long had she been asleep? The room was dark and the curtains drawn. Only the greenish numbers of the CD reader were blinking, repeat, on her right, casting a winking sheen on the furniture of her crowded living-room.

Take the key and lock him up,

My fair lady.

What will it take to set him free,

Set him free, set him free…

What will it take to set him free?

Hmm, Aoko thought, and fell asleep again.

--

The next morning the coffee machine decided to go on strike and there was a new message from KID in the Torimitsu.

She read it, standing in front of the reluctantly-working coffee maker and wondering when he had had time to send it to the newspaper the day before. Before going to lunch? But the hours didn't match–Hakuba had said he'd left (or in any case the cell had been found empty) at twelve-thirty, and she'd met him on the boulevards at a quarter to one. Too short.

'Dear, faithful readers of the Torimitsu,

'We are now only three weeks away from my long-awaited trial, and I am still trespassing on the kind hospitality of my caring guardians. Prison life is so eventful. When I cannot amuse myself with poking at my neighbours' cheeks, my lovely lawyer comes in and starts asking questions–to which I cannot, unfortunately answer quite deeply. I regret that.'

You bet, Aoko fumed. You're having the laugh of your life.

'I am sorry to understand that the prosecution is firmly convinced that my 'showing-off' in the papers and my announcing that I will not attend my trial are merely 'bluffing,' and only a way to cover up for the defence's lack of data. Inasmuch as I deeply respect your opinion, gentlemen, I beg to differ.

'That you should attack me is no news at all–not to me–and would provide you with good entertainment, and probably with good rehearsal for the trial, was it bound to take place (which it isn't). But I cannot allow–and I will not allow–that you should also be attacking, in the same newspaper, my guardians and lawyer.

Hakuba Saguru is a devoted policeman whose ambition in life is to catch me and see me through to my trial. He has accomplished half of that schedule, and no doubt intends to carry it through. If not absolutely cool-minded, he is caring and determined (and his wife expects a baby, which I intend to shower with toys, as a respectable though unspoken godfather). He deserves, if anything, your respect, and what's more, your admiration.

Nakamori Aoko is another business. As the daughter of the late and much-regretted Nakamori Ginzo-keibu, I have the highest regard for her. As a human being, I like her very much. (In many ways, she is like her father. Making fun of the Nakamori family is not something you should care to do, were you sensible. Unless you were me, as I have held, and flatter myself on still holding, a peculiar position with them.) She is, also, devoted to her work, and is intent on working this trial thing through. I wish you would not disturb her or her work with any of your ridiculous hypotheses.

If, by any chance, you should not happen to agree with me on these terms, and should continue publishing those unacceptable letters in newspapers of notoriety much inferior to that of the Torimitsu, and if you are adamant on thinking I am merely bluffing, I should be delighted to show you in any way you think most impossible that I am very much not.

With my kindest regards–'

Again, there was no signature, only a grinning KID caricature in the corner.

Aoko transferred the coffee in a commuter mug, visited the prosecution quarters like a fury and demanded they never again publish any comments in the papers, then went frustratedly down to the prison and attended a morning tea party with Kaito and Hakuba.

The former of the two had a Mad Hatter hat on and swapped her strict lawyer attire into a blue Alice dress before she had time to speak; the latter was sitting at the table with quite real-looking bunny ears and was looking very carefully unfazed. Welcome to Looking-Glass world, Aoko thought, with a sinking feeling.

"What I don't understand," she explained away, while Kaito piled up scones and muffins in her teacup with a meticulous air, "no, no more, thank you–is why they even bother. I mean, I know they think they can sink our ship, but Kaitou KID is illustrious enough on his own that they shouldn't want to make any more publicity."

"Thank you," said Kaito, courteously.

"I think–" Hakuba was trying to tug his bunny ears off, "I think they want to counterpoint you. They try to affirm themselves–not in the wisest way, I should think, but really only one among the few. They can show off too, they say. KID is not the only cheeky guy."

Aoko stared at a muffin. "That's a preschool-kid attitude."

"Nobody said any of them were more than that. Or that you are," Hakuba added, glaring at Kaito, who just grinned maddeningly, fully in character.

"But at least Kaito doesn't pretend he's anything else," Aoko said, still talking to the muffin. "And they're supposed to be the hands of justice or whatever, not stupid kids in school recess. They're supposed to be the grown-ups. Or something." She watched Kaito's hand on the tablecloth, long, lean fingers tapping a lively rhythm near his teaspoon.

"… and what are you supposed to be?" he asked, and there was something carefully shifting in his voice, as though testing an unknown ground.

"I–you should tell me that, not I," Aoko snapped, at the muffin.

When she looked up, Kaito was smiling, and warmth furled in her chest like a purring cat.

