Hello everyone! Thanks again for all the fantastic feedback. In that vein, I'd like to remind everyone that his story is going to have a lot, and I mean a lot, of romantic drama hijinks. These teenagers are not going to have steady love lives and relationships will be varied and complicated. This chapter is a very good example of that. And it's gonna be fun.
Also, it took me an absurd amount of time to decide on the chapter title. So many good options.
Hope y'all enjoy! And Happy Pride Month!
Chapter 5: Love Like Fools
When Shinichi woke up, he was in the office alone, his head rested on his arms on the Professor's desk. The lights were out, and the flash drive was gone. When he scrambled back to the computer, relieved to find the system still logged in, and retyped his search, his heart sunk. There were no files containing the name Miyano, or any of the other keywords he could remember.
KID had been thorough. All evidence had been wiped away like it never existed.
Damn it. He'd make that damn thief pay for that.
Even the memory card he'd nicked back from the police was gone. What KID could possibly want with it was anyone's guess, along with just about everything else. Why would the Siamese Cats want research on metahuman abilities? And why would KID want that same information? And did either of their motives relate back to the crows and the missing kids?
These questions were just a few of the countless he asked himself as he sprinted back through the building, to where he could hear some kind of conflict unfolding.
He found himself led to one of the foyers, where Hawk was locked in a heated battle with three heavily armed Cats.
And Hawk was losing.
Shinichi could feel his heart hammering in his chest as he threw himself back around the corner before anyone saw him. Cautiously, he pulled out his camcorder and peered around, dissecting the situation in seconds.
Hawk was moving more clumsily than usual, his typical grace hampered by a slippery floor and minor injuries: bruising to the lower back, left leg, and right forearm. By the smell of burnt rubber and the electricity crackling from the bo staves wielded by two of the Cats, Shinichi felt it was fair to add electricity burns to that list.
Tsuyu was in worse shape, barely managing to stay on her feet and out of the way as Hawk and the Cats danced around the room. Despite her obvious exhaustion, her brow was furrowed in concentration as she forced thin water tendrils to whip at the third Cat, effectively making her just enough of a nuisance to keep Hawk from being overwhelmed by the numbers.
On the ground were two discarded automatic rifles, their triggers and safeties frozen over with ice; Shinichi hypothesized that was a collaboration between Tsuyu's hydrokinesis and Hawk's liquid nitrogen pellets.
There was no sign of KID, but that didn't mean he wasn't still hanging around somewhere. This was Kaitou KID after all.
The third Cat was up to something, dodging one of Tsuyu's swipes and pulling some kind of canister from his belt. Whatever it was, it gave Shinichi a bad feeling, and his mind immediately turned to explosives.
"Hawk, watch out! The tall one is about to use something." Shinichi said, not bothering to raise his voice: Hawk would hear him, even if he whispered. And the last thing he needed was to attract the Cats' attention.
In response, Hawk rolled across the floor between his two opponents, just managing to slide between their crackling staves, and came back on his feet to charge the third Cat.
Instantaneously, the Cat switched targets from Tsuyu to Hawk, tossing the canister right into Hawks face. It broke open with a hiss, a large net bursting forth. Hawk attempted to dodge, but slid on the wet floor, skidding right into the net.
"Hawk!" Tsuyu yelled as the other vigilante went down; he was completely entangled and hit the floor hard. She made an abortive move towards him, retreating right back as all three Cats zeroed in on her, advancing with staves ready.
"Well, shit." Shinichi muttered, thoughts racing as he tried to find something to help. He didn't have much by way of weaponry, but his tripod could work as a makeshift weapon of blunt force trauma. Not that he stood much of a chance against trained professionals with something like that.
He did have his soccer ball, though. He could at least distract the three with a well placed ricochet ball, long enough for Hawk to get free.
"Forget them!" The tall one snarled, just as Shinichi was reaching into his bag. "We've got the objective. Let's get out of here before any more of them show up!"
Reluctantly, the other two Cats backed off, their staves still sparking threateningly. Shinichi watched them carefully as they moved towards the other end of the the room, making their way to the exits at the end of the hall. Hawk was still struggling with the net, sawing at the cables with a throwing knife, and Tsuyu was wavering on her feet, just moments from collapse.
The door slammed shut behind the Cats, and they were gone. Shinichi forced down the instinct to pursue, and instead stepped out into the room, camcorder in hand.
Hawk zeroed in on him immediately, finally throwing off the net with a frustrated snarl and storming over. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Getting footage of the break-in." Shinichi raised a brow at Hawk, struggling not to smile. Hawk was soaked and limping, looking more like a particularly clumsy duck than his namesake. "Figure the police are going to need it. Seems the Cats somehow knocked out the building's security cams."
"Are you crazy? Who figures out that there's going to be a crime somewhere, and then goes there?"
"Reporters." Obviously.
Hawk made a strangled sound and threw his hands up in the air.
The mission had been a complete, horrific failure. The culprits had been right in front of him, and not only did they get away, but they handed him his arse on the way out.
Saguru was understandably furious.
"Are you mad at me?" Aoko asked, sitting in the co-pilot's chair of the jet. He didn't look at her.
"I'm not mad." Just disappointed, he almost said, but he bit his tongue on it. He was pissed at Aoko, honestly, and didn't feel like joking around.
Silence fell between them, stilted and awkward. Aoko was fidgeting in the corner of his vision, but Saguru just stared stonily forward, pretending to busy himself with the jet's controls.
If Aoko noticed that the autopilot button was lit, she didn't mention it. He hoped she got the message to shut her mouth before he snapped.
But instead of taking the hint, she twisted her hands around and muttered, "You are mad."
God, they were really doing this. Saguru could feel his already peaked frustration boiling over. "Aoko-kun, you disobeyed my direct order and went ahead like a loose cannon."
