ZeroXYami - I have a general idea of what happens in each Arc! But I'm just running off of ideas, not a plan!
Thanks for the reviews/follows/favourites you guys.
Summary: In which nightmares echo the truth, and Kaito is haunted by ghosts.
Three months ago:
The court room looks like it has been coloured with regret.
The walls had been painted by guilty verdicts and pleas of innocence, the carpets woven from shredded alibis and broken defences.
Shackled to his seat, Kaito struggles to keep his poker face. His solicitor, sat beside him, has told him that he'll try to lessen his sentence, but that there isn't much hope in this case. Kaito doesn't respond to the whisper in his ear as the prosecution opens the case, already aware that there is no way he will be walking out of the building with his freedom.
So he shrugs his shoulders. He grins.
And he bears it.
"It is to my understanding that the defendant is responsible for crimes committed after Kaitou 1412's eight year hiatus," the prosecutor says, "which is a total of twenty three heists to date."
The judge turns to Kaito, "how does the defendant plead?"
Kaito's solicitor has told him that he should simply say he is guilty, that it will cut his up to a third off of his sentence if he simply admits to his crimes from the beginning - but with the amount of offences he has piled against his name, Kaito is certain that no amount of discounted sentences will let him back out of prison any time soon.
Still.
He glances momentarily to the seats at the back of the court. They've closed it to the press, although he knows the masses are waiting outside to see if he'll perform one final trick and disappear forever, but his associates are allowed inside.
He glances at Aoko, who sits at the back of the court, hand squeezing her father's, trying to look her in the eye, but she won't tear her gaze from the judge. Her father won't look at him either, which strikes harder against his being, pain spreading through his veins, blooming like a weed that won't die, regardless of how much he struggles to pluck it away.
"Guilty," Kaito breathes - not for him, but for them. "I plead guilty."
The judge looks back to his case notes, squints over his glasses at summaries of his heists. Kaito resists the urge to tell him that the summaries will do them no justice, that if he wants to know how utterly brilliant they were, he should go to youtube and watch camera footage of each one.
Something in his head, however, tells him he'd better not. It warns him that he won't be impressed.
"I see," the judge says, and nods to Kaito's solicitor. "The defence may argue it's case."
They talk of mitigating factors, reasons his sentence should be lighter: The lack of a criminal record before now, his potential as a bright young pupil, a lack of any harm at heists. Then, the prosecution argues aggravating factors, like repeat offending and the fact all heists were planned will in advance.
"Let's bring this hearing to a close," the judge states after an hour and a half of listening to testimonies and arguments about sentencing. "Kuroba Kaito, you are hereby charged with 23 accounts of theft upon breaking and entering, how do you plead?"
Kaito has already answered this, but apparently, they need to know again.
"Guilty."
"For the wasteful employment of police forces, how do you plead?"
He grits his teeth "Guilty."
"For the abuse of a position of trust to gain access to police records, how do you plead?"
Glancing back over to Aoko, he finally meets her gaze.
Nothing will hurt him more than the look in her eyes. He doesn't need to be anywhere near her tears to know that each droplet burns like acid, leaving irreparable scars where her heart should be.
"How do you plead, Kuroba-yoshiga?"
Kaito tears his gaze from Aoko, traces her name against his arm so that he can marr this moment into his own skin, depicting the moment he feels the red string that's bound them for years severe, sliced into two. Kaito strangles himself with his own end, turning away from his best friend and looking up at the judge.
He breathes, "guilty."
Kaito wakes with the words 'I'm sorry' ringing in his ears, Aoko's tears against his cheeks - except… no, they're not hers, they're his. It's still dark, still the early hours of the morning, but Kaito doesn't exactly feel like going back to sleep.
His bones rattle when he lowers himself from his bunk, but he grits his teeth and deal with it. His muscles still ache from electricity - last time he'd recovered from the shock fully within two days. This time it's been four days and he still gets random palpitations.
Although, realistically, he's not sure whether he should be blaming all this on the taser. Maybe it's just the result of stress.
Is Kaito stressed? He's not sure.
Has he seriously grown so used to wearing his poker face, that he's become unreadable to himself? Or is he just looking for something that isn't there?
He turns the faucet of by their sink, water pulsing from the tap, and attempts to wash away any insecurities. It doesn't work, but it does wash away the nervous sweat from the back of neck, so he grateful for the water either way.
Then, he shuts of the tap, and tries to imagine he didn't hear the shifting of Kudo behind him.
"You can't sleep either, huh?" Kudo whispers. It's dark enough that Kaito can't see the other's face - meaning Kudo can't see his - which is reassuring, because at least the other man won't pick up on the fact he's woken up tearful.
"Not really," Kaito says, climbing back up onto his bunk. He dries water from his face with his blanket, before burying himself under it, shivering from the cold.
"That sucks," Kudo sighs. His voice is tired, and he yawns.
Kaito closes his eyes and sees Aoko. He sees Hakuba and Keiko and Akako - she sees a filled classroom instead of a cell, sees magic where there is nothing but dust. It doesn't hurt to think of them when he is awake - the pain dissipates into a numbness during the day, making him feel like he is missing some fundamental part of himself, the part of him that makes him like everybody else.
"Hey Kudo," Kaito forces his eyes open, dispersing the illusion, "how long until…"
He trails off, not because he's embarrassed, not because someone could overhear, but because they only decided two days ago to escape with the other's help and he's not exactly sure if Kudo was messing with him or not.
From the bottom bunk, Kudo shifts. It's a jerking movement, as if he's been caught off guard, but Kaito doesn't think too much on it. There are a lot of things about Kudo he chooses not to think about - mostly because it leaves him riddled with uncertainties.