Whereupon Hakuba was started up on Akako And The Baby, a topic which he could apparently dissert on for hours. Aoko listened to him patiently, drank tea, laughed, and did not jump when Kaito's knuckles brushed hers under the tablecloth.

"I still want you through the trial," she told him, later, when Hakuba was in the antechamber, rummaging around for papers he wanted to give her, and the door was only ajar to the cell. Kaito was leaning negligently against it, still grinning in his madish fashion.

"I know," he said, brushing aside a strand of black hair from her eyes. "You would."

"You're crazy," she informed him, laughing.

"The world is crazy, beloved, not only I," was the arch reply, with something rather soft in the blue of the eyes.

--

The prosecution attacked again two days later.

The spirit of the letter sent to the newspaper ran along the lines of–'this last, petulant letter of so-called Kaitou KID–for it is well understood between us that KID cannot have sent them, being in the depths of his cell, and it is therefore a prank from the defence to disconcert us–only shows to declare how right we were. Bluff we said it was, and bluff it is. Again, that's a nice thing to do for the thief to defend the lawyer! What more than this will suffice to show how unserious they all are about this business?

From our own sources, we are able to declare that while Hakuba Saguru might be a very devoted policeman, his having been chasing Kaitou KID for nine years will predispose him into prejudice, and while Nakamori Aoko might be the rightful daughter of old Nakamori-keibu, it does not mean that she is any more able than other, older, more experienced lawyers.

In fact, it is in our right to declare that her researches have been much insufficient for such an important trial as this. As she is only a young woman–she is barely twenty-six–she might not grasp how important will be the issue of this trial, as Kaitou KID might be one of, or even THE greatest criminal of our times.'

That's ridiculous, Aoko raged in her kitchen, burning her breakfast toasts. Kaito hasn't killed anyone. Every jewel he stole he gave back, and, if anything, they are better protected now than ever before. His greatest crime has been to escape justice and the police for twenty-six years–in his case, only nine. He is only so well-known because he is talented and likes showing-off…

Kaito, however, retaliated immediately, with flourishes of pretty talks and politeness.

'… I can assure you, gentlemen, that it is the one and only Kaitou KID writing these letters, and no one else. Should you question my word again, I know not what the look-out on the public might be. You seem very imprudent.

'Bluff it is not. I have said before, and I will repeat it again, that whatever pleases you as impossible you can ask me now, and I will have the great pleasure of ridiculing you all now, since my trial will have to be put off. I am certain every sensible man out there would agree with me. Only hurry and think; we haven't much time.

'I will not even respond to your meaningless attacks on Hakuba Saguru and Nakamori Aoko, which appear to me as the mere insignificance of pointless arguments when everything else has failed.

'If this is the way you intend to tackle the trial, I might even start to consider attending to it–leaving, of course, as soon as it is over–just for the pleasure of seeing myself acquitted and your petty case neatly dislocated.

'As it is, however, and my resolution being fixed to not attend it, we shall have to confront each other on these rather more public grounds.

'Yours truly….'

(By this point, of course, everyone in the country was buying the two papers on a regular basis, and both parties involved were thoroughly enjoying themselves.)

'Kaitou KID likes to joke,' was the prosecution's next instalment. 'But even he, despite his escaping justice for twenty-six years, cannot, for all his love of gusto, manage to be in different places at the same time now, while in prison.

'That is our defy, if it pleases you. If Kaitou KID manages to show himself in three or more different places at the same time, without leaving his cell, we will admit that as a defeat on our side. As, however, we know it to be impossible, phantom thief or no, we will await KID's excuses and decline of our proposition within the next three days.'

Aoko went to the prison the day after that to talk to Kaito, but wasn't allowed in.

"He's sleeping," Hakuba, looking uncomfortable, said. "Has been for three days–ever since he published that last letter of his. I showed him the prosecution's defy, but he said he'd read it already and bid me to let him sleep."

"May I at least see him?"

Hakuba cast her a wary glance. "Aoko–"

"If only to check it is him in this cell, and not some prank. I know you would never let Kaito out off your own accord, Hakuba-kun, but he may have fooled you. Let me pass, please."

His embarrassment increased, but only, it seemed, at her supposing he might be cheated on, and he held the door open for her. There was, however, nothing to see. Kaito was lying on his bunk with his face turned to the wall, and when she stepped closer he was deeply asleep.

And it was him. Most definitely. She doubted anyone could copycat that wild hair falling on shivering cheekbones. If this wasn't Kaito, there was a serious problem with her perceptions–she, if anyone, should know. She'd spent two months studying him–so, so intently–now.

She thanked Hakuba, left the cell, and went home to read some more Lupin. By ten at night, she dropped her books and went to take a long, hot bath, hoping it might somehow manage to clear her brain.