Aoko winced and bit her lip. "I thought…"
"You thought what, Aoko-kun?" He couldn't help but cut her off, voice hard and mean. "That I give orders for the fun of it?"
His tone had her tensing, her own infamous temper flaring. As if she had any right to be mad, when she had thoughtless ignored the mission plan and endangered herself and any civilians in the vicinity. "That I could handle it!"
Oh, that was just rich. Really. "That's irrelevant to ignoring orders."
"What was I supposed to do? Just sit back and let them steal whatever they were after?" Not that she'd been very successful at stopping them even when she acted proactively.
"I'm sure Kudo-sensei will go over with you in-depth all the better options available to you during debrief. But if you'd like a preview, I could give you a list of other strategies you could have employed ordered from most efficient to least."
"That's not fair! It's not like I knew they could beat me! I thought they were just normal criminals!"
"That's something you should have accounted before you charged in like a loose cannon!"
Aoko opened her mouth, furious and indignant. Then she snapped it shut and slumped in her seat, consternated and unhappy. For a moment, there was quiet as they both stewed in their tempers. Then, Aoko spoke again, sulkily. "Who were those jerks anyway?"
"The Red Siamese Cats. Antimeta specialists."
"KID said something like that too."
KID. Right. Another unexpected factor in the day's disaster. What was his purpose for following the Cats? What was he after? Saguru highly doubted that KID had been there to look out for Aoko, considering he hadn't attempted to help them during their losing battle. "Did KID say what he was doing there?" Maybe he'd let something else slip to Aoko. The thief often underestimated her perception skills.
"Not really." Aoko huffed, and Saguru felt his fingers tighten around the controls. Useless. "But Kudo-kun was there too."
"Don't remind me." Yet another infuriating factor; Shinichi. Always this time, Saguru was almost, almost grateful for the meddling. If he knew Shinichi, and he sure as hell did, then Shinichi probably had figured something out about the Cats, or the very least, what they were after. Considering Saguru's own disastrous performance, he could hardly complain about Shinichi putting himself in danger or getting in the way, especially if Shinichi had managed to be more useful than all the Irregulars combined in this case.
They returned to the headquarters with very little other conversation, both mulling over their own mistakes during the chaos. Saguru had to admit to himself, at least, that a portion of his anger was borne from worry. When he'd arrived to discover Aoko already in battle, and losing at that, he'd been terrified that she would be hurt. Watching her collapse from that electric shock…
He hadn't kept his cool as well as he should have. He'd let-no, he still was letting his emotions get the best of him. And considering who was in the building with him, which could very well have been a fatal mistake. He would have to be better next time: think more clearly and compartmentalize properly.
The Baron and the rest of the Irregulars met them in the hangar. Saguru's teammates were in varying states of worry and unease, but despite the uncomfortable atmosphere of the room, it was impossible to judge the Baron's mood behind that grinning white mask.
"Hawk, report." The Baron's voice told him nothing, clipped and firm as ever.
Saguru heard Aoko shift awkwardly behind him, obviously worried about what he was about to say. Not that it made a difference what he reported, as the Baron probably already knew exactly how the mission had gone down, or would soon even if Saguru said nothing.
Forcing down his sympathy for Aoko, Saguru focused on giving a concise summary of the night. "We identified the thieves as the former bio-terrorist group the Red Siamese Cats. Tsuyu confronted them and Kaitou KID alone. They had antimeta technology, and we were unable to prevent them from escaping. Both of us have electrical burns and a few other minor injuries. Kudo Shinichi was also on site, but remained uninvolved with the conflict. Kaitou KID's purposes in being there, or how he knew of the break-in, are still unknown." The last part was blatantly a lie that the Baron would no doubt see right through. KID had been there because Aoko had led him there. It was that simple.
The Baron was silent for a few tense seconds. All eyes were shifting between the cold ivory of the mask and Aoko's uncertain face. The Baron made his decree in clipped, strict tones. "Aoko-kun, I'm taking you off all missions."
The verdict settled over them all like a heavy fog, and Saguru saw Kazuha wince from where she stood in his periphery vision. Aoko balked, mouth open, and then bristled. "What?" She snapped disrespectfully. Saguru felt any sympathy he had for her die with the rush of indignation that hit him as she continued to snarl at their mentor. "You're taking me off-duty?"
The others were all shifting uncomfortably around them, not daring to say a word. The Baron, in contrast to Saguru's rising horror and frustration, barely seemed to care for Aoko's lack of due etiquette. "Yes." He said simply. "This disaster has made it clear that you still need more training before we can trust you to handle yourself appropriately in the field."
"Handle myself? Handle myself? I took down the Kaitou KID!"
"And what do you have to show for it?" The Baron's voice was soft but cutting. Saguru recognized the tone as same one that Yuusaku so often used with Shinichi. There was a certain lilt to it that made people feel small and foolish: the kind of voice that hit hardest with teenagers, with their developing egos and fragile self-esteems. "Was KID captured? Incapacitated? Did that help the mission? Prioritizing targets and objectives is essential when taking initiative in the field." Aoko winced at that. Saguru took no small amount of pleasure in how well his own critique of the situation mirrored the Baron's. "You let yourself be distracted from the mission by an unexpected party, and put both yourself and Hawk at risk of being killed. That is unacceptable."
Aoko swallowed, the sound of it booming in Saguru's ears. He tried to turn his attention away from her and let her fade into the background like the others, just the regular sensory static that filled his everyday life. Tried to ignore the rising guilt and shame that quickly swallowed up his annoyance and pride. But he could see the slight shaking of her hands, the blood vessels in her eyes dilating with retrained tears, and god, he hated himself. He was a terrible friend and leader. He should have pulled his head out of his arse and taken responsibility for the mission going awry, instead of preening in his own vindication. But it was too late to spare Aoko's feelings, and the crack of Aoko's jaw creaking open to mutter "yes sir," seemed to echo in the too quiet too loud room. Saguru knew that every member of his team was silently pleading for dismissal.
