(Dual POV chapter: Aoko's view)

The bell rang, signifying the end of the school day. A classroom's worth of students poured out of one of Ekoda High's numerous rooms to join the rest of the student body, heading to club activities or back home. Whispers followed the 3rd year students as they walked out. For many, it was a typical day. But for others, it was a rather odd one.

It was peaceful. Too peaceful, in fact. With hushed voices, gossip soon spread as to why Class 2-B had been so quiet that day. At first, it was said that one of the troublemakers had been absent. However, the spread of that hearsay was quelled when they saw the usual suspects. Weren't they a couple? Many of the onlookers asked themselves as they saw the normally energetic duo trudge outside of their classroom in unusual silence separately.

To the students of Class 2-B, the stillness of that school day was almost frightening. The boisterous Nakamori Aoko had walked in and sat at her desk, ignoring her longtime companion and boyfriend all throughout the day. He in turn also acted as if she didn't exist. Anybody approaching them could feel that there was a tension hanging between them. Both of them had eyes that looked drained of energy from a sleepless night. Rumors began circulating that they had ended their relationship.

Just the night before…

Aoko slowly made her way to an empty parking lot all by herself with steady steps. It was a Kaitou Kid heist night, so it wasn't unusual for her to be alone. Except this time, she felt even more isolated than any other night.

Not far from there was the art museum that the phantom thief had decided to strike. She couldn't be bothered with remembering what it was that he wanted to target. It was a dark night and the sky was clouded over, so no moonlight could be seen although it was out briefly during the heist. The only thing that she could hear was the chirping of cicadas plus the distant sound of cars and sirens. Keeping the area from being pitch black were dim orange street lamps that stood evenly spaced in the parking lot.

She leaned back against one of the lights, and waited. Her head felt heavy and light at the same time. What a strange sensation, she mused. Was this just a bad dream? In all honesty, she wished it was.

Just a few minutes ago, she sent a text message to Kaito.

Come to the parking lot. We need to talk.

Aoko felt that adding the exact location was pointless. She had a strong feeling that he knew what she meant.

"Hey, Aoko." An all too familiar voice greeted her from behind, where trees and shrubbery blocked out any light.

She turned to face him. Aoko watched her best friend walk out of the shadows and into the faint glow of the streetlamp above so that she could see him properly.

With an emotionless expression, she eyed him up and down. He looked like his usual self. Nothing suggested that he had just climbed out of the wilderness that laid outside the parking lot's perimeters. Not a single stray leaf on his person nor a hair misplaced. His breathing was controlled and calm. Her gaze went up to his face. A placid smile laid on his youthful features. Aoko pressed her lips together into a line. It was all too perfect.

Kaito stepped forward and spoke casually. "It's getting late. Let's go home together."

She frowned and narrowed her eyes in response, with not a single word. Seeing that, he went still. It was blatantly obvious that he was trying to avoid talking to her. But this time, she was not going to bend the knee. No more slipping out of this.

After another few seconds of silence, Aoko heaved a sigh. It was short and exasperated, a great primer to what she was prepared to say. She fingered a circular object in her hands behind her back as she spoke in a stern tone. "Was it fun? The heist, I mean."

Aoko watched as Kaito's ocean-colored eyes widened ever so slightly, face frozen from hearing her say those words. Her heart was beginning to race faster each second he did not respond. Her entire being felt antsy by the time he finally made up his answer.

A forced laugh escaped his lips. "Yeah, Kid was amazing tonight as always. I'm glad I caught sight of him."

Another lie. She had to repress the urge to laugh at his weak attempt to evade her implications. "Stop playing stupid with me." Aoko snapped at him. It was taking a lot of effort for her to keep her voice from shaking. "Here. You forgot something."

Taking it out from behind her back, Aoko held out an unmistakable item. Kaitou Kid's monocle sat on her open palm. A part of the glass was chipped off.

Kaito stared at it as if she was offering him an alien artifact. "Oh, it's for me?" His voice was the same casual and steady tone. Gingerly, he approached her and took it from her open hand. Not a word of thanks was said as he pocketed it. His gaze was stuck to the ground.

Just say it. Just tell the truth to me and I might even forgive you. Aoko stood there and silently begged. The way he was avoiding her eyes was painful. He looked so uncertain and solemn, a far cry from the Kaito she knew. An intense silent anger was beginning to build up within her.

She always had a feeling that there was something going on behind her back. In a way, she already knew about his criminal activities. Even though they were officially dating, the excuses never stopped flowing in.

When her father was busy on heist nights, Kaito was always unavailable too. His skill set and his bizarre schedule could only make sense if he was the very thief that had been making a fool out of an entire police division on the regular.

At first, Aoko was blind to it and willing to brush it off as his quirkiness as a magician. But when she got closer to him at the beginning of the third year, she began to see hints of something strange surfacing. It began when she noticed how exhausted he was at school almost on a daily basis, claiming to have stayed up late practicing his tricks. Mysterious scratches and bruises appeared sometimes too. If he was practicing so hard, wouldn't he get better and not hurt himself as many times? Kaito started to miss classes more frequently too. He said that he was sick, and yet he returned to school within a day or two. If he got ill so often, why did he keep coming back so soon? Especially if it was bad enough to stay in bed all day, ignoring his girlfriend's calls and rings at the door.