'Was I ever one to admit defeat?' was Kaito's answer in the Torimitsu the next morning. 'I accept, gentlemen, with the greatest pleasure. It is too long since I have felt the bliss of meeting with the moon again.

'I give you rendez-vous in three days' time–you will allow for a necessary time of preparation–at 8 p.m. I need not tell you where. You'll see well enough.'

When Aoko returned to the prison the morning after that, Kaito was still sleeping.

Damn you, she fumed as she tore down the steps leading to the train station. Damn you. You'll never get anywhere near appearing in three different places at the same time by only sleeping all the damn time. Don't you see they only mean to trick you? Don't you see it's the only way they've got to bring us down before the trial?

Don't you see you're not Lupin, damnit!

--

By seven-thirty two days later, about half the town was in the streets.

KID had not said where he'd appear, but he had said he'd appear in different places all at once, so there were many chances one would just happen to be at the right place at the right time.

The prosecution had refused to say anything so far, not after some 'this will never work' comments after KID's letter three days before, and the defence had, to put it simply, vanished from her flat the same morning.

At one minute to eight, Hakuba Saguru, when called by the prefect of police, declared that the man he had arrested as Kaitou KID was currently in his cell, fully asleep.

When the clock tower marked eight and started to ring its sweet peal in the cold evening air, Kaitou KID appeared rapidly on a museum's roof, on a supermarket's roof, on the prison's roof, on the prosecution quarters' roof, and on the clock tower's spire itself.

The streets exploded in cheers.

At two minutes past eight, KID leaped easily down from the museum roof to one of the balconies, waved at the crowd, and disappeared in a swirl of his white cloak.

At three minutes past eight, KID sat down on the supermarket roof and started drinking tea and offering toasts to the moon. When the police squad reached the last floor and climbed up on the tiles, though, the kaitou had disappeared, and none could tell whither he had gone.

At four minutes past eight, KID played tag with his shadow on the prison roof, swept behind the tall rectangle of a dark chimney, and disappeared and never emerged again.

At five minutes past eight, KID unravelled a long 'Missed me, gents?' banner down the prosecution quarters' roof, burst out laughing as he jumped down it, and disappeared in the throng of pressing people.

At seven minutes past eight, Nakamori Aoko, lawyer for the defense, was seen to catch a red rose that had been floating down from the clock tower's spire since KID had disappeared from it in a puff of pink smoke one minute earlier.

At eight minutes past eight, end of the pandemonium.

(Only remained in the crowd's eyes flashing fireworks, exploding bunches of roses, juggling lights, and in the crowd's ears young peals of laughter.)

At ten minutes past eight, when called (again) by the crimson-faced prefect of police, Hakuba Saguru repeated his assertion according to which Kaitou KID was still sleeping in his cell, and was–wait–currently stirring and yawning.

All the witnesses declared the kaitou they had seen was the one and only Kaitou KID. The police squads which had been tricked several times over swore and cursed and went dispassionately to report to their superiors. The reporters of various newspapers, who had been hanging out at strategic places all over town, and had managed to take pictures of the different KIDs, returned to the motherhouse, thinking up headlines.

It turned out that all the lawyers and assistants for the prosecution had had their hair switched to a very… bright…to say the least… shade of pink.

People laughed, and went home.

--

"How did he do it?" Aoko asked Hakuba the next morning, sitting at the table in the antechamber. The half-brit inspector looked weary and strained, as though he had stayed up all night–he probably had.

"I don't know," he replied tiredly, rubbing his eyes. The cool neatness of his clothes and hair was by now far long gone. "All I know is that he was in his cell at eight, and he stayed there all evening and all night, so far as I know. He was sleeping most of the time. He only woke up when my cell rang, and asked me to put it on vibration."

"Did he tell you anything about yesterday night's events?"

"Yeah…" he leaned his chin on his hand and yawned. "He grinned and said, 'Good, I'm glad it worked out–' and went back to sleep."

"He's sleeping right now," Aoko guessed.

"Hmmm."

She didn't ask to see him this time, and went home thinking it out. Lupin also had been deadly slept for the two weeks that had preceded his trial, but that had been a way to disguise himself, to change his face slowly, by degrees, so the man who'd entered the cell and the man who'd come out were nothing alike.

Lupin, for all his speeches, had attended his trial, under the identity of someone else, had tricked every one, and got out laughing at his old nemesis. ('And suddenly, in this silence, echoed a peal of laughter, but a joyful, happy laugh, the laugh of a child taken with a burst of laughter and unable to stop…')

Kaito couldn't intend to do the same, though. Surely, surely, she couldn't be the only one who'd read Leblanc, who'd see through the prank. Hakuba had, for one thing, and probably the prosecution too. He'd never get away with that. (… stared at him, deeply, violently, more sharply even than he had stared at him at court, and in truth that wasn't the man he saw. It was the man, but at the same time the other, the true one.)

