Ladies and gentlemen! I humbly welcome you to the eleventh chapter of this story!
Please enjoy and review!
By the time Kaito finally got home it was pretty late, since after school he was invited to the Nakamori's for dinner. Aoko thankfully stopped trying to find out what he argued with Saguru about, but instead she decided to cheer him up by offering to prepare his favorite food. How could he say 'no' to that?
After that, he was exhausted, but regrettably, couldn't go straight to bed. He still had to take care of his doves and do something about his back. At least this time he had a vague idea why it was hurting so badly, so he could remedy it a little bit.
With a tired sigh, he took out his phone, while walking to the kitchen. To keep himself awake, he decided to look up a few videos talking about eastern dragons to listen to while he was doing his chores. He picked the first five legends he found and put them in a playlist, plugged his earphones in and pressed start, dropping the phone in his pocket.
He snorted in amusement, while looking in the refrigerator to determine if he had enough for a breakfast in the morning, when he heard the narrator describing a wonderful underwater palace inhabited by a dragon that the story was about. Talk about ridiculous. He closed the refrigerator and moved to the kitchen sink to wash the few plates he left in the morning.
Kaito wasn't really expecting to find a lot of genuine information about estern dragons in those legends. What he hoped for instead was to get a general grasp on what he actually was and maybe how it was possible that he didn't know about it before. But the main reason was to get a general vibe those dragons gave off to humans.
It was obvious to him that somehow Saguru didn't know a whole lot about his kind. If he did, he wouldn't have stopped suspecting Kaito being one by smell. He could assume that the detective had only general knowledge about estern dragons, which was both good and not so much at the same time.
The downside was that Kaito couldn't really rely on him too much for information about his species. The upside, however, was that by creating a believable dragon persona, he should be able to fool the detective and hide how little he knew about himself. He was worried that it would have made him an easy target if anyone knew he was helpless in his new form. So as long as he didn't know why Saguru was looking for him he prefered to keep him in the dark.
He let out an undignified squawk, as he nearly dropped a plate he was washing and decided that the rest would have to wait. There wasn't much left but he was definitely too tired to be handling anything even remotely fragile. So he dried his hands with a towel and turned to walk towards the aviary, grabbing a seed package on the way and pulling one earphone out, so that he would have a better grasp on his surroundings.
The last thing he wanted was to hurt one of his doves because he didn't notice it.
The second story on his playlist spoke of a boy who went on a journey to find a cure for his mother - from the description it seemed that there was a dragon in there as well but he had yet to appear. At least that legend seemed more interesting.
While opening the aviary and greeting his birds Kaito realized that he wasn't actually freaking out about this whole situation anymore, despite that now he didn't have to keep up the front. Maybe he was just too mentally drained after the whole day of holding back? Or maybe the novelty of the situation just passed on him already and he was simply getting used to having his world flipped on its head. Because really, was it all that different from finding out that his parents were actually internationally wanted criminals, his father was murdered by a shady organization and the only way to prove it and get justice was to become a criminal himself? Not to mention that on top of all that, he had to try and find a mythical jewel that might not even exist in the first place.
Alright, maybe being a different species than he thought he was, was of a different magnitude but in the end both changed a fundamental thing he thought he knew about himself and his loved ones, so somewhat the same? A little?
Yeah... he was too tired to be thinking about it.
Suddenly distracted, Kaito chuckled softly as a dove pressed its cute little head into his cheek, demanding his attention. As he turned to her, he noticed other birds raising their heads from their seed containers and starting to flap their wings to flock around him demanding cuddles as well.
"Yeah, I love you too girls~ But shouldn't you be eating? It is past your bedtime as it is," he argued with a fond smile and chuckled as they started cooing at him, as if they were disagreeing, "Alright, alright~ How about a little fun then?"
Kaito's eyes felt heavy but he didn't want to disappoint them, so with a sigh he dropped down on a chair, causing the birds to get closer and sit on or around him. He took out a few sunflower seeds from his pocket and started twirling them between his fingers, flicking one every now and then for the doves to catch. Or rather, he tried doing it but he was too tired and actually ended up dropping most seeds. Thankfully the doves didn't seem to mind at all. They just flew down and collected each one, while a few decided to just continue cuddling and ignore the treats. All were seemingly happy for the attention they were given.
Sometimes he wondered if they were worrying for him. He liked to think that they did. And it did seem like it was the case. They definitely had a tendency to flock him more often like this when he was feeling down. It felt nice.
With his spirit lifted, he figured that nothing in his life really had to change. All he had to do was find a way to deal with Saguru and if he chose to, he could just continue living his life like did up until now. All that really changed up until now was that he now knew he could transform into a dragon. If he wanted to, he could probably just ignore it and just not do that.
In the end, it was his choice to start moonlighting as KID and similarly, he could choose to continue living his life as a regular human. In comparison, it would probably be easier to keep another secret than what he already did with his life.