"Soon," Kudo whispers, "at the latest, we leave on the 3rd of May. Not a day later."
Kaito doesn't want to point out that it's only the beginning of March. Doesn't want to echo his impatience, that May is two months away, and what if Pandora is found during these months. He imagines that to Kudo, two months means nothing, not when he's got a life sentence.
The same goes for him, he thinks - two months isn't actually that long. Kudo is promising him freedom within 61 days, and maybe he should just… accept that. Maybe he should stop spending so much time wondering whether they can realistically achieve it.
"That's specific." Kaito says.
Kudo hums. "We're both going to have to do some volunteer work. Starting with the laundry room in the mornings and helping out in the kitchens."
"Okay…"
"You're going to have to teach me how to pick locks," Kudo says, "I can break spring locks, but the others just… nope."
His chest must be a good spot, because all it does is cultivate anxiety, breeding negative thought after negative thought. Why Kudo needs to know how to break locks when they're working together, Kaito doesn't know, but he does know that it would be foolish to teach the other to escape.
Teaching a murderer to become an escape artist… well, doesn't that sound smart.
"…You think that's a bad idea." Kudo sighs. It's not a question, but rather a deduction formed from the shifting of Kaito beneath his blanket and the hesitation to respond. "I guess I understand, I'll just pile double the work onto you then."
Kaito nods, realises they can't actually see each other, before mumbling 'that's fine'.
Kudo lets out a small laugh, "for this to work, you're going to have to learn to trust me though."
That's the thing that's been bugging Kaito so much, he doesn't. He wants to be able to, wants to throw away whatever scrambled morality he has left, but murder? He can't just overlook that. How can Kaito trust that?
"I know."
The following day, before they're let out of their cells, guards bring around forms for visiting order.
Kaito glances down at the sheet of paper, glancing down at the pen they've passed through the bars. Kudo glances at his sheet, writing out a name and address immediately.
After a moment of hesitation, Kaito writes Aoko's name down, recalling her address and filling in the gaps. Once it is filled in, he leans back, frowning at the page. He doesn't want to see her, not after causing her so much pain.
"Hey, Kudo," he says, gaze refusing to move from the character's of Aoko's name. He focuses on the character blue in her name, and wonders, not for the first time if she is happy.
"Mhmm?"
"You said before that you didn't want someone to visit you," Kaito glances at his form, "yet you send them visiting orders. Why?"
He can feel the other's gaze burning him, but Kaito doesn't look, continues to stare at Aoko's number. At some point the characters blend into one another, until eventually all he sees is lines on a page. Kudo places the pen against the floor of their cell, where he sits, leaning against the wall.
"Ran, she… she refuses to move on." His voice is pained when he says it, the most vulnerable Kaito has ever heard. Kaito is glad that he's not looking up - he doesn't want to see the expression that pairs with those words. "The visits are more for her sake than mine."
There isn't much that Kaito knows to say to that. "…The two of you were…?"
Kudo clears his throat, and when he speaks, his voice lacks emotion, back to the chilled apathy he typically wears. He says, "that's in the past."
But he doesn't want it to be, Kaito can see that much.
He understands the feeling even if it was difficult with Aoko, even if they'd only been best friends. He wants the past back, wants to go back to a time before all of the lies and forced distance.
He wants to go back to when she wasn't just a memory. Now she is just a ghost haunting his dreams, with sad eyes and an outreached hand waiting for him to take. And Kaito…
"You have someone like that too, don't you?" Kudo says.
Kaito looks down at his form, scribbles Aoko's name out. Then, he rips the form up, scattering the scraps around him, turning to Kudo with a feigned smile.
"No," he says, "I don't."
He's lying.
("We need to get to work." He says with false cheer, and if Kudo gives him an odd look, then fine. For once the ex-detective can let him be the mysterious one.)
Three days later, when they sit down to eat dinner, Kudo snaps.
It is not a violent snap - not like with Yoshida - nor is it fueled by emotions. Rather, the other prisoner just seems fed up and so he glares across at Kaito and pokes him in the chest with his chopsticks.
"Will you stop it already?"
Kaito blinks, opens his mouth and then closes it when words fail him.
"You're moping," Kudo says. "Whoever you're missing, whatever your issue is, it's frustrating to watch."
"I'm not moping." Kaito protests, batting Kudo's chopsticks away.
"You are. You can mask you're expressions and you can alter your body language but you're eyes give it away." Kudo sets his chopsticks down, "that's what the monocle and top hat were for, right? To make sure no one could see your eyes?"
Kaito glares.
"I'm being serious," Kudo says, quieter now, "whatever shit you've got going on in that head of yours, sort it out. If we're gonna get out of here, it's gonna take our full focus."
The glare falters, but Kaito still feels irritation stabbing against his temples.
He's escaped from heists despite having other things on his mind, so he…
Except, he's already failed twice, because he'd been focused on other things. Maybe he really can't afford to have something else on his mind at a time like this…
"Fine," Kaito leans back. He doesn't know why he feels drained, but he is. "I'll figure it all out. Where can I use a phone?"
Shinichi points to a small room outside at the side of the cafeteria, telling him that it runs off of his prisoner number. Kaito stands, ("What are you doing." "Figuring it out, obviously."), making his way towards the room.
He has to wait two minutes for one of the phone booths to empty, but then he is inside, pressing each number in quick succession until the phone is ringing, leaving him to wait.
He's never been patient, but he waits anyway. Aoko could be doing anything, she might not even be home.
What does he do if she's not home?
What does he do if she refuses the call?
The phone clicks, and Kaito is subjected to background noise and a voice, "Hello?"
"Aoko."
The author very much so enjoys comments.