But then what? she no longer believed it was bluff. He had a–plan, plot, whatever. He said he wouldn't attend his trial, and whether or not he would in the end, there was a reason for his saying it. A reason.

(…and you never thought, 'if Arsene Lupin is shouting about that he'll break free from prison, it means he has reason to shout'…)

Stop it, she thought. Not because Lupin did things one way meant Kaito would do the same. It simply meant he looked up at him as a model–a master–someone whose example to follow–but Kaito had his own persona, his own imagination. If anything, he'd come up with something even more twisted than Lupin to get out–something that would phase the world.

… still.

(…and it were the other man's eyes, the other man's mouth, it was, above all, his keen, lively expression, mocking and wry, so clear, so young…)

A week went on.

Kaito slept.

The only time he wasn't asleep when Aoko came to visit him there were hardly three weeks left before the trial, and he was just awaking. Aoko closed the door softly behind her, and watched him stretch and yawn, grinning sheepishly at her.

"Slept well?"

"Pretty well."

She sat down at the table and looked up at him, brow furrowed in concern. "Listen. I really need more data for the trial. As such, it's pretty certain we'll lose–or at least lose more to them than we should. I've got practically nothing about–"

"That's not true," he said. "You've been working for weeks–meeting with witnesses, attending councils, studying old cases. You're a very self-conscious person," he added, with a smile that unnerved her.

"I've got nothing about you," she said angrily. "I don't even know if I should present you as a justice champion or a madman–"

"Both."

"I'm not joking, Kaito."

"Neither am I. I've given you all the data I could–all the data you needed, anyway. You don't need me anymore," he plopped down on his bunk again and glanced up at her. His lips were twitching. "You can work it out on your own now."

"… that's your answer?" She stood, thin-lipped, glaring.

"My final word. Go home, Aoko."

She went home, feeling ridiculously angry and uneasy with everything. She sat at her computer, staring at the blinking green screen for long minutes, just trying to understand how she had gotten there in the first place. Screw Kaito. Screw KID. Screw Lupin.

They could all go to hell.

The days wore on.

The prosecution tried to prove it hadn't been KID at all, encountered masses of disapproving fans, shut up, and decided to go on attacking Aoko's work and mocking KID's assurances that he wouldn't attend his trial instead. Letters were sent to the newspapers all over again, but were never responded.

And still Kaito slept.

Aoko met witnesses, made appointments, had long discussions with police officers who'd worked with her father, reported it all to Hakuba and asked him a few questions, and never tried to see Kaito. They'd have to meet again soon enough.

And still Kaito slept.

The newspapers indulged themselves with bold, catchy headlines and counted down the days until the trial, readers gasped over the clippings in the train, fangirls giggled in high school classes, Keiko's KID Fan Club sent prank letters to the prefect of police threatening to make things explode if their beloved Kaitou KID wasn't discharged.

And still Kaito slept.

The world turned on, the sun rose and set, so did moons and tides, and the trial day approached.

Kaito slept on.

(And, a week before the trial, a gentleman showed up at the prosecution's offices, asked for the Kaitou KID trial lawyer, tossed a card in his face, and walked quickly away. On the card, those words were inscribed–

'Kaitou KID always keeps his word.')

--

A week before the trial, Aoko returned to the prison and found Hakuba pacing the antechamber back and forth.

"… let me guess."

"He's gone again," he hissed, running his hand in his hair in a gesture that had, over the weeks, become intrusively familiar. "He left not an hour ago. Don't let them know," he added, with a quick nod at the closed door behind which the two guards were silently still. "They'd freak out if they knew it's not the first time."

She watched his quick steps, to and fro from the table to the window and back again, cell door, wall, wall, wall, table, cell door, wall, window, wall, wall, cell door. It made her feel like a caged animal.

He stopped suddenly. "When you met him outside the other day–" a vague gesture towards the barred door, "–where was it?"

"… at the terrace of a restaurant on the boulevard," she said, gingerly. "He can't be gone too long, can he?"

"Lord knows," he retorted sullenly, with a deprecating shrug. "With Kaito–Lords knows. The first time he was gone an hour, but I freaked out. The second, he was gone half a day. After that it varied. The day you came back with him he'd been gone three hours at most."

"Was he," Aoko murmured, and sat down, fingertips tracing idle patterns on the table's light brown wood. Something felt very wrong–something again. She looked at the barred window, and her stomach clenched with–something. "Mind if I wait?"

"Not at all," was the rather short answer, and he took up the pacing again.

The wait settled on. After half an hour Hakuba switched on the radio and sat across from her, but even so he was fidgeting anxiously. His mouth had a nervous, irritated twitch to it. Aoko closed her eyes, breathing in. Out, listening to the crackled voice of the radio speaker.