The third story that was now ending told of a lazy dragon, who instead of taking care of humans prefered to party with his friends and by negligence caused drought for many years. Apparently time passed differently in the dragon relm than on Earth, which curiously enough seemed to be a common trend in the old legends regarding the supernatural asian creatures.
Kaito pursed his lips. The question was did he really want to never transform again and ignore that he was a dragon..?
Dismissing the thought for now, he clicked his tongue and got up from his seat, causing the few birds who were still perched on him to flap their wings to keep their balance. Careful not to throw them off, he went to the light switch and turned it off.
He would love to continue playing with them but he was already slowly nodding off and still had to take care of his muscles so that they would heal faster, so he wouldn't suffer for too long. The dark made the doves less coordinated, so he helped them settle in for the night, making sure to pet each and every one of them while at it. That done, he quietly closed the door to the aviary behind him and went to the bathroom.
He unplugged his earphones and set his phone next to the sink, turning the speaker up, so he could still listen to the legends and turned on the tap to fill his small tub with hot water. As it was pouring, he walked over to the mirror and started carefully taking off his face mask. The reflection he saw showed what a mess he was now. His skin had a grayish tone from wearing the mask too long, the circles under his eyes were pretty much black by now and the lip he bit was swollen and red. Covering the wound with silicone for the whole day definitely didn't do it any good.
He splashed some water over his face to refresh himself a little and figured that he should probably stage an accident tomorrow, so he wouldn't have to hide it anymore. That would be a literal pain, since he would have to aggravate his injury beforehand to make it believable but would be better for him in the long run.
With a tired sigh, he turned away from the mirror, took his clothes off and carefully started stretching to ease his sore muscles. The story being told at the time was a funny one of a playful dragon who preferred the company of humans instead of his own kind.
He figured that a massage would be great to ease his pain but he worked with what he had. It would also be better if he actually cooled his back down after he was done with stretching but he was feeling under the weather as well and didn't want to get himself sick. Besides, after everything he went through, a warm bath sounded too good to pass. So he decided on a compromise and hoped that a cold shower before relaxing would be enough.
The water quickly filled his small tub, so he closed the tap and finished his exercises with one last stretch before rinsing his body quickly with the shower head so he could finally submerge himself in hot water. He sighed with content and immersed himself in the last legend that was playing.
He found it pleasing to hear that, in all of the stories so far, unlike most youkai and other supernatural creatures from around the region he read about before, eastern dragons were considered good and wise, if whimsical and neglectful at times. They didn't seem to be known to hurt people on purpose, though their acts did sometimes cause disasters by accident.
What surprised him, however, was that the legend he was currently listening to, as well as all before it, strongly hinted on eastern dragons were actually aquatic creatures. Despite that they could fly. Now that he thought about it all statues of dragons he saw in the past were connected with water as well, being either part of fountains, gutters or just having a carved image of waves in it.
In this particular story the dragon was referred to as a god of a river. In the first one there was a description of an underwater kingdom, occupied by dragons and their servants. In others, while it wasn't said exactly where they resided, the dragons possessed some kind of water manipulating powers, either causing rain or changing the flow of rivers.
Still, he found it kind of unsettling and unbelievable to think of himself as having much affinity with water.
Kaito submerged his head under water thinking about it. He was a good swimmer but he didn't feel like he excelled in it. And on top of that there was his phobia. He couldn't imagine himself freely swimming, much less living with those⦠finny things. His parents never even kept any aquariums at home, so it didn't seem they had much love for underwater fauna either.
It was still a mystery to him why he had such an uncommon phobia to begin with. His mother never told him, so he just assumed that it was some sort of a repressed, traumatic memory. Kaito couldn't be sure but maybe that could have been connected to why he didn't know up until now that he wasn't exactly human.
But that was too much to unpack right now anyway, so he filed it in his mind away for later.
The video ended, so with a tired sigh he started washing himself. It was pretty late anyway. His gaze fell on his soapy hands and he couldn't help but recall the tiny white scales he saw covering them last night. While strange and shocking, it did look pretty.
He couldn't help but wonder how he could make himself transform at will. There was no denying that practically swimming through the sky felt good. Kaito wanted to try it again, without the need to flee for his life this time. To feel the wind in his hair as he tested his abilities and limits under the night sky. It would be interesting to check if he could actually swim in water as well, like the legends seemed to claim. With the body shape he had in that form it definitely seemed possible.
He caught himself staring out the window, daydreaming, so he shook his head and finished drying himself up with a towel before he ended up falling asleep in the tub.
Any experimentation would have to wait. He needed his body to be in good shape for that and it would take him a few days to recover. And he couldn't let Saguru wait for too long before he visited him as KID, so that came first. For now he would focus his time and energy on finding out all that he could from the legends and scouting out areas where he could ambush the detective alone.
With that in mind he went to bed, while thinking where would be the best place to meet him as KID. Once he fell asleep, however, he dreamed of flying.
Hope to see you next chapter *bows*