They weren't sent home for two more hours: quiet, chastised, and uncomforted.
When Aoko had been a little girl, her best friend, Kaito, lost his father in a meta-attack.
The disaster had been a violent conflict between the Overseers and Kaitou KID. One of KID's usual, careless tricks resulted in the destruction and collapse of tens of building in downtown Tokyo. Forty injured. Four dead. An accident, some people said.
Numerous accounts of manslaughter, Aoko called it. And she was validated in that, because KID disappeared for years afterwards, no doubt terrified of being confronted with his crimes and having to face justice for all the lives he'd taken.
And Kaito, poor, miserable, heartbroken Kaito, escaped the hounding media, victim memorials, and haunting memories of his father by moving to California with his mother. And Aoko, young and still reeling with grief she didn't quite understand, refused to let him go. It didn't matter if there was eight thousand kilometers and sixteen hours between them: there was telephones and email and eventually video calls and chats. And they were separated, but okay. They were okay, because there was no way the smiles Kaito gave her through her LED laptop screen were fake. And if Kaito seemed to hate the world a little, that was also okay, because he would grow out of it. He'd understand, someday, that the world was good and innocent and only one heartless criminal was at fault for taking his father away, and that criminal was gone.
Except, someday seemed further away than ever, because then Kaitou KID came back, to rob the world of more of its treasures.
And then, Kaito came back to Japan, and Aoko finally had a chance to make someday come just a little sooner. She could finally show him how much the police were working to improve the world, how much the Overseers sacrificed to protect people from disasters and monsters and bad guys with too much evil in their hearts.
So she took him with her to heist locations and events and parties, made him feel involved in the defense of the law and righteous. And it was helping: Kaito was getting better. He'd been smiling more cheerfully for months now, and his moments of dark anger came more rarely. So when her mom had died alone while she was with Kaito her father at a heist, she had refused to let her own grief ruin their progress. She liked it when Kaito smiled at her, so she was going to make him smile. The brilliance of his beautiful smile made her want to show him all the wonderful things in the world.
Someday, their future together would be just a brilliant.
But today sucked. It wasn't fair, what Hakuba and Kudo-sensei had said. They just didn't understand. What was she supposed to do? Let criminals like KID and the Cats go? The world would never be a better place with scumbags like them walking the streets and hurting people. Every moment wasted when bad guys were in front of her could mean another innocent kid losing a parent.
Aoko struggled against the burning of her eyes, rubbing her face with the soft sleeve of her sweater, and tried to focus on the stir-fry sizzling in the pan. After such a terrible night, she was glad to be home, but she struggled to find the energy to make a proper dinner for herself and eventually, if he came home, her dad.
What would her dad think if he came home to find her crying into a skillet? Pathetic.
And where did KID get off, pretending to care? He didn't care about anyone or anything! All he did was endanger people! Did he really think she was so stupid that she'd let him trick her? Except he had in the end, didn't he? He'd acted as a distraction to give the Cat a chance to catch her off-guard, instead of the other way around.
Because of him, she'd been relegated back to being a stupid stand-by trainee. He just had to steal away everything good from her, didn't he? He couldn't even let her have this one thing!
Why couldn't he just go away and disappear from her life?
And what was that stupid noise?
Aoko looked behind her to look at the kitchen island, but her vision was too blurry with tears to make out much more than the faint glow of her phone's alight screen. She couldn't even read the name of the caller ID, but somehow she just knew exactly who it was.
She took the call.
"Ahoko!" Kaito's voice immediately huffed over the line. Right, she had left him at the university. Shit, she was such an idiot. "I don't like being ditched you know!" Thankfully, Kaito didn't sound too genuinely bothered. There was a certain layer of amused teasing layering his words. Aoko was grateful, because she didn't think she could handle Kaito being angry with her too. "I've been calling you for hours!"
"Sorry, Kaito." Her voice came out as a croak. She cleared her throat to cover if and tried not to sniffle. "Everything just became such a mess."
"Did you miss the seminar after all?"
"Yeah. My boss and Hakuba-kun are both really mad. I got yelled at in front of everybody." The tears came again, overflowing from her eyes before she could stop them. She hoped Kaito couldn't tell.
"Aoko…"
"But let's forget about that!" She didn't want to talk about it anymore. No, she didn't want to think about it. She wanted a distraction. "Let's—let's talk about how I can make this up to you." The words just came out. She wasn't thinking straight-was barely thinking at all.
"Hah?"
"There's this new amusement park, over in Beika...I was wondering, if well, maybe, you'd want to go? With me?" It had been a stupid thing she'd been considering-daydreaming about, really-for weeks now, since well before the start of break.
"An amusement park? What is this, a kiddie field trip?" Aoko snorted at that. They had some good memories of those.
"No, it's—it's a date."
Oh blast, she said it. She said it aloud.
The other side of the line went quiet. Very quiet.
Aoko felt her heart plummet. Of course, of course, after ruining everything else today, she'd have to ruin things with Kaito too. Of course after hitting the bottom she had to grab a shovel and start digging herself deeper.
Over the line, Kaito cleared his throat. Aoko tried to steel herself for the answer, eyes burning. Oh well, it's not like she wasn't already going to cry herself to sleep tonight.
"Ohmygodyes." He sounded strangled.
What?
"I mean, uh, sure. If you insist."
Aoko couldn't help but laugh, joy and relief blooming in her chest so big and vibrantly she almost forgot she'd ever been upset at all.
