Memories with you will continue to live quietly inside me.

It was a summer's day.

A steady influx of people strutted past her, and she watched the rolled-up sleeves of grown-ups, their hands steadily holding onto their children's. And those – whose grip eluded them – were running, their crinkling eyes shaded by the sunlight, and molten ice cream dripped from their fingers, staining their shirts and freckling the pavement in spots as they laughed, and she thought she heard the sound from everywhere, somehow around her, and yet without her.

Sighing, she looked at the clock, leaned her back against the brick wall, balanced her weight on the balls of her feet as she counted the seconds silently in her head, wishing to catch a glimpse of her father suddenly appearing within the crowed of unknown faces, running breathlessly with apologies dripping from his tongue, and she thought it'd be alright if he came now, she would grab his hand and forgive him, but there wasn't a glimpse of him, an her heart sunk in her chest.

Her gaze darted back at the face of the clock.

"Huh?"

She glanced to her right, and caught someone staring at her, and she was a little surprised to notice he wasn't much taller than her.

"You're waiting for someone too?"

They have been younger.

Looking back, she never thought anything would have come out of it.

But behind those friendly smiles and caring eyes was someone unknown to her, unrecognisable in front of her eyes, and she can only think about the trials of magic lurking around his fingertips, the deceit inside his eyes and the lie tipping from his mouth, and she thinks all she might have seen was a smoke of illusion, the after-image of her version of him – a partial image of a creation she conceived in her mind every time she looked at him – a simple role he played, like a performer at a stage once the veil had lifted.

"Why can't I trust you?" she echoed, once the tears dried. Kaito was staring back at her, his blue eyes as still as clear and undecipherable as the day she first met him, and right now, she couldn't care - inside her chest was nothing but an empty feeling.

"Isn't it obvious?" It wasn't a question, and yet one of his brows shot up, quite disbelievingly, and yet Aoko didn't know whether it was genuine or another charade of his oblivious character, and she wondered when exactly the lines blurred between truth and falsehood. "You might not be a liar, but I cannot call you honest either, Kaito."

His lips parted, nothing came out, and so he continued to watch her. His face blank as though his mind the sounds of his thoughts stilled - stunned into silence.

"Sometimes - sometimes I can't help but wonder what you're thinking." She looked at him, her eyes red-rimmed and yet the intensity hadn't reduced. "I think, it's quite clear that no-one cannot trust someone they can't understand."

His lips moved again, but wordlessly they closed, and he averted his eyes to stare at the darkened hallway, but she can hear the gears of his mind moving, concocting lies, entire schemes to transform the ending of a tragic play into an ensuing comedy sequel, and it dawned on her she didn't want a role in it.

She drew back.

She didn't want to be caught up inside another spiderweb – didn't want to act with him at a stage, where she only was only an unaware participant he had handpicked from the crowed.

Too many times had she worn her heart on her sleeve, raised it again and again, along with her hopes and her trust, and what else has happened except that it had been squashed flat without a chance against the cold reality and the harsh truth.

All for what?

Aoko stared at the man before her. His visage as familiar as ever, the curve of his cheeks, the blueness of his eyes, the dip of his nose, the softness of his messy brown hair – everything seemed like the person her mind had spent years filing away as Kaito, and yet the man peering back at her did not seem to match it.

He wasn't Kaito.

But an illusion he made her see.

. . .Just give up,
There's nothing fragile to protect. . .

Kaito swiped his hands against his jeans, stuck for words to quell the stifling atmosphere, the silence droned against his eardrums. He swallowed, the inside of his throat felt as dry as sandpaper, and he struggled to grasp for words.

Slowly it dawned on him with a sickening feeling that there might have been nothing to say, and as soon as the thought crossed his mind, Kaito could only deal with the unavoidable conclusion that this might have been inevitable, after all. Always looming ahead of them, as though patiently awaiting their arrival after endless diversion and detours, and now, they have finally arrived at the end of their road.

This must be it.

He watched her move, stepping away from him, furthering the distance, and with another glance, she took the first step to leave, turning her back on him, and his fingers twitched to reach out, grab her by the shoulder and turn her around – because this, this couldn't be it. This wasn't what he signed up for when he first draped the cape over his shoulders – it wasn't – and yet he could do nothing but watch her silhouette disappear into the darken hallway until he thought he was seeing after-images that might have been her inside the welling darkness, and he felt something chugging away at him, gnawing at his stomach, and feeding on his heart—

There was a deafening sound.

He'd recognised it anywhere.

His heart slammed against his ribcage, blood was rushing inside his ears, rushing as though he was drowning and at the same breathing deep underwater, struggling with disbelief and denial, but there was this sound again – Pang! – and a part of him died right there at the spot, and when he rounded the corner, she saw her – sprawled on the ground, laying within a spreading pool of blood.

He barely believed his eyes as he neared her, brushing the hair away from her eyes, and her blue eyes move in their sockets, glancing at him through half-lidden eyes, her breath laboured, and it suddenly struck him that she was slowly dying. Even as he pressed his handkerchief onto her wound, the fabric soaked and dampened his fingers into the warm sticky liquid that trickled out of her body like freely flowing water.