'…the much-awaited trial beginning in a week now…'

In. Hold. Out. Hold. In.

'… still wondering whether KID will or not fulfil his promise to not attend his trial–all doubts are permitted towards this rather extraordinary assumption. We can assure our listeners that the thief is under permanent guard and on no account permitted to come out–'

Hakuba snorted. "Right."

Aoko almost smiled.

An hour. '… the prosecution lawyer has accused KID of "meddling with the general opinion…"'

He certainly had. With the general opinion, with Hakuba, with herself. Falling down with London Bridge and Arsene Lupin, clues and clues and clues to something out of reach–Kaito… he was the best man that ever was.

What did it mean? she thought, breathing in, softly. What did you mean?

Maybe it was just another riddle without heads nor tail, maybe… maybe not. She could see words defiling under her closed eyelids, blinking, blinking words of bright green on a black screen, casting a vague sheen on the furniture of her…

In. Out. In. Out. In.

'… the Kaitou KID fan club has stricken again…'

Out.

'… lawyer for the defence, Nakamori…'

Out.

'… has declared…'

Out.

'… infernal trickster…'

Out.

'… we have asked the prefect of police after KID's situation but an hour ago. We can assure our listeners that he is under good survey by the well-known inspector Hakuba Saguru, who has assured his capture. The prefect of police can, surely, be relied upon, hardly a week before the beginning of the trial…'

Out. Out. Out. Out!

Do not await news of my evasion. It is probable that the KID Task Force (how delightful it is to have one's own Task Force!) will never admit to having let me go until the very last moment, when they no longer have any chance of catching me again before the trials begins.

Who had said that again?

She opened her eyes again. The night was falling outside the window–a dark blue that darkened still–and Hakuba had gone to sleep on the table, head pillowed in his gathered arms. Let him. He needed the rest anyway.

She looked into the dusk sky, the thin blacks clouds that coiled together like lace. There was something growing in her throat, like a bubble of joy that had been soaked with tears.

She stood, slowly–Kami, her muscles were stiff–scribbled a note on a piece of paper for Hakuba when he woke up, and went up. She felt eerily calm. Outside, the sky was a glorious sea of dark blue and bright gold, hurting the eyes and outlining her shadow on the sidewalk as she walked home.

(…and you never thought, 'if Arsene Lupin is shouting about that he'll break free from prison, it means he has reason to shout'…)

--

First thing she did was fill the bathtub. (It seemed that bathing was the only thing that relaxed her these days.) She poured it hot, and slipping in while some cooler water was trickling in, she stared at the ceiling, hands behind her head, and tried to think it out.

Kaito was never coming back, that was a fact. She could see it now–so simple from the start, and yet so twisted, relying mostly on their subconscious–just like Lupin–just like Lupin…

There had been a reason in everything he'd done, really–for acting like a childish clown, for sending letters to the papers, for escaping now and then and always coming back… he'd waited, patiently, cautiously, until their attention relaxed, until they started to see him as a human being, rather a ridiculous one, someone that was completely different from the phantom thief they had both sought out so many years in the past.

They had taken for granted–like the fools with feelings and trust they were–his smiles and his jokes, taken for granted that he wouldn't hurt them, taken for granted that he would always come back. Like a tamed beast. Like a nice doggie.

The beast wasn't tamed after all, never really. So he'd waited, patiently, cautiously, until their watch was asleep, with magic tricks and hollow knives and sensational gusto. He'd gotten them used to a routine, to a steady tedium, and given them to believe that the lie of a life they'd created for him was real, was true.

But it wasn't. It wasn't.

Because finally, finally, one week before the trial–today–he'd gotten his last laugh, had probably shrugged, and left. And left.

What's the prisoner done to you,

Done to you, done to you?

What's the prisoner done to you,

My fair lady?

She had been wrong about this song. It wasn't a simple, childish nursery rhythm–a play of infinitely repeated arches of arms and arms, the pace quickening as they passed–pass, and all's well–escaped, pace speeding up until the arches fell down and–caught.

It spoke of hidden treasures, of the strangest love and the truest hate, of corruption, of giving, giving, giving everything–and betrayal, ineluctable in the end.

It was a song of magic also–bridges crossed and falling down, repaired through the night, holding prisoners, bridges of gold and silver, of pins and needles, wood and clay, sticks and bones, iron and steel, penny loaves–wait. Magic?

She surfaced from underneath the water–kami, she hadn't even noticed she'd gone under–and stared at the taps, trying to recover the sudden recognition that had swept through her. Magic. A correlation with magic. Kaito was…

A magician. Above all, before he was even a thief–a magician.