"I like you, Kaito. I've liked you all this time."
The next day, Aoko was walking on air.
Not, like, literally, though that would be cool. Not like Ran could. But like, figuratively. Or something.
Semantics aside, she was going on a date with Kaito.
She was going on a date with Kaito!
The thought made her whole body tingle, cold and warm all at once. She felt like her blood was fizzing inside her. Her cheeks hurt from smiling, but it was a pleasant ache. Even the bruises and burns she had from the day before barely seemed to hurt.
She couldn't even bring herself to feel nervous about reporting in for morning training, even if she knew Hakuba was probably still pissed at her and that she would have to face their mentor's crushing disappointment. All that mattered was that sometimes bad things happened so something good could. Sometimes fate tested people in order to reward them when they pushed through.
"You look cheerful, Aoko-chan." A friendly voice called from down the hall that led back up to the surface and the Kudo Manor. Aoko glanced behind her to see Ran slipping down the hall, already dressed for training and fashionably athletic as ever. They met each other halfway and turned towards the entrance to Headquarters together. "I'm glad. I was worried you would be down over what happened yesterday."
"Yeah," Aoko said, not really wanting to talk about it. Instead she focused on the security scanner seated above the steel sliding door that opened into the main hangar of the base. A burst of shining blue light swept over her, confirming her identity from the patterns of her retinas to her finger prints.
"Identified: Irregular operative five, Tsuyu. Authorized. Identified: Irregular operative two, Angel. Authorized."
As the six-inch thick and plated door slid open to admit them, Ran looked at her with worried eyes.
"I'm okay, really." Aoko insisted. "Something really good happened last night." Aoko assured, and she was grinning again just at the thought. It was a struggle to not dissolve into giddy giggles as she explained. "I finally asked Kaito out! And he said yes! We're going to Tropical Land on a date tonight!"
There was a sound of something heavy and metal hitting the floor with a clang!
"You did what?" A familiar voice snarled, and holy shit, Aoko was so sick of being yelled at.
Hakuba stormed up to them with a scowl, his usual cool left behind with the wrench he had dropped on the floor. He must have been working on the jet, because his usual impeccably appearance was streaked with oil. His already frizzy hair was a complete mess, too, and Aoko couldn't bring herself to feel intimidated. Ran glanced between them as they settled into a stand-off, Hakuba looming and Aoko refusing to back down.
"I asked Kaito out! We're dating now!"
"That's the problem!" Hakuba snapped. "Are you stup—" Hakuba's voice cut off as Ran's foot stomped down on his, hard. With a wince, he took a step back and a deep breath. Under Ran's narrow-eyed warning glare, he collected himself before asking much more calmly, "we've talked about Kuroba, Aoko-kun."
This again. Aoko couldn't contain a huff of frustration. "Yeah, ten thousand times. But you're wrong about him!"
Hakuba looked at her, for a long and quiet moment. Her face flushed with how pitying he seemed. He looked like the doctors at the hospital that day, resolute and sympathetic and oh god she did not want to know what came next.
"Fine," Hakuba said, despite her mounting dread, "if you won't believe me, maybe you'll believe him."
The police had confiscated the footage of the break-in. And his copy of the footage.
Thankfully, Shinichi did everything in triplicate. Take that, Officer Date.
He searched every library and database had access to, which was a lot, and the ones his father had access to, which was an absurd number, for articles, papers, and research done by Miyano Shiho. He found a fair share of papers on chemistry and chemical engineering, and pharmaceuticals that mentioned her in their long lists of collaborators, but any mention of metahuman abilities was almost conspicuously absent. The papers on the computer didn't seem to exist publicly, not even in the scientific community. Google searches for any information on Miyano Shiho proved just as fruitless. Frustratingly so. There wasn't even a short newspaper mentioning the novelty of a prodigy girl working at Oxford alongside prominent scientists.
He had to get those files back from KID, but in the meantime he organized a meeting with the professor from Nanyo, hoping the elderly man could shine some light on the situation and why he had papers that had obviously never been publicly announced or published saved on his computer.
It was frustrating, knowing he had had evidence in his hands twice and lost them both. To KID. And now all he was left with was dead ends and a classroom's worth of missing kids.
Somebody up there hated him.
He'd have to keep scouring the city for clues, but there was really only one way forward. He had to find KID and get back the evidence; had to find an uncatchable thief and steal back his shit.
It didn't even sound easy, it sounded impossible.
So Shinichi made a couple quick calls. Arranging the bait was easy, and his contact took the request of ASAP with great enthusiasm. Shinichi was lucky the crazy old man had more energy than a city power plant and twice as much moxie.
Within the hour, a challenge notice was on the web, and Shinichi could just imagine the hired security and the police task force scrambling to get themselves together in time. He wrote a quick blog post about it and posted the notice of his front page. Somehow, he just knew that KID would find out the news from him first.
KID would regret being such a dutiful reader of his site. That was for sure.
Nothing felt real.
The wind in her hair, the sensation of moving one foot in front of the other, the sound of people chattering in the distance: she felt disconnected from it all, moving on auto-pilot through the crowds. Faces passed like water, indistinct and ephemeral, and the flashing lights seemed out of hazy dream.
The only thing that she seemed conscious of was Kaito's presence at her side, leaving her skin crawling and tight. She could not remember a time she felt more uncomfortable.
Hakuba and Kudo-sensei had been reluctant to let her go, but she hadn't let them dissuade her. Or rather, all the words after the accusations, the explanations, and the painful, cold truth had just deflected off her. She barely heard them, not around the cacophony of sound in her ears and the bitter repeat of denials swarming around in her head. Eventually they let her go, with the condition of wearing an impressive total of seventeen bugs. She barely noticed those, and couldn't bring herself to care. None of that seemed to matter right then.