Little annoyances piled up. Eventually, she couldn't accept his excuses anymore. After seeking advice from Hakuba, Aoko came to realize that Kaito's activities matched with those of Kaitou Kid. That could have been purely coincidental. But repeat them enough times and it becomes a pattern.

And now, she was waiting for Kaito to admit it to her face. They were dating, weren't they? This meant a level of trust was expected, and he was not delivering it. All those times she cried in front of him, laid her heart out to him, and seeked his presence for reassurance. Many years of sharing happy and sorrowful moments together, and yet why couldn't she receive the same amount of honesty from him? Of course, everyone had their private little secrets. Aoko knew it was probably selfish of her to pry into Kaito's affairs. But when those secrets and lies affect others, that's when it becomes a problem.

"I...nearly had a heart attack watching you fall." Seeing the lone cracked monocle on the ground after he had vanished was the straw that broke the camel's back. She was sure that she nearly saw him die during the stunt.

"It wasn't my fault. There was… the cord just snapped, okay? Look, I'm alive right now aren't I?"

At least he wasn't denying being Kid so it was a start to the talk she had wanted for a long while. Aoko breathed in, preparing to bring up what was most likely the most infuriating part of the current problem. Slowly, she breathed out each word in order to drill them in. "Why are you even doing this? Is this some s-sort of sick thrill you enjoy in your free time?"

"..." Kaito looked to the side without turning his head, thinking about his answer with a neutral expression plastered on his face. "Yea."

What was he even saying? A nauseating feeling sunk down in her mind. She laughed bitterly. "No. I refuse to accept that. You're lying again. You're not really like that, are you?" He was Kid, a man capable of layering one falsehood on top of others.

This time he stared straight into her eyes. "Believe what you want, Aoko. It's better this way." The stare Kaito gave his childhood friend was begging her to drop the topic.

And that pulled at her heartstrings. Half of Aoko was willing to let it go and accept his criminal pastime. But how could she? Letting Kaito continue running around moonlighting as a thief was like allowing him to spiral into eventual self-destruction, and she was never going to allow that to happen.

Her hands tightened around themselves. "In that case, then I suggest that you get a new hobby. You need to stop this." If being Kid was for the adrenaline, why couldn't he have picked something else? Something that didn't drive countless people up the walls and waste their time. Something that didn't involve him endangering himself.

"I can't."

"Then tell me why." Who was she even speaking to now? More and more, it felt like Kid was pretending to be Kuroba Kaito. Talking to him was about as productive as chasing the thief, going around in circles while he dodges her at every step.

His gaze began to waver. "Aoko, just...trust me, okay?"

Outrage shot up in her head. If she kept it in any longer, the pounding headache creeping might have become worse. She was going to be more direct this time. With a finger, she forcefully poked at the center of his chest, hoping it will help her words go through his thick skull. "Are you even hearing yourself?! I trusted you, and yet you lie to me! I always ate up all your excuses! This has happened over and over again, and I'm done! You almost got yourself killed! How am I supposed to trust anything you say at all now?!" By the end of her tirade, she was sure her face was red as a tomato.

Kaito had taken a step back from her outburst but he recovered quickly. "I-"

She could feel it. He was coming up with something to slip away again. Tears were gathering up in her eyes and she didn't want to cry in front of a stranger. She was not about to lose this fight and let him say his excuse this time.

With an open hand, Aoko's arm raised and arced down across Kaito's face to cut off whatever lies he was about to spew out. Her shoulders heaved as she let the moment sink in. It felt a bit silly since her hand was stinging. The shocked expression on Kaito was not making her feel better. No longer feeling like looking at him, Aoko pivoted away from him.

"I thought I knew who you were...but I guess I was wrong. Don't talk to me, Kid."

With a final glare to keep him from following her, she hurriedly speed walked away from him. All she wanted right then was to shut herself inside the back of her father's car and let herself be in the dark, hoping her father won't notice her crying on the ride back.

Aoko felt even more betrayed than when her father and Kaito missed her birthdays. On top of all that, a feeling of shame mixed with guilt fell in. She had let herself be played like a fiddle by someone she loved for a long time. How could she be so damn stupid?

She shook her head to stop the self-chastising. No, she won't let his lying drag her down. In fact, it suited him. As a magician, he was an expert at guiding people's attention to make them see what he wanted them to see. It was her own fault for trusting a professional trickster in the first place.

Yet again, he was not good enough to hide everything from her. Perhaps somewhere in the pileup of disguises and lies, a fragment of the person she knew still existed. And that squeezed her chest more tightly than anything.

There had to be a good reason for him to act as Kaitou Kid.

There just had to be.

She had believed that Kaito trusted her as much as she trusted him, enough to share his reasoning with her. And now, all she could do was question what had done to earn his distrust of her.