'… the infernal trickster…'

And what else? 'The best man that ever was.' 'I have a mother.' 'When my father died–I was hardly ten back then–' 'Don't you see? It all fits.' 'We're the same age.' 'It runs in the blood.' 'Shouldn't you be asking why I became KID in the first place?' 'The one who taught me everything–' '… he died.' Oh, gods.

She got out of her bath, splashing water all over the tiles and hardly caring. Her hair was dripping. She tied it in a loose knot, pulled on her bathrobe, and ran into the living room, switching on her computer. It was a far cry–more than that, even–but it might be worth it.

Quickly, quickly­–load, damn you!

But faced with the blank research page, she was frozen.

After a minute she typed in famous magician. It came up with thousands of pages. She ran through a few, but stopped–she would never get to anything with this. Deceased famous magician. Nope. Even worse. She went to narrow the results.

Let's see. Famous–magician–deceased–sixteen years ago, at least–family man–

Three pages only came on. One was an ad for resurrecting the cherished dead–right–another was entitled, The last magician of the century. Underneath was written, in smaller type–the Ultimate Kuroba Touichi Page.

Might as well. As the page switched, she was met by the sight of wild black hair, a cheeky smile, and blue eyes that were all too familiar. Had it not been for the moustache, and the obvious extra years, it might have been–the splitting image.

Kaito, she thought, and then–Oh, gods.

She skipped to His Life with her heart in her mouth. Kuroba Touichi, Last Magician Of the Century, born in, educated at, worked for, favourite tricks, died on stage, sixteen years ago, by accident. The circumstances have not yet been completely cleared… there was a Family link at the bottom of the page.

Wife - Kuroba Hiromi, forty-five-years-old.

Single Child - Kuroba Kaito, twenty-six-years-old.

There were photos, also.

--

Outside the night was dark and sharp and bit at her bare hands. The boulevards' lights were all on, restaurants' terraces after restaurants' terraces in quick succession. Couples, at the table, giving puzzled glances to the woman who ran. Families. Groups.

The French restaurant was magnificent, old, glowing lamps on polished brown tables, coat-tailed waiters and elaborate silver settings. Aoko stepped in breathless and was met immediately with an ancient, wrinkled beam.

"Nakamori Aoko-san. I was waiting for you."

The old man–Jii-chan–led her to the side of the room, avoiding the stares that followed the young, dishevelled woman–strangely familiar, as though she'd been in the papers lately, but they couldn't say where. Aoko caught her breath, sitting on the chair he indicated and taking the menu he swept out of his sleeve–just for show, she suspected.

"It was you," she panted. "It was you who sent the letters. He gave them to you."

He dipped his head, less in shame than in serious but unabashed admittance.

"Then you know where he is," she gasped, just soft enough that nobody heard her too loud. "You probably helped him out of prison–" here her voice dropped to hushed tones, "–you can tell me where he is–"

"Aoko-san, why would I tell you that?" he asked, in a gentle tenor. "Do you want to get him back to prison?"

"No!" she exclaimed, then recoiled. "I–" Wouldn't she? Would she, really? "I don't know," she finished miserably. "I just–I just want to see him. Talk to him."

He shook his head, and her heart sank. "Aoko-san, I cannot tell you where he is. He is–he has come to see me this afternoon. It was, however, to tell me he was leaving the country tomorrow," he stopped.

"Where to?" Her lips were dry as paper.

"… Europe, probably. He has a flat in London and another in Paris. Both legacies from his father's," he added, with a reminiscent smile.

It was you, realized Aoko. You were Kuroba Touchi's old assistant–she remembered him from one of the site's photos–and when he died, you set up this restaurant as a cover for Kaitou KID. For Kaito, when he understood who his father had been.

And he had–nine years ago, hardly seventeen–and taken up the job.

"The young master never regretted anything," Jii-chan was saying, and Aoko needed a second to understand he was talking about Kaito. "He isn't a very talkative person in his way–" (and no, he wasn't, despite all his infernal blabber) "–but he has told me that, often. He never regretted anything about what and who he was. He said the only thing he wished he could have prevented was that a daughter was separated from her father."

Aoko nodded bleakly.

"I know you are inclined to judge him severely now, Aoko-san, but if you solely knew–"

"–what?"

He looked embarrassed. "It is not my secret to tell. I know but a small part of it. Only the young master knows the whole truth; however…" his tired eyes, sharper than they looked, closed upon hers and pinned them there, "I have felt for a long time that he needed someone whom to share that burden with."

I'm not that person, Aoko wanted to say, but instead she nodded again and went home.

Europe. Yes, it was logical enough. One was glad that, at least, one's faculty of thinking rationally was not yet withered. He wouldn't stay in the country after his arrest–at least not for some time. A few months. Maybe a few years. And then what?