Kaito could tell something was wrong. Aoko hadn't been able to bring herself to smile when he arrived, face flushed and eyes bright and eager. Then he had fished, trying to understand her mood and lure her out of her reticence. Since then he had sobered, watching her warily in between quick glances to his phone.
Her eyes felt hot, burning. Her tongue seemed to be too big for her mouth. Her hands kept trembling.
"Is there something you want to ride?" Kaito asked, putting away his phone with something like regretful expression. She didn't—couldn't look at him anymore, and instead pointed.
"The Ferris wheel." Her voice sounded robotic to her own ears.
"Okay."
The line moved quickly. Aoko couldn't decide if she was grateful for that or not. Some part of her wanted to just run away, to go cry her eyes out in a bathroom somewhere until the whole world disappeared. The rest of her wanted to hurt Kaito-badly. She wanted to punch him, hard, push him into traffic. She wanted to scream and yell and shove him in a fountain and drag him under and-
She wanted to talk. She wanted to understand. She wanted to hit the pause button on her life and go back home and do something else.
Aoko clenched her hands into fists, feeling her stomach churn, as they boarded one of the carriages. Kaito settled on one side, her on the other. Facing each other now, she could no longer avoid looking at him.
It was almost funny. He didn't look any different, but the way she saw him had changed completely. Suddenly, some part of her wanted to laugh. Because it was at least a little funny, wasn't it? That her best friend was also her worst enemy, the person she'd sworn defeat. The reason she'd given up on being a normal girl and dedicated herself to revenge.
"Aoko." Kaito's voice was uncharacteristically soft, so different from his usual teasing tones, and she shuddered from how unnatural it seemed, that Kaito would address her in such a way.
But she didn't really know him at all, did she? All those times he called her name in fondness, annoyance, lacing the two syllables with humor and love all at once, weren't exactly honest.
The Kaito she'd known for so long hadn't been Kaito at all. He'd been a caricature on strings, pulled by the darker, more solemn and viciously calculating counterpart she was faced with now.
And that's the hardest part, wasn't it? Figuring out what was an act put on to distract her from the painful truth and what was genuine, what was misdirection to draw attention away from the cold and vengeful person that inhabited Kaito's skin.
"I know now." She said simply, but inside she was screaming, yelling. The words seemed almost awkward in comparison.
"Know what?" Kaito prompted, his head tilted. He looked like the perfect picture of innocence. Did he think she was dumb? Of course he did. He had to.
She was, must have been, to have been blind to this fallacy for so long.
The glare she gave him, eyes brimming with tears she couldn't keep in anymore, must have gotten the message across. Kaito stiffened, his face going slack and empty.
That was all the answer she needed.
"So it's true." The words tasted bitter in her mouth and filled the gaps in her teeth, heavy like gum. "You're Kaitou KID."
Kaito frowned at her. "Seriously, Ahoko. Not you too."
The fury that had felt so distant, so far away, suddenly rushed back into her as fire ignited in her veins. She burst out of her seat, hunching in the close quarters of the carriage, and yelled in Kaito's face. "You really are going to deny this?" The nerve of him. After everything, after so many years of lies, he was still trying to spin this absurd facade.
"Aoko-" Kaito tried, and Aoko heard the blood rushing in her ears. The carriage seemed to quiver under the weight of her fury.
"You really don't respect me at all, do you?" She snarled, and it was almost, almost satisfying when he flinched from her, like she had actually lashed out. But it wasn't. It just made her feel emptier. "You think I'm stupid! You think I'm some idiot you can lie to and use however you want!" The words left her in a harsh shriek, her voice breaking. And with them gone, no longer filling her up, she felt herself deflate. Her tears felt hot as they streaked down her cheeks.
Kaito watched her, face twisted with-something. Concern, maybe. Frustration, possibly. Not guilt. His dark eyes seemed too cold and dry in his face, and she hated him for it, for how her throat closed around a lump and how her own eyes burned hot and wet.
"I don't think that. I-" He said, voice not quite desperate as he took a breath and steadied in the shifting carriage. "I like you. I always have."
Yesterday, she would have given anything to hear those words. Now, despite the sincere way Kaito formed them, they seemed superficial.
"Why should I believe you?" Her voice sounded cold to her own ears, thick with suspicion and raspy with emotion.
"I wouldn't lie to you. Not about this."
The second wave of anger hit her like riptide. It was a tepid fury, colder than before. It felt more like hatred. "You'd lie to me about anything so long as it suited you." The list Kudo-sensei had shown her was burning white and black in her memory, every instance of Kaito using her against her father, the Irregulars, the world. And most damning, the incident of nine months ago. "You've been doing nothing but lying to me! It's what you do! You lie and deceive, as if people's trust is something for you to abuse! As if laws are okay to break so long as you don't get caught! That you can take anything you want so long as you're wearing someone else's face to do it!"
"You've been lying too! All that bullshit you've been spewing lately, about internships and seminars and conventions; all pathetic attempts at covering up what you really are." A freak. There was that barely veiled hate again, layered in the accusation in Kaito's tone.
"I do it to protect people!" She screamed, remembering Kaito and his mother standing like black statues against a setting sun before a grave, remembering how pale her mother looked against the hospital sheets. "You're hurting people! You've hurt my dad! You've hurt me! Because of you, I'm lucky to see my father a couple of times a week! Because of you-because of you, my mom died alone!"
"You want to talk about parents?" Kaito stood up then, shooting from his seat as violently a striking cobra. She flinched back from him a step, for the first time hating the height he had gained on her since they were kids. "What about mine? Did your buddies in ISHA fail to mention that?"