For a moment, Kaito could barely believe she had been standing in front of him. Aoko made a noise from the back of her throat, breathing growing louder as she weakly gazes at him, her lips parted, moving.

Behind you.

He turned around, his eyes squinting at the figure standing at the end of the hallway, listening to the steps as the figure slowly neared them, and without another word, Kaito sneaked his hand under Aoko's legs and pulled her upper body towards his chest with his other, carefully holding onto her shoulders as he slowly pulled out his card gun, keeping an eye on the approaching figure as his other fingers curled around tiny smoke bombs.

Tap. Tap.

The figure approached, a chilling laugh, and Kaito caught a silver glint in his hand, rising, and his own finger curled around his own card gun—

Too late.

His shot landed first.

Kaito bit his tongue at the pain, briefly inspecting the wound on his upper arm, it barely

grazed his arm, and the fabric of his jacket dampened, trickling with a colour so dark it

rivalled the carpet. He spared a glance at Aoko, tiny droplets of sweat trickled from her face,

her once half-lidden eyes were now closed, her breathing uneven, and her face contorted – drip drip drip – his hand was bathed, and his shirt stained. His heart slammed against his chest, but he dared not imagine – did not allow his mind to roam of what would happen, if she did not make it alive. . .

(. . .and died, right there, on his arms)

He tightened her grip on her, his mind racing for—for what?

A solution?

An escape-plan?

His heart slammed against his ribcage, overwhelmed by a sudden sensation of heat and avalanche of panic and nausea flooding through his senses, and he felt as though he needed to hurl – as though he needed to empty his entire guts right then and there at this spot.

He clenched his eyes shut.

Calm down.

Don't forget your Poker-face.

Calm down.

Use your brain.

Calm down.

Just—

Calm down.

Kaito took a deep breath and holstered her up in his arm. She took priority. She needed medical attention. Now.

Everything else was secondary.

He gazed at the figure slowly closing in on them, his gun glinting in dark.

"Are you surprised?" he finally asked, his free fingers brushing through his horseshoe moustache, his fedora hat worn low enough to conceal his eyes.

Snake.

Kaito's jaw clenched.

Of course, who else would it be?

A twisted grin sneaked among his facial features. "You must have taken me for a fool. Did you really believe you could trick me that easily? Setting up this entire charade—yes, I have had my eyes on you right at beginning. Didn't think about that, did you, Kid?"

"I'm not—" The response was almost automatic—unconscious, perhaps, due to the multiple insinuations thrown at his face recently, and yet a single shot drove millimetres away from his left eye.

A warning.

"Wasn't as simple as you thought, huh?" Snake said, tilting his head high enough to gaze at Kaito through his cold, murderous eyes. "I thought, I heard shabby trickster like prepare themselves for their little show, no?"

A shudder from his shoulder by pure realisation.

No way.

It can't be—

His heart slammed against his ribcage, and suddenly he felt too warm, too hot, and whilst he tried to breathe slowly, his lungs collapsed, his airways blocked off, and for a moment he couldn't breathe. His mind suspended as though someone had sneaked around his back and unplugged the chord that charged his entire being and electrified his mind.

Snake's grin was wide and satisfied, his rumbling laughter leaving his throat, quiet like a chilly breeze at a snowy mountain, "It's seems to be that you weren't as prepared as you thought, Kaitou Kid."

Kaito swallowed, struggling to maintain his poker-face as he rebooted, slowly realising what laid unspoken between the two of them. There was no other alternative – not other implication except that Snake had somehow figure out his identity. For what other reason would Snake have bothered to keep his eyes on him else?

But to think he would have suspected me right after I entered the Keishichō—

Wait.

That didn't make sense.

Unless—

Stop.

Calm down.

There wasn't any time for that.

His gaze landed on the brunette on his arms. Right, priority.

He needed to get her out of here.

Kaito's finger curled around his tiny smoke bombs.

"I hate to disappoint but I do know my stage like the back of my hand. Seems like you've made a gross miscalculation," he said, maintaining eye contact as he let go of his tiny balls, readjusting his grip on Aoko with his other, enough to lean her against his chest without the support of his hands. ". . .mistaking me for Kid, that's it."

Kaito's lips twitched into a smile, and his finger secretly dived into his pocket, grasping his card gun as he shifted his gaze, staring behind the figure's head, "Hey, took you long enough."

Snake turned on his heels, his finger repeatedly pulling the trigger in quick seconds before his mind perceived the darkened hallway behind his back – empty without a single soul, except the little liar, now behind him and in another moment, Snake noticed the smoke flaring under his nostrils, caught up in front of his eyes like a veil concealing the retreating figures in front of him, even as he shot, repeatedly at the smoke. . .without success, they vanished into the welling veil of smoke like mirages receding from a distant eye. . .

Tch.

Stuffing his Ruger into his back pocket, Snake vowed to crush him, stalking through the smoke, his dark eyes lingering somewhere ahead of him, trained at the hiding shadow fruitlessly running away from him. . .