The sky was a dark purple now, all stars rubbed out by the city's lights. The moon, not half-full, was holding court among a veil of smoky clouds, its light not as silvery as the poets said, far away and subdued.

Kaito preferred full moons, she knew. But she liked this moon, incomplete and muted, wavering in a sky too dark and too wide.

Lupin, too, had liked full moons. His own thefts–not as cheery and people-gathering as Kaito's, but insolent in their easiness–happened, oftentimes, by the light of the moon. Was that a characteristic of thieves, then–they liked nights and moonshines, liked to merge themselves in shades. It was clichéd, but it was true.

Lupin… it runs in the blood, Kaito had said. He knew that, Kuroba Touchi being dead. Lupin's son–twenty-five years after the grand robber's first adventure–had become a thief, as well–a honest one, granted, and no more than once, and his father had, unbeknownst to him, saved him from prison.

And that, too, meant something. She sought it out in her brain, walking up the stairs to her flat–elevator stuck, as always–family. Lupin and his son. Kuroba Touichi and Kaito. Her father and her. There was a correlation there–not of the 'fated to do this' kind, which was an image, but–

She opened her door and closed it behind her, frowning still over her discovery. Well–no, it wasn't. Not fate but–duty. Duty to–something. Something greater, truer than… something… what?

And why did London Bridge is Falling Down fit in all this, too? Why did it somehow, somehow seem to be the answer to it all? Why did Lupin?

What did the song and the book had in common–man-made? Artificial? Wait. Man-made. Hand-made. (She was nearly there, staring unseeingly at the dark wall, trying to realize.) Why did one write songs and books?

Why did Lupin's books enchant generation after generation, thieves' sons and officers' daughters alike?

Why was London Bridge still a well-loved nursery rhythm, century after century, and did children still sing it and play it like their ancient counterparts from two hundred years back had before them?

Because–and the truth swooped down on her like a shivering bird, just flowing out of its nest–they were symbols.

And so was Lupin, and the song, and Kaito, and his father, and KID. All of them, symbols of something inaccessible, symbols of daydreams and nightdreams and impossible things–things that people knew could never happen but believed in nonetheless.

Things like an unmatchable thief, seducing woman after woman–and yet, every time, loving them truly, sincerely, absolutely–stealing necklaces at age six, arresting robbers and murderers, building an empire in North Africa, and then coming home to family, and never quite dying–

Things like falling bridges–and symbol of that, bridges and bridges between hearts, arches and arches that could be shattered a thousand times and be built up a thousand times again, symbols of a feeling that couldn't be quite understood, that was too wide and dark and intense to be called love, too beautiful and terrifying to be called hate, too strange to be called otherwise–

Things like another unmatchable thief, real and unreal at the same time, living a life of his own and a life that belonged to someone dead for years, but keeping the mask on, keeping the smile, keeping the job for some reason that was probably surreal and absurd but keeping on for the beauty of the thing–

(And her father had understood that, too–unconsciously, maybe–had understood that the symbol needed some continuing on despite all odds. Understood that there were too sides to it–the thief, and the policeman. The prisoner, and the lawyer. Two sides of the same coin, all things considered…)

Duty to this, then–I will not attend my trial and It all fits–continuing on.

"It's like walking on a tightrope," Kaito had said. "You feel the wind going by, and you never know if and when you're going to fall. The adrenaline surges up, and it's an addictive feeling, really. You have to take every minute step very carefully and yet make it look like it's so easy anyone could do it…take this and say it at the trial. You'll see they'll be so fascinated they'll acquit me without a second thought."

(And it hadn't meant, like she had thought, that he believed the jury would be fascinated like rabbits by a snake, but simply that people needed dreams to live on.)

And he, like his father, like hers, like Lupin, like Leblanc, like the first children who had sung London Bridge is Falling Down and those who still did, like the fair lady and the prisoner, were dreammakers in the end. They lived in another part of a reality–one made of tricks and ropes, and never so true as the one they had come from, but one whose presence was needed–was necessary–compulsory.

She was like them, then–like the children who sang those songs, like the people who needed dreams. She had needed them from the day she had read Lupin for the first time (and before, but that was too old to remember), had met Kaito, had started to understand. She was like them…

(… the same scared, shivering child, clutching on these dreams for reassurance, clutching on everything she couldn't understand against everything she could, everything so wide and large and frightening…)

… who was she, really, to try and stop the process, when she needed it that much?

(Away everyone and everybody, she could allow herself to be selfish just this once.)

--

She had stayed up late, cuddled up in an armchair until her eyelids had drooped on their own. When the doorbell rang­–a shrilling, too-loud drill in her sleep-dizzy state–she wondered (briefly) what she was doing there.

She went to answer it, heedless of her crumpled clothes and messy hair, just casting a weary look at the corridor's clock–it was hardly eight in the morning. Whoever it was out there better have a good reason for waking her up.