Oh, how dare he! Aoko was done with feeling sorry over Kaito's damned father. "Don't you try to make this about your dad! You don't get to pull that shit right now!" For years he'd been playing that card, and Aoko took it because before she'd have done anything to make him happy, and after had understood the pain of losing a parent. But Kaito had been using that against her all this time, blinding her with his troubles and begging fix me, fix me with dark eyes and a broken smiles until she couldn't see anything else. "You're a criminal! A super villain! Just like he was!"
The words, when said aloud, hovered in the air between them. Kaito's eyes were smoldering, but his face was miserable. "You said you liked me." He murmured, and suddenly Aoko couldn't stand anymore. She slumped back into her seat.
"I didn't know you." It was painful to admit that. How well he had duped her into thinking she understood him wholly, when really she didn't comprehend anything about him at all. The brilliant, compassionate boy that gave her a rose when she cried was gone, if he ever existed at all.
"That's not true." Kaito said. He reached for her, calloused hand pausing in the space between them, as if waiting for her to reach back. She pulled her hands further away, clutching them to her breast.
"Is it? Do I know you?" His eyes were staring into her own, pleading. They were such a beautiful, mysterious color, but Aoko was starting to realize that beautiful and mysterious also meant dangerous. "Was anything between us real?"
"Yes. All of it." He insisted, and she wanted to believe him so badly.
"Shit, this is so fucked up. This is so, so fucked up." There weren't words to describe how twisted the whole thing was. Kaito and her. Her dad and his dad and her mom. Kaitou KID.
She forced herself to think of all the years they had been together, all the wonderful moments of friendship, of the overwhelming affection that consumed her when he smiled. Did he hold all those things just as precious?
Then there had to be a way to make this right. She wanted to be a hero, right? That meant doing the right thing. That meant reaching out and giving people second, third, fourth chances. "If you really love me, if this is real and not just another game to you… Then, turn yourself in."
Kaito's hand pulled away, and she clenched her eyes shut at the sight of it. This was her ultimatum. "What?" He asked, as if he didn't understand. She forced her eyes open and looked into his face and tried to see and comprehend, to perceive the way Hakuba could.
He was staring at her with horror plain across his face. She felt the same, but forced the revulsion down. She could bear to see Kaito in chains, behind bars, locked away, if it meant they'd have a chance at that someday. "Go to jail, do your time, and when you get back out, we could… we could—" Have everything they'd ever wanted together.
"We could what?" Kaito snarled, and she shuddered at his vehemence, the contempt burning in his eyes. "I could what Aoko, live happily ever after with you, reformed? A good little citizen? I should just let it go?" He loomed above her, face twisted, and suddenly, she really could see him the same way Hakuba did. And it burned. "Should just give up my freedom and my dreams? Forget about my father, forget about his murder, and lead a pretty little vapid life with you?"
Vapid. That's what he thought of their time together. That's what he thought of the someday she'd been chasing after for years.
Shit, shit, shit. It hurt too much to breath suddenly, and she couldn't help but screech against the pain. "I'm trying to do the right thing!"
And those words seemed to just turn all the fire in Kaito off. He stood before her, still and unyielding. As he began to speak again, steady and vicious and perfectly pitched, she could see disdain in the edges of his mouth and the lifting of his nostrils. "You all think you're so much better than everybody else, don't you? Like to pretend you know what's best, that you can decide who's good and who's evil. Like to play judge, jury, and executioner just because you woke up one morning with superpowers? Like to interfere where you aren't wanted, enforce your ideals on everyone else just because they don't have the means to stand up to you?" The words seemed to swirl around her like receding waves, soft but insistent, and she couldn't find space to refute him. "Even now, you're acting like you have some sort of moral high ground. Bullshit, Aoko. You didn't join the Irregulars to save and protect. We both know you didn't want Kaitou KID behind bars for the greater good. This is all about payback because you think KID tore your family apart." The carriage was back at the ground now. She hadn't even noticed it descending. "But you know what, Aoko? Your amazing, heroic Overseers tore my family apart." With a shudder, the carriage settled down at the platform and the door squealed as the door swung open. "And I won't stop until they pay." And with those final words, Kaito stormed out. She tried to chase after him, yelling his name in unrestrained fury, but like the thief of her nightmares, he disappeared from her grasp long before she ever reached him.
The challenge had been announced very suddenly, but it was hardly out of character for KID to accept a spontaneous invitation. Shinichi was rather impressed with the setup they had managed in a few scant hours. Everything had been put together flawlessly, from impressive security systems to a secured and easily defended venue.
Now, he could only wait for the target to arrive. Shinichi didn't doubt that KID would, because KID was too egotistical to let a threat to his reputation go unaddressed. Which was good, because Shinichi had words for that thief. Words he'd been tempted to just post on his site, because fuck professionalism.
At the very least, the heist site wasn't the worst that had ever been chosen, despite the rush. Shinichi was technically not supposed to be allowed on the site of a heist since the Nara National Museum Murder Case, organizer or not.
Thankfully, Shinichi had connections. Namely, one passionate sponsor of his website also known as Suzuki Jirokichi, who just happened to be the owner of a stunning art piece right up KID's alley and was more than happy to have an opportunity to rub it in KID's face.
"The usual deal, Kudo-kun!" Suzuki guffawed as they shouldered past a furious Nakamori. "I look forward to being on your front page tomorrow!"
"Much obliged." Shinichi replied with a smirk that didn't promise anything positive. With Suzuki, press was press. What that press actually said rarely mattered so long as his picture was front and center.
Of course, with how Shinichi intended for tonight to go, a very different picture may end up heading his site by the end of the night.
