Author's Note: Spoilers for the end of the manga -- all the way up to Matantei Loki Ragnarok volume 5, yes.
coffee and history
Koutarou stirs his drink with his straw. It is the sort of action his father would not approve of, so he does it whenever he can. By now it has become a habit: the ice-cubes clinking against the side of the glass, a shade too audible in the evening quiet of the cafe. It is not his father's cafe, this time, and if Loki has noticed he does not comment.
"It's been a while, though, hasn't it?" Koutarou says eventually, and takes a sip of his iced coffee. "Before you helped out with the cat incident, I hadn't seen you for ages."
Usually Koutarou only bothers going out with the little detective because there is something about him - those sharp green eyes, the mind that clearly does not belong to a ten-year-old - that both interests and amuses Koutarou. In a world slightly too mundane for his taste, Loki provides more than decent companionship. Today there is a distance to those eyes, even as Loki looks up from his own glass and does not bother giving Koutarou a smile. ( Koutarou likes that about him, too. It is refreshing in a country too concerned with politeness. )
"I suppose so. You've been too busy for me, Kou-chan?"
There is a shadow of a grin in the corner of Loki's mouth, but it fades easily. The evening fades just as easily to night. Koutarou receives a call from his father, and leaves, and does not see Loki again; as far as Koutarou knows, that day never happened.
Daidouji comes up to him one day, seeming worried, which in itself is indication that something has to be wrong. She asks if he remembers a Narugami-kun.
Koutarou does not, and says as much, and forgets this as well.
Some weeks later, Koutarou stops at a cafe after school. For once the cafe is not part of the sprawling Kakinouchi empire, but even as Koutarou is feeling a misplaced satisfaction at how the staff do not greet him by name or usher him to the best table, he hears someone calling him -- in a much livelier way, granted, than any service staff would do.
"Koutarou-kun!" Daidouji looks much more cheerful than she had at their previous meeting, and upon approaching her table, Koutarou suspects he knows why. The blond man she is with seems to be recovering from a sudden surprise, but gives Koutarou a standard-issue smile instead. ( Koutarou can recognise those easily, though he usually saves his own for girls. )
"Ne, Koutarou-kun, join us? If Loki-kun doesn't mind..."
Loki looks down at his tea, and seems to smile, and says, "Sure." Koutarou wonders if he is interrupting something -- there has to be a reason for Daidouji's high spirits, and it is not as though there has been any news about her mystery club for ages. And then Loki's smile sharpens into reality, and he adds: "Iced coffee, Kou-chan?"
Ordinarily Koutarou would bristle at a stranger -- and a man, at that -- assuming such familiarity. But no chill goes down his spine, even though Daidouji stares at Loki's presumably uncharacteristic behaviour, and Koutarou sits down obligingly. Introductions are over by the time his iced coffee arrives. He stirs it, the clinking of ice-cubes a soothing counterpoint to Daidouji's excited chatter, and only pauses when he senses Loki's eyes on him. Loki gives him a half-smirk and a shrug, and turns his attention back to Daidouji's enthusing.
"I haven't seen you around much, Koutarou-kun... although... " Daidouji looks puzzled, and Koutarou sympathises: he recalls no specific occasion when he had been with Daidouji, yet cannot shake the feeling that they are more than just acquaintances.
"He might've been busy," Loki says lightly. Koutarou looks up -- this time Loki does not bother with a smile, and Koutarou looks into those sharp blue eyes and wonders.