She was greeted by a large bouquet of roses being handed to her as soon as she opened the door.

"Morning!" said the young delivery man, brightly. "Roses for Nakamori Aoko, that is you, yes?"

She stared down at them, still rather sleepy, trying to make the association. Roses connected with–what. Something or someone important. "I didn't order any roses," she said, miserably, but took the bouquet anyway.

"It's a present," the young man said, his cap's brim pushed way down on his eyes. "All paid for. Tip too. Just enjoy them. Beautiful, aren't they?"

"Very," Aoko said, then looked up suspiciously. This grin looked way too familiar. "Present from who?"

… and then he was close, too close, long fingers working their way around her face, tangling in black strands of hair. "From someone who hopes you'll be waiting for him," he whispered, and kissed her. He tasted like the roses' perfume, sweet and red and eluding.

Then he was away, already on the other side of the landing, taking off his cap and bowing out. "Enjoy the beautiful day, my fair lady."

He laughed and was gone, leaving Aoko to stand on the doorstep with the roses cradled in her arms and the taste of them still lingering on her lips. She shook her head (he's incurable, isn't he) and got in to change and switch on the coffee machine. She needed to get down to the prison before the prosecution quarters started to collapse down on themselves.

--

(The prosecution, in fact, refused the announcement of Kaitou KID unspectacular escape until the trial day, when there was no prisoner to try. They then proceeded to accuse Hakuba, Aoko, and the prefect of police of having a hand in the business until a sharp-written letter in the Torimitsu, sent by a well-known detective by the name of Kudo Shinichi, was enough to shut them all up.

Things however did not get better. Hakuba and the guards all got a blame for letting the prisoner escape–though, the prefect of police amended, no one could have expected them to stop him when he'd set his mind on it–and newspaper reporters latched onto the case like birds of prey.

People pretended they were Kaitou KID in disguise, others declared they had met him in Vienna, L.A., Moscow, and Hong-Kong, fangirls fangasmed over pictures of old heists, and the Kaitou KID Fan Club started a campaign for the sanctification of their idol.

Aoko received letters from annoyed lawyers who announced they would have done a much better job than she, day-long phone calls from an overexcited Keiko, and unsigned postcards from various European cities; and went several times to eat at Jii-chan's place along with Hakuba and his wife until the memorable dinner when Akako went into labour.

The delivery lasted all night and there were no complications–apart from the baby having red eyes when he opened them, but Akako treated that like a trivial matter ('I've get purple hair, and no one ever bothered'), and Hakuba looked wearily, genuinely happy, so Aoko smiled, hugged them both, and left them some peace.

The sky outside was blue and windy, cold. It was early yet. She walked home.)

--

("Need a lift, fair lady?"

When she turned, it was to the open door of a humming cab, and the goofy smile and Cockney accents of a driver leaning out to speak to her. If she bent a little, she'd see the amused blue of the eyes and the wildness of black hair under the regular aquamarine cap.

"Depends." She laid a casual hand on the open door, trying to decipher the warmth slow that furled and unfurled in her chest. "Where to?"

"To the end of the world, if my lady doth wish it so," he replied with a dramatic gesture, and honked the horn twice for good measure and emphasis. "And beyond." He peered curiously at her from under the brim of his cap. "Does my lady wish it so?" He'd dropped the Cockney accent now, and his voice was as genuine as it could–be expected to–be.

And beyond, she thought. "London bridge will probably fall down on us."

He gave the horn a light-hearted punch, and turned the ignition key, making the car roar softly, like a sleepy beast. "We'll risk that." –and grinned, and the warmth spread and settled in her chest until she broke into a smile, too, and leaned in.

"Let's."

(That day was a glorious day, all sunshine falling like a shower of gold, as they passed London Bridge and fell down with it in a sky of a thousand blues.))

--

-completely exhausted- we… have reached… the end. You still alive?

Many thanks for reading, everyone. And special thanks (and lots of duckie-shaped cookies) to butterfly-chan, my awesome friend, who started all this without even knowing it, and ami-chan, who got me stuck on Lupin all over again and has the patience of an angel. I luv ya, girls. –glomps–

Now, gents, I have an announcement to make. Christmas is now coming fast, and that deserves a little celebration, ne? So there is my present to you all–give me a prompt, and I'll write a drabble for it. No time limit, no restrictions, anyone can ask. Prompts can be anything–a random sentence you just thought up, a few words, a theme, a song you like, a line out of a book, anything.

And if you'd rather have angst, fluff, or something specifically Christmas-related, you'd better tell me, too. Same if you prefer canon-verse, or Au-verse, or don't care either way.

I'll post the bunch of 'em on Christmas Eve (though what with the different time zones, I guess some of you will read it on the 25th). Now then. Cookies?