The hopeful heist site was a wild mess of activity, like always. Once upon a time, he would have done what he could to manage it, but Shinichi had long ago realized that trying to keep the KID Taskforce organized was harder than herding cats and twice as fruitless. At this point, the Taskforce was more bark than bite, anyway. Everyone knew that the only ones that actually stood a chance at catching KID was the Overseers, and well, they weren't coming.
Funny how that worked.
The Irregulars would probably show, but Shinichi didn't care about them tonight. He had only one objective, and he knew exactly how to obtain it.
After all, the sudden announcement severely limited KID's preparation time, which meant the thief wouldn't be able to pull off anything too flashy. And that made him predictable.
So Shinichi slipped through the mess and venue, going up. KID would be reactionary, and when KID had to react and not plan, he moved to higher ground.
The venue's neighboring building's roof wasn't very impressive or maintained, but it did have a convenient place to lie in wait for the night's guest-of-honor. So Shinichi settled down with his camera ready.
Almost an hour later, once his body had grown old and stiff in the night air and he was starting to think KID was going to stand them up after all, there was a strange shift in the air.
It was almost imperceptible in the dark, but a black mass touched down on the roof. A man in a black cloak that undoubtably concealed a folded hang glider stood, moving as silently as the moon crossing the sky.
Shinichi bit his lip, waiting for just the right moment. The man pushed off his black hood and cloak, revealing familiar white, and just as he started to lift his top hat and monocle to his face, Shinichi pushed the button.
A harsh flash of light cut through the dark, briefly illuminating the stunned face of the white-clothed thief. Shinichi pulled the camera back to himself in an instant, recoiling back around the corner of his hiding place with a grin twitching at his lips. Behind him, KID spluttered, before calling out in a strangled voice.
"Hey, wait!"
Like hell that was going to work, Shinichi thought, rushing back towards the stairwell. Nobody had ever gotten a clear photo of the phantom thief's face, despite his only coverage being a monocle and a top hat. Most of his continuing intrigue came from his incredible use of lighting and misdirection and known talent for disguise; the sweat that had been dripping down his cheek proved that it wasn't a latex mask but his true face hidden under the brim of that hat tonight.
Shinichi was only meters away from the stairwell back downstairs when something big and heavy collided with his back. His breath left him in a broken cough as he went down, hitting the gravely rooftop hard.
Damn. He'd been betting that he'd be able to outrun KID just this once, but the stiffness of his limbs from such a long wait must have slowed him down.
"I said wait!" The voice had regained its arrogant lilt, and was much, much closer. Shinichi struggled to rise, but the dead weight of KID, arms wrapped around his torso and entire body mass settling on Shinichi's back, did not yield. He only succeeded in scraping his own cheek against the grit. "That wasn't very nice. Sneaking around isn't good sportsmanship." KID huffed, tone turning teasing for a moment, as he shifted above Shinichi. Shinichi tried to pry his arms free from the other's tight grip, but the thief held fast, tutting.
"Says the thief." Shinichi grunted, struggling to lace his voice with the appropriate amount of sour irony while still fighting to regain his breath.
"I'm expected to. We all have our roles to play in this game, stringer." Shinichi rolled his eyes. "Now, hand over the camera, okay?"
The good thing about this position, being trapped on his stomach underneath the Kaitou KID? His camera, still clutched firmly in his right hand, was trapped underneath him too. The thief hadn't had a chance to slip it from his fingers as they went down.
The bad thing? He couldn't help but try to get a read on kid. But instead of the mocking amusement he expected to feel overwhelming all more productive, telling thoughts, Shinichi just felt cold. KID felt cold.
And that freaked Shinichi out. He forced down a flinch at the scrape of KID's chilled mind against his senses and continued the banter. "Now who's being the bad sport? Your role is to sneak around, my role is to take pictures of you sneaking around and publish them online or deliver them to the police."
"Oh? Sorry, but my role is to steal things. Like your camera."
"I noticed. But this seems more like a mugging than your usual heists. It's not very classy."
"You think my usual heists are classy?"
Oh, this was getting ridiculous. Shinichi usually, begrudgingly, liked their jokes. But not with this physical contact, not with KID's blizzard of an emotional state washing over him. "I think you're a showboating moron. Now get off!" Surprisingly, KID released him with a short laugh. In an instant, he was standing, tall and unwrinkled, like nothing had happened and Shinichi had hit the dusty ground by himself.
Which was going to smart in the morning, definitely. He had skinned his knee and elbow raw, based on the flaring pain that laced through his limbs as he levered himself up, camera safely tucked away in his inside pocket.
A white gloved hand appeared before him, outstretched. "Sorry, are you hurt?" KID asked, voice less mocking and more genuine, now. He ignored the offer, and stood up himself, not trusting the hand to not somehow end up relieving him of his tools. And maybe, just a little, he didn't want to experience whatever crazy shit was going on in the thief's head again.
KID measured him with half-hidden eyes and a cool smile. "This isn't your usual scene, stringer. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"It's been a slow news week." Shinichi drawled, and they both knew it was anything but.
The thief laughed again, the sound carrying joyfully through the night air. Something about it was forced, or at least different from usual. Cold. "Really? And here I was hoping you were continuing your Irregular besmirchment streak."
"Well, I have room for that in my article about unmasking you too." Shinichi didn't like how relaxed KID was. KID was always at his most easygoing before he got serious. He didn't like the weird tension in the air either.
"Might want to make the Irregulars the headline." KID winked at him from behind the monocle, dark eyes glittering with the reflection of distant city lights. "After all, your story may be a little dry without photographic evidence."
Shinichi's eyes narrowed. "We both know I just got a picture of your face."
"Did you, though?" KID pointed at the camera with a flick of his wrist. Shinichi stiffened with the movement, wary of KID's every motion and mind hyper focused on every twitch. What trick was he going to pull? A smoke bomb? Another tranquilizer? Some stage magic?
Like hell that would work. "Don't think you can trick me so easily. You're going to pull something the moment I check. Even I've used that trick before." With a gun, but the comparison still stood. "But, I'll cut you a deal. Give me back the files, and I'll delete it."
KID stepped forward, a new smile dancing across his face: not the usual smirk, more genuinely entertained, but it still had that familiar arrogant twist. Shinichi watched him cautiously, taking slow steps back to maintain the distance between them.
Something was definitely off about KID.
KID must have seen the wariness in Shinichi's face, because he immediately backed off, acquiescing. There was still laughter on his lips and that was normal but it felt wrong.
"Sorry, but no deal, stringer. I don't need that. The picture has already disappeared."
Reluctantly, and keeping a heavy eye on the thief, Shinichi withdrew the camera anew. He was familiar enough with it that he could turn it on and bring up his saved photos without even needing to look down.
For only a fraction of a second, he glanced away. And the picture was really gone. The last saved photo was the one he'd taken during the initial chase.
"What?" He hissed, and KID laughed. The bastard was always laughing.
"See? It's already gone."
It was impossible, he knew KID did not have a chance to even touch the camera, let alone delete a specific picture. For all his tricks and sleight of hand, logically, it couldn't be done. Others might chalk it up to KID's particularly skilled brand of deceit, but Shinichi trusted his own instincts.
Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, no matter how improbable, was the truth. If KID hadn't manually deleted the photo, he had done so with other means.
Shinichi's eyes widened, the possibilities laid before him in startling clarity. "That's it. That's your power, isn't it?"
KID hummed carelessly. "Whatever are you talking about?"
"You can control electronics. It explains everything." How KID so successfully pulled of his heists. How he always managed to avoid revealing too much to the cameras. How none of the bugs and trackers the police had tried ever worked. The Irregulars jet failing them in Europe.
"That's an interesting theory. You should join one of those 'KID Theory' boards." KID totally would read online forums about himself. Shinichi would bet his camera the thief thought they were hilarious. In fact, the narcissistic idiot probably moderated half of them himself.
But Shinichi recognized a deflection when he saw one. "That's how you hack the latest technology so easily. That's how you fool all the security systems-all the tech involved in these stupid heists really works for you!"
"Like I said, very interesting concept there, stringer."
"Oh, I'm sure the police and the public will find it very interesting."
"Ah, please." KID leveled Shinichi a look, and Shinichi hid a shiver at the ghastly sensation of cold. "If you've realized that, stringer, you must realize that particular information will never see the light of day. Anything you publish, I'll delete. Make your website crash and disappear. Any footage, any proof? Gone in an instant. Even the cute little recording device hidden in your jacket right now is under my control." Well, that ruined plan B through F.
"I'll tell the Irregulars." The threat sounded firm. Shinichi was almost proud of the delivery.
KID's expression somehow turned more mocking than before. "Ha! Do you actually think they'll believe you?"
That—that hit a sore spot. It hurt. Shinichi gritted his teeth against the sudden rise of aggravation and insecurity. "I need those files back! They're important! Children's lives are at stake!"
KID blinked, looking genuinely bemused, and the mockery momentarily gave way. "What do these have to do with kids?" For the first time in the conversation, KID seemed serious. His eyes were dark and piercing under the gleaming white of his top-hat's brim, crisp as the night air. "I know you've been working on a case about disappearing street kids. But why would the research the Cats took have anything to do with that?"
Shinichi bit the inside of his lip, struggling to come up with a satisfactory answer—no, a deflection. "...It's just a hunch. I'm not telling you anything. But I need those files to figure out what the Cats are up to, too. Give them back."
KID gazed at Shinichi, grim consideration clear on his face. Finally, there was no more laughter or posturing, just the strange tension and the cold. With a twist of his gloved hand, suddenly a familiar drive was gripped between KID's fingers. "Well, I'm not completely opposed to giving this back to you. I already copied them, after all." Shinichi took a step forward, despite knowing KID had to be building up to some kind of catch. "But I'm a thief; I don't like just giving back the stuff I stole for free." And there it was. Shinichi met the thief's eyes challengingly, daring him to continue. "I think we can broker a deal."
Shinichi watched as the drive he needed disappeared again with a snap of KID's fingers, too wary to feel hopeful about those words. "What kind of deal?"
"A sort of 'you scratch my back, I scratch yours' kind of thing. Two weeks from now, help me with a little game, and at the end, I'll return the files to you." That didn't sound good. And Shinichi didn't think he had two weeks, not if he wanted to find any of the missing children alive.
"One week." He'd definitely regret agreeing to this. "Don't waste my time."
"I would say this isn't a negotiation." KID was suddenly far, far too close, sweeping into Shinichi's space like a sheet blowing in the wind. A gloved hand seized his own, turning his palm up to press something hard and square into his skin. "But I like you, stringer. One week it is then." Insistent fingers forced his to close around the gift. The thief's eyes seemed to burn in the darkness, demanding Shinichi's unwavering attention.
Cold. Shinichi tore his gaze from KID's unfathomable eyes and glanced down. "What's this?"
In an instant, the thief was gone, slipping away into the night like a ghost. His voice echoed in Shinichi's ears, but the words couldn't have been louder than a whisper. "A sign of my goodwill. We'll be in touch."
The building's roof was left empty except for Shinichi and the wind. He peeled his fist open, staring down at the small object sitting innocuously in the center of his palm.
It was a memory card, the label marked with a little black bird sticker.
Shinichi took a shuddering breath and gripped the card tight.
.
..
kaito and aoko are such dramatic characters. i had a blast writing their confrontation.
Thanks for reading! Drop a review on your way out?